President Joe Biden canceled his weekend plans to travel to his home in Wilmington, Delaware, and will remain in Washington at least through Saturday morning, the White House announced Friday.
Biden was originally scheduled to depart for Delaware on Friday afternoon. He faced heavy criticism for spending the previous weekend in Delaware and Camp David amid the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Per WH: President Biden will no longer travel to Wilmington this afternoon as planned. He is staying in Washington.
— Katherine Doyle (@katiadoyl) August 20, 2021
U.S. troops remain on the ground in Kabul to evacuate American citizens and Afghan allies, though reporters on the ground say the process is disorganized, dangerous and slow.
CNN’s Clarissa Ward reports from Kabul Airport: “It’s just a picture of desperation, of failure as well. Failure to protect our allies. Failure to plan…Surely there was a better way.” pic.twitter.com/zLGdV3FkfY
— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) August 20, 2021
CNN reporter Clarissa Ward, who is at the Kabul airport, reported that no U.S. flights had departed in the eight hours prior to roughly 9 a.m. EST. (RELATED: CNN Reporter Clarissa Ward Describes Moment Taliban Charged At Her In Kabul)
#BREAKING from CNN’s @ClarissaWard: “During the last eight hours, the time that we’ve been waiting here, we have not seen a single U.S. flight evacuate people. We saw one U.S. flight took off about half an hour to an hour ago but it was filled with U.S. servicemen and women.” pic.twitter.com/rVtP7VMIOj
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) August 20, 2021
Biden has refused to take questions from reporters following both of his speeches this week. He instead only interviewed with ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos, a longtime Democratic campaign official and member of the Clinton administration.
The Biden administration estimates that there are 10,000-15,000 U.S. citizens still in Afghanistan. It is unclear how any citizens outside Kabul will make it to the airport, and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has said the U.S. does not have the “capacity” to provide safe transit to the airport for Americans already in Kabul.