Fox News Pentagon correspondent Lucas Tomlinson pressed Pentagon press secretary John Kirby on the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan, and how the Biden administration was caught off guard.
During a Saturday morning Pentagon briefing, Tomlinson asked Kirby, “Two days before Kabul fell, you said from that podium, quote, ‘the city is not right now in any imminent threat environment. How could you get that so wrong?'”
In response, Kirby claimed that at the time there was no threat of Kabul falling to the Taliban.
“In the moment that I said it, Lucas, it was true. And I understand, I’ve seen the reactions out there on social media to what I said. In the moment that I said it, based on what we knew at the time, it was a true statement and yes, two days later things dramatically changed. I readily admit that. Things moved very, very quickly, Lucas, and as you heard the chairman up here just a few days ago say that, you know, that there wasn’t any indication that, you know, that they had received that things could evolve as quickly as they did.”
.@LucasFoxNews to John Kirby: “Two days before kabul fell, you said from that podium: ‘The city is not right now in any imminent threat environment.’ How could you get that so wrong?” pic.twitter.com/YiDturvMRb
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) August 21, 2021
Tomlinson is not the only reporter to question the Biden administration’s handling of the U.S. military withdrawal from Afghanistan. Immediately after President Joe Biden’s address Friday regarding the evacuation of Americans from Afghanistan, both ABC News’ senior foreign correspondent Ian Pannell, and Fox News national security correspondent Jen Griffin criticized Biden. (RELATED: ‘The Afghan People Don’t Know What To Do’: Reporter From Afghanistan Breaks Down In Tears, Forgets Her Question At Press Briefing)
The situation in Afghanistan continues to rapidly deteriorate with the Taliban claiming Thursday that “there will be no democratic system at all because it does not have any base in our country … It is Sharia law and that is it.”