Biden’s national security adviser says nation will hear from the president ‘soon’ about Afghanistan

President Biden remained holed up at Camp David on Monday after spending the weekend largely out of sight while Afghanistan crumbled into chaos, with a senior adviser only able to say he would address the nation ‘soon.’

With the United Nations Security Council and European ministers due to hold crisis meetings to address the rapid return of the Taliban, Biden and his officials kept a low profile amid mounting questions about their bungling departure from Afghanistan.

Email enquiries sent to White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki over the weekend received an automated out-of-office response saying she would return on Aug. 22.

While U.S. military planes flew in an out of Kabul airport to rescue American nationals, it was left to National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan to defend Biden’s decision for a rapid withdrawal from Afghanistan.

He said staying longer would not have changed the overall outcome but was vague about when the nation might hear from its commander in chief.  

‘They can expect to hear from the president soon. He’s right now actively engaged with his national security team,’ he told Good Morning America.  

He is working the situation hard. 

‘He is focused on ensuring the mission which is to secure that airport and continue these evacuations that that mission continues and brought to a positive conclusion. He’s deeply engaged on it. 

‘At the right point he will address the American people.’

Afghans climb on top of a passenger jet at Kabul’s airport amid chaotic scenes as civilians try to find safe passage out of the Afghan capital after Taliban takeover

The White House released an image of President Biden at Camp David as officials fend off growing criticism of his absence from Washington

Former President Trump mocked Biden’s absence.

‘The outcome in Afghanistan would have been totally different if the Trump Administration had been in charge,’ he said in an emailed statement.

‘Who or what will Joe Biden surrender to next?

‘Someone should ask him, if they can find him.’ 

The nature and speed of the Afghan government’s collapse in the face of a Taliban advance poses the most serious test of Biden’s presidency so far.

He trumpeted his foreign experience during last year’s campaign and struck a defiant tone in defending the U.S. withdrawal by insisting a Taliban take over was not ‘inevitable.’ 

But on Monday, Sullivan admitted that the administration was surprised at how quickly Kabul had fallen.  

‘It is certainly the case that the speed with which cities fell was much greater than anyone anticipated,’ he told NBC’s Today show.

Like other officials, he tried to distance the Biden administration from the collapse, blaming Afghanistan’s government and armed forces.

‘Part of the reason for that… is because at the end of the day, despite the fact that we spent 20 years and tens of billions of dollars to get the best equipment, the best training and the best capacity to the national Afghan security forces, we could not give them the will,’ he said.  

Republicans laid the blame squarely with Biden.

In a joint statement, three former security officials in the Trump administration said withdrawal was the right decision but had been badly botched.

‘The difference between then and now is leadership,’ said Lt. General (Ret.) Keith Kellogg, former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe, and former Acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf

‘The Biden Administration alone owns this failure, adding Afghanistan to Biden’s long history of, as President Obama’s Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said, being “wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades.”‘