MSNBC host and former White House press secretary Jen Psaki has sparked backlash over her comments in a new book, where she touched on President Biden’s controversial watch-checking moment during a ceremony for the fallen U.S. service members who died in the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021.
For context, Biden has been criticized for reportedly glancing at his watch several times, appearing to grow impatient as the caskets of deceased soldiers were brought by. Since the incident, parents of the fallen members have been outraged by Biden’s actions.
In her recently released book, “Say More,” Psaki claimed that Biden never looked at his timepiece during the ceremony. However, reports indicate that her account of the event contradicts the personal accounts of those in attendance and photographic evidence.
Mike Schmitz, the father of Gold Star Marine LCPL Jared Schmitz, appeared on Fox News Channel’s “Fox and Friends,” where he voiced his frustration with Jen Psaki’s account of the president’s conduct. Schmitz blasted the book, which was released near Mother’s Day, explaining how the “wounds have been reopened.” He detailed how he personally witnessed Biden check his watch at least four times from a very short distance away. The Gold Star father expressed “horror and disgust” toward Biden’s actions.
“Well, I couldn’t believe this book just came out right before Mother’s Day. And the wounds have been reopened yet again, from a talking puppet that has no clue what she was talking about. We were 25 yards away and sat there and watched in horror and disgust as he looked at his watch at least the first four caskets that came off that plane and I couldn’t look at him after that. So I don’t know if he looked at his watch again after the first four. But if that was his, that was his MO. Watch the casket go by. Check my watch. Over and over and over again,” he told Fox News.
Other family members of Gold Star soldiers have spoken out against Psaki as well. “Jen ‘Circle Back’ Psaki is just a vile, shameless human being,” according to Darin Hoover, the father of late SSgt. Darin Taylor Hoover who died in the Kabul airport bombing. “[She’s] trying to make money off of our kids’ backs and rewrite history and establish those lies for the Biden administration on their failures, their catastrophic failures. It’s been nothing but lies all along,” he added.
Following intense criticism of her recollection of the incident, Psaki told Axios that”the detail in a few lines of the book about the exact number of times he looked at his watch will be removed in future reprints and the eBook.” The current version of Psaki’s book claims that “the president looked at his watch only after the ceremony had ended.”
Furthermore, Gold Star father Steve Nikoui, father of Marine LCPL Kareem Nikoui, also commented on Psaki’s claims. “It’s devastating, but it’s not really surprising from this administration and from the people that have worked in it,” he said. “[The Biden administration] continue[s] to lie to, manipulate facts and change the narrative to support their narratives and to try to change the history, regardless of what mishaps they’ve done.”
Note: The featured image is a screenshot from the embedded video.
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