"That's NOT What I Said"

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki snaps at mainstream media after they can't stop grasping for reasons to justify staying in Afghanistan.

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Q: The President said his military commanders were “split.” We now know that the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Milley; the head of CENTCOM, General McKenzie; and the commander on the ground, General Miller, all recommended that the President keep 2,500 troops. So, who in his military advisors told him it’d be fine to pull everybody out?

MS. PSAKI: Look, I’m not going to get into specific details of who recommended what. But I can — I would reiterate a little bit of what I conveyed before, which is that there were recommendations made by a range of his advisors — something he welcomed, something he asked them to come to him clear-eyed about, to give him candid advice.

What is also clear though — and I’d also note, again, what Secretary Austin said today is that was not going to be a sustainable, over the long term, troop presence. We were always going to look at escalating the numbers, at potentially going back to war with the Taliban, at risking casualties. That was not a decision the President was going to make.

But, of course, he welcomes advice. He welcomed advice. Ultimately, it’s up to the Commander-in-Chief to make a decision. He made a decision: It was time to end a 20-year war.

Q But you are saying here that military advisors to the President said it was okay to pull all the troops out, that it would be fine.

MS. PSAKI: That’s not what I said. What I said was they recommended — and I think we should not dumb this down for anybody here. We’re talking about the initial phase post-May 1. We’re not talking about long-term recommendations. There was no one who said, “Five years from now we could have 2,500 troops and that would be sustainable.” And I think that’s important for people to know and to understand.

It’s also important to note that the risks we were talking about here were the possibility, the likelihood of increasing a troop presence, which we now know to absolutely have been the reality, given it required 6,000 troops to just protect the airport — something we now know.

Q But the President pulled all U.S. troops out. You are saying that there were military commanders who advised him that that was a good idea — to pull all American troops out — and that General Milley, General McKenzie, General Miller, they said something else, but the President’s top military advisors and others — who you won’t name — told him, “Sure, we can pull everyone out.”

MS. PSAKI: That’s not how these conversations go. It’s a risk assessment, for every President, about what is in the interest of the United States of America, our military, and our national interests.

And if we had kept 2,500 troops there, we would have increased the number of troops, we would have been at war with the Taliban, we would have had more U.S. casualties. That was a reality everybody was clear-eyed about.

There are some — as is evidenced by people testifying today — who felt we should have still done that. That is not the decision the President made. It’s up to the Commander-in-Chief to make those decisions.

Go ahead.

Q Jen, thanks. It might be helpful if you could just tell us what do you mean by “split.” What were they split between?

MS. PSAKI: What’s confusing about that?

Q Well, it’s either, one, they were advising that 2,500 troops should remain on the ground, or, two, that someone was advising that it should be zero.

MS. PSAKI: Well, again, Weijia, I don’t think — I think it’s important for the American people to know that these conversations don’t happen in black and white or like you’re in the middle of a movie. These conversations are about a range of options, about what the risk assessments are about every decision. And, of course, there are individuals who come forward with a range of recommendations on what the right path forward looks like. I’m not going to detail those from here. They’re private conversations and advice to the President of the United States.

Ultimately, regardless of the advice, it’s his decision. He’s the Commander-in-Chief. He’s the President. He makes decisions about what’s in the national interest. And he believed we should end the war.

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