President Biden will deliver another speech about Afghanistan on Friday afternoon, as the scramble to evacuate American citizens and vulnerable Afghans continues.
According to the White House, Biden will provide an update on evacuation efforts from Kabul, where the Taliban seized power this week. Biden will speak from the White House East Room, where on Monday, he defended his decision to withdraw U.S. troops from Afghanistan and last month confidently dismissed the idea that the Taliban would rapidly gain power in that vacuum or that the move would lead to chaos.
Watch Biden's remarks live at 1 p.m. ET.
Inan interview with ABC News on Wednesday, Biden said, "The idea that somehow, there's a way to have gotten out without chaos ensuing, I don't know how that happens." The president also said in that interview that U.S. troops would remain in Afghanistan until all American citizens were out, even it that means staying past the previous Aug. 31 deadline.
Ahead of the speech, the president met with his national security team in the Situation Room to discuss the situation in Afghanistan.
In recent days, the White House has tried to emphasize the number of people — both Americans and Afghans — who have been successfully evacuated from Kabul.
As of Thursday night, the White House said 9,000 people have been evacuated since Saturday, including 3,000 on Thursday alone.
Still, the scene around Kabul's airport is still chaotic and dangerous, despite the thousands of U.S. troops now deployed to secure it, and many people trying to flee the country are simply unable to make it to the tarmac to be evacuated.
Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.