Biden to address nation about Afghanistan. Here’s how to watch Monday and what to know
President Joe Biden will address the nation about the situation in Afghanistan on Monday afternoon.
He’s expected to deliver the remarks from the East Room at 3:45 p.m. Eastern after returning to the White House from Camp David. His speech will be streamed live by the White House on YouTube. It can also be watched live on C-SPAN.
Biden’s planned remarks follow the collapse of the Afghan government to the Taliban two weeks ahead of the deadline he imposed to withdraw all remaining U.S. troops from the country.
The U.S. led an invasion into Afghanistan in 2001, which removed the Taliban from power, following the September 11 attacks. But recently, the Taliban has quickly taken back control in multiple parts of the country.
Taliban leaders have declared the war in Afghanistan over after seizing Kabul, the country’s capital, over the weekend, Al Jazeera reported — forcing Afghan President President Ashraf Ghani to flee the country and the United States to evacuate its embassy in Kabul.
Now, chaos has erupted at the airport in Kabul as thousands of Afghans try to escape the country on Monday.
Some were seen clinging to the side of a U.S. military airplane before it took off and others were seen falling as it gained altitude, according to the Associated Press.
Top officials in Biden’s administration have said they were “caught off guard” by how quickly Afghan forces fell to the Taliban, the AP reports.
National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said Monday on NBC’s “Today” show that the “speed with which cities fell was much greater than anyone anticipated” and put blame on Afghan forces.
“At the end of the day, despite the fact that we spent 20 years and tens of billions of dollars to give the best equipment, the best training and the best capacity to the Afghan national security forces, we could not give them the will, and they ultimately decided that they would not fight for Kabul and they would not fight for the country,” Sullivan said on NBC.
The administration has also defended the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan. On Saturday, Biden released a statement saying he “inherited a deal cut by” former President Donald Trump that “left the Taliban in the strongest position militarily since 2001 and imposed a May 1, 2021 deadline on U.S. Forces.”
“When I became President, I faced a choice — follow through on the deal, with a brief extension to get our forces and our allies’ forces out safely, or ramp up our presence and send more American troops to fight once again in another country’s civil conflict,” he said. “I was the fourth president to preside over an American troop presence in Afghanistan — two Republicans, two Democrats. I would not, and will not, pass this war onto a fifth.”
But Biden has been criticized for not speaking out after the Taliban’s capture of Kabul, Axios reports.
His address Monday will be his first public remarks in nearly a week about Afghanistan, the AP reports.
This story was originally published August 16, 2021 at 10:34 AM with the headline "Biden to address nation about Afghanistan. Here’s how to watch Monday and what to know."
