Former White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said she will edit her new book after being called out for a section defending President Biden’s actions during the dignified transfer of the U.S. service members killed in a terror attack at the Kabul airport in 2021.
As Axios reported, Psaki argues in her new book “Say More” that Biden didn’t look at his watch until after the ceremony was over—which contradicts photo and video documentation as well as accounts from Gold Star families present during the transfer.
Reality check: Psaki's new account is at odds with fact-checks at the time, news agencies' photos from the ceremony at Dover Air Force Base, and on-the-record statements from Gold Star families who were there.
- The Associated Press photographer on the tarmac snapped two photos of Biden looking at his watch twice and 10 minutes apart, as fact-checkers at USA Today and Snopes noted soon afterward.
Psaki also mistakenly cited a passage from The Washington Post to bolster her account.
- The sentences she quoted were from USA Today's fact-check article — not the Post.
- That article noted Biden looked at his watch at the end of the dignified transfer of the troops' bodies, but also concluded that "photos and video show [Biden] also checked his watch during the ceremony."
Many family members of the 13 soldiers killed during the explosion at the Abbey Gate base in Kabul have consistently said in interviews and appearances before Congress that Biden checked his watch as the caskets went by.
- Mark Schmitz, the father of Marine Lance Cpl. Jared Schmitz, told Congress in August of 2023 that "while I stood there on the tarmac watching you check your watch over and over again, all I wanted to do was shout out, 'It's two f***ing thirty, asshole.' "
- The day after the ceremony on Aug. 29, 2021, Shana Chappell, the mother of Marine Lance Cpl. Kareem Nikoui, wrote on Facebook: "I watched you disrespect us all 5 different times by checking your watch!!! What the f*** was so important that you had to keep looking at your watch????" (Axios)
In her book, Psaki writes that "the president looked at his watch only after the ceremony had ended. Moments later, he and the First Lady headed toward their car."
— Alex Thompson (@AlexThomp) May 13, 2024
But the AP photographer snapped two of him looking at his watch 10 minutes apart, as fact checks noted at the time pic.twitter.com/OLNEn9YpqX
Darin Hoover, father of slain Marine Staff Sgt. Taylor Hoover, claimed Biden looked at his watch every time a casket came out of the plane.
"It happened on every single one of them," he told Fox News' Sean Hannity at the time. "They would release the salute and he’d look down at his watch. On every last one. All 13—he looked down at his watch.”
Following Axios’s report, Psaki said she’d make changes in the e-book and in reprints.
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," she told the outlet.
Psaki’s full statement to Axios this AM:
— Alex Thompson (@AlexThomp) May 13, 2024
“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.” pic.twitter.com/xqjcnikz5c