Blinken speech on Afghanistan withdrawal looked like ‘hostage video,’ Fox News reporter says
Secretary of State Antony Blinken looked like he was in a “hostage video” when delivering his remarks on the withdrawal of the last U.S. military forces from Afghanistan, according to a Fox News reporter.
Offering an on-air reaction, Jennifer Griffin, a national security correspondent for Fox News, said the optics of the speech, coupled with President Joe Biden’s paper statement marking the end to the 20-year war in the country, made for an odd delivery by the Biden administration.
“First, let me say I was shocked that the president released a paper statement on the end of the Afghan War. He says he is going to speak to the nation tomorrow, but a paper statement, I find that very strange,” Griffin said on Monday.
.@JenGriffinFNC then read a text from Signal of someone trapped in Afghanistan along w/eight green cards and four passports, all “completely abandoned after multiple attempts to get into the Kabul airport.” This includes a two-year-old American w/lupus and a 12-yr-old w/diabetes pic.twitter.com/blMHRHdnTs
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) August 30, 2021
“I thought that the secretary of state’s statement, which was videotaped and he was looking slightly off-camera, I mean it looked like a hostage video. It was not the kind of production values that you would expect for such a moment in time,” she added.
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Blinken, who spoke at the State Department, announced the United States has moved its diplomatic operations from its embassy in Afghanistan to Doha, Qatar.
.@SecBlinken: “We believe there are still a small number of Americans, under 200 and likely closer to 100, who remain in Afghanistan and want to leave.”https://t.co/6Asmi7HJLo pic.twitter.com/dJy2vEke62
— CSPAN (@cspan) August 30, 2021
He also said fewer than “200, likely closer to 100” U.S. citizens who want to leave the country remain in Afghanistan after the U.S. withdrawal, and the administration will try to help them get out of the country.
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