It’s a big month for political memoir-related-gates. Today’s scandal: former White House press secretary Jen Psaki lied in her recently released book, Say More, when she disputed the claim that President Joe Biden checked his watch at a ceremony for the 13 soldiers killed during Biden’s botched Afghanistan withdrawal in 2021.
Psaki said that “the president looked at his watch only after the ceremony had ended. Moments later, he and the First Lady headed toward their car.” Eyewitness accounts, prior reporting, and photos prove she’s lying.
“Her useless a** wasn’t even there. We were,” Mark Schmitz, whose son Jared was killed in the Kabul airport bombing during the Afghanistan withdrawal, said, adding that “what she wrote was absolutely disgusting and clearly only for political and financial gain at the expense of grieving Gold Star families.” Another Gold Star father, Steve Nikoui, confirmed that Psaki “was not there. I witnessed it with my own eyes. She is a perfect example of the administration: all lies and false propaganda.”
Although Psaki originally declined to comment when Axios noted her lie, she later told the outlet in a statement that 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.”
“The story on Afghanistan is really about the importance of delivering feedback even when it is difficult told through my own experience of telling President Biden that his own story of loss was not well received by the families who were grieving their sons and daughters,” Psaki added.
Biden previously told the Gold Star families that he could relate to their loss, having himself lost a son, Beau, to cancer. Cheryl Rex, whose son Dylan Merola died in Kabul, said that Biden told her, “I know how you feel. We lost our son as well and brought him home in a flag-draped coffin.” Rex said that “my heart started beating faster and I started shaking, knowing that their son died from cancer and they were able to be by his side. . . . How [could] someone honestly be so heartless to say he knew how I felt a little over 24 hours” after Dylan’s death.
Compare Psaki’s lie with South Dakota governor Kristi Noem’s recently published dog-killing episode. Noem published in a book that she killed her 14-month-old dog, for which she’s received a lot of flak, and publicity. Will Psaki’s lie get the same amount of attention? Doubt it. It’s par for the course for Biden officials to show flagrant disregard for the 13 service members killed in the Afghanistan withdrawal. Biden refuses to even say their names, let alone honor their families properly, let alone deliver consequences to the officials responsible for the disastrous withdrawal, let alone have the decency to look up from his watch as 13 caskets pass him by.
Once again, Charlie’s words reign. And that descriptor applies to people like Psaki who shamelessly cover for him.