Far Right Props Up 2021 Clip to Attack Jen Psaki After National Guard Shooting

(Evan Vucci/AP photo)

Far-right social media has resurfaced a 2021 clip of Jen Psaki to attack the former White House Press Secretary over remarks that those coming to the U.S. from Afghanistan were subjected to a “thorough screening and background check” in the wake of Wednesday’s shooting of two National Guardsmen in Washington, D.C.

Psaki made the comment during a Sept. 1, 2021, White House press briefing, when asked about the screening process of the “large numbers of refugees” from Afghanistan following the disastrous U.S. and NATO troop withdrawal from the region a month earlier.

“I can absolutely assure you that no one is coming into the United States of America who has not been through a thorough screening and background check process,” Psaki said at the time.

After Wednesday’s shooting near the White House, Homeland Security chief Kristi Noem posted on X that the suspect, Rahmanullah Lakanwal, entered the U.S. just days after Psaki’s comments, on Sept. 8, 2021.

On social media, several right-wing social media accounts — including “Libs of TikTok” — re-posted Psaki’s remarks in a bid to mock the former White House spokeswoman.

Eric Daugherty, the chief content officer for conservative outlet Florida’s Voice, also posted the Psaki clip alongside a video of then-Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas touting the success of “Operation: All Allies Welcome,” under which he claimed those coming into the U.S. from Afghanistan were reviewed on a “case-by-case basis.”

While Lakanwal did arrive in the U.S. in 2021, his asylum application wasn’t approved until earlier this year, when the Trump administration would have also vetted him, CNN reported Wednesday night.

Psaki herself has not addressed the backlash to her past remarks.

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