‘I Just Don’t See How Those Two Things Can Be Squared’: Bloomberg Presses State Dept. Spox. Over Biden Promise, Afghanistan Withdrawal

State Department spokesperson Ned Price was pressed by Bloomberg News senior foreign policy reporter Nick Wadhams over how the Biden administration can evacuate Americans and Afghan allies from the Kabul airport by the Aug. 31 deadline set by the United States.

Earlier in the day in a speech at the White House, President Joe Biden said, “We’re going to do everything — everything — that we can to provide safe evacuation for our Afghan allies, partners, and Afghans who might be targeted because of their association with the United States. But let me be clear. Any American who wants to come home, we will get you home.”

“You guys are in a situation now where you have this deadline and you have the promise from the president,” said Wadhams. “I just don’t see how those two things can be squared if you have this promise from the president to help this massive group of people, but you have essentially now an 11-day deadline to get all that done. How are you going to do it?”

Price responded, citing the Pentagon, that the United States has “tremendous airlift capacity” and “that capacity has increased by the day.”

He then cited these figures: 5,700 people evacuated over the past 24 hours, 13,000 people evacuated since Aug. 14, 18,000 people since the end of last month.

Watch above, via CSPAN.