WH Spox Grilled About Ghani Call at Air Force One Briefing, Says Biden’s Advice Was ‘Sound and Consistent’ With Public Stance

During a briefing aboard Air Force One, White House Principal Deputy Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre defended the leaked phone call between President Joe Biden and former Afghan President Ashraf Ghani.

During Friday’s flight to Louisiana, Ms. Jean-Pierre was asked if there would be an investigation into the leaking of a phone call in which the president told the then-president of Afghanistan to project a rosier picture of their fight against the Taliban “whether it is true or not.”

But instead, KJP took the question as an opportunity to defend the content of that phone call at length:

Q Is there an investigation into who leaked the conversation between — the purported conversation between the President and President Ghani — former President Ashraf Ghani of Afghanistan?

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: I don’t have any more for you on that. But let me say a couple of things on that, because I don’t think we’ve had a chance to really address this.

So, the President conveyed privately exactly what he conveyed publicly at a pivotal time, when you’re talking about the call — the phone call with Ghani: In the pivotal time in the down — the drawdown, when it was essential for the government and the military to step up, it was a — it was pivotal for President Ghani to lead.

President Biden was telling Ghani three things: Work with my team to nail down the details of an effective military strategy, consolidating around population centers; two, let your military commanders implement that strategy; and, three, rally the political leaders behind that strategy to reinforce the confidence of the Afghan public and the international community behind that strategy.

So that’s what he was trying to convey to the President, and I don’t have any more to say on that.

Q Did he also tell him to try to convey strength and that his government was in firm control, no matter if true?

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: So, I’ll say this: The President, Secretary Austin, Secretary Blinken, Jake Sullivan, many others all said many times this summer that whether the Afghan Force would fight for their country was a matter — a matter of will, not capabilities of supplies. And public confidence has a big impact on will.

The view of our military leaders, as well as common sense, was that the best chance Ghani had was to rally the country and implement a strategy that could both stop the Taliban’s gains and give confidence to the Afghan Security Forces and the public.

That advice was both sound and consistent with what we were saying publicly. Unfortunately, Ghani couldn’t or wouldn’t heed the advice.

Jean-Pierre’s remarks are a good deal more expansive than those previously offered by White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki.

Watch above via The White House.