‘Pathetic!’ CNN’s Phil Mudd GOES OFF on State Department For ‘Unacceptable’ Failure to Confirm How Many Americans Remain in Kabul
CNN’s counterterrorism analyst Phil Mudd went off, Thursday, after State Department spokesperson Ned Price admitted that he is unable to give exact numbers regarding how many Americans and Visa holders have been flown out of Afghanistan.
Alisyn Camerota first noted that if no one is able to confirm the specific number of people who have been evacuated from Afghanistan, they likely do not know how many have been left behind.
“Boy, you are a little more polite than I would be. That was unacceptable. I’m not interested in hearing a U.S. Government spokesperson talk about how unprecedented this is with other U.S. presidents and how other presidents didn’t have to deal with this,” Mudd exclaimed following Price’s press briefing. “I’m interested in understanding why we did only 2,000 people in 24 hours, how we increase that pace over the next 24 hours, what the total number is that we want to get out, and how long that’s going to take. That was pathetic!”
Mudd then took shots at Price himself, faulting him for trying to explain the administration’s success as American citizens are still unable to get to the Kabul airport.
“That guy needs some training fast,” he said. “That was horrible.”
Camerota went on to say that Price’s messaging was not the only problem, questioning how nobody could figure out the logistics needed to determine how many American citizens are in Afghanistan.
“Look, I think there’s somebody, and I presume it is at the Pentagon, who has a breakdown about, for example, which Afghan citizens are there, whether we have U.S. Embassy employees there, how many American citizens there are in Afghanistan and Kabul in particular, how many have gone out on these flights. I wouldn’t be worrying about testing people in the airport now. Get them out and test them in Doha or someplace else,” he responded.
“But I think the key question, aside from the through-put at the airport, is when you look at the Department of Defense, the Department of State, the CIA and elsewhere, do we have an understanding of not only exactly who they want to get out but how we’re going to identify those people when they get to the airport? If you have stragglers at the end who can’t get there, I understand that, but at the front end I would be worried about the logistics of how do you figure out who is John Doe and who is not John Doe.”
Watch above, via CNN.
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