Broadcast networks crush Biden administration over Afghanistan: ‘Humbling day for the United States’

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Media top headlines August 31

In media news today, critics resurface Biden ABC interview where he pledged to stay in Afghanistan until every American was rescued, Blinken gets knocked for avoiding questions after Afghan withdrawal speech, and Biden repeatedly implies he's not in charge of when, where he can take press questions

The reliably liberal broadcast networks crushed the Biden administration on Monday for leaving Afghanistan with Americans still stranded during a "humbling" day for the United States. 

NBC News chief foreign correspondent Richard Engel said the U.S. left Afghanistan "in defeat."

"This was a humbling day for the United States, a day of humility for a world superpower," Engel said. "The United States fought in Afghanistan for 20 years and is now, tonight, withdrawing … in defeat." 

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President Biden lost the mainstream media when he allowed the Taliban to seize control of Afghanistan.

"Americans were left outraged Monday after the Biden administration completely pulled out of Afghanistan and left behind some 250 American citizens to be hostages and targets of the Taliban," NewsBusters analyst Nicholas Fondacaro wrote before pointing out that ABC and CBS were both also critical. 

ABC had a special report as the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan wrapped up and anchor David Muir informed viewers that Marine General Kenneth McKenzie admitted Americans were left behind. 

"He said we will still work to get you out. He said, ‘It was heartbreaking, but we didn't get everybody out,’" Muir said. "He acknowledged that."

ABC News foreign correspondent Ian Pannel reported American allies in Afghanistan will be left pondering what happened to their "hopes and dreams" now that the Taliban has taken control of the country.

"I think that will leave many Afghans wondering about this was all about, what happened to their hopes, their dreams, the lives that they built. The compound that we’re in, people are in their beds right now, but they're Afghans, they’re people who just left their country, their lives, their friends, their family behind," Pannell said from Qatar. 

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ABC News’ Martha Raddatz then sounded the alarm on the Islamic State and said the future of Afghanistan seems "very" bleak. 

"I think what concerns me most right now, too, is ISIS. 2,000 hard-core fighters. 2,000 fighters from ISIS," Raddatz said. "And the Afghans are left with those fighters battling the Taliban. The Taliban isn't a single entity. They don't really have control over all of their fighters. And they’re having a very, very difficult time fighting ISIS. So, I think the future of Afghanistan seems very bleak right now." 

On CBS, a special report on the news was also critical of the Biden administration. 

"With the final military planes off the tarmac and out of Afghan airspace, the Biden administration was desperate to try to paint their deadly disaster as some sort of success. Each of the press secretaries and top officials at the White House, State Department, and Pentagon parroted the same talking point that it was the largest airlift in U.S. history," Fondacaro wrote. "But CBS News popped their bubble Monday as they pointed out how the ‘hundreds’ of Americans they abandoned in the terrorist haven would beg to differ."

White House correspondent Ed O’Keefe seemed baffled that McKenzie, the head of U.S. Central Command, called the United States’ relationship with Afghanistan a "pragmatic relationship of necessity" during Monday’s news conference. 

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"What was most interesting, I thought in listening to General McKenzie is him describing what he called a ‘pragmatic relationship of necessity’ with the Taliban," O’Keefe told viewers. 

"He didn’t call it a partnership, he didn’t call them an ally, he said it was a pragmatic relationship of necessity… and as you heard him say, there are likely Americans and certainly some Afghans who didn’t make it to the airport," O’Keefe continued. "There will continue to be a lot of questions from journalists, and friends and family of those people, members of Congress, about why they weren’t able to get through and what will be done now in the coming days and weeks to get them out." 

Fondacaro noted that anchor Norah O’Donnell later "scoffed at the idea that the airlift was a success."