Psaki takes heat for citing security concerns when asked why Americans are still in Afghanistan

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Biden administration sees Taliban government as 'Afghan partners'

'Outnumbered' panel reacts to the State Department's relationship with the Taliban

White House press secretary Jen Psaki took heat on Wednesday for arguing there are security concerns that can account for why Americans in Afghanistan have not been able to flee the country via planes, saying that in some cases there is a lack of documentation.

A reporter asked about the Taliban holding Americans in Afghanistan, where the group has been grounding flights amid negotiations with the U.S. State Department.

"I’m trying to square where things actually stand," CNN’s Phil Mattingly asked. "What is your understanding of the hold up and if the Taliban is preventing them, what levers do you have right now?"

Psaki said the Biden administration is trying to "press" the Taliban into allowing people to leave the country but declared "we’re not on the ground" to actually ensure progress is made. 

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"We are continuing to press the Taliban, the Secretary of State is, to do more to abide by allowing American citizens, individuals who are legal permanent residents, and individuals with proper documentation to depart the country," Psaki said. "It is also true that we don’t have a role in preventing flights from taking off. We are not on the ground, so that is not something the U.S. government is doing."

The press secretary then cited security concerns. 

"Some of these planes and some of the issues is, ‘Where are they going to land?’ So a number of these planes, they may have a handful of American citizens, but they may have several hundred individuals where we don’t have manifest for them, we don’t know what the security protocols are for them, we don’t know what their documentation is, and there is a fundamental question, and this is one of the hard choices you face in government," Psaki said. "Are we going to allow a plane with hundreds of people where we don’t know who they are, we don’t know what security protocols have been put in place, to land on a U.S. military base."

Critics accused her of "downplaying" the situation.

Psaki said there are "reasonable questions" pertaining to why the U.S. wouldn’t allow such a thing. 

"There are some challenges as it relates to documentation," she said. 

"Jen Psaki is suddenly very concerned with vetting evacuees from Afghanistan when it comes to charter planes being held by the Taliban after previously allowing almost anyone on the government's airlift flights out of HKIA," Townhall managing editor Spencer Brown reacted. 

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Psaki was mocked on Twitter following the briefing: 

Others said it sounded like Psaki was contradicting herself, having said about two weeks ago no Americans were "stranded" in Afghanistan.

"Old enough to remember when Biden said we'd stay in Afghanistan until all Americans were out," Sen. Ron Johnson's, R-Texas, senior adviser Alexa Henning tweeted.

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