Obscene White House Spin

Does Team Biden really think its shameless spinning can contain the public fury over those left behind in the dishonorable exit from Afghanistan? It’s been insisting that fewer than 100 Americans are stranded. But a reported 143 US citizens and green-card holders alone are stuck at Mazar-i-Sharif airport, booked on planes the Taliban won’t let leave.

More than a week after President Biden declared his evacuation an “extraordinary success,” countless Americans remain de facto hostages. And his minions’ efforts to dodge the truth is pathetic.

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said Tuesday that “just under” 100 Americans were left in Afghanistan, but others put the number of those wanting out at 500 — all victims of Biden’s broken promise to “stay until we get them all out.”

The administration won’t even estimate how many hundreds of green-card holders — lawful permanent US residents — remain. Heck, it barely deigns to mention them.

Six nonprofit-chartered planes ready to evacuate 143 Americans have been grounded for over a week in Mazar-i-Sharif, delayed “first as State Department officials put up roadblocks and then as the Taliban issued demands, sources with first-hand information” told RealClearPolitics’ Susan Crabtree. Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), who’s been aiding the effort, fumed on Twitter that he’s “furious” at “our government’s delay & inaction.”

On Tuesday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken insisted paperwork was the only problem for the “relatively small number of Americans” in Mazar-i-Sharif. The next day, he finally conceded that the Taliban won’t let the flights depart.

When a reporter asked Psaki about the “hostage situation,” she huffed, “No, that is not what we would characterize it as.”

But when has Team Biden ever come clean about the crises it’s caused? Reports indicate the Taliban are using the hostages as leverage for cash and/or official recognition of their government, which includes six terrorists under international sanctions.

The Taliban aren’t the only ones blocking flights. The State Department has refused to OK some privately chartered rescues, show e-mails that retired Marine Eric Montalvo shared with Fox News.

It’s obscene that Biden’s team keeps trying to “turn the page” from Afghanistan to Biden’s big-spending agenda by pretending it hasn’t abandoned thousands to terrorists with every incentive to use them as leverage.