AP reporter says Biden's Afghanistan withdrawal 'punctured the appearance... of competence'
Seung Min Kim called Biden's exit from Afghanistan 'a really big black mark for the administration'
By Joseph A. Wulfsohn Fox News
Published September 29, 2023 7:00am EDT
AUSTIN, TX - Associated Press correspondent Seung Min Kim said President Biden's chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021 "punctured the appearance" that his administration was competent.
During a panel discussion on how journalists cover the Biden administration at the 2023 Texas Tribune Festival, Kim was among White House correspondents who were asked to comment about the significance of the president's exit from Afghanistan, which included the terror attack at the Kabul airport that resulted in the murder of 13 U.S. service members.
"It was a turning point for the administration in a lot of ways… and the president has defended this through and through," Kim began Saturday. "He has said that this was something that was already- this kind of process was something that was already in place because of something set up under the Trump administration. He was determined to end America's longest war. But one of the biggest problems beyond just the tragic loss of lives and the chaotic ness of the withdrawal is that it really punctured the appearance of Biden and his administration as one of competence."
"[Biden] ran on kind of restoring normalcy, restoring institutions, restoring competence in government, in which would have been a very big contrast from the Trump years. But when you look at TV, you see a withdrawal that was not handled in the way that it should have. You see the chaos, you see the death. That is not the image of, basically, of a competent White House," she continued.
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