NBC News has been forced to issue a correction after a host made a false claim on ‘Meet the Press’ involving President Biden, Vice President Harris, and the families of fallen American troops.
Republican Senator Tim Cotton has accused Biden and Harris snubbing the dignified transfer ceremony for the 13 service members killed during the Afghanistan withdrawal.
That’s when host Kristen Welker incorrectly claimed that both the President and Vice President had attended the event.
‘You know who the families also invited? Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. Where were they? said Cotton. ‘Joe Biden was sitting at a beach. Kamala Harris was sitting at her mansion in Washington, D.C. She was four miles away — ten minutes.’
‘She could have gone to the cemetery and honored the sacrifice of those young men and women, but she hasn’t. She never has spoken to them or taken a meeting with them,’ he continued.
‘It’s because of her and Joe Biden’s incompetence that those 13 Americans were killed in Afghanistan,’ Cotton added.
Welker tried to interject, stating ‘Well, they did meet with them during the dignified transfer. They were with them at the dignified transfer.’
But the NBC host was off the mark and in a rare admission of error, ‘Meet the Press’ issued a correction on X, formerly known as Twitter.
‘On our broadcast this morning, we incorrectly implied that both President Biden and Vice President Harris attended the dignified transfer of 13 American service members killed during the Afghanistan withdrawal. Biden was in attendance but Harris was not.’
But users werent satisfied with the apology.
‘She didn’t ‘imply’ it. She outright said it. She lied to protect Kamala. Shame on you,’ the X account Libs of TikTok commented.
Last year, a damning watchdog report claimed poor planning by the US military before the ‘abrupt’ Afghanistan withdrawal led to the rapid collapse of the Western-backed government as the Taliban overran the country in August 2021.
The scathing analysis by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) found the American decision to pull out ‘destroyed the morale’ of the Afghan National Security Force (ANDSF), and the 300,000 local troops were destined to fail without U.S. support.
It also details the more than $7 billion in weapons and equipment left for the Taliban to use, and the widespread corruption that dominated the Afghan military and government.