In a recent development, Jen Psaki, the former White House press secretary, apologized for her misleading comments regarding President Joe Biden's actions at a ceremony honoring fallen U.S. service members.
According to Fox News, former Biden press secretary Jen Psaki agreed to apologize for falsely claiming that President Biden didn’t check his watch during a ceremony for U.S. service members.
This apology came after significant scrutiny of Psaki's statements during the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021.
Psaki denied claims that Biden had checked his watch during the dignified transfer ceremony at Dover Air Force Base, where the remains of 13 U.S. service members who lost their lives in Kabul were being received. The issue was a sensitive one as it involved the grieving families of the military personnel.
The criticism led Jen Psaki to a closed-door session with the House Foreign Affairs Committee. She was challenged to clarify her previous comments and ultimately expressed her desire to apologize directly to the affected families.
According to Leslie Shedd, the Foreign Affairs Committee majority spokeswoman, "The chairman asked Ms. Psaki about her comments regarding President Biden looking at his watch while at Dover [Air Force Base] and asked her if she had anything she wanted to say to the families on the record."
Following this, the statement from the Foreign Affairs Committee detailed how the apology came about:
After pressing her multiple times if she had something she wanted to say to them, Ms. Psaki asked the chairman to pass along her apology to the families and to express her regret for the pain she caused them. He has done that.
GOP Florida Rep. Mike Waltz communicated the error's acknowledgment and subsequent apology through the social media platform X. He highlighted the nonpartisan nature of this acknowledgment and emphasized the importance of integrity.
Rep. Mike Waltz stated
Just left the House Foreign Affairs interview with Jen Psaki. She agreed to apologize to the 13 Afghanistan Gold Star families whom she falsely contradicted in her book when she said Biden didn’t look at his watch.
The backlash over her original claim in her book Say More, in which she denied the watch-checking incident, led to a revision of the text.
Media outlets and public discussion intensified in May as more people became aware of the discrepancy between what was written and the accounts of family members who were present at the ceremony.
Jen Psaki's role during the Afghanistan evacuation had seen her being one of the key figures navigating through a highly scrutinized period of the Biden administration. Her recent apology and the amendments to her book are seen as steps toward addressing the grievances stirred during these turbulent times.
In conclusion, Jen Psaki's apology and the actions that followed her interview with the House Foreign Affairs Committee mark a significant moment in addressing the unintended consequences of misinformation. Whether this will fully mend the relationship with the aggrieved families remains to be seen, but it lays a foundation for acknowledging and correcting past mistakes in high-stakes communications.
