#shorts On 4/6/2023, a reporter asked NSC Spox John Kirby, “I got two specific ones about what’s in this document after a speed read here. On page eight: “The President received and accepted the unanimous advice of his top national security officials to end the evacuation on August 31st.” What is the definition of a “top national security official”? Because we know, for example, that General McKenzie, who was then head of CENTCOM, has said he objected to aspects of this. So what’s the definition of a top national security official?

MR. KIRBY: I am loath to get into the individual advice that individual members of the President’s team give him. That would not be appropriate for me. But I can tell you, having lived through this as well at the Pentagon, that the President specifically asked his team: Should we extend past the 31st? He specifically asked them to go back and look and see what that would look like. Because we had secured this additional time from the Taliban to the 31st of August.

And the team did that. The team did that, Ed, not just at the highest levels of the Pentagon, from the Secretary to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs to General McKenzie, but even the operational commanders on the ground.

And there were numerous flag and general officers on the ground at the airport. All of them took a fair look at the President’s request and came back to him —

Reporter: But are they all top national security officials?

MR. KIRBY: — and said that it would not be advisable given the high threat environment.

Remember what also happened — on the 26th, that attack at Abbey Gate. And then we had very high temp between the 26th and the 30th, in which, of course, there was a kinetic strike taken in downtown Kabul. There was — there was high temp.

And so, the advice of his senior national security team all the way up to the senior levels of the Pentagon advised him that the 31st was the appropriate date to end that evacuation.

other clips of this published longer video is here: https://youtu.be/NR9KwnnNvaU