On 4/6/2023, CBS’s Ed O’Keefe blasted NSC spox John Kirby after the NSC released a report blaming Trump for Joe Biden’s Afghanistan withdrawal.

The Biden National Security Council (NSC) released a shocking report on Holy Thursday blaming President Trump for the catastrophic withdrawal from Afghanistan. CBS’s Ed O’Keefe blasted Kirby for releasing the report right up against the Easter holiday. “…about 10 minutes before the briefing began, with little notice”: “It’s the very definition of a modern major holiday news dump…after months of requests,” he said.

A Reporter Calls Out John Kirby On A Blatant Holiday News Dump Of The Afghanistan Report
Reporter: So, John, thank you for doing this. But I think I speak on behalf of my colleagues in this room when we want the record to reflect that this was sent to us about 10 minutes before the briefing began with little notice, and it’s the very definition of a modern major holiday news dump. You’re releasing this at the beginning of the High Holidays and after months of requests from Republicans and the broader public. So, why today? And is this all we get? And is this a response to the studies that were done by the agencies? Or is this considered a summary of them?

MR. KIRBY: This is the result of months and months of work by individual agencies who were participating in the withdrawal to voluntarily review that withdrawal, which they did. And they worked through that. These are — these documents are classified. And we felt it was the responsible thing to do, after those reviews were done, to then run a process across the administration to take a look at those reviews ourselves across the interagency, work our way through it, and then provide them to the relevant committees and leaders on the Hill, which we did today. We think that was the responsible thing to do.

General McKenzie objected to this, what’s the definition top national security official?
Reporter: 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.

Reporter: There’s four pages here of blame on the previous administration or this White House explanation of what the last White House did regarding Afghanistan. Nowhere in here does there appear to be any expression of accountability or mistake by either the President himself or others. Is there any for what happened?

MR. KIRBY: I would argue that the very fact that we voluntarily — the agencies voluntarily decided to go conduct after-action reviews — nobody told them to do that. That wasn’t legislated by Congress. They did that on their own.

And the fact that they did that and that we’re now placing it in — in — on the Hill for Congress to look at; the fact that we digested and distilled some of the key points of that and gave it out in a public document; the fact that I’m up here talking to you about it, I think, shows you how seriously the President felt about learning lessons from this withdrawal.

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‘There’s 4 Pages of Blame on Trump’, releasing report right up against the Easter holiday