Media top headlines August 31
In media news today, critics resurface Biden ABC interview where he pledged to stay in Afghanistan until every American was rescued, Blinken gets knocked for avoiding questions after Afghan withdrawal speech, and Biden repeatedly implies he's not in charge of when, where he can take press questions
A new piece written by Washington Post columnist Jennifer Rubin received a stamp of approval from multiple Biden administration officials.
In the column titled "The State Department deserves more credit for its effort to evacuate Americans from Afghanistan," Rubin told readers on Monday she spoke with White House and State Department officials about the process of getting U.S. citizens out of the Taliban-controlled country.
She began by noting that evacuation efforts truly were underway back in April with various "notices" from the State Department urging Americans to leave Afghanistan, writing "many Americans ignored these warnings" and the evacuation "switched into high gear" when the Afghan government collapsed.
WASHINGTON POST'S JENNIFER RUBIN ACCUSED OF ‘RUNNING PR FOR THE TALIBAN’ FOLLOWING VIRAL TWEET
"With round after round of calls, emails and texts — and with public messaging for Americans to identify themselves — State narrowed the list of Americans still in country to about 6,000," Rubin repeated talking points from the Biden administration. "With the Aug. 31 withdrawal deadline approaching, every individual on the roster who has not yet been in contact has received some sort of message at least once a day."
Rubin highlighted how a plane was leaving the Kabul airport "every 45 minutes (or less)" and how in "some cases, State Department employees had multiple conversations in a single day with a single American who was vacillating between staying and leaving."
The Washington Post's Jennifer Rubin is one of the most reliable media allies of the Biden administration. (William B. Plowman/NBC/NBC Newswire/NBCUniversal via Getty Images)
"When the last plane takes off with evacuees, it is possible some of the 250 might not make it out … What’s the plan for them? As you might imagine, the administration has been vague on its ironclad promise to get Americans out," Rubin acknowledged before crediting the Taliban "by and large" for allowing "nearly 6,000 Americans to reach the airport," adding, "If the Taliban has any hope of remedying its desperate economic situation and avoiding retaliatory action, it has little reason to hold any American against his or her will."
She continued, "The media entrenched in the narrative that the Afghanistan operation is a ‘failure’ may very well speculate about Americans left behind. A few Americans may even pop up after Aug. 31, which will test the commitment to bring every American home. But the herculean effort to extract thousands of Americans after the Taliban seized control of the country should not go unnoticed or unappreciated."
Rubin's column was shared all over Twitter, particularly members of the Biden administration like State Department spokesman Ned Price.
White House Deputy Communications Director Kate Berner praised the column, tweeting, "Good rundown of the State Department's around the clock efforts to contact every American in Afghanistan and help them evacuate."
The column earned a coveted retweet from White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain after Rubin shared it on her Twitter account.
Rubin, a once-prominent conservative columnist and a cheerleader of military intervention under President Bush, even earned a shoutout by the DNC War Room.
"Everyone in the admin is a Jennifer Rubin fan now," Politico reporter Alex Thompson quipped.
Rubin has become known as one of the biggest media fawners of the Biden administration and a favorite of Klain's on Twitter.
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
The Washington Post columnist was been ridiculed in recent weeks for writing several pieces defending Biden's handling of the turbulent withdrawal from Afghanistan.
She was also accused of "running PR for the Taliban" for a tweet saying that the terror group was "asking, not telling" the Biden administration to not encourage Afghans to leave.