Immediately following the speech by President Joe Biden given this afternoon in light of America's formal military withdrawal from Afghanistan, reporters gathered to ask White House press secretary Jen Psaki questions about the topic.
Biden noted the 13 US service members who died from a suicide bombing; however, he didn't take questions from the media following his remarks.
Fox News reporter Jacqui Heinrich asked: "Some of the Gold Star families have criticized the president's conduct at the dignified transfer. There was a father of one Marine who said that the president could be checking his watch every time a flag-draped transfer case came out of the plane, and a sister of another Marine said that it felt like a fake and scripted apology. Was the president looking at his watch, and does he have a message to those people who felt that they were offended?"
It's been pointed out that Psaki's response to Heinrich's question does not deny the claim that Biden was checking his watch at Sunday's dignified transfer ceremony.
"I would say his message to all of the family members who were there, those who were not even in attendance is that he is grateful to their sons and daughters, the sacrifice they made to the country, that he knows first-hand what it's like to lose a child, and the fact that no one can tell you anything or say anything or there’s no words that are going to fill that hole that is left by that," Psaki answered.
She went on to state that Biden is "not going to speak to (and I'm not going to speak to) the private conversations. Of course they have the right to convey whatever they would like. But I will tell you, from spending a lot of time with him over the past couple of days, that he was deeply impacted by these family members who he met. Oh just two days ago, he talks about them frequently in meetings, and the incredible service and sacrifice of their sons and daughters. That is not going to change their suffering but I wanted to convey that, still."
A standard procedure when it came to the war in Afghanistan was for the president of the United States to be present at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware and to preside over the return of soldiers who died in combat overseas.
Two of the fathers of slain US service members in last week's Kabul bombing went on Fox News host Sean Hannity's show to give their feedback about how the meeting with Biden went. Darrin Hoover, the grieving father of Staff Sgt. Darrin 'Taylor" Hoover Jr., didn't even want to meet with Biden whatsoever. But he corroborated what Mark Schmitz, father of Missouri Marine Jared Schmitz, said about the president frequently checking the time at the solemn occasion.
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