Psaki: ‘We’re Continuing to Press the Taliban’ to Let Those with ‘Proper Documentation’ Out

EXCERPT:

PSAKI: “Well, there — a couple of pieces are true here. So, one is, we are continuing to press the Taliban, the Secretary of State is, to do more, to abide by allowing American citizens, individuals with — who are legal permanent residents and individuals with proper documentation to depart the country. It is also true that we don’t have a role in preventing flights from taking off. We are not on the ground. So that is not something the U.S. government is doing. But at the same time, some of these planes and some of the issues is where are they going to land. So a number of these planes, they may have a handful of American citizens, but they may have several hundred individuals where we don’t have manifests for them, we don’t know what the security protocols are for them. We don’t know what their documentation is, and there is a fundamental question, and this is one of the hard choices you face in government, are we going to allow a plane with hundreds of people where we don’t know who they are, we don’t know what security protocols have been put in place to land on a U.S. military base. And there are reasonable questions, justified questions, I think, as to why we wouldn’t do that.”