CNN’s Clarissa Ward Hits Biden’s White House Speech: Afghans Will Find His Remarks to Be ‘Hollow Words’

 CNN’s Clarissa Ward was unimpressed by President Joe Biden’s remarks Monday, after he finally addressed the nation regarding the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan, telling Jake Tapper that Biden’s words would “sound hollow” to many Afghans.

Tapper launched his show immediately after Biden’s remarks concluded, commenting that the president had been “forced to talk about the worsening crisis in Afghanistan, forced to speak to the nation after the calamity of the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan.”

“The president said that the buck stopped with him, but, in fact, the speech was full of finger-pointing and blame,” said Tapper.

Tapper asked Ward, who has been reporting from Kabul for the past few days, for her reaction to Biden’s speech, and specifically asked her how she thought Afghans would view it.

“I think to Afghans, a lot of this will sound like hollow words, Jake,” Ward replied. “There will be a lot of frustration with the speech” because it didn’t get to the “core issue” — not whether or not the U.S. should withdraw, but “the catastrophic manner of this withdrawal.”

“And there was very little there in terms of stepping up to the plate, assuming responsibility or even, dare I suggest it, issuing some kind of an apology to the Afghan people,” Ward continued, remarking on how everyone had seen the “desperate crush of humanity” of people wanting to escape at the airport in Kabul.

Ward was skeptical of Biden’s promises to continue advocating for the rights of Afghans, especially women and girls, and “rallying the world to join with the U.S.”

Part of the challenge in fulfilling those promises, noted Ward, was that while the U.S. Embassy had been abandoned, Russian and China’s embassies remained open. Those countries were “still engaged,” said Ward, while less than a week ago our State Department had said that the embassy wouldn’t close and said “the message is one of enduring partnership.”

“Those words sound hollow,” concluded Ward. “Because those words sound hollow, the words we heard from the president, I believe to many Afghans, will also sound hollow, Jake.”