Jen Psaki forced to retract false book claim that Biden did not check his watch during ceremony

Ex-White House press secretary Jen Psaki is being forced to retract a false claim in her new book that President Biden did not check his watch during the dignified transfer of 13 US troops killed in the Afghanistan withdrawal.

In her May 2024 book “Say More,” Psaki attacked her former boss’s critics, who she said seized on the cringe-worthy moment to make “him appear insensitive, concerned only about how much time had passed,” claiming he “only looked at his watch after the ceremony had ended.”

Axios first reported on the book’s inaccuracy. Photos, videos and media fact-checkers at the time of the ceremony had already confirmed Biden’s snub of the fallen troops’ families.
Ex-White House press secretary Jen Psaki is being forced to retract a false claim in her new book that President Biden did not check his watch during the dignified transfer of 13 US troops killed in the Afghanistan withdrawal.

In her May 2024 book “Say More,” Psaki attacked her former boss’s critics, who she said seized on the cringe-worthy moment to make “him appear insensitive, concerned only about how much time had passed,” claiming he “only looked at his watch after the ceremony had ended.”

Axios first reported on the book’s inaccuracy. Photos, videos and media fact-checkers at the time of the ceremony had already confirmed Biden’s snub of the fallen troops’ families.
“To go and put this in the book and memorialize it for all to see is nothing short of disgusting. I mean, it’s reprehensible to me,” Hoover said.

Coral Briseno, the mother of Marine Cpl. Humberto Sanchez, 22, said, “We are not liars. We’re just seeking for justice for our kids. And we are not trying to make this up.

“We’re not trying to make anybody look bad. We don’t care if it was Trump or if it was Biden,” she added, saying it had shown “disrespect for our families, for our loved ones and for the people that die for this country.”
Reps for MSNBC, where Psaki migrated to in March 2023 to host “Inside with Jen Psaki” after leaving her $180,000-per-year press role at the White House the preceding May, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Steve Nikoui, who was arrested in March for shouting his slain son’s name at Biden in the middle of the State of the Union address, thundered that the White House and ex-administration aides such as Psaki “want to forget about this.

“They don’t want anything of that day or that time or that whole evacuation to [come to] light at all. And so any chance that it comes up, they shut it down — immediately,” said the father of Marine Lance Cpl. Kareem Nikoui, 20.

“[If] the American people want to keep these people in office or keep these people on television and support them and give them, you know, multimillion-dollar jobs, well, then they have to answer for that when they die. Not me,” he added.
Mark Schmitz, the father of 20-year-old Marine Lance Cpl. Jared M. Schmitz, pointed out Biden’s crass behavior during an August 2023 roundtable with Gold Star families in the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

“Not only does she owe us an apology, she needs to take that story down,” Schmitz said of Psaki. “I blasted Biden about the watch deal at the family roundtable, and I brought it up several times in numerous interviews. Jen Psaki’s full of s–t.”

Asked whether the former White House press flack should face consequences for the falsehood, the military families all agreed.

“She was 100% out of line saying that. She wasn’t there,” Schmitz said. “Her only motive would be personal, financial or political — and at the cost of our emotions. And the last thing we need is to have this relived yet again, and here we are.”