The White House on Tuesday schooled House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy after the California Republican called for Democrats to halt work aimed at improving the lives of Americans at home and focus solely on Afghanistan evacuations.
“We shouldn’t work on other items, especially the spending of trillions of dollars,” McCarthy said of the Democratic legislative efforts during a news conference. Afghanistan and the ongoing evacuations, McCarthy said, “should be our only focus.”
McCarthy’s remarks served as the latest escalation in a barrage of sharp criticism over Biden’s handling of Afghanistan’s fall to the Taliban.
As noted by CNN, House Democrats ignored McCarthy’s call, but the White House, fresh off another win in the high-wire legislative pathway to enact President Joe Biden’s more than $4 trillion in infrastructure and economic proposals, was more willing to respond.
“We appreciate this expression of bipartisan support for our evacuation efforts in Afghanistan, which is now one of the most large-scale and effective airlift operations in history and has gotten over 75,000 people out of the country,” said Andrew Bates, a White House spokesman.
“The American people know well that the federal government is responsible for many priorities at once. And they never expect their leaders to ignore crucial issues like, in this case, creating jobs, rebuilding our infrastructure and bringing down prices — including the cost of prescription drugs.”
The comments underscored a view inside the White House of the importance — and resonance — of Biden’s domestic agenda, even as the President grapples with a foreign policy crisis that has gripped the nation over the last 10 days.
The Biden administration’s evacuation efforts in Afghanistan have gained considerable momentum in recent days, now far exceeding the initial daily goals after a chaotic and disjointed start.
However, Republicans have been sharply critical of the President’s response to the collapse of the Afghan government after two decades of war.
Yet the White House has also quietly kept a sharp focus on its domestic agenda, which Biden’s top advisers view as critical on both the policy and political fronts. Delivering on economic spending proposals at a scale unseen in decades — in the wake of dual financial and public health crises — is viewed internally as a linchpin to his entire approach to his presidency.
Biden made a point to focus on the legislative victory at the top of remarks late Tuesday afternoon that had originally been slated to address only the latest efforts in Afghanistan and a closed-door virtual meeting with Group of Seven leaders on the issue hours prior.
“The bottom line is, in my view, we are truly a step closer to truly investing in the American people, positioning our economy for long-term growth and building an America that outcompetes the world,” Biden.
