© AP Photo/Carolyn KasterPresident Joe Biden, first lady Jill Biden, and Secretary of State Antony Blinken look on as as a carry team moves a transfer case with the remain of Marine Corps Cpl. Humberto A. Sanchez, 22, of Logansport, Ind., during a casualty return at Dover Air Force Base, Del., Sunday, Aug. 29, 2021, for the 13 service members killed in the suicide bombing in Kabul, Afghanistan, on Aug. 26.
A preview of Biden's pre-Super Bowl interview aired on "NBC Nightly News" with Lester Holt on Thursday. In the segment, Biden admitted that he rejected the U.S. Army investigative report that argued the administration was not prepared to pull out troops from Afghanistan in August.
"Yes, I am." Biden said. "I'm rejecting them."
Despite the report, he also insisted that he was not told about the degree to which the White House was prepared to remove troops in Afghanistan and instead argued "there was no good time to get out."
This answer did not appear to satisfy Tapper.
"It's difficult to overstate how insulting Biden's sweeping rejection is to so many service members and veterans," Tapper said.
"Given the full content of the two-thousand pages of documents and this U.S. Army investigation which CNN has also obtained, many accounts are from troops who were on the ground at the gates near the canal around the airport, non-commissioned officers, junior officers, Joes, people with little political motivation to lie and heavy legal and moral obligation to tell the truth in sworn statements," he added.
Various CNN guests in the past have defended Biden's Afghanistan pullout despite an Aug. 26 Kabul terror attack that left 13 U.S. service members and dozens of Afghans dead.
"I don't doubt that President Biden cares, but I do not understand why he would not manifest that care into taking this investigation more seriously, absorbing the tragic details, contemplating the obvious failures of his administration, failures that cost lives," Tapper said.
Biden's response to Afghanistan prompted several leading Republican figures to demand his resignation.
"Biden always bristles at this because he feels confident that ending the war in Afghanistan was the right decision, but that's not the question at hand. It's not whether, but how, the war ended. And what that means to the people who were there when it did finally end," Tapper pushed back.
He then closed by saying "Isn't that how you demonstrate how much you care? Otherwise isn't it just words?"
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