Biden stunned by criticism from Gold Star families after Afghanistan withdrawal, former press secretary writes

President Joe Biden was silent for “a bit too long” after being told that the families of the US service members who died during the American withdrawal from Afghanistan felt that he spoke too much about his late son Beau Biden.

Thirteen service members were killed in Kabul in August 2021, and Biden later met with their families.

In a new book, Jen Psaki, the former White House Press Secretary and current MSNBC host, writes that she “paused for the president to respond” during a call with Biden.

“The silence that followed was a bit too long. I worried for a moment that our connection had been lost,” she added. “‘Sir, are you still there?’ I asked.”

Say More: Lessons from Work, the White House and the World is set to be published next week. A copy was obtained by The Guardian.

Psaki left the administration in 2022.

Biden had ordered the US withdrawal from Afghanistan in April 2021 after two decades of war in the country. As chaos raged in Kabul on 26 August, a suicide bomber attacked one of the gates at the airport in the city, killing 170 Afghans and the 13 US service members.

The bodies were returned to the US at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware on 29 August. The dignified transfer was attended by Biden and First Lady Jill Biden.

“Of all the president’s duties, this is high on the list of most heartbreaking. For President Biden in particular, it stirred feelings of his own despair about the death of his son Joseph Biden III, a.k.a Beau,” Psaki writes in her upcoming book.

Beau Biden died of brain cancer in 2015 at the age of 46 after going to Iraq with the National Guard. Between 2007 and 2015, he was the attorney general of Delaware.

Biden has brought up the possibility that his son’s cancer was caused by