The White House on the sly corrected a gaffe President Biden made during his Thursday news conference in which he mixed up the names of Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani and the controversial former head of Pakistan’s military.
“And General Austin is — just met with Kayani and I’m waiting for the briefing on that,” Biden said Thursday.
But the official White House transcript of the briefing now says “Ghani” instead of Kayani.
Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani departed the Pakistan military in 2013. In a retrospective on Kayani’s leadership, The New York Times reported that Kayani was often accused of “double-dealing and bad faith.”
But besides confusing Ghani with Kayani at the briefing, Biden appeared to question the legitimacy of Ghani as Afghanistan’s president.
“He is the — the ‘leader,’ quote, in Afghanistan and Kabul. And there’s a U.N.-led process that’s beginning shortly on how to mechanically get people — how to end this war,” Biden said.
Ghani won a contested presidential election that was held last year and was sworn in in March. His rival continues to contest the election results but the U.S. has recognized Ghani as the winner of the election.
Changing a transcript of what was said by the President should never happen and they never did for Trump.
