President Joe Biden said out loud that NBC’s Kelly O’Donnell was the first reporter he was “instructed to call on” to ask him a question during a Thursday press briefing following a terrorist attack outside the Kabul airport.
“Ladies and gentlemen, they gave me a list here. The first person I was instructed to call on was Kelly O’Donnell of NBC,” Biden said, kicking off the Q&A part of the briefing.
Immediately after Biden’s announcement, O’Donnell got the mic and asked the president about his plans regarding a potential deployment of additional forces to Afghanistan in response to the ISIS-K attack.
“I’ve instructed the military. Whatever they need, if they need additional force, I will grant it,” Biden replied, adding that the military officials had expressed their intent to get as many people as possible out of the country, as per the initial plan.