REAL News for REAL People
Press Briefing by Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre
Q Thank you. I just want to circle back to the Afghan refugees. So, just - is any - is the anything being done for Afghan allies who - or those who have sought to come to the United States who already filed for parole and are currently waiting in the backlog of applications?
And to be clear: Are their only options now - as well as anybody who tried to flee Afghanistan and come to the U.S. - either SIV or the refugee program?
And I have a follow-up.
MS. JEAN-PIERRE: Oh, sure. And, as you know, there's a - there's the act that is in Congress that we have been really working - that the administration continues to support the passage of the Afghan Adjustment Act to provide Afghans who have come to the U.S. through Operations Allies Welcome - which is what I talked through a second ago - and a pathway to durable immigration status.
So, there is that pathway as well that we're going to continue to work with Congress on. So -
Q But - I'm sorry, but they would need an approved application in order to do that, right?
MS. JEAN-PIERRE: Oh, absolutely. I'm just wanted to - I just wanted to make sure that I stated that as well.
Look, as of August 9th - just to give you some numbers here - over 17,000 individuals have submitted all documents required to apply for Chief of Mission review or - beyond the Chief of Mission stage. We are working to process those as quickly as possible and welcome them into the United States.
So we are - this is something that we're working on pretty regularly. This is important to the Department of State. And so the Afghan SI program remains active. And the - State continues to receive and process new SIV applications as expeditiously as possible.
As part of our efforts to improve the program, we have cut the average COM review time to a sixth of what it was under the previous administration - from 510 days in June 2020 to 82 days in June 2022.
I don't have the specific numbers, as you were asking, about the backlogs. But we are quickly trying to move that forward, to move that through. And again, you know, we have welcomed nearly 90,000 Afghans into the country thus far.
Q What you just referenced though is the SIV application backlog.
MS. JEAN-PIERRE: Yes, it is. It is.
Q So - but my question is: For those who have filed an application for parole - a program which is now ending -
MS. JEAN-PIERRE: Oh, I'm so sorry. Yes, I hear what you're saying.
Q - will they still have a chance to get parole, or are they basically - should they ditch that, just forget about the fact that they're in that pipeline and try to refer to the -
MS. JEAN-PIERRE: That's a very good question. I would refer you to the Department of State on the - on the parolees and the - and where the ones who are kind of in that - in that process and where they are going to ultimately be and what their - what their options are. I don't have that specific with me.
Q And just lastly, the two programs you referenced both still have years-long backlogs, even with the movements that you were just describing to increase staff. Does the Biden administration think that at this point, for somebody who's trying to flee Afghanistan and they're pursuing either SIV or the refugee program, that there's actually a realistic chance that they could make it through the pipeline within, I mean, the end of this presidential term?
MS. JEAN-PIERRE: We're going to do everything that we can to make sure that we take care of the families - the American families that are still in Af- - in Afghanistan and also our friends and allies in Afghanistan as well.
So we're going to do everything that we can to make it happen. I know the Department of State has been on top of this. They have been working through this, you know, for some time now. And so this is a priority of ours, for sure.
Go ahead.
Q Thanks. If we could go back to tonight's speech, you said the President is going to speak in a direct way about what he sees as a threat. Does that include former President Trump? Will he mention the former President by name or any Republicans by name?
MS. JEAN-PIERRE: So, look, I've said this before: The President is never going to shy away from talking about his predecessor. He hasn't -
Q Is he going to name names then?
MS. JEAN-PIERRE: I'm about to answer your question, so give me a second.
But it's not a speech about the former President or about a single politician or about a political party. It's about the American democracy, which is what I've been trying to lay out here.
This is so much broader, so much bigger than any one party, than any one person. And it's an optimistic speech, again, about where we are as a nation and where we can go. And it's about the fundamental struggle around the globe between autocracy and democracy, and how democracy is a critical foundation for this country to move forward, and about what we can do - can be done right now to beat back the forces that are threatening - that are threatening us.
And so, he's been working on this for a while; he's been thinking about this speech for a while. He's talked about soul of the nation. The first time you've heard him do that was when he wrote an op-ed in The Atlantic back in August of 2017. So this is nothing new to him.
He feels it is his responsibility to bring the - to bring American people to together and to answer a fundamental question about what kind of nation we are going to be. And that's what you're going to hear from the President tonight.
Again, he's been thinking about this for some time. This is not a new subject or topic for him.
Q But if that includes things, as that you were saying to one of my colleague's questions - you know, concerned about this MAGA Republican, this extremist agenda - and that's something he's going to talk about tonight, how is that not a political speech?
MS. JEAN-PIERRE: Well, I said he's not going to shy away from that. And, of course, he's going to talk about voter participation. Of course, he's going to talk about getting Americans to get involved and participate in this effort to fight our democracy. That is something that he's certainly going to talk about.
But what we're - what I'm trying to say is: This is a broader speech. And you'll hear from him directly. This is not about one political party. It is not what - about one political - one person in politics. This is about what we are going to do as a country to continue to fight for our democracy - again, something that he has talked about for some time. And - and that's what you're going to hear from him.
If you followed him through the campaign, if you followed him through the administration, this is not new. And he will speak directly about that, directly about the current events.
But, again, he's not going to shy away from - from the extremism that we see today. But, again, this - there is a broader component of the speech, and you'll hear about that later this evening.
Go ahead.
Q Thanks, Karine. On this Russian oil cap, the U.S. is trying to get that in place before EU sanctions go into place in December that would ban seaborne shipments of Russian oil. If the oil cap fails, what's the level of concern inside the administration that those EU sanctions - sanctions can drive up the price of oil and reverse all the gains that you all been touting for the past few months?
MS. JEAN-PIERRE: I mean, I'm not going to get into hypotheticals from here. They're going to be meeting - the G7 Finance Ministers - Ministers Meeting is happening tomorrow, so they'll have that discussion.
Look, this is - this is exactly what the President and G7 leaders have directed relevant members of their team to explore - as you know, the mechanism to set a global price tag - cap on - for Russian oil, you know, to starve, as you know, Putin of his main source of cash and forcing down the price of Russian oil to help blunt the impact of Putin's war at the pump.
They're going to meet tomorrow, as I said - the Finance Ministers - the G7 Finance Ministers Meeting. And - and we'll see what comes out of that. I don't want to get ahead of that meeting, which is happening tomorrow.
Q Would the U.S. consider lifting its ban on imports of Russian oil if the price is capped?
MS. JEAN-PIERRE: I'm just not going to get ahead of a meeting that's happening tomorrow.
Go ahead, Tam.
Q Yeah, thank you. Given the ongoing threats of political violence and the majority of Americans saying they're concerned about American democracy and something like 40 percent of Americans saying that they think civil war could happen in the next 10 years, how is the President going to deliver an optimistic speech? How is he optimistic in the face of all that?
MS. JEAN-PIERRE: Have you followed Joe Biden? Have you listened to him make speeches in the past before? This is a President, I would argue, who knows how to do that, who knows how to deliver an optimistic speech - at the same time, call out what is happening in this moment. And that's what you're going to hear from this President.
You know, if you - if you look - listen to his past speeches, he has done that. How do we bring people together? How do we get people involved in this part - in this process, in this participation in our democracy?
And, look, just because you call out what you're seeing in this current moment - the extremism, the attack on our democracy, the attack on our freedom, the concerns that Americans have themselves, doesn't mean you can't bring the country together and show a positive way forward, show some hope, give some people some hope. And you'll see that from this President tonight.
Q Completely unrelated, also not a thing to be optimistic about - the National Assessment of Educational Progress is - has this new testing that shows that nine-year-olds lost ground in both math and reading in pretty dramatic ways as a result of the pandemic. What is the President going to do about it? What is the administration going to do about this severe learning loss? And does the administration shoulder any blame for not pushing schools to reopen sooner?
MS. JEAN-PIERRE: So, let's step back to where we were not too long ago when this President walked into this administration: how mismanaged the pandemic - the response to the pandemic was; how 47 percent of schools were - in less than six months, our schools went from 40 per- - 46 percent to - open - to nearly all of them being open to full time.
That was the work of this President. And that was the work of Democrats, in spite of Republicans not voting for the American Rescue Plan, which $130 billion went to schools to have the ventilation, to be able to have the tutoring and - and the teachers and being able to hire more teachers. And that was because of the work that this administration did.
We were - we were in a place where, again, schools were not open. The economy was shut down. Businesses were shut down. And what we have seen is - you know, we've seen the numbers, but I think that's what we see. That's how we saw - it shows you how mismanaged the pandemic was and how the impact of that mismanagement had on the - on kids' progress and academic wellbeing.
And so, again, our priority remains to make sure states and schools and districts are using these funds - that $130 billion. This is going to go, again, to tutoring, to more teachers - real solutions, real solutions to make sure that our kids are getting what they need.
And, you know, every Republican in Congress voted against that money. That is the reality. We had to do this on our own.
And so, you know, we're going to make sure that those funds are directed to - the most resources towards students who are - who will fall - who will - who fell the furthest behind, which is important. And we must repair the damage that was done by the last administration, the mismanagement that was done by the ma- - last min- - administration.
Go Back
And to be clear: Are their only options now - as well as anybody who tried to flee Afghanistan and come to the U.S. - either SIV or the refugee program?
And I have a follow-up.
MS. JEAN-PIERRE: Oh, sure. And, as you know, there's a - there's the act that is in Congress that we have been really working - that the administration continues to support the passage of the Afghan Adjustment Act to provide Afghans who have come to the U.S. through Operations Allies Welcome - which is what I talked through a second ago - and a pathway to durable immigration status.
So, there is that pathway as well that we're going to continue to work with Congress on. So -
Q But - I'm sorry, but they would need an approved application in order to do that, right?
MS. JEAN-PIERRE: Oh, absolutely. I'm just wanted to - I just wanted to make sure that I stated that as well.
Look, as of August 9th - just to give you some numbers here - over 17,000 individuals have submitted all documents required to apply for Chief of Mission review or - beyond the Chief of Mission stage. We are working to process those as quickly as possible and welcome them into the United States.
So we are - this is something that we're working on pretty regularly. This is important to the Department of State. And so the Afghan SI program remains active. And the - State continues to receive and process new SIV applications as expeditiously as possible.
As part of our efforts to improve the program, we have cut the average COM review time to a sixth of what it was under the previous administration - from 510 days in June 2020 to 82 days in June 2022.
I don't have the specific numbers, as you were asking, about the backlogs. But we are quickly trying to move that forward, to move that through. And again, you know, we have welcomed nearly 90,000 Afghans into the country thus far.
Q What you just referenced though is the SIV application backlog.
MS. JEAN-PIERRE: Yes, it is. It is.
Q So - but my question is: For those who have filed an application for parole - a program which is now ending -
MS. JEAN-PIERRE: Oh, I'm so sorry. Yes, I hear what you're saying.
Q - will they still have a chance to get parole, or are they basically - should they ditch that, just forget about the fact that they're in that pipeline and try to refer to the -
MS. JEAN-PIERRE: That's a very good question. I would refer you to the Department of State on the - on the parolees and the - and where the ones who are kind of in that - in that process and where they are going to ultimately be and what their - what their options are. I don't have that specific with me.
Q And just lastly, the two programs you referenced both still have years-long backlogs, even with the movements that you were just describing to increase staff. Does the Biden administration think that at this point, for somebody who's trying to flee Afghanistan and they're pursuing either SIV or the refugee program, that there's actually a realistic chance that they could make it through the pipeline within, I mean, the end of this presidential term?
MS. JEAN-PIERRE: We're going to do everything that we can to make sure that we take care of the families - the American families that are still in Af- - in Afghanistan and also our friends and allies in Afghanistan as well.
So we're going to do everything that we can to make it happen. I know the Department of State has been on top of this. They have been working through this, you know, for some time now. And so this is a priority of ours, for sure.
Go ahead.
Q Thanks. If we could go back to tonight's speech, you said the President is going to speak in a direct way about what he sees as a threat. Does that include former President Trump? Will he mention the former President by name or any Republicans by name?
MS. JEAN-PIERRE: So, look, I've said this before: The President is never going to shy away from talking about his predecessor. He hasn't -
Q Is he going to name names then?
MS. JEAN-PIERRE: I'm about to answer your question, so give me a second.
But it's not a speech about the former President or about a single politician or about a political party. It's about the American democracy, which is what I've been trying to lay out here.
This is so much broader, so much bigger than any one party, than any one person. And it's an optimistic speech, again, about where we are as a nation and where we can go. And it's about the fundamental struggle around the globe between autocracy and democracy, and how democracy is a critical foundation for this country to move forward, and about what we can do - can be done right now to beat back the forces that are threatening - that are threatening us.
And so, he's been working on this for a while; he's been thinking about this speech for a while. He's talked about soul of the nation. The first time you've heard him do that was when he wrote an op-ed in The Atlantic back in August of 2017. So this is nothing new to him.
He feels it is his responsibility to bring the - to bring American people to together and to answer a fundamental question about what kind of nation we are going to be. And that's what you're going to hear from the President tonight.
Again, he's been thinking about this for some time. This is not a new subject or topic for him.
Q But if that includes things, as that you were saying to one of my colleague's questions - you know, concerned about this MAGA Republican, this extremist agenda - and that's something he's going to talk about tonight, how is that not a political speech?
MS. JEAN-PIERRE: Well, I said he's not going to shy away from that. And, of course, he's going to talk about voter participation. Of course, he's going to talk about getting Americans to get involved and participate in this effort to fight our democracy. That is something that he's certainly going to talk about.
But what we're - what I'm trying to say is: This is a broader speech. And you'll hear from him directly. This is not about one political party. It is not what - about one political - one person in politics. This is about what we are going to do as a country to continue to fight for our democracy - again, something that he has talked about for some time. And - and that's what you're going to hear from him.
If you followed him through the campaign, if you followed him through the administration, this is not new. And he will speak directly about that, directly about the current events.
But, again, he's not going to shy away from - from the extremism that we see today. But, again, this - there is a broader component of the speech, and you'll hear about that later this evening.
Go ahead.
Q Thanks, Karine. On this Russian oil cap, the U.S. is trying to get that in place before EU sanctions go into place in December that would ban seaborne shipments of Russian oil. If the oil cap fails, what's the level of concern inside the administration that those EU sanctions - sanctions can drive up the price of oil and reverse all the gains that you all been touting for the past few months?
MS. JEAN-PIERRE: I mean, I'm not going to get into hypotheticals from here. They're going to be meeting - the G7 Finance Ministers - Ministers Meeting is happening tomorrow, so they'll have that discussion.
Look, this is - this is exactly what the President and G7 leaders have directed relevant members of their team to explore - as you know, the mechanism to set a global price tag - cap on - for Russian oil, you know, to starve, as you know, Putin of his main source of cash and forcing down the price of Russian oil to help blunt the impact of Putin's war at the pump.
They're going to meet tomorrow, as I said - the Finance Ministers - the G7 Finance Ministers Meeting. And - and we'll see what comes out of that. I don't want to get ahead of that meeting, which is happening tomorrow.
Q Would the U.S. consider lifting its ban on imports of Russian oil if the price is capped?
MS. JEAN-PIERRE: I'm just not going to get ahead of a meeting that's happening tomorrow.
Go ahead, Tam.
Q Yeah, thank you. Given the ongoing threats of political violence and the majority of Americans saying they're concerned about American democracy and something like 40 percent of Americans saying that they think civil war could happen in the next 10 years, how is the President going to deliver an optimistic speech? How is he optimistic in the face of all that?
MS. JEAN-PIERRE: Have you followed Joe Biden? Have you listened to him make speeches in the past before? This is a President, I would argue, who knows how to do that, who knows how to deliver an optimistic speech - at the same time, call out what is happening in this moment. And that's what you're going to hear from this President.
You know, if you - if you look - listen to his past speeches, he has done that. How do we bring people together? How do we get people involved in this part - in this process, in this participation in our democracy?
And, look, just because you call out what you're seeing in this current moment - the extremism, the attack on our democracy, the attack on our freedom, the concerns that Americans have themselves, doesn't mean you can't bring the country together and show a positive way forward, show some hope, give some people some hope. And you'll see that from this President tonight.
Q Completely unrelated, also not a thing to be optimistic about - the National Assessment of Educational Progress is - has this new testing that shows that nine-year-olds lost ground in both math and reading in pretty dramatic ways as a result of the pandemic. What is the President going to do about it? What is the administration going to do about this severe learning loss? And does the administration shoulder any blame for not pushing schools to reopen sooner?
MS. JEAN-PIERRE: So, let's step back to where we were not too long ago when this President walked into this administration: how mismanaged the pandemic - the response to the pandemic was; how 47 percent of schools were - in less than six months, our schools went from 40 per- - 46 percent to - open - to nearly all of them being open to full time.
That was the work of this President. And that was the work of Democrats, in spite of Republicans not voting for the American Rescue Plan, which $130 billion went to schools to have the ventilation, to be able to have the tutoring and - and the teachers and being able to hire more teachers. And that was because of the work that this administration did.
We were - we were in a place where, again, schools were not open. The economy was shut down. Businesses were shut down. And what we have seen is - you know, we've seen the numbers, but I think that's what we see. That's how we saw - it shows you how mismanaged the pandemic was and how the impact of that mismanagement had on the - on kids' progress and academic wellbeing.
And so, again, our priority remains to make sure states and schools and districts are using these funds - that $130 billion. This is going to go, again, to tutoring, to more teachers - real solutions, real solutions to make sure that our kids are getting what they need.
And, you know, every Republican in Congress voted against that money. That is the reality. We had to do this on our own.
And so, you know, we're going to make sure that those funds are directed to - the most resources towards students who are - who will fall - who will - who fell the furthest behind, which is important. And we must repair the damage that was done by the last administration, the mismanagement that was done by the ma- - last min- - administration.
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