Psaki defends not allowing charter flights from Afghanistan to land at US bases

White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Wednesday during a briefing that President Biden's administration is "not going to allow" charter flights with unvetted passengers from Afghanistan to land on American military bases, due to safety concerns.

"We don't have a role in preventing flights from taking off," Psaki told reporters. "We are not on the ground, so that is not something that the U.S. government is doing. At the same time, some of these planes and some of the issues [include] where are they going to land." Psaki noted that "a number of these planes" seeking to depart Afghanistan may have a "handful of Americans, but they may have several hundred individuals" who do not have proper documentation of identity. "They may have several hundred individuals where we don't have manifests for them, we don't know what the security protocols are for them, we don't know what their documentation is," Psaki said, describing the situation as one of the "hard choices you face in government."