Biden to speak Monday on Afghanistan

President Biden will return to the White House on Monday and deliver remarks on the situation in Afghanistan.

Biden was slated to stay at the presidential retreat at Camp David through Wednesday, but he will come back to Washington, D.C., early as U.S. forces grapple with a chaotic evacuation effort in Afghanistan.

The president will speak at 3:45 p.m., the White House said. He last addressed the situation on camera on Tuesday, when he took questions from the press corps.

Biden previously had no public events on his schedule Monday, but he faced pressure from Republicans and some Democrats to give a public address on the events unfolding in Afghanistan, where the Taliban had taken control of the capital city of Kabul and American forces were struggling to execute an orderly withdrawal of U.S. personnel and Afghan civilian allies.

“The president has been deeply engaged in all of the policy conversations and in the situation as it evolves in real time,” deputy national security adviser Jonathan Finer told CNN earlier Monday.

“The president has spoken to this extensively and I expect that he will speak to it again soon,” Finer added when asked why Biden isn’t publicly speaking to the situation in real time.

Biden announced earlier this year that U.S. troops would fully leave Afghanistan by the end of August, bringing an end to the longest running war in American history. But the situation quickly deteriorated in recent days as the Taliban made rapid advances, capturing major cities before taking Kabul.

The U.S. has deployed an additional 1,000 troops to help pull Americans and Afghan allies from the region, bringing the total number of authorized military personnel to roughly 6,000.