The good news is that he sounded more empathetic in today’s remarks than he did in his cringily defensive Stephanopoulos interview and pro-withdrawal speech on Monday.

The bad news is that he either doesn’t know what’s happening on the ground or he’s deliberately lying to Americans about it.

I’m leaning towards “deliberately lying” because there were other obviously deliberate lies in his presser this afternoon. There’s no way Biden’s denial runs this deep:

Following criticism of the United States' conduct in their withdrawal, Biden says he has seen "no question of our credibility from our allies around the world." https://t.co/nkdo355FUf pic.twitter.com/N2DHg3KTqX

— CBS News (@CBSNews) August 20, 2021

Angela Merkel’s heir apparent in Germany called our withdrawal fiasco “the greatest debacle that NATO has seen since its foundation” and “an epochal change that we are facing.” One British MP gave a celebrated speech deriding Biden’s criticism of Afghan troops as “shameful” to murmurs of approval from Parliament a few days ago. The withdrawal fiasco will eventually end but international perceptions that American foreign policy incompetence is now a thoroughly bipartisan and therefore unsolvable problem will not.

Here’s the soundbite that made reporters flip their wigs:

Joe Biden falsely says “no circumstance” where American citizens have been blocked from Kabul airport pic.twitter.com/6CYmU4inXE

— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) August 20, 2021

That’s simply not true and you already know it because you’ve watched this clip. But various correspondents who are either on the ground in Afghanistan or plugged into their sources there know it especially well. Clarissa Ward didn’t hold back after Biden’s presser:

CNN's @clarissaward contradicts Biden's claim that Americans are not having difficulty getting to the airport:

"We had difficulty getting into the airport. Working out how to get to the airport is like a Rubik’s cube." pic.twitter.com/naDGVUaZ9A

— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) August 20, 2021

ABC’s Ian Pannell was flabbergasted:

.@DavidMuir: "The president said he has no intelligence that the Americans have not been able to get [to the Kabul airport]. The question, obviously—does that square with reporting on ground?"@IanPannell: "I mean—just totally not."

Read more: https://t.co/6U5QW2IOjc pic.twitter.com/DTuyOZBmmn

— ABC News (@ABC) August 20, 2021

Jennifer Griffin of Fox marveled that there were so many things Biden said that needed correcting that she didn’t know where to start. She focused on his comments about being able to police Afghanistan from “over the horizon,” outside the country. The whole reason U.S. troops can’t stray from airport and into greater Kabul to retrieve stranded Americans, Griffin noted, is because we no longer have eyes and ears on the ground. How are we going to find jihadis in Afghan cities when we can’t find our own people now?

Fox News’ Jennifer Griffin on Biden’s speech: “I couldn’t fact check it fast enough because there are so many misrepresentations of what is happening on the ground” pic.twitter.com/OyEpxwAIoU

— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) August 20, 2021

Here’s how the “over the horizon” policy is working out at the moment:

Nothing to see here, just one of #America‘s most-wanted terrorists, Khalil Haqqani, on the streets of #Kabul today.

There’s a $5 million bounty on his head — hopefully we’re keeping an eye on him “over the horizon.”pic.twitter.com/ZA43U8IlSX

— Charles Lister (@Charles_Lister) August 20, 2021

Even Biden’s own SecDef seems to be fact-checking him this afternoon:

NEW: Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin in a briefing call with House lawmakers just now said Americans have been beaten by the Taliban in Kabul, according to multiple people on the call. Austin called it “unacceptable.”

— Andrew Desiderio (@AndrewDesiderio) August 20, 2021

The thrust of Biden’s remarks today was that cooperation with the Taliban was going well. There’s no crisis, supposedly, because the jihadis are playing nice.

Except they aren’t, according to his own brass.

There’s a new complication in the evacuation too:

Soldiers by the runway at Kabul airport tell me that there are 10,000 people here processed and ready to go… but nowhere to fly them to because Qatar is refusing to accept more Afghans because they’ve reached capacity. “It’s abysmal… someone needs to step up.”

— Clarissa Ward (@clarissaward) August 20, 2021

Why not Guam? Two months ago, when calls to commence the evacuations had already begun, the governor of Guam wrote to Biden saying the island stood ready to accept Afghan refugees. How about it?

Flights at #KabulAiport stopped because #Qatar is at capacity. You know what’s currently vacant and ready to welcome our #Afghan wartime allies? #Guam. Guam wants these people to come. The plan has been ready for months https://t.co/PtnReIoVnE #GetThemToGuam #DigitalDunkirk https://t.co/qWqcRSv0qv

— Matt Zeller (@mattczeller) August 20, 2021

Use Guam as a processing center en route to settling them in the U.S.

The one encouraging thing Biden said today was to guarantee that no American will be left behind. (Although he did it with an odd formulation: “Any American who wants to come home, we will get you home.” Are there Americans over there eager to join a seventh-century caliphate?) But he was also stark in hinting about where this might go. “Make no mistake, this evacuation mission is dangerous. It involves risks to our armed forces, and it’s being conducted under difficult circumstances,” he added. “I cannot promise what the final outcome will be or what it will be — that it will be without risk of loss.”

One reporter asked him the question of the moment, whether we’re actually relying on the Taliban to guarantee Americans’ security. He didn’t answer that one.

REPORTER: “Why do you continue to trust the Taliban, Mr. President?”

BIDEN: *walks away* pic.twitter.com/26Qz6JjPir

— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) August 20, 2021