President Biden’s schedule has been upended by the attacks near Kabul airport Thursday.
“There will be updates to the President’s schedule, which we will share as they become available,” the White House said in a statement Thursday afternoon.
Biden was meeting in the Situation Room with top national security officials, including Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley, when the attack took place. CNN observed Blinken, Austin, and Milley arriving in the West Wing early in the 9 a.m. ET hour and the meeting was set to begin at 9:15 a.m. Vice President Kamala Harris attended the meeting virtually aboard Air Force Two as she traveled from Vietnam to Guam, and commanders on the ground were also in attendance virtually, according to the White House.
CNN reported on the first explosion outside the Kabul airport at 9:40 a.m. ET.
It was not immediately clear when the meeting concluded, but as CNN’s Phil Mattingly reported, Biden and aides remained in the Situation Room for some time as the events developed.
Biden, according to the White House, “will continue to be briefed on updates on the evolving situation throughout the day.”
The remaining events on the official White House daily guidance for Thursday have been indefinitely postponed or canceled.
A 10:30 a.m. briefing with Biden’s Covid-19 response team was postponed to 10:45 a.m. and then postponed indefinitely, a White House official telling those logged into the Zoom that “due to worldwide circumstances,” the briefing was “delayed to a to-be-determined time.”
A noon press briefing with press secretary Jen Psaki has also been “delayed.”
Biden had been set to meet with new Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett at 11:30 a.m. That meeting has been postponed to a time to be determined. Around noon on Thursday, the group of reporters traveling with Bennett returned to their hotel.
And a meeting between Biden and a bipartisan group of governors on resettling Afghan refugees set for 3 p.m. has been canceled.
As of 12:15 p.m., CNN’s Kaitlan Collins reported that Biden is in the Oval Office.