White House defends efforts to evacuate Americans from Middle East

From PBS NewsHour.

The White House has gotten pushback this week for how it’s handling the evacuation of Americans from the Middle East after the U.S.-Israeli attacks on Iran.

Americans in 14 countries across the Middle East were urged to evacuate on Monday by the U.S. State Department. But they weren’t immediately offered any chartered or military flights.

As strikes from the U.S. and Israel continued and Iran retaliated, commercial air space and airports closed and 19,000 flights have been canceled. In Wednesday’s White House briefing, the first since the conflict began, reporters asked press secretary Karoline Leavitt what the State Department is doing to get Americans out of the Middle East.

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