Joe Biden almost FORGETS top Fema official’s name in speech on Hurricane Henri’s landfall on North East

JOE Biden almost FORGOT the name of a top Fema official during a live address on Hurricane Henri’s landfall in the North East.

The storm’s strong winds have left tens of thousands of homes without power and flooding was seen along the coast, from New Jersey up to Massachusetts.

The White HouseThe President almost forgot the name of a top Fema official in his speech[/caption]

AFPBiden has provided an update on his administration’s response to Hurricane Henri[/caption]

New York and New Jersey have been both hit by floods today as Tropical Storm Henri struck Rhode Island.

Some towns in New Jersey saw up to eight inches of rain by midday Sunday, in an occurrence which Gov. Phil Murphy told News 12NJ was “a big rain event.”

The President has also provided an update on the Afghanistan crisis.

With thousands of Americans and Afghan refugees still stranded in Kabul following the Taliban’s takeover after the President ordered US troops to pull out of Afghanistan, Biden members of his national security team to discuss the situation today ahead of the address.

According to the White House, Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and other members discussed “the security situation and counterterrorism operations”.

It comes as the US military considers “creative ways” to get Americans and others into the Kabul airport for evacuation from Afghanistan amid “acute” security threats, Biden administration officials said.

The Pentagon on Sunday ordered six US commercial airlines to help move evacuees from temporary sites outside of Afghanistan.

At the one-week mark since the Taliban completed its takeover of the country, the US-directed airlift from Kabul continued today even as US officials expressed growing concern about the threat from the Islamic State group.

That worry comes on top of obstacles to that mission from the Taliban, as well as US government bureaucratic problems.

Following today’s update from the President, Afghanistan will be the chief topic of discussion when Biden and leaders of the Group of Seven industrialized nations meet virtually on Tuesday.

“The threat is real, it is acute, it is persistent and something we’re focused with every tool in our arsenal,” Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, said.

Sullivan said on CNN’s “State of the Union” that 3,900 people had been airlifted out of Kabul on US military flights over the past 24 hours.

A US defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity to provide details not yet made public, said those people were flown on a total of 23 flights — 14 by C-17 transports and nine aboard C-130 cargo planes.

That represents an increase from 1,600 flown out aboard U.S. military planes in the previous 24 hours, but remains far below the 5,000 to 9,000 that the military says it has the capacity to airlift daily.

Sullivan also said about 3,900 people were airlifted on non-US military flights over the past 24 hours.

The Biden administration has given no firm estimate of the number of Americans seeking to leave Afghanistan. Some have put the total between 10,000 and 15.000. Sullivan on Sunday put it at “several thousand.”

Speaking on ABC’s “This Week,” Austin said that as Biden’s August 31 deadline for ending the evacuation operation approaches, he will recommend whether to give it more time.

Tens of thousands of Americans and others have yet to be flown out of the country.

In a notice Sunday, the State Department urged people seeking to leave Afghanistan as part of an organized private evacuation effort not come to the Kabul airport “until you have received specific instructions” to do so from the US Embassy’s flight organizer.

The notice said that others, including American citizens, who have received specific instructions from the embassy to make their way to the airport should do so.

Austin said the airlift would continue for as long as possible.

“We’re gonna try our very best to get everybody, every American citizen who wants to get out, out,” Austin said in the interview with ABC, which aired Sunday but was taped Saturday.

“And we’ve got — we continue to look at different ways to — in creative ways — to reach out and contact American citizens and help them get into the airfield.”

He later said this included non-Americans who qualify for evacuation, including Afghans who have applied for Special Immigrant Visas.

Austin noted that the US military on Thursday had used helicopters to move 169 Americans into the airport from the grounds of a nearby hotel in the capital.

AlamyThe Taliban seized control of Afghanistan this month as US troops withdraw[/caption]

APThousands of American and Afghan refugees remain stranded in Kabul[/caption]