Psaki dodges questions about Biden pressing Afghan president to change 'perception' of Taliban dominance

White House press secretary Jen Psaki on Wednesday dodged a question about a new report that claims President Biden stressed the need for changing the "perception" of the Taliban’s advancement in Afghanistan, "whether it is true or not," during a phone call with former Afghan President Ashraf Ghani less than four weeks before Kabul collapsed.

"Well, I'm not going to get into private, diplomatic conversations or leaked transcripts of phone calls," she said. "But what I can reiterate for you is that we have stated many times that no one anticipated … that the Taliban would be able to take over the country as quickly as they did or that the Afghan National Security Forces would fold as quickly as they did."  "So even the content of the reporting is consistent with what we’ve said many times publicly," she continued. "I’ll also note something the president said in his press conference around the same time of this reported phone call: The Afghan government and leadership has to come together. They clearly have the capacity to sustain the government in place. The question is, will they generate the kind of cohesion to do it."