The White House was put on blast after sharing a photo on Wednesday of President Joe Biden meeting with special forces members during his visit to Israel.
The caption on the photo stated that Biden “met with first responders to thank them for their bravery and the work they’re doing in response to the Hamas terrorist attacks.”
The photo—which has since been deleted—did not blur or censor the faces of the operators, prompting one critic to dub it “a massive failure on the Biden admin.”
“The Whitehouse media team shared this picture last night (I added the black boxes) without blurring or censoring the faces of the “Delta Force” (CAG) operator’s faces,” the X user explained. “They deleted it an hour later after hundreds of thousands had already viewed it.”
“Gross incompetence,” echoed Rep. Diana Harshbarger (R-Tenn.).
“Team Biden exposed our operators last night,” said conservative commentator Katie Pavlich.
Fox News contributor Sara Carter wondered if “the White House [is] really this stupid or are they just trying to get people targeted.”
“These operators are required to maintain a level of discretion that this administration has completely disregarded,” Carter added. “I would know, my husband is a retired operator. They are elite-trained fighters and something as simple as facial ID recognition is putting them in direct threat by adversaries. How did this happen White House?”
Other social media users reacted to the post, saying things like “the amateurs are back in charge,” “idiots,” and “solid proof that Joe Biden is a national security threat.”
While there are key national security reasons why special forces troops would want to avoid having identifiable images circulated, Biden’s team is not the only one to make that mistake.
In 2018, Trump came under fire for appearing to reveal the identities and location of a covert U.S. Navy SEAL team deployed in Iraq.
“Revealing [identities] casually, through an unusual media exposure even if it’s the commander in chief, would prove a propaganda boom if any of this personnel are detained by a hostile government or captured by a terrorist group,” Malcolm Nance, a former U.S. Navy intelligence specialist told Newsweek at the time of Trump’s tweet. “There would be no denying who you are and what you do.”
Biden has also previously been criticized for allegations that he revealed the identities of the SEAL Team 6 members responsible for Osama bin Laden’s death. However, later fact-checks found that Biden did not disclose their names.
