the attack will probably not have that same stream of information available when we re completely out of afghanistan. the president had promised quote, a swift and forceful response to any attack on u.s. forces. it s one thing to say that. it s another thing to actually make that happen. so this is this is that escalating series of decisions that a president has to make. there s no good answer to this. but i think if the president does not respond where he can, if the president does not follow through on the commitment even though this is going to slow up the evacuation to get every american out, and the promises we have made to our afghan partners, the view of us not responding after this attack and then fleeing from the kabul airport i think will do a lot to embolden those that now have an easy way to go out and recruit other radicals to fight the
able to do more on intelligence. partly it depends on what the taliban reaction is through official channels with the taliban and ultimately it comes down to the president of the united states. is he going to stay with it and try to get every last american out or is he going to come back? you can create all kinds of frightening scenarios based on this, more attacks, mortars, rockets, you name it. all of that could happen. you could also imagine that we could respond to most of that. so not necessarily just with the troops on the ground. so we re in a dynamic hour-by-hour situation here. i think the first thing that you would do is you would talk to the commander on the ground and say, what do you need. and if he needs something more, you get it to him because the mission is to get every american out, that s what the president said, and i think that s what he is going to do, but we ll see. david sanger, do we have reporting on which way the president is inclined to go?
that nbc news reported, hearing from intelligence agencies, the cia, department of defense, and that is this moral obligation to get out not just every last american but to all the afghans who for the last 20 years, the last two decades put their lives on the line, as interpreters, who fought shoulder to shoulder with americans in this war to protect the united states, to get them out too so as you look at the clock ticking with six days left, is it realistic to think you re going to get every american out, which is a challenge itself, but all those afghan partners as well? i think it s unrealistic, willie, i hate to say that. i resonate entirely to the moral sway argument, like every afghan veteran i have worked closely with, afghanis as interpreters, and high level officials. i wish and want every one of
speech five hours and then rather than talking about afghanistan, he talks about the win in the house on this reconciliation bill but as it turns out, that s probably what he has been working on all week long. it s not afghanistan. i have got a pretty good idea he is probably leaning on democrats trying to get them to vote for this wing. that s exactly right, steve. in fact, i think what was the most disgraceful thing about this week, in addition to the president of the united states cowering to a terrorist organization, the taliban, going off of their timeline instead of saying we are getting every single american out. there are thousands of americans that president biden stranded behind enemy lines and instead of spending every minute, working to get them out, he put a shot clock on them saying there is only seven days left to get all americans out. he was wasting precious time this week burning the phones up. pressuring democrats to vote for a $5 trillion spending bill and tax bil
down on the idea that the president has which is whenever we pulled up stakes, it would be chaotic. my responsibility as a member of congress and member of armed services, foreign affairs, my mission is oversight, to ask the right questions and make sure we get answers on behalf of the american people. this definitely does not look as though it was executed optimally. it looks as though lessons to be learned and need to be unpacking those, potentially parallel to us bringing people out. i think it is important there are lessons to learned from 20 years we have been there, lessons from the last two weeks, last two days, last two hours, and all of the questions can be answered while we maintain the mission of a safe and orderly evacuation out of afghanistan. what do you want to hear from the president today. sounds like you would like to hear him keep that resolve about getting every american out, regardless what the calendar says. absolutely.