strike. he said, i guarantee you have we checks and balances, and i guarantee you these processes are very good.ar there s not going to be an accidental firing of nuclear weapons. there s also important news tonight about the ongoing story of our time, the pandemic. what was supposed to be our summer of recovery now appears in someow places to be turning intoes a race to get ahead of t surge in new cases.ur this is being fueled by the rapidly spreading delta variant, which the cdc says is now 58% of new infections. nearly state is affected, and hospitalizations and deaths are rising with a it across the country. scientists say this latest spread is largely among the unvaccinated. each week, fewer and fewer americans have been getting the shots. the new york times highlights the twoti americas, those vaccinated and those who are not. a
they re doing. but at the pace that the vaccinations are going at right now, it s going to take a number of weeks to get to that 70% goal that the president wanted by july 4th. and even once you get to 70%, obviously, public health experts say that s not a stopping point. you can t end there. that will still leave millions of americans unprotected. they ve thrown the kitchen sink at efforts you can try to deploy. they ve called june the month of action. they had the free beer, free child care, paid time off, the lotteries. they keep going down the line. there s a pop singer at the white house today trying to incentivize people. and week after week, you see the numbers going down and down. i know a lot of public health experts are trying to talk about more of a stick approach like mandates, the frightening m-word that no one want to hear.
among the american people. so i think the decision was politically the only one they could make. but we need to be ruthlessly objective in understanding the consequences. u.s. combat forces are already out. u.s. air power, intelligence, special operations, are no longer engaged. we re not going to be able to send money to a corrupt central regime in afghanistan in the coming year. there will be no americans to monitor, it will be going right in somebody s pocket. it looks like the taliban, they re claiming to control 85% of the country, i think it s more likely around half the districts are under their control. it s going to be a sad outcome. millions of people will be fleeing to the adjoining nation-states. it s not 2,500 interpreters, it s tens of thousands of afghans that cast their lot with
the white house is now focused not just on getting people to get the vaccine, but at the same time on fighting rampant disinformation. all of us, social media companies, platforms, where a lot of this misinformation ti travels, the media, state and local officials, it s important for everybody to step up and spread the word about the vaccines. the pushback against disinformation, information that is, you know, literally a matter of life and death, is something that is going to be a continued focus of this administration. now the administration says that it will lay out more details of the plan tomorrow. earlier today, the emphasis was on convincing younger americans to get vaccinated. when olivia rodrigo visited the president and dr. fauci. saying getting the message to adults and young people will be the key to stopping the virus. unless you have all of the
there he is. just hours ago with his defense secretary leon panetta by his side. they announced a sweeping plan to scale background forces and to shift more resources both to air and to sea. you said this strategy, 4,000 u.s. troops would be recalled from europe and then within the next five years, there will be at least 47,000 fewer troops serving. that level of troop reduction, while it is not specifically spelled out under the strategy, would probably end america s ability to fight two ground wars at once. this is all happening to give you a little context here, because the pentagon plans to slash half a trillion in spending over the course of the next ten years. president obama said today, vowing that all these cuts will not leave americans unprotected. we can t afford to repeat the mistakes that have been made in the past. after world war ii, after vietnam, when our military was left ill prepared for the future. as commander-in-chief, i will not let that happen again. not on my