and how the afghan president fled the country. certainly there was expectation that the taliban would surge but as noted the surprise here was just how quickly it happened. ann we reported earlier today, expecting to hear from the president likely today or tomorrow about this. have you got a sense in your reporting, what is his public message going to be? more of what we heard from the weekend about how this is still the right thing to do? how the additional troops sent are there to make sure that american personnel get out of the country? do we expect any slight tact at all in terms of strategy or tone from the president as afghanistan seems to devolve by the hour. i can tell you the president is getting a lot of pressure to say something and do so fairly quickly. while there is really little to no chance that the strategy itself would change that the way the president talked about it
the taliban s nearly complete takeover of afghanistan. the president has been watching events unfold from camp david, where he is receiving regular briefings and holding conference calls with members of his national security team. the a.p. notes that the next several days could be critical in determining whether the u.s. is able to regain some level of control over the situation. let s bring in white house reporter for the washington post, ann gearan, also an msnbc contributor. ann, changing course i ve been told many times in the past hour would be disastrous, but what s more disastrous than what is happening right now? mika, it s hard to really imagine a more disastrous couple of days in terms of images and the potential that those images have to undermine the message that the president has been trying to send about afghanistan
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washington post reporter ann gearan says trump has made it clear trump sees little reason to remain there. the president sees this as kind of a pointless exercise. he recently referred to the role of the u.s. military in afghanistan as policemen building gas stations. in addition to all that, trump will now face the prospect of the house intelligence committee taking a more active role in the impeachment effort. the investigation. this as his former campaign manager corey lewandowski testifies before the house judiciary committee next month. and here s a bellwether that will get the attention of the president s political party, perhaps even the majority leader of the senate. republican senator susan collins of maine may be more vulnerable than first thought in defending her seat in 2020. the cook political report has shifted her seat from lean republican to officially a toss-up now. and on that note, with us for
our leadoff discussion on this friday night, susan page, washington bureau chief for usa today. she also happens to be the author of the matriarch: barbara bush and the making of an american dynasty. jonathan lemire, and jonathan allen, a veteran political reporter who happens to be our nbc news national political reporter. good evening and welcome to you all. susan, i d like to begin with you. where the shattering of norms are concerned, how big a week have we just witnessed, remembering this is summer vacation for the president? you know, i actually think the controversy over israel denying entry to two american members of congress at the urging of the president was shocking. even in 2 1/2 years of things we say break the norms, this is one i think crosses a new line, for