department denied that the biden administration was preventing planes from leaving. as commercial planes start landing again in kabul airport, americans engaged in rescue efforts claim the state department is the only thing preventing the flights from leaving afghanistan, one of them saying this is displeer rove place to be zero place to be negotiating with american lives, those are people on the tar a t. all it takes is a phone call. if one life is lost from this, the blood is on america s hands. if this is a hostage situation, it changed the game completely and of course it will bring into question president biden decision to trust the taliban with the safe evacuation of americans. benjamin and ashley. jillian: thank you, benjamin. congresswoman nancy mace slamming democrats for voting against her amendment to find out what u.s. weaponry was left behind in afghanistan. rather than debate it, they ruled it out of order.
as president biden updates the nation on afghanistan, he is facing an avalanche of criticism for his handling of the crisis, still the president insists history will judge his decision was the right one. here s abc s white house correspondent maryalice parks. reporter: with president biden under fire, the white house tonight releasing this photo. the president huddling with his national security team again after canceling his trip home to delaware at the last minute. late today coming before the cameras insisting the chaos the world is watching was unavoidable. i think that history is going to record this was the logical, rational and right decision to make. reporter: as the white house rushes to finalize plans with thousands of americans and afghan partners yet to be rescued, the president is resolute that it was the time for u.s. forces to leave afghanistan ending america s longest war. the evacuation of thousands of people from kabul is going to be hard and painful no matter
there s no way to evacuate this many people without pain and loss of heartbreaking images you see on television. it s just a fact. reporter: but republicans adamant afghanistan could now become the same haven for terrorists it was on 9/11. our mission in afghanistan was to deny terrorists sanctuary and the biden decision now to completely withdraw has handed them an entire country. maryalice parks joins us from the white house now. maryalice, how is the white house responding to congresswoman cheney saying the president s move makes america less safe? reporter: well, secretary blinken said today that al qaeda s capability in afghanistan has been vastly diminished and that if the group were to reconstitute itself there, the u.s. government would be able to see that. but after this last week, you can imagine the administration is going to face much more skepticism about their intelligence inside afghanistan. linsey. maryalice, thank you. now to the pandemic. a landmark decisi
the national security adviser did say, if the president gets advice that more resources are needed to get americans out, then he would be open to that. given the situation, should that be the next course of action? we have to ensure that we get every american out. and we have to ensure that we get out the afghans who helped us. that s our duty. that s our responsibility. as you pointed out, chuck, what you re watching unfold on the ground is a complete catastrophe. to hear the national security adviser say, well, it s a little complexity, a little turbulence, or that this is a civil war is fundamentally at odds with reality. our mission in afghanistan was to deny terrorists a sanctuary. the biden decision now to completely withdraw has handed them an entire country, has, in fact, ensured, not just the taliban, but al qaeda, isis, the haqqani network, terrorist organizations that want to attack the united states now have an entire country as a sanctuary from which to do so. is the t
they re approved. general mccaffrey, let s talk about the criticism, though, because i don t think that they can really wait for those after-action reports. there are going to be hearings as early as this week and a classified briefing for house members tonight. yesterday on meet the press, we heard from congresswoman liz cheney about what could happen next on the terror front. look, the biden decision to completely withdraw has handed them an entire country, has in fact ensured not just the taliban, but al qaeda, isis, the network, terrorist organizations that want to attack the united states now have an entire country as a sanctuary from which to do so. so, general, this is the central mission, initially, after 9/11 to go in and make sure that afghanistan could never become a haven for terrorists. the white house has been saying how al qaeda has been designated, but there are links to al qaeda throughout afghanistan, we re told, and they claim they can do this from