by previous congresses and previous presidents and parties, we have to pay for it. raising the debt limit is usually a bipartisan undertaking, and it should be. that s what is in the happening today. we will have more on the president in just a moment, but with our panel, but i want to first bring in the anchor of this hour, nbc chief foreign affairs correspondent, andrea mitchell. it s great to see you. you are in paris ahead of secretary blinken s arrival there for some critical meetings. what s the latest there? reporter: thank you, jeff. we re expecting secretary blinken to arrive in just a few hours here. this hour i ll be talking to france s ambassador to the united states about the importance of this trip after, as you know, both the public fallout between president macron and president biden over macron s complaint that the u.s. secretly cut a huge submarine deal, a big weapons project with australia, that the french
it s not a default that the president would see the secretary of state. although, blinken did meet with macron on his last visit. i think if there is a meeting, it would be perceived as a clear sign the french are signaling we can move past this. if not, i think the french is holding out. i think they want concessions. they want some kind of payback for the harm they say they ve suffered. to some degree, they might be trying to leverage more out of the administration. we ll see what blinking is willing to give on this trip. my thanks to you, michael. great reporting. great reporting on tony blinken s childhood in france and david ignatius, of course on the cia and what they have done to get their allies and to get the folks out has been just really heroic. and ann, it s always great to see you. here i am in paris without you guys, but hopefully we ll all be on a trip soon and we re going to be back in a moment with more
years, and not only have you been in the room, but when the republicans were on the hook during the trump years, what did democrats do? they were like, oh, okay, we ll help you out. we ll make it easier for you to raise the debt ceiling and agree. now the script is flipped and mcconnell s like, oh, we ain t doing nothing. i saw you all. you got to do it yourself. the politics here is what mcconnell s always about. he s no interested so much in the policy or the outcome on the policy side, it s how the politics will drive whatever policy narrative they want to create for 2022. yeah. well on the topic of narratives and messaging, jeff mason i was struck to hear the president when he got some questions about his infrastructure plan and the social spending plan, he was asked questions about the process and the president tried to pivot and talk about the substance. the substance of what s actually in that legislation and the ways in which it would show up in people s lives if democrats ar
happen. and david ignatius, the cia has played a very important role. of course, in afghanistan. now that we don t have, quote, boots on the ground, what about the final days and the way the cia has you ve been writing about try to take care of their allies? from early on, created a force of afghans who were known as the counterterrorist and per suit teams which operated in remote areas in the east and south of afghanistan, chasing the remnants of al qaeda, and deep bonds developed through those relationships. and the cia was very proud that it managed during these chaotic months following president biden s decision in april to get out of afghanistan, to get all more than 20,000 of the
ambassador, president macron has talked about withdrawing from nato s integrated military command structure, which it rejoined in 2009. this would be an extreme step, wouldn t it? what can the u.s. do to help encourage european allies to make sure that france stays in the nato command? it is not this issue which is on the table. we have decided and i will answer you directly. we have decided at the last nato summit to redefine a strategy concept for nato. so the answer is very clear to your question, andrea. we must succeed this of a new concept for nato and for us this rebalancing with more responsibilities for the europeans was a stronger partnership between eu and nato is really an important goal, which we contribute to more