whole reason they re pulling out, which is the afghan army is incompetent on the one hand, and the bet that that very same army will hold the line long enough for an evacuation to occur, both of those people we were just talking about were afghan citizens and the american citizens. and that just doesn t square. it doesn t make any sense. and they are now living with the disastrous consequences of that imminently foreseeable problem. indeed, if they really believed the afghan army was so bad, why did they entrust it to protect the retreat and put the lives of american citizens and sivs in that same force s hands? chris: dana, it seems to me that we learned a lot about joe biden this week, that for all of the talk about his empathy, that in fact he has made a pretty cold calculation that, for instance, the plight of afghan
that ultimately they re going to be looking at judging him by the success of getting our american citizens, everyone that wants to leave, out, as well as those who we made commitments to and promises who supported and helped save lives of american citizens, whether it be translators, working for ngos and those we can t leave behind because they know they would with focused for retaliation by the taliban. so we got to do that and do it well. you know, something like the air lift that happened in berlin. what the president said doesn t square with what happened on the ground yesterday. people are lacking confidence. i want to ask you about just the imagery of this. you know, i m watching this and i wonder how this looks on the world stage, that the united states military is asking permission from this terrorist organization, the taliban, to evacuate allies and american citizens safely.
scott. npr. thank you, mister president. i wanted to follow-up on something you said a moment go. you said there are no circumstances in which american citizens can t get to the airport, it doesn t square with the images were seeing around the airport with the reporting on the ground for my colleagues that are describing chaos in violence. are you saying that any america that wants to get to the airpor is getting there in is getting past the security barrier into the plains where they want to go ? he get the question was how can they get through to the airport from outside the airport. the answer is, to the best of our knowledge, the taliban checkpoints, they are leading through people showing american passports. now, that is a different question when they get in the rush in the crowd of all of the folks just outside the wall nea the airport. that is why we had to guess it was yesterday or the day before we went over the wall and
ambassador crockerings thanks so much for joining us. you heard what the president said tonight to abc, that chaos ensuing was unavoidable. doesn t square with past statements that he made about a safe and orderly withdrawal. but i am wondering what you made of what the president said? the president s comments, anderson, not just this this evening but going back several days now are are deeply disappointing, to say the least. he seems to be blaming everything that s happened on everybody but him starting with the afghan national security forces. belittling the fight they have put up for for months and years now. the 70,000 dead for their country. deserve a little bit better than they are getting from the president. the irony here, of course, is listening to clarissa s reporting, that this may be the good moment. there may be worse to come because who are the afghans
houston doing what s necessary to protect the residents of those areas. to that point, governor abbott is seeking legal action to uphold his anti-mask mandates saying any school district, public university, or local government official who decides to defy the order will be taken to court. this is the state of texas versus everyone else. so i take your point about this being reprehensible. it also to me doesn t square with the supposed conservative principle of small government, of trusting local elected officials to decide what is in the best interests of their communities, to say nothing of going against the sort of free market idea, right? the fact that you have him talking on restaurants that want to have mask mandated. it all just doesn t square. look, what it reflects is not only a campaign against vaccinations and coronavirus restrictions on conservative media that have radicalized a certain portion of the republican electorate against public health measures, but it also refl