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out and so the president says tomorrow he ll explain why he didn t want to stay in afghanistan further. it something we heard from democratic lawmakers that believe the united states should have stayed there longer and the president says he ll explain that he had an agreement from the commanders on the ground and from the joint chiefs that it was right to end this mission on august 31st. but erin, one question that the president will also face tomorrow is something related to what he said recently. in an interview with abc news he said u.s. troops would remain on the ground until every single american who wanted to leave afghanistan had left afghanistan and what we just heard from the secretary of state there is that not every american who wants to leave has left. he said he believe there is are between 100 and 200 americans still there. he thinks that number is closer to 100 and he talked about the efforts they took to get americans out of there, to assist them but the bottom line is
tonight, a withdrawal from afghanistan marched by tragedy and chaos, destruction of louisiana after the state is pummeled by one of the strongest hurricanes ever seen. grim warnings of possibly another 100,000 americans dead in the next four months as covid cases surge across the country. remember when we first hit 100,000 deaths, right, the new york times headline was an unimaginable death toll. another four months another 100,000 and north korea appearing to restart a nuclear reactor. these are things happening now with president biden being tested on every front and pushing his white house to the limit. outfront now matthew doud, the former chief strategist to the bush cheney 2004 presidential campaign and author, as well. so matt, he is being tested on every single front and it is tragic and challenging to national security and americans
the day. what do you think he should say? i think she should say that we re facing trying times and we ll continue to face trying times in all of these things, prove out that he s aware of it unlike some previous presidents that didn t seem aware of when circumstances were going on and i can think of what happened with katrina, he s he s engaged and he has the right people in place. that s what he needs to say and prove out. fwu again, erin, it s be going to be so much in what he says. it s going to be proved out in what he does and how he responds to all these crises that face the nation at this one moment. matthew dowd, thanks for your insight. thanks, erin. next, the story we ve been following of one afghan interpreter s attempt to leave afghanistan. tonight you re actually going to see it. you re going to see his family s dangerous trek to the united states. that s next. and now only t-mobile gives new and existing customers one year of apple tv+ on us.
than 116,000 people, 123,000 according to the latest numbers the secretary of state just shared happening in two weeks coming to a close. secretary blinken say laid out the plans what america will do next, including diplomatic relations with the taliban. we re following this story tonight from the state department and also from the white house. we want to start with alex marq marquardt. kaitlan collins is also with us. it s a monumental day. one minute before the stroke of midnight in afghanistan, that last u.s. military plane took off. it did, erin. 3:29 eastern time, 11:59 kabul time and the day before this u.s. deadline was reached. erin, when we see secretary blinken, we re reminded he s the most senior biden administration official to speak and that is to make clear that now they see this when they look at afghanistan, they see it as a