accessible temporary lodging is not the limiting factor to get on and finish the process and get on with their lives. the americans, general at one point said 2500 had gotten out. what is your assessment now as to the number that have gotten out of afghanistan and do you think you can get all of them out? i ll answer the second part of that. for all americans who want to leave, the state department is working very hard to contact them and we are getting them out every day. and that s not going to change. i understand the question about the specific detail. i would just tell you that several thousand. we know several thousand americans have been safe life evacuated from afghanistan. i understand it is not the degree of specificity you want but it s as far as i ll be able to go today, several thousand. to include several hundred just yesterday were able to get onto
who we can get to the airport and get them out as fast as possible. as many vulnerable afghans that we can also work towards getting. but we understand the challenges of time and space here. we are mindful of that. that s why we are trying to continue to keep up this capacity and even improve it if we can. you said you have to ability to get all americans out who want to leave, several thousand. do you have a percentage for how many americans, have more than half been removed? i can t give you that number because i don t think there is a perfect number that we know with certainty of all americans in afghanistan. there is no requirement you can t force an american, when they go to a foreign country, to tell you that they re there. we encourage them to do that. the state department has a
a word they don t like to use at the white house. irresponsible to say americans are stranded. they are not. they are committed to bringing americans who want to come home home. there are no americans stranded is the white house s official position of what is happening in afghanistan? i m calling you out for saying we are stranding americans in afghanistan. reporter: overseas vice president harris breaking her silence over the evacuation chaos alongside singapore s prime minister who knows the world is watching. there will be plenty of time to analyze what has happened. we are singularly focused on evacuating american citizens, afghans who worked with us. what will influence us resolve and commitment to the region will be what the us does going forward. reporter: harris continues her swing today in route to
answer. my guess is americans would probably think we ve been in germany, japan and south korea too long if we asked that question. you have to provide the context. in the war on terror, the idea was to try to combat the terrorists overseas so they could not successfully attack us here at home. that s the mission. it worked. and the president s reckless decision to precipitously withdraw was a clear mistake and then having no plan to execute the withdrawal was an even bigger mistake. this is a foreign policy blunder of huge proportions that is a stain on our national reputation and will be remembered for decades. bill: i think it has been 45 years since we ve been in this situation. clearly there were differences between now and 1975. what have you thought about the near and long-term damage to the united states as a result of this debacle? i think it s a lot worse
the deadline. i will miss some of these so walk me back. you are right, there has been no change to the timeline of the mission to have this completed by the end of the month. we continue to make progress every day in getting americans, as well as siv applicants and vulnerable afghans out. you heard the numbers that the general briefed just a minute ago and the vast majority of these individuals are afghans. so we remain committed to getting any and all americans that want to leave to get them out and we still believe certainly now that we have been able to increase the capacity and the flow, we believe that we have the capability, the ability to get it done by the end of the month. you asked for i think bases here in the united states was