joining us now, chief forcorrespondent richard engel from doha, qatar. what s your sense on how many people want to get out remain at the airport trying to leave the country? reporter: this has been a violent race to the exit. and it is getting more and more dangerous, more and more chaotic in this last phase, we are less than 24 hours to go. this morning there was a rocket attack on the air base, blamed on isis. the u.s. is coordinating with with the taliban, trying to prevent isis from disrupting this process. the u.s. has conducted now two strikes against isis, including one in kabul. and the taliban are saying that the missed its target and hit and killed a family. so as these evacuations, as
kabul. the main job now is to get them out safely. and yet, overlying that is the president s strong belief, as we reported over and over and over again, that he s made the right decision, the correct decision to end this war after 20 long years. there s going to be, we all know there s going to be incredible numbers of autopsies done, forensic autopsies done on the decisions that led up to what happened over the past two weeks. could it have been done better? i think everyone in the white house, the pentagon would agree yes, it could have been done better. why wasn t it done better? we have to find out. they ll sit down in congress and in the white house and find out why it happened, what happened, and why there was chaos starting with this departure.
themselves to be quite the cruel task master they were in the 90s. so maybe they can live under taliban rule or maybe go and get on a plane at a taliban-controlled airport in kabul and fly out after the u.s. has completely evacuated. after that august 31st deadline. that s a possibility maybe. we ve also heard some other things that maybe turkey and qatar might come together and create some kind of international institution that would then have governance over the airport, shared governance with the taliban. all of those discussions unclear where they re going whether or not that would be successful, whether the taliban would agree to allow third or fourth countries to take control or have a stake in the management of the airport going forward. a lot of plans out there right now but it s hard to say, know what s going to happen after that date, tomorrow, august 31st, that deadline. and hope is all many of them
hold up their end of the bargain but wouldn t bank on it. for those who have gotten out, in places like qatar where you are and other third party countries, what happens now to those americans but also those afghans who haven t been able to get out of kabul, get out of their country. what sort of process do they go through now? what s next for them? where could they go? i wish i had an answer to that. i m getting asked that from afghans all around the world. you have a desperate community of people brought out and many of them are in a kind of a legal limbo, they re going to third countries, the balkans are taking quite a few. many want to end up in the united states or europe. but they might end up on u.s. air bases for some time. there are no real, clear answers on where these people are going
have. after nearly 20 years in afghanistan, less than 24 hours left in afghanistan. matt, thanks so much. president biden and first lady biden honored the fallen during a dignified transfer yesterday at dover air force base in delaware. the remains of the 13 service members killed on thursday in that attack at kabul airport were returned to gold star families, 11 marines, a navy medic and an army soldier. let s bring in nbc correspondent mike memoli. this is the most solemn duty a president can perform as commander in chief, something he performed as vice president about five years ago. this is a difficult set of days for the white house. it s hard to think of, in recent memory in a four-year presidential term, convergence of crisis what the biden administration is facing now. you started the show with the hurricane bearing down on one of