we re at this juncture now. the taliban regaining control of a country of afghanistan. the taliban fighters are taking over the capitol city of kabul and new images of them doing so in the presidential palace. the u.s. embassy has been evacuated. the american flag on the building intentionally taken down at the direction of americans. julian zeletzer is a cnn political analyst and historian and professor at prince ton and tim neftali. julian, you first. once the u.s. announced withdrawal, was this day inevitable? that s what we re going to learn. many people will think and agree this was an unwinnable war and that this situation has been deteriorating over many presidencies. the second question will be was the withdrawal done the best way possible, and i think it s too
early to tell. i think we re going to see what happens in the next few months, frankly, and sort out the decision making in the biden administration. it s a political question that will confront biden in the months ahead. tim, we re hearing comparisons of this moment, what we re seeing in kabul, to the fall of saigon. the iconic image of people fleeing the u.s. embassy by helicopter as the city fell. took a look at these side by side images. here s what secretary of state tony blinken said about that on cnn earlier today. president biden is intent on avoiding a saigon moment, that s a reference, of course, to the hasty and humiliating u.s. evacuation from vietnam, but with this troop surge to air lift americans out of afghanistan, aren t we already in the midst of a saigon moment? no, we re not. this is not saigon. we went to afghanistan 20 years
biden is preparing intensely with aides and allies for his face-to-face meeting with vladimir putin. joining me to discuss the importance of this summit as well as the pitfalls that some of his predecessors faced when meeting with the russian leader, cnn presidential historian tim neftali. glad to have you on. good to be with you. so no big breakthroughs are expected here. they re not going to sign a big agreement. the message will be different from biden compared with trump. there will be no helsinki moment here. he will not take putin s word over the word of u.s. intelligence agencies. is that important enough? right? is that an accomplishment enough for a summit to justify a summit like this? well, the best summits with russians are those that are preplanned. when you know in advance what your objectives are, when you have some understanding this is work done at the lower level, either by the secretary of state or his team with the russians
destabilize two of our elections. putin just recently injected poison into our political space in the way he talked about january 6th as a legitimate act of political dissent. the key here is to make clear that we are going to defend our interests. one of the areas where we could cooperate is very transactional. there are two americans being held by the russians. we could trade for them. one of those americans, trevor reed, has covid. there are ways that you can trade with adversaries without undermining your national security. that might be an opportunity. but beyond that, let s not expect too much. the russians have decided to seek chaos in our country, and until they change their objectives, i don t see a basis for a good, trustworthy relationship. sometimes recognizing reality is first step. tim, thank you so much. thank you, jim. we ll be right back. at carvana, we treat every customer
reporter: cnn put this to tsa administrator. he says the agency is not prioritizing wait times over security. i won t discuss any of our particular procedures. rest assured we provide the level of security that we think is appropriate based on the risk of the passenger. reporter: the issues he s raised are especially probl problematic for an agency with 95% failure rate for checking dangerous items at the check point. another audit two years later found there were still vulnerabilities. when you sit back and watch these things happen, it s the most frustrating thing you could happen. there s a substantial likelihood the information provided to osc has gross mismanagement to public safety. my biggest fear is costs that american live and i didn t step