this next chapter in afghanistan. clarissa, you re talking about the taliban and their intentions. i was very interested in something you said earlier, which is that as of now, the taliban only too happy to have the united states, the u.s. troop presence at the airport in kabul about have the u.s. running these evacuations. what s going on with that? reporter: well, let me caveat that by saying they want the u.s. to leave as soon as possible, and they believe that the fastest way to get the u.s. out of here is for the u.s. to evacuate its people as soon as possible. so, as long as the u.s. is solely engaged in evacuating people from the airport, i am guessing, and it s speculation, that some kind of a deal has been struck behind the scenes whereby the two sides sort of avoid each other until that process is done and the 6,000 troops can leave again. the problem is, john and brianna, as you can well imagine, when you have 6,000 u.s. soldiers and i m sure
the flights. they ll have to bring in not only military transport but commercial and contract air lift to get everyone out. they ll need a secure airport, a clear ramp and then a way to bring people to kabul airport even approximate that means using u.s. ground forces to hold those roots through the city. do you see that happening, robin? because i have spoken with the pentagon official, we spoke with the white house on this show, and there appears to be no plan to put u.s. forces in that position, where they would be essentially on the same streets as the taliban. the biden administration clearly wants to limit its military presence. and its military mission. the fact is that the united states is getting out. that was the signal with the closure of the embassy and the evacuation of all american diplomats. i think the focus will be just on the airport and try to limit it to the evacuation. the question is, is there a time limit of how long the u.s. is
all right. i think we reporter: between the taliban side and the u.s. unfortunately, i think we lost our signal with clarissa ward. we ll be trying to re-establish that and check in with her. she s certainly our eyes and ears on the ground. i think that s an equipment issue. yes. i know everyone watching right now is concerned, frankly, about colllarissa and the safetf her team. that, i have reason to believe, was the equipment, the battery going funky right there. we re sure that clarissa and her team will be as safe as she the can be right now and will continue to be. i think i heard her say i lost you. u.s. troops try to clear the afghans at the airport who flooded the air field there,
well, i think there is a reasonable debate over do we stay or do we leave? the president decided that we would leave but the scenes we see today suggest that we believed intelligence estimates that were most likely estimates. and we didn t plan against the worst case estimates. and some of the worst case estimates are actually playing out as we watch. didn t plan for the worst case estimates. made the wrong bet. now that they re paying the consequences for that wrong bet, how secure do you think the airport can be over the coming days, weeks maybe at the outset? the u.s. wants brianna has some reporting that the u.s. wants to evacuate as many as 30,000 people by august 31st. can that happen based on the situation there? the first step is what we see happening right now. and that is suspend the flights. secure the perimeter of the airport. airports have large perimeters.
the airport. exactly. there s no way to get these afghans who desperately need to get out to get to the airport so there s even a chance of them getting out. kylie atwood, thank you for your reporting. national security analyst rebecca grant and new yorker columnist and distinguished fellow robin wright with us. to you first, rebecca. let s deal with there s a blame game that s being played. let s deal first with the people who are being trapped? this is the acute situation here. you have americans, afghan a allies, highly skilled and educated afghans who are particularly vulnerable to taliban reprisal. they may be eligible for p-1, p-2 visas. what happens to them if they are holed up in kabul? this may be as many as 60,000 people who are being told to shelter in place. job one is for the military to clear the ramp at kabul s international airport and resume