embassy and personnel. i defer to frank mckenzie to talk about the neo planss at that time. >> general mckenzie. >> we hold a neo plan, we had a plan to bring out mainly american citizens and people associated with the embassy, planning later began to encompass the larger population, like every other plan centered on americans and their families. >> when you say the plan grew to include that, what was the timeframe? >> early spring of this year. >> so under this administration? >> yes, yes. and general milley, in your testimony yesterday you testified trump administration plan's had not been developed via robust interagency process, how closely were you consulted on president trump's plans as they were developed? >> i wasn't consultod 11 of november order that i received. that is why i went over to the white house with acting secretary miller and white house chief of staff patell, i wasn't consulted on. >> my time has expired. >> mr. waltz. >> thank you, mr. chairman, here is where i think we're talking past each other. this war is not done. it is not over. this is a war against islamic extremism, war against an ideology and just as it took decades, decades issue not 20 or 30 years, many more, defeat communism and idea of fascism, it will take decades to defeat the idea of islamic extremism. general mckenzie, you testified yesterday, al qaeda is still at war with us. do you stand by that statement? >> absolutely. >> hanees, director of national intelligence breached congress al qaeda fully intends to act again if given the chance. the head of al qaeda pledged allegiance to head of taliban, they have entire state to work with, army, air force, functioning international airport and if things continue on the path they are billions in international currency reserve. we are not done with this war, i would have thought we would have learned lesson from iraq, i would have thought mr. secretary you learned lesson from iraq wrchlt we pulled out in 2011, mr. chairman you issued statement praising that war. we found ourselves three years later with soldiers going back in. let's look at the situation, i think the american people need to understand this. here we have iraq. we pulled out. led to rise of the isis calph ate. look at the bases we had to deal with, bases in the gulf, base necessary kuwait and turkey, in jordan, in israel, allied bases in cypress. allies in the kurds. we didn't let isis take over the government and baghdad and the army and functions of the state. we had all these assets to work with, go clean up that mess and how many soldiers and lives did we lose from cleaning up that mistaken withdrawal, mr. chairman? let's transition over here to afghanistan, what do we see? we have general mckenzie, single base in afghanistan now? >> we have no base in afghanistan. >> do we have a base neighboring afghanistan? >> we do not. >> any local allies approaching capability of the kurds? >> we do not. >> northern alliance, pancheer has been taken and being slaughtered now as we speak with our weapons, with our dam equipment, our allies are being slaughtered. every morning we wake up to beheading videos, to executions, to people being hunted down with our own database. when, and if, you have to present options to the president, how many soldiers are we going to lose because we have no allies on the ground, no bases in the region. we'll get to the crux of the issue, which is over the horizon counter terrorism. those drones have to fly all the way around iran and up pakistan and lose 70 to 80% of fuel before they even get anywhere near a target. we just saw from the failed attack the botched attack that you have to have multi intelligence confirming what that drone operator is seeing. i've called it in and i know that drone operator would appreciate somebody on the ground saying no, that is a civilian, don't pull the trigger. i appreciate your candor saying how difficult this is going to be, the president of the united states is selling this country fiction we can do over here with nothing what we're doing over here with neighboring base access, with allies on the ground and with ocean access. that is function you need to own and be honest with the american people. i am just livid at the fact of the future americans that are going to have to go back to clean up this mess we are watch thanksgiving horror movie that representative slotkin experienced, we all experienced after iraq. the president continues to say, well, we can do what we do in somalia and syria. mr. secretary just briefed about a strike in syria. we have more capability there. one more question. do we have any evidence, intelligence or otherwise of pakistani troops on the ground? officers, air support assisting taliban or command and control assisting the permissive? >> i will answer that in closed session. >> i take that as a yes. and mr. chairman -- >> your time is expired. >> that will not go to civil war, it will go to regional war. >> for the record, we will not put words in the mouths of our witnesses, you can't take it as yes if it was not a yes. mrs. escobar is recognized. >> thank you for your leadership, patriotism and service to our country. i'm very grateful for it. i am privileged to represent fort bliss, i represent el paso, texas and fort bliss is offering hospitality to 10,000 afghan guests and i want to say to the service members how proud i am of the work they are doing to offer that hospitality, i had the privilege to tour the donya village with north comcommander van hurt, got to speak to service members, moral is high. i could not be prouder of what they are doing. had opportunity to speak to the afghan guests, as well, and get a sense how they are doing. we know the dye was cast with the doha agreement, agreement former president trump entered with the taliban and the taliban alone. we have learned that agreement, it was that agreement that demoralized the afghan army and the taliban moved in and began making deals with them, which expedited their control. we know that that demoralization contributed to rabid fall of afghanistan, which shocked us all. general milley, earlier you told us that when former president trump entered into the doha agreement, there was a setting out a very specific conditions that were to be met by the time of the may 1st drawdown, is that correct? >> that is correct. >> general milley, how many of those conditions had been met when former president trump then announced he wanted to speedup the withdrawal from may 1 to january 15th, 2020? >> only one condition was met. that was the condition that asked that the taliban committed to not striking against u.s. forces or coalition forces, which they did not do. >> when president, then president trump announced expedited drawdown, was he aware that four of the five conditions had not been met? >> i believe, yes. >> do you know the significance, if there is any, of the january 15th expedited drawdown date? >> i don't. i handed a piece of paper and went over and spoke to folks in the white house and it was rescinded, don't know why that date was picked. >> was that announcement of expedited withdrawal added to or exacerbated the demoralized nation of the afghan army? >> the 11 november order was not announced, but the drawdown to 2500 was. i don't know if we have detailed reporting, but i think and believe and will do aar's, that was wop of many contributing factors, not the only one to declinician of the moral of the afghan security forces. >> thank you, general milley. you also described outcome of this withdrawal as strategic failure. what would have been considered success for the -- administration involved in this conflict for two decades and what it would have taken for us to get to success? >> i think and my opinion was and -- that success would have been a negotiated solution between the government of afghanistan and taliban for power-sharing arrange nment their government and end to the civil war in that manner. i also assess probability of that actually happening was low, but i did think there was a possibility and it wasn't zero. negotiated solution was probably the best way to describe a proper end to this war. i don't think there was a military solution by us to destroy, defeat the taliban. i think that was not in the cards. i didn't think at the time if we sustained a level of effort in afghanistan with our military, 2500 or 3500, in those ranges, i didn't think the taliban could defeat the afghan security forces. that was my assessment at the time and i thought success meant negotiated settlement between the government and taliban and power-sharing agreement to end the war. >> thank you, general milley, 15 seconds. secretary austin has u.s. military and dod better assess risk of fall-out such as this one? >> we continue to take a look at ourselves across the board and how we're -- >> the lady's time has expired, that will be taken for the record. mr. johnson is recognized. >> thank you, mr. chairman, dispute about the actual words shared in the abc news george stephanopoulos interview with the president, we took liberty getting full transcript, i will read and ask question, mr. chairman, i asked unanimous consent to enter in record? >> stephanopoulos asked "military advisors warned against withdrawing on this timeline, they wanted you to keep 2500 troops. they didn't, it was split. that wasn't true, wasn't true. stephanopoulos, they didn't tell you they wanted troops to stay? no, not in terms of if we were going to get out in a timeframe all troops, they didn't argue against that. stephanopoulos, no one told, your military advisors did not tell you, "no, we should keep 2500 troops, it has been stable, we can do that, continue to do that. question, biden, no, no one said that to me that i can recall. so gentlemen, with all due respect, the american people deserve to know the truth in all this, they are asking us to get the truth. there are three possibilities here. either the president lied to the american people or he legitimately cannot remember the council of his top military advisor necessary winding down the longest war in american history or you have not been fully accurate under oath. general mckenzie, which is it? >> i want to be direct, i cannot share advice i gave the president and i will not do that. i will tell you, it has been my consistent position throughout this hearing and hearing yesterday i believe the appropriate level of forces should be 2500. >> i think we can take that to mean you gave him that advice. >> i would not take it to mean anything other than the words. >> secretary austin, what are we to believe about this? >> you heard me say earlier, congressman, i support the president's decision. you also heard me say that i don't view this choice as a no-cost, no-risk choice. i do believe that if we left 2500 people there for a long and extended period of time, have to reinforce those people because taliban was going -- was committed to attacking us. >> mr. secretary, i understand that, what we're trying to get to, what did the president know? did he forget or not being truthful? >> i view that as inappropriate question and will not -- >> you may, the american people don't. we deserve accountability and lieutenants are being thrown under the bridge for suggesting that. erode precisely because everyone in the dc bubble appears to have some sort of immunity from the basic standards america is expected to live by thchlts is one of the biggest blunders since withdrawal from vietnam. where does the blame lie? mr., secretary austin? >> first of all, i am responsible for everything that happens that dod does and it does a lot. i remain focused on defending this country, that will be my focus for the foreseeable future. i remind you, we just evacuated 124,000 people -- >> i appreciate that you think that was a big success, evacuation, the blame for the disastrous withdrawal, who is to blame for that? i'll let silence speak for itself. >> general milley, you said earlier this month it is possible we will work with the taliban to conduct strikes against isis-k. today you testified "the taliban remains terrorist organization with ties to al qaeda. are you suggesting that the united states form some sort of strategic partnership with a terrorist organization? >> no, absolutely not, not suggesting that. can i go to your first question, though? >> please. >> like frank mckenzie, general mckenzie not our purview to share specific discussions with the president. it was our opinion at the time and it has been consistent. i would tell you that this administration did and i was part of it, along with the joint chiefs rigorous process. this president was one of the most informed decisions you can imagine, in terms of all sides of the argument. we and the military, uniformed military, look at cost, force, benefit, etcetera in narrow, focused view. other decision-makers have wider angle. >> i appreciate that. what we're left with, we're supposed to believe the president was either not informed of important factors or he forgot it, either one is alarming. >> since the transcript was submitted for the record, we read quick, mr. stephanopoulos says, your top military advisors warn against withdrawing and wanted to keep 2500 troops. no, they didn't, it was split. that is what the president said, he didn't say no, nobody advised me, it was split. >> mr. chairman, read down two more lines. >> i'll be done and yield back to you. >> and then stephanopoulos says, no, no one said we should keep 2500 troops, it's been a stable situation for the last several years, we can do that, we can continue to do that. no, no one said that to me that i can recall. no one said, it's been a stable situation for the last several years, we can do that, we can continue to do that. those are the words on the transcript that was just submitted. i'll leave to other people to interpret that, those are the actual words. yes, i yield mr. johnson, quickly, i should give you the chance. >> mr. chairman, i appreciate that. you just read it at face value, stephanopoulos says, no one told you, military advisors did not tell you, no, we should keep 2500 troops, we can do that, biden says no, no one said that to me. >> you read quickly through it has been a stable situation part, that is the important part. >> look, it is open to individual interpretation, we both made our point, american people can use common sense, it is alarming, whatever, i yield back. >> mr. lauriet. >> general milley, i associate myself with remarks mrs. chaney made at the beginning of her questions and focus on the time frame following the 2020 election. november 9, 2020, secretary of defense mark esper was replaced by acting secretary of defense christopher miller and other key leadership positions at dod filled with new people. general milley, did this rapid replacement of top senior officials at department of defense give you concern regarding the transition of the administration? >> we in the military trained for leadership replacement from the time we are second lieutenant, follow one drill sort of thing. it is clearly in the perogative of any president to replace any appointee any point in time. so that is how i answer that, we are prepared to execute at moment's notice if someone is relieved. >> and general milley, did you have any concerns at the time that involved the potential misuse of the military for political reasons? >> i was determined to make sure that the u.s. military is properly employed and i would render advice to be sure u.s. military is employed not for political use. >> thank you. it's been referenced few times during the hearing today, you did cooperate with several offers for specific books. and it seems as though your choice to do that you wanted to get the story straight, the facts, out there about different things that transpired during this timeframe. and you acknowledge today that you frequently speak to reporters and also yesterday in comments to senators that you sometimes do that anonymously, i think we would all like full transparency and full understanding of the facts surrounding this timeframe. you know i'm a member of the select committee to investigate events surrounding january 6, so i can speak for the committee to say we'll be interested to have the same level of information and be able to speak to you in the nurt about those topics. i'll shift to another topic of discussion and if i could ask my colleagues to please respect my time. general milley, you have spent half of your career fighting a war in afghanistan roughly. when did you personally know that the war was lost? >> well, i think if you go back to five, six years ago, i knew it was stalemated. lost is a different word. i believed it was stalemated and unwinnable through u.s. military means for several reasons. there is sanctuary in pakistan not going to be destroyed or defeated. and that insurgenceies are highly political wars to begin with and what was important to win is to have indigenous government seen as legitimate in the eyes of the people, along with military police and army that could deal with that situation. i knew years ago it was stalemated, said that repeatedly, internal and external and winning would be defined as negotiated solution. as most insurgenceies are, result in solution twine insurgent and regime, i thought that was best way to handle, i didn't think there was military solution. >> interesting you use the word winning, did you think winning was possible or stat mate or status quo was only ultimate outcome we could hope for in the situation? >> i think as i recall, president bush 20 years ago said winning would look different in this war, words to that effect. i think he was right then and i think that negotiated solution was the best way of approaching "win," and i think that would have been in the best interest of the united states and would have been best interest of the region and afghan people, negotiated solution between the insurgents and government. >> thank you, i saw secretary austin nodding, did you want to add briefly? >> you heard me say at the very top that my hope was that we could reach a negotiated settlement. a stalemate would give, provide opportunity to do that for both sides to negotiate in earnest if neither thought they were going to win. again, we just never reached that point because the taliban had advantages coming into this because we weren't striking them, we were -- >> gentle lady's time has expired. quick announcement. there is vote on. hard stop at 2:00, we will stop at 2:00, i will go vote. mr. lauria, if you could take the chair for just a moment, i will come back as quickly as i can and free you of that obligation. members vote accordingly, be here, we have mrs. jacobs up next on our side, couple people to get us through that. mrs. bice, recognized five minutes. i'll be right back. >> ink that you and thank the witnesses for being with us today. i have heard outpouring of concern and frustration from my constituents who expressed outrage of the withdrawal and abandoning of citizens. have been stunned by the lack of leadership throughout all of this. the american people deserve to have a full accounting of the president's decision-making processes and what ultimately led to disastrous outcome. gentlemen, this is not about whether or not we should have left or not, this is about how we left. we may not get all the answers and the public deserves in today's hearing to know the facts surrounding this, my first question, two part. regarding bagram air base during senate testimony yesterday general austin said choice to abandon bagram was based on protecting the embassy. what aspect of security at hkia made it more secure than bagram and following that, you mentioned bagram had little strateic value, if you could elaborate. >> i didn't say bagram has little strategic value in my opening statement, we can certainly break it out and go through it line by line, if you would like. i would point out, i commanded bagram one moint in time, there may be other people who have done that, probably not. i know a lot about bagram and what it offers. key point here is that the embassy was in kabul and our mission at transition was to provide security additional security for the embassy. and in the event of an evacuation, we would have to start and evacuate the embassy first. kabul makes all, provides everything that you need to be able to do that, capacity, proximity, it was the right choice. >> isn't it accurate hkia has one runway and bagram has multiple, making it easier for evacuation of individuals from -- >> that is a great point. i would have to secure it. reason we could stay there with 2500 people earlier is because we had the afghan security forces securing outer perimeter of bagram. you no longer have that, you have to commit 5 or 6000 troops to do that, secure it, defend it and run air ops, that is substantial additional commitment of resources. >> general milley or general mckenzie, anything you would like to add? >> i like to briefly talk about bagram. it has two runways issue not what you want to examine when you look at airfield. arcane thing called mog, move and move runway around and hkia had better facility than bagram for that. as the secretary noted, simple distance from where people are had to be a planning factor. we were under direction to go to 0 to secure the embassy, bagram was not an option under those circumstances. >> thank you. >> i would add, if i could, if you have assumption no afghan army, there is three big gates, quick reaction force and control rocket range and secure the road between kabul and bagram, never been able to get 124,000 people out of bagram, wouldn't have happened. center of gravity of neo was going to be hkia. the issues are clearly different at hkia than bagram. bagram was not a feasible option given number of troops, distance and security requirements. >> thank you. follow-up question, you mentioned having to evacuate quickly. do you trust the information that you are receiving from our intelligence community, general austin? >> i have confidence in the information we get from the intel community, yes, not saying they are 100% right all the time. >> given the fact it seems they did not at all plan for a complete surrender of the afghan forces upon the withdrawal of u.s. troops. >> they predicted that outcome, but different timeline. as we have, you have heard us say before. >> in addition to the botched over the horizon activity, that killed 10 afghans, still believe that intelligence community can be trusted and is effective? >> again, i have confidence in the intel community -- >> time has expired, i recommend mrs. jacobs, recognize mrs. jacobs five minutes. >> thank you, madam chair, and thank you for being here. august 29th drone straight that killed azmati, worker for aid group and nine of his family members, including children. you called the strike a tragic mistake, we can all agree with that characterization. this is open hearing, i will not ask about specific intelligence that led to the strike, but general milley, you said after the truth was revealed there was a reasonable certainty the target was valid. i would like to know, do you have that same level of confidence in intelligence that you have had for similar strikes carried out under dod authority? >> yes, i do. intelligence is not perfect, intel, as representative johnson just said, or vice just said, it is never perfect. we're not going to get perfection in the world of intelligence. it is probablistic language. we have confidence in intelligence systems, they are not perfect, we have good reason to have confidence in them and that has been expressed in accuracy and precision of the strikes. >> i understand. >> this one strike was bad, tragic, horrible, not to say the intelligence system as i whole is wrong. >> but given that we've had multiple mistakes we already know about, including the ac-130 gun ship attack in 2015 that destroyed a hospital is killed 42 civilians, what assurances can you give us and the american people that our drone program has adequate programs and secretary austin you said we have learned from the latest mistake, what have you learned? >> thanks. again, remind you, i have directed review of this operation and so i won't make any comments on specifics here because that review is ongoing. but in terms of our commitment to learning from all of our operations, we remain committed to doing that and we are specifically concerned when there is an inadvertent loss of life and injury to civilians. we take that very seriously and we hold ourselves accountable for that, so -- >> great. we and which committee will look forward to seeing results of that review and also having accountability. general milley, yesterday when asked by senator kelly about the over the horizon counter terrorism, you said, as we go forward and ability to create the ecoshgsystem that allow you to see on the ground, it will be harder in places like afghanistan. end quote. many colleagues have asked about what this means for our ability to counter groups like isis-k, i have a different question. what does that mean for our ability to prevent civilian casualties so we don't see another drone strike like the one that took place in kabul and if it is harder, will you take extra precaution in selecting target packages or how are you planning to deal with this extra uncertainty? >> thank you for the question. the strike that was undertaken was a self-defense strike. it was taken because we believe there was eminent attack, developing against our forces at hkia. that is very different than the type of strike we would undertake in over the horizon scenario. principle differences would be this, would not be under pressure of time f. we're striking target in afghanistan, there is no imthensy of the attack, talking months or weeks instead of minutes. you have opportunity to apply all the other disciplines of intelligence that can help us whether that is signal, image, human intelligence and we would work hard to try to reconstitute that to a degree and i'll talk more about that in a future classified session with you. it would be wrong to believe the strike in kabul, which i've acknowledged went badly wrong is prototype we would employ for past or future over the horizon strikes. >> well, thank you, i will look forward to working with you all to make sure that we do that well and i will note your comments on imthens next time we have questions about power with the strikes. with that, i will yield back. >> thank you, mr. jackson is recognized for five minutes. >> thank you, madam chair. thank you for being here today. very important hearing we're having, i appreciate the committee's urgency making this happen. there were differences in opinion on how it should have been conducted, something we should agree on, withdrawal should have been conditioned based and not any political motivation involved, which i don't think was the actual case. general milley, how often were nucontact with your chinese counter part discussing evacuation in afghanistan? >> zero. >> okay. >> i agree with you, conditions based. >> jeem on august 18, recorded saying timeframe of rapid collapse was estimated weeks to months and even years, there was nothing i or anyone else saw that indicated collapse of this army and government in 11 days. between the 18th and 21st of june, in just four days, 21 districts and nine provences fell to the taliban and the afghan security sources quickly surrendered and abandoned post. this was obvious beginning to end to the taliban takeover. general milley, were you doing during this time frame? you were two days just two days prior to when the provences fell, you were in the committee on june 23rd and sat before this committee and listed some concerns that we talked in depth about. one was defending critical race theory, you want to understand white rage, you were offended to be labeled woke and what caused civilians to enter the capitol on january 6. perhaps we would not have had 13 members and hundreds of afghans killed and service members wounded and citizens abandoned if you had been focused on duty to this country instead of pannedoring to the biden administration woke social experiment with the u.s. military, doing book interviews and colluding with officials. senator cotton asked you why you hadn't resigned, you said you would not resign because the president didn't take your advice. i submit that you should resign because of your dereliction of duty to this country and inability to do your job and protect this country. it is clear that the american people have lost confidence in your ability to do your job. general milley, will you now resign? >> i serve at the pleasure of the president, mr. jackson. >> i yield back my time. >> thank you. just for the record, on that date in question, chairman milley was appearing before this committee at our request and answering the questions that we asked him. i appreciate his willingness and willingness of all leadership to appear before us, that is incredibly important part of their job and i don't want to leave you with the impression we don't want you to do it because of questions like that. >> mr. chairman, secretary austin, general mckenzie, all of your testimony and taking time to be here today. as someone who has worn uniform, still wears uniform, appreciative of your service. deployed in 2005, i'm glad the u.s. involvement in the war is over, i support the president's decision. i am concerned accelerated withdrawal and fall to the taliban has damaged u.s. credibility with allys and partners. former c-17 mission commanders, i will never forget images of 15 august from kabul, total chaos falling out of the sky desperate to leave the country. it is on the neo operation my colleagues crowe, and -- have referred to. secretary austin stated military planners had crafted a number of evacuation scenario necessary mid-may and ordered sitcomneo and on tenth of august, there was another neo table top. when did the state department call for the neo? >> i believe it was on the 14th, congressman. >> okay. >> 14th of august. >> 14th of august, state department called for neo? you stated the neo remains among the most challenging circumstances. circumstances in august were anything but aircrafts deal, heat, land locked government, and active credible and lethal terrorist threat and that also in your testimony, you offered input to the state department that although mindful of concerns moving too soon would actually cause collapse of the afghan government that we all wanted to avoid, but moving too late would put people and operation at greater risk. what i'm trying to figure out is, despite the president's decision to order withdrawal on april 14th and troop presence, withdrawal began, by may and june of 2021, taliban captured quarter of the country. june 11th, neo table top done, on the 6th taliban captured first capitol. why were we doing table top on august tenth. on august 14th, jalalabad fell and by august 15th taliban entered kabul. that is what i'm trying to figure out secretary austin, why did we wait? we had to wait for the state department to call for the neo, why did we wait so long to do that, even though prepositioned forces in afghanistan. we had 24th mu there, 82nd airborne coming in, air field was in total chaos on august 15th. >> yeah, i think what changed the equation here, we anticipated based upon disposition of forces that were centered around population center that the afghans would put up more significant resistance and so we anticipated that fighting would be a bit more intense as they approached ghani, didn't see fight we thought we would see, that was trigger to begin to move very quickly. even as they moved north of gazni, we expected forces there would fight more. and we had, there was a government in place still at the time. with the government collapsing and leaving and precipitated the evaporation of the security forces and that really panicked the people. what you saw on the first day was a result of that panic. >> should the neo operation have commenced sooner than april 14th? >> i certainly think it could have, yeah. again, we had the elements to begin to operate sooner. that is state department call and -- >> totally understand. >> input is based on a lot of things. this is not throwing state department colleagues under bus, it is dynamic and challenging situation. >> you stated neo planning included embassy personnel, when did neo planning include afghans and sivs? >> late in spring, early in summer, began to broaden that plan. >> thank you. >> mr. franklin is recognized. >> thank you, mr. chairman and gentlemen for your patience and persistence last two days. this is a lot of hours to be sitting before all of us and in this batting order most of the ground broke. couple of things, but first, i was puzzled hearing general mckenzie's characterization of departure out of afghanistan as being something other than a surrender. it doesn't feel that way to me, it doesn't feel that way to the american public and 20 years ago exactly i was sitting in bahrain. our marching orders were to defeat al qaeda and to ensure the afghanistan would no longer be safe haven for terrorists. fast-forward 20 years, conditions, general milley said six to 36 months, will be launching strikes like that and targeting against us. it doesn't feel like it is anything other than surrender. general mckenzie, you had mentioned that tolding bagram was untenable under the circumstances and the bagram option went away when giving end strength of 650, i understand that. i think you mean untenable because of the troop limitation. if not limited would your professional advice been to relinquish bagram? >> troop level 2500, we would have health bagram, that was my recommendation, that was my position. >> okay. so you had also mentioned no tactical reason to hold bagram. i assume that means strategically would you see value -- >> i said no tactical reason to hold bagram, talking about the neo operation. we went to 650 and given order to conduct neo. for the reason the secretary and chairman outlined, center of gravity was hkia, where people are, mog operating to move airplanes in and out. i will tell you this, representative, we had a branch plan to seize bagram air field, should hkia have become untenable. that would have required significant invest nment combat power and bagram and hkia never became untenable, we did not have to consider that plan, although we had highly detailed plan to do it, it was not necessary, we were able to maintain throughput at hkia and had we gone in bagram, introduced significant combat forces into the country and probably provoked another conflict with taliban, political decision. >> i understand, political decision. since 1898, maintained guantanamo bay, have history of keeping territory in lands where we don't have friendly forces at our side. i know seeing challenge with over the horizon conducting strike over the horizon, would be nice to have that field now. secretary austin, i just want to whole-heartedly agree with chairman smith earlier, we make the decisions in the world we live in and don't have luxury of a magic wand, i get that, that is the world you face everyday. you told us you would like to have seen this conflict end with negotiated settle, general milley did, as well. there has been talk about whether president trump should have been negotiating with the taliban or not, different conversation, another day. but those terms that were agreed to were not complied with by the taliban and here it is, we know that general milley in your testimony, seven of the eight conditions that were given to the taliban were broken, in light of that failure, secretary austin, do you think it was wise to continue with the timeline or feel compelled because i hear the administration pushing back saying we had no choice, our hands were tied, trump administration tied us to the timeline. the taliban didn't comply and we are stuck in a bad situation. do you feel we should have pushed a timeline, not necessarily to stay in afghanistan, i get it, i think there is a time for us to start negotiating an exit there. but in light of how disastrous the hasty withdrawal turned out to be, we could have used more time to get the folks out. >> well, quite frankly, because of the fact that for a year we weren't striking the taliban, they were increasing in combat power. we released 5000 prisoners, which regenerated combat power for them. they were able to make advances against the afghan security forces because we weren't doing things to fully support -- >> i apologize, time expired, have to suffice. mr. paneta recognized. >> thank you, i appreciate this hearing. mr. chair. and good afternoon and thank you, gentlemen, for being here, thank you for your service throughout your career of service to our great nation. as an american, veteran of oef, thank you for continuing to remind american public not to reduce service of 800,000 down to two-week chaotic withdrawal, not to reduce sacrifice of 2461 men and women down to a single photo of a c-17 on the kabul tarmac. as you know, and as american, as veteran and representative, it is my duty to ask questions and my constituents are asking a lot of questions. i think the problem with the withdrawal, it left more questions than answers. the withdrawal, we ended involvement with the war in afghanistan, we still have war on terror. we with deteriorate draw troops, will we have to go in? you evacuated some, will you be proud of that, on that note, definition of success shouldn't be based on how many people you got out, but how many people we left behind. what i'm hearing is a lot of frustration from my cob stitients -- constituents. they are devastated by the death of the 12 marine and one sailor and yes, i got to be frank, humiliated seeing the taliban drive around and screw around with american equipment, this is hyperbole, it sums it up good, i heard a quote about frustration, it said something is not right when taliban can get american-made ammunition easier than americans can. and four, i do believe we are dumbfounded, dumbfounded the afghan government disappeared and hundreds of thousands of well equipped afghan troops shed uniforms, dropped weapons and ran. i believe the underlying foundation for the reason for why this government crumbled and the troops fled is corruption. we supported the village and when we left, it fell. it basically set up a system as we saw throughout the 20 years there, from birth certificates to death certificates it was all about bribes and what we were left with when we were about to leave was state that had grown so corrupt that governors were cutting deals with jihadists to switch sides, inflation was rampant because of money we handed out and left ghost soldiers absentee listed on payroll so commanders could steal salary, similar to vietnam. you are seeing a lot of similarities presented to the case. a lot of study after vietnam said corruption was fundamental ill largely responsible for the ultimate collapse. so my question to you is do you believe that corruption was fundamental ill largely responsible for the collapse of the afghan government? if so, elaborate. if not, what would you consider the fundamental ill for the quick collapse of that government? >> thank you, i certainly agree that corruption played a major role in the collapse of the government and the security forces. i also believe that weak leadership added to that, the fact that president ghani, without any apparent reason, changed out commanders, which degraded the confidence of the troops and their leadership. i think -- i believe also that the doha agreement had a significant negative effect on the moral of the military. i think there is a combination of a number of things that came together to create effects. i certainly agree that corruption was central to this issue. >> general? >> absolutely. i'd take it one level higher, it is about legitimacy of the government in the eyes of the military and think corruption is one contributing factor to delegitimize, my observation again, have to gather the facts, i think at the village level, the government of afghanistan was looked at as pair sittic as opposed to supportive. the government, local officials, police forces, etcetera clearly delegitimized in the eyes of the people, major contributing factor to dissolution of the army and government and collapse of the whole thing in a rapid period of time. >> thank us, yield back my time. >> quickly, mr. fouler and we are going to be done. mr. fallen, you are recognized. >> thank you, mr. chair. during this hearing, there were virtue of courage was used to describe the current president. i think that is misplaced. i think virtue of courage to be attributed to 2461 troops that we lost that gave everything. 20,698 maimd and injuryd and wounded. i'm perplexd and thank you for being here. during the testimony, general mckenzie you were asked when you knew the drone strike on august 29th had gone tragically wrong, yes or no, you said five or six hours later you learned that, is that correct? >> when we learned civilians had been killed. >> so it went wrong? >> i did not say that. >> i said when we learned civilians had been killed. >> would you consider that righteous strike? >> we took the strike based on the belief the vehicle was going to be used in an attack against us. >> we knew people who shouldn't have been killed were killed five or six hours later? >> we knew people probably not involved -- took us longer to learn the rest of the story. >> agreed. secretary austin, five or six hours after people that shouldn't have been killed were killed? >> i learned from general mckenzie's reporting there was commit ral damage. when that happens, we investigate. >> okay. general milley, on september 1, three days later, you described it righteous strike, people not supposed to be killed were killed and you called it righteous strike. >> i said we followed procedure, i had every reason to believe that we followed our procedure at that point in time and knew there were civilians killed, noncombatants and collateral damage. >> were other killed? yes, we don't know, trying to sort through that. >> that is what i said. i believed -- i believed that the target we were aiming -- >> i apologize, thank you. i have three minutes, thank you. general milley served under both president trump and biden. >> correct. >> i have spoken with contact former secretary of state pompeo had extensive conversation with director former director of intelligence john ratliffe, who was sentiment, if conditions were not met, how long the afghan army and government would last? do you recall that? i imagine you were sitting in the meetings. if conditions are not met? >> wewithdraw how long will the government last? >> i will not speak for them, i am on record having said if we go to zero, there is high probability of the government and afghan army collapsing, in terms of time, i put that between one and three years at the time i wrote this back a year ago in fall of 2020. >> interesting you say that, mr. pompeo and mr. ratcliffe told me it was uninimity, if conditions are not met the afghan army and government would collapse within weeks and longest they heard, a month or two. that was surprised because secretary austin said today that the fact the afghan army, we and partners trained melted away was a shock. john ratcliffe told me he told his successor that they were going to collapse instant anuously if conditions were not met, they would evaporate. >> with all due respect -- >> sure. >> what i think it is, not failure of intelligence, i didn't know this stuff, i'm asking, it seems failure to heed that intelligence and act accordingly. >> i can show you intelligence reports produced. >> 50 seconds left. 5000 bad guys in bagram and jail bagram, right, general mckenzie? we go down to 650, can't hold them, we split around july 1, we left? >> 12th. >> july 12th. it fell august 15th; correct? >> they got out? august 16th. an attack on troops couple weeks later. can any of you guarantee the american people out of the 5000 bad guys, none were directly responsible for killing our troops? >> no, i cannot, no. >> thank you, mr. chairman, i yield back my time. >> thank you. >> thank you, mr. chairman. thank you, mr. secretary and to the generals, i'll be brief. i have several questions and appreciate your concise response. general mckenzie, on august 30, you told the media while you maintain ability to bring american citizens and civilians out until immediately before the departure of the final flight, no civilians were on the aircraft. that mission ended approximately 12 hours before the exit. tow to clarify, when did the last american citizen successfully pass through taliban perimeter into hkia gate? >> that is very specific question, i'll have to come back to you on the record, i exactly back to you. >> thank you. when did the last afghan civilian pass through the gate? >> same thing, hours before, i will come back with exact time. >> how many individuals successfully passed through the taliban perimeter in 72 hours preceding the departure of the final flight? >> probably in the low hundreds, i'll come back with exact number. >> thank you. i understand on august 19th ground commanders authorized use of helicopters to rescue 169 americans from the barron hotel after the initial plan to proceed on foot became too dangerous. what time were rotary wing aviation assets no longer operation at hkia? >> first of all, barron hotel is 200 meters off the hkia compound, not a long distance. we did use helicopters for that, we kept helicopters until the very end. one final thing we did was breaking down helicopters and loaded them. >> what were the specific contingency plan to continue the evacuation if the taliban closed checkpoints surrounding the airport? >> all times we were prepared to accept american citizens that were able to make it to the gate. there was external taliban cordon, we talked about that, the cordon was part of the force protection scheme for the base. commanders on the ground had to balance force protection against need to allow americans, sivs and others to enter. tried to work closely with the taliban to ensure free passage for americans. >> why then were the plans not implemented once it became clear no additional american citizens were going to be allowed to pass through the taliban checkpoints? >> we attempted to with taliban to allow americans to be able to get to the gate up until the very end. i do not have facts on why that did not happen. our presence on the ground was very small and we were beginning to turn inward as we prepared to extract. >> general milley, in 2017, the gao released a report on recommendation to enhance readiness of the global response force to support contingency operation. in june of 2021, gao assessed department had not implemented any of the three recommendations to improve readiness due to ongoing development of the dynamic force employment concept. i'm curious, what percentage of the total immediate response force and existing preposition forces deployed in support of operation spartan shield were deployed to hkia to assist in the neo? how many additional battalions intended to be in follow-on force available for short-notice deployment, but not deploy? ed >> we had, frank can correct me 100%. two battalions, the mu, and another marine battalion, preposition in the middle east with battalion in the middle east and battalion already on the ground. that is four. plus we alerted on secretary's order, marshalld and deployed the erf and grf, brigade of the 82nd airborne division rapidly and we had 6000 troops at hkia very rapidly. i think we far exceeded any standards published for the grf or erf. had variety of high-end special operations forces that alertd and deployed rapidly. we easily met any kind of rapid dement standard and exceeded them. >> thank you for service to our military men and women and to our veterans who served over the 20 years during this longest war in u.s. history. i yield back. >> thank you. thank you, gentlemen for your testimony today. i know certainly it was contentious hearing it is enormously important we have the opportunity to have these conversations. i do not support some of the comments some of my colleagues made or the way they chose to conduct themselves, but that is a small price to pay for transparency we need to allow the committee to do its job. i appreciate you being willing to do that and have this discussion and we will continue to discuss this situation? south asia, as we go forward. appreciate your cooperation. >> one thing i would like to ask, as soon as practicable, we have classified hearing on the over the horizon capabilities because i spoken individually with all three gentlemen, i'm very concerned about our counter terrorism capabilities and how to address that. >> we will have multiple hearings on that subject, that is ongoing subject, it is something we need to do soon. thank you. again, we are adjourned. >> you have been watching the hous serves committee going to recess, top military leaders facing grilling by lawmakers on capitol hill today, second straight day of questioning about chaotic exit from afghanistan. their testimony on the u.s. exit contradicting president biden on multiple fronts. hello and welcome, i'm sandra smith with john roberts. >> john: you were here for a run, how did that go? >> sandra: more coming up. >> john: general milley characterizing u.s. withdrawal as strategic failure in saying the nation's credibility has been damaged. general keith kellogg will weigh in in just moments. >> sandra: first to jennifer griffin kicking things off, hi, jennifer. >> jennifer: hi, sandra. a lot of heated questions from republicans about general milley's decision to speak with bob woodward in the book "peril," and congressman matt gaetz saying you spent more time with bob woodward than spent analyzing likely prospect the afghan government was going to fall, to which milley pushed back repeatedly, it got heated. democrats chose to focus on how the withdrawal began with the agreement signed with the taliban by the trump administration going down from 13,000 u.s. troops despite the fact the taliban complied with all -- with none except one of the conditions based agreements that was to not fire on u.s. troops. the taliban never broke with al qaeda, we heard from general milley. general milley said he learned of the taliban agreement days before it was signed. general mckenzie head of sitcom, repeated he and miller recommended keeping 2500 american troops. >> my concern was that if we withdrew to zero the afghan military government would collapse and that is not potential counter factual, that is what happened. we have objective data to understand what happens if you go to zero. >> jennifer: one notable change general milley stated outright in opening statement the u.s. failed in afghanistan. >> the war was a strategic failure, it came also at an incredible cost in the end. >> jennifer: so again, issues about bagram, the errant drone strike, whether the u.s. should have stayed at bagram longer. there were long explanations about why they chose to leave bagram when they did in mid-july and explanation about how once the noncombatant operation to evacuate americans and others the choice was to use the kabul international airport because of proximity to the embassy. lots of questions. they just broke moments ago, we'll hear more this afternoon. back to you, sandra. >> sandra: thank you. >> john: bring in fox news contributor general keith kellogg. general kellogg, one of the biggest points of contention, whether or not the president acknowledged in the interview with george stephanopoulos, he had been given advice or not. adam smith, chairman of the committee, running cover for president biden. we can't turn the clock back yet, we don't have the sound, go to all street journal editorial. it is his refusal to own his decision, mr. biden wants credit for ending involvement in afghanistan but not willing to admit he overruled the brass in the process, your thoughts? >> i think that is important when you look at context of what the military advisors gave him. when the decisions were made, they are made in situation room in the white house because it is so secure. it was interesting to me that the number 2500 is very consistent. same number we came up with in the trump administration and everybody agreed, intelligence community agreed, the c.i.a. agreed, the department of defense agreed, the state department agreed to it. everybody had the 2500 number and that was fixed in everybody's mind, number consistent from the trump administration to the biden administration and we told president trump we would hold at that number until the agreements were fulfilled in the doha agreement. the first agreement in the doha agreement, there would be successful negotiations between the taliban and the ghani government to have a government of reconciliation. everybody keeps talking about the doha agreement, the doha agreement meant we were not going to move until all conditions were met that were put forth in the agreement. we were not leaving and one may date was not a date certain, that was a forcing function to get there. on the 3rd of march, president trump picked up the phone and called perarter, and told him that. i was in the oval office and heard what he said. if there is ability, curelease the transcript and see what the president told him. he knew it was conditions-based and he knew we had to get to a certain point. everybody is focusing on the doha agreement. i want to say wait a minute, the three generals, you were there for 20 years where is accountability of training the afghans and making them capable to withstand taliban attack going forward. they're responsible for that, my question is where is accountability on this? don't talk about it, who owns this? >> sandra: what is the answer to that? the american people, we know there is great interest in watching this for some sort of transparency how this played out, how the actions were taken, when conditions were not met. milley straight-forward in acknowledgment this was strategic failure, for those watching and wondering and thinking the same thing and asking who is going to be accountable, what is the answer? >> sandra, great question. it is funny, if you are in the business world and your company fails, you get fired. a sports team, your team gets rid of you. in the military, there seems to be protection agency protecting former generals. there needs to be like 9/11 commission to figure out how to get to where we're at. not include senior officer involved in the last 20 years. there were strategic decisions made that were failures. more recently, there were embisillic conditions that caused this to fail. understand what we have in middle east. we have mega-terrorist state, when you put three countries together with contiguous borders, you have iran, continuous border with afghanistan, which has worst government than 20 years ago, more harsh and nuclear pakistan to the east. all of them work together. i think there is bigger problem than people look at now, or are thinking about. >> sandra: general, we appreciate your time, thank you. >> john: thanks. to the other big news dominating washington today. president biden's agenda in jeopardy. >> sandra: white house set to hold a briefing any moment now, we'll go to that live when jen psaki begins about massive tax and spending plan sure to be a major topic of discussion, we'll see where reporters go with questions. jacqui heinrich will be in the briefing room, she is, and will get opportunity to press the press secretary. hi, jacqui heinrich. >> this is probably understood it will not be the number that we ultimately end up with and one progressive source told me that anything less than 2-1/2 trillion would be tough to swallow, although they are not eager to trau lines in the sand before they hear clarity from manchin what they want to cut after the meeting at the white house yesterday. the white house staff is on the hill today again meeting with senators about how high the stakes are. the president playing role in negotiating priorities of the bill and getting manchin and cinema on board to get passage in senate. here is what jen psaki told me yesterday. >> has the president given a top-line number to members of congress he would accept less than 3-1/2 trillion? >> the president knew it was compromise and looking to get across the finish line. >> sounds like he has given a number. >> i would not say that, he is hearing from a range of members, that is part of the discussion now. >> democrats and house been trying to wall off priorities like medicaid expansion. critical issue of race. biden having to get involved because progressives in the house vowing to block the other half of the president's agendaa, bipartisan bill for roads and bridges and the like if they don't get social spending reconciliation bill at the same time. speaker nancy pelosi pushed until tomorrow to get it done. passage could be pushed off. president was supposed to be in chicago talking about vaccine mandates, but stayed in town to hash out this democratic divide and get his agenda moving forward. staff is in absolute flurry, one official telling me they had 260 discussions with members of congress to get this done. sandra. >> jacqui heinrich, see you in a bit. white house briefing has been pushed back to 2:30. >> john: bring in mark teson now. when you look at bernie sanders, he is actively campaigning against this bipartisan infrastructure bill saying pass the build back better bill. he tweeted, i strongly urge house colleagues to vote against the bipartisan infrastructure bill. the build back better f. progressive wing kills this bipartisan bill, could the president be left with nothing? >> that is quite real possibility, quite a day on capitol hill for president biden. house armed services committee grilling him and other end of the gap, domestic agenda is imploding in the worst debacle of his presidency. we had self-inflicted crisis at the border and in afghanistan. he needs a win. smart move, you have bipartisan infrastructure bill pass with overwhelming bipartisan support in sant, put on the president's list, let him have a signing ceremony, has the white house ever needd that more than now? the left is holding the bipartisan bill hostage in order insist senate and house pass 3.5 trillion bill which cinema and manchin and house moderates say is not going anywhere at that price tag. they are wrapped around the axel, everything he touches turns to dust. reverse midas touch. >> sandra: his policy in danger and overall agenda in danger, what is the timeline? cinema, manchin, get in the way, this morning, running to the white house, how do you think this plays out? what is the timeline? >> mark: problem is overreach, they have a 50/50 senate and like three-vote margin in the house and trying to implement socialism, trying to -- even within, this is all in intra democratic fight, nothing to do with republicans, same thing on top of that, they have debt limit crisis coming and government shut down crisis coming, democrat, again, democrats can pass debt limit increase using reson -- reconciliation process. they could pass clean cr to keep the government funded, but not to make the republicans vote for debt limit. you could have a situation no infrastructure bill, no reconciliation bill and government shutdown because of the administration incomtense. >> john: you need more than a four-vote margin. one thing that is -- [laughter] one thing that is moderate democrats and republicans are worried about, what the true cost of 3.5 trillion bill is, the build back better bill. back in july, i got e-mail from the committee of responsible federal budget said red flag here, we will put on the screen. real cost could be between $5 and $5.5 trillion dollars and sent e-mail a couple weeks ago and said it could add more than -- not sure what that is, could add 4 trillion to the debt. they are saying this is paid for, it is not because cfrb says could add to debt and real cost 5 to 5.5 trillion dollars. what do you think? >> mark: john, why are you spreading misinformation, it is free, zero, didn't you hear the president the other day? why are you telling people lies? >> john: somebody said the logic of that, if you pay for a meal, you can say it was free because it was paid for. >> mark: yeah, i paid my son's college bill, i paid for it, earned the money, college is free, paid for. this is absurd. also, the tax increases they want to do are $2 trillion, if you take them at their word that is 3.5 trillion, it is not paid for. again, they have passed 1.9 trillion of social spending masked as covid relief. they have money sitting there like ball on golf tee waiting for the president to swing and knock it out. that is like 5.4 trillion in spending. if you're a democrat, left-wing person who believes in big government, take it, why not take that? instead, no, we have to have another 3.5 trillion or get nothing. it is like the sheriff in blazin saddle holding a gun to his head. take the victory. take the win. let the president have a signing ser moan and he sign this bill into law. no president has needed a win more than joe biden does now and his own party denying him obvious victory. >> kayleigh: you are calling it self-inflicted crisis. democrats are choosing to create another crisis. mark good to have you here. >> john: good to see you, mark. >> sandra: thank you. the u.s. overwhelmed with migrants crossing rio grande, the border is wide open and mexican officials appear to be doing little to stop them from reaching our country. griff jenkins is live at this hour. hi, griff jenkins. >> we are in the middle of the river here between guatemala on this side, and mexico on the other side. a gentleman crossing here, show you this they have a lax attitude in crossing. in the distance behind me, international bridge is connecting the two countries that is where the immigration office is. for 30 pesos, you can take a raft and go and no immigration officials checking documents. if you look up the river and mark, i hate to spin you up there, you can see all day long thousands freely crossing and they don't know who is on them. officials say they are seeing 800 hatians a day coming across and continuing to pile up, some 13,000 are in topatula, applying for status like we saw in del rio last week. secretary mayorkis met with the ambassador from haiti to the u.s. and mayorkis assured him hatians would be treated well and there was an investigation underway to the treatment of hatians last week. that seems to miss the mark. we spoke to hatians and they are upset with the mixed message biden administration is sending them. joseph, take a listen. >> he supposed to tell us, listen, do not come. we have a situation going through here. so now we go to united states and then we get deported to haiti, not chile or brazil or colombia, it is to haiti. this is the world situation. >> sandra: all right. well, griff jenkins doing amazing reporting down there, you may expect in remote area floating on the water, we lost him and will get him back on the fox news channel later. >> john: that is pretty extraordinary perspective, when you think about it. couple pesos from guatemala to mexico to the united states, wow. white house press briefing still ahead after getting pushed back a half-hour. you can bet jen psaki has a lot of ground to cover from the generals contradicting president biden to hallmark of president biden's agenda in trouble. we'll take you to that. >> sandra: look forward to that and breaking news and urgent sefrp for a woman who vanished in florida. investigators running into a major problem after a man who has answers turns up dead. that is next. 2.48 apr.st lock in this record low rate and save. for people who are a little intense about hydration. neutrogena® hydro boost lightweight. fragrance-free. 48 hour hydration. for that healthy skin glow. neutrogena®. for people with skin. michael: more than 100 years ago. simi: two branches of our family split apart. david: but now, ancestry helped connect us to our ancestors and each other. michael: find their stories. gigi: at ancestry. >> sandra: update to the petito mystery and the search for laundrie. new word of encounter with brian laundrie. that encounter is being described as extremely uncomfortable and we'll hear why in a moment. first another desperate search is breaking at this hour. 19-year-old miya marcano has been missing since friday, last seen at her apartment complex in orlando, the sheriff's office suspects foul play. unlike petito's case, the man labeled a person of interest is dead, apparent suicide. if he had answers to the mystery, he took them to the grave. that person of interest is armando caballero, a maintenance man at the apartment complex where miya marcano lives. he repeatedly asked miya marcano out on dates, but she always said no. her family held vigils to pray for her safe return. investigators found blood on her pillow, they are still hopeful she will come home. >> miyaa, this message is for you, i know you are alive and out there. we love you, you know our family is strong. you know our family is big. you know we will never sleep one night until we get you home. we miss you. we know that you are strong. we all need and have that conversation. any time something should happen, fight because we have your back. >> sandra: one person who might be able to solve this case, investigators -- is dead and investigators have to look elsewhere for answers. we are bringing in a former f.b.i. agent. with the person of interest in this case already dead, how do you continue to investigate knowing we have some other information we don't in the other case, such as there was obviously a struggle, there was blood found on miya marcano's pillow. where does this go next? >> well, they're looking at the d.n.a. for all the bed linens and likely to find all kind of things, fibers and stuff like that. they have impounded his vehicle, his vehicle will very probably have a ton of valuable evidence they can use to unravel this mystery. >> sandra: it is remarkable to see that when neighbors were asked in this case, so often seems to happen, they said they never had any complaints about this man who is dead and labeled a person of interest in this case. now a lot of people suspected he was capable of causing any harm to her. how often do we hear that? does it mean anything to the investigators in this case? >> they are looking closely at his background and i'm fairly confident they will find all kinds of information out about him that will indicate that he has done this type of thing before, perhaps it is not escalated to murder, most likely hasn't or he would be caught. he has done creepy things to girls before and i'm fairly confident we will find that out, the investigation should reveal that. >> sandra: he had demonstrated and i'm quoting directly from authorities, a romantic interest in miya. he was repeatedly rebuffed by her. so does that lead the investigation anywhere specifically? >> yes. it is obvious that he doesn't take no for an answer, if that's the way he's been living his life and was bold and brazen enough to go into her apartment without authority and attack her, you know, he has done this type of thing before. he's not listened when women say no. this is something that, you know, we just really have to focus on, no means no. and he didn't get that message. >> sandra: he was in a maintenance worker at those arden villa apartment complex where miya marcano lives and works in the office there. this seems like a key piece of information, a master key was used to enter marcano's unit 4:30 p.m. friday, half-hour before she would have finished her shift at the apartment complex. before he was found dead, restaurant wasn't on armando caballero for allegedly entering her unit. >> well, predators like to find target-rich environments and this was a target-rich environment. he knew her whereabouts and what time she got off and was probably going to enter her unit and he made sure he was in there before. from security standpoint, it is good idea to identify who swipes in and out of any unit, there should be some sort of way for the occupants to know who is in there, if someone is in there before they approach their residence. >> sandra: they have recovered armando caballero's vehicle and found several items deemed suspicious and they are still seeking information, any leads in this case are important for them to find out what happend and where she is. thanks for joining us, appreciate it. we will keep following this case. >> thank you. >> john: new information in the petito mystery. new documents show what brian laundrie's family did leading up to the announcement gabby was missing. the lawyer confirms brian and his family checked into a florida campground this month insisting three entered the campground together and left together. here is the latest. the mystery deepens. >> indeed, the mother in the brian laundrie family household is roberto, who signed off on the camp registration form in fort de soto state park and she is the mother of brian, the former fiance of petito. he drove out of her driveway with her mustang and never came back from alleged hike and he's nowhere to be found. [chanting] >> this has become the daily scene here outside the parent's house, heckeled by bullhorns, they've become prisoners in their own home, surrounded by cameras. their son, brian laundrie is a person of interest and wanted fugitive for bank fraud for using someone else's bank card. fox news contacted man who thinks he lan into laundrie in a bar in late august saying he thought laundrie was drunk and angry at the world. >> so my friends were carrying on a conversation and he just abruptly jumped into it with a comment about stupid southerners and some expletives about republicans and that is what made us draw notice. >> at fort desoto park, this is it where laundrie family went camping. how brian explained why he returned himself, we don't know. couple days later, the family of petito, who had not heard from her since late august called to report herring. >> john: fort de soto park is not a big place or kind of place you can hideout. thank you so much. >> sandra: democrat wants to become virginia's governor doesn't feel parent shoulds have a say about what children are learning in the classroom. >> john: and we wait for the briefing to begin, senator rick scott will join us live. before we get into that, the reason why in washington, d.c. at all. great to have you here. >> sandra: great to be here. it is great to be together. we came in last night, we ran a race, capitol challenge in washington, it is really awesome. here is the start this morning. it is members of congress, members of the house, members of the senate. shelly was out there, kristen cinema was in the race and mike gallagher and others and members of the media, print media, electronic media, i'm there in the red box hat. it was a lot of fun -- >> john: lsu days. >> sandra: can i say, we won, team fox won. and it was great, we took to the podium. that was, the team is nice to put that up. that was the solo medal for, i believe, fastest on-air female. >> john: good for you. >> sandra: that is fun. the team one, that is what was really -- we have fast people. >> john: and rich raced with you, six-minute miles? good for him. >> sandra: laury, amazing, fast runners at fox news. rich ran three mile necessary 18 minutes, go, rich. we have strong runners on this network. >> john: come back next time they have the marine corps marathon. >> sandra: let's do it together. >> john: i'll cheer you on. >> sandra: race coordinators did a great job, covid safe. >> john: we'll be right back, stay with us. i brought in ensure max protein, with thirty grams of protein. those who tried me felt more energy in just two weeks! ( sighs wearily ) here, i'll take that! ( excited yell ) woo-hoo! ensure max protein. with thirty grams of protein, one-gram of sugar, and nutrients to support immune health! ( abbot sonic ) (upbeat pop music throughout) new projects means new project managers. you need to hire. i need indeed. indeed you do. when you sponsor a job, you immediately get your shortlist of quality candidates, whose resumes on indeed match your job criteria. visit indeed.com/hire and get started today. think wearing less makeup means no need for a wipe? think again. neutrogena® makeup remover wipes remove the 30% of makeup ordinary cleansers can leave behind. your skin will thank you. neutrogena®. for people with skin. every day in business brings something new. so get the flexibility of the new mobile service designed for your small business. introducing comcast business mobile. you get the most reliable network with nationwide 5g included. and you can get unlimited data for just $30 per line per month when you get four lines or mix and match data options. available now for comcast business internet customers with no line-activation fees or term contract required. see if you can save by switching today. comcast business. powering possibilities. >> john: president biden's agenda in jeopardy, top generals contradicting him in afghanistan and his spending spree is on the virge of collapse. bring in senator rick scott. senator, great to see you. one thing it looked like congress was going to be able to do is pass this bipartisan infrastructure bill, vote supposed to be tomorrow. now progressives are saying, if you can't do the build back better plan, this thing will die. what do you say? >> first off, spending is causing inflations and hurting families on fixed income. 1.9 trillion democrats did back in april or infrastructure bill less than 50% infrastructure, it is caused inflation and they do this 3.5, which is really 5.3 trillion, taxes are going to go up and cause inflation. this is a disaster. democrats are figuring this out and voters saying, i don't want my taxes to go up and this debt cannot happen. this is not good for any family in this country. >> sandra: explain that statement, democrats are figuring this out. >> yeah, look at the polls, this year has been a disaster for the democrats, border, shutting down the pipeline, shutting down schools, the covid disaster, everything is disaster for the democrats and american families have figured out the democratic agenda is bad, it's socialism and causing -- take no responsibility. they blame somebody else for everything. the border is somebody's fault, the afghanistan disaster is somebody's fall, inflation is somebody's fault. american families are tired and democrats figure out they will not get re-elected if they keep doing this. >> john: democrat massive spending plan will blowup u.s. budget for generations. committee for responsible federal budget estimates true cost is somewhere between 5 and 5.5 trillion and the build back better plan could add $4 twillion to the debt. the white house says that is paid for, it is not paid for. the committee for budget says borrowing made sense during the covid crisis, now no economic reason to be borrowing more. the cfrb says if you do this, do it through offset, not borrowing. >> we cannot keep raising our debt ceiling without structural change and running deficit. the democrat plan takes debt to 45 trillion dollars in 10 years, we can't pay for this. it is impossible to pay for this. it will cause massive inflation. we are seeing gas prices up, food prices up. i grew up in a poor family and watched my mom struggle to put food on the table, that is going on across this country. can't afford the democrats, it is based on inflation and tax on poorest families. >> sandra: and jen psaki is in the briefing room. >> that is part of the discussion, we don't have luxury to be frustrated around here, if you are easily frustrated, wrong line of business. the president knew this would require discussion, negotiation, long conversations and he's been through this before, 36 years in senate, eight years as vice president and success he's had to date as senate getting american rescue plan through, we knew that, especially at this point in the process. that is what he's spend mag jority of time doing and why he pulled his trip to chicago today. sure, go ahead. >> have they come to an agreement behind the scenes on top-line number? >> i will leave to them to describe where they sit. >> would the white house come to an agreement on top-line number? >> what our objective is working to determine what the path forward looks like, we knew that would require compromise and require negotiation and sometimes all sides giving a little bit, that is what we've been discussing, i will not outline private discussions in detail. >> does the president want agreement on legislative text by tomorrow? >> i think you are asking me because of speaker nancy pelosi's comments i assume. the president trusts the speaker and her assessment of what her caucus needs to win this vote. our objective is win it would go votes, getting two pieces of important legislation across the finish line, we know the impact they have on the american people, they will lower cost for peep and he will be a huge down payment toward addressing climate crisis and lower taxes for 50 million americans and get both done. we trust speaker pelosi, we're working in lockstep and around the clock to get pulse of pieces of legislation done. it is 2:46 now, we have lots of time left in the day, may not feel that way, lots can happen and that is what we're working toward. >> based on conversations with senator manchin, does he feel progressives can trust them to support the bigger package? >> well, i can't speak for what members of the progressive caucus feel will make them confident about the path forward on reconciliation. >> does the progressives feel -- >> i will not speak for what they think they require to get the vote across the finish line, they can speak to that. go ahead. >> seems like bernie sanders thrown monkey wrench into this -- >> no monkey wrenches here, none. >> i encourage his colleagues in the house to vote down the bipartisan infrastructure package unless reconciliation package passes first. i know president biden worked closely with senator sander what is happend and how much damage has it done? >> we're in the middle of it, we are not done with this. the president has been clear about commitment to getting both pieces of legislation passed, both of them through. what we're navigateing and working through, how we can get agreement, of course, 50 votes in the senate on reconciliation package, that is what we're discussing and see what senators are comfortable with to get enough votes to get it across the finish line. >> right now senator sanders is telling colleagues, vote it down, vote down the package, kill the whole thing. >> i'm not going to speak for senator sanders, i would say there is more context of what a number of members of the progressive caucus is saying, they want a number, they want to understand the path forward on the reconciliation package and ultimately our objective here is to work toward unity and agreement. that is in process, we're not there yet, we're working on it. >> on the other end of the democratic party senator manchin doesn't think tax incentive and subsidy for renewal are needed right now, not necessary right now, did the white house commit to keep those? >> the president proposed those in his national package, he proposed a range of ideas in his initial package. i will not negotiate from here. we're looking to determine how to get more than 50 votes to get this historic package across the finish line. >> no commitment on those? >> i'm not negotiating come here, i could say this is in, this is out. we are at a precarious and important time in the discussions. >> one more, other issue n. iowa and illinois, thousands of workers for john deere authorized a strike tomorrow night. unto the company proposed cutting overtime pay, increasing healthcare premiums and more flexibility in the plan. john deere made $4.7 billion, record for that company, the ceo paid $16 million, 160% pay raise, is the administration aware of that labor issue and what is the president think companies like john deere raking in the cash, spreading around to top executives and investors, but not to workers? >> as policy and for legal reasons, we don't weigh in on individual labor disputes, let me say that first. we are aware of this particular case. i will say broadly speaking, which i think you are asking me about, yes, the president is deeply concerned when he sees companies making record profits, padding pockets of ceo's and expressing concern about paying more so we can invest in the work force and invest in cutting costs for the american people and invest in the climate crisis, that is deeply concerning, that is a fundamental reason we need to make the tax system more fair and believe companies can do that without passing on cost to the american people. >> go ahead. >> follow-up on what carrie was asking about senator sanders. there was a statement after he linked the two bills, reconciliation and the bipartisan infrastructure. and he said initially that he wouldn't sign one without the other and they are in tandem, but when he released a statement to clarify, he wanted people to know they are two separate bills. has the president asked progressive caucus not to make voting on this conditional on reconciliation? >> the president said the same thing privately and publicly, he wants both pieces of legislation passed and understands and it is not a secret how anyone, member of progressive caucus or moderate caucus, what their views are and what their priorities are and what needs to happen to move these forward. what his focus is how to move both pieces of legislation forward and make sure both of them are done to move the genda forward. >> is he linking them? they make statements the two are inseparable, is he okay with that? >> the president wants to get both pieces of legislation through, from doing it many times, it is not more complicated than needing enough votes to get legislation across the finish line, that is what we're working to do now you. members of congress are not wallflowers, they have a range of viewpoints. ultimately, they are strong viewpoints and we're working to get to agreement to move both forward. >> engage, can you share if you go to the baseball game tonight or plans and/or plans to head to the hill? >> ruled nothing out, nothing to announce this point in time. i've said many times, we make a lot of decisions hour by hour and what would be constructive to move things forward. >> one more thing on afghanistan, military advisors continue to be asked about this today on the hill. can you clarify when the president said no, no one said that to me that i can recall. what he meant? >> i think you took just a portion of the transcript of his conversation he had with george stephanopoulos. one, in that particular part he was asked a question so no one your military advisors didn't tell you no, keep 2500 troops, it's been a stable situation for the last years we can continue to do that. no one was suggesting over long-term we could keep 2500 troops and that would be sustainable over the long-term. you heard secretary austin and chairman milley convey exactly that. there would be impact, we would need to increase troop number and face threat and potential war with the taliban, there could be more casualty, not a single option presented that did not have risk, major risk, including those that would maintain the status quo of troops over the long-term. >> so it was about sustainability, he was not saying nobody told him 2500? >> i don't think we need to dumb this down for people, this is a really important issue. what we're talking about here is initial recommendation in the short initial period of time of having troop presence that would continue, not a surprise, the recommendation over the course of 20 years from the military has been to maintain troop presence. you you you could argue that is their job to maintain that. the president's view when making risk assessment, reviewing options, he did not want to escalate number of troons in afghanistan or risk losing more troops or go back at war with the taliban. he evaluated, that was not in our national interest or decision he made. i think it is important to note which context of this is missing is that the recommendation is that when they made the recommendations were made at time collective assumption was that the afghan security forces would effectively hold off the taliban for a much longer period of time. clearly that was proven to be inaccurate, that was accurate assumption. 2500 troops under assumption afghan national security fighters would maintain and fight and be in the lead. they were not. as chairman milley stated, he would have needed 5000 troops alone to protect bagram as we were 5000 troops to protect bagram alone, that does not include what was needed to hold kabul. it is important to understand the context, too, we know more now than several months ago and there was no credible option to keep ongoing presence of 25 troops over the long-term and what is clear now is that it would have been much higher than that and they conveyed that today. go ahead. >> thanks. on reconciliation,aggressives staked out a new number. anything less than 2.5 trillion would be tauf to swallow. did the president play a role in getting progressives to toss around a number like that? >> we have had like 300 engagements with a range of members and offices over the course of september, including progressive members and their offices. i think it is pretty clear, we're in the middle of negotiation and everybody will have to give a little. i will let them speak to what they might be comfortable with, what they would be comfortable supporting and voting for, we knew part would be coming down in numbers. >> can you still cover all of the priorities in the president's bill with a figure smaller than 3.5 and are there areas where things can be scaled back that are being looked at right now? one specific one talk about is community college, is that an area that is being looked at? is there something canceling student debt that could be a remedy for that? >> i would say, if congress wanted to send the president a bill to cancel $10,000 in student debt, that would happen, they haven't. i understand why you are asking, it would require numbers coming down, just the math, pure math should number be lower than 3.5 and negotiating the number is part of what is happening at this point in time. they are talking about what that looks like and what would be impacted, that is a live conversation, not in a position to get in more detail from here. >> the parliamentian struck, is new plan to address that in a different sort of immigration push and part of that, is there anything new on the border at the present point in time? >> for the reconciliation package? >> no, reconciliation package cannot include immigration part of that, it would be a different pur. >> well, maybe it will prompt a greater push on the hill for comprehensive immigration reform. just news came out from the parliamentarian a couple hours ago, maybe less time. the senators went back to look for another option accepted by the parliamentarian. members indicated they are committed to getting immigration reform done. we are committed, this i expect would renew or look at what the >> how would you describe the president's view about the trust factor in the democratic party? there seems to be a lot of public venting of concern about broken promises and not being certain from some members about what the end game looks like. what is the president of state of trust of the party right now? >> the president -- we all understand this to be an expected part of the process at this moment in time. members have strong feelings about what priorities are, what they want to be included in historic pieces of