But i think what people want to hear from him is that well take care of our friends, well take care of our allies, and well do what we can for the Afghan Women and children who are now at such grave risk from the taliban. Mike memoli who is standing by near Camp David where the president spent the weekend, mike, knowing that we have probably less than a minute to go, what kind of situation can you give us from there . Brian, what the White House wants to be today to be about is consistency, the consistency of a president who before that as a candidate for president , as a Vice President and even as a senator was very clear in his view of the situation in afghanistan and that the task of Nation Building there was one that meant an endless commitment of u. S. Blood and treasure, a commitment that he did not think would ultimately be mike, im going to interrupt. Heres the president. The unfolding situation in afghanistan. The developments that have taken place in the last week, and the steps were taking to address the rapidly evolving events. My national Security Team and i have been closely monitoring the situation on the ground in afghanistan and moving quickly to execute the plans we had put in place to respond to every Constituency And Contingency including the rapid collapse were seeing now. Ill speak more in a moment about the specific steps were taking but i want to let everyone know how we got here and Whap Americas interests are in afghanistan. We went to afghanistan almost 20 years ago with clear goals. Get those who attacked us on september 11th, 2001 and make sure Al Qaeda could not use afghanistan as a base from which to attack us again. We did that. We severely degraded Al Qaeda in afghanistan. We never gave up the hunt for Osama Bin Laden, and we got him. That was a decade ago. Our mission in afghanistan was never supposed to have been Nation Building. It was never supposed to be creating a unified centralized democracy. Our only national vital interest in afghanistan remains today what it has always been, preventing a Terrorist Attack on the american homeland. Ive argued for many years that our mission should be narrowly focused on counterterrorism, not counterinsurgency or Nation Building. Thats why i opposed the surge when it was proposed in 2009 when i was Vice President. And thats why as president i am adamant that we focus on the threats we face today in 2021, not yesterdays threats. Today the Terrorist Threat has metastasized well beyond afghanistan. Al shabaab in somalia. Al qaeda in the arabian peninsula. Al nusr in syria. Isis attempting to create a Califfate And Syria and iraq and establishing affiliates in multiple countries in africa and asia. These threats warrant our attention and our resources. We conduct effective Counterterrorism Missions in terrorist groups in multiple countries where we dont have permanent Military Presence. If necessary, well do the same in afghanistan. Weve developed counterterrorism over the rising capability that will allow us to keep our eyes firmly fixed on the direct threats to the united states in the Region And Act quickly and decisively if needed. When i came into office, i inherited a deal that President Trump negotiated with the taliban. Under his agreement u. S. Forces would be out of afghanistan by may 1, 2021, just a little over three months after i took office. U. S. Forces had already drawn down during the Trump Administration from roughly 15,500 American Forces to 2,500 troops in country. And the taliban was at its strongest militarily since 2001. The choice i had to make as your president was either to follow through on that agreement or be prepared to go back to fighting the taliban in the middle of the string fighting season. There would have been no ceasefire after may 1. There was no agreement protecting our forces after may 1. There was no Status Quo of stability without american casualties after may 1. There was only a cold reality of either following through on the agreement to withdraw our forces or escalating the conflict and sending thousands more american troops back into combat in afghanistan. Lurching into the third decade of conflict. I stand squarely behind my decision. After 20 years ive learned The Hard Way that there was never a good time to withdraw u. S. Forces. Thats why were still there. We were cleareyed about the risk. We planned for every contingency. But i always promised the american people that i would be straight with you. The truth is this did unfold more quickly than we had anticipated. So whats happened . Afghanistan political leaders gave up and fled the country. The Afghan Military collapsed, sometimes without trying to fight. If anything, the developments in the past week reinforced that any u. S. Military involvement in afghanistan now was the right decision. American troops cannot and should not be fighting in a war and dying in a war that afghan forces are not willing to fight for themselves. We spent over a trillion dollars. We trained and equipped an Afghan Military force of some 300,000 strong. Incredibly well equipped. A force larger in size than the militaries of many of our nato allies. We gave them every tool they could need. We paid their salaries. Provided for the maintenance of their air force. Something the taliban doesnt have. Taliban does not have an air force. We provided close air support. We gave them every chance to determine their own future. We could not provide them was the will to fight for that future. There are some very brave and capable afghan Special Forces units and soldiers. But if afghanistan is unable to mount any real resistance to the taliban now, there is no chance that one year, one more year, five more years or 20 more years of u. S. Military boots on the ground would have made any difference. Heres what i believe to my core. It is wrong to order american troops to step up when afghanistans own Armed Forces would not. The political leaders of afghanistan were unable to come together for the good of their people, unable to negotiate for the future of their country when the chips were down. They would never have done so while u. S. Troops remained in afghanistan bearing the brunt of the fighting for them. And our true strategic competitors, china and russia, would love nothing more than the united states to continue to funnel billions of dollars in resources and attention into stabilizing afghanistan indefinitely. When i hosted President Ghani and Chairman Abdullah at the White House in june and again when i spoke by phone to ghani in july, we had very frank conversations. We talked about how afghanistan should prepare to fight their Civil Wars after the u. S. Military departed, to clean up the corruption in government so that government could function for the afghan people. We talked extensively about the need for afghan leaders to unite politically. They failed to do any of that. I also urged them to engage in diplomacy, to seek a political settlement with the taliban. This advice was flatly refused. Mr. Ghani insisted that the afghan forces would fight. But obviously he was wrong. So im left again to ask of those who argue that we should stay, how many more generations of americas daughters and sons would you have me send to fight afghanistans Civil War . When afghan troops will not. How many more lives, american lives is It Worth . How many endless rows of headstones at Arlington National Cemetery . Im clear on my answer. I will not repeat the mistakes weve made in the past. The mistake of staying and fighting indefinitely in a conflict that is not in the national interest of the united states. Of doubling down on a Civil War in a foreign country. Of attempting to remake a country through The Endless military deployments of u. S. Forces. Those are the mistakes we cannot continue to repeat because we have significant vital interests in the world that we cannot afford to ignore. I also want to acknowledge how painful this is to so many of us. The scenes were seeing in afghanistan, theyre gutwrenching. Particularly for our veterans, our diplomats, humanitarian workers, for anyone who has spent time on the ground working to support the afghan people. For those who have lost Loved Ones in afghanistan and for americans who have fought and served in the country, serve our country in afghanistan, this is deeply, deeply personal. It is for me as well. Ive worked on these issues as long as anyone. Ive been throughout afghanistan during this war while the war was going on from kabul to kandahar to the kunar valley. Ive traveled there on four different occasions. I met with the people. Ive spoken to the leaders. Ive spent time with our troops. And i came to understand firsthand what was and was not possible in afghanistan. So now were focused on what is possible. We will continue to support the afghan people. We will lead with our diplomacy, our international influence and our humanitarian aid. Well continue to push for regional Diplomacy And Engagement to prevent violence and instability. Well continue to speak out for the basic rights of the afghan people, of women and girls, just as we speak out all over the world. Ive been clear that Human Rights must be the center of our Foreign Policy, not the periphery. But the way to do it is not through endless military deployments. Its with our diplomacy, our economic tools, and rallying the world to join us. Let me lay out the current mission in afghanistan. I was asked to authorize and i did 6,000 u. S. Troops to deploy to afghanistan for the purpose of assisting in the departure of u. S. And allied Civilian Personnel from afghanistan and to evacuate our afghan allies and vulnerable afghans to safety outside of afghanistan. Our troops are working to secure the Air Field and ensure continued operation of both the civilian and military flights. Were taking over air traffic control. We have safely shut down our embassy and transferred our diplomats. Our diplomatic presence is now consolidated at the airport as well. Over the coming days we intend to transport out thousands of american citizens whove been living and working in afghanistan. Well also continue to support the safe departure of Civilian Personnel, the Civilian Personnel of our allies who are still serving in afghanistan. Operation allies refugee, which i announced back in july, has already moved 2,000 afghans who are eligible for special Immigration Visas and their families to the united states. In the coming days the u. S. Military will provide assistance to move more s. I. V. Eligible afghans and their families out of afghanistan. Were also expanding Refugee Access to cover other vulnerable afghans who worked for our embassy. U. S. Nongovernmental agencies or u. S. Nongovernmental organizations and afghans who otherwise are at great Risk And U. S. News agencies. I know there are concerns about why we did not begin evacuating afghan civilians sooner. Part of the answer is some of the afghans did not want to leave earlier, still hopeful for their country. And part of it because the afghan government and its supporters discouraged us from organizing a Mass Exodus to avoid triggering, as they said, a crisis of confidence. American troops are performing this mission as professionally and as effectively as they always do. But it is not without risk. As we carry out this departure, we have made it clear to the taliban if they attack our personnel or disrupt our operation the u. S. Presence will be swift and the response will be swift and forceful. We will defend our people with devastating force if necessary. Our current military mission, will be short in time, limited in scope, and focused in its objectives. Get our people and our allies as safely, as quickly as possible. And once we have completed this mission, we will conclude our military withdrawal. We will end americas longest war. After 20 long years of bloodshed. The events were seeing now are sadly proof that no amount of Military Force would ever deliver a stable, united, secure afghanistan. Known in history as the graveyard of empires. Whats happening now could just as easily happen five years ago or 15 years in the future. We have to be honest. Our mission in afghanistan has taken many missteps, made many missteps over the past two decades. Im now the fourth american president to preside over War In Afghanistan. Two democrats and two republicans. I will not pass this responsibility on responsibility on to a fifth president. I will not mislead the american people by claiming that just a little more time in afghanistan will make all the difference. Nor will i shrink from my share of responsibility for where we are today and how we must move forward from here. I am president of the united states of america. And the buck stops with me. Im deeply saddened by the facts we now face. But i do not regret my decision to end Americas War Fighting in afghanistan and maintain a Laser Focus on our Counterterrorism Mission there and other parts of the world. Our mission to degrade the Terrorist Threat of Al Qaeda in afghanistan and kill Osama Bin Laden was a success. Our decadeslong effort to overcome centuries of history and permanently change and remake afghanistan was not, and i wrote and believed it never could be. I cannot and will not ask our troops to fight on endlessly in another countrys Civil War, taking casualties, suffering lifeshattering injuries, leaving families broken by grief and loss. This is not in our national security interest. It is not what the american people want. It is not what our troops who have sacrificed so much over the past two decades deserve. I made a commitment to the american people when i ran for president that i would bring americas Military Involvement in afghanistan to an end. While its been hard and messy and, yes, far from perfect, ive honored that commitment. More importantly, i made a commitment to the brave men and women who serve this nation that i wasnt going to ask them to continue to risk their lives in a Military Action that should have ended long ago. Our leaders did that in vietnam when i got here as a young man. I will not do it in afghanistan. I know my decision will be criticized, but i would rather take all that criticism than pass this decision on to another president of the united states, yet another one, a fifth one. Because its the right one, its the right decision for our people. The right one for our brave Service Members who risk their lives serving our nation. And its the right one for america. Thank you. May god protect our troops, our diplomats, and all brave americans serving in Harms Way. That was a consequential speech by an american president at a consequential time to, quote, toward The End, i am the president of the united states. The buck stops with me. Earlier Joe Biden saying, i stand squarely behind my decision. Consequential because of the pictures, imagery and stories the american people are seeing come out of afghanistan after a twodecadelong engagement, 2 Trillion in expenditures. Over to Nicolle Wallace we go. Nicolle, im especially interested in your viewpoint in that you were around for the construct, the start of the policy. And Id Love to hear you out on the current split between the press and public. The two audiences that will hear and view this speech and the President S Choice to go hard with his own decisionmaking. Well, im going to say two things, both hard to say. But ill say them anyway because here they are. 95 of the american people will agree with everything he just said. 95 of the press covering this White House will disagree. And for an american president to finally be completely aligned with such an overwhelming majority of what the american people think about afghanistan is probably a tremendous relief to the american people. He also went a long way to really fleshing out a biden doctrine. And there are questions about whether he can achieve what he set out. But there is no equivocation, there is no lack of confidence that this is the right decision. And what he has going for him is a vast majority of americans in both political parties. Nicolle, he did talk about mistakes, but he also assigned blame. Political leaders in afghanistan left the country, gave up. Afghan forces refused to fight. Weve seen this story just over the course of the last few days across the countryside as the taliban advanced with rapid speed. The president conceded, it did unfold more quickly than we anticipated. And he also promised, this gets to the doctrinal part of this, to forcefully defend our remaining forces, the americans were trying to get out of Harms Way, the afghans were trying to get out of Harms Way. He threatened to use devastating force, his quote, to defend americans and their interests. Right. He threatened retaliation against the taliban if they shoot us on our way out the door is i think a more blunt description of what he was trying to say there. This White House may not have come to this with a forthright explanation of how quickly the taliban would take over the country, but this president came to this speech with a very forthright explanation of why that was. He suggested that President Ghani engage in diplomacy. He did not. He suggested that President Ghani engage in, you know, the kinds of ways that you build a state that is trusted and responsive to its people. They did not. So if they were surprised, which is what that Sound Bite made it sound like they were, he said in july this will look nothing like our, you know, escape basically from saigon, and when it did this White House was caught flatfooted. Again, by the press largely. Eph withnt seen much public Opinion Polling on this because its happened so quickly. But i would say to republicans who are on Tv Arguing for a force to have stayed behind, that wasnt on the menu. Not for this president and not for the last president. So i think what this president did was walk into that room, speak to something that he really does have the support of the vast majority of americans on, and make clear that this was put in motion because this country is not going to fight for a country that Wont Fight for itself. To our viewers, we have asked for our veteran Foreign Correspondent Richard Engel to get in front of a camera soonest opportunity. For now we want to bring in Ben Rhodes, former deputy national Security Adviser to President Obama and these days an Msnbc Contributor and author. Ben, you worked in the department of the west Wing Kind of casually known as the department of no easy decisions and no good options. Your former boss used to say famously to paraphrase that a decision that reached his desk was already awful in so many cases. It was already of such importance that it had gotten through all the filters to him. With all that in mind and with your experience in mind dealing with afghanistan, what did you make of this president s remarks . Well, look, as someone whos sat in the Situation Room as afghanistan policy was discussed and had to write president ial speeches, i think that was a very powerful statement of complete confidence in the course of action that he set. And people should be reminded and Joe Biden reminded us himself, this is a position hes long held. In 2009 when there was a surge of forces into afghanistan, he opposed that. He had concluded at that point that there were diminishing returns in what we could accomplish militarily in afghanistan. And i think also throughout the obama years we saw successes in the Counterterrorism Side of the missions most notably the removal of Osama Bin Laden, but we saw the continued grinding problem of a persistent taliban threat, of corruption in the afghan government, and the lack of a formula that could coalesce a stable centralized government. And i think what hes saying, and i think he made a very strong and powerful case for it, is that staying for one year or five years was not going to achieve that goal of building a cohesive nation in which the taliban no longer posed a threat. And so he wasnt going to spend any more time on it. I think he spoke to two vulnerabilities in the decision. One is a counterterrorism threat. Is this going to pose a threat to the american homeland . And i think he was quite forceful in saying that their analysis is this threat is metastasized and in fact we dont have large Ground Forces in the other countries where we occasionally have to take counterterrorism operation. And he namechecked several of those. I think the second one, though, which is what speaks to the images weve seen, is the failure to evacuate more of the afghans. He mentioned that 2,000 have gotten out. I think most people assess that several Tens Of Thousands at minimum would need to get out who worked with us. And i think he did speak to the fact that theyre accelerating that process. But again, when he spoke about the need to put Human Rights at the center of our policy, that speaks to the imperative of this current mission, not just evacuating americans but also evacuating a lot of afghans who worked with us and not just interpreters but people who stepped up for Human Rights, people who took money from u. S. Human rights organizations. But all in all, brian, this is the Joe Biden i saw on afghanistan in the obama years and this is someone saying im going to draw a clear line, this war may not have ended like any of us wanted it to, it may have exposed the overreach in american Foreign Policy, it may have exposed the ways in which we have consistently misjudged our capacity to engineer events in other countries, but im comfortable being the one who takes the heat because i believe its in our better interests to stop this here. Ben rhodes, are his two aims achievable . One, the counterterrorism aim. And i think with the anniversary of 9 11 right ahead we will now see an afghanistan completely ruled by the taliban. Its a horrible historical echo. And two, is it possible to get out . As youre saying, its not just the interpreters, its ngos. Its the men who went on and served in government or taught in school. Is it achievable to get them out of the whole country . I mean, i think part of the Challenge And Part of the difficulty here and part of the thing theyre drawing . Criticism for is why more of that wasnt done in the last few months. And i think he laid out the case for it. And you could sense it at the time. That he this didnt want to create the sense of an impending collapse in afghanistan by mass evacuation. I think the thing to watch in the coming days is did they take out a couple thousand interpreters and americans and thats it or do they stay there and secure that airport and take out women who started Human Rights organizations, people who are at risk of of being killed by the taliban . But whats interesting, nicolle, here, is part of the audience for this speech is also the taliban. Frankly theyre going to be watching in afghanistan in the coming months are they going to invite in Terrorist Organizations to potentially have a Safe Haven that we would have to deal with militarily . Are they going to carry out Reprisal Killings against people who worked with the united states . So this is a very difficult equation that hes managing here. And what hes saying very clearly on the Counterterrorism Side is look, if theres a emergency in afghanistan well take action against that like we do against terrorism Safe Havens in somalia in a more targeted way than having a u. S. Military presence. I think again on the more ip tangible question of what we can do for the afghans who sacrificed not just for us and our military but for our values the question is going to be how much how many afghans can ge can they get out in the coming days. Comments, as you know, are easy to make on Social Media by folks with no skin in the game but no shortage of opinions. And a number of comments have arisen about to the following. Why cant we maintain a base not unlike the bases we maintain around the world, germany, japan, South Korea . Now that we know the impact of maintaining a rather small footprint, 2500, 2700 u. S. Personnel, meant so much to stability and in effect held back what we just saw completely collapse. I think that the argument that they would make out of the White House, brian, is that it was never simply a case of maintaining a base and having stability in afghanistan. There was a 20year taliban insurgency. They consistently occupied territory in afghanistan. That consistently was launching attacks. Every year there was an offensive launched by the taliban that put americans in Harms Way and that our strategy and again, ill own it myself as part of this 20year enterprise. The strategy for exiting afghanistan was always that we are going to build and train up this very significant and large afghan national Security Force so that theyre able to deal with that threat of an insurgency and we can then deal with afghanistan as we do other countries where there are counterterrorism challenges. And clearly, what you saw from President Biden is the sense that that strategy had not worked and that the evidence of the collapse of the afghan national Security Forces in recent weeks and months points to the fact that they were incapable and didnt have the will to fight. The other side of that equation, though, is that that Security Force was built to some extent with a dependency on not just the american military but american contractors and nato support. And so when we left without the capability that theyd come to rely on, they lacked the will because they didnt know that they could carry this into the fight against the taliban that had been hardened through decades of battle. So hes basically making the judgment that look, if we stayed inevitably we were going to be mired in what was an ongoing Civil War. It was an ongoing Civil War. And that that is not a mission that he as Commander In Chief thinks the american military should be in the middle of. And frankly thats an argument that Barack Obama was sympathetic to as well. At the same time, though, it may come a time where if there is an Al Qaeda presence in afghanistan that the united states will have to take a targeted action against that. I think he also reminded us look, we went into afghanistan, i dont think any americans thought when we went into afghanistan that we would be there in 20 years. I dont even think they thought we were going in there to build a democratic government made to some extent in our image. They thought we were going in there to get people who did 9 11, to get Osama Bin Laden and then to get out. And part of what happened in afghanistan and in iraq is that these Missions Kind of morphed into nationbuilding exercises and what weve learned as a country to some extent is what we learned in vietnam and people are focused on the Saigon Picture but theres also this question of america learning a lesson again that our capacity to nationbuild and to shape events with our military in very distant countries with very different politics and very different societies is inherently limited and when we get into those kinds of wars we end up Making Mistakes or we end up Setting Objectives that are beyond what we can do, and Joe Biden is saying thats not going to be what i do as president , this is over. Brian, i believe we get to bring into our conversation former Cia Director john brennan. Director brennan, are you with us . Yes, i am, nicolle. I wanted to ask you, we started this conversation on friday. Obviously, the horrific images not images, the horrific reality of the way the lives of our afghan friends and allies turned this weekend was impossible to not feel horrible about. And i wonder if there was something that bordered i dont care about the consequences. Did you hear enough specifics about how and that were going to make sure we take care of the people that stood with america over the last two decades . Well, i think the president was emphasizing the rationale for withdrawal of u. S. Military forces and he remains resolute as far as the rightness of that decision. And i think that does resonate with the majority of the american people. He spoke a little bit about trying to ensure that those afghans who worked with us are going to get out safely from the country and that Military Forces will be used to be able to safeguard that evacuation. But there was quite frankly little discussion about the fate of the afghans that are Left Behind after a 20year investment. And so i dont think there was much discussion or much comment that he made about why the last several days have been just a demonstration of chaos and confusion. Its a very dynamic situation. He said that the buck stops with him. But clearly this was not anticipated. Thankfully, we did have the Contingency Plans to be able to surge in Military Forces, to be able to again safeguard the airport and to try to ensure the safe evacuation. Now, i will say that im glad there was not largescale fighting in the streets of kabul. The government forces, you know, did collapse. I think there was, as pointed out, they didnt have the will to fight when the u. S. Military forces were coming out with all those contractors, with all those Intelligence Officers that have sustained them over the years. And as Ben Rhodes said, there was a tremendous dependency on that u. S. Life support system. And once it was clear that that Life Support system was going to be removed i think that really spelled the End Game here. Now President Biden also said that he really didnt have any option as far as maintaining stability past this period of time because of the agreements that were forged before with the taliban. Its really unknowable whether or not that limited force of 2,500 Military Troops along with the contractors and Intelligence Officers would have been able to maintain stability over the course of the coming months. But i think the impression is that this was done abruptly rapidly and without sufficient Planning And Preparation to avoid unfortunate chaos and hopefully not more violence that well see in the coming days. Director brennan, i want to bring in someone we all know. And im certain you are eager to hear from him as we are. And that is our longtime chief Foreign Correspondent Richard Engel. After so many years of covering warfare has made his way back into kabul, afghanistan. Richard, i followed with great interest you on Social Media before the president started saying that flights appear to have resumed out at the airport. What else can you tell us about the situation there and how the president s words, his steadfastness that we have been discussing, is likely to land . Reporter well, the Biggest Misland will be what President Biden said, that Human Rights are the cornerstone or the foundation of his Foreign Policy. Today at the airport just a few hundred yards from where im standing we saw thousands, Tens Of Thousands of afghans willing to risk everything, climbing over the walls, grabbing on to the undercarriages of planes so they could get out of this country. There are still Tens Of Thousands of american translate of afghan translators who worked for the u. S. Military or worked for the u. S. Government who are in this country unable to get to the airport. They keep talking about and when i say they, the administration keeps talking about in the future theyre going to speed up this process to get the afghans out. I dont see how theyre possibly going to do that. The country is now controlled by the taliban. How are these afghans supposed to even process their visas . The embassys been closed. It is also an incredibly bureaucratic process. They have to fill out pages and pages in english online. Where are they going to do that . Where are they going to print out the pages . How are they going to do their interviews . That process as far as i understand is more or less over. Ive been speaking to afghans who are on the run, afghans who have been waiting for years. One weve been in contact with whos now underground had been waiting for four years to get his visa. We were able to confirm and verify his story in 45 minutes. So the idea that now in The Endgame as people are fleeing this country or trying to flee this country because this was unsuccessful, the planes didnt Take Off because so many people were clinging on to them, that Human Rights are going to be the centerpiece of the u. S. Administration and that were now going to redouble our efforts to get all of these translators out just seems ludicrous here in kabul. Richard engel, can you pull back the curtain on whats happening to them right now . Are they still if theyve made their way to kabul, are they still at the airport . Is there anyone for them to call . Is there anyone left in country . I know Senator Tom Cotton sent out a tweet saying call my office. I mean, is there any centralized help for people that are still there . Reporter no. No, there is not. This is all a total fantasy. There was a office. I went to a couple of days ago. Before the taliban took over. It was a private office. And it was packed with afghans. And it was a private company. You paid 25 because by the way, these forms are all in english and they have to be printed out and you have to staple a picture to them and then you have to scan them in. What, are afghans now that the taliban are here go toar this local Printing Shop and print out their Application Strike how they were a translator . Thats not going to happen right now. So even a few days ago there were people who were overwhelmed, they couldnt figure out the process. They were delayed. They got the spelling wrong. They couldnt get through the incredibly slow bureaucratic process just to get their paperwork in, let alone approved. Now that there is no embassy, that the u. S. Is focused almost exclusively and entirely on getting its own people out of here, that theres going to be this redoubled effort to find and round up the people who worked for the u. S. And get them to the united states, once this mission is over, and its going quickly now. It was paused today for several hours because the planes couldnt get in landed at the airport they would have landed on top of people trying to escape. But now it is resumed because those people are gone, this operation is going to go fairly quickly. These planes are landing, they are loading and they are gone. They are not on the ground for very long because theyre worried about spending too much time. After they leave, how are these people going to get out . How are they going to get to kabul . Whos going to approve their paperwork . I cant see it happening. Richard, i read something about how they were torn between keeping all the documentation that they would have to provide to the u. S. Government to verify that they helped us and wanting to burn all the documentation to prove how helpful they were to us lest the taliban find it. Reporter yes. What are they doing . Reporter absolutely. Absolutely. You got it. So lets say you were a translator and you have a couple of certificates on your phone and you have them printed out. Are you going to keep those things . Now that the taliban could come to your house any day . Youre going to get rid of them. Or youre going to bury them. Youre certainly not going to go to the local Printing Shop and print them up and then try and get to the u. S. Embassy that isnt here. So i dont want to say the ship has sailed, but the ship is sailing. The planes are leaving. And these afghans who helped out are not on them. I personally and all the journalists who are here are getting dozens and dozens of emails and messages every single day from ngos, from teachers, from people who worked with organizations, from musicians, people who worked with the u. S. Government or the u. S. Military or benefited from the openness, the new society that was created here, asking how can they get out, is there any opportunities, can they get to tajikistan afghans, by the way, need visas to get everywhere. Its not like they can just get to the airport which is now closed except for these evacuation flights. Even if they got there, most countries wont receive them. Theres only a handful of countries that will receive them. And covid has made that even worse. So their best hope would be that this airport opens up, they surreptitiously get through the talibancontrolled airport and fly to some third country that will accept them, and i think you can hear one of those planes coming in right now. Im not sure how sensitive our microphones are. But theyre coming in now at quite a rapid clip. So that would be their best opportunity, to get to some third country where at least theyre safe and to try and process their visa there. But if theyve been waiting for years and years already, are they going to go to uzbekistan or tajikistan and many already have and wait there for potentially years and years to come . They dont have confidence that the u. S. Is going to help them. Theyre very disappointed. Richard, back here were reading and watching everything we can get our hands and eyes on about the situation there and some accounts from kabul talked today about the return of Traffic Cops at intersections and Street Scenes that almost look and feel normal, kind of a bloodless takeover. Im curious if you can express how the tightening feels around you. And because our viewers are savvy enough to know they would see you pop up there before long, we get asked on your behalf about the measures youre all taking, without revealing Op Sec details, for your personal safety, you and the remaining american journalists. Reporter so far there hasnt been any hostility from the taliban. The taliban are winning. They have a good story to tell. They believe they pushed out the united states. And theres a lot of reasons why they should believe that. And if you have a good story to tell and youre feeling victorious, its not usually the kind of time when you would lash out and grab a bunch of foreign journalists and do horrible things to them. They want to show that theyre in charge. They want to show that they are have turned a leaf. And thats the message. If you talk to the taliban today, and theyve been doing interviews left, right and center. Theyve been putting out statements. Its all kittens and ice cream. Everythings going to be great. Theyre wonderful. Theyre restoring law and order. Theyre open to women, theyre open to dialogue. Theyre going to bring back some old officials from the government. Theyre talking about keeping the mayor of kabul. So theyre saying what a lot of afghans want to hear because they watch these images and they watched what happened at the airport and theyre saying no, no, no, we want them to come. The real question is the taliban basically are bullies and bullies when they dont get what they want they get very violent and very aggressive. And it was only its only going to be a matter of time before the taliban till somebody pushes back on the taliban and then well see i think their true colors emerge. 1 15 a. M. , kabul, afghanistan. Our man in kabul, Richard Engel. Our longtime chief Foreign Correspondent. Richard, everyone who knows and loves you at work, everyone watching, joins us in wishing you nothing but safety as you Go On about your work there. Thank you so much for reporting in live from kabul. Director brennan, we were speaking to you before we heard from Richard Engel, and director, you opened the door on the Intelligence Failure this represents, it being your stock in trade, your lifes work. Given your love for the men and women involved in the trade, talk about that a little bit. Talk about how it could have happened. And if i can add a part two of the question, whats the role going forward for the clandestine services broadly without specifics . Well, i dont know what the Intelligence Assessment was as far as how rapidly the afghan forces were going to collapse. But i do know that the assessment has been for quite a while that the afghan Military And Security capabilities was very dependent on that u. S. Support system. And so i think the events over the last several days caught a lot of folks by surprise within the government. I think they were hoping that there was going to be more of a battle by the Afghan Military against the taliban. But again, i think it was the psychological impact of the announcement that we were going to be getting out fully, a wholesale withdrawal of those u. S. Military troops as well as contractors and intelligence bases, by The End of of august. And that had a tremendous impact i think not just on the psyche of Afghan Military but also on the psyche of the taliban, which allowed them to have that momentum. So going forward, i think its going to be difficult to be able to maintain the type of Intelligence Collection capabilities that we had inside of afghanistan because the Intelligence Presence there were in forwardoperating bases that used the military for protection. So that area between afghanistan and pakistan which is where Al Qaeda and other Terrorist Organizations have really resided for a number of years, that is an area that i think were going to have to use some remote assets to be able to try to monitor and try to ensure that were able to detect any type of Terrorist Activities that might be in fact emerging there. Now, as President Biden said, there are Terrorist Threats from different parts of the world, which is true. The fact is that we had this presence in afghanistan for so many years because of the tremendous devastation of those 9 11 attacks. Al qaeda has been dismantled to a great degree, but i do think were going to have to watch in the weeks and months and years ahead just how the taliban is going to govern and whether or not theyre going to allow these Terrorist Organizations to reemerge. There are extremists and hardline elements within the taliban, and thats where i think the biden administration is going to have to continue to watch very carefully and take appropriate action when there does seem to be some type of Terrorist Threat that is going to emerge. Director brennan, can i just we want to bring into our conversation oh, im sorry. Go ahead, nicolle. Im sorry. I was just going to ask if its a label we shouldnt even be throwing around. I mean, i heard President Biden say we knew that President Ghani didnt engage in the things he needed to do. And ive watched through multiple administrations that weve known the Afghan Military really hadnt met a single benchmark. So is it fair to even ask those questions about Intelligence Failure . What did we not know . I think we had a fairly good sense of what was going on inside of the Afghan Military and Security Forces. I think that we knew that they were, again, heavily dependent on that u. S. Support system. That type of close airport support, intelligence, their advice that the u. S. Military provides to the afghan troops, and so i think President Ghani was hoping that the military was going to Stand Upfight, but, again, i think it was just a combination of factors. The announced withdrawal, the fact that there was this wholesale and very abrupt removal of the troops, even though it was anticipated as a result of the farcical agreement by trump with the taliban last year that set it all in train. President biden said there was not an option to again, again, maintain a limited Military Presence for an extended period of time and maintain the type of stability we wanted in afghanistan, the stalemate that was existing for many years with the taliban. Now, again, i think the intelligence is really going to be hard pressed, the u. S. Intelligence community, to try to understand what is going on in the country. I will say that afghanistan in 2021 is different than in 2020. I think we will see some of the atrocities the taliban is likely to carry out in some areas. The unfolding events in the coming weeks and months i think will determine exactly how much of a problem the afghan people are going to be facing given that the taliban are clearly ascendant. We want to bring into the conversation matt zeller, former first lieutenant during the War In Afghanistan, former Combat Advisor with afghan Security Forces, cofounder of No One Left Behind, a Veterans Organization that offers services to former afghan and iraqi interpreters who settle in the united states. It is almost ironic to state the name of the organization you founded given what were watching Go On, though im curious to hear your reaction of the consequential speech by the american president. He didnt run from it. He owned it. He owned the fact that, as he put it, the buck stops with him. I hope he does their deaths, too. I feel like i watched a different speech than the rest of you guys. I was appalled. There was such a profound boldfaced lie in that speech, the idea we planned for every contingency . I have been personally trying to tell this administration since it took office, i have been trying to tell our government for years this was coming. We sent them plan after plan on how to evacuate these people. Nobody listened to us. They didnt plan for the evacuation of our afghan wartime allies. Theyre trying to conduct it now at the 11th hole. The thing they were most concerned about was with the optics of the chaotic evacuation. They got exactly what they were most concerned of by failing to do what was right when they could have done it. We had all of the people and equipment in place to be able to save these people months ago and we did nothing. Im appalled that he thinks we only need to take 26,000 people. Theres 86,000 people currently Left Behind in afghanistan alone. We identified all of them for the government. I have no idea why he claims people dont want to leave afghanistan. I have a list of 14,000 names right now of people who want to get out of afghanistan, and the idea that the Afghan Military should be blamed for this . Do you know how many casualties the Afghan Military took in an average year . More than the united states did in 20. When you are not getting paid on a regular basis, when you are not getting fuel, when No One is supplying you with ammunition and yet youre still throwing up to the fight, how dare us for having to blame these people for not having the audacity to be able to survive a taliban onslaught . No, no, no. What we need to be doing right now and im appalled the president didnt say is we need to be talking about how were going to get every single one of these people out because lets be abundantly clear. People like me looked these people in the eye and made them a promise. We promised them in their time of need we would take care of them. How do you ever expect anyone to ever trust us again if we dont do that now while we can . Im sick and tired of trying to defer to the Islamic Emirate Of Afghanistan on what were going to do. We are the united states of america. Theyre terrified of us. I have afghans on the ground right now who are telling me theyre going Door To door in kabul and making lists of people who used to work with us. Theyre telling them with smiles on their face, evil smiles, they will be back for them once we leave. So we either take them now or these people are going to die. I have been trying to tell anyone who will listen. This is a neveragain moment in the making. This is an administration that seems to be a profound Champion And Defender of Human Rights. Well, sometimes Human Rights have to be defended at the Barrel End of a gun. The taliban are a modern version of the nazis, and if this was dresden, do you think british sorry, not dresden. If this was dunkirk, do you think british yachting pilots, the british captains that were sailing their boats heroically into dunkirk, do you think they were asking on the beaches if the people they were picking up were brits or french or just trying to get people away from the nazis . Every afghan we leave behind is going to be Left Behind to a horrible existence, and if we dont take them now while we can it is as much on us as on the taliban who will hang or behead them. Matt, our friend Paul Rieckhoff tweeted a couple of hours ago 6,000 troops is not adequate to do what you just described, which is still hopefully the mission of the administration, tell me what it looks like if adequately staffed and funded . I have been saying we need to send the entire 82nd airborne. We probably need to send the second marine expeditionary force, two units we keep on 24hour recall. We should retake every airfield we just gave up. It sounds ridiculous and is not feasible, but these are our people. We made these people a promise. The taliban are now actively killing them, and if we dont take them theyre going to die. Thats the thing is we have the means to do this. We have just simply lacked this entire time the conviction to do the right thing. Im not going to sit and list eastbound to a president that i voted for, i was happy this man took office. Im now appalled at that speech. Im not going to sit here and have him lie to the american people. We did not plan as a government for this contingency. The american people, the advocates who have been pleading with the government did plan for it. You can go to our website, evacuateourallies. Org. We have had a plan, we have receipts, i put them on Social Media. No one got back with us. No, no, im not going to let them get away with this. We have to take these people. We have to take them now. I got an email today. He said this, i want to write you and thank you for all of the efforts you have tried to do to get us out of here. Were going to die now and thats okay. Were resigned to it. But i want to let you know i still love the american people. Im still thankful for the service that i gave to the united states, and i want to thank you for a good 20 years and for caring about us and hope that we somehow make it through this, but we probably wont. Were going to die. Im sick and tired of receiving those messages. Those people are still alive. We can still go and get them. The taliban are not going to wipe these people out so long as we have a beach head. We should be holding that for as long as it takes to get every single one of them out, and if necessary we should be doing it at the Barrel End of a gun. If we dont, No One is ever going to trust us again and people like me are going to come home in body bags. The only reason im sitting here talking to you today is because my afghan interpreter saved my life in a battle 13 years ago. He would be the first person to tell you if he thought we werent honorable people he wouldnt have been standing next to me. He skilled to people in a Fire Fight who were about to kill me. Thats the type of support of the people were now abandoning. How is it that my service is any much more valuable than theirs . Is it because i won the Birth Lottery . These people went on to the next unit and the next mission time and time and time again, and how dare us to even contemplate leaving them behind to, again, what i consider to be a modern equivalent of the nazi party. You know, richard was talking about how life is going back to normal in kabul. The one thing he wasnt talking about is there arent women anymore. They dont have rights in the Islamic Emirate Of Afghanistan. They dont have a future. Matt, what is the response on the other end of the phone . Obviously you make an extraordinarily devastating case for saving the people who Saved Our saved you and all of your former colleagues. What is the response . What did they say to you . They forgive us for abandoning them. I cant forgive myself and ill never forgive my country for doing this. I know exactly what every Vietnam Veteran has been warning me about now. Im going to live with the moral injury for the rest of my life. Members of my unit have called me in the last 24 hours or not, talking about how any of this was worth it and how theyre struggling, you know the one thing that will save us from that moral injury . Saving these people while we still can. We can save as many of them as we can put our hands on. The taliban are not going to stand in the way of us. Theyre terrified of us. They might not have been afraid of the afghan government but theyre absolutely afraid of us. We should be using every asset we have to use these people. Were never going to get another opportunity again. Jason crowe has been working on this issue for a long time. Have you been invited in meetings at the White House or have you worked with other policymakers on this . So, thank god for congress. You know, you want to talk about bipartisan solutions, on maymay people like Patrick Leahy and ron johnson, i dont know of any other issue they agree on but they sent a letter to the congress. Point number seven urges them to begin immediate evacuation of our allies. Multiple congress men, you name it, theyve all said the same thing in the house, we needed to start evacuating these people around the same time. Congress has been great. We built this administration a bipartisan solution to get this done. This administration however never responded to a single request any of us made to meet with them. You can go out, just put it on Social Media a couple of hours ago. You can see as late as july when they stood up a task force, and we emailed them a list. They finally reached out in the last 24 hours. We knew for months where they were, we verified their service. By the way, richard is right. Processing the visas is pointless. We have a biometrics database. We should be using it to verify their status. If theyre in the database, it means they served with the united states. The taliban is using it as a Hit List because they stole the data and the technology to use it. The reasons the afghans inside the airport is because the taliban have a Check Point outside at the front gate and theyre identifying anyone who comes up. If you pop up in the database, you are disappeared, never seen again. We should be doing everything we can to get these people out. We have the means to do so. We tried to communicate this to this White House for months, and No One listened. No one responded to our emails, No One responded to our phone calls, our Social Media posts, the various white papers. You can google my name, see how many opeds i have written on this. I literally wrote on the 2nd of april, when collapse comes in kabul it will happen faster than d. C. Can respond. Given afghanistans unique position in the world, we are going to need to conduct the largest Air Lift since 1948. We have been streaming this for months and No One listened. Let me bring Ben Rhodes back. You were in the nsc, i cant imagine you wouldnt take matts call and try to get to the right place on this. What do you think is going on or do you know what is going on . Well, yeah, and i want to add to those powerful remarks that and i mentioned this earlier. In addition to interpreters ive been hearing a lot from, you know, afghans on the ground who received usaid funding, set up Human Rights organizations, tried to work for the afghan government, people who were not corrupt, you know, and i hate painting a broad brush because there are a lot of people who put their neck on the line. So i absolutely agree we should be trying to get all of those people out. Here is the problem, nicolle. I think sometimes when you are sitting in the White House, you know, you hear them referring to a program that is a complicated bureaucratic program that has limited numbers of people who can be processed at a time, that requires certain paperwork as richard said, and the reality is that when you know you are in a situation when you are leaving and there could be an imminent collapse you have to kind of toss out the bureaucrat rule book. You have to get these people out. It may be that you cant Air Lift them all directly to the united states, but you could make an agreement with another country, a Central Asian country that is nearby. You could take them to u. S. Military facilities. I think what needed to happen and what seems to be happening now when you see the pace of the withdrawals pick up is tossing out the kind of Bureaucrat Hat and tossing out the various paperwork and processes that need to be followed. You know, we know who these people are. We have lists, we have contact info. The challenge now, of course, is getting them to the airport. I think the only way to scale up, you know, this system was not built to evacuate 40,000 to 70,000 people, it was built to do what the administration is talking about, and we have about 2,000 people out with their family. Thats about as fast as the Bureaucrat System can move. A lot of people who serve in government get frustrated by bureaucracy and sometimes you have to say, this is a totally extreme circumstance, a totally unique circumstance and we have to bust through it. Again, i think theyre doing it now. My hope is that they stay there and they get as many of these people out so you dont have a circumstance where once we have gotten the americans out and once we have gotten the people who have already passed through that Sid Interpreter Visa program out who had their paperwork in order thats it. No, no, we know where a lot of these people are. There are a lot of us who worked on these issues in the last years have been getting email contacts, addresses, here are the people already being visited by the taliban as mentioned. Lets get as many of these people out while we have the Military Presence on the ground. I think thats what we have to all watch carefully in the coming days here, and my Hope And Prayer is that is something the administration is going to take very seriously. Ben rhodes, director brennan, thank you both. Matt, i want to single you out for an extra thank you. I want to promise you that we will stay on this. You come back every day that you are available and we will keep asking these questions. We will stay on this. Every day you have many until they evacuate these people. Im good for my word. You come back every day at 4 00. Brian. What a moment nor the country. Thank you for having me. It was an honor to chronicle it with you even though we are just getting started in the problems that are coming out of this policy. Thank you so much, brian. We will be watching you this evening. Our coverage continues. There was never a good time to withdraw u. S. Forces. Thats why were still there. We were clear eyed about the risk, we planned for every contingency, but i promised the american people i would be straight with you. The truth is this did unfold more quickly than we anticipated. So what has happened . Afghanistan political leaders gave up and fled the country. The Afghan Military collapsed, sometimes without trying to fight. If anything, the developments of the past week reinforce that any u. S. Military involvement in afghanistan now was the right decision. American troops cannot and should not be fighting in a war and dying in a war that afghan forces are not willing to fight for themselves. Hi, everyone. It is just after 56sh in the east. Continuing our coverage of the developing situation in afghanistan just in the last hour we heard president Joe Biden address the nation with firm resolve, unapologetically defending his decision to withdraw u. S. Forces from afghanistan after two decades, saying the buck stops with him. He was not willing to put americans through more years in americas longest war. The events we are seeing now are sadly proof no amount of Military Force would ever deliver a stable, united, secured afghanistan, as known in history as the graveyard of empires. What is happening now could just as easily happen five years ago or 15 years in the future. We have to be honest. Our mission in afghanistan has taken many missteps, made many missteps over the past two decades. Im now the fourth american president to preside over War In Afghanistan, two democrats, two republican President S. I will not pass this responsibility on to a fifth president. I will not mislead the american people by claiming just a little more time in afghanistan will make all the difference. A confident Commander In Chief, confident in his position as the picture in aefgts grows grimmer by the hour. It is a harsh reality that will stain his presidency according to David Sanger of The New York Times who writes this. Quote, mr. Biden will go down in history, fairly or unfairly, as the president who presided over a longbrewing, humiliating final act to the american experiment in aefgts. After seven months in which his administration seemed to exude confidence, getting more than 70 of adults vaccinated, making progress toward a bipartisan infrastructure bill, everything about americas last days in afghanistan shattered the imagery. As the president noted in his speech, as made by people on both sides of the political aisle, he was dealt an unwinnable hand by his predecessor. Here is republican congresswoman Liz Cheney yesterday. Look, i think absolutely President Biden Bears Responsibility for making this decision but theres no question that President Trump, his administration, secretary pompeo, they also bear very significant responsibility for this. They walked down this path of legitimizing the taliban, perpetuating the fantasy, telling the american people the taliban were a partner for peace. Secretary pompeo told us that the taliban was going to renounce Al Qaeda. None of that has happened. None of it has happened. A look at the ongoing crisis in afghanistan and President Bidens address to the nation is where we start this hour with some of our favorite reporters and friends. Michael crowley is here, new york times diplomatic correspondent. Jeremy butler, ceo of the iraq and afghanistan veterans of america. Congresswoman Jackie Speier of california is here, a member of the intelligence and armed services committees. We will start with you, congresswoman. I said when i first heard the speech, i listened to every word and i feel maybe 95 of what he said is the way the american public sees this war and has seen it for a while and maybe 95 of the national Security Establishment and the press who cover it see it the opposite and dont approve of what he said. What do you think of the president s Response Today . I think he was being very honest, nicolle. He has been committed to getting out of afghanistan for close to a decade. I think many of us have been in that position for a long time. What is regrettable is the manner in which were leaving and the fact that we have something like 18,000 translators seeking to be able to be airlifted out of there, and right now only 2,000 have been. So we have got to negotiate, as i understand has been done, with the taliban to keep that airport under our control so we can do enough Air Lifts to get people who have been there to help us and the women who have been negotiators, who have been running the ngos, who have been in elected office who want to leave, give them a means by which to get out of the country. Congresswoman, just hearing you say well have to negotiate with the taliban just takes on you recoil i think physically, anyone who lived through 9 11 as we approach the 20year anniversary, obviously a vicarious place to be in, depending on a negotiation with the taliban, to get our allies and our friends and anyone in danger out safely. Is that the best we could do right now . I think it is the best we can do right now. You know, we negotiate with our adversaries all the time, and whether were willing to define them as adversaries, as certainly i would, or the new leaders of afghanistan, our obligation right now is very clear. We need to make sure those people who helped us have a way out. I have constituents that are held up in homes right now, who are american citizens who were previously interpreters, who have no way to get to the airport right now. So there are real lives at Stake And Weve got to keep our focus very clear on them. I dont want to endanger any of them, but Richard Engel reported for us in the last hour theres no embassy to go to and that if you go and printout the forms which all have to be filled out in english, there could be people spying for the taliban. I mean what did you tell them to do . Well, i mean they are in contact with both my office and the state department. We feel confident that there will be a seat on a plane if this particular individual can get out to the airstrip. We also have other constituents who have Family Members there, who have gone back specifically to get them to come to the united states, and, again, there are probably hundreds and thousands of stories like this that many of my colleagues are probably trying to address right now. So it is a dire situation. We have an obligation to those who have been with us, who have supported us, who are u. S. Citizens, who are persons that we recognize are in Harms Way and that we have helped to lift up. Im talking about women and girls right now. We have got to find a way to get them out of the country if they want to leave. Are you optimistic we will be able to do that . Well, im hopeful. It appears now that these flights are being able to both arrive and Take Off, and ive got to believe we are going to do the right thing because we have an obligation to do the right thing. Congresswoman, stay with us. Jeremy butler, i want to bring you in. First, you reaction to the president s speech . It was what i expected to hear. I think if you are a supporter of President Biden and the draw down or withdrawal, you heard what you wanted to hear. I think if you are not a supporter, then you didnt hear the things that you wanted to hear. But i think either way, if you are just looking at the speech you are really failing to understand how we got to this point. That is just really a failure of strategic oversight from the get go. I mean if you go back just in terms of talking about the sid applicants, it is a Program Set into motion back in 2008 and yet here we are still at this point with some 17,000 plus Family Members we are trying to get out. If this program had been properly executed and had the proper oversight from the beginning, we wouldnt be in this situation. We would still be dealing certainly with a taliban overrun, but we wouldnt be scrambling to make lastminute plans and attempts to get them out. Frankly, im not confident. It is a huge focus of mine, of iadas and the organization, to make sure we get out as many allies as we can as possible, but the fact is if theyre not already in the area of the airport they have little chance of getting out. The taliban controls the Land Borders and access in and out of the city of kabul. So if our allies are anywhere else in the country it will be incredibly challenging for them to actually get on a flight and get out of the country. And then what happens to them . I mean i hate to say it, but i think theres a very good likelihood they will be killed. Matt Zeller Couldnt have put it better in the previous segment when he said that the taliban have the biometric tools that the u. S. And other allies were using throughout this campaign. They know who has worked with the u. S. And other allies. They are on the hunt for them right now. Despite anything they might say, the reality is they intend to make an example out of anyone that worked with the u. S. And others. So if they arent able to get to safety, i do fear they will be killed and they will be killed probably publicly. Jeremy, i have learned through you and paul not to ever ask general questions that would suggest that anyone can paint the u. S. Military as one group with one point of view, but i wonder what you have heard today from our veterans, especially of afghanistan . How are they doing . Theyre not doing well. Like you said, the veteran population, the Military Population is very diverse, but i would say if there is one general consensus right now it is anger. It is a lot of anger about the fact that we arent getting our allies out. It might be anger as to the way in which we are doing the withdrawal, that the withdrawal didnt happen faster, but at The End of the day it is a lot of confusion, it is a lot of anger, and everybody who served over there, everyone who supported the Service Members going and deploying to afghanistan is looking at the imagery today and the last couple of days in utter shock and disbelief. I dont think anyone expected it to be this bad or happen this quickly. Even though the Veteran Community is incredibly diverse, there is a consensus around absolute shock, anger, horror. Michael crowley, i have followed all of the coverage and i have tried to cover all of the scenes out of afghanistan, and i corrected myself earlier. Theyre not images, theyre not things we see on our phone. They are the reallife horrors of largely the people who helped us, who kept our best alive for the two decades that we were in iraq. I wonder, i thought that the president gave a speech today, every line of which likely has the support and speaks to how most americans feel about our continued presence there, but i think that it is undeniable that the way we are leaving and the people we risk leaving behind to meet the Fate Jeremy describes is an ongoing crisis for this White House. It absolutely is, nicolle. You saw the President Focus really on the strategic question, which is the popular part, which is should the united states still be involved in this 20year war. By the way, were we at the point where it was for americas purposes really a war . I think thats a conversation you can have. You know, we had a pretty small number of troops, very minimal casualties, very minimal engagement with the enemy, at least on the ground at that point. Setting that aside, strategically americans felt like it was time to get out of that war and it was a popular position. The tactical question of how we did it, the timing and speed of the withdrawal and the planning, particularly for getting more afghans out earlier in case you have this essentially closetoworsecase scenario, the president didnt really engage. To the extent that he did, you saw an interesting degree of Finger Pointing and blame casting, which was not totally unjustified. President ghani proved to be a big disappointment even to his allies in the afghan government, and it is true that the afghan Security Forces collapsed pretty quickly. But that is where President Biden wants to make his stand, is on this strategic question. I think that he thinks the public will be with him in the long term on that. I want to leave the politics aside for a second and just ask you with your foreign Policy Expertise where you think this puts this president and this White House . I mean the European Coverage is as scathing as the coverage here at home. Well, it is a bad position, nicolle. You are right. I have seen some of the foreign coverage. The bbc, for instance, prospective from britain was very you know, the tone was very critical, a lot of disappointment. And then i was looking at some of the russian Media Outlets i like to check in with to see what their sort of Propaganda Narrative is, having a ball, ridiculing us, making it look like we are crawling away in defeat and humiliation. Thats going to be a big problem. Theres also a really interesting big diplomatic question, going back to your conversation with the congresswoman when you were talking about are we really negotiating with the taliban right now about this crisis in the moment. We have a larger question. What do we do about an afghan government that is wholly or largely run out of kabul with by the taliban . Do we engage with it, do we use aid, humanitarian aid with the taliban to, say, include former afghan officials in certain positions to try to respect some womens rights, Human Rights, are we willing to work with them at all to try to achieve those goals . Those are really tough questions and im not sure the biden administration has figured that out. I will be watching that very closely. Congresswoman, what would you suggest they do . Money does talk, and, you know, we have invested 88 Billion in the Armed Forces in afghanistan, 2 Trillion over the whole course of our time there, and a large part of that was reconstruction money. A lot of it was used in manners that would be identified as fraud and waste. Our Inspector General has identified, i dont know, 18 Billion of that. But in the course of Doing Business with the leadership of afghanistan moving forward, their only Cash Crop is heroin, and that is not going to sustain the people. So i think the taliban, having been in leadership before, recognizing what they need to do, could conceivably develop a government that is going to be focused on the people and developing some economic growth that exists outside of the heroin trade. Jeremy, obviously the taliban has the blood of american soldiers and our allies on their hands. How does that sit with you . Not well. But, you know, were kind of in new territory here in the sense that the u. S. Has been negotiating and talking to the taliban for years now, if not at least for months. So were sort of at a point where i think were going to have to grin and bear it to a certain extent. The russians are sitting tight in kabul. You know, from some of the Social Media i was seeing they were happily staying put in kabul, the chinese certainly will be moving into the country. If we dont stay engaged, if we turn our back completely on this country, it is really going to be compounding the losses and the tragedy that were already seeing unfolding. Jeremy butler, we will ask you to stick around a little longer. Michael crowley and congresswoman Jackie Speier, thank you so much for starting us off this hour, especially on a day like today. Were grateful. When we come back, nearly 2,500 u. S. Troops lost their lives in afghanistan, more than 20,000 were injured. Much more on what veterans of the War In Afghanistan are feeling today as they watch the Talibans Return to power. Our Friend Paul Butler joins the conversation next. Plus, Afghan Women and girls fearing for their safety, fearing for their lives, the freedoms they started to enjoy over the past 20 years now disappearing under taliban control, and the messy politics of the withdrawal. Why President Biden might be concerned by much of the criticism coming from his own party. 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It is an important Point Worth Repoeting again and again, that for all of the Finger Pointing, all of the blame being assigned right now over what has happened over the last 20 years and what is happening right now in afghanistan, one group that will always be exempt from that conversation from the blame game, the men and women in uniform. For two decades american troops have served on the ground, theyve risked their lives, they paid with their lives to answer the call, 2,500 of them. Mothers, fathers, husbands, wives, Sons And Daughters never came home, not to mention nearly 4,000 u. S. Contractors died in afghanistan as well. A tremendous sacrifice for them and their families, many of whom now are grappling today especially how that sacrifice may be made in vain. Joining us, Paul Rieckhoff, now the host of the independent americans podcast. Jeremy butler is back with us. Paul rieckhoff, say something. Just reading that makes me lose it. How are you doing today . Im doing all right. I am disappointed. I am outraged. I am sad, and i am focused. I think thats what many veterans in america are feeling right now, because theres a really important point thats being missed. This is not about whether or not biden is right to pull us out. This is about how many people we save right now. Do we save as many as possible or do we wash our hands of it and leave them to die . Thats what you heard from matt zeller, thats what you hear from jeremy, thats what you hear from veterans across the media all day today. We want america to step up and flex every muscle we have to save lives. We dont have to reinvade afghanistan it we dont have to stay there for 30 years, but we have to do everything we can right now to save our allies. If we dont, there is a tremendous consequence for our national security, but also as matt talked about, for our moral injury, for all of the men and women who did serve. What was it for . Did we lie to the afghan people . Did we put ourselves out there only to be betrayed by a false promise by our government . What do we tell our friends there now . It is really about this moment, and thats why i was disappointed by bidens speech. I think he needs to look forward and not back and tell us what is the plan for the next 30 days to save as many Human Beings from slaughter as possible. Youve just made this moral case, and im going to ask you a tactical question. How does that happen without an embassy . Is there enough access to people who speak both languages, to help them with the forms on the phone . How does it happen logistically right now . I think theres two pieces. Youve got the military and logistical question, which means securing the airport, using all of our military might, and now apparently 6,000 troops to secure and stabilize that place. But then theres a bureaucratic question. What is happening right now at kabul is like the Dmv Line from hell. If you dont get to the front of the line, you die. So matt is right in that we dont have websites, we dont have processing. This is a Paperwork Problem that we failed to adequately execute for, you know, going on five months. So it has to be a twopronged attack. It has to pull in every Resource Weve got, and maybe it is not just the 82nd airborne. Maybe it is silicon valley, figuring out how to help these people get through faster. Weve got to pull out all of the stops here because it is a betrayal of the afghan people and matt is right. If we dont save these people now, people wont Stand Up and help us next time, and that might be against russia, it might be against North Korea or it might be a generation from now. They will never forget. The world is watching, and theyre watching Joe Biden and theyre looking for strong, effective leadership that looks forward, doesnt look back. Paul, i said to jeremy in the last block that ive learned in part from you that asking questions like what do veterans think are wrong, so im not going to ask you that question, but what sorts of calls are you getting today from veterans of the War In Afghanistan . The number one kind of call that i am getting and matt is getting and jeremy is getting is, ive got a friend and his family, how do i get them out. Ive got dozens of them, maybe hundreds at this point. Right, the other ones are, how you doing, man . Im struggling with this. There are those two kinds of conversations and theyre intertwined. I spoke to a cabinet secretary yesterday. He asked me how i was doing shall and i know he has talked to jeremy and others, and really the question that i asked him was what is the president going to do . If he really cares about our veterans, and he spoke to us today. That was important. I asked them to tell the president to speak to us directly, and he did that, and that is appreciated. But he didnt give us a place to send em. The president needs to tell us as veterans, what do we do from here to help our friends . Thats the question that remains unanswered. Why is there no answer . Did you accept the part of the president s speech where he said the reason we didnt get them out back in april when we announced we were leaving, he used the word triggered, we didnt want to trigger an exodus i think were the words. Is that reasonable . What did you think of that . How did it sit with you . No, it doesnt sit well with me at all. The entire tone, weve talked about this before, over the last few weeks has been defensive and dismissive and blaming others. At The End he said, yes, the buck stops with me, but there was a lot of Finger Pointing, and a lot of Finger Pointing at the integrity of the afghan people. I have called it geopolitical victim shaming. I think thats what i continue to feel and see from this White House that makes it most outrageous. How many americans would Stand Up and fight if everybody else left them hanging out to dry and the taliban was rolling through their neighborhood . The afghans are not different from us in so many ways that they make different decisions under different circumstances. They are in a catastrophically tough bind that we maybe couldnt prevent, but we can definitely alleviate. I think thats the Core Issue that weve got to shift. Biden has got to stop looking in the back and being defensive and deflective and explaining and start talking about what is really a new kind of military and diplomatic and logistical engagement, including talking about pakistan. We are not talking about pakistan and all of the other global components including a Refugee Crisis that may emerge where millions of afghans are pouring into europe. Those are what is coming next. We need the president to be a strategist and to look at what is next and what is coming down the line that the rest of the country might not see yet. Jeremy, i want to bring you back in. I mean is there anything that people watching can do . I mean i see a lot of the traffic, and people are sick about what the men and women who helped folks like yourself or paul, you know, how theyre being treated. What is the answer to that question . I think the public needs to be speaking out, and they need to make sure that the administration knows that they support getting our allies out and getting them into the u. S. , getting them into a safe space so that they can be processed, and the promise that we have made them and i think paul is saying this, and matt was saying it as well. It wasnt just a promise that the u. S. Government made. This was a promise that was passed down through u. S. Service members who when they were working and fighting side by side with these allies, with these interpreters, they were making the same promise. Hey, everything that you are doing right now for me, for the men and women that are here in uniform, were going to get you out of here when you are ready to go. So they personally were making that promise. I think right now it is tough because were running out of options for ways to get our allies out, but the administration needs to know that the american public supports 100 getting them out, making sure that theyre safe, not being concerned that you might accidentally let in someone who failed a Polygraph Test back two years ago when they were filling out their application. We need to make sure that the administration knows that the public has their back and wants to get our allies out. Paul rieckhoff, you mentioned pakistan. Obviously, you know, people i think come to this day with concerns in all sort of different areas, but a former Intelligence Official who worked on these issues for decades mentioned what you just mentioned, and particularly as we head into the 20year anniversary of 9 11, where are your concerns on our ability to do what the president promised today, to continue to be a Counterterror Force in the region . You know, for a long time, nicolle, we have called afghanistan forgotistan because it felt that the american people forgot afghanistan and about the global war on terror. What has happened in the last few months is the american public and largely the White House has been so consumed by infrastructure, by voting rights, by many things that are important that we took our eye off the ball when it comes to national security and Foreign Policy. We cant afford to do that. The stakes are way too high. I wish it was as simple as being only about afghanistan, but everything is intertwined. It is not the same as 2001. It is different, but it is still as important as ever. We always say around 9 11 never forget. If we never forget 9 11 it is about understanding how we need to be unified in a Response And Predicting and preventing the next 9 11. It wont be the same. It will be very different, but it will be a national Security Threat and there must be a national response. Theres one point i want to add, nicolle. If the american public knew how many people would come out of retirement to go back in the military right now to save our allies, i think they would be impressed. If Joe Biden said, hey, if you want to go save allies, come on down to the White House, you would have hundreds of thousands of veterans and active duty people lined up. This is really a calling within a calling, and many of our generation of post9 11 veterans are standing by to help, even if we cant go over there we are standing by here to have them live in our homes and set their families up for success. Theres actually an opportunity here for the president to rally our community of veterans and all americans to resettle these interpreters and give them a second chance and really fulfill the american dream. Thats the opportunity here within what is a very dark and catastrophically heartbreaking time. Thats really beautiful. Lets keep having that conversation. Thats incredible. No one has said it yet today. Paul rieckhoff, jeremy butler, thank you for your service including talking about it all with us. Were really grateful to both of you. When we return, the flight of Afghan Women fearing for their safety. The taliban once again in control. That story is next. That story is next we are go fo. Tminus two minutes and counting. 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Fifteen minutes until we board. Oh yeah, we gotta Take Off. You downloaded the Td Ameritrade mobile app so you can quickly check the markets . Yeah, actually im taking one last look at my dashboard before we board. Excellent. And you have thinkorswim mobile so i can finish analyzing the risk on this position. You two are all set. Have a great flight. Thanks. Well see ya. Ah, theyre getting so smart. Choose the app that fits your investing style. But we dont have any president. We dont have anything. Afghan people, they dont know what to do. Woman has a lot of achievement in afghanistan. I have a lot of achievement. I left from the taliban about 20 years ago, now we go back to the first step again. President ghani, he should answer to afghan people. I obviously Cant Speak for ashraf ghani or where he is or what his views are. I wouldnt do that. But let me say with all respect that i understand and we all understand the anxiety and the fear and the pain that you are feeling. It is clear. That was an after began reporter at the Pentagon Briefing Today with John Kirby a few minutes ago, addressing, encapsulating, articulating the polite of women in afghanistan today as the refugee cries grows within the country, thousands struggling to flee afghanistan as commercial flights are told to avoid afghan airspace. For the women stuck in afghanistan, theyre facing the devastating prospect of losing everything including their lives, everything gained over the past 20 years. Joining our conversation with a photojournalist who writes about the flight of the afghan woman in the atlantic, author of the Book Love and war. What are your Thoughts Today first just watching the horrors of the scenes at the airport in kabul and any reaction to the president s speech . I mean the scenes are devastating. I just cant believe that this is how weve left afghan people after 20 years. I mean these are people who have risked their lives for us. Theyve risked their lives for our military, for journalists like me and my colleagues who do a service for the american people and the rest of the world. Theyve put their lives out there. I mean we sold them democracy. We sold them, you know, Stand Up for your rights, get out there, you are a woman, you can work, you can do everything that men can do, and then we just leave in the night and leave them to climb and hang off the fuselage of a military aircraft. Thats not a way to treat people. This is what you where. The Talibans Return is catastrophic for women. Before the u. S. Invaded afghanistan there was nothing, no infrastructure, no legal system, no educational system, nothing there. In the last 20 Years Everything was recreated in the country from education to the legal system to social, to economics. Women have gained everything. Not just women but the afghans in general have gained a lot. Thats from the cofounder of women for Afghan Women. Now, of course, those gains appear to be disappearing. Militants opened the doors of the prison and released thousands of prisoners, sent women home from work and removed girls from schools, and the advance toward the capital sources destroyed medical facilities, killing civilians and left thousands of afghans displaced. Have you heard from folks . Do you know how i mean i have read some things that women are already hiding their smartphones because theyre not allowed to be in communication. What are you picking up today . I mean nor the last sort of four days, even before kabul fell my phone has been blowing up with messages from friends and translators and politicians saying, can the americans help us, how do we get out, how can we leave . This cant be happening. We cant go back 20 years. If you look at the images coming out of kabul today, there are no women on the streets. It is all men and all men with guns. I watched clarissa wards report from cnn and she was told to step aside by a taliban who spoke perfect english and was educated, but said her face needed to be covered. I think we need to think about the fact that the taliban is on its best behavior right now while the world is watching and still things are happening. So this is the taliban on their best behavior. This is a voicemail from a woman on the ground in afghanistan begging to be heard, begging for help. Lets listen. Please, we are under attack. They are attacking us. There are some taliban fighters among them and they are thousands of them. It is not just a few hundred. There are thousands of them and they are coming from everywhere. They are just getting up from a wall. I see them right now. Please help us who is going to answer those calls . I mean for the time being you have a lot of journalists like myself and my colleagues and Human Rights workers and anyone who has ever worked in afghanistan, the veterans who have been on you show, anyone who has been there feels obliged and feels the need to help afghans because we understand what theyve done. Theyve put their lives out there for us. So we but theres a limit to what we can do. I mean, you know, i have no power to give someone a visa. Of course, i can attest for the people who have worked for me, who have worked for, you know, me to tell the stories that the american public reads, but to what end . Linsey, i want to play one more piece of sound so we hear directly from them. This is a woman who has a visa but worries for her family. The most important thing for the women right now, particularly those who are most vulnerable, is to be evacuated. What im hearing from the women is that their homes are being invaded. Their organizations are being looted. They are fearing for their lives. We will not be seeing our family again. Taliban will kill and will sell them one by one and will kill all of them who have worked for the u. S. Government and u. S. Army. They dont have any option and theyre thinking, what should we do, what should happen to our childrens future. So my family are very scared. Please, do not leave our guns, thats my message for the u. S. Government. Linsey, im sorry to make you watch that with all of us, but these are people who have helped us and i think you see the desperation from former from veterans. I wonder if you feel like people are listening to those voices . I mean i hope they are. If not, they can see the visuals. I mean what does it take for a person to hang off of the side of a c17, you know, a military aircraft, i mean, and to see them fall from the sky . I mean it kind of brings back memories of people jumping out of the twin towers on 9 11. I mean is this where weve come 20 years later . Afghans hanging off aircraft. This is really, really devastating. I worked in afghanistan under the taliban. I made three trips to afghanistan under the taliban. I visited women in secret in their homes. I visited secret girls schools, hospitals with no medicine and very few doctors. I visited women who were professional and who were educated who could no longer leave their house, women who were beaten because their ankles showed or because a sliver of hair fell out of their burka. That is not a way to live, and the taliban is rebranding itself and saying, okay, we wont be like that this time. Well, show us that. Well see. But women are terrified. And do you have confidence that there is a sort of mission inside the White House to protect them . I mean im sitting in london where i live and it doesnt look like there is any mention on the part of the united states. It looks like biden has said, this is it, we are leaving, and hes pulled everyone out. I mean i dont understand why we left so suddenly without taking care of all of the people that we that the government promised to give visas to and take out of the country, but, you know, it doesnt look to me like theres a plan. Linsey thank you so much for being part of our coverage today. It is a privilege to talk to you. We will stay in touch with you as this unfolds. Quick break for us. Well be right back. Right back. Good boy [laughs] hold my pouch. Trust us, us kids are ready to take things into our own hands. Dont think so . Hold my pouch. Well the sun is shining and the grass is green im way ahead of schedule with my trusty team theres heather on the hedges and kenny on the koi and your trucks been demolished by the Peterson Boy yes wait, what was that . Timber. [ sighs heavily ] when owning a Small Business gets real, progressive helps protect what youve built with affordable coverage. Progressive helps protect what youve built vo the rule in business used to be, location, location, location. Now its, network, network, network. So you need a network thats built right. Verizon business unlimited starts with americas most reliable network. Then we add the speed of verizon 5g. We provide security thats made for Business And Offer plans as low as 30 per line. More businesses choose verizon than any other network. We are open and ready for you. Growing up in a little red house, on the edge of a forest in norway, there were three things my family encouraged kindness, honesty and hard work. Over time, ive come to add a fourth be curious. Be curious about the world around us, and then go. Go with an open heart and you will find inspiration anew. Viking. Exploring the world in comfort. Lets bring into your coverage david pregt, former Obama Campaign Manager and msnbc political Analyst And Basel smikel of columbia university. I want to hear your Thoughts Today. First to you, david. Nicole, as you know, both of us spent a lot of time on this when we worked in the White House. 20 years later. I think Joe Biden was very strong today, stuck by his decision, which has been a long time coming. I was in the White House in 2011 when President Obama announced a draw down. I went to tfg with him in 2012. That was nine long years ago. Here we are, sticking by his decision. Also being clear that the events unfolded more quickly than they anticipated. I think in the case to come here what is going to be important is for the White House and the president to continue to talk to the american people about their plans not just to evacuate american personnel but all the afghanis who heroically stood by our side. A lot of runs are criticizing Joe Biden for this even though Donald Trump wanted us to be out sooner than this. We will see next year in the congressional campaigns if republican candidates are out there leading with we should have stayed in afghanistan, should have sent more troops. I dont believe we will see that. But this is tragic. Operationally now the question is how can you make sure that you are getting everybody out of there safely . Of course we know who these people are. They have worked with us for a long, long time. This can be done. It is going to require a lot of Diplomacy And Skill to make sure this is done. I think Joe Biden did a very, very strong Job Today explaining to the american people about where we have been, where we are, and where we need to go in the days ahead. Basel, your thoughts . I agree with david. I think Joe Biden was strong today. As you know, i also think that for so many americans, Foreign Policy is opaque and inexact. My sense is that going forward voters will have on their minds americans will have on their minds three things, did Joe Biden keep us safe and secure . Will he continue to do so . Did he honor the men and women who served there, including the citizens in afghanistan who were helpful to us . And third, whether or not we can actually trust his decisionmaking ability. Is the administration and the entire Intelligence Apparatus giving him good information . And is he making good decisions based on that . I think in terms of safety and security, i think we are and will be, god willing. But only time will tell. And on the other pieces, we will have to wait and see. And hes going to have to do it, the administration and his allies, and supporters in congress are going to have to do a heck of a job really going around the country and talking to americans about not only why was this the right decision because a lot of folks believe it was the right decision but that its actually beneficial to us in the long run as much as those pictures are emotionally jarring for so many. David, i thought that it might be a concern for this White House thats really sold itself as extremely competent, and this president we have all covered him as his empathetic self. Do you think this week has challenged either of these central traits . I dont think in the long run. I think it was important for him to say today that this all happened and unfolded in a way that was accelerated, that they were caught by surprise to some extent. What matters is you have been honest about that, so what are you going to do it. I dont think so. The way they managed the pandemic, the economy, this is one of his calling cards. But it is going to be important over the next days and weeks that you execute exceedingly well now that we know where we are. We will all keep watching together. David, basel, thank you for spending time with us today. Quick break for us. Well be right back. Ick break fs well be right back. Tech every customer has their own safelite story. This couple loves camping adventures and their suv is always there with them. So when their windshield got a chip, they wanted it fixed fast. They drove to safelite autoglass for a guaranteed, sameday, inshop repair. We repaired the chip before it could crack. And with their insurance, it was no cost to them. Woman really . Tech thats service you can trust, when you need it most. Pop Rock Music singers safelite repair, safelite replace. Thank you so much for letting us into your homes on a day like today. The beat with Ari Melber starts right now. Hi. Welcome to the beat, i am Ari Melber. We begin with President Bidens address to the nation over this unfolding Security Situation this afghanistan. I stand squarely behind my decision. After 20 years, ive learned the hardware that there was never a good time to withdraw u. S. Forces. How many more lives, american lives, is It Worth . How many endlessow