effort to over years, both in the 2022 and the 2024 elections, to make afghanistan a key issue against democrats, both on the hill and president biden. the irony of this, of course, the administration will tell you that this pull out was based on a president trump deal. he was a republican last time i checked and jacob, what the administration is saying about this is, and you saw it in remarks that we saw live here on msnbc from secretary of state, tony blinken, they re saying any future dealings with the taliban will be based purely on u.s. interest, any recognition, any aid will have to be earned. mike, also on afghanistan, i know that axios has an exclusive on an effort by the former secretary of state condoleezza rice, also former national security adviser hr mcmaster to
rescue orphans. can you tell us about that? axios got our hands on a letter they are sending to officials in the administration and the u.n., including first lady jill biden, the secretary of defense, and secretary of state, and they re saying getting orphans out of afghanistan isn t just a humanitarian issue, it is a national security issue because based on their long experience, secretary rice, hr mcmaster are saying that we have seen the taliban over many decades turn young people into opponents of the united states and they re saying get them out before both men can become fighters against the west and before the terrible things can happen to young girls that have happened under the taliban. and i know there is an effort underway to resettle some unaccompanied children that have
made it here. you say the president s speech was notable to looking toward the future. what do you think was most significant about the message we heard from the white house? in addition to the president s point that he was not going to turn a forever war into a forever withdrawal, the take away that i had from his speech was looking at future threats. so he was saying continuing to pour resources into afghanistan is looking at the threats of 20 years ago rather than the threats of the future. he s saying we should be paying attention to russia, to cyber attacks, to terrorist threats elsewhere, including from somalia, including from the arabian peninsula and saying we need to take a much broader look at what threatens the united states than purely the threats in afghanistan. the cofounder of axios, mike allen. thanks for getting up a little early with us, and thanks to you all at home as well for getting up way too early today on this
get to morning joe, joining us with a look at axios a.m., the cofounder of axios, mike allen. what s the one big thing. good morning to jacob, in my native land. the axios one big next thing is the gop s new foil, the taliban. house republicans are going to try to make unease over the pull out from afghanistan, a defining issue in taking power back in the house for 2022, and we re going to see a preview of it today. it s a mark up of a defense bill, and this is going to be the tip of the sphere of this new house republican strategy. they re going to say that they want to withhold any possible future aid to the taliban. they re going to demand an accounting for those weapons the taliban has gotten. what mineral rights and wealth have they gotten. what other funds have they gotten, and all of this is an