troubling new details on just how contagious the now dominant the variant is the most case count. and new fear on capitol hill, ahead of a right wing rally that is set for next month. the new security procedures that could soon be headed back to the capitol complex. it is saturday, august 28th. again, thank you so much for waking up with us. good morning, phil. good morning, christi. good to see you. no shortage of news. thanks for having me this morning. i know. god bless you, because we have so much to talk about today. first of all, let s talk about the state of emergency along the gulf coast. the u.s. gearing up for what looks to be a monster storm heading towards the coastal u.s. and the direct eye it on louisiana. hurricane ida has already entered the gulf s warm waters, and we mean warm, it s a category 1 storm at the moment. but it could spin into a dangerous category 4 just before it makes landfall tomorrow, that s important, 16 years to the day that hu
u.s. service members and more than 90 afghan civilians were killed. many of them children. flags are now at half-staff at the white house, and on capitol hill this morning, honoring the fallen marines and navy service members killed in that blast. president biden is in the situation room right now. he has vowed retribution for those lives lost. this is a scene outside the airport this morning. quite different. empty streets. just 100 hours left or so on the clock as president biden remains committed to his august 31st withdrawal deadline. about 12,500 people were evacuated despite the attack on the airport. the u.s. has removed in total more than 100,000 people since august 14. u.s. coalition partners helping as well. we have a team of reporters around the world covering this from all angles. let s begin this morning with cnn s nick payton walsh in doha. nick, those evacuation flights, they continued. we saw one take off virtually moments after the attack. tell us the situa
we still believe there are credible threats. in fact, i d say specific, credible threats. and we want to make sure we re prepared for those. reporter: the pentagon warning that these could be rockets or vehicle bombs. in kabul, families collect the bodies of their loved ones and survivors come to terms with what has happened. this man says that he was an interpreter for the british, and was among the hundreds of afghan wounded. i fell into the stream, and thought i was the only one still alive. i saw all the other people were dead. more than 5,000 evacuees are waiting for flights at kabul s airport and allies like italy and spain have already ended their missions in afghanistan. we have the ability to include evacuees on u.s. military air airlift out of afghanistan until the very end. reporter: the walls at kabul s airport are now stained with blood as afghanistan counts down the final days of america s longest war. now, jake, in the final days of the reign of the
path of where it could make landfall. a key update is expected at the top of the hour, we ll bring it to you as soon as we get it from the national hurricane center. we have a team of reporters following the latest for you right now. we ll begin with that monster storm, the latest guidance from the national hurricane center as kendis mentioned has tropical storm henri impacting the northeast later tonight, possibly making landfall as a category one hurricane. more than 4 million people under a hurricane warning, with storm surges set to hit long island, connecticut as well as rhode island. overnight tonight. now officials across the northeast are urging residents to prepare for floods and possible power outages. joining us right now is nbc news meteorologist michelle grossman and nbc meteorologist janessa webb in long beach, new york. michelle, starting with you, the latest tracking we got a couple hours ago, we re looking at what are we looking at in terms of possibl
they re in the crowd. we asked the pentagon for comment. we have breaking news as well. new details of the top american commander in afghanistan. to be clear, these are not the ongoing talks between diplomats in qatar. this is a rear admiral speaking directly with the taliban. also tonight, new groups that foresaw this. telling you about the extraordinary action they saw to warn their boss that the situation could rapidly deteriorate and that they feared a catastrophe which is exactly what came to pass. which is exactly why the biden administration is scrambling, why it s now knows negotiate with the taliban and why despite evacuation efforts some of the growing number of transport planes are leaving kabul less than full. people who want to leave cannot safely get through taliban checkpoints to the airport. they have made it clear they re not getting afghans and neither do they know how many afghans are still in the country. john kirby wouldn t say. he wouldn t give a number.