Were going to stay until we get them all out. He did not fully extend that same commitment to afghan nationals when he said thats the objective. Its unclear how many americans remain in afghanistan. Yesterday u. S. Officials gave differing answers. They said it was 5 to 10,000. Yesterday afternoon Jen Psaki said it was in fact 11,000 and congressional aides were told by State Department and pentagon officials the number was between 10 and 15,000 according to three sources familiar with those briefings. That is the number the president said tonight. He also answered questions about the execution of the pullout. Sir, you dont think this could have been handled better in any way . No mistakes . No. I dont think it could have been handled in a way that there were going to go back in hindsight and look, but the idea that somehow theres a way to have gotten out without chaos ensuing, i dont know how that happens. I dont know how that happened. So for you that was always priced into the decis
Lets go outfront. Good evening. Im Kate Bolduan in for erin burnett. President Biden Defiant and unapologetic about his Decision And Execution of the plan to withdrawal u. S. Troops from afghanistan speaking to abc news, biden saying the mayhem playing out in afghanistan is not a failure and there was no way to withdrawal without chaos ensuing. Back in july, you said a Taliban Takeover was highly unlikely. Was the Intelligence Wrong or did you down play it . I think there was no cons consensus. They said more likely to be something by The End of the year. You didnt put a timeline on it when you said it was highly unlikely. You said flatout highly unlikely the taliban would take over. Yeah, the question was whether or not the idea that the taliban would take over is premised on the notion that the somehow 300,000 troops we trained and equipped would collapse, they would give up. I dont think anyone anticipated that. Weve all seen the pictures and hundreds of people packed into a c17 and