All happening at the same time, the fallout from afghanistan which gets rougher by the day it seems and the fallout from all the flooding and damage that now has claimed close to 60 lives. Questions about how it happened and how we could have known better. First to the fallout half a world away because it continues and growing continues and so what if anything can the united states do about it? let s go to david spunt with the president in wilmington, delaware, david. David, hi, neil it s been almost a week that people want today get out as safely as they can. It s been almost a week since u. S. Forces completely withdraw. There are still many people including americans that are in afghanistan that want to get out. The united states said to be in contact with members of the taliban to exit at some point. Secretary of state antony blinken says that not getting into specifics about some of those discussions with taliban leaders. We do know that president biden is getting updates while he
Islamic state in afghanistan with a drone strike following thursday s deadly attack at kabul airport. Meanwhile, the uk s evacuation in afghanistan reaches its final stages the head of britain s armed forces says it s been a success. We ve done an extraordinaryjob to evacuate as many as we have, but i m afraid, it s absolutely heart breaking that we can t bring everybody out. A recipe for covid chaos government plans for schools are criticised by education unions who fear a rise in coronavirus infections. Hurricane ida is approaching louisiana forcing the evacuation of high risk areas. For weeks now we ve seen images of people crowding around the airport in kabul desperately trying to leave. But stories of hope are emerging too courtney bembridge has this story of one family s tearful reunion in paris. As soon as i saw my mother running to me, all this fear ran away. I rediscovered the smell of my mother and it was something i had forgotten. My mother s tears reminded me of
I m poppy harlow. I m jim sciutto. The u. S. President defiant while kabul remains in chaos. President biden pushing back against criticism in a new interview saying the report by the wall street journal that he ignored advice from top generals to keep at least a small number of troops in afghanistan while seeking a peace agreement is not true. Your top military advisers warned against withdrawing on this time line. They wanted you to keep 2,500 troops. No, they didn t. That was split. It wasn t true. They didn t tell you they wanted troops to stay? not in terms of whether we were going to get out in a time frame, all troops. They didn t argue against that. So no one told you, your military advisers didn t tell you, no, we should keep 2,500 troops, it s been a stable situation the last several years, we can do that, we can continue to do that? no, no one said that to me, not that i recall recall. The united states is increasing, ramping up its efforts to evacuate thousands of americans
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President ashraf ghani who posted a statement in exile now in the united arab emirates saying that he had to flee to avoid more bloodshed in his homeland. We re also watching the white house where president biden is scheduled to speak about the pandemic response in about 90 minutes from now, and just hours after his administration unveiled a plan to offer a vaccine booster shot starting the third week of september. This has hospitals in hardhit areas continue to struggle with the rising number of cases, particularly those among people who remain unvaccinated, but as you can imagine we begin this hour in afghanistan, and here to start things off for us peter baker, new york times white house correspondent and an msnbc political analyst. We should note that peter was also first american newspaper journalist to report from afghanistan after 9/11. Kevin barren is with us, the executive editor of defense. Great to have you both with us. Peter, let s start with you about what we know in term