january 6th, 2021. for me, january 6th will forever be known as a day of remembrance, reflection, and recommitment. i remember waking up that morning, tense but excited, excited to participate in and witness the certification of america s first delaware president. it was a hard fought campaign in the midst of an historic pandemic. i had no idea that the safest, most secure election of our lifetime would on that day turn into a violent insurrection. january 6th for me will forever be a day to remember how the light of acts of courage, small and large, defeated darkness.
recommitment to global solutions, you know, i leave disappointed. it falls short. he said it doesn t bury my hopes, but he was very clear that this wasn t what he hoped for. it was hoped that the g20 was a spring board for the cop26. president biden was clear and he said the reason they hadn t been able to meet these lofty ambitions was quite clearly because president xi and putin wasn t here at the summit. biden said the way he helped get other leaders over the line was to be able to discuss it with them and look them in the eye and he wasn t able to do that here. so president biden quite clear on who he felt he threw saudi arabia in there as well who was falling short. there were some successes of g
best option for the u.s. joining me is a form eer marine corps captain. so glad to have you back with us here on cnn. thank you for doing this. you heard the president today. do you believe leaving afghanistan the way we did was the only choice for the u.s.? no, i don t. i agree with your previous guest that there were a whole host of options and the president in many respects has presented the american people with a false choice that this was not a we either leave afghanistan or see a massive escalation in fighting and recommitment of troops. so i think he s the president of the united states. this is his policy and like your previous guest, i believe it s a disastrous one so far and there needs to be some accountability and i would hope to see the resignation of senior defense officials because if there weren t resignations over something like this, a debacle like this, then what would there
i agree with your previous guest that there were a whole host of options, and the president in many respects has presented the american people with a false choice, that this was not a we either leave afghanistan and and a recommitment of troops. he s the president of the united states. this is his policy, and like your previous guest, i believe it s been a disastrous one so far, and i think there does need to be some accountability. i would hope to see the resignation of senior defense officials just because if there aren t resignations over something like this, a debacle like this, then what would there be resignations for? to me, that would speak to a culture of inaccountability at the highest level. so, no, i don t agree with the president. let s talk about the folks still there. the biden administration promising to evacuate the 100 to 200 americans still in afghanistan. do you think that is realistic because i know that you ve been
hearing his administration officials talk about? yes, alicia, what we think he s going to say is a recommitment to the august 31st deadline but an acknowledgement that there could potentially be a need for contingency planning that would take u.s. forces out beyond that deadline. it s a little bit of a foot in both camps, frankly, and it s not terribly different from what the administration has been saying for days now. it s just that it comes in the context of rising pressure on the president to formally extend that deadline and essentially throw down a gauntlet to the taliban and say we need more time, what are you going to do about it. that is not a negotiation that they want to have in public. i think ambassador mcfaul is right, that that had to have been a major reason that bill burns was sent to talk quietly with the taliban leader. but if that conversation had resulted in a new agreement for five extra days or whatever, we