welcome, everyone. taliban forces meeting little resistance in their rapid advance across afghanistan as fears increase that the capital, kabul, could soon be in their sights. in just a matter of days, the taliban have claimed more than a dozen cities. the militants now controlling half of the country s provincial capitals. the speed of the offensive catching u.s. officials off guard. the pentagon spokesman says afghan forces should have the advantage. what we couldn t predict was the lack of resistance they were going to get from afghan forces on the ground. as you heard the president speak just a couple of days ago, what s really needed is for political and military leadership in afghanistan. no outcome here has to be inevitable. what has been disconcerting to see is there hasn t been that will, that political leadership, the military leadership, and the ability to push back on the taliban as they ve advanced because quite frankly, the afghan forces have all the advan
taliban now to spare the u.s. embassy there. bill: the situation drawing comparisons to the end of the vietnam war in 1975 when they evacuated staffers from a rooftop in saigon. the taliban seized control of kandahar. southern part of the country. the birthplace for the taliban there. not much of a surprise kandahar would fall. it happened. the second largest city in the country. reaction pouring in. you heard jack keane calling it an embarrassing retreat, hasty withdrawal. the territory now the taliban has captured so far in the past four months. that group controls about 2/3 of the country. closing in on the capital city of kabul. will me make a move on that? we don t know. u.s. officials say it could fall in a matter of months. jack keane, roll this. they re it will be horrific. they are a killing machine. jackie heinrich, hello. good morning, sandra and bill. the u.s. sending 3,000 troops to kabul to assist in the evacuation of americans and diplomats. sig
don t be the reason why schools are disrupted because of the polarization of this effort to reopen schools. the white house says florida and texas account for a third of the entire country s new cases and hospitalizations. texas governor abbott partly blames it on the border crisis. we re awaiting an update from texas officials on that issue. first, dr. jay from stanford university who has been working with florida governor desantis on covid mitigation. great to have you on. you re an informal adviser for the governor of florida now for the past 18 months. during that time as evidence shows, he s made many of the right calls. now you have covid cases exploding again in florida. the death rate is still down. would you advise governor desantis to change his guidance at all? no, i think he s done many of the right decisions. the key thing about what you just mentioned, it s a very important point. what we once thought that when covid cases went up, deaths would follow. but b
inspectors general from the justice, transportation, and homeland security departments, along with officials from the government accountability office talked about oversight of pandemic really funds and efforts to detect and prevent fraud. they testified before members of the house transportation and infrastructure committee. there is a safety issue, and with respect to the wearing of masks, we would prefer the uphold the safety of the committee recommended by the attending physician and respectful of all the occupants of the room. with that, the committee will come to order. i ask unanimous consent that the chair asks for a recess. without objection, as a reminder, please keep your microphone muted unless speaking. blah, blah, blah. if you make noise, i will shout out at you. to submit a document to the record, please submit it in with that, i would go to my opening statement, which i put somewhere. there we go. today, we will hear about the impact of the government s covi
efforts. inspectors general from the justice, transportation and homeland security department s testified, along with officials from the government accountability office. [no audio] as i did yesterday during yesterday s markup, i am reading an announcement from the office of the attending physician. the physician has once again imposed a requirement that staff and all of theirs physically present in an enclosed house of representatives controlled space, i.e. this room and others like it, and the floor of the house will be required to wear a mask unless speaking. i view this as a safety issues, therefore an important matter of order. the chair would greatly refer prefer if all uphold the coram the coram. with that, the committee will come to order. the chair be authorized to declare recess, without objection, so ordered. a reminder, please keep your microphone muted unless speaking. if you made noise, i will shout at. to insert a document into the record, please email it