so far nearly an hour now we have been watching what was at times a rather contentious pentagon press briefing with reporters wanting to drill down on exactly what the facts are. in fact, at one point a reporter asked the spokesperson for the pentagon, admiral kirby, are you being deliberately vague about the numbers of american citizens behind enemy lines on the ground in afghanistan? deliberately vague is the parting quote from that reporter and then it got more vague. i m harris faulkner. you re watching the faulkner focus . i will ask my team to roll just that section as we get into breaking new coverage between what we just learned about the pentagon and what we just learned about the pentagon s plan going forward. watch. if you need to check the number, that s the most important number here, the number of americans. so if it s just a matter of checking the number, can you do
to a state department website. wait to hear from the website to go. it s informal through senators, veterans network. ad hoc approach won t clear the airfield in the matter of time. harris: i have to say this. you know we ve been on the ground for 20 years. they ve got infrastructure. their internet is still up. during parts of this country didn t have as much bandwidth they have with the taliban right nou. i m not trying to get a click off that. that s really interesting, right? why don t we know who is on the ground? there must have been a list. please tell me there was more th one printed list of who is on the ground for us. reality whether it s biometric data used throughout that country for decades. there are reports that much of that has fallen into the hands of the taliban as well. why i say our enemy knows who is there as well as we do. here is the scary part of the timeline. the pentagon knows this. the taliban is going house by
and then we found out from the secretary of defense that yeah, people have been beat he en and yes it is a dangerous way to get to the airport. i want to get to senator joni ernst who we would have on screen but we ll do it by phone. she served in the army national guard. who things that are rather disturbing is the timeline that publicly admiral kirby, spokesman for the pentagon said there is pressure. we know about the public pressure from the taliban but wouldn t make further comments. just on that first point, what is your thought on that? harris, i am with pete on this. we absolutely need to get our american citizens out of afghanistan. we know the taliban is impeding progress there. and we need to make it very loud and very clear with the
harris: august 28th. untold number of u.s. citizens let alone siv applicants and others that have been approved. while this briefing is going on i m getting texts in my phone from an interpreter who worked very hard on his sixth attempt right now to get to the airport. he is 300 meters away fighting through the crowd. fighting through checkpoints with the proper paperwork to get there. that s what s happening in realtime right now. hard to believe the pentagon has a true sense and could narrow it down in four to five days of exactly who needs to go and get them out in time. harris: you and i sat here and watched this together and did it seem to jump out at you about what it is like beyond the perimeter of that airport? i know our reporter jen griffin was trying to get a sense of this. why didn t they reopen bagram air base. let s go to our reporter and get an update status on senator
that and give it to us? or if you are being deliberately vague, tell me why you are being deliberately vague. i will leave it at several thousand right now, dave. then tell us why. because i think number is very fluid and it changes nearly by the hour. it is not more fluid than these 11,000, 37,000. i will leave it at several thousand now. harris: we re pulling our own assets together on the ground. pete hegseth fox & friends co-host and served in the army national guard and also with us today is senator joni ernst of the great state of iowa. there she is. i have you both together now. senator ernst, i will start with you and your top line thoughts about what we just heard from the pentagon. we are working with technology. you know how that is.