gulf coast. . griff: we ll begin with afghanistan where the pentagon finished a briefing with new details on that deadly drone strike against isis-k. we have extensive coverage, including david spunt at the white house and trey, lucas tomlinson at the pentagon. lucas, let s start with you, you were just in the briefing, tell us what happened. griff, u.s. intelligence says the two high profile highs sis planners were plotting more attacks against the u.s. troops at the airport in kabul sometimes in the next three days before the august 31st deadline. here is how john kirby described the operation. they lost a planner and they lost a facilitator and they ve got one wounded. and the fact that two of these individuals are no longer walking on the face of the earth, that s a good thing. it s a good thing for the people of afghanistan and it s a good thing for our troops and our forces at that airfield. the pentagon is not releasing the names of the people they killed. i m told
goal is to get embassy personnel out by tuesday if to not sooner. what you are looking at is cnn video of helicopters shuttling employees from the embassy for that evacuation. president biden has authorized sending in another 1,000 troops to carry out the operation which brings the total to 5,000. let s get more on the fast-moving developments in afghanistan and get straight to cnn s nick paton walsh, who joins us live from kabul. nick, there werer the. there was an intelligence assessment a few days ago that said this would take place in 30 to 90 days. u.s. intelligence didn t anticipate this would happen merely within hours. bring us up to speed with what you re seeing. reporter: yeah, it s important to have a sort of slight pause on where we feel we are in terms of kabul s security. from what we can see, we are not seeing the taliban entering the city from multiple points as some of the reports have suggested. in fact, a source in the presidential palace, who, obviousl
schools, as one board meeting spirals into a shouting match homeland security s new national terrorism and the threat of violence leading up to the 20th anniversary of 9/11. news on new york governor andrew cuomo. what is now happening with the impeachment probe now that he is stepping down. tropical storm warnings up in florida as fred takes aim, and 78 million under a brutal heatwave, and the dire record. july the hottest month ever murder hornets are back where the first live one was spotted in the u.s. this year and music legend tony bennett his farewell to the stage. announcer: this is nbc nightly news with lester holt good evening, everyone an america that became weary of war is tonight witnessing from afar the raw and ugly reality of what the u.s. has left behind in the wake of its withdrawal from afghanistan, a vacuum filled by a resurgent taliban. its fighters have now ensnared the country s most important cities except the capital of kabul, grabbing
the president s new goal, administering at least one dose to 70% of adults by the fourth of july. and the effort ramping up to and the effort ramping up to vaccinate children 12 to 15 as soon as the fda gives the green light. but with vaccinations plummeting, major changes to the rollout. why those mass vaccination sites may be going away. also the frantic search for survivors in the train disaster in mexico city the overpass collapsing train cars plunging onto the street below the massive death toll and dozens injured our team is on the ground there the severe weather threat 40 million at risk al roker timing it out. the decision coming from facebook will it lift the ban on donald trump? and the gop divide, and could liz cheney, the third ranking republican in the house, lose her leadership role for calling out the former president s election falsehoods the historic first for the future of delivery when you may start getting your shipments by drone announcer: thi
about the preserving of the true democracy. case in point, senator mitch mcconnell and house minority leader kevin mccarthy, who ditched the responsibility of holding donald trump accountable for trying to steal the election, he clearly lost. msnbc opinion columnist a brown laid it out this way, quote, for a brief moment, then new york times reported thursday, mccarthy and mcconnell fell into full alignment on trump. and the days immediately following january 6th, both men expressed the belief that trump was at fault for the assault that he couldn t be allowed to remain in power. but they re anti trump s stance is collapsed in the face of opposition from their own members. gop members tearing at the fabric of the scared experiment extends well beyond washington. this week, michigan s republican party endorsed a trump backed election denier as secretary of state. it s a role that oversees elections. so we know that republican leaders are doing, and how low they will go for t