tv Don Lemon Tonight CNN August 18, 2021 12:00am-1:00am PDT
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president biden returning to the white house tonight from camp david earlier than planned as top administration officials try to contain the fallout from the u.s. withdrawal from afghanistan. the collapse of the government and the taliban returning to power in kabul. aides say biden takes full responsibility for what's unfolding there and is expected to address the american people again in the coming days. the national security adviser, jake sullivan, saying the u.s. is in talks with the taliban to allow safe passage for americans and afghans who helped america during the long war to lead the country. the taliban claiming there will be no violence against afghan women, but tonight one woman in
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kabul telling cnn's clarissa ward she fears for her life. >> until last week, she was working for the u.n. that's not her real name, and she ask we not show her phase. she's petrified that the taliban will link her to western organizations and says she hasn't gone outside since they arrived in kabul. you look very frightened. >> exactly. it is not easy for a person to work a lot with international organization, having more than ten years of experience of working with international, and now none of them will help me. no response. >> are you angry? >> no, i'm not angry. but as a person who worked with them, now i need their support. it is not fair. >> you look very emotional as
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well. >> yeah, because i'm thinking about my future, my daughters. what will happen to them if they kill me? two daughters without mother. >> joining me now, cnn white house correspondent john harwood and mark mckinnon. he is a former adviser to george w. bush and john mccain, and he's the executive producer of "the circus." gentlemen, good evening. the stories are really just unbelievable coming out of afghanistan. john, the president is back at the white house tonight while his administration tries to contain the fallout over the chaos and the fall of kabul. he is going to do an interview with abc news tomorrow, and he's sure to be pressed on what went so wrong. what do you think we'll hear? >> well, i'd expect that george stephanopoulos will press him on why it was that the united states was caught so unaware by the rapid collapse of the afghan
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government and security forces. president biden has said in his speech yesterday it was faster than we anticipated, but we don't really know why. the other question will be why didn't you do more wereith the e that you had to get tens of thousands of not only american personnel but afghan personnel who helped the united states out of the country? having said that, the difference between success and failure for biden is not whether the taliban took over the country because it's obvious they were going to take over the country in either case. the difference between a temporary humiliation that we saw in those images yesterday and an enduring calamity is whether or not you can get safely those people out. they've now regained control of the airport. they say they can take out up to 9,000 people a day. if do you that for two weeks, you get more than 100,000 people out. it is still possible for them to
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salvage this situation, but all that work is ahead of them, and i would expect president biden to emphasize that they've begun that work and will sustain it. >> mark mckinnon, look, this is still a disaster that could really blow up at any moment. but the president is sticking to his message that it was the right thing to do to get out. the reality of this and the politics obviously just horrible. what will the lasting impact of this be? is it too soon to tell? do we know? >> i think john makes a great point. i mean there is expected and reasonable hyperventilating about what's been going on the last few days. it has been a calamity. it has been a collapse, and john mentioned that the biden response that they hadn't anticipated this particular outcome. that's inexcusable. that's what you do in military scenario planning. you plan for any outcome, any possibility. so this should have been a
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possibility that was anticipated, and there should have been a scenario for dealing with it. so that is at biden's feet. but i agree with john as well, that, listen, we were going to be leaving afghanistan. joe biden campaigned on that. donald trump was going to do that. i suspect that this outcome wouldn't have been much different had donald trump been in a second term right now. but looking back and the real political consequences will be, will joe biden and will this administration get everybody out that needs to get out? will we leave no afghan behind? will we leave no american behind because that's what ultimately will be judged upon is whether or not people were evacuated and whether or not people were left behind and killed by the taliban. >> john, there's so much news going on in the country right now. i want to turn to the pandemic and the texas governor, greg abbott, testing positive for covid. let's hope he gets well. he's receiving regeneron's
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monoclonal antibody treatment. how does this look? >> like you, don, i hope and that governor abbott will get better and there's every reason to think he will. not only has he been vaccinated, tested every day, but he also, even though he has no symptoms, immediately got the gold-plated monoclonal antibody treatment, which of course is not available to most people and typically not available to people who asymptomatic. and i've got to say, i don't think for somebody who through his actions endangers vulnerable people in his own state for votes, hypocritical is not a strong enough word for that. i think the word for that is immoral, and i don't know that that reality will harm greg abbott in texas. but the fact that he would carry
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on with the protection of the best that medicine has to offer while doing what he's doing to facilitate the pandemic in his own state, it's a very, very ugly thing to see. >> i want to put up the images from this event that greg abbott attended last night. a packed room indoors, no masks. do you think getting covid may change his mind at all about masks? >> i would sure hope so, don. i mean given that photo, we know that the governor has covid, so he presumably had covid last night. presumably he was spreading covid among those who were at that gathering, and presumably, i mean they obviously didn't have masks on and presumably many of them were unvaccinated. so the governor himself likely was spreading the disease as recently as last night. and so i mean the texas schools
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are about to go back into session, and we're going to see in texas what's been happening in georgia and other jurisdictions where because there's not a mask mandate, they're going to school for two days and then literally everybody is going home and quarantining. and so this notion that, you know, that it's about freedom, well, nobody should have the freedom to infect other people and make other people sick. that's like saying, you know, that you shouldn't have to wear seat belts or you should be able to drive drunk. >> yeah. thank you, gentlemen. be safe. i'll see you soon. let's bring in now jason candor. he is a former army captain and afghanistan veteran who works with the veterans community project. jason, i'm so happy to have you here. i want to thank you right off for your service to this country and i appreciate you bringing your expertise to this program. thank you. good evening to you. >> thanks, don. thanks for having me. >> how do you feel seeing what's happening in kabul? it's got to be painful to watch.
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>> yeah, it's terrible. it's not unexpected, but it doesn't change how terrible it is. i mean to actually see the taliban take over, you know, for ten years we've assumed this was eventually going to happen. but there's just so many ways in which it's terrible. in some ways, honestly it feels like the country after about -- i don't know -- more than a decade of completing forgetting about it, has discovered that we've been at war in afghanistan. and even of that, it's probably 20th on the list of what's frustrating, but realizing that the country is just realizing this is happening, that's frustrating. so there's just a lot about it that is frustrating for those of us who served there. it's upsetting, so what i've been trying to do over the last few days is make myself useful to my fellow afghanistan veterans, because that's really all i'm in a position to do. >> listen, the blitzkrieg
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takeover by the taliban has left many of our afghan allies in grave danger. your thoughts when you watch what happened with the afghan forces and the afghan government that you and others sacrificed so much to establish, and it seems it really just disappeared, jason. >> yeah. i'm not surprised. i guess what i don't -- i have like a lot of anger in this situation, but i don't really direct any of it at anybody in particular. and i definitely don't direct it at the afghan national security forces. it seems like a lot of people in this country have chosen -- there's like a couple of paths that people have chosen here. some people active in the debate have chosen to point their ire at a partisan foe. you know, republicans want to point it at president biden. democrats want to point it at president bush or president
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trump. i think over 20 years, everybody has plenty of blame to share in all of this. and then some people just want to point it at the afghan military and say, why won't they fight for their country? and for those of us who worked with the afghan military, there's a few things that are important to remember. this is not like, you know, a soldier from texas serving with a soldier from montana and saying -- you know, we're both americans. no. this is like if you're from helmand province, you've probably never been to mazar-i-sharif. you've probably never met a tajik. your country, afghanistan, is a series of lines that was drawn by people who didn't live there many years ago, right? so it's a whole different set of questions when it comes to fighting for your country. then on top of that -- and, again, the withdrawal is the right thing for our country, but there are facts and consequences that come with it, like the technology, the way that we
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trained them to fight. it's not really there for them at that point. the government of afghanistan has not been in a position in many cases to feed them. so now you're starving, you're surrounded. it's not a choice of do i fight to the end and give my own life because that's what i do. that's not a difficult choice to make when you're trained and that's your situation. they train you to make that choice. it's more than that. it's if i continue to fight, i'm either killed or i'm captured. the taliban will know that it was me, and they're going to my hometown to kill my wife and my kids and my parents. that's a very different set of decisions to make. and so i just think that there's more nuance to the question of did they stand up and fight. >> the best outcome for this, since we are here, jason? >> the best outcome for this is that we get as many people out who need to be out as possible. look, it has sort of settled in,
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this narrative of this is a massive failure, a massive catastrophe. like this story is not over yet. the united states military, the best military in the history -- in human history, is on the ground, has secured the airport, and now diplomatically, my understanding is we're discussing with the taliban how we can get people out who are not within that perimeter. so the story is not over yet. is this story going to end in some massive victory? no, it's not. we're not going to look back on this chapter of this war and say this was a success. i believe we will look back on this war and say we accomplished the objectives that were set out in the first place. you know, we denied a sanctuary to international terrorism for 20 years. we made life better for some people for 20 years. should we have been there for 20 years? no. but we made life better for some people for 20 years. and this last part, how we exited, did we do right by the people who did right by us? we still have an opportunity to get that less wrong, and that's what i'm hopeful for because the
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people that i served with, they're good people who i admire, the afghans, and i'm worried about them, and i'm worried about their families. and i want them to get here because they deserve it. >> jason, i'm so glad that you're reaching out to your fellow soldiers and folks who were there. and take care of yourself. be well. thank you. >> thanks, don. appreciate it. also tonight, the taliban releasing this video of their co-founder, mullah abdul ghani baradar, arriving in kandahar. it is the first time that he has set foot in afghanistan in 20 years. joining me now, two people who have done a lot of reporting on this taliban co-founder, jessica donati, author of "eagle down." and toby harndon is here as well. he is a former foreign correspondent for the daily telegraph and sunday times of
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london. good evening to both of you. thank you so much. jessica, i'm going to start with you. a few years ago, mullah baradar was in prison. tonight he is back on afghan soil and could be the next leader there. you point out that he owes his freedom to the u.s. so why did the trump administration help release him back in 2018? please give us some insight on this. >> absolutely and thanks for having me. so the trump administration back in 2018 was looking for an interlocutor for the taliban that would give them confidence to pull out. so they pushed islamabad to free him because they thought he would be a meaningful person to negotiate with. the other important thing to know about him is he had actually tried to surrender before. when he was one of the main leaders of the taliban back in 2001, he tried to surrender.
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he tried to tell the afghan government, i want to join you, and this war is over, and he was turned away, which made the trump administration think that perhaps they had a second chance at peace. the problem was that by the time you fast-forward almost 20 years, the taliban were in such a strong position that they no longer really wanted to negotiate. >> interesting. toby, the deal with the taliban was so important to the former president that trump wanted baradar and other taliban members to come to camp david in 2019 before the 9/11 anniversary, but it was eventually called off. why did they set such store by this deal? >> well, i think they decided that the war should be ended and that they wanted it do it by any means possible. mullah baradar is a very interesting character. as jessica mentioned, the fact that he tried to surrender in 2001 really points to sort of a
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moment in time very early on when we achieved considerable success in the first few weeks of the campaign, toppled the taliban almost as quickly as the taliban toppled the afghan government this year. at that point, if we'd kept to our narrow war aims of pursuing al qaeda and denying sanctuary in afghanistan to al qaeda, we could have ended the war, incorporated a small element of the taliban into the afghan government, which would have been per afghan tradition. but we chose not to do that, and so here we are, you know, 20 years later in a much, much worse position and perhaps, more importantly, a much, much worse position for the people of afghanistan. >> days after the administration signed a deal with the taliban, jessica, then-president trump spoke to baradar on the phone. here's what he said about it at the time. >> i spoke to the leader of the
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taliban today. we had a good conversation. we've agreed there's no violence. we don't want violence. we'll see what happens. they're dealing with afghanistan, but we'll see what happens. the relationship is very good that i have with the mullah, and we had a good, long conversation today. you know, they want to cease the violence. >> that was back in march of 2020, but clearly the violence never ended. was giving baradar this kind of credibility a big mistake? >> i think that baradar had the credibility to negotiate on behalf of the taliban. the problem was that he never actually guaranteed or even suggested that he was prepared to reduce violence. the trump administration negotiators tried really hard for a year to get the taliban to agree to a cease-fire, to get them to agree to negotiate with the afghan government. but they didn't get very far. the only thing they got them to agree to was to give the americans safe passage on the
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way out, to not attack them on the way out. they never agreed to not attack afghan forces, and they never agreed to reach a settlement with them, which is why the whole thing that's happened this past few days, which is incredibly fast, is not that surprising. >> toby, in 2020, baradar met with then-secretary of state mike pompeo in doha. what can you tell us about their negotiations? >> well, i wasn't party to them, but i think as jessica said, there were no meaningful negotiations because the trump administration, the united states were deciding to run for the exits, and even the relatively lax conditions that they laid down, the taliban clearly had no interest in abiding by. i think another important point to make about this is alongside mullah baradar, you have a man
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called mullah fazil, who was part of the negotiating team in doha and reportedly traveled with baradar to kandahar after the collapse of the afghan government. >> yeah. >> now, while mullah baradar is regarded or has been as a relatively moderate figure, as jarring as that term moderate might seem jux ataposed with th word taliban, mullah fazil is not. he was cited by the united nations as being guilty of genocide, and the cia believes he was responsible for the massacre of 10,000, or even 20,000 across northern afghanistan. he spent 12 years in guantanamo bay, and he was released by the obama administration in 2014, one of the taliban five in exchange for bowe bergdahl.
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if mullah fazil biecomes the tre sort of heart of the taliban government, we don't know how exactly that's going to be composed. >> toby, jessica, thank you both very much. i really appreciate it. be well. overnight, the women and girls of afghanistan have lost 20 years of progress, and now they are terrified about what the taliban might do next. next, exclusive audio from inside afghanistan. >> if we stay here for one more hour, there is going to be a massacre. i'm telling you that there is going to be a massacre. everybody will be killed here. . he's a fast talker. a fast walker. thanks, gary. and for unexpected heartburn... frank is a fan of pepcid. it works in minutes. nexium 24 hour and prilosec otc can take one to four days to fully work. pepcid. strong relief for fans of fast.
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law, experts who worked in the country warn of atrocities to come now that american troops have left. joining me now, kimberly motley. she is an international human rights attorney and civil rights attorney. kimberly, thank you so much. i appreciate the conversation that we're going to have and that you are here to discuss this. good evening to you. you worked in afghanistan for years with women helping champion their rights. you're in touch with one afghan woman in kabul who worked with you and is hiding right now. i want to play some of what she sent you over the last two days and then we'll talk about it. here it is. >> i'm done. my life is over, and i don't know -- i'm not sure if i can keep you messaging anymore. thank you so much for everything, kim. i think it doesn't going to work out, and then you guys were super late to control things. it was -- it was way too late to control the situation.
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i'm sorry, but your efforts don't mean anything anymore. kim, the thing is that if we stay here for one more hour, there is going to be a massacre. i'm telling you that there is going to be a massacre. everybody will be killed here. please, there is a big, big mob. they are attacking us, and they are -- maybe there are some taliban fighters among them. they are armed, and there is like thousands of them. it's not just a few hundred. it is thousands of them. i'm really scared, and i -- i don't want to be here anymore because i'm really scared, and i'm scared for my life and my family's life and also i'm dying of anxiety and also stress. it is really stressful. it's really, really, really stressful, and i don't know what to do. >> so, listen, kimberly, while
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cnn can't independently verify what she is seeing, it is heartbreaking to listen. clearly she's terrified, and i know that you can't disclose much about her, but how dangerous is it for these women and others like her? >> well, thank you for having me on the show, don. i mean it's an extremely precarious situation of where women are today compared to literally last week. i mean there's so many women that are just completely terrified for their lives, including my friend that you've heard on the audio recording. i mean women are being turned away from going to school. women are being turned away from going to work. there are literally people that are painting over women's faces in public spaces. you know, it's extraordinarily just heartbreaking and terrifying what a lot of the women are going through now in afghanistan. >> she mentions an attack or
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perhaps a mass advance. cnn doesn't really have any reporting of mass reprisals or massacres in kabul, but there's no question that women have real good reason to be afraid there. you're calling this a human rights nightmare. talk about everything women will lose, you believe, under the taliban. >> well, i mean this is definitely a human rights catastrophe. this is a human rights nuclear bomb. so what i'm concerned about is what we're seeing in real time, that we're seeing that women are being restricted with their movements. you know, i know that there are women journalists there that are being targeted. i know that there are high-profile women right now that are currently under house arrest, that you are not hearing from anymore, that are not allowed to move. so, you know, women are -- there's schools being closed, women being turned away from work. those women that are going out, they're being stopped at
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checkpoints and asked to look through their phones to see what they have on their phones. and some are being detained, and their electronics are being taken away. i've had reports of women being beaten in the streets already. so if this government wants any level of credibility, they need to allow women right now and show the world that women do have equal rights, that they do have the freedom of movement within afghanistan and outside of afghanistan by land and air. they need to release the high-profile women that are currently under house arrest and allow them to have freedom of movement. freedom of movement without a male guardian, which is, you know, consistent with human rights. that can happen right now in real time if this current government of afghanistan wants to show the world and wants to have legitimacy. they can do these things, and we can see how serious they are in protecting women's rights as
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they said today in their press conference. >> kimberly, thank you so much. please keep us updated. let us know what happened to the women, your friends who you're speaking to in afghanistan. thank you. >> thank you for having me. texas governor greg abbott testing positive for covid after battling local officials over mask mandates. will it change anything as the virus is ravaging his state? it's time for the biggest sale of the year, on the new sleep number 360 smart bed. it helps keep you effortlessly comfortable by sensing your movements and automatically responding to both of you. and, it's temperature balancing to help you stay comfortable all night. it even tracks your circadian rhythm, so you know when you're at your best. in other words, it's the most energy building, wellness boosting, parent-powering, proven quality night's sleep we've ever made. and now, all smart beds are on sale. save 50% on the new sleep number 360 limited edition smart bed. plus, 0% interest for 24 months. only for a limited time. hey, i just got a text from my sister.
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local officials to keep them from implementing public health measures like mask mandates. joining me to discuss is dr. megan ranney and cnn senior political analyst ron brownstein. thank you for joining. dr. ranney, you first. we've got video of governor abbott at this packed event full of maskless people last night in fairview, texas. that's a high transmission area and even though the governor is vaccinated, the cdc recommends masks indoor, public spaces for vaccinated people. he is now isolating and taking regeneron, which is this antibody treatment, and his office says that he isn't showing symptoms. give me your reaction. >> obviously my first reaction is that i hope he's okay. chances are he will be because he's vaccinated, and we know that the vaccines provide severe illness -- prevent, severe
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illness, hospitalization and death. my second reaction is, oh, the irony. this is why we've been recommending masks in these high transmission areas is because the delta variant does spread. i just hope that he didn't get anyone sick last night at that event. >> ron, i mentioned that abbott has been one of the most vocal republican governors fighting mandates. the tension has been high between the governor and democra democratic-leading -- you have a great article out on cnn.com, and it talks about the fight between red states and their blue cities. what is behind it? >> look, don, i think what we're seeing now, as i said in the story, a breaking point in the tension between red states and blue cities. the long arc of how we got here is that virtually every metro area in the sun belt from atlanta in the east through dallas and austin and houston all the way to phoenix has been growing more democratic in
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recent years. and as that has happened, republicans who still control statewide power in all of these states, largely through their dominance of rural areas, have gotten more aggressive about overturning the decisions of those local democratic officials and everything from regulating plastic bags to police budgets. and we saw that in big force last year when governors like ducey in arizona and kemp in georgia, desantis certainly and abbott all overrode decisions by local officials to limit business hours, to require masks, and to have lockdowns. what we're seeing now really, i think for the first time, is a full-scale uprising in states like florida, certainly in texas and in phoenix. we have multiple local governments and school districts who have said they are going to impose mask requirements because they believe it is necessary for public health as cases explode in those states. and now we have battles in court
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in all of those states. ducey, desantis and abbott all took actions today to punish local governments that were mandating either masks or vaccines. this is not yet over, and there will be questions about whether the federal government, the biden administration, needs to intervene more aggressively. >> dr. ranney, we are seeing these red states putting politics over public health, but you are warning vaccinated blue states are at risk of their own deadly delta surges in the next few months. why is that? >> well, it's for two reasons, don. the first is that even if highly vaccinated blue states, our vaccine rates are not universal. you still have large pockets of folks who are unvaccinated, and i will tell you working in the e.r., that i am seeing increasing numbers of people who are unvaccinated coming in really sick with covid and getting hospitalized despite living in rhode island, a very blue state with good vaccination rates. that's the first thing is it will still spread among those unvaccinated folks in our
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communities. the second thing is that every hospital in the country is short-staffed. so even if a small covid surge right now is going to put us over the edge. our emergency departments are bursting at the seams. our intensive care units are bursting at the seams across the country, even without increases in covid hospitalizations and icu stays. i'm really worried about what's going to happen when kids go back to school, especially in those districts that don't have mask mandates. and when we all move back indoors, which we're bound to do as the weather starts to get colder. so we are set up for a potentially very scary fall if we don't start seeing some changes in those public health measures, and of course if we don't see more folks getting vaccinated. >> ron, 7 in 10 americans support masking in schools. that's an axio/ipsos poll. why is it such a fight over this if 7 out of 10 people agree? >> 7 out of 10 even in texas support masking in schools
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according to another ipsos poll released today. the answer is because the republican base opposes it, and we are talking about officials in desantis, in kemp, in abbott who are following the trump strategy of kind of winning elections by mobilizing their base at all costs. but, you know, as i pointed out in my story, the republican heartland, the rural areas in these states is stagnant or shrinking, the metros are providing all of the population growth in states like georgia, arizona, and texas, and republicans have to remain competitive in those places. and i think by pursuing such an ideological stand on masks, by reflecting kind of the priorities of their very conservative, rural, many cases evangelical base, they are pushing a lot of those suburban voters about as far as they can, and it will be fascinating to see whether they stand with them if we start to see case loads rising when school resumes. >> thank you both. i appreciate it.
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vaccination rates among some communities of color still alarmingly low in some areas of the country, including in places you might not expect. tony here from creditrepair.com taking to the streets to talk about credit. can you repair your credit yourself? yes. -great. how? uhhh... how long does credit repair take? i don't know, like 10 years. what? are you insane? what's a good credit score? go. 600. maybe if you're trying to pay thousands extra in interest rates. cut the confusion, get started with a free credit evaluation at creditrepair.com.
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tonight as the highly contagious delta variant spreads across the country, the cdc says nearly 30% of americans eligible to get the vaccine are still not vaccinated, and it's a particular problem in communities of color here in new york city, where community leaders are battling hesitancy myths and misinformation, trying to convince folks who are unvaccinated to roll up their sleeves. here's athena jones. >> reporter: on the streets of queens, new york -- >> have you been vaccinated?
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>> no, not yet. >> reporter: these vaccine advocates are on a mission. >> we ain't preaching, we're just teaching. >> reporter: to talk to anyone and everyone about getting vaccinated. >> what's your hesitancy? >> reporter: but not everyone is ready for a shot. >> it is just my personal and spiritual belief. >> absolutely. >> that god will take care of me. >> reporter: it's about listening, being seen, and making the case for a lifesaving vaccine. >> we are a part of the community, and we want to understand what their concerns are. >> reporter: the neighborhood with the lowest vaccination in new york city is far rockaway. nearly half the population of this zip code is black and about a quarter is hispanic. but just about 35% are fully vaccinated. >> if you don't have covid, why take the shot? >> to prevent you from dying. >> reporter: citywide, just 28% of black new yorkers between the ages of 18 and 44 are fully vaccinated. >> you're worried about the
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vaccine itself? >> right, because it's going to kill people off. >> the vaccine? >> yeah. >> reporter: the stakes are high. far rockaway is one of the areas hardest hit by the pandemic. 1 out of every 7 people here has been diagnosed with the virus. >> no, i'm not actually. >> reporter: sean mohammed hasn't gotten the shot because he says he doesn't know how it would impact his crohn's disease. >> you're not that worried about getting covid even with the delta and all that? >> of course i am. any second i could get delta and be in the hospital, but there's no information online. i'd rather get information online than have a doctor talk to me. >> reporter: for some, it's financial. >> i'm a home health aide. >> she's worried about getting sick from the shot and missing work. >> i don't want to take the vaccine and go back to work immediately because if i take sick there, my client -- >> reporter: this reverend will let his church be used as a vaccinate site, but he's not getting a shot himself. >> personally, i'm doing good
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without the vaccine. i believe the emphasis should be on people boosting their immune system. >> can i ask you what's your hesitance with taking it? >> i'm scared of being chipped. >> reporter: fighting myths, lies and other misinformation is key. >> it's extremely challenging fighting the misinformation. we're fighting, you know, facebook. we're fighting twitter. but we're also fighting people's misperceptions and distrust of the system as a whole. >> reporter: efforts like these here in far rockaway have gotten thousands of people vaccinated. >> we're just out here doing some outreach. >> reporter: but there are many more lives to be saved. >> one time messaging is not enough. we have to go back, and i, myself, have three success stories personally lately, and i spoke to these people maybe a minimum of ten times each. >> reporter: so the work continues. athena jones, cnn, far rockaway,
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new york. >> i live here in new york, and i hear it all the time. people stop me on the street, and we have these conversations. why get it? i tell them to boost your immune system. they said, you know -- that guy said, i think people should be boosting their immune system. that's what the vaccine does. and the guy who said they'd rather get information online than a doctor? what are the credentials of the people online? there are no credentials. there's no fact-checking. it's a free for all. the other person who said, why get the vaccine if you don't have covid? so that you don't get covid. so come on, people. let's get real. get vaccinated. perhaps the best thing to do is for people who want to do things that vaccinated people do, they should be vaccinated. and if they don't want to do those things -- if they don't want to get vaccinated, maybe they shouldn't be allowed to do
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welcome to our viewers joining us here in the grunited states and around the world. i'm rosemary church. just ahead, afghan airlift, the u.s. ramps up its efforts to fly thousands out of afghanistan by the end of the month. greg abbott becomes a victim of his own war on masking. the texas governor says he has covid. and at the epicenter of haiti's earthquake, hospital workers struggle with a massive influx o
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