[ring] [ring ring] [ring] oh no... i thought i just ordered tacos. nope! sushi... ramen... burgers... tandoori chicken... some milk from the store, and... ...and, let me guess. cookies? wha, me hungry! yeah. here, i'll call some friends to help us eat. yeah, that good idea. yeah. get more from your neighborhood. doordash. hey yo, grover! you like ramen? the news continues. let's hand things over for chris for "cuomo prime time." >> thanks, anderson. welcome to the prime time covid command center. we do have breaking developments in afghanistan and one of the key players in the trump taliban deal is here with a twist. we will test it. but first, full approval at long last for the pfizer vaccine from the fda for those 16 and older.

now, why only those people, why not under 16? we'll get to all of that. here's the question. will this get enough people to take the shot so we can stop making ourselves sick? three in ten unvaccinated adults said in a recent survey they would be more likely to get vaccinated if one of the options moved to full approval. the president says now is your time. >> the moment you've been waiting for is here. it's time for you to go get your vaccination, and get it today. the fda approval is the gold standard. >> and approval on his efforts on covid is the gold standard for his ratings and they're down. getting people vaccinated is a big thing for him and for the country. private companies, by the way, agree that approval was huge. why? they want to mandate vaccines

and now they believe they have clearance for their employees. now, this has been met for a lot of hype. if your employer makes you get a vaccine, that's discriminatory. legal tests of this will come. it will be shocking if a private business is not allowed to have their employees be vaccinated. and the idea that insisting that you be protected is unfair to the unvaccinated, unless you are immune compromised, got getting vaccinated is what is unfair to the people in your family, your job, and anywhere you go. this is on you, not your employer. the pentagon also announced earlier that all u.s. service members will now be required to get immunized. why? because sick people are weak people. and if that happens in the military, a mass contagion, that could have national security implications. so where are we? take a look. we're averaging nearly 150,000

new cases a day. deaths are up to almost 1,000 a day. that's 54% more than a week ago. dr. sanjay gupta is going to be with us tonight with a reality that we're going to all have to accept about what our future looks like and what's going to be happening all over this country, like it or not. now, a lot of you want to be angry. i'm okay with that. but remember why we have to do all this. denial, by trump and his administration to start. messaging that turned his base into a population that wouldn't test, mask up, or get vaccinated. as some perverse sense of strength found in making themselves and others sick, a false exercise of freedom that makes them and others less free. so much mis and disinformation, so much perversion of what it means that even the pied piper of the pandemic, trump himself,

can no longer control those who are believed to be his people. >> and, you know what, i believe totally in your freedoms, i do. you have to do what you have had to. but i recommend, take the vaccines. i did it, it's good. i happened to take the vaccine. if it doesn't work, you'll be the first to know, okay? >> they beooed him. you know why? he's never been their leader. he was a repeater. he repeated their angst and their animus. his legacy will be that he literally led people to risk their own lives and he gave birth to a new wave of demagogues who are misleading just like he did, making people so resistant to reason and relying on lies that they would rather try poison than a real cure. the fda literally had to remind some americans you're not a horse, you are not a cow.

why? because some are taking a drug that's given to livestock as an anti-parasitic to treat or prevent covid. it doesn't work. at least two people have been hospitalized in mississippi after taking ivermectin. it is a dewormer. it's not a covid cure. please don't take it. the state's health department put out a warning saying animal drugs are highly concentrated for large animals and can be highly toxic in humans. and they should have said, and i don't know why they didn't. and this drug is not for covid. i wonder if politics played into even that? the state's poison control center has been receiving an increasing number of calls in relation to this. why? because somewhere on the righty fringe, they said this will do it. forget about the vaccine. look, people are literally insisting on making themselves sick. it is like a bad movie that we're all trapped in.

yes, this country is divided. those who tell you otherwise, i don't get it, but they're wrong. but define the division. it's not left/right. come on, who defines themselves as that anymore. those are just ideological extremes for the political class. gop or democrat. who calls themselves that anymore? those are just teams in a bad game. this country is about the vaccinated and those who choose to put them at risk. and here's the good news. the vaccinated are this country. they are over 50% of every place and face. they have all done the right thing. so how long must the majority wait for the stubborn? how long must kids not get educated because a stubborn few won't learn the listen about masks, refusing to protect their kids and your kids, especially when they know that kids under 12 can't even get vaccinated so

they need adults, they are dependent on adults to step up. how long must all lives be stilted at home and work waiting on people who insist on making themselves and others sick? the question now is with the fda approval and the wave of mandates, will that make the difference? let's take it to a better mind. former fda commissioner under trump, dr. steven hahn. good to see you back, doc. >> hi, chris. thanks for having me. >> fda approval. do you believe this could be something that creates a massive catalyst among people who haven't been vaccinated to date? >> chris, it's a really important day in our fight against covid-19. i don't know about the word "massive," chris, but i certainly hope for those who have been waiting for this full approval that this is the impetus for them to get vaccinated. we have clear evidence of the safety and effectiveness of the pfizer/biontech vaccine. it's undergone full approval and

full vetting by the gold standard, the u.s. fda. >> you used full there twice. the hate parade is already marching and saying they took shortcuts. this isn't real approval. they hedged it just to make you take it. do you believe any of that? >> no, i don't, chris. we heard from the fda today that the application for the pfizer/biontech, biological application license for full approval was over 300,000 pages. the fda career staff went through it, they did the number crunching, they know. so not only was this data in the clinical trial that was performed, but we have over several hundred million people around the world vaccinated with this vaccine. what does that tell you? that tells you that we have more data about efficacy and safety than almost any other vaccine in the history of vaccination. the data are clear. the fda has spoken. the vaccine is safe and effective. >> why isn't pfizer approved for

12 to 15? it's still under an emergency use authorization for 12 to 15, but is approved 16 and up. why? >> well, the original trial was in 16 and over, so we have data that's at least six months in terms of safety, which is the requirement that the fda has. the folks who went through the trial had to have six months of follow-up safety data. we just recently saw the emergency use authorization for 12 to 15, so we have to wait a little bit more time to collect additional safety data. chris, there's no reason to believe that it won't be as safe in that group as it is in 16 and older. we have to wait for the data to be complete. >> what do you say to those in right-wing media saying this deworming drug, this could do the trick. >> which drug, chris? >> ivermectin, the deworming drug. >> right. we've seen this before. it's ironic, chris, a drug that is indeed approved by the fda for certain infections but for which there's pretty good data to suggest it does not work

against covid-19 and would not be recommended by any medical professional, that that would be chosen over a vaccine that's been studied and looked at in hundreds of thousands of people. so ivermectin is not a drug that anyone should take for covid-19. it does not appear to work and may be harmful, particularly if you take the animal version of it. >> what do you think is going on with people who would rather push, you know, sophisticated people, they're no hahn. somewhat smarter than a cuomo but not as smart as a hahn and they would rather push a deworming drug than a vaccine. what does that tell us? >> i don't know the answer to that question because it doesn't follow the science and the data. as we have discussed before, this is not about politics. this is about what do the science and data show us. the science and data show us that ivermectin at this point has no benefit for covid-19 patients, either in the prevention or the treatment, whereas the vaccine clearly has

efficacy in the prevention. so i don't have any understanding of that at all. what i can do is reiterate what i said. we have to stop the politics. we have to follow the science and the data. >> dr. stephen hahn, thank you for being on the show. please come back again soon. >> thank you, chris. >> all right. be well. so at home, we're trying to get people to save themselves. in afghanistan, we face as equally toxic situation and a key decision. will biden extend the taliban deadline to rescue trapped americans and allies? key question, why did america ever agree to any taliban control over any kind of timeline? biden blames trump for that. the last person to head the pentagon on trump's watch says biden has it wrong and it's his problem. he's here. let's get after it, next. and . once we get there, we will need... buttercup! ♪

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all right. we're on the precipice of a big moment. the pentagon is advising president biden, you've got to make a call by tomorrow to extend the deadline for

withdrawal from afghanistan. word is leaders from the g-7 countries are saying you have to do that. meanwhile, the taliban calls the august 31st date a, quote, red line. look, we don't even know how many americans and allies may be in harm's way there. i know the white house is putting out numbers. we don't know that they're right. can america really allow the taliban to dictate anything? how did this even happen? how did we get into this situation? let's discuss with donald trump's former acting secretary of defense, who served in combat in afghanistan, special ops, christopher miller. first of all, sir, thank you for your service to the country, especially during that time. i know you know the country and the politics of it well. appreciate you being here. >> chris, i don't think words can describe how honored i am to be on your show. this is the first time i've publicly appeared on these matters. you know, i was raised in that era where politics stopped at the water's edge. and you brought up earlier about

some big news coming out of the white house. we're going to talk about that, but i just want -- some news came out recently about our last p.o.w., our prisoner of war being held there, a contractor, a navy veteran, that's still being held by the taliban. it looks like the biden administration is going to do everything they can to get him back. i'm really thrilled by that. that's an example. this is bipartisan, chris, and i'm not going to be some political pundit on this one. but certainly have some experience. i went into afghanistan on the 5th of december 2001 after three of my men were killed. cody prosser, j.d. davis and dan pettatori and spent the rest of my professional career involved in this fight and really looking forward to your questions. hopefully we can educate the american public. that's what i love about your show. you take it seriously and it's a little more long form as opposed to sound bites. so over to you, sir. >> so let's start at the be begi beginning.

the decision to elevate the taliban and do a deal with them during the trump administration. was that a mistake? were they given too much control for them to be saying anything is a red line? should america be listening to the taliban? >> you know, they are a notable enemy. they have done extremely well and you have to respect your enemy. that's one of the fundamental principles of being a military person. you've got to talk to your enemy. it took a long, long time. we had opportunities earlier to do that, we didn't take them. finally the window opened and we had the opportunity to sit down and talk with them and start hashing out an agreement. so this is how these wars have to end. insurgencies are just horrifying. they're devastating. and the human cost and the emotional cost, but you've got to start talking sometime. >> i got you with the talk. but bringing them to camp david, elevating them that way, allowing them to dictate terms and then to continue honoring an agreement even after they didn't, was that a mistake?

or how was it not a mistake? >> i saw it a bit differently. i thought that the agreement we established with the taliban was basically the first step, the first phase of an ongoing process. dealing with the taliban in negotiations is kind of set piece on that one. we had to get an agreement with the taliban to start the negotiations to bring the afghan government in, president ghani and his people. this did not end the way we expected. we thought we had some leverage and some opportunity to modify. as has been noted before, this was conditions based and there was not an opportunity to renegotiate or to push back if we felt that things weren't going the way they needed to go. >> so when they weren't going the way they were supposed to go, the taliban missing deadlines to start talks with the afghan government, the taliban still supporting al qaeda, you know the particulars. why wasn't it renegotiated? why wasn't the deal pulled then?

>> because at 12:01 on the 20th of january, 2021, the trump administration left office and this was handed over to the biden administration. that is in no way, shape or form a criticism of the biden administration. i felt that we gave them plenty of flexibility and room to negotiate if that's what they wanted to do. i haven't been involved in those conversations obviously since i left government so i don't know what went on with the decision to withdraw the way we did and to end our involvement there in the manner that we've seen since last friday. >> you had windows before that, though, in terms of what the d.o.d. was warning, august, even prior to that. why did the administration not move then on its own watch? >> i'm kind of confused on that one. i took over on the 9th of november, 2020. i was involved from afar as the

director of the national counterterrorism center, the organization that oversees indicators and warnings and threats for terrorism directed towards the united states. i was disconnected at that time from the negotiations. so i really can't comment on that and that's not like some political spin that i'm trying to dodge your question. >> no, your right, you're right on the dates. i was wondering about your perspective. chris, i'm here to hear you, so finish the point. >> i mean great point, chris. and when we came in, we had the final 72, 73 days of the administration so the goal was to make sure that the table was set and allow the biden administration the opportunity to do what they thought best on behalf of the nation. so i felt very comfortable with the agreement. i felt very comfortable drawing down to 2,500. i want to be brutally clear. i am viscerally committed to

ending the war in afghanistan. was then and was a great supporter of the efforts to reduce our troop presence overseas so i'm not trying to dodge the question. we left with 2,500 troops in country. we actually had 3,500. we had some counterterrorism forces there as well. i felt like we had a pretty good force structure there and the opportunity to keep the taliban at bay. and we were at stalemate at that point. remember, chris, we were completely at stalemate when we left. political negotiations needed to continue. the war wasn't going to be won militarily and unfortunately things didn't go our way. the opportunity to further negotiations and bringing ghani and the afghan government into negotiations didn't work the way we hoped. >> the agreement had called for having somewhere around 13,000 in the doha deal, 13,000 troops. we wound up having a fraction of that, as you just said. for the american people, they always say in polls we want to get out.

why? because they don't like the idea of men like you, men and women, shedding their blood in a war they don't think they can win in a place that they don't think is theirs to fight. but i always wondered if they had been asked, are you okay getting out of afghanistan if you won't be as safe at home afterwards, what do you think of that proposition, chris? do you think that america can be as safe at home from terror attacks as it was with a presence in afghanistan? >> chris, i was -- i'm shamelessly partisan when it comes down to our special operations forces and our counterterrorism forces. i was enormously blessed and honored to serve with them for quite a period of time. when we defeated the taliban in 2001, we did that with 200 special operators and paramilitary forces from our intelligence agencies. i felt very comfortable that we could maintain pressure on the taliban and keep the war at a stalemate with the same sort of force structure going on after the negotiations with the afghan government and the taliban were

complete. so i felt very comfortable that we could arrange a situation where we could keep a stay behind force of commandos and counterterrorism forces, paramilitary forces and intelligence assets there so we could keep a finger on the pulse of terrorist groups that mean harm to us. so i have a little different view on that. we were for structure analysis quite deliberately and we had a figure of 800 would work. we took the country down and defeated them with 200. i think we could have stiffened the spine of the afghan national special forces with 200 as well. >> so the biden administration makes a pretty steady case that, look, we're saddled with this deal. this is the deadline, this is when we have to get out, and then you are credited with saying, no, no, no, the may 1st deadline was always a ruse. that wasn't real. will ruger just put out a tweet. i wasn't aware of any alleged

ruse and believed the report to be false. it also doesn't fit with president trump's sense of where things needed to go in terms of afghan policy and other reporting on the subject. why did you say that may 1 wasn't a real date? >> i really don't like the way that headline read as a ruse. it wasn't a ruse, it was part of an ongoing strategy to negotiate with the taliban and maintain counterterrorism forces in africa or immediately -- very close to afghanistan. so ruse is an inaccurate term. the agreement that was signed between the united states and the taliban was phase one of a more ongoing thing. and our intention all along was -- the taliban talks about we had the watches and the clocks, but they have the time. so time -- we felt we had the ability to move the goal posts if we needed to on that one in a way that -- remember, the

taliban wanted us out, so let's talk straight negotiating. they wanted us out. we wanted to maintain some sort of counterterrorism presence there. the idea was force the ghani government into negotiations with the taliban, then use their traditional huge gathering of afghan leadership that then establishes a new form of government, use that and then there's a new government established. obviously the afghan government would have limited participation in that, but they'd still be a coalition. it would be an interim government that then we would have the opportunity to further negotiate with. so the taliban would go away, the afghan government would go away, there's now a new government that our previous agreements are no longer applicable so now you have a new government to negotiate with. that was our intention. >> i hear it. and again for the audience in case they're just tuning in right now, chris miller was the former acting defense secretary under president trump but he wasn't at the table for the initial doha table.

he came in to effectuate it later. that's my question in terms of shedding insight, chris. there's nothing in the doha agreement about getting our allies out. it doesn't really list that we're going to take our time. it puts it on the taliban that they get to control this. what was your understanding when you came in of where trump was in terms of being okay with this being as one-sided as it was, and why nobody had renegotiator g gone to phase two, why no other step had been taken before you got in. >> chris, i was involved. i was a bit player. i was head of counterterrorism for the national security council for the president, so i don't want to give the impression that i was some major person in the negotiations but i was certainly tracking it, was aware of what was going on and was privy to the longer term plan. the way i described it, although -- it was a very close

held negotiations between the ambassador and the taliban, the question you have about the president is, as you saw, he desperately wanted to withdraw forces prior to his departure but he was also strategically competent and strategically aware that that was impossible at the time based on what the taliban were doing. so i -- you know, president trump spoke extensively about this and i have no reason to doubt his statements that he would have handled this differently if the taliban would have continued this type of, you know, egregious behavior that was in violation of the agreement. >> see, that's the one part i don't get and i want to give you another chance to clear this up for people is that when you look at the timeline and what was in the deal, i'll accept that this was part of what was expected to be a multi-part process. but nothing ever followed and it was left where you were going to

be set up or have a problem getting out of there. i don't understand why nobody ever took any of the other steps that you are outlining. well, the afghan allies and when we get people out. that wasn't in there but we were going to do it later. the deadline when we'd be out. those were all soft points, we were going to deal with it later. why didn't anybody in the trump administration do anything better than what was handed to biden? >> i don't -- i don't have any idea why the biden administration didn't go forward with the plan. it's been seven months. i can understand getting your feet on the ground and figuring things out but at the end of the day, we certainly had the ability to do a responsible drawdown and departure from there through some additional planning. i can't answer that. but we weren't going to execute the final withdraw so i have no way to answer your question on that, sorry. >> no, not on the biden side, on the trump side. there was never any renegotiation, there was never any better terms, there was

never pushing the taliban to do what it wasn't doing at the time. why wasn't that done on trump's watch before biden came in? >> you'd have to ask the ambassador. i assumed that he was doing that throughout, even after the signing of the doha agreement. >> so you don't see that as being the responsibility of the trump administration in terms of how to commit or decommit or control the exit of american troops? >> oh, no, we were absolutely thinking about it, planning, and i gave you what our intentions were earlier about how we intended to do that. >> last thing, extending the date of the 31st. do you think america has any choice but to blow off that date and do what it takes to get its people, its citizens and its allies out of that country? >> i think we have a huge commitment and we've heard the administration and their officials talk about getting all americans out. so i'm not -- i don't know what exactly is going on right now. i know that we got great

americans over there working as hard as they can. chris, you know, we've got to highlight that this is basically a digital dunkirk right now. there are an enormous amount of americans that are giving their money, their time, their effort to help with this. there's an opportunity for a public/private partnership. the pieces aren't in place yet but i'm hoping there's this center set up for civil military relations with these folks that have this desire to help. america is a wonderful country with hugely empathetic and sympathetic folks that want to help so i really hope we do that. that needs to happen soon. there's some simple issues that need to be addressed. there are people with airplanes and capability that are ready to go in and help, but the bureaucracy is slowing that down right now. we also just need to recognize veterans and specifically our women veterans that have served there so magnificently. this was the first war where we had women in combat. and we need to make sure that

they get the services from the veterans administration and elsewhere that they are entitled to. >> you think that you'll be able to get to a position with the taliban in control where you can have private citizens going in and out of there or any kind of joint efforts with that type of despottic group sitting there on the ground with who knows what kind of violence? >> absolutely, we still have leverage on the taliban. they want these people out, let's help get them out. i don't see any reason at all why they wouldn't be supportive of continuing the evacuation. there's absolutely room to negotiate and to steextend the deadline from my perspective. but then again, i'm out of government right now and don't have that horrible burden on my shoulders. i wish them the best because when they do well, america does well and that's what we want. >> chris miller, i appreciate your service and appreciate you talking to us. thank you very much. >> thank you, chris. >> we'll be right back.

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a lot of hype about fda approval of the vaccine. does it matter? let's bring in the whiz, harry en ten. what's the answer? >> yeah, it helps a little bit, certainly the things you do voluntarily the fda approval certainly helps. if you look at the list of the kaiser family foundation asking, the fda giving approval that's a top one. 30% more likely to get the vaccine. that's higher than a chance to win a million dollars, access to

a mobile clinic or free child care. that's one of the best things on there. he's the thing about the full fda approval. what it does is gets those people who are thinking about getting the vaccination much more likely to get it. if you wanted to vax as soon as possible, 79% say it's more likely to get the vaccination. 49% say they'll wait and see how it works of the even 30% who said they'd only get it if forced makes them more likely. so it's really about pushing those people over the edge thinking of getting it to actually get the vaccine. >> so you think it takes a carrot and stick. >> that's exactly right. if we were to team this up with a vaccine mandate, what do we do? number one, by giving this full approval that makes vaccine mandates much more likely. more than that, if in fact let's say you say, okay, we're going to have this full fda approval and employers basically say you have to in fact get vaccinated if you want to work there, look at that, 51% of unvaccinated

workers say they will get the vaccine or more likely to get it. just 43% say no and they'll quit their job. so i think that if you team this up, you team up a full fda approval along with a vaccine mandate, i think that's the ticket to success. >> harry enten, very good on time. appreciate you. the wizard of odds, harry enten. >> my pleasure. vaccinated or not, do you want the truth? here it is. covid is not going anywhere. dr. sanjay gupta gives us the reality and what we can do about it, next. to my manager." next, carvana's 100% online shopping experience. oh, man. carvana lets people buy a car-- get this-- from their couch. oh, how disruptive. no salesman there to help me pick out the car i need. how does anyone find a car on this site without someone like us checking in? she's a beauty, huh? oh, golly! (laughter) i can help you find the color you want. that sounds nice. let me talk to my manager. (vo) buy your next car 100% online. with carvana.

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a little preparation will make you and your family safer in an emergency. a week's worth of food and water, radio, flashlight, batteries and first aid kit are a good start to learn more, visit safetyactioncenter.pge.com how big a deal is the fda approving pfizer's vaccine? let's bring in dr. sanjay gupta. good to see you. what do you believe the net effect of this move could be? >> i think it's actually going to be somewhat significant. maybe not right away, but i think there's three categories of people that are going to be affected by this. people as harry was just talking about that have sort of been on the line, maybe about 30% of people who said, look, it felt too new. now with approval i'll go ahead and get it. keep in mind as well as part of the approval pfizer will get to

market and advertise this vaccine. so you're probably going to see ads popping up showing you what life is like if you get the vaccine versus if you don't. but it's the bottom one that i think will have the biggest impact. universities are already doing this. big institutions. you heard about the va, university of minnesota. so the mandates will certainly have an impact, i think. let me just show you real quick a snapshot of the country in terms of where we are, this pie chart. we have about 51% that have been vaccinated, another 9% that have been partially vaccinated. it's the red, 25% that are eligible but are not yet vaccinated. so that's the population of people, about 80 million people that could be potentially affected by this. >> look, my thing is that this country is divided but it's not red, blue, democrat, gop, it's vaccinated and unvaccinated. i've got to tell you, up until this point it's all been about be nice to the unvaccinated. don't shame them. let them learn. enough. they're holding up life for everybody else.

and now you just wrote in an op-ed something that's popping a lot of eyes but it was a point you had to make, doc. this is going nowhere. covid will be with us six months, 12 months, 18 months. yes? >> yeah. i mean it's becoming endemic. that's the word that people use. i also put in there five strategies about how to sort of dance or coexist with this virus. we've been talking about them for some time. vaccinations. first of all, i got my vaccine card here. i think we need to have some way of actually proving that people are vaccinated. these cards, it's a little bit ridiculous that you have the app up in new york. how are people traveling from state to state going to show that? the right kind of masks. delta changed the equation, chris. this is far more transmissable. so surgical masks are good. this is my go-to mask which is a kn-95 mask, the black one. that's the mask that is pretty easy to use, very, very effective in terms of filtering

out particles. this is the n-95 mask you hear a lot about. this is supposed to be fit tested to actually put it on. one thing to look for. if you had the loops going around your head, you're going to get a better seal. regardless, if you're in an environment with a lot of viral transmission, you need to wear masks. ventilation, everyone talks about this, chris. i don't think very many people really know what it means. i want to show you something here. i just set this up. this is a co2 monitor. it's sort of a cheap man's version of actually measuring ventilation. how much carbon dioxide, which we all breathe out, is in the air. you want it to be somewhere around 1,000. mine is 1,055. i guess you're making me nervous, i'm breathing out more carbon dioxide. but this is something you can do to get a sense of how much the ventilation is in your area. antigen testing, chris. we talk about the vaccines but antigen tests, something you can do on a regular basis. there are several authorized antigen tests now. you can do this daily if you needed to.

this is if you are feeling fine but you want to know if you are potentially contagious. that's what those tests are good for. i feel fine, but am i going to be potentially contagious to other people? so those are the big things, chris. overall we need to re-evaluate risk nowadays. are you still going to do indoor dining in an area where there's lots of viral transmission? maybe not now. viral transmission goes down, we can think about it then. it's going to be kind of like thinking of the weather in some ways at least for the next several months. >> that's if people accept the reality and that's been the sticking point. i've got to hand it to you, sanjay, you've been putting out the message, keeping it real and been right all along. thanks for giving us the right information at the right time. be well, brother. >> you got it. you too. all right, so did you hear what happened tonight in congress? there are key members that got a briefing from the white house on the mass evacuation effort from afghanistan. one of them is here. i want to ask, do they believe the numbers coming out of the white house? next.

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the white house briefed the intel committee on the situation in afghanistan including jackie speier. thank you for joining us tonight. >> good to be with you, chris. >> in terms of the numbers how many americans are there and allies, how much confidence do you have in the numbers the white house is using? >> i'm not sure any of us know. there is no requirement a u.s. citizen has to check in with the u.s. embassy when they come into a country. so what we know is what has been given to us by persons who have contacted either the embassy or congressional offices and i think at this point, our focus has to be in getting those who have contacted us out of afghanistan. >> do you have any concern that the white house is using smaller numbers to pagmake it an easier task? >> i don't know one way or the

other and at this point, really, chris, the important thing is to get these people out. to get those that were interpreters and drivers and families out and get every u.s. z citizen out that wants to leave. i think we have a huge task ahead of us. we have now been able to evacuate 28,000. we have eight more days left in which we will have to evacuate the rest of the people. and, you know, the pick tures tt we see at the airport in kabul are pretty daunting. it's important we stay focussed on what we can do and must do. >> obviously the must is getting them all out. the number matters. how you get that done, do you believe a taliban deadline should be respected and what do you think of the security situation at the airport from the briefing? >> i'm concerned about the status of the airport and i think that we have to make sure that if that deadline is

extended, it's negotiated with the taliban and i'm sure president biden has that in mind because that date is certain and if we go beyond that august 31st date, then there could be repercussions. so it has to be negotiated. >> what do you think about the security situation at the airport and what do you know about the status of negotiations? >> i don't know anything about the status of negotiations and as to the security of the airport, we have a lot of remarkable afghan people who have been helping us and have worked very hard and worked with our various military there. it is dangerous. i don't think there is any question about that. and we have to do everything in our power to secure the airport for as long as we are there. >> just to understand, representative, the status of the negotiation of the deadline wasn't part of the briefing? >> it was not. >> did you -- anybody ask what is going on with the deadline?

>> yes. >> and they said we're not going to tell you? >> they said that they weren't familiar with what was being negotiated. >> so the people at the white house wdidn't know what was beig negotiated? >> we didn't speak to people from the white house. we speck oke to representativest come before the intelligence committee. >> are you going to ask for physic follow up? >> absolutely and we'll continue to debrief on this issue. it's important to stop pointing fingers right now and get the american citizens and those afghans who have helped us out of the country. >> i hear you. 100%. that's why i'm worried about the number that you got to know how many people you're trying to get so you'll be able to figure out how many you do get and how many are left behind because let's be honest, you know better than i the taliban in charge of afghanistan, you're not going to hear as much from that country

once we leave in terms of who is left behind. how concerned are you that america will not get this done? >> well, at this point, i'm not looking at whether we're going to get it done. we have to get it done. i'm concerned about the women and girls in afghanistan. we have a femme side that's about to happen in that country. it doesn't have to be in anyone's memory not to remember the fact that there was a stadium used to stone people to death and women in particular and to shoot people at point blank range. so i don't think the taliban changed its spots and i think it's very important for us to do everything we can to get women and girls out that want to get out. >> absolutely. and it will be very interesting to see what the posture is of all allies about what is done to females, old and young in that country when we're gone. congresswoman, thank you so much. i know it's been a very long day. appreciate you take thing opportunity to inform the

audience. >> good to be with you, chris. >> all right. we'll be right back. liberty mutual knows everyone's unique. that's why they customize your car insurance, so you only pay for what you need. [ nautical horn blows ] i mean just because you look like someone else doesn't mean you eat off the floor, or yell at the vacuum, or need flea medication. oh, yeah. that's the spot. only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty, liberty, liberty, liberty ♪ hey neal, with 3% cash back at drugstores from chase freedom unlimited, you're always earning! i got this great shampoo you should try. yeah, you look good! of course i do, neal. i'm kevin hart. earn 3% at drugstores, and so much more. chase. make more of what's yours.

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got to see what happens in this country. both are knitted together by a principle of trust but verify. the numbers, the efforts in afghanistan, the ability to take a safe vaccine here and the responsibility to do what is right for yourself, your family and the people in your community. will we get it right? we'll see. thank you for watching. "don lemon tonight" starts now. >> we got a translator came over as a teenager, promised to get his family here. he is working on that now. i have some good news, it's not quite the end of the line for them getting here but i have good news to share. that translator will join us and chris, what you and i have been talking about, what you have been more than any of us on the network saying you need to get this fda approval. you need to get the fda approval, if you get it, it will help people, you know, want to get the vaccine. i, you know, i've been saying i don't think it will make