(202)-748-8001, democrats (202)-748-8000, independents (202)-748-8002. for those who served as veterans, (202)-748-8003. you can also use that number to text us. you can post on social media and follow the show on instagram. the website 538 offers polling looking at the evacuation efforts as it relates to the biden administration. they say there is only 25% of registered voters believe the withdrawal was going somewhat well and 50% thought it was not going well at all. americans largely blaming president biden. 43% of registered voters thought

biden held responsibility for their situation, more than congress or his predecessors. this summary also quotes a reuters poll that was conducted on the 16th of august finding 44% of adult father biden administration had done a good job, 42% thought it did a bad job. president george w. bush, barack obama, and donald trump all got better grades. this is from the white house. you can find the whole event on c-span. [video clip] >> we are going to do everything we can to provide safe

evacuations for our afghan allies, partners, and afghans who might be targeted because of association with united states. let me be clear, any american who wants to come home, we will get you home. this evacuation mission is dangerous and involves risks to armed forces and is being conducted under difficult circumstances. i cannot promise what the final outcome will be or that it will be without risk or loss. but as commander-in-chief i will mobilize every resource necessary and as an american i offer my gratitude to the brave men and women of the u.s. armed forces. they are incredible. as we work the logistics of evacuation we are in constant contact with the taliban working

to ensure civilians have safe passage to the airport. we are focused on making sure every american who wants to leave can get to the airport. where we have seen challenges for americans we have thus far been able to resolve them. we made clear to the taliban any attack on our forces or disruption of our operations at the airport would be met with swift and forceful response. we are also keeping a close watch on any potential terrorist threat at or around the airport, including the isis affiliates and afghans released from prison. host: that is just a portion from yesterday. you can find the whole event on c-span. we are taking your thoughts on the president's handling of

this. (202)-748-8001 republicans, (202)-748-8000 democrats, and independents (202)-748-8002. if you would like to text us, you can do so at (202)-748-8003. this is on facebook saying, offer getting out of there. this is on president biden. he went against the advice of military leaders. tony in connecticut saying, president obama's defense secretary said this approximately 10 years ago. president biden has been wrong the last 40 years with afghanistan and adding another wrong decision. stephen hammond saying, maybe the president wanted to end the war. i am glad. ending a war is never pleasant. if you want to text us, you can do so at (202)-748-8003.

call on the lines as well, particularly if you are an afghan war veteran, (202)-748-8003. we go to tyler of the washington post. good morning. caller: thank you for having me. host: we heard with the president said. what happens going forward as far as efforts to evacuate not only americans but afghan allies? guest: the president said the american troops will stay in kabul potentially past the august 31 deadline to evacuate americans and allies. we have seen the images outside the kabul airport where the taliban has grown increasingly violent, preventing people from getting to the airport. we are going to have to wait and see unfortunately to see how the situation progresses, whether

the taliban continues to allow americans to make it to the airport and what steps the united states military takes to ensure that every american is biden promised yesterday is able to get evacuated if they choose. host: as far as specifics how does the white house plan on attempting to get these people out of the country? guest: that is what president biden was pushed on yesterday. he was asked, will you send people beyond the airport into kabul to get people out? he said, we will see the options on the table. they are looking at other u.s. military base is to evacuate people. most of the evacuations have gone to qatar. qatar has expressed concerns about overcrowding and briefly yesterday flights were stopped

out of kabul airport when qatar said they were going to resume. there is a lot of logistics to be worked out in what president biden said is the largest airlift operation in american military history. i think there is a lot of questions remaining but the president said he is confident every american was going to be able to get out of the country and he promised to do so and they would continue to find places to bring afghan allies and other vulnerable afghans to safety. host: some of those revealed yesterday -- you mentioned the cutter situation -- but several countries decided to step in and except those americans and afghans as well. guest: that's right. the administration has been working around the clock. the national security council, defense department, to find

other places for people to go. there are other countries that have stepped up but in the persian gulf -- that depends on getting people out of the country. so far the biden administration says the taliban has been cooperating but then we have seen disparity because reports on the ground suggest a lot of people have had a difficult time getting to the airport. my colleague wrote an article in the washington post about the difficulty she and afghan staff had in getting to the airport. she has an american passport. i just think there is a lot of questions about what is going to happen over the next few days as the taliban consolidates control and makes it more

difficult for people to get to the airport. host: any discussion as far as expanding the military footprint? guest: i think it this point the military footprint is larger than the president expected. he approved in recent days more troops to get in there and i think that is another question we are waiting to see. right now the president is confident they have the troops needed to get people out. i think the question is whether the expand the footprint. the focus has been on securing the airport. the president and national security officials said if people continue to be unable to get to the airport, there is likely to be pressure to extend that footprint into kabul and secure the passageway from the city to the airport. right now there is no sign that

is going to be expanded but what we are waiting to see if the troops stay be on the deadline which would suggest they have many more to get out of the country. host: tyler pager for the washington post. you can find his work at washingtonpost.com. thank you for giving us your time. guest: thank you. host: with that in mind we will take your thoughts on president biden's handling of the evacuation in afghanistan. republicans (202)-748-8001, democrats (202)-748-8000, independents (202)-748-8002. you can text us at (202)-748-8003 and if you are an afghan war vet and you want to give us a call on that line, you can call us on that line too. kc in suffolk, virginia,

democrat line. caller: hi. i think biden is doing the best job he can do because this whole leaving afghanistan thing was started by trump. he is doing the best he can do and trump started this. i also agree with him. this war has been going on since the day i was born and it is time to stop. host: you saying he is doing the best he can do. what are you basing that on? caller: if he doesn't get the people who worked with americans out of afghanistan, they will be executed and killed. he is focused on getting them out so they don't get killed but

they are not all in kabul. he is doing the best he can do to get them out. i was watching msnbc yesterday and they had some reports of the americans sending helicopters to go pick up some of our afghan allies. he is doing the best he can do. he is doing the right thing by focusing on getting our afghan allies out of afghanistan so they will not be tracked down and executed. host: punch bowl news jake sherman reporting on twitter this morning saying the president will get a briefing this morning on afghanistan. then heading to delaware for the weekend. we go to william in rock hill, south carolina, independent line. hello. caller: good morning. how are you? host: i am well thanks. go ahead. caller: caller: the situation is

a delicate situation and i don't choose a side but handling the situation, there was going to be\regardless of the way -- there was going to be backlash regardless of the way this was handled. as far as how the afghan military was not going to put up a fight, i mean, the americans' involvement is a closed book. we cannot fight a fight for somebody who can fight the fight. we have to make sure we take care of our own, bring those home who we made a vow we are going to take care of, and get them out as possible. host: do you think that is being

done in the best manner possible? caller: i think that in the situation -- when you say the best way possible, that is a bias decision somewhat. if we just slowly did it, people would be slowly killed. it is kind of like a mass evacuation. get as many out as fast as possible before the taliban started executing anybody. i just don't think -- there was never going to be a win situation out of this and i'm sorry that he walked into this but when you run for the presidency you have to accept the responsibility for everything going on currently unfortunately. host: we will hear from the republican line. troy, michigan, laura, you are next up. caller: good morning.

the other evening i happened to watch lawrence mcdonald on i believe it was msnbc and he had a very cogent, intelligent observation what was going on. i wish c-span would somehow be able to present this. basically what i remember him saying is that we are all very quick to criticize and everybody is pointing out what is wrong but nobody is offering solutions. i as an american citizen am disappointed that the only thing we have time to do is point out what is wrong. put yourself in the president's position where there are thousands of people giving you

advice, screaming at you the times he comes out and discusses things. host: since we are talking the handling of the evacuation, what do you think of his handling of it? caller: i think he is doing the best thing. he has an idea how he wanted handled but there are thousands of people who have their own particular desire to get out, do this, do that, and it is impossible to please everybody. i wish we would lighten up on this man. he is our president. give him a chance to get things done. this is a very precarious, chaotic situation. instead of saying, you are doing this wrong, give him a chance. this has only been started three or four days. host: that was laura in troy, michigan. this is joey from facebook

saying, this would've happened under president trump too except democrats would say, impeach him. mary in california, glad we are getting out. wars are ugly. some newspapers reporting the war cost $10.26 trillion not counting those wounded. for what? if you want to text as you can do so at (202)-748-8003, and if you are a war vet (202)-748-8003 . the new york times highlights one other thing looking at what is going on at the airport. the bottleneck at the airfield threaten to set off another humanitarian crisis. relief agencies are struggling to bring food, medicine, and supplies into afghanistan. we are running out of supplies, scrambling to see how we can get the next shipment in said

richard brennan. as tragic as the images are he said the bigger humanitarian picture has been lost in all of this. pictures you can see in the papers as it is being reported from the various news sources, including the new york times adding its own picture. we will take the next call from stephen in new mexico, democrat line. good morning. caller: how are you doing? host: fine thank you. go ahead. caller: we have people dying of covid. why are we even talking about afghanistan? host: why do you think it is not a worthwhile topic? caller: this is old news. it is 20 years old. host: right, but the evacuation

is much more recent. caller: it is going fine. what do you want from the man? host: when you say it is going fine, what makes you say that? caller: he is doing the best he can with what he is got to work with. host: ok. mark in westwood, new jersey, independent line. go ahead. caller: thank you. this catastrophe -- thank you. this catastrophe is due solely to biden's terrible decision and by the way we lost our eyes and ears on the ground on the people of 9/11. al qaeda and the taliban now have their own terrorist country and number two, the taliban,

courtesy of biden's disastrous decision, have reinstituted sharia law which allows the stoning to death of women which is taking place now if they do not cover themselves from head to foot with clothing so they cannot be seen. and god help those innocent afghan people who worked with us as interpreters helping our military. biden has abandoned them like he abandoned our embassy and our billions of dollars of high-tech equipment. host: you called this a disastrous decision. what was disastrous about it? caller: well, if you let me finish, i will let you know. they now have our equipment and china will be taking the rare

earth minerals. host: but what about the decision itself was disastrous? caller: allowing al qaeda and the taliban to have their own terrorist state and mr. biden, shame on him for blaming the victim. he blamed the afghans who fought and died for us. as the british men of parliament said, that is an outrageous insult to our people who died helping us, helping save americans with their blood and biden had the nerve to insult them. this is beyond the pale. host: that was mark in new jersey. terry in oregon, democrat line. caller: good morning. i shout out to the twitter fans we all call you in the morning. to voice my opinion about president biden, i support him

100%. he has taken on a difficult task and he is getting it done. we can criticize the situation afterward. host: when you look at the situation as it is why do you describe it as getting it done? caller: because we are making progress. every day more and more people are getting out. it is maybe not going as fast as i wish it would but it is going fast. sorry, let me take a breath. i am nervous. [laughs] but there are a lot of factors that have been brought up the last few weeks. as far as my opinion on c-span, you have really dropped the ball as far as bringing up other topics that are just as crucial going on in the country. the pandemic, how desantis is

handling it -- host: i will stop you there saying our covid coverage is second to none. this concern in afghanistan only taking place the last week and a half. this is why we are focused on this but you can finish your thought as far as afghanistan as you wish. caller: i did. i would like to continue talking about afghanistan. before president biden started removing americans and the afghan friendlies, a week before he had been assured by the president of afghanistan they would hold. we had trump who made a special deal, him and pompeo making a deal with the taliban to release the prisoners permitting them to

leave may 1. that was a big set up from the former guy which his whole four years was a set up. host: does president biden take responsibility for the end result? caller: he is going to but let us focus on getting the task done. poll or no poll is to get the americans out right? let's focus on that and afterward we can sit back and the armchairs and criticize. host: that was terri in oregon. a couple of international perspectives. this is out of moscow with president vladimir putin commenting saying, it was time for the west to end the quote "irresponsible policy from abroad." he did promise to work with the west to build good neighborly relations. we know afghanistan, we know it well, mr. putin said.

we saw how this country is built and how counterproductive it is to force a natural government and public life upon it. if you go to the opinions section of the new york times, a piece by a fellow at the international security and strategy talking about china's role and what will happen next. he writes, unlike the united states you china brings no baggage to the table. china has kept a low profile in the country since the u.s. invasion. not wishing to play second fiddle in any power politics, with the u.s. withdrawal beijing can offer a kabul needs the most -- economic investment. afghanistan in turn has access to $1 trillion in untapped mineral deposits.

that was in the opinions section of today's new york times. you can add that to the mix as far as your comments on the administration's handling of what you are seeing. south carolina this is arlene, independent line. caller: hi. i think what is happening right now is only a humanitarian thing. i think we need help from other countries to fix this like a horrible disaster. i think we are the greatest country out there and we should be sending every plane we have there to get our people out and those poor people who helped us while we were over there. i understand from some military people that the afghan arm is

not as aggressive as they would have liked. some did diane our name but we need to -- die in our name but we need to help the people that were on our side and get out and get help from other places if possible. host: do you think the current effort by the united states will achieve that goal of getting people out? caller: i pray that it does. it looks like a very disorganized free-for-all to me. it is not organized and we have the ability to be organized. we have the best military in the world. it seems like we are at a big disadvantage and it is frightening. host: joe is in new jersey, republican line. caller: how you doing? good morning. your station impartiality is

impressive to watch. i have heard people say biden is following the trump role and i think this is untrue. they were going to form a coalition government and then they were going to withdrawal civilians first, the afghan people who helped us second, equipment third and then make sure none of the equip it was left behind. now we have people on the ground trying to get to the airport. the french are paratrooping in to get their people out and we are telling hours to get to the airport. host: do you think of president

biden followed the other timetable it would've turned out differently? caller: i don't think we would have started this until we had a coalition government. but instead of doing the exact opposite of what trump was going to do i think we would have been in a better position because we would have gotten rid of our equipment and they would not go through beheadings like we are going to see now. i do not know if you will see it on regular tv. host: mark, afghanistan war veteran calling from pennsylvania on the line for democrats. hello. caller: hello, pedro. this whole thing was rushed, poorly handled, and there is ramifications from that. we are in serious trouble.

we have got billions of dollars of assets there. that is all i have to say. host: what did you do in afghanistan? caller: i cannot say that, sorry. host: were you a veteran? he hung up. this is from the times of london this morning that armed groups have driven the taliban's militants out of three districts in the first assault on afghanistan's rulers since they seized the capital. this is reflected in the washington post. anti-taliban commanders said they killed 30 fighters as they took control of the district from 100 miles north of kabul. that is the times of london reporting. that press conference in which the president underwent yesterday, you can see it on our website at c-span.org. he talked about the evacuation efforts and elaborated on what

was going on. here's a portion of that from yesterday. [video clip] >> since i spoke to you on monday we have made significant progress. we secure the airport, enabling flights to resume. not just military flights but civilian charters from other countries and the ngos taking out civilians and vulnerable afghans. now we have almost 6000 troops on the ground, including the 82nd airborne providing security, the army 10th mountain division standing guard around the airport, and the marine expeditionary unit. this is one of the largest, most difficult airlifts in history and the only country in the world capable of projecting this much power with this degree of precision is the united states of america. we have already evacuated more than 18,000 since july and

approximately 13,000 since our military lift began august 14. thousands more have been evacuated on private charter flights facilitated by the u.s. government. these include american citizens and permanent residents as well as their families. it includes siv applicants and their families. those afghans who served alongside us, gone into combat with us and provided invaluable assistance such as translators and interpreters. the united states stands by its commitment we made to these people and includes other vulnerable afghans such as women leaders and journalists. working in" a nation with the management -- in close coordination with the management of the washington post we have evacuated all of their employees in afghanistan.

we have established the flow of flights and increased the number of people we are moving out of the country. to make sure we could process the arriving evacuations but our commander in kabul has already given the order for outbound flights to resume. even with the pause we have moved out 5700 evacuees yesterday and are working to verify how many americans are in the country because we do not have an exact number. those who may have come home to the united states, we want to get a strong number as to how many people are there. host: one of the pieces that came out of the president's conference yesterday was from the washington examiner about the pentagon when it comes to al qaeda.

the president falsely claims the united states had gotten rid of al qaeda only to be contradicted by the pentagon minutes after the speech. the biden administration's handling of the crisis the past week, he said al qaeda had been eliminated after bin laden was killed by the u.s. mr. biden opposed the daring special forces mission that killed the al qaeda founder. "let's put this thing in perspective, what interest do we have in afghanistan with al qaeda gone? " the pentagon admitted in a press conference that al qaeda remains but john kirby said he did not know how many fighters remain. they do not believe they pose a threat to the u.s. homeland. calvin in south carolina about

the handling of evacuation efforts in afghanistan on the independent line. go ahead. caller: good morning. thank the lord it is all over. what a switch. the insurrection ungenerous 6 -- host: let us stay on topic. caller: god handled it for thousands and thousands of years. host: what do you think about the biden administration's handling of it? caller: let me finish my conversation, man. we have got to take care of our country but just like in cuba

when they lead all the criminals out of jail and they came into miami and ruined it, that is when the real crisis begins. host: back to the president's handling, what do you think of it? caller: he is doing what he is supposed to do but he cannot let everybody over. you have got to vet the people that come. let the guys from january 6 over here. host: we will finish it there. ken in tulsa, oklahoma, republican line. caller: just listen to the democrat callers, even the ones calling in on the republican line saying he is doing the best he can, most uninformed people. it is all over the news about

how bad and upside down this handling has been by pulling the troops out first and then leaving the people to fend for themselves in the onslaught. now all these people that supported the u.s., they have all the information on them because the country was basically abandoned by the biden administration. trump had a plan and they are blaming him. host: what do you think would have made president trump have a different result? caller: that is what other people have said. pompeo explained they told the taliban that if they move

against the people we are going to evacuate, the allies that we had, the afghan people that worked with us, all of that plan was placed. biden turned it upside down. anything trump had planned and done, biden turned it upside down? host: house those specifically? caller: yes specifically. host: how so did he turn it upside down in your mind? caller: the troops were pulled out first. the troops kept everything in place and you pull them out and leave everybody else defenseless. definitely the people were going to be pulled out. the civilians, the americans

that were there, and the afghan interpreters, all the ones that were going to be pulled out -- we would not have had this type of evacuation where people cannot get to the airport because the taliban is in control of all the exits. host: michael is in dixon, tennessee, democrat line. caller: good morning to you. i want to speak to a bigger issue. he inherited a soup sandwich from many administrations. i study history. i understand what is going on here. getting the people out is not necessarily the issue. it is why we are in afghanistan in the first place. it has taken every country down that is tried to do everything. the taliban, al qaeda, they are there to protect the poppy fields, heroin.

every world war since world war i has been about the heroin out of afghanistan. it is the only commerce they have. for god's sake, it is desert and mountains. host: we are specifically talking about these evacuation efforts. what you think about those efforts? caller: what do i think about those efforts? i think we are the ones protecting the airspace and the airports and the french paratroopers are going to get those people from their nation out. if we had not gone back, none of those people would have been getting their people out and doing all of this. host: things should be done differently? nothing should be done differently? what do you think? caller: repeat yourself? host: when it comes to the evacuation efforts do you think something should be done differently, nothing should be done differently?

caller: as i said, he inherited a soup sandwich from donald trump. they can say what they want but they are not in power and he did nothing but make a deal with the drug dealers. host: that was michael in dixon, tennessee. jersey city, new jersey on the independent line, dominic. caller: thank you for taking my call. everything has to be predicated on the idea that the afghan government was supposed to stay in place. that they were going to take care of themselves. we spent 20 years training and supporting the afghan government and do you not think the u.s. had the idea of the capability we thought that they were going to remain in place. we thought it would be over a longer time not 11 days.

that created a vacuum. your question on the handling of the withdrawal. it is based on the games of the taliban. the united states had 2400 troops, they pulled them back, they thought the afghan government would be able to hold the country and the americans and others would have the opportunity to leave. that was all destroyed by the taliban and the afghan government totally collapsing. host: do you think that is an intelligence failure? caller: yes and no. the u.s. intelligence did say they thought the afghan government would fall eventually but not in 11 days. what you have now is biden in the united states has to act upon that. our capabilities without

escalating the number of trips back into the country -- we could go to a certain extent but there's only so much we can do in kabul unless we want to send 50,000 troops back in. that is not going to happen. host: that was dominic in new jersey giving us his thoughts. from some of you on social media, one week into evacuation and with no americans killed. that is a success. jean saying, i support president biden. i think withdrawing would have always resulted in chaos. margaret from maryland texting saying, this quarterback discussion is wasted nonsense. we are evacuating all we should and can.

let's focused on with the afghan people have done for their country this past decade and support these efforts. one of the topics that has been part of this discussion as far as what happens to refugees. yesterday we heard from the policy director of the international refugee project talking about the situation facing those afghans with special immigrant visas and what happens to them during this process. here is part of that program. [video clip] >> logically one would think that the u.s. government would know who worked for the u.s. government. but a large part of this process required the applicants to prove that they were for the u.s. government and that process to submit documentation involves tracking down the correct hr person you worked five or 10 years ago, writing a letter, and

then hoping that letter is good enough. it was so inefficient. emailing the application packets and at the end of the day a process that took months took years. we had a client who worked for the u.s. for 12 years whose application was pending for a decade and was murdered before the visa could be applied. it was really well-intentioned by the americans but the way it was implemented was to slow. one other thing i point out is that there are thousands of refugees, afghans, who worked for a with the u.s. they do not qualify for the visa program. for example, afghans who did work advancing women's rights,

democracy, and received funding through usaid grants, the biden and trump administration interpreted that work as not being on behalf of the u.s. the taliban when they go door-to-door are not going to say, where you working on a cooperative agreement or a contract? they are going to say, you worked for the u.s. government. you represent all that we are against and they are not going to have mercy. there is a large group of afghans we need to get out of the country who may not be in the visa pipeline because they technically do not qualify but they did serve side-by-side with the americans and we need to get them out. host: politico's alex ward on his twitter feed says this is based from a state department cable.

this came out around 7:17 this morning saying 11,691 people vacuuming a did -- people evacuated. of the 11,000 just over 3000 american citizens, 1137 afghans and 7517 are third country nationals or unknown. they are expecting 2000 in germany by august 22. it also noted the united states and canada signed a letter of cooperation where canada agreed to settle the 2000 individuals and return to the united states landing spots at the place for the canadian military. each side may carry passengers for the other. you can see more on the twitter feed from this state department cable. up until the top of the hour we take your calls.

looking at your thoughts on the biden administration's handling of it. clearwater, florida, democrats line, ron, go ahead. caller: i am retired military. spent over 24 years in the military and i just got to say i don't know if people know this but when you look at former homeland security advisor mike pence -- to mike pence, olivia foxworthy, he pedaled racist theory about iraqi and afghanistan soldiers that fought side-by-side by us for four years. then donald trump gets on the television and says this great,

empathetic president joseph biden should be impeached along with the flip-flop or lindsey graham. host: this brings us to the modern-day as far as the evacuation process. what you think about the efforts? caller: what did he do? donald trump is the one that made the agreement with the taliban. he made it headline news and then all president biden did was follow that lead. obviously we have had some hiccups with respect to the evacuation but in the end i think it will be a great decision. host: to what degree does he take responsibility of what is going on today? caller: he does. he says the buck stops with him which it should. but i think that in the end everything will work out the best it possibly could. host: what convinces you of that? caller: i am convinced that

afghanistan is a hard country to lead. it is basically a medieval society and a lot of the times our intelligence is not as precise as people would think it should be. but i think with respects to his great team around him, they will be able to do well getting people out. host: that was ron in clearwater, florida. joe and hawaii, independent but identifies as an afghanistan war veteran. good morning. caller: good morning, sir. how are you? host: doing well. how are you? caller: good. i was in afghanistan in 2004 and we did our best effort to bring that country to a successful end

, but it went on for decades and decades. now, the biden administration has woefully underestimated the ability of the taliban. they did not know the plan would collapse so quick and so hard that it would leave us with what we are doing now. it is time for us to leave afghanistan but the biden administration, they swung and missed the ball. host: as far as your current assessment of what you see going on as far as evacuation efforts how would you characterize that? caller: those folks are doing the best they can under the circumstances they have been given. they are doing a good job but it could have been done better if we had realized that the afghan

forces, the 300,000 people we trained over the years, that we knew they would collapse so quick. that is an intelligence failure. host: you being military police why do you think that happened? why do you think it collapsed so quickly? caller: well, america tried to bring our values in and what we thought was best for communities there. but that place has been the way it is for thousands of years. i think we missed the mark on that. we missed the mark on the humanitarian efforts. we thought that country wanted to be but that is not with ar and we missed that mark. now it is way past time to leave. host: andy in burlington, north carolina, republican line. caller: hello. host: you are on.

go ahead. caller: shoot. hello? host: we will go to jesse in wharton, mississippi on the line for democrats. good morning. go ahead. jesse from mississippi, hello? caller: good morning? host: go ahead. caller: [indiscernible] we have been there for 20 years and have dumped trillions of dollars in their to train and equip those people. in one day, one day, you see no afghanistan forces. where did they go? where are they now? did the taliban pop up out of the ground? host: the events leading up to

it, what you think about the evacuation effort itself? caller: well, i think it is chaos. it is not the americans' fault, it is the afghan people's fault. they have dumped their uniforms and guns and became the taliban. no matter how it all looks right now joe biden bit the bullet and did what many a president wanted to do starting from bush up until now. i agree with our american soldiers. host: that was jesse in mississippi. pennsylvania this is michelle saying, president biden should've planned the exit better. tom in houston, texas saying, if president biden is doing anything right, it is following president trump's declaration to

pull out of afghanistan. any real american had plenty of time to remove themselves. this is from barbara from facebook going back to the george w. bush administration, thank him for starting a war to gain political points. we were warned about the difficulty of withdrawal so i suppose republicans approve of us staying in the people cannot defend themselves? we tried. it is their turn. we will help those who must get out but have lost too many of our own. just some of the ways reaching out on social media or texting at (202)-748-8003. in michigan, independent line, darrell up next. caller: thank you for taking my call. so far, i cannot imagine coming up with a poll like you had because we have only seen four videos. the 600 people on the c-117, the

people chasing the c-117, we have seen a marine saving a young child. these are video feeds that all stations are giving but we do know this, 4000 taliban prisoners have been released from prison. they are probably very happy but also ready for retribution. host: we also heard directly from the biden administration on these efforts. with that in mind and a lot of what you described what you think about the evacuation process so far? caller: i think i do not have enough information to know what is going on behind the scenes. host: chris in atlanta, georgia, republican line and afghanistan war veteran. caller: hello. can you hear me? host: go ahead. caller: first my response to the

last -- nonetheless democrat caller but the one talking about trump, i reject everything he said. you are trying to stay focused on the evacuation or the evaluation of that? host: the evacuation and people's opinion of it. what do you think? caller: the military expression of goat rope. they are trying to manage it the best they can but another version might be herding cats. pretty much a goat rope. host: what did you do in afghanistan? caller: there are things i will not talk about. host: where you military, civilian, government agency? caller: military. host: how long were you there? caller: i have been in service for years but i am not going to get into those details except to say -- host: are you there?

caller: i'm still here. host: go ahead and finish up. caller: this is a repeat of what happened in iraq in 2013-2014 and people were not paying attention to what was happening then. 20,000 iraqi soldiers evaporated in front of isis. it was coming, people knew it was coming, a lot of people chose to disregard what was being told of them that it was coming. when the army collapsed right in front of them people were shocked and like, what do we do now? host: you said you were there. do you think this evacuation would have been different under a different administration? caller: yes. trump had a real plan. some people choose not to review it, other people were reviewing it on television. they actually had contingency plans our current president rejed

that planning. host: thanks to all of you who participated. we will continue on our conversation later. first, a discussion on the economy, especially with unemployment. sylvan lane will talk about jobless benefits, the pandemic, how that relates to unemployment and the economy. later on in the program, a civilian officer rose to become a senior advisor to the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff. he will talk about his book. he will join us later on in the program. those conversations are coming up on washington journal.

>> if you choose to research the origins of a topic being discussed in the united states called critical race theory, you will find the name derek bell. a law professor who died in 2011. he was one of the originators of this much discussed subject. in november, he appeared on book notes to discuss his book faces at the bottom of the well, the permanence of racism. >> the late derek bell, the first tenured professor, on this episode of book notes plus.

>> weekends on c-span two an intellectual feast. you find events and people who explore our nations past. on sunday, book tv brings you the latest in nonfiction books. it is television for serious readers. discover, explore, weekends on c-span 2. >> washington journal continues. host: sylvan lane reports on economics for the hill. we are looking at the economy when it comes to the economy. as far as where the company is as far as unemployment. guest: there are seven point 5 million people who stand to lose their unemployment benefits on labor day when programs created in march 2020 will expire.

this is pandemic unemployment assistance, a program for gig workers, contractors, people who don't usually qualify for unemployment. 4.5 million people are going to lose that when the program expires on labor day. another 3 million people will lose extended benefits they get beyond the expiration of their state unemployment. host: if those benefits are lost, what does it do to the employment picture? guest: that's a great question. it's the ones the forefront of economists minds. some people believe that when you pull back this unemployment insurance, we will start to see a lot of small as this is the struggle to bring workers on start having an easier time with that. the evidence we've seen in 26 states the did so over the summer, it really hasn't shown much of a positive impact in terms of narrowing the on employment gap.

there are people concerned without the support people who were depending on these benefits are going to have a harder time supporting their families, a harder time supporting themselves. what happens is a big question for economist. it will have a lot to do with how the delta very impacts the economy. host: a gentleman from bank rate wrote this. one reliable constant has been improvement in new claims for unemployment benefits, the major issue for employers hasn't been an urgent need to shed workers, many have had trouble retaining the workers they want. guest: that's a great point. this is a unique job market. it is driven by how good the economy is. people are still at home taking care of children, they look like they were going to get some

relief. the delta very it has shifted that picture. there are people with health concerns that are wary of going back to work. there are people who may not have been able to get vaccinated for whatever reason. they may not have paid time off. it's not only just a matter of whether these jobs are available. there is the ability of people to take him. that has caused some problems for small businesses. >> some critics of the extension of unemployment, they relate that extension to people not willing to work for jobs. is there any connection that can be made? guest: you could always find a handful of people who may be leaning on the system more than they need to be. the fact of the matter is it's harder to get unemployment aid that it is to be able to coast

through the system. there might be some people taking advantage of this. there are millions of people not in the labor force looking for jobs. there are some people who might be limited based on what happened to them during the pandemic. people taking advantage of the system, it's hard to say that is a significant factor. host: a recent headline when it comes to unemployment numbers, initial claims coming out this week, the headline i'm showing is a low of 348,000. guest: we are less than 100,000 claims of where we were before the pandemic. when the economy was really strong, we were getting 200,000 claims a week. that jumped up to 3.3 million. now we are back to a normal level. there is still some inconsistency.

a lot of that has to do with unemployment claims assembled in 53 states and territorial offices. it can we get tricky week to week. the overall trend is good. host: sylvan lane talking about unemployment issues. if you want to ask questions, it is (202) 748-8000 for those of you who are unemployed. for employers, (202) 748-8001. (202) 748-8002 for all others. you can also text us your thoughts at (202) 748-8003. earlier this week, you talked about matters of covid. the federal reserve chair talked about that impact on the economy. i want to play what he said about the issue. >> we are not going back to the economy we had before the

pandemic. we know the fed, we need to watch as the economy gets to the pandemic and understand the ways it works for policy. the place to start is the covid is still with us. that will be the case for a while. more people are getting vaccinated. the pace of vaccination has slowed. we were head of similar countries. now we are falling behind. one result is the current outbreak of the delta strain. one thing that has happened, people and businesses have improvised and learned to adapt. it's not yet clear if the delta strain will have important effects on the economy. host: that was jay powell from

earlier this week. he said things regarding the economy. guest: i think the biggest message from what chair powell said is there is considerable uncertainty around the delta variant and how it will affect the economy. it's really and unprecedented situation. chair powell mentioned the economy has been able to adapt. a lot of people have been working from home. there is still the significant portion of the country who worked in the service sector. they still face uncertain futures. chair powell has mentioned that. given the economic trends, that may be changing. that might be exacerbated. we don't know if school closures

or sentiment will affect the way businesses plan. host: does the federal government serve a role stabilizing the economy? guest: there are at eight crossroads. in march, they cut the baseline interest rate down to 0%. they've been buying up $20 billion of bonds per month. it's a way for them to keep borrowing costs and interest rates low. now we've gotten to the point where they are starting to think about how they are going to pull that back and reduce the stimulus. the economy is better than it was before the pandemic. the delta variant has raised questions about how quickly they should go, countering inflation as well. host: you talked about those

benefits being extended with the prospect of losing benefits, what is the likelihood the administration will offer more extensions. guest: yellen and marty walsh sent a letter to lawmakers that said it's appropriate for these jobless benefits to rollout. we are better off as an economy. if you are a state that is having trouble getting people back to work, a lot of people are not able to get back. you can use part of your money that was in the stimulus bill and keep some of these benefits going. the labor department is supposed to come out with guidelines for how they can do this on their own. host: sylvan lane reports on the economy for the hill. this is martin in new jersey. you are on with our guest. go ahead with your question. caller: good morning. how are you?

i am going on 62. i worked at the same business for 40 years. i was making a good wage. i had decent health insurance. i've bent on unemployment since this started. when you go to get a job now, they are hiring part-time. they don't want to hire full-time. they are hiring at minimum wage with no health care. i am stuck in the middle. i'm thinking about taking early retirement. i would have to take a part-time job to keep up and pay my bills and keep up with everything else. when you hear people say they are sitting home because they don't want to work or they are getting more money than if they were working it, that is not true.

you have to pate your own health care and every thing else. that is my story. host: mr. lane? anything from that? guest: i am sorry to hear about the situation. i'm glad you mentioned it. it is very similar for a lot of people your age. there has been a significant drop off in labor force participation for people who are nearing retiring age. the pandemic has accelerated a lot of retirement because if you're having trouble finding a job because of your age, it might accelerate that process. if this rebounds as the economy gets better or if we lose experienced workers, that is a question with a lot of economic implications. there would hopefully be businesses that are thinking about that in terms of ways to smooth that out. it is going to have an impact on the labor force.

a lot of people who are still wanting to work and may have trouble finding opportunities host: the labor force participation rate, in july it was 61.7%. what does that number mean? guest: it's a look at how many people of working age are actually out there in jobs or looking for jobs. we want that number to be pretty high. more people who are looking for jobs, the bigger capacity for the economy to grow. we are concerned when the number either decreases or stays at a lower rate. it means there are a lot of people who could be working, making money and generating productivity and you are expanding services for everybody. they don't have the ability to

do so. we want to see labor force participation increase. more people who are able to work are working. host: what number was it at before the pandemic? guest: it was a bit above 61%. it was closer to 65. it is lower than many economists would like it to be. that is a little bit of scarring from the previous procession. questions about how the modern economy is shaping up, that's a number we want to see higher for a while. the pandemic was a setback to that. host: from dayton ohio, our unemployed line. good morning. one more time? ok, we will go to bill in pennsylvania on our line for others. go ahead.

caller: thanks for taking my call. i'm not sure how this relates to the economy specifically, but i'm curious about covid and the impact. our vaccinated people subsidizing the health care of unvaccinated people in a sense? how does that affect the economy? should insurance companies be able to deny coverage for people who are unvaccinated if they get covid or do something about the premiums like they do with smokers? i'm curious about that. another question i have on a different subject, this has to do with shrinkflation where prices stay the same but the packaging get smaller. guest: i'm going to leave the health insurance question to my colleagues on the health team. yes, when you are paying more

for a smaller amount of the same product, that does get factored into the inflation calculations. the presidents economic team has tried to take solace in the fact that a lot of the recent inflation has to do with what economists expect to be short term factors. car prices have gone through the roof because of the semi conductor shortage, a lack of availability of used cars on the market. we sought lumber prices earlier this year go through the roof. they are down on the year. that has recovered. all of these things factor into a complicated picture. host: from july, we saw the limit rate go to 5.4%. we sought 940 3000 jobs added. is this a trend? what does forecasting tell us?

it has been pretty difficult. guest: a lot of economist are tempering their expectations what the economy will look like over the fall because they don't know how the delta variant will impact that. we had three straight months of accelerating job growth. we had some encouraging trends in labor force. we have been moving in a better direction. a lot of the reason was because of the summer. people are traveling it, we were moving in a good direction before the delta variant started emerging. how much can we power through that? host: how many jobs are available versus how may people who are available to work? guest: at the end of june it, there were 10.1 million open jobs. that is a record high. there are 11.7 million people on unemployment and if it's.

another 5 million are not in the labor force. we should be able to match the numbers on a pure basis. those job openings may not align with jobs that were on par with where these people were before the crisis. you don't want to take a job that would be low your skill level or your salary level. that could change your long-term economic trajectory. it's not as easy as matching the numbers. host: carol, on our line for others. caller: i don't understand. i am 68 and retired. i am living on a fixed income. i don't understand why they are not ccing that 300 extra dollars a week. what is the reason they would

want to go to work if they are making more money than they did before they got laid off? i see jobs everywhere. i pay my rent every month. i saved money. i just don't get it. host: that is carol in new mexico. thank you very much. go ahead. guest: this is a very unique situation that we've been in in terms of the lack of certainty we have over when and how it is safer people to get back to work. a lot of people are making difficult decisions about how to balance their financial security and the security of their family. for a lot of people who have been out of the workforce, it's difficult to see that social net

extended. these benefits are going to roll off in september. a lot of evidence shows they did really help people out a lot in the depths of this crisis. as we go further into the recovery, as more people get back to work, these benefits will be around for a few more weeks. we will see what the economy looks like without that. host: andrew from maine on our line for those who are unemployed. caller: join the internet revolution. i did it. i am 83. i retired a while back. i did some woodworking and stuff like that. i found out that most people don't have to be programmers to be on the internet. you can do it from your home. find something to sell. many people have yard sales.

instead of having a yard sale, do it out of your home. it isn't that hard. you will start to get a business. you will have a sense of things. host: what is it that you do on the internet? caller: at the moment, i am trading. i trade with the me generation. they are about 15. i have a little more experience. i did work on wall street for some time. take your experiences and use them. a lot of people will find it helpful. there is an internet generation out there. it's huge. it is changing the world. get in it. host: is there a sense of people translating the skills into new careers? guest: we have seen over the past year and a half a

substantial increase in business formation. people will start new businesses. that doesn't mean they are opening up offices. a lot of people are doing that. they are going online at. they are offering services. another thing a lot of people are doing, especially those who have kept themselves financially stable, they been using their stimulus checks and the statements they have and investing in the stock market. they are investing in cryptocurrency. i can't say that is always the safest way to provide an income. there have been people who have tried to use whatever skills they have to generate new business or something to do while they haven't been able to go to work. host: when it comes to those

employers, what faces them as they make those decisions to go back to an office environment. guest: we've seen encouraging signs at the vast majority of people who are vaccinated against covid-19, they don't get seriously sick. that's a good sign. it poses some challenges. the other fact of the matter is some people don't want to go back to the office five days a week. they found working from home has made it easier for them to tend to their family needs. those are going to be things that they will have to grapple with. host: what do you think is the

attitude of employers to make those adaptations? guest: we've seen a lot of big banks try to push their employees to come back sooner. it's a competitive field. there is a lot of direct contact there. for them, that is their mentality. apple is delaying the reopening of their offices. it varies sector by sector. it varies based on where you are in the country. host: joe is in buffalo. hello. caller: good morning. host: you are on. caller: i've got a question. host: you are on to ask a question of our guest. go ahead. we will leave it there.

you talked about inflation earlier. as far as people concerned about it, particularly where do you see inflation making advances? guest: that's one of the big faces -- issues facing the economy. we had an annual inflation late that would've been 5.4% in june. that by any estimation is normally too high. a lot of people who are economists and experts say a lot of this is driven by temporary factors, supply chain disruptions, issues with the auto industry, general quirks getting the economy reopen. people who live through the 70's, you saw the what that did to the economy. they are concerned we will get there.

so far, we haven't seen inflation get out of control. a lot of those temporary factors do seem to be settling down. that's a good sign. what happens with inflation? it will be the primary focus. host: a couple of text questions for you. have state unemployment systems come up to speed? some are very outdated, leaving people without benefits. have these issues been resolved? guest: the short answer is no. i'm not aware of any state that has made a substantial overhaul to its unemployment system. experts say a lot of these systems are working on the same computer programs and situations as they were in the 70's. it is unique for each state. it could be hard to coordinate all of this. it's up to each state and how

robust they intend to make these systems. host: this is from cameron in seattle. should the bureau of labor statistics use the true measure to reflect discouraged workers? you may need to explain that. guest: the bureau of labor statistics calculates the on rate in different ways. the average unemployment rate, the one you usually hear was 5.4% last month. that rate doesn't factor in millions of people who have left the labor market and are looking for jobs. if you want to work, you are not counted in the normal unemployment rate. it is not necessarily the best measure for the strength of the

labor market on its own. it is good to look at other rates, other statistics about who says they want to work but can't or hasn't been able to start the job search process. other issues that might come up. caller: i just want to ask a question. if you are disabled, what can they do for you? guest: if you are -- if you are receiving benefits but you can't work, you might want to talk to the unemployment office in virginia. it might not be a bad idea to reach out to the social security administration to see if you might qualify for disability insurance. it's hard for me to say right now. those would be the options.

host: brad is in maine. hello. caller: i had a different take on the issues. i'm a retired guy. i am working part-time. every week, they take out medicare out of my paycheck. i am pain full social security. they take that out. my question is, on top of all that, when i've made $5,000, my so security retirement money becomes taxable. if i make $25,000, 85% of becomes taxable. it seems like a lot of retired people would be willing to jump into the job market and be willing to work if the government made it worth our while.

one time, it didn't work that way. it seems to me that is holding back a lot of good people from joining the workforce and helping out. they don't want to have to make two dollars and give one dollar back. i appreciate your take on that. guest: it's an interesting and challenging situation. they will have to sort this out along the recovery. host: wage growth is growing up. tell us about it. what are people earning these days? guest: wage growth has picked up. the issue is it is risen. a lot of those wage gains are

getting wiped out by that. the potential positive silver lining is if this wage growth holds up and continues and inflation starts to cool back down. ideally, wages keep growing at a faster rate. wage growth was a little bit slow leading up to 2017 or 2018. it started to pick up before the pandemic. the overall goal is wages rising for people who have not been able to count on that. host: this is james in texas. caller: i've been trying to find work as an engineer. this is since 2009 when i was laid off from the space program. all i see is companies that advertise positions and then don't actually have interviews.

otherwise, advertising positions which are just internal staffing. there is no work. in short. at least, there is no work for anybody over the age of 45. i am 59. host: ok. that was james in arlington, texas. guest: i am sorry to hear about your situation. it can be difficult for people who reached a late career point, people who might be retiring. and they lose a job, it is harder for them to find them. the point you made about jobs not aligned with your experience is something to keep in mind. when we hear about these job openings, it doesn't mean that

everybody who lost their job during the crisis will be able to find one at the same level of skill and expertise they were at before. that can be challenging for people who have been in the industry for a while. i'm glad you mentioned that and i am sorry to hear about your troubles. host: sylvan lane does reporting for the hill. thanks for your time this morning. we will do open form up until 9:00. you can talk about politics or other things that matter to you. republicans (202) 748-8001. democrats (202) 748-8000. independents (202) 748-8002. you can text us at (202) 748-8003. it may be issues with afghanistan or the economy. you saw the president go before cameras yesterday to talk about

the issues with the evacuation process. one of the things he was asked about was the credibility on the world stage because of the withdrawal effort. >> what is your message to our partners around the world who criticized the conduct of the withdrawal and made them question america's ability. >> i have seen no question of our credibility with our allies. i've spoken with our nato allies. our national security advisers have been in contact with his counterparts. the fact of the matter is i have not seen that. the exact opposite i've gotten. we are acting with dispatch, committing to what we said we would do. let's put this thing in perspective. what interest do we have in

afghanistan at this point with al qaeda gone? we went to afghanistan for the purpose of getting rid of al qaeda in afghanistan as well as getting osama bin laden. we did. imagine it, just imagine, if bin laden had decided with al qaeda to launch an attack from yemen. would we have gone to afghanistan? would we be in afghanistan? what is the national interest in that circumstance? we went and did the mission. you have known my position for a long time. it is time to end this war. the estimates of the cost of this war range from a minimum of $1 trillion to a think tank at one of the universities saying

$2 trillion. that is $150 million a day to $300 million a day. the threat has metastasized. there is a greater danger from isis and al qaeda and the affiliates in other countries and there is from afghanistan. we are going to retain a capability that if they were to come back to take them out. this is where we should be. this is about america leading the world. our allies have agreed with that. before i made this decision, i was at the g7 as well as met with our nato partners. i told them all, everyone of them knew and agreed with the decision i made to end our involvement in afghanistan. host: that full preference -- press conference is on our

website c-span.org. there could be other issues. call us on the line. you can text us or post on social media. philip is in orlando. go ahead. caller: good morning. i don't understand how so many americans can be so divided, especially when it appears we are being judged for our behavior. the main thing you will affect although the pandemic is affecting it is the climate crisis. we all have to live on this planet. we don't seem to be dealing with the reality of what destructive elements are going to play on life itself. i don't get it.

there are so many left in the dark. host: why is this the number one issue in your mind? caller: because we all depend on the air and water. we can't live without the planet being stabilized. the bottom line is anybody who is not standing up for the environment right now is missing the point. this is houston, texas. we will hear from andrew. caller: i wanted to call and briefly make some comments about the war ending in afghanistan. i'm 35. the war started when i was around 14 or 15 years old. i think it's time it comes to an end.

historically, afghanistan has been the ruin of empires. i think it is time that we be out of there. i knew people who served and went over there. i think biden is making the right choice. i don't think it's going to be pretty. neither was saigon in 1975. i think this is a wake-up call to future generations of americans. we need to stop making the same mistakes over and over again. host: this is cindy from connecticut. caller: this whole debacle with afghanistan, we did need to draw down. we still have people in japan it. we still have forces in japan

and germany, 60 years later. it is for reconnaissance. there was no war the last several years. what about these women who have jobs, who are educated? they are going to have to go back to the stone age. i want everybody who talking about equality and all of this woke krapp, our generals are talking about reticle race theory. they are laughing at us. the taliban is laughing at us. the press conference yesterday was a joke. it was disgraceful. i am 60 years old. i've never seen anything like this in my life. host: we will go to annie from california.

good morning. caller: this is related to your last guest. i just wanted to share my experience with social security disability. i wanted to work. every time i would work, they would threaten to let go of my social security disability. the last time i worked for three years, i was working 20 hours a week. they decided i was capable of doing without the social security totally. they cut me off completely from social security. i/o them $35,000 somehow for that three years. i think the social security disability is to make it easier for people to work and maybe

they earn a little extra money besides $950 a month. host: this is from the state department as of today. a security alert about the embassy and kabul. because of -- we are advising citizen to avoid traveling to the airport and to avoid airport gates. unless you receive instructions to do so, citizens who have not yet completed the assistant request for each traveler in their group, do so as soon as possible. minor children are awaiting immigrant visas and should complete this form if they wish to deport. do not call the embassy. this form is the only way to medicate interest in flight options. we will contact you as the

situation changes. we can go to the state department website. if you want to read that security notice that was just put up. the independent climate, this is denise. -- line, this is denise. caller: coming from -- i looked at the u.n. and right now, it is really embarrassing and sad. we all knew it when we went and elected the president. nice person, he is not with it. we need to understand that and put somebody else. things are going to get worse. host: are you referring to afghanistan? what do you think specifically

about the effort there? how do you view it? caller: you never leave people behind. when i'm listening today, they were showing u.k. plans to pick up people. we are telling people to come and then the state department is staying say home. host: the president said he would work to get all americans out as well as our allies. caller: that is doubletalk. one day they say stay home and this is not like you're going to get an uber to the airport. you are going to put your life in danger. i never think anything like this. this is really sad. the media needs to stop talking. i am not a trump fan. host: ok.

we will finish there. this is on another front when it comes to the fda. the fda is expected to grant full approval of the pfizer coronavirus vaccine early next week. yesterday, it will be the first covid-19 shot to receive full authorization from the federal government. charlie is in arkansas. caller: what bothers me about this whole thing is we were paying the pakistan military aid to give to the taliban so they dictate fighting. we would give them a raise. we one of the fight to continue. luke military contractors could make a fortune. we should do a cost-benefit study on the whole program from beginning to end and see what we spent over there.

also in south korea and other places. i think there should be an emancipation proclamation for all the women. tell them they are free, just like a blinken did. host: billy in new mexico, you're up next. billy in new mexico? one more chance. is this minnesota? caller: hello. thank you for taking my call. i want to know what sleepy joe was thinking when we gave how many billions of dollars towards military equipment that we left

behind for the taliban to use against us. thank you. host: two stories concerning the supreme court. the biden administration asked to overturn an order that revive the era allowing for silent speakers at the border to stay in mexico while their applications are processed. the doj wanted a state of the judges order to reinstate the remade in mexico policy. it will go into effect on saturday. fox news reporting they've asked the supreme court to block the moratorium on rental. an appeals court allowed it to stand. the national association of realtors asked the supreme court to lift the moratorium after a

three-judge panel at the u.s. circuit court of appeals for the district of columbia voted unanimously to reject their request to allow evictions to proceed. the supreme court will hear those. we are in open form up until 9:00. from florida. caller: we have a lot of problems in this country caused by our national debt. it is 28 $.5 trillion. we are spending more than the 15 countries combined on the military. donald trump we need to stop being the policeman of the world. he started the withdrawal from afghanistan. biden finished it. we are in debt a great deal. we finished -- pay 2.5 times more for health care.

congress is not doing their job. they still have not passed an infrastructure will. they are dysfunctional. until we get some changes there, we are going to have more problems. people won't get vaccinated, that is because people not to have hospital beds, especially in florida and louisiana. there are no beds because they wouldn't get vaccinated. a lot of this is just stupidity causing our problems. host: that was vic in florida. the house is on break. next week, they will take some test votes when it comes to matters of the reconciliation bill, voting rights, infrastructure all of those things. as they are coming back on break, the house comes in to take up these matters. you can follow along on our website.

eve is next in michigan. caller: good morning. i think that the president did what he had to do. i stand by him completely. if all of people talking about the problem, there's nothing wrong with his mind. he did what he wanted to do. i can member when the tower came down. i brought my daughter to school. she was only three years old. she is 23 years old today. it was like building a generation of afghans. those kids and everybody i saw the were trying to get on the

plane, that generation of kids had been living under the united states rules. they were living that. they saw their family leaving. i'm talking about the american soldiers. they were trying to get there. host: how would you rate the evacuation process? caller: i would rate the administration on what they are doing. they are doing what they have to do. i would give them a b plus. host: in massachusetts, this is john. caller: good morning. my grandson came to me three years ago to go in the service. he wanted to fight. i convinced him to go to the

corps of engineers. come to find out, they are the guys drop it into these places and pulling people out. they didn't listen to me. when i look at them and i hear them, when they send me pictures, the positive enthusiastic nature, i'm terrified to upset them and say i don't agree with what you did, but i'm proud of what you're doing. i don't hear that in your phone calls. these young kids are wasted generation, when you talk to them, they are incredible young kids. they are pulling babies out of countries where they don't even speak the language.

thank you. host: this is from the washington post. the afl-cio, the largest labor organization, elected a longtime trade unionist the service the first female president. the bio of her in the washington post says she is 51, she worked as an organizer. more on that from the watch and post. this is lakeview, arkansas on this open form. go ahead. caller: biden, he sounds like hillary. what difference does it make? there are citizens left in the country.

joe biden just created a new terrorist company with the most well-equipped army by surrendering our blood and treasure. it's too expensive to bring home? when are people going to start talking impeachment? this guy is risen the threat level everywhere in the world. by just walking away. he doesn't want to deal with it or he has an urge to reverse. host: it was president trump who wanted to get out earlier. caller: but under a conditional. you had to secure each province. who leaves the airbase open? they didn't tell the afghans they were leaving.

why didn't they leave some nato troops? nato is involved in this. when he said i haven't heard any negative. you are on vacation again. host: that is tim in arkansas. the president will be briefed on afghanistan and go to delaware later on. it was president biden nominating rahm emanuel as his ambassador to japan. he would be tapped for the prominent foreign post. that is the white house announcing that. the chicago tribune says it will give a tactician and veteran in the ranks of his top diplomats. you can see that in the chicago tribune. when it comes to electric cars, gm says that when it comes to the chevy volt, there is a recall over a battery fire issue.

a few 2019 were not covered under the previous recall. all 141,000 volts that gm has produced are under recall. you can see more on that at the new york times business section. caller: thank you for taking my call. i am just surprised that america pulled out afghanistan without notifying the americans. they would not be in the mess they are in now. the people who spoke out against the afghan government, now their lives are at risk. i don't understand that. i was wondering, if there is a program set up for when people are allowed to come to the nato nations that are accepting

afghanistan's. is there a program where they need somewhere to stay. if there are females need a place, i would like to open my home to them. have you heard of anything? where do they put the people when they allow them to come here? host: when it comes to the relocation, you may want to check your own state, the point people there in georgia who might deal with these things directly there to find out more information. eric is in new hampshire. caller: how are you doing? i cannot believe the support for biden. when he announced his black secretary of defense, he forgot the guys name. he forgot -- host: as far as the current date

situation, how does that relate? caller: he's been doing nothing but lying. even the left-wing media is contradicting him. he is a dishonest man. honestly, he did not listen to his advisors. he wanted afghanistan it to be over with. he shut it down without -- it's a national humiliation. host: finishing off calls for this section. this is the hill reporting that mississippi health officials are warning against using an infection. the department of health is sending a letter out to the health alert network warning about the spike in poisoning from individuals digesting that drug.

the hill is where you can find that story. we will continue discussions about afghanistan. our guest wrote a book called the american war in afghanistan, not only looking at the historical aspect but what that means for the current date situation. he will be our ♪ >> weekends bring you the best in american history with nonfiction books. sunday on "book tv," hear from authors attending book fest in minnesota. opinion speeches -- opinion pieces and species. john fund with his book, "our broken elections," in which he argues liberals make the

election system more vulnerable to fraud. the book, "bettering human economics," which focuses on science and human interaction. in the future of artificial intelligence with his book " aiming ai." on "afterwards" ben shapiro talks about his book which he argues the progressive left is pushing an authoritarian agenda in america. he is joined by eric my taxes -- eric metaxes. watch "book tv" anytime online.

♪ >> "washington journal" continues. host: our guest is carter malkasian. he served as a sport -- special assistant to rogers of dunford from 2015 to 2019. thank you for joining us, particularly as we had technical issues with you earlier this week thank you for coming back. >> -- guest: thank you for having me. host: let's look at the book, you try to encapsulate

afghanistan as a history. guest: i felt so many years of war -- i started writing in 2015 -- i thought it would be good to have a full discussion of what happened. there are many great books about afghanistan, all cover a section or a piece of it. is we continue to look back on it and get new information, new histories are going to be written. host: taking a look at the scope of it, is there a running theme as far as what you have seen in putting this history together which could explain what we are seeing today? there are a few -- guest: there are a few running themes but one that pertains to what you're talking about now is the idea of resistance to occupation.

why were the taliban able to defeat the afghan forces? and where were they able to best of them on the field of battle? it comes down to a question of who was willing to fight harder and longer. the fact that the taliban were fighting against occupiers, that would be us, gave them a degree of inspiration that you could not see in the afghan forces. there is an anecdote that can elucidate this. the story goes that there was a taliban commander and an afghan commander on the battlefield. they both have radios and can talk to each other over the radius. oftentimes the commanders will talk to each other and make fun of each other. in this incident, the story goes that the taliban commander shouted at the afghan commander you are a puppet of america. and he trotted back that you are

the puppet of pakistan. the taliban commander said yes, but the americans -- with the pakistanis are muslims and the americans are not. there is no response in this story and that is the point. for afghanistan, the idea of resisting occupation as part of their identity. you can see that in their resistance against the british and the soviet union, and now against us. it is more difficult to get to that level of inspiration went on the side of the occupiers were as the taliban is willing to fight until the end. it is an important theme to understand about the war. it is not the only reason we counter these problems.

it is just one that i think deserves to be remembered. host: you wrote this, "the taliban were more united than the tribal leaders or the government had been. between hierarchy, the emphasis on will teach islam, the taliban were less prone to fight each other and thus able to enforce their will on the people." can you expand on that? guest: absolutely. many taliban we have spoken to and officials we have spoken to say that the taliban are one, they are united. they don't have these problems, they're just the taliban. they are not different groups. what this means is that the afghan government had different organizations and different political figures involved. these just want to think about

is the chief executive officer for a little while. the two often could not get along. they disputed over the results of the election. those disputes bleeds all the way down into the military forces and makes it more difficult for them to coordinate together. . scripts on the ground often want to cooperate with each other because they tend to have their own interests and their own things they want to accomplish. the taliban does have separate groups. they set things up in a way such that one person is in charge and there is greater respect for listening to the instructions from above. a lot of this comes from the taliban's history. the taliban emerged as an organization to try to stop a war of the 1990's -- try to stop

a civil war of the 1990's. you can't let infighting happen, you can't let your organization be destroyed by that. there's also an emphasis on islam that the taliban pays attention to that stresses obedience and a student listening to a teacher. that also infuses throughout them and enables them to be more cohesive on the battlefield, to courtney 12, less prone to conflict with each other. host: our guest, carter malkasian, has written the book. for those who want to ask questions, and the central and eastern time zones, 202-748-8000 . if you live in the mountain and pacific time zones, 202-748-8001 . if you are an afghanistan war veteran and you were to get your perspective, 202-748-8002. you can text us at 202-748-8003 and post on our social media

sites. earlier this week, president biden gave an interview with abc and one of the things he was asked about with the taliban is what their future holds within afghanistan. >> what happens now in afghanistan? do you believe have changed? pres. biden: no. i think they're going through an accident shook crisis about do they want to be recognized by international communities as being a budget meant government -- a legitimate government. i'm not sure they do. they also care about whether they have food to eat, whether they have any income that can make money and run an economy. they care about whether or not they can hold together a society then fact say they care so much about. i am not counting on any of that, but that is part of what i think is going on right now in terms of -- i'm not sure i would

have predicted that when we decided to leave they would provide safe passage for americans to get out. host: that is part of his statements from earlier this week. what you make of those? guest: a lot of those seem sensible and pertaining to the issues we have to deal with. the taliban wants something different. they want to administer the country better and they are aware they need incoming money. they have often said we treat women well, it is not true that we treat women poorly. .wav of the country, we will take care of everything. you're interested in a relationship with the west, these are things that matter to us. i think that is the case. i think the president was spot on when he said i got that -- i doubt that. they have beliefs pulling them

in another direction. the taliban have great confidence in what they see is their ability to control the country. they realize they have difficulty administering -- administrating different services. they look at islamic law as something that brought them support and prevented instability from occurring. they are very confident that as long as they do that again, we would get a lot of support from afghans. we will see a taliban that is more moderate. we will see a taliban that is aligned to u.s.-ritesh and most of the -- to the u.s. and britain and most of the international communities. i agree with just about everything the president said. host: there is a story on al jazeera this morning that -- is

in kabul for talks. guest: he is a deeply charismatic figure. he was not the founding member of the taliban but as soon as it was joined he formed it. after the taliban government fell in 2001, shortly after that he became omar's deputy. he would be a managing -- he would be managing affairs day-to-day on the ground and make sure policies where permitted properly. he did something to moderate the movement. trying to reduce things like school or the prerogative to execute people. he is put in jail in 2010, there

was any operation in pakistan that did that. he remained in jail until 2013. he was released into house arrest. was only in 2018 that he was released and he became the deputy for political affairs for the taliban and oversaw negotiating efforts in doha. he has been his one-on-one counterpart throughout these negotiations. he is always seen as someone interested in progress, not prone to being angry or yelling or anything like that. he does seem like direct figure to go to couple -- to kabul to see with the custard should be. they are bringing in all the

afghans to have an agreement about what the constitution will look like, it will be participatory and compromising. a week after the fall of kabul, the taliban and a few people in kabul creating the constitution, that is not sound like involving a lot of cash does not sound like involving a lot of -- does not sound like involving a lot of participation. in 2004, that process involved representatives from all of the country, many from -- to be able to come and look at the constitution, from the constitution. that is not the kind of process we are seeing right now which goes back to president biden's comments. host: before we let you talk to our viewers, your assessment of what you have seen play out over the last week in afghanistan.

guest: of course to follow kabul which was almost a week ago, that was a tremendous event but not totally unexpected because the spontaneous collapses have happened in afghan history. it looks like what you expect were small tactical things happen, it is difficult to react to it, time is so compressed and a variety of things are happening on the ground. there is that piece. since then, we have seen the comes to accurate large numbers of afghans and u.s. citizens and promote residents. it has been impressive, the u.s. effort there has been impressive. when people talk about if americans are realists or idealists, i think this is an idea of our idealism, trying to get people out in spite of the risks. i am hopeful more people will be

able to be brought out and we will continue this operation. host: our first call comes from bernard in new york. you are on with carter malkasian. go ahead. caller: this gentleman is interesting. i'm not sure where he stands if he is for the taliban. the question really is this, is everybody in america just about -- what thing is out of afghanistan but that is not the question. the question is how we got out of afghanistan. the president, because of his weakness and his mistakes should not -- into the got our guys out first and then we should have gotten the wonderful afghanistan's that should -- the wonderful afghanistans who stood

with america. we should have taken out the equipment that he basically gave to the taliban. now people are not talking about this lockers going on. the taliban are going door to door knocking on doors. if you don't give up everybody that cooperated, we will slaughter your entire family. of course they tell on the people. this guy did it this candidate, and so on. this whole getting out -- joe biden is a spring that up, too. -- is screwing that up, too. how can the taliban be in charge of who gets out? host: let me stop you there because you put a lot out for our guest. he can respond how he wishes. guest: first of all, i will just

say that we have been fighting the taliban for 20 years and it is hard for any of us who have been doing that to not look at this week as something that has been difficult and not have a great worried for the afghan people. in my time in afghanistan, i made a variety of friends and a good number were killed. a good number sacrifice for the country. some of them died as long ago as 2010. some died more recently. there are still put it people there that have tried to sacrifice for their country. it certainly brings a connection to the country. in terms of the withdrawal itself, i think it is harder right now for those who

understand what happened and what possibilities there could have been to do something different, one of the things that is important here is how difficult it is when events are happening quickly on the ground, to be able to adapt quickly and adapt well to it. i do think right now that a very sincere effort is being made to try to get people out. if it goes day by day, it only becomes more impressive the more people get out and the more risks we are taking by being there. yes, the taliban are letting people through right now but the taliban is the taliban so the chances of something breaking out is there. it is not without risk. host: in illinois, you are next. caller: good morning. a long time ago i watched a documentary called -- about a

forward base in a valley. soldiers were getting shot at from the high ground. as an unsophisticated person, you would watch this and say who would put a forward base in a valley. my point is this, we were there for 20 years. we were told this was not vietnam. why did we fail? what would it have taken to win? did we need to use tactical nuclear weapons? did we need to change completely the rules of engagement? how could we have won?

as assumed people had thought this out about why we were there. what did winnie look like and why didn't we win -- what does winning look like and why didn't we win? host: thank you for the call, bill. guest: that base was in the cornwall valley. i have been to the cornwall valley. the soldiers in that unit were there for 15 months, day after day of patrolling and standing watch and trying to deal with the people they don't want to be dealt with. it is one of the examples of the greatest bravery and fortitude of the experience in afghanistan. i don't mean that it was right that there should have been a base there. you are right, these options went up 8000 feet and there were

pine trees on top. there could be a kilometer between one side and the other in which the taliban could fire across. you see the soldiers going on patrol day after day who were very hardened and used to their weapons and operating entity the snow and the rain and the heat. they had an immediate reaction. in some ways, the battlefield there more like i imagine korea to be then something in a counterinsurgency effort in afghanistan. could we have won in afghanistan? not in the traditional sense we think about winning. the reason is taliban has pakistan that could go to. there are corruption problems in the government that made it difficult for the government to operate. we were occupiers in which we

attracted the attention and the anchor of the various people in the taliban who were willing to fight to some lengths. winning -- in that sense, winning wasn't possible. what we tried to do was to secure u.s. interest, prevent their from being another terrorist attack on the united states and make sure al qaeda and other terrorist groups were defective enough that they could not harm us. they did a great deal of that. what that meant was whenever we left, the government was going to have trouble. the taliban were going to get the upper hand. winning was essentially being there but being there in small enough numbers that it was affordable enough to secure our interests. we did that for a variety of years.

at this point we have left. have we retained a lot of our interests? this is not like a war we could say we won, we did not fail. if we go through point by point what our goals were, we didn't fail. but we have to understand and the larger sense that this was not a war we could win like this. it was one we had to get into that was difficult to get out. how does one achieve their interests in these situations? don't lose resources, try not to lose too many actually valuable american lives. host: was there a point you write about where at least you have seen where efforts in afghanistan had a stalemate of sorts? guest: not in the traditional sense of a stalemate.

how i describe it is from 2002 to 2006 there were some opportunities for us. we were just there setting things up. there are things you could have done differently that probably would have enabled us to have run of the war with less expense and less u.s. lives lost. for those few years there was any opportunity. the taliban came back in 2006 with a major offensive and after that the opportunity narrows. there is not a lot we can do to change, we can only manage things better and try to do what we can to make sure there are fewer costs. the stomach was in effect from then onward. we do press the taliban back, but the problem with a surge is those things went last. those things can evaporate by today 16 and -- 2016.

at the time, i was not arguing for -- i make this statement in retrospect. host: this is carter malkasian joining us, his book "the american war in afghanistan." talk about the work you did with the joint chiefs chair and how you ended up in that position. guest: i went to afghanistan the first time in 2007. i spent some time in iraq and i saw that conflict. i was out to help a reconstruction camp in afghanistan. i spent a lot of time with the folks there working with afghans . the state department needed more people to be part of the activity in afghanistan during the surgery -- during the sur

ge. i was in a desert district, a river runs through it and there is farmland on either side of it. we were working with the population in that area tried to push the taliban back which was eventually achieved. that was a great experience. we worked with five different marine battalions. i went back to the u.s. in 2011. general dunford, who knew me from iraq, asked if i would like to be his advisor in afghanistan. in 2013 and 2014 i was back in afghanistan at a higher level, in a different location, cobble this time -- kabul this time.

then he became the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff and i worked with him again there. this was a much broader view of things. having to do with the whole world. we dealt with the islamic state problem, a lot of time going to turkey, going to places in east asia, china, japan. that was a very different experience. it did involve going to afghanistan and italy going back in 2018 and 2019. host: this is from cameron in washington. good morning. caller: i would just make a brief statement and then ask a question. i think the main culprit of this debacle started with george bush telling us in a campaign there would be no nationbuilding. yet, as soon as we went to afghanistan that is what we did.

two withdrawal was absolutely pitiful and should have been managed better. i think the current president should resign as a result of this. the only caveat being that nancy pelosi would move to the vice president position and that would be catastrophic. what i would like to ask your guest is i have seen documentaries about the context of afghanistan with respect to the taliban that they are really essentially a drug cartel like the drug cartels in mexico. for centuries they have been managing the production, distribution, and sale of opioids. can you comment on that? why didn't the u.s. military and government focus on that and make sure there was no opium being grown in afghanistan outside of a small portion for the pharmaceutical industry and

make sure any opiate fields -- any opium fields where eradicated and forced to grow other kinds of crops? that would have been a better strategy. host: thanks for the call. guest: yes, poppy has been a major part of their revenue. probably a majority of their revenue comes from poppy production. they encourage people to grow it. they tax it and they smuggle it. the movement is water than a drug cartel because it is a political movement with political goals with very strong connections into the religious networks of afghanistan and pakistan. it is something bigger than simply poppy. they absolutely use it to make revenue. one of the things the taliban does that gets them support if

they know that in any place in afghanistan there are people living there for years who are the elite and people who are immigrants or don't have a lot of land or came from somewhere else. the people who are poor, they were to be able to grow something to live effectively. the taliban let them grow poppy. when they take over an area, they would give them some land so more poppy can be grown. that allows put people to have a livelihood and money. that also means they like the taliban because the taliban helped encompass their future. what could be done about this problem? i will tell you the main issue which we touched on which is that eradicating poppy meant dissatisfying a lot of people. some were just farmers just trying to make money.

i remember particularly well when i was -- when i heard all about this, there was a call when we went into eradicate all of these fields and have americans do it. that was going to create a great direction -- a great reaction across the people. the military had been given no specific instruction to go and eradicate, that was not considered a military task. those kinds of challenges are important factors as to why poppy was not fully eradicated. you brought up some of the good points like why was there not a program to handle this? why did you not eradicate poppy and give assistance to people who lost it? there were some programs that attempted to do it and has some degree of effectiveness. i think we probably could have thought more about crop

substitution and different kinds of crops that could have been attended -- that could have been tended. when i first came, there was a lot of discussion about crops is positioned -- about crops of the duchenne. when i came back -- about crop substitution. when i came back in 2011, those conversations were still going on. secured areas in a large operation ended up being effective. the people who grew poppy and the warlords and the taliban wanted poppy. in the areas we secured, they could not be there anymore growing poppy. so they moved out of the desert, but water up from the aquifer, created new places, new farms and villages to grow poppy. it was externally hard to stop,

even in places where after we went in poppy production did decrease. host: barbara, go ahead. caller: i have watched this story for decades and this poppy problem and the global drug problem is to genetically modify the poppy plant so that seeds are produced with excessively increasing power in the opioid part of the molecule. we would make these seats and airdropped them all over the world or scatter them however we could. host: aside from that, a question about afghanistan? do you have bone do you have 1 -- you have one? caller: i just want to say this is a superb guest and i want to send everyone to youtube to watch a documentary called

"afghanistan: land of endless war." it would be great if you ran it on one of the channels. if you understand of -- if you understand how we get to today, is meant to difference. there are many other taliban films on youtube. the more you see, the more you understand. host: that is barbara in massachusetts. besides your book, what other sources would you turn people to to learn about the country? guest: the first book i would say is about 300 pages. professor barfield has great stories within it. it reads well. it was the first book i assigned to my students. another book i would suggest is "punishment of virtue."

the author is with npr and she lived in kandahar for about seven years. she learned how to speak the language and she was living out among the people in the city, not on a u.s. base. the book she writes is about the difficulties and trouble she saw and afghanistan owing back towards violence. i would also recommend documentary "restreppo." -- plus some of the efforts around peace talks that happened before 2018. any of those i would recommend. host: carter malkasian joining us for this discussion. you are asked on twitter if you could provide the audience and the evaluation of president trump's plan of leaving

afghanistan. guest: we are referring to the plan that he tweeted out or put out one or two days ago? host: i believe this is probably the plan initially developed as far as getting out in may which the biden administration referenced many times. that is my assumption. let's go with that. guest: absolutely. president trump wanted to get out of afghanistan. he said in his august 2017 speech that my instinct is to get out and i often follow my instincts. he was willing to take a shot at peace talks. those peace talks and negotiations ended up with the date of 2020 -- may 2021 that all u.s. forces would leave.

if i was to look at president trump's effort, first i would say that he personally pressed withdrawal more than any president before him. by reducing us to 2500 troops, he made the withdrawal decision all the more compelling. in terms of other aspects of the plan, i think it would have been better when it was being negotiated to put more in writing, demand more writing of what the taliban was going to do and demand they do more towards reaching a political settlement. i think that would have been possible. why do i think that would have been possible? in september 2020, the agreement

had basically been reached. -- in september 2020, the agreement had basically been reached. the taliban was not willing to -- and trump walked away from the table. after he did that, because the taliban was worried the u.s. would not withdrawal, the actually considered even more. i think if president trump had been a little bit more patient, if he had walked away from the table a few more times, we could have gotten the taliban to a different position. i don't think that means there would have been completed peace but it would have been a better situation. host: let's hear from paul in new york. good morning. caller: one quick point, i am amazed at the level of partisanship some of the callers to your show exhibit. the calls for impeachment and policy taking over -- and nancy pelosi taking over our over the

top. if you want to look at this debacle, it started with bush who started nationbuilding and ran through trump to triton's withdrawal to biden's -- withdrawal to biden -- the afghan government was corrupt from top to bottom. afghans were being shook down for money. the programs we tried to put in place were siphoned off for their revenue captured by leaders of the afghan government , starting with mr. karzai. i have not heard you speak once about this. the effect of the matter is, no one in a country is going to fight for a government they know is abusive, corrupt, and is not working for the people but working for their own elites. i would like for you to speak about this.

that, for me, was the main driver of our failure of afghanistan as it was in vietnam where we backed a completely corrupt regime that had no depth with the people. host: paul, thank you. guest: that is a great point and one thing i was trying to touch on when i mentioned there were several reasons we are seeing issues here. corruption is one of them. afghan commanders would have forces and would have all of the names to have all of the men they needed but many of those men would not be in the ranks. that is because they were taking the money and going off with it.

kabul woodwork managers on the ground -- warlords would be trying to politics to see who would be in place and demand certain people would be in place. this was a continuing problem and it meant that the afghan forces did not have the manpower or supplies they should have had. however, i want to point out a few other things that make us think more deeply about the problem here. the afghan forces in many places where they were defeated, they had more men than the taliban and more supplies than the taliban and better weapons than the taliban. the corruption was bad, but there has to be something else

going on. even with correction, they still had the ability to defend themselves. the point caller makes is excellent. i have no doubt that the corruption going on was a problem for the morale of the afghan forces. we have to look at this from two sides. exactly how great we think the taliban were? how great is to rethink their leadership was? if they get shot or wounded, they will be transferred to pakistan. they are not paid very much, they're not supplied very well. why is this that we think corruption is going to be sapping this whole factor in afghan forces with the taliban had legal problems yet had a morale? the answer to that has to be that the taliban are more inspired by something else, something that is deeper and related to identity.

that is not me corruption was not important. try to understand everything that is happening on afghanistan and all the factors coming into place. the last thing i will point out is that when you put these things together, when you put corruption together and you put these identity issues in and what it means, what you see is a problem that is intractable. you see a problem that cannot easily be overcome which then gets to where we were unable to win. host: from kevin in san diego, you are next up. caller: i have two comments about the reason the taliban was able to take over the country so quickly. one is in response he -- one was in response to a guest earlier. the previous color store my thunder. first, in response to your guest's earlier comments, he

says part of the reason the taliban was successful is it is part of the afghan identity to resist occupation because of their history. i don't think that is unique to afghanistan. if we try to occupy and instill a new government in australia or germany, we would face a similar resistance. from my perspective, the issue is that the taliban was able to roll in and that's role in in pickup trucks and fatigues -- was able to roll in in pickup trucks and fatigues and take over the country in one week or two because the vast majority of the people in the country want the taliban to be the government. we were popping up a cop government against the will of the people which is fundamentally anti-democratic.

i think on the caller's last point, it is not so much the corruption within the military that led to the lack of effectiveness, it is the fact that the government was corrupt so there was an unwillingness of the afghani people to support the government in general. that is why they did not resist the taliban taking over. host: that his kevin in san diego. guest: that is a great point on resistance to occupation and that being a factor in many countries. i think that is definitely the case. that does not mean that just because it is a factor in many countries that it is not important in afghanistan. yes, i completely agree that the corruption in the military and in the government itself does to some extent resist the motivation there.

i don't think that is enough to explain what happened here. there are many people who benefited from the resistance of the -- the existence of the government. many people benefited were going to make more money from it. many people were defending their homes and their own territory in which they were able to maintain that they will continue to be corrupt and pocket money. we know that war is a fairly strong motivator for people to fight. when we look at how things fall apart, it has to be beyond corruption. it does not handle everything we see happen. we have a lot of other things coming into play, too. the shock of our withdrawal announcement, the fact they would not have u.s. support, and if you think the next battle you are going to get in is going to be defeated because you have seen everybody else be defeated,

you are more likely to run away. that is what tends to happen in a rut. -- in a route. host: there have been questions asked about what the future of afghanistan concerns and if there is the possibility for it to become a terrorist safe haven again. guest: we should be ready for some type of terrorism to come out of afghanistan but we should be resilient. we should not fear it. we should not be worried there is going to be something like another 9/11. if a terrorist attack occurs, we should not be tempted to go back into afghanistan. we should think about how we are going to defend ourselves better. if we need to do a limited punitive supply, that is fine, that we should not get ourselves entangled. how can afghanistan -- what kind of safe haven would occur?

the taliban has a lot of connections to al qaeda. they will admit that in private and other settings. one former taliban i worked with when i was in kabul and we were working on trying to do some things to negotiate peace negotiation -- to encourage. peace negotiations. after about -- to encourage peace negotiations. i told him it is time to go home and he said i hope you have a good life. we remain friends. then he said why would you think i would feel any different about al qaeda? they are our friends, too. that means it is going to be difficult for them to tamp down al qaeda or other organizations. they may not want to cede an attack out of afghanistan, but that does not mean they want to

be doing things behind their back and other people will be unwilling to it -- to counter it . what kind of attacks will emerge? we should not think of the magnitude. the timing is probably years away and it is not even clear if these groups do intend to attack the u.s. they will have the ability to do it. when we think about covid and climate change, when we think about other problems the u.s. has and our interest in rebuilding america which is something i think both parties share, it is hard to see why we should be worried about a terrorist attack that will have much less effect than a covid test. host: from ed in massachusetts, you are up next. caller: good morning and thank you for having him on. how does this impact the average afghan? from an average afghan's

standpoint, are they and their families better off with the taliban or better off with the situation the way it was before the taliban took over? what is their mindset? did they say, we don't care if the taliban comes in? how is their life changed when the taliban take over compared to the situation before the taliban takes over? how are they impacted? guest: that is a question we should be asking as we think about our whole war in afghanistan. the lives of afghans during our time there in many ways improved. it approved for education, for employment, for opportunities and rights for women. in some places in afghanistan there was peace for most if not all of those 20 years.

on the other hand, in a lot of places there was war and fighting and death and destruction. with the taliban coming into power, there is a good chance that war and fighting and death and destruction will end. while people will have fewer rights and be oppressed, their lives will be left in danger. a woman is less likely to have a job or to be able to go out freely were to be educated -- for to be educated and perhaps will have a shorter lifespan. but they will be less likely to die in an erratic event of war if the taliban can instill order. that is something we should be thinking about in our own endeavor. we should think about how much good did we bring versus how much suffering? would be suffering have been less under the taliban?

we should understand that the suffering that did occur for the afghan people while we were there, that was part of trying to protect ourselves against terrorism. to protect ourselves like this terrorism and protect ourselves and home, other people may have had to suffer. that does not mean it was wrong for us to go in. that is not mean we shouldn't do what is necessary to protect americans, it does mean we should think about those questions. thank you for your question. host: this is elizabeth in new jersey. go ahead. caller: good morning. what i don't understand is how all of you keep talking about president biden. what about president trump who set up all of this in 2020? it has been calculated. this is why you had the insurrection. january 6, people tearing up america to take over the

government. biden comes in and he does not even know what is going on. have you seen the documents signed by trump? he signed all kinds of agreements. in his mind, he was going to take over america. host: that is elizabeth there. she brought up the actions of the trump administration if you wanted to take the on-again. go ahead -- take that on i. -- take that on-again. guest: he sustained afghanistan with 2500 troops but it would have been an ongoing war with airstrikes and there is no chance for peace talks or political settlement. he would have spent four years

with 2500 troops there and in the end he would pass it off to his successor. there was some chance you might have to reinforce. that was not a comfortable option. the other option was to withdrawal. that option, as we have seen, brought a lot of cost. no doubt, it was a really hard decision and that decision was created by trump's decision to go down to 2500 troops. host: this is from susan in massachusetts. susan, hello. caller: can you hear me? host: go ahead. caller: you are an excellent guest, your broad, nuanced

explanation for many things that have occurred and afghanistan over the past two decades. it is great. i have always been dumbfounded by how this debacle was ever--was able to be so protracted. i guess it was all of the invested interests in making millions to perpetuate the falsehood that this region of tribal enclaves and tribal leaders could ever really be pacified. we created an unsustainable, almost hollywood set of and it for class and upper middle class for advancement. it was never going to succeed.

i am fairly disappointed in americans who are blaming biden for all of this. this is the tail end of decades of failed philosophy where you can just impose your way of life on another country that is just not receptive to it. the same in iraq. meanwhile, china, always strategic and taking the long game has been able to shore up incredible relationships around the globe and capture all of the rare earth minerals supplies in africa and other places because the u.s. was involved in this. i have always been concerned about the relationship with rank and file sort of people and then having to work side-by-side with private contractors from these nefarious companies like

blackwater and stuff who were paying a much higher salaries and the morale situation you had. host: susan, thank you. she did bring up the fact about russia and china and other countries as far as the role they will play in the future of afghanistan. what are your thoughts about that? guest: that has been one of the questions for the past few years. russia had some relationship with the taliban. that is gone. russia's interest in afghanistan don't seem to align that well with the taliban's. russia does not like the idea of terrorists operating in any part of the world, especially when russia is closer to them than the u.s. is. there is some cause for friction there. on the other hand, he taliban

has taken kabul and we have only heard a few things from russia. they may be waiting to see what happens. same thing with china. china does not share a lot of natural interest with the taliban. they have an alliance with pakistan and pakistan is a supporter of the taliban. china does not want to see a lot of terrorism coming out of the area and will be worried about the future government the taliban will have. but they, too, have been quite. a lot of people are worried that china is going to open up economic assistance to the taliban and recognize them. i think it is too early to say that. i don't think china is going to want to be launching them onto the international stage as a superpower supporting the taliban. host: the book is called "the

american war in afghanistan: a history." mr. carter malkasian, thank you for your time this morning. guest: thank you, i appreciate it. host: that is it for our program today. another addition comes your way tomorrow morning. we will see you then. ♪ [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2021] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] ♪ >> these manager unfiltered view of government, we are funded by these television company then more, including comcast. >> thieving this is just a community center? no. >> tomkat is partnering with a

thousand community centers to have wi-fi enabled area so that students can get the tools they need to be ready for anything. comcast supports c-span as a public service along with these other television providers, giving you a front row seat to democracy. >> walking from washington, d.c. to new york city, a former wall street journal reporter reflects on his nearly 300 mile journey. >> during -- doing it a year later with all that has happened, all of us walking behind masks and being shut in after a long covid winter. the events that we saw play out on january 6, the contested election. there's a lot of black -- bad blood in the air. i went out on the fifth day of spring and just walked to the

spring and see it unfold. and i looked up close and very slowly. meeting people along the way, trying to understand where were we as a country. >> ne-yo king on his nearly 300 mile journey, walking from washington, d.c. to new york city sunday at 8:00 eastern on c-span's q and a. you can find interviews wherever you get your podcast. ♪ >> this is the washington journal for august 21 at the white house, yesterday president biden vowed that any american who wanted to leave afghanistan would be able to do so, offering a pledge to afghans who assisted u.s. efforts to be taken out of the country and that press conference. he also defended the administration's handling of the