reliability and choice. now more than ever, it starts with great internet. >> wow supports c-span as a public service along with these other television providers, giving you a proceed to democracy. -- giving you a front row seat to democracy. coming >> up today on c-span >>, a marine corps commandant talks about the current state of the marine corps live at 11 a.m. eastern. at 1 p.m., defense secretary lloyd austin and joint chiefs of staff chair hold a briefing on the pentagon at the end of the u.s. military mission in afghanistan and you can watch our live coverage online at www.c-span.org or listen on the free c-span radio app. coming up, former fema director craig fugate discusses the agency's role in responding to

hurricane ida. then i look at the u.s. troop withdrawal from afghanistan and its impact on veterans with leo shane. be sure to join the discussion with your phone calls, facebook comments, text messages, and tweets. "washington journal" is next. [video clip] pres. biden: americans, the war in afghanistan is now over. host: president joe biden declaring an end to the 20-year war in afghanistan, proclaiming the withdrawal of 120 thousand people from afghanistan a success. pointing to a new direction in american foreign policy and counterterrorism. good morning. it is september 1, 2021, a wednesday, and welcome to "washington journal." we will spend the first hour this morning asking about the president's handling of the withdrawal overall. we will hear from the president, more from his speech.

we will hear from his critics come as well. most importantly, we will hear from you. democrats, (202) 748-8000. republicans, (202) 748-8001. independents and others, (202) 748-8002. afghan war vets, you can use (202) 748-8003. that is the same number you can use if you want to send us a text. tell us your name and where you are texting from. we will look for your posts on facebook it also welcome your comments on twitter and instagram, @cspanwj. president biden speaking yesterday for about half an hour in the middle of the afternoon. this is the reporting on that speech and the comments on military times this morning. headline, biden defense afghanistan exit, we have been a nation too long at war. a day after last troops left afghanistan, president biden

evident his decision to withdraw military forces from the country as a choice of saved american lives, despite the frantic and deadly evaluation mission that followed in recent weeks. they real choice was between leaving or escalating, and i was not going to extend this forever war, biden said in his fifth national address on afghanistan in the last 10 days. he also said, we will maintain the fight against terrorism in afghanistan and other countries, we just do not need to fight a ground war to do it. on tuesday just before midnight in afghanistan, the final u.s. troops at the kabul airport left the country, ending the nearly 20-your american military presence there, prompted by the september 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in new york, washington, d.c., and pennsylvania. the author of that piece, leo shane, will join us later in the program here at "washington journal." one aspect that has been talked about is the ability to look over the horizon, they have been

calling it, for potential trouble in that region, including terrorist efforts. the "wall street journal" writes about that this morning -- doubts rise on over the horizon plan. president biden and his aides promised the u.s. can keep terror threats from afghanistan with over the horizon surveillance and strikes now that u.s. troops have departed. counterterrorism and intelligence officials say it will be much harder and less effective than the white house suggests, is a chaotic and deadly u.s. evacuation winds up, the u.s. has lost many key assets for tracking violent militants and their plots, they say. there was infrastructure that provided a platform for operatives from the central intelligence agencies, gone are the u.s.-backed afghan government that worked closely with american spy services.

gone, evacuated, or scattered our afghan agents are troops who sent on the ground information to the cia. officials acknowledge the military has lost 90% of the intelligence capabilities that had using drones before the drawdown of forces that began in may. that is on the opinion -- that is from the wall street journal. on their opinion pages, a similar sentiment expressed. on the withdrawal, age is awesome -- a dishonest afghan accounting. they write that mr. biden wants americans to believe that the u.s. can counter this from "over the horizon," by which he means drones and satellites, but now the u.s. has no military in the country and no cia listening posts, no friendly government or allies to locate and gather intelligence. the u.s. has those assets in yemen, somalia, iraq, and syria.

that is the opinion of " the wall street journal." your opinions, (202) 748-8000 free democrats. (202) 748-8001 for republicans. independents and others, (202) 748-8002. here is the president from yesterday defending his decision to continue with the withdrawal. [video clip] pres. biden: maybe august 31 was not due to an arbitrary deadline. it was designed to save american lives. my predecessor, the former president, signed an agreement with the taliban to remove u.s. troops by may 1, just months after i was inaugurated. it included no requirement the taliban work out a cooperative governing arrangement with the afghan government, but it did authorize the release of 5000 prisoners last year, including

some of the taliban's top war commanders among those who just took control of afghanistan. by the time i came to office, the taliban was in its strongest military position since 2001, controlling or contesting nearly half of the country. the previous administration's agreement said that if we stuck to the main one deadline they had signed on to leave by, the taliban would not attack any american forces, but if we stayed, all bets were off. so we were left with a simple decision, either follow through on the commitment made by the last administration and leave afghanistan or say we were not leaving and commit another tens of thousands more troops going back to war. that was the choice, the real choice. between leaving or escalating.

i was not going to extend this forever war, and i was not extending a forever exit. the decision to end the military lift operations at kabul airport was based on unanimous recommendation of my civilian and military advisors, the secretary of state, secretary of defense, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, and all the service chiefs and the commanders in the field. their recommendation was that the safest way to secure the passage of the remaining americans and others out of the country was not to continue with 6000 troops on the ground in harm's way in kabul, but rather to get them out through nonmilitary means. host: we would like to hear from you this morning, your opinion on how you think president biden

handled the withdrawal from afghanistan and what may lie ahead, as well. comments on social media, on twitter, @cspanwj, same with instagram. a tweet here, i am concerned that biden has cut some type of private deal with the taliban. has he sent pallets of money to them? why didn't he waver from the august 31 date to be gone? this one says that republicans are always going to try to revenge and impeach biden. biden got us out of war using the republican doha taliban deal come about as bipartisan as we are ever going to see today. and a text from birmingham, alabama, says joe biden said we were going to get out and now we are out, thank god. we lost 2996 in the world trade center, 2461 in afghanistan. prayers for the families of our most precious treasure.

democrats, (202) 748-8000. republicans, (202) 748-8001. all others, (202) 748-8002. first to susan in milford, pennsylvania, democrat. caller: yes, hi, i would like to say that i am so thankful to have president biden there, such a difficult problem as the war in afghanistan. it was like a runaway train, and he stopped it. thank god for him. he has done a wonderful job, and he is a humanitarian. one of the first presidents to have a son or daughter that was in the war, to know how it feels to lose a child, which you cannot say, i am sure, for most of the congressmen and senators. so thank you, president biden, for being a humanitarian and a well-balanced, thoughtful person

that thinks about trying to measure all the different problems, the taliban, what they might do next, and trying to get as many people out of afghanistan as he could. it was impossible to get every single person out. i heard this morning on the news how hard they worked, for weeks and weeks and weeks, to contact the americans there to arrange for them to get to the airport in afghanistan so they could escape, get out of that place. it was impossible to do 100% perfectly, but thank you, president biden. i am so in awe of the job you have done, and that is what i say. host: this is an opinion piece from the "washington post" on the cost of the war. here is the price tag -- that is now the cost of what president

biden is calling a generational investment to rebuild america, that is the price of the so-called war on terror since 2001, as detailed by brown university's watson institute. the cost to u.s. taxpayers of sending forces to afghanistan, iraq, libya, syria, yemen, and other countries in a continuing war, that as biden implied last week, has metastasized more than succeeded. roughly half of that total, $2.3 trillion, she writes, went into afghanistan. that does not include the price is human cost of nearly 6300 american lives lost, thousands more wounded, and the vast losses suffered by the afghan people. even as the foreign policy establishment savages fighting for ending the occupation in afghanistan, one can only be outraged by the money and lives squandered on military adventures that have ended in disgraceful calamities.

the republican leader in the u.s. house, kevin mccarthy, yesterday, called for a full accounting of the end of the afghanistan war. here are some of his comments. [video clip] >> listened yesterday to general mckenzie, saying american troops have left afghanistan, but we did not get everybody out that we wanted to get out. i heard the pentagon say the time just was not there to get more americans out. but let me be crystal clear, this isn't the u.s. government's timeline, it is the taliban's timeline. right now, their four simple things -- when is the plan to bring americans home safely? not some, but every single american. what about the weaponry that has been left behind, accounting for that? i sit -- they taliban should not

be recognized as the government of afghanistan, and a prohibition of any support or assistance of resources with money to the taliban. every member with me today has that simple question. the majority of every number behind me is a veteran. what is the plan to get americans out? never in my lifetime what i ever believe america would have an administration knowingly make a decision to leave americans behind. whereas, just two weeks ago, the president promised this nation that he would not leave until every single american was out. we're two weeks away of the 20th anniversary of 9/11. we now have americans stuck in afghanistan, the taliban in charge, with more weaponry than

they have ever had in the past, and a border that is open. speaker pelosi, now is not the time to act like you could not see us on the floor, now is not the time to hide. we are a coequal branch. now is the time for leadership in congress, and we will lead. host: kevin mccarthy yesterday at the capital. comments on text, this says that biden's handling of the withdrawal borders on criminal, just like his handling of our security at the border. he is a sick man and so are his advisors. this one from georgia, i totally agree with president biden on ending the 20-year war. i had a son go to that war and worried every day for a safe return. i was blessed, but other families were not. a tweet about the house armed services today beginning to step

their annual defense authorization bill with lengthy markup and lots of amendments on afghanistan policy. let's go back to calls. let's go to linda in north carolina. caller: yes, thank you for taking my call. i am so disappointed in our president, my president. he said he would not leave any americans behind. then he takes 36 hours after this awful debacle to come out and talk to the american people and wouldn't answer a question. this is benghazi on steroids. remember, he was in the administration 10 years ago when they could have stopped it.

they did nothing. and then he blamed the rest of the world for the 20-year war. he is a coward. and c-span has changed their thing completely. you used to have a call-in program after every presidential address. you never do that anymore. no, you let the gully walkers put all of the disinformation out, and then you have a program on it that says nothing. host: rosetta in danville, virginia, democrat. caller: yes, good morning. i am proud of president biden. he went there -- the president that just left office was donald trump. when he won, he never went over

to say congratulations. he was going to draw the troops out in they may. now what is so wrong, now he got most of them out? yes, i think if he could have, he should have got the rest of them out. but let's stop downing this president. and i look at the republicans, some of the things they are saying about biden. let's be america, still democrats or republicans. let's be the land of the free and stop all this that is carrying on in america. thank you. host: a call from lexington, texas, democrat. caller: can you hear -- thank you for taking my call. yeah, i think way too long, but

war is were, unfortunately. as far as leaving anybody behind, i do not know about that exactly, whether we did that or not. and to that lady in north carolina, i agree with some of the things she said. doing this and that, yeah, i really don't understand that, but, oh, well. it is what it is, isn't it? that is what i have to say. y'all have a nice day. host: a previous caller expressing concern about americans remaining behind in afghanistan. here is reporting from the "washington post" about that fear and uncertainty for americans and their afghan partners stranded in afghanistan. mike, a 20 nine-year-old u.s. green card holder, an afghan interpreter for the u.s. army, later worked as an uber driver in washington, d.c., is now huddled in a hotel outside kabul. his wife, three young children, parents, brother, and sister

stranded in the country, running out of money and hope. the family on the run from taliban fighters who once helped americans battle desperately tried to get on a plane out of the country. a former army captain and his company commander in 2012 arranged passage on the u.s. military flight, but the family never made it through the crowds . "there is really no way out," he said, who said mike had returned to afghanistan to help his family escape. we should celebrate every single human being we got out of afghanistan as an incredible victory, but the mission is only halfway of her. we still have a moral responsibility to get these people appeared president biden yesterday said the evacuation of some 120,000 people was a success. [video clip] pres. biden: last night in couple, the united states ended 20 years of war in afghanistan, the longest war in american

history. we completed one of the biggest air lifts in history, with more than 120,000 people evacuated to safety. that number is more than doubled -- more than double than most experts know as possible. no nation has ever done anything like it in history. only the united states had the capacity, well, and ability to do it, and we did it today. the extraordinary success of this mission was due to the incredible skill, bravery, and selfless courage of the united states military and our diplomats and intelligence professionals. for weeks, they risked their lives to get american citizens, afghans who helped us, citizens of our allies and partners and others on board planes and out of the country. and they did it facing a creche of enormous crowds seeking to leave the country, and they did it knowing isis-k terrorists,

sworn enemy of the taliban, were lurking in the midst of those crowds. and still, the women and men in the united states military, our diplomatic corps, and intelligence professionals did their job and did it well. risking their lives, not for professional gain but to serve others, not in a mission of war but in a mission of mercy. 20 service members were wounded in the service of this mission. 13 heroes gave their lives. i was just at dover air force base for the dignified transfer. we owe them and our family -- their families a debt of gratitude we can never repay that we should never ever forget. host: back to your calls on afghanistan. bill in chicago, independent line. caller: thank you, sir. let's be clear, biden is wrong,

two left shoes. with that in mind, let me follow that up with suggesting that, why can't the congress or the president release of the agreement between the taliban leadership and trump, while trump was in office, so the people can really decide what the truth of the matter is? biden keeps going back to this agreement. trump's former advisers say it was a conditions-based agreement. biden says they did not. in his words, he was left a mess that he was stuck with. so release the agreement between trump and the taliban, and let's see who is telling the truth in regards to the agreement. the second point, no president or congress is locked into any agreement said by the previous

president are congress. so whatever trump or whatever the congress before biden took office had done, biden can change all of that, even with the executive order. and if the court decides to stop that executive order or put a halt to it, so be it. so biden is misleading the public in terms of the power of the president. he is not locked into agreement, an agreement he could have certainly changed if he disagreed with trump's agreement with the taliban. and third, clearly, as of may 1 through august, what was biden doing? he clearly broke the agreement that trump had set, even according to him. he thought he was locked in, but he was not locked into the exit date, which he extended to august 31. host: maria is next in salt lake

city, good morning. democrat's line. caller: good morning, sir. i am rather old now. i remember my sister son's was killed in vietnam. i remember that messy withdrawal. i do not know if it is possible to have an orderly withdrawal. i did think this one was sloppy. seems like the united states, beginning with vietnam, has always had sloppy withdrawals. host: and do you think this will cause us to more carefully consider how we involve ourselves merit --militarily in future conflicts? caller: we should have been

doing that ever since the vietnam war, but it depends on who is the president. and it is a disadvantage to everyone. we have -- we do not have a draft now. but i agree, each american life is precious to their families, at least, and to all americans, actually. so i don't know -- there are always advantages and disadvantages to everything. but i am glad we are out. host: thanks for the call. clarksville, tennessee, independent line. caller: yes, sir. thanks for having me.

i am proud of joe biden and what he has done. unfortunately, when i was there, when 9/11 took place, i was 41, and here it is, i am 61, and they finally got out. it was a good thing. but america does not cut and run. those soldiers who served, they did an outstanding job. they are not giving him kudos for clearing out all those americans from there, and those who stayed back, they stay for personal reasons, but the state department know who they are. equipment that was left behind was probably inoperable anyway. i have a feeling that, in the end, mccarthy and those republicans who are trying to downplay this, they got to see it for what it is. it is one of the best moves the u.s. has ever made for the

moment. and i think mr. biden did very well. host: the house speaker responded to the president's comments. our capitol hill producer tweeting this yesterday evening, the speaker to house members tonight on congressional oversight of the u.s.-afghan at penn policy, -- afghanistan policy, congress will continue to be briefed regularly and work closely with president biden and the administration to address the security and humanitarian challenges that remain for evacuees and those who wish to be evacuated. to that end, all of us continue to press for the evacuation of those still in afghanistan and wish to leave. they thanked members for the cooperation. congressman biggs, chair of the house freedom caucus, in a news conference yesterday, the chair of the caucus called for the

impeachment of president biden over afghanistan. [video clip] >> it is unacceptable. it is unacceptable, and we going to continue to fight this thing through and raise accountability. so the freedom caucus, many of our members, it is a general consensus, we have, besides the impeachment effort of the homeland secretary, we have engaged now in an impeachment effort of secretary of state antony blinken. we believe that he has got culpability for much of the travesty that has gone on here. we have also called for resignation of various leaders. we're joined, for instance, in our call for resignations of secretary austin and general milley by 90 retired generals.

we also call upon -- the person who said the buck stops here, who said more than 20 times, we will not leave any american behind, the person who basically orchestrated the july 2 evacuation of bagram without telling afghanis, we call upon, most somberly, the resignation of this president, joe biden. host: comments on social media and by text, this one saying that biden can yell at the camera and try to blame president trump all he wants, but he left americans behind, president trump would not have left anyone there. bruce in ohio. since india says, i do not know what the president implemented a hastily drawn plan by the incompetent prior administration, why not reject that or dia and at the state department negotiate a better exit next year. i feel the 46th president has

acted honorably in getting up from a war zone, and those whose boots are children's boots have never hit the ground in a war should not criticize his actions. lastly, we need to stop concentrating on the last two weeks and concentrate on the last 20 years. that one for massachusetts. to del rio, texas, next. lee, democrat's line. caller: hi, good morning. i am a vietnam veteran, and i am proud of president biden. i know what wars are like, and it is very sad when the republicans -- [indiscernible] host: lee, you are breaking up a little bit. we will go to kathy in

louisiana, republican line. caller: good morning. i have very disappointed in what i am seeing and what i am hearing. i grew up in the service, and i realize what it is like to put your family aside to serve the country. the people that are still over there are not still over there by choice. some of them, i want to say they were speaking about it when the republicans talked last night, tried to get back into the country, and they were blocked. americans were blocked by the state department, americans, individuals, private citizens who had served already before that had gone over there to try and rescue. understand even our dogs were left behind that helped the soldiers. i cannot imagine --

host: actually, general mckenzie addressed that, those docs left behind were not part of the military effort. the general made that statement in a briefing yesterday that we covered. go ahead with your comment. caller: i do not even know what to believe anymore is true. i am glad they republicans stood up yesterday, but accountability -- i do not even understand accountability anymore. it seems only certain people are being held accountable. and things are changing so fast that, in this country, where freedom of speech is leaving every day, it is very disappointing to see what is going on and to see what the mainstream media does with the narrative every time that they want to carry the lines with

what is happening with this administration, but every day they fought what happened and they must administration. and what is happening right now is america is getting torn apart from the inside. we are all americans, and we are fighting each other while our border is open and god knows who is coming in, from where they are coming in, and what they're going to do. host: to houston, texas, next, billy on our democrat's line. caller: thanks for taking my call. i appreciate what you just onto the lady talking about the dogs left behind. she firmly believed that that was the case, and nobody else could tell them, but i thank you for telling her that that was not true. in the withdrawal from afghanistan, i remember george w. bush saying about the iraq war, afghanistan war, you are

either with us or you are against us, and that was the republican line and people had to accept it. now, here we are that everything that this president is trying to do, the republicans tell you that they are against it. so this right here now, we are in what is right now a modern civil war. this is a modern-day civil war, and people are being just pulled apart. we have got to do something to stop that, by showing some type of working together. host: the line for a text is (202) 748-8003. one from west virginia. for the folks proud of biden, how proud would you be if your loved ones were left over there to fend for themselves? we can only be somewhat crown if

and when he cleans this up and brings every american home. that is really all we need to be spending money and energy on. did trump ring any of our current allies to the u.s. when he said only into the opti kit -- occupation in northern syria? biden is completely responsible for this utter fubar disaster. he is nothing but a joke. michael and portland oregon sank the taliban releasing the isis-k fighters told us all we need to know about their future plans for the country, and on thinkable platform for the fostering of anti-, militant islamism. i doubt the over the horizon strategy will be more than slightly slow them down. watch out, pakistan. president biden yesterday talked about the future of the fight against terrorism, what that might look like. [video clip] pres. biden: we will maintain the fight against terrorism in afghanistan and other countries.

we just do not need to find a -- fight ground were to do it. we have what is called over the horizon capabilities, which means we can extract terrorists and targets without american boots on the ground or very few, if needed. we have shown that capacity, just last week, we strike isis-k remotely days after they murdered 13 of our service members and dozens of innocent afghans. to isis-k, we are not done with you yet. as commander-in-chief, i firmly believe the best path to guard our safety and our security lies in the tough, unforgiving, targeted, precise strategy that goes after terror where it is today, not where it was two decades ago. that is what is in our national interest.

and here is the critical thing to understand, the world is changing. we are engaged in a serious competition with china. we're dealing with the challenges on multiple fronts with russia. we are confronted with cyber attacks and nuclear proliferation. we have to shore up america's competitiveness and meet these new challenges in the competition for the 21st century. and we can do both. fight terrorism and take on new threats that are here now and will continue to be here in the future. and there is nothing china or russia would rather have, would want more, in this competition than the united states to be bogged down another decade in afghanistan. host: an opinion piece this morning in town hall, townhall.com, the ugly end we all saw coming.

he writes that at 9:05 p.m. monday night, a message was issued to the new rulers of afghanistan, the taliban need to meet commitments and obligations in afghanistan, tweeting, those commitments and obligations include respecting freedom of travel, safeguarding the basic rights of people engaging in town to terrorism -- engaging in counterterrorism. who is price kidding? here is the quick answer, no, the taliban will not do those things are the more immediate question is, what about the american still in afghanistan? we still believe there are a small number of americans, under 200, likely closer to 100, who remain in afghanistan and want to leave, secretary of state antony blinken said monday night. he would have never said it this way, but those americans are pretty much stuck. byron york says that is an end to what president biden pledged

will not happen, if american citizens are left, we will stay and get them all out, he told abc on august 19. that is from byron york, townhall.com. a call on our independent line, good morning to john. caller: good morning, and thank you for taking my call. i have been following this exit from afghanistan for the last two weeks. and i am surprised that everybody comes and criticizes president biden nobody comes up to give a plan that if president biden did this plan or did this, it was better, safer. or when president trump agreed with the taliban to exit afghanistan, what was his plan? was it what mr. biden did?

and isn't it a shame that they are making such a political game or political advertising for each other by blaming it on president biden, without showing that if he acted like this, that was better. come up with a solution instead of criticizing. thank you. host: to brenda in winchester, virginia, democrat. caller: good morning. i just want to say that starting wars are easy, ending them are hard. we have had two republican administrations now that have sent withdrawal dates beyond their terms, which means the democrat had to pick that up. why don't they do the withdrawal? because it is hard and messy. trump, if he had a plan, it would be out there everywhere.

he had no plan. you know? it boggles my mind come all this constant criticism. the other guy brought up the point in syria, thank goodness. whenever we pulled the troops out of syria, just the hypocrisy, it feels like whenever something tragic happens under a republican president, we are supposed to rally as americans, but when it happens under a democrat, it is just open season to demonize. it did not go easy, but let's compare this to vietnam. there was no mass evacuation once the communists took saigon. they airlifted them out, it was over. ford virtually said nothing. he was on tv days before, not even addressing vietnam but talking about successes in other

areas. as far as the peace agreement, it is out there if you want to find it. greta even showed it on the air and read clips of it on c-span the other morning. so many other thoughts are flooding my mind, but let's just try and move forward and learn from the mistakes that we have made. thank you. host: all right, the former secretary of state from the trump administration, mike pompeo, in new hampshire yesterday talked about the headline here from wmur in that state, on pao defense the trump administration's afghanistan strategy. some comments from the former secretary of state and potential 2024 presidential candidate. [video clip] >> you said that during your time conditions were not right to conduct evacuations. what could have made them right at that time, and how would this have been handled differently with president trump if you are still in office? >> we were clear on what the

conditions were, and your point is well taken, we went from 15,000 uniformed military personnel to about 8600. we paused to see the conditions, if we could secure american interests. when we saw that we could, we went down to roughly 4800. again, thoughtful, orderly, stable for afghanistan, stable set of conditions. then the decision to get down to about 2500, and at that level, 2500, for all that time, not a single american was attacked by the taliban, not one. this is unheard of in afghanistan. we knew and the taliban new that if they attacked an american or threaten american interests, we would make them pay a real price. we did that multiple times, and we had the deterrence when needed for that stability. the question, what would have been the right conditions?

it was an actual delivery of a break with afghanistan, a serious effort for peace and reconciliation with the rest of the afghans. we were not just talking to the taliban. that is what everybody is focused on. i was talking to the people in the north, to the afghan government, to folks in the western part, to women's groups, ngo's. we were working alongside of our plan to protect america's interests, working to try and create better conditions for the people of afghanistan, as well. all of that would have needed to come together for us to get to where president biden decided to get in a matter of weeks. host: an interview with mike pompeo on wmur yesterday. from illinois, winter people going to realize you cannot save everyone? these people -- have been warned since march to leave. why should we put more people in harm's way to rescue them now when they made the choice to stay as long as they have? with freedom comes personal

responsibility. this tweet, yay to the woman from washington for speaking the truth. today is a good day. i love when people come on and speak the truth. it needs to happen more often to help our brothers and sisters come to reality after having their brains scrambled by the power-hungry. this one says we lost this war 20 years ago it we cannot force our values on those who do not wanted. carol in laramie, wyoming. to new york city on the democrats line. tyrone, good morning. caller: good morning. thanks for taking my call. absolutely, the people were told in march to leave. any afghanistan person that helped us, they need to remember the kurds that were left and they helped us, too, not in afghanistan, but they were also a very valued part of what was going on. and we need to remember that these people have been out there

for 20 years, and their fighting for the rights of other people. i love the fact that joe biden left afghanistan. i am glad that he did what he did, and these people had ample opportunity to leave out of there. similar thing, you give an opportunity to protect yourself, and they were given an opportunity to get up out of there, the americans, and they were warned numerous times, get out of there, get out of there, and they refused, because they had the right to stay, and some had dual citizenship. ok, i understand that, but do not blame joe biden because y'all decided to do that. he made the decision to stay out there and then wait until the last minute, i will not say you deserve what you get, but you need to understand the circumstances. stop blaming joe biden for your decision. host: to joann on the republican

line -- independent line, in michigan. caller: yes, good morning. the answer to your question is, there are people that are left behind, and everybody who voted for this administration will have to take the blame, along with the president. our culture is going to be changed, where these muslims are coming into the various sections of our country. they do not integrate. so this is going to have a big impact on the region's where the muslims -- they don't integrate. and our open borders -- there are so many things that america is being changed. host: are you saying previous immigrants, muslim immigrants, have not integrated into society , at least there in michigan? caller: you know, i hear about royal oak in michigan, and i do

not know how true it is, but i heard that the local police there are unable to go into that community. maybe somebody could find that out for me. is that just a rumor or is that the fact? host: ok, we will go to lynn in north carolina, republican line. caller: i wish the democrats would take a hard look at what they said all about trump the whole time he was in there, how they put him down, how much they hated him. well, i'm sorry, biden does not know he is even in the world. he is beyond his prime. he left our people over there, and yes, some probably did choose to stay, but some wanted out of there and could not get out. and it is shameful, absolutely shameful. shameful that we would do this.

we are not america if we do this kind of stuff. host: to richard in sparta, new jersey, democrat. caller: i remember about six weeks ago, seeing news about all these people who helped us there wanting to get out, applied for visas six months ago. the state department held this up, ok, and we even passed a law about a month ago that we have to get these people out. nevertheless, the state department did not issue these visas. the state department is why a lot of these people are not getting out of there. and if you listen carefully to the last thing trump did or criticize, he said he would not have all these afghans come to america. so if trump was running the thing, i do not know what he would do with all the afghans helping us. so it is the state department. look back at at that, and you

will see. these people wanted visas. they would not let them out. it is the state department, and that is what should be investigated. host: "new york times" this morning, the taliban celebrated a complete victory on tuesday, achieving a goal they have nurtured through two decades, the exit of the rescue a soldier from afghanistan. the taliban's control had been essential, as full cities fell to the insurgents one by one, and the american military that once flexed its muscles across the entire country was reduced to overseeing a hasty evacuation from the airport in kabul. but on tuesday, the airport was in the hands of the taliban, offering an irresistible stage, and they made full use of it. " we have been fighting for this day for the last 20 years, to end this war, and attack of foreigners on us, and bring us

our own islamic government," declared the taliban spokesman, standing on the tarmac from which the last u.s. plane had departed only hours earlier. he was flanked by other taliban officials and fighters from the group's elite unit, and they led groups on a tour of the abandoned airport, which had a civilian side and military side the day before, used by western coalition forces. there was the story of another superpower whose ambitions had been dashed in afghanistan, ranging from suitcases and clothing to military vehicles, armored suv's, and even helicopters, which u.s. officials say were permanently disabled. extensive damage at the airport raised questions about how soon the facility could safely be used for flights. nearly everything had been looted or destroyed, down to the conveyor belts, passenger walk

wakes, and fuel trucks were out of commission. let's hear from paul in kentucky, republican line. caller: well, thank you for taking my call. if you will listen, i will tell you where the problem started. god told israel when they had to go to war, they should pray about it and not go in blindly, like we do. and he told them when they went in to utterly destroy man, woman, beast, and child. they did not go in to make 11 fair and try to please the world -- to make a love affair and try to please the world. go in to win, not to lose. that is what we do. we don't go in with plans to win the thing, we jump in head over heels and make a mess out of it. host: president biden yesterday said it was no longer in the

strategic interest of the united states to remain in afghanistan. [video clip] pres. biden: my fellow americans, the war in afghanistan is now over. i am the fourth president who has faced the issue of whether and when to end this war. when i was running for president , i made a commitment to the american people that i would end this war. today, i have honored that commitment. it was time to be honest with the american people again. we no longer had a clear purpose in an open-ended mission in afghanistan. after 20 years of war in afghanistan, i refuse to send america -- another generation of american's sons and daughters to fight a war that should have ended long ago. after more than two truly dollars spent in afghanistan -- $2 trillion spent in

afghanistan, the cost is estimated to be over $300 million a day for 20 years in afghanistan, for two decades. yes, the american people, hear this, $300 million a day for two decades. you take the number of $1 trillion, many say, that is still $150 million a day for two decades. what have we lost as a consequence in terms of opportunities? i refuse to continue a war that was no longer in the service of the vital national interest of our people. and most of all, after 800,000 americans serving afghanistan have traveled that whole country, brave and honorable service, after 20,744 american servicemen and women injured, and the loss of 2461 american personnel, including 13 lives

lost just this week, i refuse to open another decade of warfare in afghanistan. host: president biden yesterday afternoon, just one of a number of polls in terms of the president's approval, this is a headline this morning, amid afghanistan withdrawal, biden's net approval rating is underwater for the first time. 48% of voters approving, 49 percent disapproving, a record low in his net approval rating. the share of democrats who strongly approve of biden fell seven percentage points after the taliban took control of kabul earlier this month. 47%, the lowest of his presidency. let's hear from elizabeth next and they send marcos, california. good morning. caller: good morning, c-span. mike pompeo is saying they could

have transitioned appropriately out of afghanistan is absurd, because they cannot even transition appropriately from the trump administration to the biden administration. there was chaos and non-planning there. i am actually really proud of biden. it could not have been an easy decision, obviously. when trump's agreement with the taliban was assigned, it also relieved -- released 5000 taliban fighters into the countryside. and when biden took office, he had 2500 troops, so he was faced with the prospect of having all of these new taliban fighters released into the wild with the force of only 2500. he would have had to start putting more troops in to maintain any kind of order

there. and then when the afghan government collapsed, of course you are going to have chaos at the airport. i also want to point out that something came out recently that said that, on the major news networks, cbs, nbc, and abc, in the year 2020, only five minutes had been devoted to news about afghanistan. so the american people were not tuned into what was happening in afghanistan for many years. i do not believe the american people really understand the challenges of afghanistan, the topography, the deep canyons in the remote areas, you know, challenges to any invading or occupying force. and that is what the troops had to put up with. i am proud of biden, because the costs were enormous, both in manpower and treasure.

i think that biden looks ahead to hurricanes, fires, tornadoes, climate change challenges, and realizes that we need to spend our money in this country. hopefully we will support on the world stage the good things that were accomplished their by our armies, the furthering of women's rights. and hopefully those things can continue. host: thank you for your call. sherry in florida calling on the independent line, good morning. caller: thank you for taking my call. i come from a family of military members, my grandfather and father all fought in the wars, many of them. i have a problem with the current president blaming trump. in the first 100 days, he signed 52 executive orders, 24 which reversed trump executive orders.

if he did not like this order, he could have reversed the order, and he did not. as far as people -- [indiscernible] i saw biden say on tv that no americans would be left behind. he says one thing to the public, then do something else. he left americans behind. and whether they had dogs were not, they should have been allowed to take them. host: one more on this topic, a call from florida, republican line. caller: yes, good morning. i just want to say being a republican, i voted for president obama and biden when he came twice. i think, personally, we need to quit blaming trump for everything.

whether trump ever is part of the solution or pollution or whatever, we need people to come together. anyone that cannot say that this was a total flop up is in denial. host: in our next segment we will focus on the damages caused by hurricane and more. we are joined by firmer -- former fema administrator talking about the impact of the hurricane and approved -- improvements made after hurricane katrina. later deputy editor leo shane comes a talk about the end of military operations in afghanistan and what might be ahead for u.s. military and national security strategy. ♪

>> theodore gilmore bilbo was an american politician who twice served of governor -- as governor of 19 -- of mississippi once in 1916 in the 1932 and he was elected a u.s. senator in 1935 and was reelected twice more but died in his third term in 1947. he was 69, a democrat and an outspoken white supremacist, and a strong supporter of fdr's new deal. we ask chester morgan, a retired professor as professor of history to give us background and his impact on politics in the fdr era. professor morgan is the author of "redneck liberal: theodore g. bilbo and the new deal." >> chester morgan on this episode of book notes+.

listen at c-span.org/podcast or wherever you get your podcast. ♪ >> this year marks the 20th anniversary of the september 11 attacks. join us for live coverage from new york, the pentagon, and shanksville, pennsylvania starting at 7:00 a.m. eastern, saturday, september 11 on c-span. watch online on ceased at desks c-span.org or listen on the c-span app. >> "washington journal" continues. host: joining us next is the former administered during the obama administration during the federal emergency management

association. welcome to washington journal. over the course of your career you have responded to hurricanes in the local, state and federal level, from what you have seen so far of hurricane ida, where does it rate in terms of your perception of its damage so far. guest: again, this is almost like we saw with superstorm stand -- sandy, areas of heavy rain -- damage due to the wind and rain in the parishes to the south and west. it is outside of the levee protected area. but inside, the areas that were devastated during hurricane katrina, those areas that have the levees systems are dealing with power outages. most of the people -- the damages inside the levee protected area are damages that

can be repaired quickly once the power comes on. further south, a lot of devastation and homes, that have flooded. that will take longer. host: that storm came ashore with 150 mile an hour wind. should we have expected the infrastructure damage, electricity infrastructure damage that we saw. guest: unfortunately, nothing i am seeing is unsurprising. these types of storms, this is what you get. and this has been a concern for a long time that our infrastructure is vulnerable to these types of storms. we have seen it in florida and in previous hurricanes that one of the big impacts to the communities is not just the physical damage of the storm, but the disruption to infrastructure that can affect far more people who might not have very much damage at all, but as we have here at coming out as they are doing -- heard doing assessments, days to weeks

to get power back on while they are dealing with is -- with extreme heat and he mitty. host: fema's role is not to restore that energy, so what is, in terms of responding, what can or what is fema doing at this moment? guest: the first area that they were focused on was supporting the governor's team and search and rescue operations and now they are getting into life support. some of the parishes down south in the hard-hit areas are offering people an opportunity to evacuate out. president biden did declare all of this area a major disaster area which turned on a lot of programs such as the individual assistance program that can provide temporary housing to people. and i think some people can take advantage of that or they can register and get assistance and somewhere to stay while this gets sorted out. you are hearing about the mayor, she is actually having her buses

up and running with air conditioning and sending those out to communities so people can cool off. fema will help reimburse. the financial impacts and a lot of that state and local officials are doing, and then they are bringing the generators and the army corps of engineers on behalf of the federal team. they are working mostly initial response and supporting the governor, and now they are getting into what i call the last part, how do we keep people safe while we try and put utilities back on. host: in terms of preparing for this, particularly the power outages, local officials and federal officials have a game plan for this sort of thing saying he can be without power for quite some time, do we have to do and you mentioned the mayor creatively having the buses running, offering air-conditioning for folks.

how long can that sort of thing be sustained? guest: again, they will bring in more resources as this starts to get stable. as power comes on you are able to shrink the footprint down. the big concern for the city is a lot of these lines that came down where the main transmission lines. you saw the images of the tower. we already know that they will have to rebuild this, this will not be a quick fix. we have done this before. superstorm sandy, a lot of the hospitals, the underground utilities were damaged by saltwater and we brought in very large generators to run that block, and if you remember you could run -- go down to where the hospitals work, roy after row of generators keeping them running because it would take a wild to repair underground utilities. these are things that as we get a better sense of what will come on quickly and what will take the longest, take sure that the

critical infrastructure has the emergency power and fuel supply to keep that running while we again, support the process of getting the utilities back online. host: a glimmer of good news on the power front from the "times picayune." "some customers get power restored after hurricane ida," and the other piece of good news is that the levee system seem to operate that way it was intended after repairs made 16 years ago after katrina. guest: it was not just repairs, we need to understand that this was a very large project that build a very strong levee system around orleans and other parishes that protect those areas. and, it performed as designed. i always put an asterisk on there, it worked in this storm, because things that we build mother nature has a tendency to

overwhelm. it did that the -- the job it was designed to do which was to keep the storm surge out of the city. that is what killed everyone in the previous storms, when the levee systems failed and we had thousands of people cut off and losing their lives. it is designed to prevent that. it does not stop the rain inside of the levee is and it does not mean that it can be overtopped, but it is designed as a total system to protect those areas and in this it did its job well. host: our guest is craig fugate eight, a familiar face here. the former administrator of fema, we welcome your calls and comments. those in the eastern and central time zones are 202-748-8000. that is the eastern and central time zones. mountain and pacific, 202-748-8001. and, if you have been impacted by hurricane katrina, the line is 202-748-8002 -- i said

katrina, hurricane ida. the line is 202-748-8002. my apologies, i am getting the phone numbers mixed up. if you were impacted by hurricane ida, the line is 202-748-8002. certainly, it is not just the new orleans and mississippi and that region, now along the east coast and new england will be affected by the rain let this storm is bringing. it did not bring as much rain as an -- as expected to parts of the south but bringing more than expected to parts of the appellations, the central part of the u.s. and up into new england by tomorrow and the next day. guest: this storm is not over, and if you look at the national weather service they have a concern about heavy rain and flooding and -- in pennsylvania

and up into the northeast and the storm is not moving as fast, which is where you get into real trouble, persistent rain over regions. so, basically, if you are in the path of the remnants, you need to pay attention for flash flooding and flood warnings from the weather service over the next day or so. host: and watching it develop into the weekend, that storm seemed to really explode in size. in your opinion, is that evidence of climate change affecting and accelerating the growth of a storm? guest: that is the trend we are seeing, rapid intensification. it has happened before but not with the frequency we have seen in the last 10 years. there is a lot of the data pointing to that two signals are clear when it comes to tropical systems is that we are seeing more rain because the old -- the atmosphere contains more moisture and the ocean waters are warmer.

and, we are seeing the storms becoming major categories and rapid intensification. if you go back in the last decade we have seen a lot more of this than we have had in our recorded history of these hurricanes. host: based on the intensifying storms that we are seeing, is it time for fema and other agencies to reassess the protection of the infrastructure, how strong the infrastructure is against potential storms that might hit it. guest: this goes back to the infrastructure bill. one of the big pieces that the people that the emergency management immunity was looking at is that the requirement to build resiliency into construction, and here is our problem we have built a lot of our infrastructure for past events, for past experiences, past frequency of these disasters. we are seeing a period of time where we are seeing more

frequent and devastating disasters and the infrastructure was not billed for it. and neither for a lot of our systems like the evacuation plans that say we need five days to get ready to evacuate. rapid intensifiers might occur inside the planning window. we are having to look at this and go not only do we need to think differently about how we will prepare our communities, we have to make certain as we rebuild our communities we are not building back the way it was. a good example is the levee protection system. we just did not fix the levee system. they built an entirely new system designed to prevent what happens during katrina, and the army corps of engineers, i want to be clear about this, that is an example of building resilient infrastructure. it does not mean that it will not fail, but it is unlikely to fail catastrophically. host: a headline, "a plea to

louisiana evacuees after a storm, do not come home yet." how does that complicate the problem of recovery when evacuees try to return home early? guest: again, this is something we always struggle with. people want to get home and see how bad it is and start cleaning up, you don't have power and in many places they do not have water or water pressure or if they do have water it is under a boil water order. there is not a lot of resources. we already have the hospitals filled with people with covid. coming back into the area, and this is something i think we lose track of, is how many people are seriously injured or lose their lives after the storm passes doing recovery, whether it is falls, traffic crashes, carbon monoxide poisoning's, a whole host of other things. the governor and local officials safely is, do not make it any harder on the rescuers and responders.

and, keep yourself safe. when the power is on and it is safe for you to come back, we want you to come back right now you will not necessarily -- everybody's things that i will not cause a problem, gas stations are either out of gas or do not have power, stores are closed. you will just become another family that is going to need assistance that is competing with everybody else. if you are somewhere safe, and you can just stay another couple of days, give local officials and responders time to start getting things safer, and, hopefully get power turned on in some areas so you can get back home and start cleanup. host: in our line for those affected were impacted by hurricane ida is 202-748-8002. we would love to hear your experience and how things are going. we will go for that line and hear from arnold, in texas. good morning. caller: good morning, how are you doing.

first of all i thank god that we did not get hit directly, but i want to tell the federal government what they have done for us with the levees and all. i also have a problem with our mayor. you know, we were able to get out because we had money and i think that the city should have been evacuated. even though you did not get a direct hit the power went off. i have 40 and 50 people calling me and i am cash apping money so they can get out. and i think the city could have done a better job at prevention at what is going on. host: what would precipitate an evacuation order from a city like new orleans? guest: it is based on how strong the storm is, what is the possibility of the levee system being overtopped and how much rain they could get inside.

a lot of this goes back to -- a lot of our plans, particularly for urban areas require a lot of time to evacuate and with rapid intensifiers we are not getting the window to do that. so, they made a decision. there will be a lot of questions about that and unless you are in operation center with the mayor and the team you are second-guessing. i think this is something that we need to think about is, evacuation may not always be possible given the storms occurring close to shore or rapidly intensifying and we need to look at other options. the question is do we always do a full evacuation, do woo wee evacuate parts of the community -- do we evacuate parts of the community. new orleans has not done this. we are coastal, we do not have the levee system but we rely upon evacuating people out of the flood zones. the question we will have to start asking is should we be

looking at building safe areas closer to where people have to evacuate from so they do not have to go as far? with cities like new orleans and houston they have large evacuation areas. should we be thinking about other options or other facilities to shelter within communities for the population? again, this is something that is a challenge that we will have to look at, but again i will not second-guess when people make a decision in this situation. i think we will get more of that when we get past the storm and we look at the after actions and going what were the options and what decisions got made. i always ask this question. i do not ask what went wrong, and i always ask what can we do differently? host: frank in birmingham, alabama. good morning. caller: my call was with reference to the evacuees in

afghanistan, could i still make comments on that? host: we will talk about that in the next segment. so could you call back. mike in north carolina. caller: i had a question, with your experience with all of these hurricanes and stuff, i heard you say earlier that the underground utilities were affected by the saltwater. what is your opinion, like i know it is kind of burying from the typography of being close to the ocean and stuff, which is the best way to go back with utilities, aerial or underground? guest: case-by-case. there is a utility in california that recently announced that they will go underground. in a utility in florida that has had a lot of hurricane response announced that they will start undergrounding.

the primary reason not to underground has always been the cost. it is costly per mile because -- to do underground utilities. what they are finding after repeated events where they have lost power or they have had fire caused by power lines, or they had to rebuild the systems, that going underground long term make sense anymore resilient grid. whether we are underground or aboveground, all of that needs to be taken into consideration. also, what are other options such as you are hearing a lot of terms like micrograms -- microgrids or smart metering or the example in california when they had power shut off they said if we had all of the electric vehicles that were plugged into the houses charging they could reverse that and use those batteries to power the homes, we could have make up the difference in the power that we had to conserve by shutting off power. think about it as we see more

electrical vehicles that -- we even saw this in the texas freeze and people were running their house off of the truck generator. that might be something we see more in the future as we see this change to more electric vehicles that we build grids that when we lose the big transmission, we still have localized power available for our vehicles. host: you mentioned the texas winter problem with the grid. do you think the energy industry itself has stepped up in terms of developing more advanced and harden infrastructure? switchgear and all the things that transformers and stuff like that to ask traut -- to survive extremes of the weather? guest: i think there is a lot of research that has developed techniques, some facilities are, but this is the flipside. utilities are regulated industries where your electric bill is regulated generally by your state, the public service

commissioner or electric rate setters and there is a tension between utility operating costs and what it would cost to ratepayers. unfortunately i think we have been in this battle where we have been trying to keep prices low and not providing the capital to make these investments. this is something that i think regulators need to think about is we need to build our grids to be resilient to the destruction that we are seeing, and that will cost money, how do we do this. part of it might be congress looking at this as ways to regulate or provide financial tax credits. but, i do not think it is a lack of what we need to do, it is how do we pay for it without excessively impacting ratepayers. host: russ, and texas. "is the habitation of certain lands not suitable for the type of infrastructure today along the coastlines in some states?" guest: we are getting there.

in the state of louisiana governor edwards had already been identifying that there might be parts of the coastal areas that they either need to relocate or they might not be able to rebuild and this is on a case-by-case basis. it is not as simple as you should never rebuild, because of the oil industry, shipping, the seafood industry, these are areas that we cannot abandon, but i think we need to make decisions about how we rebuild, where we should rebuild, and make sure we are building it for future impacts, not just back the way it was. host: let us hear from adam, from kentucky. go ahead. caller: question for your gas. in a full transparency, kind of a pro-fossil fuel guy. as we move towards this greener climate agenda can you speak to

-- if you are going to harden the infrastructure, have you thought about hardening the baseload. we are stepping away from natural gas, and is that a good idea when you see that these events are getting stronger, how is it going to impact the wind and solar when the grid goes down and you get 150 mile an hour wind that come through a solar field, are they as resilient as a power plant or something of that nature? guest: one of the problems we have with most of our generation capacity is not it is not located where it is consumed and that creates a single point of failure, the further away from the people the plants are, those transmission lines are a vulnerability. the advantage is a lot of the other technology is that you can do more generation near or at a point where it is consumed and that reduces the point of failure. just like anything else, the

solar cells, those panels can be designed and engineered to go on rooms. -- on roofs. that is one of the things that the building code people are looking at, is higher standard roofs and you add solar you are not creating a wind problem or damages. it can be engineered. same thing with the wind turbines, they can shut down and secure and there will be failures. but that is all taking into consideration that as we move away from big generation far away from where it is being consumed to more generation to where it is consumed, we reduce the frequency of big disruptions that we see, particularly in these types of hurricanes. when you knock out the transmission lines, that really reduces the ability to get power back up quickly, because you are doing more generation within and around the city, that what it

been less than of a single point of failure. host: denise in washington. good morning. caller: good morning, i would like to ask you how fema is responding to the wildfires happening out here in the west. i know it is totally the opposite of what you are talking about. host: glad you brought that up, thank you. we have a sideline -- a headline from the cnn, the caldor fire, lake tahoe resort city facing critical hours as the fire closes in threatening 44 -- 34,000 structures. guest: fema has been supporting the governors, this is where people say what is fema doing? we are generally in support of. on the wildfires it has been the financial existence -- assistance for fire costs on nonfederal land and we are starting to see because of the impacts to housing, major

presidential disaster declarations helping people without insurance. a lot of what fema is doing in the wildfires is financial support to the state and local officials that are fighting fires on nonfederal land. obviously, that u.s. forest service is coordinating that with anterior for all of the federal lands. -- with the interior for the federal lands. and now you're seeing fema programs that are being turned on to help the families. host: based on the summer, is it time for the forest service to reassess how they approach both managing forests and do we need to beef up the firefighting resources that are available at the federal level? guest: we were still implementing a lot of the changes to forest service is recommended, -- forest services recommended. we can spend more money fighting fires and we have to also look at why we are getting higher starts and how to manage the

forest and what needs to be done. in some cases we have had, and this is a new policy that was implemented and we are not letting areas that should have fire as a reoccurring theme to manage the forest occur because we had a zero tolerance for wildfires. but they are starting to move away from that. some of these areas have not had any fires for so long that the amount of debris and vegetation is exceeding the capability to manage. so, in extreme drought these fires literally -- there is nothing they can really do to try and put them out. it is really just keep people out of harms way and evacuate and hopefully get some better weather conditions to get the fires contain. host: we are focusing mainly on the effect of hurricane ida. your calls are welcome. eastern and central time zones, 202-748-8000. mountain and pacific, 202-748-8001. if you have been affected by the storm, 202-748-8002.

we will go to new york next and hear from jim. in morning. caller: good morning. i was just wondering if we couldn't use navy ships to back feed the grid and maybe see -- save some lives? and i would just like to hear your comments. host: did you hear his question? guest: something about back feeding the grid, and again it is rather interesting, it turns out if you buy an electrical vehicle, your batteries in your vehicle are generally two to three times what most family solar sister batteries are, -- system batteries are. this is exciting, vehicles are coming out with these chargers that can be wired into your home to act as basically uninterruptible power supply to feed your home. and that gives a whole lot of new possibilities of not having

to run a generator or anything like that. if your vehicle is charge you could provide three to four days of power for your home. these are the things that as we start exploring electrical vehicles, from the standpoint of emergency managers, everyone is looking at this to reduce fossil fuels and emergency managers are looking at it saying you could run your house on this. as we see this happening to more and more homes, they might be self-sufficient for several days because they have an ev and can run their home off of it. host: george from california asks "what measures are being taken for potential loss of vaccine and large gatherings of evacuees?" they might mean vaccine distribution or administrating? guest: vaccines are available and there is a little bit of disruption of the health care because they are focused on the

response, but they will pick vaccines back up. the other thing is is if you are not vaccinated, but they are doing in the red cross shelters is that you have to wear a mask and they are taking the people who have had covid or been exposed to covid and isolating them, so they are doing a lot of the things we were doing last hurricane season during the covid. the big difference is that where people are vaccinated it does lower the risk. this is one of the things for this hurricane season that was different, the message was last year was wear a mask and practice social distancing. this year was get vaccinated because if you do have to evacuate or go to a shelter it reduces your exposure risk. host: what is the traditional end of the hurricane season? guest: november 30. the hurricane season started issuing outlooks on may 15 and they usually start june 1. but we have seen storms occurring earlier.

it is not uncommon to see storms occur later into december. i think there is only been one month on record where we have not had a tropical system in the history of keeping an ion the south. the peak of it is coming up. it is usually the same anniversary of september 11, it is that second week of september. that is usually considered the peak of hurricane season, and again, the atlantic tends to calm down earlier than the gulf of mexico because the water is so warm out there. it will actually run into october or november with a fair amount of activity. we are not even into the peak of hurricane season. host: david and park hills, missouri. caller: i would like to address the situation you are talking about, the forest fires. back in the 60's i was in the job corps and it was fun. i learned heavy equipment operated and we invited the

department of forestry and we were taught forest fire training. it was an option to the regular training we would pick up and we would be sent out of state to wyoming and all kinds of places for forest fires. over the years the job corps has been really gutted, but it is still part of the department of forestry, and this looks like we should -- exactly what we should reinvest in so that the youth of the country needs heavy equipment operator and even the landscaping crews were taught tanker trucks. this is something that i really am trying to stir people up with and get the job corps running, especially with the heavy equipment and forest fire thing. this is a solution, i do believe. guest: you know, there are members of congress that agree with that. we are hearing a lot of talk about bringing back vestiges of the civilian conservation corps from the depression era.

and, refocusing that on a climate conservation corps and doing the exact same thing. taking people, bringing them into employment, giving them skills and putting them out there to a lot of this work. from the standpoint of wildfires, there is a lot of stuff that can be done to make it safer. there a lot of things that can be done making fire breaks, working on fuel reduction, think about all of the floods in the communities that do not have the resources to go in and do basic mitigation projects. there is a lot of interest in congress talking about bringing back a jobs program to take and basically match up with needs to do more on the climate impacts and helping communities, particularly those without a lot of resources and giving people skills. and so, there is actually legislation that is being introduced, people are talking about this, and i think this

might be another opportunity, very similar to what we saw with the americorps programs, some of which are used to support forestry. a lot of the time they are doing recreational trails. they are also used for helping out with wildfires and they are also used in the hurricanes. they will be part of the chainsaw crews clearing roads. it is a good idea and i think there are people in support of this and we will have to see what congress does. it might be a time to have a version of the civilian conservation corps, matching up jobs to the need to do a lot of this infrastructure improvement. host: as we talk about the continued effect of hurricane ida, this is a headline from florida, "tropical storm larry forms over eastern tropical atlantic." how early in the process do fema

officials get involved in tracking storms like that for potential action by fema after the storm? guest: fema has done this for so long we have fema employees embedded in the national hurricane center. fema watches the tropics from almost year-round. as these storms form, one of the first things they look at is if this has any potential impact to the u.s.. again we have to remember this includes the u.s. virgin islands and puerto rico. these are things that fema watches from the time there is a wave, they are monitoring. they do not wait until there is a hurricane. fema has staff at the hurricane center and at their regional offices in hurricane prone areas. they watch the tropics every day. host: i have to ask about your famous waffle house index that you developed. there is a headline in "usa today" about following that.

what is that all about and how did you develop it? guest: in 2004 we were getting so many hurricanes and i was out in the field and anyone who has been in disaster response knows that if you can get a hot breakfast early in the morning you got it because you do not know if you will get anything else to eat. the only thing we found open down in hurricane charley was a waffle house. when we walked in they did not have a full menu they had a limited menu and the power had gone out in the freezer was gone. the next day there was one open closer to the area of impact and we notice that if there was anything getting open, it was a waffle house. couple of folks came up with a start and it was the waffle house index. if it is closed, the roads are bad and the waffle house cannot get open. if it is limited menu, yellow, it is not bad it is a hard-hit area.

green, it is not a critical area. full menu. host: virginia, good morning. caller: good morning. i have a question about these fires. has anybody given any thought to -- i know it is called arson, but what about if they are terrorists over the border walking into the country and lighting up these fires. has any thought been given to that. i will listen to my answer off air. host: how much is arson a part of the fires out west to your knowledge? guest: there have been arsonists. they have arrested one. this is something that the forest service and the state forestry does, they investigate and find the cause of the fires. my home state of florida we have had cereal arsonists during peak fire weather seasons, so it is a problem, and it is something that it is important, i remember

in florida they did not treat this as a serious crime until we got into a bad drought and it was important for the state attorneys to begin prosecuting arson news -- arsonists to the full extent of the law. this was not some prank and this is deadly. we have seen it happen with accidents where responsible parties at various events and fires getting out of control and other events causing a fire are being held responsible. they keep an eye on this. they have investigators out to look for people who might be arsonists and try to stop it before it happens. host: j.p. in shady cove oregon. though ahead. caller: hello, good morning. i really thought your information about your knowledge based on the wildfires and forest conditions was spot on. my question does relate to

wildfire management more so than the hurricanes. as you both know, the bootleg fire in southern oregon was clocked in at one heaven lever -- 111 mile per hour firenado, these are similar issues, extreme weather events and climate change. do you think we could do a better job managing these federal forests if we could build our workforce capacity in local communities? and do you think that fema could help boost some of those financial backings? i will take my answer off of the air. guest: sure. fema would work with the state and local for the nonfederal lands. u.s. forest and interior has the federal lands. you are getting back to the point i talked about earlier is fuel reduction and managing that. that can be labor-intensive in areas that control burns might not be a best option. this is a cost, increasingly the

u.s. forest service has to divert money to fighting fires away from managing the forest. this is something we need to look at, is putting more emphasis before the fires on managing the forest, managing fuel loads, looking at reduction of fuel loads, and other activities to reduce the severity of fires, and that is labor intensive and costly. but investments are must -- much less costly than the devastation. host: fema administers the national flood insurance program and i wanted to get your response to recommendations made by the government accountability office earlier this summer, part of which they said congress should consider requiring fema to evaluate how its new flood risk information could be used to determine which properties should be subject to requirements. and, report to congress recommendations. gao is recommending that fema

use information related to the requirement to increase consumer information in -- precipitation in the flood market. does that mean higher rates for those who need it? guest: it means higher rates for those high at risk. for some paying higher premiums would go down because a risk is not high. here is key point, too many people, too many families who own their homes who are not in the special flood risk area, which people think is a flood zone that it is the insurance rate map, do not have flood insurance. it is the fastest, largest growing risk that people have. the problem is, more and more flood events are taking place beyond the high risk areas where fema has premiums set that can be rather expensive, and they are outside that special flood risk area, or outside of the risk area it is a flat rate for

flood insurance. generally 300 or $400 for your home until you get the full coverage on it. most people find out the hard way that if they have had flooding and they do not have flood insurance their traditional policy will not cover it. part of the recommendation is getting more people both in the special risk flood area, but more importantly people who do not live in the highest risk areas but still are at risk of flooding to take on flood insurance. as we saw in 2016 in the baton rouge floods and hurricane harvey, more and more families were flooding and did not have flood insurance because they did not live in a flood zone -- they were told they did not live in the flood zone. we are going to see a lot of significant flooding where people do not have flood insurance because somebody told them you do not live in the flood zone. that is not true. that means your risk and dashes lower and the insurance is not as expensive.

but without insurance the homeowners policy will not cover the rising water. host: i was going to -- this is from kentucky. caller: i wanted to talk about new orleans. my wife and i went every year. we wanted to go back when the french quarter is back up and running again. they need the tourist industry. if you get a chance go over there, it is one of our favorite cities. i want to tell you, bill, you are looking marvelous today. host: thank you for your call. any final thoughts? guest: i have grown up going to new orleans, part of my family lives out there. i love the city and he is right. once they get the power back on and do their cleanup, hopefully covid, we get that under control. it is a tremendous city to

visit. and when he gets back to normal, it is on my list to get back to visit. host: credit for gait, -- craig fugate, we always appreciate you being with us on "washington journal." host: next up we open up our phones for our open forum to hear from you with your thoughts on public policy issues and politics of the day including the withdraw from afghanistan. if you did not get to weigh in with craig fugate on hurricane ida, we welcome that, and any other policy or news issues. democrats,1. -- 202-748-8000. republicans, 202-748-8001. independents and all others, 202-748-8002. ♪ >> sunday night on q&a a

conversation with susan page about her biography "madam speaker: the life and political career of nancy pelosi." >> she was planning once hillary clinton was elected as so many people and i put my self in that camp, thought she would be elected in 2016. she was making plans to step down, she was 76 years old and she had some other things to do. but that election night was a shock for her and for so many others. she said that once she realized that donald trump was going to win the 11 deadlock should -- election, it was like a view of wood -- a mule was kicking her over and over again. by the end of the night she decided that she was going to stay and try to stand up to donald trump and to protect democratic priorities including the affordable care act.

>> susan paige on q&a. you can find all of their interviews wherever you got your podcasts. ♪ >> weekends on c-span2 are an intellectual feast. you will find events and people that explore our nation's past. on sundays, tv gives you the latest in nonfiction books and authors, television for serious readers. learn, discover, and explore, weekends on c-span2. ♪ >> "washington journal" continues. host: we have half an hour of an open forum where we hear from you on issues that we are following, public policy or political issues, the withdrawal from afghanistan, the latest on the delta variant or more. 202-748-8000 is the line for

democrats. republicans use 202-748-8001. for independence -- independentt and others, 202-748-8002. later this afternoon at 1:00 eastern we will hear from the chairman of the joint chiefs, lloyd austin first and then the chairman of the joy chiefs -- joint chiefs and the comments on the u.s. withdrawal from afghanistan, live on c-span. also streaming at c-span.org. this the "washington post" reporting on afghanistan. "the biden administration on tuesday began planning for the next phase of the u.s. relationship with afghanistan as the state department scrambles to stand up a remote diplomatic mission and continue working to help those stranded under taliban rule. diplomats will work from the capital of qatar where they will

assist refugees and liaise with representatives of the militant group whose capture of kabul this past month marked an ignominious end to the united states's two decades later. victorious taliban leaders cemented their own plans for afghanistan in a high-level three day meeting headed by the supreme leader which concluded in the taliban's birthplace city. the leader gave comprehensive instructions to my fellow senior taliban officials and according to a spokesman it is not clear what role the leader will play in any future government." also from the supreme court, a ruling even though they are not back in session, that will happen the beginning of october. this is from the texas tribune. texas can ban abortion procedure in section -- and second trimester. it is another blow to

reproductive rights after advocates after taxes passed a law this year that goes into effect september 1 banning abortions as early as six weeks. it is also currently being challenged in court. let us get your calls and we will go first to wilmot, st. petersburg, florida. democrat line. good morning. caller: good morning. my question today was in reference to the fires and the hurricanes. i want to know, at this point in this united states of america, as a democratic party -- has a democratic and republican party now realized that we do have climate change in this vast country of ours that has devastated us by fire, floods, and hurricanes at this point? what are they planning to do to bring this to fruition so some votes can get in congress and we

can pass laws and acknowledge that climate control is with us for the duration of the united states of america and our lives? host: cliff on our republican line in essex, maryland. caller: good morning. i have seen a lot of stories in the news saying that one of these vaccines has been approved , and that is a lie. they have not been fully fda approved. the only approval they received is a biogenic's licensing application that was approved. but these vaccines are still only approved under emergency use only. and these vaccines have done more death and harm then all of the vaccines that came before them combined. host: why do you say that? there is no evidence of that. caller: what are you talking

about, look at the cdc report itself. host: the vaccines have been found to be completely and almost largely safe. thank you for your call. arkansas is next. dorothy on our independent line. caller: i want to commend the president for his handling of closing the war in afghanistan. the war in afghanistan should have been over in 2011 when they killed bin laden. it should have been over then, and we spent too many years in afghanistan. i commend the president for how he has come forward and taken a strong stand, and now it is up to the contrary, the diplomats, to get the rest of the people who did not get out safely. i want to commend the president. host: more news from texas from "the wall street journal."

texas gop lawmakers approved voting bill. "republican lawmakers in texas sent a bill to greg abbott after overcoming months of hurdles by democrats who sought to kill the legislation including through a july walkout who saw many leave the state for washington, d.c.. the bill, which republican say, is a way to enhance election security would probably tighten voting procedures across the state. democrats said it would restrict access to the polls for minorities. abner abbott supports the measure and said tuesday that he looks forward to signing it into law." madison, illinois on the democrats line. it is open forward. go ahead. caller: good morning. i was absolutely shocked yesterday when this freedom caucus got up and did all of their mouthing off. you know, the republicans have

done nothing but raise cain with everything that has happened. how about the overthrow of the government with ex-president trump and the congress, and jim jordan who cannot explain how many times he has talked to trump. and, the whole bunch. and this leader in the house for the republicans, he gets up there and comes up with all of this stuff that they cannot even explain. but nothing is going except let us run president died and down.

host: going to james in monrovia, michigan on the independent line. welcome. caller: i have heard past president trump last week saying you do not pull the troops first. he was the one who pulled the troops first. if they were still there, we could have exited the way we needed to. all he does is live. he told us he would not be golfing when he was president, he spent half his time golfing. he told us he did not get a penny out of the tax cuts, he got plenty out of it. why do republican voters plugged their ears and close their eyes when trump speaks? that is all i got. host: next up is john in pounding mill, virginia, republican line. caller: i was just calling and i

watch you every morning, a lot of times i have to record it because i am working. i am amazed at everything that has happened since biden got elected and all the bad decisions he made, how many people calling and giving him an a ++ and so proud of the job he is doing. i swear if he gave an executive order to kill the firstborn of every american to combat climate change these people would still support him. does nobody look at what he is doing? thank you. host: a headline from politico, biden tries to move past afghanistan fiasco. "the united states officially endde its 20 year war and now joe biden are wasting so put -- racing to put the exit behind him. consumed with combating the most intensive crisis over the last few weeks, white house officials

are plotting a way forward that hinges tactically on biden's handling of the covid-19 pandemic and passage of his sweeping economic agenda on capitol hill. the cold political calculation is based on a belief inside the white house that americans buy in large will ultimately process the withdrawal from afghanistan as a necessary albeit difficult act even if they harbor lingering doubts about its execution." brandon in boston. that morning. caller: good morning. i want to know your thoughts because a lot of americans are on unemployment right now and states are not reinstating the bill. i do not see what biden's political party is doing to help people. it is like once you cut people off they expected growth to boom, and that is not the case because people are going through personal issues whether they are kids and cannot afford to get to their jobs, school, and bills.

so, i want to know what this party will do. plus with his pandemic it is very tricky. when a lot of americans are cut off, how do you expect anything to bounce back with no resources? thank you. host: ok. this is a headline reflecting that. 300,000 massachusetts workers face the end of unemployment. that is based on a follow-up to our caller from boston. in california, lupe is on the line. caller: hello. listen, to everyone to give you peace of mind and loving testimony, god is in control. just remember that. hello? host: thank you. we go to sam in lincoln, nebraska. good morning. sam, good morning. make sure your mute -- you move

your -- your volume there and go ahead with your comment. caller: i was just calling in and i am curious on when we are going to start linking our people behind our politics to the agenda that is happening, one that people keep ignoring. everyone wants to focus on afghanistan, but we needed to get out. the war was a joke the entire time. it was meant for pushing a globalist agenda and everyone is waking up and seeing the agenda but we cannot get anybody on the news to cover it. what are we going to start exposing the players behind it? you want to have democrats, republicans, independents, and conservatives. it is all birds of the same feather, nobody is paying attention to the strawman, nobody is paying attention to the global corporation and how we are all born into slavery under the social security system and how we need to solve the strawman before we can be free. host:

host: this is from the new york times on the delta variant. experts can't explain. the write, a mysterious pattern suggests the u.s. delta wave could be starting to ebb. he writes that as the delta surge in the u.s. finally peaked, the number of new daily u.s. cases has risen to less over the past week since any point since june. there is no guarantee the trend will continue, there is one big reason to think it may. it may soon decline. since the pandemic began, they often follow a regular yet mysterious cycle. in one country after another and in regions within countries. the number of new cases is often searched for roughly two months before certain to fall. the delta variant, despite its contents -- intense contagiousness, has followed this pattern. after delta took hold last winter in india, caseloads there rose sharply for more than two

months before plummeting at a near identical rate. in britain, caseloads roads -- rose from is exactly two months before peaking in july. in indonesia, thailand, france, spain and several other countries, the delta surge lasted somewhere between 1.5 and 2.5 months. in the u.s., states were delta first caused caseloads to rides, the cycle already appears to be on its downside. case numbers and arkansas, florida, louisiana, mississippi and missouri peaked in early or mid august and have since been falling. in washington, d.c., this is monique. good morning. go ahead. there you are. caller: good morning. i want to pray for the people in louisiana and hope that everything worked out for our fellow americans down there.

can you hear me? host: go ahead. caller: i think the biden administration did a good job as far as getting us out of afghanistan. we were in there for 20 years. they had a couple of weeks to get us out of there, and i feel so bad about our fellow americans that we lost, the 13 american soldiers that we lost. i pray for their families. we were there for 20 years. we only had a couple weeks to get out. i think our soldiers did an awesome job as far as making sure they got 99% of americans out of their and also a lot of the afghanistans who helped us throughout our troubles. we as americans, we have to stop

bickering back and forth. the democrats have issues as well as the republicans have issues. we have to stop. you know, we come together -- the thing i can say about americans, we know when to put specific things to the side. when things happen to our country and come together as one. i just hope we can get over the negative comments that we have amongst each other and try to figure out a better way, because our kids are going to have a better america. it is going to be less racism, and every thing. my son is 14 years old, he is a black kid. to be honest, he sees no colors. he sees no color. host: carol is in kentucky on the republican line. welcome. caller: yes. i would like to say he has not

ended the war. he has created one. thank you. host: ok. independent line, this is michael. go ahead. caller: hi, how are you doing? yes, i am just calling in reference to german that call before. -- gentleman that called before. it was on the cdc website, but when the number got to high they took the number down because the democrats don't want you to see. thank you. host: democrat line from georgia. good morning. caller: good morning, how are you? host: fine, thank you. caller: i am calling for several reasons. i didn't call in last month. first, i want to ask everyone to keep the families and their thoughts and prayers of those we lost in afghanistan, just think about what those families are going through.

and also pray to people in louisiana, mississippi that have experienced those extreme losses from the storm. and the people who are experiencing losses from fires out in the western united states. and i want to commend the president for getting us out of afghanistan because we have been there too long. someone had to end that war. i hope again that we will stop the back and forth, the blaming, whoever is blaming whoever for whatever. it is just ridiculous. we need to all try to support our government, republican, democrat, independent, libertarian, whatever you are. please know that people have been in afghanistan for a while.

the united states was pulling out it was as much their responsibility as the government to try and get themselves out of there. they didn't have to wait until the last minute. if you know, the former president signed an agreement to have us out in may and the current president said we would be out in august. you had all year to try to get out of afghanistan. a lot of people did not want to leave, and we have to recognize that. but we also can't blame our government for leaving behind. just because they didn't put the effort forth to get out. host: thank you for your call this morning. our producer tweeting about the president schedule this morning. president biden will participate in a bilateral meeting with his excellency, the president of ukraine in the oval office is afternoon. the independent line, marvin.

good morning. caller: yes, i have a question for the global climate change people. when has man ever been able to control the weather? the weather, the climate to come has always been changing. yet, we are saying we are going to be able to stop burning fuel or stop driving cars and making change. we've never been able to control the leather -- weather. when macy think you'll be able to do it now by bringing all these toxic -- taxes on people? how are you going to change the weather that way? i don't understand. we are never going to be able to change the weather -- to control the weather. host: steve, republican line. virginia beach. caller: good morning.

i have a comment on the covid situation. i just don't understand -- we will never get under control if they let games go on like these professional games. they are gripping up all the people and spreading the covid. college campuses, he go to certain apartments, campus police -- none of them are wearing masks. yet all the students are required to wear masks. until they get all under control and make everybody wear masks to have some kind of control on it, is just going to keep spreading. that would be like going from one airport to another, one store has mask wearing another doesn't. how could you ever control a customer at ones wearing the masks, they are going to another threat is a and spinning it all around. -- store that is not requiring

it and spreading it all around. what is the purpose of it if you are not going to control it? host: headlined is money revoking political reality during august recess. it says absent democrats give republicans new opening on afghanistan. they say house republicans are seizing on the absence of their democratic colleagues in washington by launching a full-scale political attack on president biden and his top aides after the deadly withdrawal from u.s. forces from afghanistan while congressional democrats have been largely silent after monday's official end of the war. any back in their commercial districts for the final three weeks of the summer recess. house minority leader kevin mccarthy in recent days has held a pair of news conferences in the capital demanding that speaker pelosi called the house back into session. he also convened a roundtable of two dozen afghanistan vets including representative from texas and new york for action. you can look for coverage of

those events on our website at c-span.org. tommy is in illinois on the democrat line. it is up form, good morning. caller: good morning. people don't understand, the commanders in the field told biden it was best to follow trump's plan. biden refused to follow trump's plan. he did everything backwards from what trump had planned. britain, france, italy and others follow trump's plan. they got all their people out, they went out into the country, picked up their people, took them to the airport, and got them out of afghanistan. then they got everyone else out. that was trump's plan. last friday, you did not read the headline news where britain

wants to sanction biden for his mishandling of getting the troops out. france, italy -- what is her name over there -- not russia. host: angela merkel? caller: yes. they also biden was incompetent. very incompetent of his handling of this. host: reporting this morning on the aftermath of the u.s. withdraw, this is the washington post, taliban engaged in heavy fighting around last province outside of its control from heavy fighting erected in pockets of northern afghanistan and on tuesday night, and what may be some of the final clashes between taliban and resistance fighters, they try to consolidate its hold on the country.

mike is next in north carolina. good morning. caller: good morning. first of all, i send my condolences to the 13 families and soldiers that got killed by an incompetent president. first of all, i think biden and his whole administration -- not only over this afghanistan thing , the border. everybody is focused on afghanistan but meanwhile, the southern border, there is thousands and thousands of people coming in and they are not vetted. not just from the triangle countries in mexico. look at many other countries. over 100 countries, these people are coming into this country and the biden administration is going against the supreme court

on the eviction thing to protect the renters and the remaining -- remain in mexico. they are putting with the supreme court says out of the way. that is impeachable. kamala harris is a joke. just like newsom is a joke. i hope larry elders takes that country back and gets it back in the right direction. this is a fiasco. this administration is a fiasco. imagine if trump didn't answer no questions, turned his back like biden has turned his back on america. america last. host: we go to arkansas. roger on our democratic line. -- democrats line. caller: i was in vietnam and 72 -- in a 1972 we were getting her to pull out. we were not allowed to load our weapons. we couldn't put magazines in, we had to call information when

were being attacked. we didn't even have officers in the field. the only time we see in our officers was after it stopped. we were left behind in vietnam, we left behind -- a woman today could get pregnant, have a child and have more benefits than a 100% disabled veteran. we can't even get dental. host: we are going to continue to focus in our next segment. we will be joined by the deputy editor at military times talking with us about the military operations in afghanistan and the impact on the veteran community. that is next. ♪ >> weekends on c-span two, bringing you the best in american history, a nonfiction book.

saturday at 2 p.m. eastern. we featured two programs on general ford, the only white house occupant who was never elected vice president or president. then a visit to the president of museum, looking back. then a profile of his wife, first lady betty ford with a special focus on the white house grounds and garden. featured speakers include a historian and former first daughter. at nine: tony 5:00 p.m. eastern, -- at 9:25 pm eastern, listen to the suffragist. but tv features the latest nonfiction books. author carol swain and former

venable university professor. join us for a live discussion. at 11:00, the washington post uses official documents and original reporting to examine america's twenty-year year war in the country. watch american history tv end but tv every weekend on c-span2 and find a full schedule on the program guide or visit c-span.org. >> washington journal continues. host: leo shane joins us. he is here to talk about number of things, the withdraw from afghanistan, what may lie ahead, the effect on veterans of afghanistan and more. welcome back to washington journal. let me start where a number of

folks have asked us this morning about the state of those left behind. all military is out of afghanistan. what is the administration said about afghan allies and other americans who never mean in afghanistan? guest: they are still working to get them out, but the question is how? we've all seen the evacuation over the last three weeks and the military told that took, the importance of having servicemembers there to secure the kabul airport. without that presence, it is a big mystery how they intend to get folks out of afghanistan. is that going to require the taliban to allow civilian flights to come out? is it going to require some sort of other intervention? we are not sure. secretary of state anthony lincoln has said he is -- blinken said he is working. the president reiterated that message yesterday. but we are all wondering how is

that going to work and when will we see these last few hundred americans and other allies left behind actually the country? host: i saw some reporting that there was only u.s. equipment left behind, but also questions about whether the kabul airport itself could be functional again for acer evacuation planes or further rescue efforts to come into the airport. guest: it is not just a question of what did the u.s. to on the way adam is was the taliban doing, but it is the issue of isis-k and terrorist groups there. what amount of havoc are they going to wreak? are they going to start lashing out against the taliban? we don't know. the state department sort of asked for patience the last few days, saying they have moved embassy operations, their turn to figure out a way to restart these things. but is going to be 10 times for those left in afghanistan in

terms of figuring out where the bright be able to escape. -- they might be able to escape. host: you reported on the president's speech lesson on the withdraw from afghanistan. what do you think the overall message is customer -- messages? guest: this really seemed like it was his attempt to put a final word on this to justify the withdraw strategy just by the evacuation strategy -- justify the evacuation strategy and acknowledge that while did not go as well as he hoped, this was a mission that pulled out 130,000 individuals in withdraw all u.s. troops from afghanistan and this was a mission the major they will not be future american military deaths in a civil war there. it is interesting whether or not that resonates with the critics, grimace to be seen. we have been hearing from

republicans on capitol hill that they are very upset with the entire withdraw strategy. a number of democrats of come out and said they think the evacuation should have started much earlier, maybe as early as april. this idea that the government was going to withstand the democratic government was poor planning and poor intelligence. biden seems very clearly focused on getting to the next thing, pushing past this. whether or not congress will let him is the next question. host: you talk to republicans and l being upset. received briefings over the last few days from kevin mccarthy, he gathered together republican veterans for yesterday and some reporting from roll call this morning about the process that gets underway today. the defense offer is asian -- defense authorization bill markup. the amended on afghanistan. have you heard any indication of what they hope to do in that market?

guest: my colleague wrote the same thing, looking at big issues for ndaa and afghanistan. it is going to be one of the friction point as we go through today. this is a big defense policy bill that contains hundreds of thousands of different amendments and pay raise, things like acquisition policy. when the senate passed their version of this earlier this summer, there was the withdraw and what will be needed for afghan security forces after. now couple days after the withdraw of all u.s. troops, the issue turns to questions of oversight. questions of what to do with the money that was going to be spent for afghan security forces. we are expecting several republican amendments that could be very pointed disappointment -- poignant, looking at who is left behind and what is next. host: just a reference point for

viewers, the proposed budget of the administration is $753 billion. 2% over the fiscal year 2021 budget. it includes $15 billion for the pentagon and $10 billion from fiscal your 2021 includes a 2.7% pay raise for troops and civilian dod employees. the markup of the policy measures that the pentagon will implement in the next year or so. guest: we are still far away away from this becoming actual law. whatever the committee agrees to today, it will have to be agreed to by senate lawmakers. but i think we are going to get today is a preview of what is the post afghanistan fight going to look like mark what are republicans going to be focused on? we've heard from chairman adam

smith promising there will be oversight on this, saying in recent days that now it is not the time to spend, but as things move along they will go back. the finger-pointing starts today. republicans will offer several amendments that are looking for better accounting of the money and we will see how many democrats, how may vulnerable democrats, want to go along with that. how may democrats agree with it and how many feel like this could be a buick -- big election issue and they need to distance themselves from the bided administration's handling of this. host: our guest leo shane, we welcome your calls and comments. for those who are veterans, the line (202) 748-8000. if you're active or retired military, it is (202) 748-8001. all others, (202) 748-8002.

we will get to your question shortly. what is the future of the u.s. double medic in counterterrorism efforts in the region -- diplomatic and counterterrorism efforts in the region another there is not a double medic presence on the ground? guest: they can conduct overwatch from outside of afghanistan and surrounding countries. they are pointing to the straight they made on an improvised vehicle explosive that has proved they can react to terrorist threats, they can counter isis from afar. it is two hours away for an unmanned drone to get there. it is still going to require -- still hours away. it is going to require significant resources. the diplomatic question is what comes next? the recognition of the taliban government.

is there way to provide humanitarian aid in a situation we don't feel like it is just going to be funding taliban operations or terrorist operations there? that is what is facing the state department uproot where the secretary of state saying they set up temporary diplomatic embassy operations in qatar for now. it remains to see -- be seen where it will go from there. what exactly will the taliban do and what will the relationship be? it is a big question mark. it is going to be harder to any that have any sort of formal relationship with them. host: you've been covering the military for almost as long as the war in afghanistan -- 10 years with stars and stripes and 10 years with the military times. in what ways do you think the war has change the u.s. military? guest: this is the first time

i've been on c-span. it is a lot. it is a very different military than what we saw before september 11. this is a military that has had to refocus its mission. there is still a priority on major power competitors, on china, on russia, groups like that. the war on terror has transformed the kind of equipment we buy, the kind of strikes -- drone strikes were not really a thing before afghanistan and before rock -- iraq. we had a time we didn't have any trips have been on a deployment, now we have a corps of servicemembers who have been on multiple deployments. we got a giant group of veterans of veterans served in combat, some of whom have served and sacrificed limbs, suffered severe injuries and we have several thousand who have died overseas.

we have died overseas. with military families who are grieving. the military from 20 years ago is almost unrecognizable for what is today. that all starts with september 11 and the invasion into afghanistan. host: you wrote a piece yesterday that more vets are reaching out for crisis line help amid afghanistan collapse. what are you hearing? guest: we are hearing from the v.a. some significant increases come about 7% up and call volume , which is a good uptick. in terms of texting online chat, features that generally catered toward younger veterans, texting services, the crisis line is up almost 100%. it was interesting. the department said this is not a negative thing. this is not something they are looking at as a panic of, oh my god, there is a flood of people who are having problems. they're looking at this as a positive as more folks are reaching out.

this is a time as they are seeing headlines, as we get into the change of seasons, as the pandemic is getting worse, there are a number of factors that could be giving folks some mental health challenges. they would much rather see an uptick in usage than folks not reaching out. they are encouraged by this, they are saying even a folks are on the fence and don't feel -- they feel like they want to talk to somebody and this is how they choose to reach out, that is great. they want people to know they are there if they are needed. especially with 13 servicemembers who died in terrorist attack, a lot of folks with mixed emotions. i've been hearing from veterans who have been focused on getting folks out of afghanistan and hitting afghan translators and allies -- now that the adrenaline is wearing down, some of that emotion can come flooding back. some of those problems, some of those things they have been pushing down can come to the surface. those folks know there are

plenty of other people reaching out, they should reach out. there is help out there. host: but want to plant the life afghan vets is (202) 748-8000. if you are active or retired military, that is (202) 748-8001 . on that line, david from south dakota. you are first up. good morning. caller: my separation date from the service was march 1, 1963. but my grandson just got back from the middle east in the air force, and here my opinion. 15 of the 19 hijackers came from saudi arabia. one from egypt. one from lebanon. so why did we invade afghanistan and the first place? we should've never been there.

we've been supporting, for the last 20 years, a corrupt government at the president of afghanistan just went to the united arab emirates with three carloads of american cash and i don't think we should have been there. it was a fiasco, the way we got out of there. we should have never given up that airbase. until we had everybody out of their. -- there. we should not stick our nose in everybody's business into go over there and try and stop a civil war between two factions of muslims who have been killing each other for the last 1500 years, i am just glad we are out of there. guest: i mean, that is echoing a lot of the message that president biden is putting out there. you heard in the speech last night, he said of osama bin laden and al qaeda were not in afghanistan, would we have ever

gone in there and would we have erred in that fight? he made it clear that the mission was to get osama bin laden and debilitate al qaeda. he believed that success was important but it is not anymore and hasn't been for quite some time. i heard this from quite a few veterans, too. there is a lot of america has rediscovered afghanistan the last couple weeks. the veteran community and military community, this something that has weight on them for a while. her a lot of veteran saying look, this is how we expected to end. we expected to be messy. we didn't have a lot of confidence in the afghan government. there was a mission we were sent there to do, we did that mission, we come back. it gets into conflicting emotions and for some buddy who served in the vietnam era, there are a lot of vietnam vets right now in these headlines reopening some old wounds may be never

dealt with. they want folks to know there is help for veterans of all ages, not just the ones who served recently. host: this is barbara calling from north palm beach, florida. caller: to those praising biden come i have this to say. all his actions to date have made his country less safe. opening borders, ignoring the situation on the border, shutting down the pipeline, now the fiasco in afghanistan. his incompetence, he needs to stop blaming others and take responsibility for the damage this is done for the u.s. certainly, our credibility is dire, negative. our allies are very upset. this is not the way the country should be running. host: in terms the relationship militarily with allies, the lic join us in the fight in the coalition -- allies who joined

us in the fight in the coalition and afghanistan. guest: it will be interesting to see with the effects are. -- what the effects are. the president has said the reason they didn't start withdraw people earlier was because they wanted to show some faith in the afghan government. when that collapsed, they were forced into the situation of a vacuuming tens of thousands of people to ensure order. -- evacuating. that doesn't speak to the slowness, with a special immigrant visa, the translator's who worked directly with the u.s. military -- a lot of that traces its roots back to the president trump administration. the changes they made, some of the reluctance they had to admit any immigrants over here. but the biden administration also knew about this problem in the spring. weaver from both democratic and republican lawmakers, really frustrated. a lot of veterans really frustrated they have to

accelerate these systems of the folks to get more of those in. that may have a long-term effect. in terms of allies reaction, we are not hearing widespread criticism from major power allies. but we are hearing from quite a few folks who are saying i don't know how i till the next translator, i don't how i till the next local where we end up in a place, if we end up in an effort in country or some other war zone. how do i rely on the locals to trust us when i say we will protect you if they look and see that there are still folks were left behind in afghanistan. host: with the original may deadline, the one set by the trump negotiation, when that came, before that -- the president was looking for the august 31 deadline. what was the military's position at that time? how long do they want to extend? from what you understand. guest: a couple different completing messages in there.

the military had cautioned against the taliban and had reports saying it was likely the afghan security forces and afghan government would fall within months of the u.s. leaving. as it turned out, he fell within months of the u.s. announcing it was going to leave. didn't even wait for the u.s. military forces to leave. by the same token, the commander-in-chief is saying he heard those worries from the military advisers but also felt that this was not a mission where the u.s. needed to sacrifice lives, keeps advising people and this money to keep it going. it has been an interesting site issue and all this. what is the commander-in-chief's response ability to listen to these people versus make decisions on his own? as that of the military, they can make these calls. but we saw trump sankey want to get out of afghanistan dragging his feet on removing the troops

because of concerns about the taliban. host: do think over the course of years we were training them that the u.s. expected too much out of the afghanistan military? host: in retrospect -- guest: in retrospect, it seems that way. they did not have a lot of training. we have reports from years about how hollow the military it was. your viewers have youth that heard this number. 300,000 afghan troops come afghan security forces, that includes local police in a whole mess of folks. that includes some soldiers who are just on the payroll but were not actually performing any duties and may have just been part of some corruption. this is one of the overarching foreign policy questions for the country. how much can you assert your values and wants for an area when it may not be there?

afghanistan is a fractured, mountainous region with a lot of local conflicts and a lot of local priorities. as we've seen in the past, the way we think things should be run in the united states does not necessarily reflect some else. that is going to be one of the big questions from here on out. in the future, if there is god for bid another terrorist attack or another reason for military intervention, which should be the timeline for that? what is a realistic end goal for that? is it realistic to expect, is it realistic for the state a permit to conduct or is there different diplomatic or different military offensive strategy we should have? host: let's go to jack in florida. you are on with leo shane. caller: i have a couple questions. number one, it occurred in such a short time and is an epic,

magnificent accomplishment by the air force and ground forces controlling the airport. the fact they turned around so quick, came back and airlifted those people in a short time is a great development. the second question, as we -- regarding afghanistan and its placement in getting the remaining people out, from guatemala, honduras area, people are coming to the border have to travel 1000 miles. on foot. you can leave from kabul in about 250 miles. there are avenues to get out other than airlift. so i hope leo can talk to those. guest: on the second point, i've heard that from a few folks. there has been some mornings from veteran groups in some of the folks on the ground but attempting to across-the-board at the moment because of

relationship with taliban fighters and getting over to pakistan might not be any safer than where they are now. because of come again, some of the region there are under separatist control. but that is certainly an avenue that folks are looking at in the future. instead of airlift, are there ways to safely smuggle folks out? i know some folks already making those plans. we will have to see where that develops. on the issue of whether or not the airlift will be seen as a two-minute success, -- tremendous success, the biden administration has been pushing that narrative. 130,000 people and just 18 days. the largest military airlift in american history. quite possibly in global history. but the problem with that is it is being compared to different things. folks have compared it to the fall of saigon and the people brought out in just a short. there.

-- the short period there. that doesn't account for the hundred thousand plus who were brought out in a more orderly fashion. in terms of the actual logistics of the military mission, this was a fairly impressive airlift that mobilized a lot of people. the problem was what came before. the disorganized fashion, the number of folks who had to scramble at the last moment, why were they not route in june or may? -- brought out in june or may question mark -- may? a lot of it will depend on the stories coming out in the coming weeks. the message we are hearing from the state department right now is folks who came to the airport were vetted and let through. but we've also heard plenty of stories from folks on the ground saying they couldn't get through, the taliban blocked them. the various checkpoints made unsustainable to stay out there.

or they feared so much what they would encounter in terms of beatings, threats that they did not leave you now they are trapped behind. it will take time for history to judge this on a purely logistic military level, the pentagon can step back and say we were tasked with a dangerous mission to move a lot of people in a short amount of time and we had a certain amount of success with that. but on the larger issue of what it means for the entire afghanistan policy, it will take time to unpack. host: the defense secretary holding a briefing this afternoon following the u.s. withdraw from afghanistan. the coverage we will have life at 1:00 eastern on c-span instrument at c-span.org. leo shane -- and it stream it at c-span.org. leo shane, what are some things you hope to hear from defense secretary and chair joint chiefs? guest: it is interesting.

i should do more of a state department mission. -- shifted to more of a state department mission. it'll be pungent to the white house or state department. there are questions about what the threat level remains for the folks behind, questions about how the military conducted this in terms of their relationship with the taliban. we are to some reports coming out now that the taliban were exporting it even vetting some folks who may have come to the airport. if that is the case, that is a level of trust in a government that the u.s. has said they do not have any real trust in. today care folks who were in a vulnerable offensive position. the question you brought up before. what is the terrorist overwatch capability now? what are the missions going to be and how confident are they the u.s. will be able to strike a group like isis-k or al qaeda?

if there is not the force on the ground. we've heard a lot of questions about the equipment left behind, things the dod has started to account for and expanding what equipment they were able to destroy or disable on the way out. there is still a lot of scenes of humvees and taliban fighters carrying red u.s. rifles. that is an image that is going to stick -- around u.s. rifles. that is an image that is going to stick with the military. host: we had a guest here last week who was a professor at the american university of afghanistan, joined us from kabul just days before the final withdrawal. he is tweeting this morning saying the taliban claimed it will announce their government in two days as troops march. i am not sure if he is still in

afghanistan or not, but we were just seeing that tweet. he was live from afghanistan last week. to eric and colonial heights virginia. caller: thank you, leo, for being on this morning. i have a couple points if you could reflect on those. first of all, the previous administration had a conditions based withdraw contingency plan, secretary of state pompeo and i can't number the general in charge of the time, but there withdraw plane was contingency based upon actions on the ground. they were going to leave bagram anywhere from 1500 to 2500 troops there permanently, even after we withdrew. i would like for you to reflect on how important that loss is going to be going ahead without us having any eyes or ears on the ground as far as intelligence. in one point, if you good, i can

late 2008 -- back in late 2008 to 2012, we got troops out of iraq and said isis is not a problem. we had to go back. with d.c. happening in afghanistan? the group he fought for 20 years we are leaving in power and trusting them, maybe even offering them finances. they are with al qaeda at the hip. do you see us being in the same situation two or three years from now? drones will not be able to handle the whole situation. host: we will let you go there. guest: there is no question some of these groups are trying to reestablish themselves and set a foothold in afghanistan again. the white house has been asked about this. the president was asked whether or not he expected we may have to re-invade afghanistan the

coming years. they are distancing themselves from those conversations, saying we will have to see what happens but we are confident we can counter the terrorist threat. we will see. we will see what exactly develops there. some of these groups are opposed to the taliban. they've had their fights with, taliban invites a lot of separatist groups. it may hurt them more than hurts outside folks. after 20 years, to be walking away from afghanistan and see al qaeda reforming is a shocking and appalling result. on the other issues brought up, the issue of the conditions based withdraw, president trump did say -- there was a lot of question about the wiggle room and this is one of the big what-ifs. if president trump won reelection and the deadline came along, would he have withdrawn or would he have kept some

behind? would he have kept bob graham? just don't know. -- kept bob graham quest -- bag ram? we don't know. he said he wanted all u.s. troops epic christmas of last year. then a complete withdrawal by may. this is gotten a lot of attention because of the chaotic withdraw and the security situation around the kabul airport. motor leaders have said -- military leaders have said evacuating that location was an important one. it is a distance from kabul, it is not the same city center. there are folks who traveled there from other locations and were attacked along the way. by the same token, it was an area that was secure and has been talked about as a semipermanent base, much as we have bases in korea or japan or germany. with the administration has said

is that in places like that, we don't have active terrorist threats. we don't have people right outside the gates whose a sworn mission is to hurt american lives and take american lives. keeping that kind of base way strategic asset is a perpetual threat to service members who are there, the biden administration has said they believe it is time to end the threat to service members in afghanistan. host: let's go to sabrina and asheville, north carolina. caller: hi. my question is how did the afghan people come to hate us so much? the second question is, with all the capability we have in our intelligence and military, how is it even feasible any of our people are being left behind? why is an extraction not being done to make sure they are able to evacuate safely? how are we letting these common

folks terrorize our people and not evacuate them out of the danger zone? host: leo shane, do we have any good numbers on those left behind? americans or afghan allies who want to leave the country? guest: on american citizens, the president suggesting and state department saying it is somewhere south of 200. 100 to 200 folks who has expressed interest in leaving. the administration yesterday seemed to put some there there's no other way to put it. some of the blame for them not being evacuated on them. they said these are folks -- a lot of them are dual citizens. a lot of them maybe decision to leave only in the last few days or weeks. they are not folks who have been in the pipeline for a long time. maybe they were hoping the democratic afghan government would stay stable and they would be able to effect positive change there.

the question is what are they left with and what kind of resources do they have? we don't have a ton of clarity on that or, again, how they might be evacuated. on the issue of afghan allies, especially the folks and their families who worked closely with american military forces, we note about 7000 of them have been transported -- know about 7000 of them have been transported to the airport but they're still tens of thousands overseas being processed and may end up in the united states or another friendly country. but we've also are of reports of folks who were left behind for one reason or another, did make it to the process and are stuck. this is the lingering question and it gets back to the other caller who said, won't this airlift be seen as a success? if in the coming months, we see is a small number of folks who

expressed a long-term interest in getting out had been working with u.s. force to get out, the ones who are left behind were folks who might have made the decision last-minute, i think history looks on this as more of a success and come unfortunately in the chaos of the last few days, if you folks were left behind. but if we find out there are thousands who worked as translators and assistants who ended up being stopped and are now left at the mercy of the taliban, this becomes an incredible failure. on the issue right afghan people hate us so much, i don't think they hate us. there are certain terror groups that have long-term anger toward the west, much better social logical perspective. host: to brian in kansas, good morning. caller: my question is this.

the people left behind, the 200 or hundred plus, they were warned plenty enough in advance to get out. they chose not to get out or they wanted to wait to see how it is. why does everybody say we left people behind? they had a choice. i wonder if our prisoners of war in vietnam had a choice. marines don't leave people behind, because it is proven in history. when we evacuate, show me anywhere in history of the united states -- we didn't know three and 2000 afghan troops that we trained for 20 years -- 300,000 afghan troops we trained for 20 years drop their weapons and run. if you want the blame biden for it? host: -- to leave the country? guest: the administration said

they contacted folks they knew of, at least 19 times in recent months. as early as april to start this process. to the caller's point, those few hundred left behind -- that is the big question. where they folks who expressed an interest as far back as may when the president announced the full withdraw question mark or where they folks who expressed interest in leaving in the last couple days customer -- couple days? there are 100 to 200 who are saying they would like to get out. there are several hundred other american citizens and dual citizens who have chosen to stay behind. saying they are not looking to evacuate but are in contact with the state department. that is where the rub is. some of it is political convenience. if there are any americans over there, you can use that against the administration. but some of is the sincere question of at what point did the administration give these

folks an indication that we would see what we saw? if by august 14 they were seeing taliban troops merging of streets of kabul, that's a big difference. if on august 14 they reached out and said i changed my mind because i thought i was going to be able to help here and now the situation is i may die within days of leaving, what is the level of responsibility? what is the u.s.'s responsibility to do every thing they can to help and did they? or were some of these folks sincerely lost in the shuffle and now left in peril customer -- peril? host: let's go back to the $753 billion proposal. the mark of -- markup of the authorization bill getting underway. mike rogers said we cannot afford to cut corners and play politics with our national security. president biden's proposed defense budget for fiscal your

2022 was wholly inadequate, leaving our men and women of the armed forces in uniform in a formal position and a weakness to her adversaries. the progressive democrats have said surpassing the president's budget by such a lars an unwarranted amount should not be the starting position of the house armed services position, particularly when the current spending level should already be reduced. a question for you, has the withdraw from afghanistan changed the consideration in the house armed services committee at all? does it change the discussion at all? guest: i don't know it would change discussion. mostly because i think it is already a done deal. we have the services committee with a lot of democratic support at $25 billion. i expect the armed services we do the same today. chairman smith has said he is

comfortable with bidens level, he feels like there needs to be some recognizing -- reckoning at a of military spending, but he is realistic and looking at the roads. moderate democrats have said they want to see more spending than that. they feel there are more threats and demand. i think the afghanistan issue is going to be more specific to -- there is about $3.3 billion that was supposed to be set aside for afghan security forces, even after we left. now it happens to that money? right now, that money is being thrown to the wind and a whole bunch of other military priorities, constructions and acquisition -- the few groups who have asked for it to be a dedicated to counterterrorism work overseas and there should be a fund for afghanistan given the threat it poses here. but i think one of the fights --

we will see quite a few democrats and republicans backing a larger defense spending plan than what biden has. with the caveat that unlike the trump administration, that probably will not take away money from other domestic priorities and other agencies. host: let's get a call or two more. starting with mary on the war vet align -- afghan war vet line . caller: i think they put me on the wrong line, i was calling on the democrat line. why were the military service dogs left behind? guest: they weren't. but we've heard from the military as they evacuated all of their dogs along with other personnel. i think it is going around online there is a lot of concern for those canines. one of the issues here is video have gone around that show

breeds of dogs that are around the kabul airbase that look like they are american dogs. i've heard veterans say there are a lot of strays a lot of stray dogs that have gotten in with u.s. military dogs and bread and had dogs. -- bred. the dod is saying they have a full accounting of all of their animals and assets. they want folks know they did not leave any of the dogs behind despite some of the video folks are seeing. caller: good morning. thank you mr. shane for your time, i appreciate it. and thank you for watching the journal. the greatest show on cable network tv. just a couple questions. i was told in 2018, trump had released like 2000 taliban

soldiers in 2020, he had a 5000 more released. i never heard, what did he get in return for that? he had talks with taliban leaders, but not the afghan government. i we don't know what those talks were about. what about relief for the soldiers? guest: this is part of the negotiations with the taliban and trump administration. the actual numbers, there is some question. trump did not personally release them, this is part of a negotiated settlement with the afghan democratic government. but they got in return was no tax -- attacks on u.s. forces. once they established the taliban would lay down their arms against u.s. forces, u.s. forces would be out by may, this is part of bidens refrain. pushing that back to august

jeopardized the potential troops and would have resulted in more american deaths. host: leo shane, deputy editor with the military times. thank you so much for joining us. guest: thank you. host: that will do it for this morning's program. we are back tomorrow at 7:00 a.m. eastern and we hope you are, too. have a great day. [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] ♪ >> here is a look at our live coverage today on c-span. in about one hour, the

mississippi republican governor holds a response to his state's response to hurricane ida. a general speaks to the center for strategic and international studies on the current state of the u.s. marine corps. live coverage continues at 1:00 eastern with lloyd austin and general mark milley hosting a brief at the pentagon. that is at 1:00 eastern. live at 2:00, the state department holds a briefing with questions expected on afghanistan. watch it on c-span, c-span.org or listen on the free c-span radio app. ♪ >> this earmarks the 20th

anniversary -- this year marks the 20th anniversary of the september 11 attacks. coverage starting at 7:00 p.m. eastern on saturday, september 11 on c-span. watch online at c-span.org, or listen on the c-span radio app. ♪ >> c-span is your unfiltered view of government, presented by these companies and more, including charter communication. >> broadband is a force for empowerment. building infrastructure, empowering opportunity in communities big and small. charter is connecting us. >> charter communications support c-span as a public service, along with these other television providers, giving you a front row seat to democracy.