>> brennan: it's sunday september 8th. i'm margaret brennan and this is "face the nation." there is breaking news overnight assinunces canceled plans for a secret camp david retreat this weekend with the taliban to finalize a peace deal in afghanistan. the president's announcement by tweet said that his top-secret meeting had been immediately scrapped following the taliban claiming credit for a bombing in afghanistan that killed 12 people, including a u.s. serviceman. but there are questions this morning about why the talks fell apart and why the u.s. was embracing theñi taliban in the first place. late last night secretary of state mike pompeo traveled to dover, delaware to, observe the return of sergeant ortiz.

ortiz is the 1th u.s. serviceman killed in afghanistan this year -- the 16th. secretary pompeo joins us today along with former secretary of defense james mattis, who led u.s. troops fighting the taliban in afghanistan after 9/11. we'll also hear from delaware bs battleground tracker shows one candidate making important we'll have the surprising results, and we'll have analysis on all the news.t@dt's all aheae nation."ñr good morning an welcome to "face the nation." just days before the 18th an verse of the attacks against america on 9/11, president trump tweets out a bombshell. he invited taliban leaders to camp david this weekend for a summit withfghanistan's

president ashraf ghani. then president trump abruptly called off the diplomacy, just days after u.s. officials had said a peace agreement was imminent. negotiations had been ongoing for nearly a year between the u.s. and the taliban to get that insurgent group tort thl woul allow the u.s. to withdraw troops. a senior afghan official confirmed to me this morning that president ghani had been informed in advance that the taliban had been invited to camp david and that it was the u.s. that called off ghani's visit. it was not a cancellation made in protest by ghani. i'm told the reason for the u.s. calling it off goes deeper than trump's tweet in which he claimed it was the thursday bombing that caused him to call off the talks. the chain of events also suggests that is the case. our charlie d'agata is in kabul, afghanistan, this morning with more. charlie? >> reporter: well, margaret,

moments ago we put the direct question to president a gunspokt ghani inviteto camp david. three times we asked. each time we were told no comment, which just underlines the sensitivities over that issue here. what i can tell you is this is an impromptu press conference called in direct reaction to those tweets and developments overnight. now, the other takeaway is when president trump openly criticized the taliban for intensifying violence, including that explosion here in kabul that killed a u.s. soldier, a spokesman told us president ghani was happy to hear that and that they're "finally on the same page." margaret? >> brennan: that's charlie d'agata inñi kabul. weñi turn now to secretary of state mike pompeo. mr. secretary, good morning. >> good morning. good to be with you. >> brennan: good to have you here. it's been an evwnvful 24 hours. do you deny that there were other issues that played into the cancellation ofe talks? >> margaret, you have to go back to first principles and what

we've been trying to do for frankly two and a half years of the trump administration in afghanistan. president trump made clear we want to do everything we could to reduce risk to the united states, that we would not haveçó terror strike the united states from afghanistan as it did on 9/11, an we would never give up protecting the americanñi peopl, but at the same time, we want to make sure we gotñr the posture right, that the $30 plus billion a year we're spending there is not a sustainable model. he wanted to reduce that. we entered negotiations with the afghan government. we worked closely with president ghani over the past months. we've worked with other after gab leaders. we've worked with the taliban to try to get the taliban to commit to reducing violence. they had committed to doing so. to get them to agree to talk to their afgan brothers and sisters, something that multiple administrations have tried to do for, goodness, 15 plus years now. we had that. to get them to make a public commitment to break with al qaeda, that something as far back as the bush administration americans had been trying to get.

we got that too. >> brennan: they never agreed to a ceasefire. the violence has been intensifying throughout. >> so back to where we were.ñi we were working to deliver that set of outcomes so we could make good decisions about american risk. i was a few hours ago out at dover air force base with the dignified transfer of the remains of our sergeant. we have officers taking real risks every night. president trump is committed to reducing that risk so there will be fewer fallen american soldiers, heroes. this is the mission set. we're trying to do that through peace and reconciliation negotiations. i hope we can get back to doing, that but it's going to take more than words. as president trump demonstrated, if the taliban can't live up to their commitments, if they continue to do the things they've been doing, and as we approach this decision point in the discussions with the afghans, they blow up kabul and kill an american, president trump will never do that.

he walked away in hanoi from north koreans when they wouldn't do a deal that made sense for america. he'll do that with the iranians. when the chinese proved away from the trade agreement they had promised, he broke off those conversations, too. i hope we can get to this place. it will be gogdz for the afghan people. if we get it right, it will be good for american national security, as well. >> brennan: certainly. 16 americans have been killed in afghanistan this year. >> yes, ma'am. stas dow 8,600. president said is that still the plan? is that happening? >> we'll have to take a good look at that. every time we make decision, and i have watched the president, this will be the president and the department of defense's decision about what our force posture will be. >> brennan: that order has not been given and he does not intend to do that yet. that's2ur for consideration? >> we want to make sure that every place there is the risk of terror to the united states, not just afghanistan, and it's the philippines. we have terror risks all across the world. we have to make sure we have the

right number of force, the right composition of forces. we have nato partners there fighting alongside of us, as well. president trump will make the decision of what the right level of american activity was. as i think he suggested... >> brennan: so he's standing by that decision? >> i think as you saw in his tweet last night, we haveñi kild over 1,000 taliban in just the last ten days. so it's not been the case that we've been negotiating with our hands tied behind our back. unfortunately applying military pressure to the taliban is necessary to get the negotiated outcome that we're looking for. and we're going to keep at that. and we'llçó always protect america. >> brennan: so 14,000 is where it stays for the foreseeable future? >> i can't answer thisñi questi. >> brennan: because it was in the deal that was in 135 day, it was going down to 8,600 and the president said that was happemy >> brennan: we are intent that we reduce the risk that we'll have more folks comingçó back through dover. >> brennan: i know you went to thatñi dignified transfer last night, and that had to fact thas

have continued, that the taliban never agreed to a ceasefire, that it is the week of 9/11, that this was camp david that has caused some concern even among republican allies of the president. congresswoman liz cheney out this morning saying that no member of the taliban should ever go to camp david. that was where u.s. leaders fled to a safe haven the night of 9/11. who told the president that this was the appropriate place for the taliban to visit? you yourself have called them terrorists. >> i don't talk about internal deliberations and who said what to whom and when. i have honored their if two and a half years now. but make no mistake, we were very thoughtful. we thought about this for a long time. e decion this was the right place. we know the history of camp david. it's where peace has been

negotiated many, many timestxápl with some pretty bad characters to get peace. i would say to anybody who says you shouldn't negotiate with the taliban, tell me who else they would like us to talk to try to reiltan. itfgha people awoul a gr aica'sor americanurity. are.stand wh t we're clear eyed. i assure you that even today on the ground, general miller has all the authority he needs to make sure he preserves and protects american fighting forces thereñr and takes it to e bad guys. so we're still at this hard. we'll still be at it hard. in the end we hope that we can find a solution that reduces the level of violence and increases the probability that we won't have to have more american lives destroyed, more heroes return. >> brennan: have the taliban ever accepted the invitation to come to camp david? >> yes. >> brennan: because in a statement today, they said they were invited at the end of august but that they

there's been some confusion. i think there are other folks speaking.ñr sufficed to say, we were confident that we were going to be able to have these meetings, what would beñi this afternoon t >> the president was very car.rt was called off on thursday after this killing, but as they said, 16 service people have been killed, and throughout that u.s. negotiators have continued to come back to the negotiating table. >> yes, ma'am, and we have given better than we've gotten, i can assure you. i want to assure the american people of, that as well. it's not a war of attrition. that's not my point. the point is we didn't do what previous administrations have done. when they entered into negotiation, they were incapable of fighting and talking. we did both. we continued to protect the united states of america during those tough negotiations. as for the timing, i'm not going to get it into because it's not

appropriate, but know this: the president ultimately made the conclusion that the meetings today wouldn't deliver on the outcome that he is demanding we get get for the americanlp peop. when he saw they couldn't deliver on the reduction in violence commitments they had made, he said there is no sense in having this meeting. >> brennan: mr. secretary, a lot on yourñiñr plate, a lot tok to you about. we have to leave it there today. >> thank you very much, margaret. >> brennan: we with turn tow no secretaryçó pompeo's former colleague, former secretary of state james mattis. he's the author of "call sign chaos: learning to lead" and he's a retired marine thank you for being here. good morning to you.çó >> good morning, margaret. good to be here. >> brennan: thousands of americans have died at the hands of the taliban in afghanistan. they gave safe haven to osama bin lad on the plan the 9/11 attacks. did you ever think you'd see the day when the taliban was invited to camp david? >> well, it was a surprise, margaret, but i would say that all wars eventually come to

abend, and i salute efforts to try to end that war, no doubt. secretary pomp just before we were speaking here, he mentioned that we have to stay true to first that we are seeing what he said come true. >> brennan: but you were involved from the very beginning of this war. >> uh-huh. >> brennan: the invasion in 2001. in your experience, can the taliban ever be trusted to make a clean break with terrorists and honor a diplomatic deal? >> well, you're going to the heart of the issue right there. can they be trusted? you remember when we reduced nuclear weapons with russia, we talked about trust, but verify inch this case with this group, i think you want to verify then trust. we have asked them, demanded that they break with al qaeda since the bush administration. they have refused to do so. they murdered 3,000 innocent people, citizens of 91 forget t. the taliban hid thoon them, refk

with them, and have refused to this day to break. so i think secretary pompeo saying go back to first principles is exactly the right thing to do. >> brennan: butñr every single democrat running for president is promising to bring the troops home. president trump campaigned on bringing the troops home.ñi >> yeah. >> brennan: you're saying, just pulling out is the wrong decision. >> margaret -- >> brennan: can you remind people why there needs to be a continued presence there? >> right. the fact is we need to maintaini an influence there until the government of afghanistan, the people of afghanistan are strong enough to deny afghanistan is a safe haven. >> brennan: the talibanry >>, do, and wars go like that sometimes. but the point is that you may want a war over. you may even vote, a fact brought home to me repeatedly over my 40 years of service. c fight this war again, and i know yeuñ don't get do-over, but woud

you have done something differently? rom what you did, learn from the lessons of the reality on the battlefield, that sort of thing. but i think the fundamentals of forcing al-jubeir -- forcing al qaeda and those groups out of save havens, ensuring the taliban do not give them safe.ö haven, those goals should be foremost. any other goals we then attach to those should be secondary. don't let them distract youçó fm that primary goal. >> brennan: you think america got distracted? >> i believe we did, whether it was the war in iraq or we are back there and we're trying to do perhaps some people say too much in the country. you have to embrace the culture you're in. you don't surrender what we'reçó ab bannot w in and saurn oundulture a nf ae enerat.ave to acd rsourcen whatr

resours are necessary, so when our diplomats negotiate, they negotiate from a position of strength. >> brennan: you have made career that you will not speak ill of president trump. you will not speak about him. you say out ofñi respect. in your book, you do talk about policy disagreements with past presidents that you served under, with bush and with president obama, as well. in the drawdown from iraq, you wrote about vice president biden, you said you were telling him what you were seeing on the ground in iraq and warning him of what a pullout would do. you wrote, "he exuded the confidence of man whose mind was made up, perhaps even indifferent to considering the consequence were he judging the situation incorrectly." >> well, i was writing a history book at that point, margaret, because i started writing this book in 2013. it was done pretty much on version five by 2017. had i known the former vice president was going to run for

office, i assure you i would not have probably been that forthcoming. why do i do that -- >> brennan: what should peopere? are you raising questions about his judgment? >> i thinkçó obama administrati, president obama's administration had made theçó decision to leave iraq despite what the intelligence community was telling us would happen. they were very clear that an al qaeda-associateed group would rise, that the iraqiçó governme, the iraqi people, theñiñziraqi nation was in añiçó post-combat, prereconciliation phase. we needed to keep our influence there a little longer and draw down year by year, not draw everyone out at one time. the intelligence community was very clear. they forecasted the rise of a group, you and i know it as isis, and we should have taken their advice on board. >> brennan: do you think that your resignation did help to stop the withdrawal from syria? because u.s. troops remain there now?

>> well, i'll let the historians sort that out. i don't know what all went into the decision to reverse that ll plryone out just..i can't answer that. >> bun tldour perspective. >> yes. >> brennan: what is the biggest national security threat? >> i think the biggest national security threat can be broken into two segments. one is external, and clearly those nations, russia and china, that are trying to impose their aor authoritarian models and decisions over other countries, whether it be in the south china sea or in the ukraine, in parts of georgia that russia has occupied, they have mucked around in our elections, so externally i would look at those two, and that's why we rewrote the national defense strategy to acknowledge the reality of those nations, not the nations we wanted to be dealing with, but the russia of putin, the

reality, the russia of -- the president of president xi, but internally my bigger concern is two-fold. it's our growing debt that we're going to transfer to the younger generation, with seemingly no fiscal discipline, and more than that it's the lack of friendliness, it's the increasing contempt i see between americans who have different opinions. i mean, we're going to have to sit down and remember, if we want this country to s t tay a democracy is t up i break it into those two fundamental difference threats right now. >> brennan: on that note we will leave it there. i think a lot of people would agree with you, i would like everyone to be friendlier these days. one other thing, before you go, i want the wish you a happy birthday. >> well, thank you, margaret. >> brennan: and we will be back in a minute with democratic senator chris coons. senator chris coons. he's standing by live. start of.

every new job. and attempt to parallel park. (electrical current buzzing) each new draft of every novel. (typing clicks) the finishing touch on every masterpiece. (newborn cries) it is humanity's official two-word war cry. words that move us all forward. the same two words that capital group believes have the power to improve lives. and that, for over 85 years, have inspired us to help people achieve their financial goals. talk to your advisor or consultant for investment risks and information. >> brennan: we turn now to democrat chris coons, who is on the senate foreign relations committee. he's usually in delaware when we talk to him, so we're glad to have you here face the face. good morning. >> great to be with you. >> brennan: the obama administration tried to negotiate with the taliban. they never got this far.

>> yes. >> why do you have a problem with the trump administration doing it? >> i don't have a problem with the trump administration trying to resolve our very long conflict in afghanistan.the tal. and i agree that we should not fully withdraw from afghanistan until we've got conditions on the ground that will prevent it from becoming once again a haven for terrorists who might attack us as happened on 9/11. but i disagree with how our president goes about his negotiations around the world. he seems to think that he and he alone individually can negotiate with kim jong-un in north carolina, with xi jinping in china, or in this case with the taliban. we don't even have an ambassador in pakistan or in jordan. i am concerned that our president isn't listening to his general, to his diplomats, to the intelligence community. frankly, that's largely why general mattis, for whom i have huge respected, resigned in protest, was our president's tendency to make abrupt decisions without knowing the context or the region and without relying on the advice of

the skilled diplomats and generals we have. >> brennan: senator lindsey graham was on this program recently and raised a concern that the president wasn't listening to his national security advisers in afghanistan. do you think congress needs to put a backstop in place the keep the troop number at a certain level like he's trying to do? >> i do think we need to be engaged in a bipartisan way in making it clear why we value sustained engagement in the world to prevent terrorism from coming to our shores again. this frankly is also why i believe joe biden would be our best next president. i think he has deep and wide experience in foreign policynd understands the values of our alliances. >> brennan: you're a biden surrogate. >> i am a biden supporter. >> brennan: do you know what his plan is to draw down troops or the negotiate an end to the war? >> i can't speak to the specifics of how he would, but i know that unlike our current president, he would rely upon and listen to the advice of generals and diplomats. i also think that he has learned from his experience. he has spent decades in foreign service, as has general mattis,

as both a senator and a vice president. look, history moves, and if you don't learn from history, you can't shape it. one of the things i most respect about general mattis is how de rea is in hisry ur concern president i shallow >>an: congressma ryan, who is running against joe biden, raised questions this week publicly about whether biden has the energy and suggested that he's declining in clarity. >> i disagree. i've known joe for decades. the reason i think joe is top in the polls over and over, because the american people know his heart, as i do. they know he would lead a real change in our place in the world and strengthen our security and prosperity by reembracing our allies, and that frankly in the united states, he would cause middle class joe for decades in the senate because he's never forgotten where he's from, from scranton pennsylvania and claymont delaware. and he is the person who i think can actually deliver the change

that our middle class is looking for. that's what donald trump ran on. but it's not what he's delivered. i do think a administra would makeo streng oule brenn: congressming t soon. >> brennan: there you go. but the question is whether they're actually getting to work on anything related to gun legislation.into get done? >> well, senator pat toomey and i -- pat is a republican senator from pennsylvania -- we have been working hard on our bipartisan bill, the nix denial notification act. we lost 50 more americans in mass shooting incidents in dayton and el paso and odessa. the odessa shooter failed a background check. we will make sure states are promptly notified when someone fails a background check. i have been talking with republicans, with democrats, with the white house over the august recess. i am hopeful president trump will actually lead on this issue next week, take a position,

stick with it. the american people deserve no less. >> brennan: we will be tracking that. thank you very much, senator coons. and a very early happy birthday to you. >> thank you. >> brennan: thanks for joining us. and we'll be right back in a moment. as a small business owner, the one thing you learn pretty quickly, is that there's a lot to learn. grow with google is here to help you with turning ideas into action. putting your business on the map, connecting with customers, and getting the skills to use new tools.

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>> brennan: coming up next sunday on "face the nation," we'll have a diplomatic duo. we'll talk to both former secretary of state condoleezza rice and former u.s. ambassador to the united nations samantha power. we'll be right back. (alarm beeping) welcome to our busy world. where we all want more energy. but with less carbon footprint. that's why, at bp, we're working to make energy that's cleaner and better. we're producing cleaner-burning natural gas. erevr y tayou... we have advanced fuels for a better commute.ural gas.

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(newborn cries) it is humanity's official two-word war cry. wordcapital group believesthsa t have the power to improve lives. and that, for over 85 years, have inspired us to help people achieve their financial goals. talk to your advisor or consultant for investment risks and information. >> brennan: we'll be right back with more "face the nation" in a moment.

osed caption >> james: we are back to football. week one i >> boomer: patrick mahomes. >> lamar jackson. q.b.'s with he can run like vick and throw like cunningham. >> bill: second quarterback