captioning sponsored by newshour productions, llc >> brangham: good evening. i'm william brangham. judy woodruff is away. on the newshour tonight: afghanistan in crisis. the taliban country-wide blitz captures a critical province borderg the country's capital. we discuss an uncertain future with the afghan ambassador to the u.s. then, a stark disparity. we examine the structural inequities that have led to a racial divide in homeownership in minnesota. >> it is going to require decades of intentional work in order to-- to bring that number back up, and bring it up so that it's on par with white homeownership here in minnesota. >> brangham: and, it's friday. jonathan capehart and michael gerson break down the fallout of the u.s. withdrawal from

afghanistan, and the political impact of the u.n. climate report. all that and more, on tonight's pbs newshour. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: ♪ ♪ ♪ >> fidelity wealth management. >> bnsf railway. >> consumer cellular. >> johnson & johnson. >> financial services firm raymond james. >> the john s. and james l. knight foundation. fostering informed and engaged communities. more at kf.org. >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions:

and friends of the newshour. >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. anby contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> brangham: the taliban is now closing in on the afghan capital, after a week that's seen much of the country fall under their control. the first of 3,000 american troops aived today at the kabul airport. all will have arrived by the end of the weekend. their mission: support the near-total evacuation of american personnel and some afghans-- quickly. in a matter of days, the taliban has blitzed across afghanistan, taken over city after city, and are now close to the capitol city, kabul. today, logar province fell,

roughly 50 miles from the capital. this map show areas where the taliban were severely threatening. this was back in april, when president biden announced the full u.s. troop withdrawal. this map shows, in red, the areas the taliban had captured as of monday. the squares are provincial capitals they had taken. and here's where they are today. the taliban released this video today, claiming to have seized afghan army helicopters in herat, the country's third largest city. herat and kandahar, the second largest, were taken thursday. and another video today showed the taliban had captured veteran warlord mohammad ismail khan-- he's the man on the right-- who'd been leading a militia resistance to the taliban in herat, but now seemingly forced to call for peace and stability. these advances by the taliban have forced the u.s. to scramble to protect american and afghan personnel who remain in kabul. the biden administration yesterday announced the

immediate deployment of 3,000 u.s. troops to help with the evacuation process. officials say the u.s. embassy will continue to operate, but with limited staff. pentagon spokesperson john kirby spoke today. >> they have the benefit of the training that we have provided them over 20 years. they have the material, the physical, the tangible advantages. it's time now to use those advantages. >> brangham: the blistering taliban gains have reportedly taken some u.s. officials by surprise. but many this week, including president biden, have kept the focus on the afghan government's need to defend itself. >> they've got to fight for themselves. fight for their nation. i think they're beginning to realize, they've got to come together politically at the top. and-- but we are going to continue to keep our commitment. but i do not regret my decision. >> this is not abandoment.

>> brangham: and in june, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff general mark milley was warned not to repeat the desperate 1975 evacuation of u.s. personnel from saigon, as north vietnamese forces closed in. >> i hope that d.o.d. will coordinate very closely with state, so that we don't have the kind of situation we had when we withdrew from vietnam. >> i do not see that unfolding. i may be wrong. who knows? you can't predict the future. >> brangham: but now, confidence in the afghan government is waning, as some european governments have moved to shut down or reduce their embassy staff in kabul. >> ( translated ): we will reduce the number of staff at the embassy in kabul to an operational bare minimum within the next couple of days. i am once again calling on all german citizens to leave afghanistan now. >> brangham: nato officials today said they'll keep a diplomatic presence to help the afghan government as much as possible. meanwhile, u.n. officials in

geneva today warned of afghanistan being on the brink of a "humanitarian catastrophe." the secretary general later spoke at u.n. headquarters in new york. >> i remind all parties, if their legal and moral obligation to take all measures to protect civilians, directing attacks against civilians is a serious violation of international and humanitarian law, and amounts to a war crime. perpetrators must be held accountable. >> brangham: an estimated 250,000 people have been forced to flee their homes, and the hunger crisis is only getting worse. >> the food security and nutrition situation in afghanistan is quite dire, and continues to worsen with each passing day. one in three afghans are acutely food insecure today. >> brangham: afghans living in kabul right now are trying to go about their daily routines, but many are becoming increasingly fearful for their future, as the taliban inches closer to the

capita >> ( translated ): the taliban ruled here before, and they didn't rule in the peoples' interest. people thinkhat they will act the same. >> ( translated ): we are worried. there is fighting everywhere in ghanistan, the provinces are falling day by day. the government should do something, the people are facing lots of problems. >> brangham: we turn now to ambassador adela raz. she is afghanistan's envoy to the united states. she's just started here in washington after several years as u.n. ambassador. ambassador raz, thank you very much for being here. i know this is an incredibly trng time for your government. as we have been hearing, the taliban have seized an enormous amount of territory in your country. what is the government's plan on how to respond? >> thank you for having it seems to me today at the show. i think it definitely is a difficult time for afghanistan, and for our allies and friends. and for us at this stage, the priority is ou big cities, and

that includes the city of kabul, the city with the largest number of population, it's a city with its homing the i.d.p.s who have arrived from various provinces of afghanistan where their lives were threatened by overtake of taliban of their households. and it's a city that's housing a large number of journalists, civil society activists, women activists, human rights advocates and also strategically it's extremely important for the government. >> brangham: ambassador, help me understand why we have not heard anything from president ghani or any of his ministers in afghanistan. you are, frankly, the senior-most leader of the afghan government that we have heard from in recent days. >> president ghani is speaking in the local media as well as our senior ministers as well as

our chief of army, as well as our brave commander of the special forces. so our senior officials are speaking but i agree they have not spoken to international media. i think the focus was a lot to speak with local media. but they have come out, and there has been a statement by the president's office as well. >> brangham: there is a great dealf pressure on president ghani to resign and leave the country, and i'm curious, in your conversations with him and other members of his ministry, is that a consideration right now that, to ease some transition to a more peaceful interim government, would he consider stepping aside now? >> look, you mentioned pressure on him to resign. the pressure that we feel or the call that we have heard from, it's so far from taliban, not from the people of afghanistan. but we have set from the first day and president ghani said

it's time to agree to a political settlement that ends the bloodshed, and the people elects the leader of the country the way they would like, i think this is the first day where he had always come forward and our negotiating team in doha has been saying this from day one, because the objective, when we send our negotiating team to doha, was to be able to come together with taliban and agree to a settlement that ends a conflict in afghanistan and brings peace. but what we have seen, it's very disappointing because taliban have not genuinely engaged in the talks and visa versa, what's happened as a consequences of the talks, they've started to get their international legitimacy, and they continue to kill and continue the massacre of civilians. and we have seen that recently.

they also have not committed to the agreement which they had made in doha ey will not attack the big cities when the u.s. troops starts to withdraw, but we see visa versa. saso answering the question on pressure to president ghani to resign, it's not the pressure from the public or officially any other element, it's an ask the taliban has been saying from the first day, and the response from the government and the negotiating team was the negotiating team and the government is agreeing to a political settlement to end conflict if the people decide who to elect. >> brangham: can you help us understand why it seems afghan forces and police have such a difficult time repelling th taliban and why so many have seems to have given up their posts and melted away. >> sure. there are many reasons, there's

not only one reason, and i think it's not the only reason. it will be extremely unfair to say they didn't fight. it's going to be extremely unfair to their comrades of those veterans who trained them as well that they did not do the right type of training. there are multiple reasons. first, i think it's the level of confidence a and morale, and thn that is impacted with what you and i are hearing even here in washington, d.c. and i have to speak very franklw much we say, that afghanistan is not abundant with every element of the action that we see right now. it's on abandonment of the entire country, and i think that plays a role. there is also another element when the soviet troops withdraw. at the time, there were certain deals made by the government at the time with mujahideen without

letting the security forces at the time to defend ourselves. so that conspiracy is there and a strong conspiracy regular afghans assume probably there is a hidden deal made between the u.s. and the taliban that there has to be surrender of certain provinces. and i think that really adds a lot in the confidence. then the final element, which is a really really practical element, it is that our security forces, and i think that it was given and it was very clear, that they were highly dependent on u.s. close air support. so there are multiplying facts. but, still, we have seen strong evidence. herat, it's a city that's held for a long time. the final handover and the final take over story is that either

people run out of ammunition or it's in a close distance when the taliban arrive. the city of dohar, we're told twelve and a half months and then we're told a retreat, then they took the people, the armored cars with themselves and left no ammunition to taliban. so i think there are brave stories and bravery stories of afghan security forces, but nothing is helping. and since even yesterday's announcement by the state department, if you look at the single ticket in afghan commercial airline tickets, there is no ticket left. everybody is trying to leave because they assume it's a window of 48 hours or a few days that they have to secure themselves and, at the same time, it was just not two days ago that "wasngton posted" something that the city will collapse in 30 days.

so what it all brings to, it's strongly impacting the morale. and, also, it is a war that is a battlefield in the front line that we are militarily fighting this war, and there is one psychological war. and i think i always say the psychological part we have lost long again, and i think that's with our allies and friends as well. i think our allies here in the u.s. have also lost the psychological war, despite how much we say we have not abandoned afghanistan, and the assumption and the story back home is they are abandoned. >> brangham: ambassador raz, thank you for joining us on this fraught day for your country. >> thank you. >> brangham: we debate the u.s. role and what to do now, with lisa curtis. she was senior director for south and central asia during the trump administration. she's focused on that part of the world since the 1990s when she was a c.i.a. analyst, and

served in the u.s. embassies in pakistan and india. she is now a senior fellow at the center for a new american security. and we're also joined by retired colonel andrew bacevich; he is a historian, and the president of the quincy institute. he's written extensively about america's role in the world. thank you both very much for being here. i know you heard the ambassador just there. lisa curtis, to you first, e is clearly saying she feels the united states has abandoned afghanistan, and that is what we are seeing unfold before our eyes. is that your assessment of c test are abandoning the afghans. i think the narrative a couple of weeks ago was that we were continuing our financial assistance, our humanitarian assistance, that we would, you knowstand by the afghans. but now that we're seeing this routing of the afghan government and the taliban taking control of the country much more quickly than anyone expected, there is a

accepts that the afghans feel completely abandoned. i don't think anybody expected that taliban would be taking over this quickly. but there are some immediate things that the pus can do. of course, we have to evacuate those u.s. citizens who are in danger, and we're doing that. but e also need to evacuate the thousands of afghans who have been supporting the u.s. these are, you know, civil society leaders who have been fighting for human rights, women's rights. these are people who have targets on their back because of their cooperation with us, and, so, i think the u.s. has a moral responsibility to also evacuate those people. we also need to galvanize the international community to prevent a humanitarian catastrophe where you're seeing internally displaced people throughout the country, they're flooding into kabul, so there needs to be concerted effort to stave off this humanitarian

crisis. lastly, i think the u.s. needs to shift its diplomatic posture. the u.s. continues to fruitlessly call in the taliban to engage in a peace process that we know they're not going to. instead, the u.s. should lead an international effort to prevent the taliban from car ginger out further atrocities against the civilian population. these are atrocities like the assassination of the government public relations chief last friday. this can start with sanctions against these taliban leaders. i think that's the direction the u.s. should move in. >> brangham: andrew bacevich, i know you have long argued that the united states should have gotten out of afghanistan years ago and perhaps our entire mission there was misguided in some ways from the start. but given what we are seeing now in this rapid advance by the taliban, h should we be seeing this? what should our role be here? >> well, i think it's very fair

to hold the biden administration responsible for mismanaging the consequences of failure. i think lisa did a very good job of summarizing actions that the united states needs to take now. the american war is over, the war is not over. we do have a moral responsibility. but i would hope that the conversation about afghanistan would also focus on how this failure came about. the biden administration, what, in office for eight months, doesn't own it. multiple administrations own it. both parties own it. american military leaders own it. and i think that, before we erase the memory of the afghanistan war, and our country does have a tendency to do that, we need to have some time of sober reflection to understand

why this failure occurred. >> brangham: i hear what you're saying, andy bacevich. but, lisa, you hear the argument which andy is making is this is the consequence of decades of mismanagement and a misguided foreign policy in afghanistan. but as you were saying, we have a responsibility, at tis point, to do something better for the afghan people. more practically, what should we be doing? should we be putting more troops back in there to help secure --p kabul, military aid, airstrikes? what should we be doing to do what you think we owe them? >> i think we should be definitely increasing our air missions in support of the afghan as the ambassador pound pointed out earlier, this is one to have the major -- this is one of the major reasons the talibanis having such success so rapidly. when an afghan is sitting at his

post, if he knows there's not air support coming in to support what he's doing, yes, he's going to desert his position. so that is something the u.s. should absolutely be doing. now, i do agree with professor bacevich that several administrations are responsible for where we are now. i would say, you know, definitely the previous administration bears responsibility for a very weak agreement with the taliban, an agreement that did not provide appropriate counterterrorism guarantees. the agreement did not force the taliban to break ties with al quaida or eject al quaida from the country. that should have been the very least that the u.s. demanded. it also did not bring a peace process. the only thing the doha agreement achieved was allowing u.s. forces not to be shot at by the taliban as they departed. but, also, the biden

administration had the opportunity, when it came in, in january, to reevaluate that agreement and reevaluate the afghan policy. i supported keeping a minimal force presence in place. our n.a.t.o. partners were also willing to keep 7,000 to 8,000 forces there. this would have allowed us to continue air support for the afghans, allowed to u.s. to protect our counterterrism interests. i think the cost of the small u.s. presence was worth preventing the reemergence of a terrorist-safe haven in afghanistan, which we are ceainly going to see in the coming months. >> brangham: andrew bacevich, the biden administration has been making the argument, it seems, for a while at the afghan army and government have the tools they needed to at least hold the taliban back, if not repel them and to stop this kind of a surge. is that a fair criticism of the afghan government, that it's a leadership and a will, failure of those things, that's gotten

us to today? >> i think it's very fair. it's too late for airstrikes. we need to look at the 20-year experience of the american war. we tried to do two things. number one, we tried to create a legitimate government that would command the loyalty to have the afghan people, and we tried to create effective military forms that could provide for the defense of the afghan nation state. all the evidence shows that we failed on both counts, and i think the beginning of wisdom is to understand the reality of that failure and then, yes, to do as lisa suggestedo take seriously our responsibility to contain the fallout, and the fallout, in particular, relates to the suffering of those who supported us andhe suffering of innocents who now are a victim of our failure. but simply to prolong the war,

the american war, at this point, it might salve our consciences to some degree, but it won't do any good. >> brangham:: all right, andrew bacevich, lisa curtis, thank you both very much for joining us tonight. >> thank you. >> brangham: in the day's other news, the c.d.c.'s advisory panel is recommending a third dose of the pfizer or moderna covid vaccine for people with weakened immune systems, such as those with organ transplants or certain types of cancer. but, there's not enough data yet to recommend additional doses of the johnson & johnson vaccine. the decision came hours after the food and drug administration authorized these boosters. some states, like mississippi, are still struggling to convince residents just to get their first doses. governor tate reeves made this

urgent appeal. >> i believe the vaccines are safe. i believe they are effective. and i believe that they are the best tool we have, moving forward, to beat the virus. the sooner individuals take the opportunity to get vaccinated, the more individuals that can get vaccinated, the sooner that we can move beyond this peak and beyond this pandemic. >> brangham: also today, the nation's second- and third- largest public school districts ramped up their covid vaccine requirements. the los angeles unified school district and the chicago public schools are now mandating teachers and staff be fully vaccinated by october 15. meanwhile, the teacher's union of broward county, florida, said three of their teachers and an aide died of covid-19 within a span of 24 hours, earlier this week. the u.s. department of homeland security is out with a new terrorism warning today.

it said that frustrations over new covid-19 restrictions could motivate violent extremists to carry out attacks. the department also warned of "targeted violence" around the 20th anniversary of the september 11th attacks and religious holidays. a federal judge in washington has allowed the biden administration's new eviction moratorium to remain in place for now, until higher courts decide whether it's legal. white house press secretary jen psaki welcomed the move, and insisted the policy is a "proper use of its lawful authority to protect the public health." landlord groups that challenged the moratorium plan to appeal the ruling to the d.c. circuit court. the florida keys and florida bay are under tropical storm warnings tonight, as tropical depression fred moves closer to the state. the storm is gaining strength as it lashes the northern coast of cuba. last night, parts of miami beach were already starting to feel the effects with rain and flash floods. fred is expected to drop as much as seven inches of rain on parts of south florida by monday.

firefighters in southeastern montana are scrambling to contain wildfires that are closing in on more rural towns and ranchlands. thousands of people around the northern cheyenne indian reservation have been forced to evacuate. meanwhile, california's dixie fire-- which destroyed the town of greenville and some 550 homes-- remains less than a third contained. a red flag warning was issued for dry lightning that could spark new fires. another day of triple-digit temperatures roasted parts of the pacific northwest. an air quality alert was issued through saturday for northwestern washington state on account of drifting smoke from nearby wildfires. meanwhile, the national oceanic and atmospheric administration reported july was earth's hottest month on record. its director said that adds to the "disruptive path" of climate change. in turkey, at least 38 people have died in severe floods and mudslides that have battered the

country's northern coast. dozens of people are still missing, after torrents of water collapsed buildings and tossed cars and debris all over the streets. turkish president recep tayyip erdogan visited the area today, and promised to rebuild. >> ( translated ): we are rolling up our sleeves so that those whose homes were destroyed in the flood disaster may be reunited with their new homes. similarly, we've also started on work to compensate for the damages of those who were left suffering as a result of the floo. we cannot bring back those who have lost their lives, but our government has the strength, means, determination, to compensate all other losses. >> brangham: the flood damage comes on the heels of wildfires that have destroyed forests and villages and killed eight people in the country's southwest. and, stocks managed modest gains on wall street today. the dow jones industrial average inched up 15 points to close at 35,515. the nasdaq rose six points, and the s&p 500 added seven.

still to come on the newshour: how structural inequities led to the racial divide in homeownership in minnesota. jonathan capehart and michael gerson break down the week's political news. and, writer hector tobar travels the u.s. to examine what it means to be latino. >> brangham: the sharp rise in home prices across the country continues to hurt first-time homebuyers. it is widening an already large disparity in homeownership between white americans and people of color-- particularly african americans. and nowhere is this gap wider than in the twin cities of minneapolis and st. paul. special rrespondent fred de sam lazaro reports, part of our series "race matters," and fred's series, "agents for change."

>> reporter: it's been a heavy lift, that took years. but last month, tim luckett crossed the threshold into a new home-- a first step toward "happily ever after" with wife melva and six-month-old melani. >> feels great to finally become homeowners. >> reporter: why did you want to own a home? >> we wanted to be able to, you know, have her be able to play outside, have a yard, be able to take her out in the backyard, you know, play outside in the front, have a home for her. >> reporter: she wants to be on that yard right now. >> yes, she does! >> reporte the lucketts nabbed this modest north minneapolis duplex against tall odds. there's a severe shortage of homes, which has driven prices to record highs, and history has long stacked the deck against black homeownership across america, and in this market in particular. >> racial covenants did the work of jim crow in the north, all over the north. >> reporter: for much of the

20th century, it was common to see provisions in tw cities real estate deeds that prohibited property sales to people of color. the practice was the subject of the 2019 twin cities pbs documentary, "jim crow of the north." it featured historian kirsten delegard, who leads the university of minnesota's "mapping prejudice" project. >> if you're told all the time that the "influx"-- that's the language that was used-- the influx of a person who was not white into yr neighborhood would bring down your property value, that that was a real source of anxiety for individual people who maybe did not see themselves as racist >> reporter: explicitly, such covenants are now illegal. but they've left lasting scars. just 25% of black residents of minneapolis and st. paul own their homes, a rate that's well bew the national average, and notable because this is considered one of the most affordable metropolitan areas in the whole country... if you're white.

about 75% of white residents here are homeowners. the disparity has had consequences. according to the minneapolis federal reserve, the median net worth of white households in minnesota is $211,000. that same number for the state's black households? is zero. >> the way that we accumulate wealth in america is largely through our homes. >> reporter: jennifer ho is minnesota's housing commissioner. >> if you weren't allowed to buy in more affluent neighborhoods, if you weren't given preferential pricing on your mortgage, if you bought a home and you had it taken away through eminent domain to build a freeway-- you have been disadvantaged over and over and over. and so it is going to require decades of intentional work in order to-- to bring that number back up, and bring it up so that it's on par with white homeownership here in minnesota. >> reporter: that's the aim at project for pride in living, or p.p.l., where catrise williams

helps clients build credit and develop both job and financial skills that she says middle class people take for granted. >> in white communities, like, investments and owning land and real estate and all of these wealth creation tools, and the knowledge around wealth creation they've had access to since the beginning of time-- what happens with african americans and money is, like, we have been operating so long from a place of scarcity that when we get access to it, it's like, now i want to look affluent, and we don't necessarily have the foundational knowledge of what it takes to sustain that affluence or create that affluence. so we go with the next best thing, the look of it. >> i would get paid on friday and be broke on saturday. >> reporter: p.p.l. has helped 39-year-old lilricka barber on her long journey to financial

stability. >> i was on food stamps before. i was homeless before. i was on drugs before. i was in an abusive relationship before. but me being homeless really made me realize, who's going to take care of my son? >> reporter: today, barber actually works as a counselor for p.p.l. and earns extra income selling custom-made clothes online. she has learned to practice extreme thrift. >> no eating out, no buying things that i don't need, no impulsive purchases. going to the food shelf at times when means was low. cutting my son's hair, doing my own hair. >> reporter: was that a radical shift for you? >> yes. yes, it was. >> reporter: for several years, they've lived in a two-bedroom rental apartment that's cramped, but the stability has helped barber's 11-year-old son malik thrive in school in suburban burnsville, minnesota. together, they set their sights on owning their own home. >> i love hosting, and cooking for my family, so having a nice-sized backyard, because my

>> my own area to play around in, and two bathrooms, instead of just one. and i do want a dog. >> reporter: last year, barber was approved for a mortge-- an achievement that has since hit the brick wall of market reality. you've looked at-- how many properties, did you say? >> over 200. >> reporter: it's been a roller coaster ride, she says, that has led nowhere. >> i get all excited. i show my son. he visualized, okay, this is my room, i'm going to put my bed here, i'm going to put my dresser here. yeah, my dog, you know, that can be his little spot. we put the offer in, and we don't get it, because someone has come in and offered a cash offer. >> reporter: among the reasons for a shortage of affordable homes? investors have flipped many of them to rentals in recent years. and single-family zoning laws have prevented the construction of modest or multi-family dwellings like duplexes and apartment complexes. last year, minneapolis became the first major u.s. city to ban such laws.

as for the lucketts, even in the midst of unpacking, they've got one eye on the future. when you finally managed to >> i wanted grow into a house and just keep growing as my family grows, instead of going and get this big house and pay all this money that it's not even worth, just to say we got a big house. like, no. >> reporter: they'reenting the other side of this duplex to help build equity toward that dream home. but the dream of equity across minnesota's housing landscape seems nowhere near striking distance. for the pbs newshour, this is fred de sam lazaro, in minneapolis. >> brangham: fred's reporting is a partnership with the undertold stories project at the university of st. thomas, in minnesota. >> brangham: with afghanistan falling into the hands of the taliban, the planet warming to

dangerous levels, and the delta variant running rampant through unvaccinated communities, this week may have felt chaotic to many. it certainly did to me. luckily, to help us make sense of it all, we have the analysis of capehart and gerson. that's jonathan capehart and michael gerson, both columnists for the "washington post." david brooks is on vacation. gentlemen, very good to see you. thank you for being here. jonathan, i want to start first with afghanistan. you heard the ambassador from afghanistan saying the sense is they feel abandoned by the biden administration, by the american government more broadly. the taliban has basically gal lopped to complete near complete control of that country. what do you make of all of this? >> well, it's horrifying what we're seeing. i can't speak for anyone but myself but to wake up to the news that the taliban has basically retaken southern afghanistan and most of the country in a manner of days is

shocking. what's happening to the afghan people is shocking. what's happening to the afghan people who helped the united states and the allied forces is horrific. i interviewed former congresswoman donna edwards of maryland this morning and i asked her was he surprised by how messy and cotic this is, and she said, listen, whether the united states had gotten out two years ago, ten years ago, 15 years ago, 18 years ago, it was bound to be messy and chaotic, but i don't know if anyone really anticipated that it would look like this. >> brangham: mihael, is that your sen as well, that we're simply talking about the time frame here? i mean, could this departure have been managed any differently in your mind? >> i think you have to step back a step. this is a case where offensive combat operations for the united states ended in 2014. this was a residual force that

was left to do two things -- support the afghan military and to fig al quaida. they had a ct role. they were doing that quite well. they were at risk of casualties quite low. there was a cost to that, but the cost we are incurring now is far greater than the cost of maintaining 3,000 troops inthe circumstance like this. we have troops all over the world. so this was a completely unnecessary choice on the part of the president. n.a.t.o. wanted us to be there, the afghans wanted us to be there, no one was demanding us to leave, and, so, i think it was a mistake at that level, you know, one level back. >> brangm: go right ahead. i was going to say i don't know if it's fair to say that no one wanted us to leave when we know that a majority of the american people had been saying for years that they wanted u.s.

military personnel o of afghanistan. so i just wanted to make that point. >> brangham: but president biden did say he wanted to have this anniversary of september 11, the symbolic day of when we initially got into afghanistan, to be out. and the argument is that maybe we have really bungled that, and in peril, so many afghan civilians, to think of the taliban taking back over that country. >> right, and that gets back to my original answer, which is what is happening in the country right now is horrific. i interviewed hugh hewitt, our conservative colleague at "the washington post," another columnist, who said, jonathan, it's not messy and chaotic, it's catastrophic. i disagree with hugh on just about everything, but on that one, i can not disagree. what is happening in that country is catastrophic, but for the american people who want our people home and to stop spending what we're spending there, for

them this is a catastrophic choice but a choice that they have been asking for. >> brangham: i want to shift gears a bit and talk about the u.n. climate report that came out monday. this was a synopsis of the existing science, so, on some level, if you have been following this, it was nothing new, but it was such a red alarm bell for many. it basically said we have this closing window of time to act to avert some of the more catastrophic impacts of climate change. this comes out while the senate is negotiating the major infrastructure bill of the biden administration, which would give the biden administration many of the tools to fight climate change. michael, is it your sense that this report either stiffens the spines of the democrats and/or brings any republicans to an agreement that, yes, we have to address this issue? >> i think that's unfortunately unlikely. >> brangham: both those

things? >> yeah. i think this is a case -- it's a hard issue under any circumstances because you're making current sacrifices for future benefits, and you're not -- you know, a politician can't come out and say we're going to solve the problem. all he can say is we can mitigate it slightly less or more. >> brangham: that is not a winning political strategy. >> exactly, it's just inherently difficult. but it is also the first warning bell issue that we saw develop, there are kind of antiscience, anti-truth attitudes within a significant portion of the republican coalition. it started on this issue, and it's metastasized to a lot of other issues, and that is a huge challenge for our country. we have a significant portion of people that don't accept expertise, that don't accept the possibility of accessible truth. >> brangham: jonathan, do you see the same way -- this report

doesn't move anyone substantially? >> no, it doesn't, but the context in which this report came out, though, sort of highlights why the dire warnings need to be heeded. it comes out when greece is on fire, the pacific northwest is on fire. right now -- >> brangham: hottest july on record. >> right, hottest july on record, super severe storms racing across the country. i think that democratic spines have already been stiffened when it comes to climate change. i agree with michael, it's not going to change anything really when it comes to republicans, although there is a story out in the "new york times" this afternoon about how what is happening in terms of climate change is changing some republicans' minds, but not on the basis of let's protect the planet, but on the basis of, well, what can we do to protect the fossil fuel industry? i guess you can say any port in the storm to get something done

on climate change in the ited states, but, you know, that's -- that's not a huge swath of republicans who are coming on board. >> brangham: michael, does this seemingly ability to address this in a meaningful way make you despair for our ability as a democracy to tackle these big generation-long problems? >> i wish i could be more, you know, positive. i mean, this is a case where we can't get a significant portion of the american public to take a miracle drug that will save their lives in order to, you know, because of their problems they have with the truth. it's hard under that circumstce to imagine people thinking decades into the future about the possibility of harm. i think human beings in general are very good at thinking about weeks and months of future consequences. i think it's much harder when

you look at the research for people to think about decades and centuries of consequences. so it would take real leadership probably fr the republican side somehow in order to get the kind of change that would be necessary. there are 70 members of the conservative, you know, climate caucus in the house of representatives. it's not as i no people exist, but it would take a real change. >> brangham: michael is touching on the issue of the vaccine and the incredible politicization we've seen over this. i asked anthony fauci about this yesterday, the feeling many of us felt that we were finally getting our hands around the pandemic and maybe could start to emerge from this, and then the delta variant reveals the

unvaccinated communities. and then this miraculous piece of medicine. are we going to convince enough americans to get vaccinated? >> i pray that we do, william, but the politicization of this vaccine, of this pandemic, of mask wearing is probably one of the biggest shames of a shameful presidency, that you had then president donald trump who made it almost a symbol of manhood by not wearing a mask, and thereby convincing a lot of people that it was a hoax, that this was a hoax. even when he got it himself. even getting the vaccine himself, not taking the extra step out there to say get the vaccin save your life, protect your family, protect your community, and he didn't do that, and now we've gotten to a point -- excuse me -- where this pandemic is now a pandemic of the unvaccinated and that you

have states in our country that are -- you have republican governors who are actively putting people's health at risk, putting the public health at risk. >> brangham: by blocking mask man dates. >> yes, putti children in danger at schools for polical gain. >> it's hard to deal with american politics, i completely agree. if we need people to go up to 70 or 75% of people and you have the governors of two of the largest states in the country that are preventing community institutions from pursuing life-saving methods, that is killing people, and we're not used to that, deal with that kind of thing in politics. but, you know, it has to be called out. it's a lethal, political development in our common life. >> we try to usually end with a little bit of optimism.

neither of you have delivered optimism today. i forgive you. we'll welcome you back next time. michael gerson, jonathan capehart, thank you. >> thank you. s. >> brangham: the numbers are in. latinos account for more than half of population growth in the u.s., according to the latest census, and this evolution will continue to ansform the american landscape. but, what does it mean to "be latino?” that question is explored in an extended essay in the current issue of "harper's magazine." jeffrey brown talks with author hector tobar for our arts and culture series, "canvas." >> it's this name, this term, that hangs on to us during our entire liv. we're just forced to choose tribes in this country. >> brown: as a child in los angeles, hector tobar was considered "guatemalan-american." later, on a census form, he

checked "hispanic." now? he's "latino." >> and so, what do these tribes mean? we're presented with these names of these different races, these ethnic groups, as if they mean something to us. it's being used to judge our actions, to make comments on how we approach our politics. and so, i've been spending a couple of years now actually trying to sort of take apart the origins of the term and its meanin and what it means both for us and how others see us. >> brown: as described in the current "harper's magazine," tobar took a 9,000-mile road trip around the u.s. last winter, amid the pandemic, to see the diversity of histoy and experience of people of latin american heritage-- l.a., oregon, idaho, south to new mexico, east to texas, then georgia, florida, new york, and points west on the way home. the article is accompanied by photographs by others, capturing some of the spirit of specific places.

>> you have all these different stories of how people arrived at latino identity. so, in new mexico, for example, people really think of themselves as spanish, because that was the place that was most colonized by the spanish during the spanish empire. so that identity, that latino identity, is something very different from, let's say, south florida, where you have this cuban migration. and so, you know, to be latino means so many different things, from new york to los angeles, to dallas, texas, to el paso. >> brown: you write, "we are brown, black, white, indigenous, european and african. some of us speak spanish. some of us don't." how much is that diversity understood? >> i don't think it's understood very well at all. i think there is a real failure to understand the intimacies at the heart of the latino experience, the ambivalence that people feel. you know, your average latino immigrant, first-generation immigrant, is really conflicted about his or her or their identity.

where do i really belong? you know, am i really mexican? am i really honduran? am i really cuban? i have american children now, does that make me an american? you know, the inner turmoil of the latino experience really is part of what defines us as a people. >> brown: the labels, though, you suggest, are always about distinguishing some part of the population from the dominant white population, especially now. so, tell me what you see happening. >> the united states people, the people of north america, have always sort of struggled with words to describe the people who come from the south, right, who come from mexico, who come from the caribbean. in the 1930 census, "mexican" was a race category, because american people sought to sort of explain or describe these darker-skinned mestizo people from mexico, saw them as different. and so for that one census, "mexican" was a race. and now, most recently-- i would y in the last 20 to 30 years, with all this furor

over undocumented people and illegal immigration-- latino, latino people have become this sort of "brown" race of people who are threatening to the united states, in the eyes of many people. and so, there's been this racialization of latino people. >> brown: tobar notes differences in voting patterns among people he visited: strong reaction against the rhetoric of the trump years, but also a move toward then- president trump in some areas. >> the 2020 election was, in many ways, a traumatic event for latino people across the united states, because we were-- our people were at the center of the election. and i think that remains true in united states politics, but especially in the 2020 election where you had this politician whose rise in the g.o.p. is linked to his xenophobic statements, to his statements against mexican immigrants. at the same time, when we go to the voting booth, that's not the only thing that's going to determine how we vote.

and so, this sort of failing to understand all of these different complications and subtleties in the latino thinking process, i think is what's been most frtrating to me. >> brown: today, some people, young people especially-- and you write about your own children using the term "latinx"-- you can't help but think that the evolution of terms continues. >> oh, absolutely. "latinx" is something used by people who are kind of uncomfortable with the binaries in the spanish language itself, with the masculine and the feminine genders that are assigned to nouns and subjects in spanish. so this new term, "latinx," has evolved, and now people are starting to use that term in ways that are not just about gender but also about deconstructing "latino" itself. because "latino" is a term that is very euro-centric. it's saying that we are tied to this european past, to this spanish past. a lot of us are very uncomfortable with that because

we have this indigenous descent. you know, i'm part mayan. "latino" cancels out my mayan identity. so, "latinx" is a response also to that. >> brown: tobar cites studies shing very few people using the term "latinx" so far. but the use of different terms, he says, remains fluid. his road trip and article are part of a larger project-- an upcoming book on latino identity today, titled, migrant's light." for the pbs newshour, i'm jeffrey brown. >> brangham: on the newshour online right now, our friday“ five stories” video shares ories you may have missed, like an argentinian lagoon that turned pink, and an alternative for new moms in prison. watch on our youtube channel, or on our website, www.pbs.org/newshour. and, stay with pbs tonight. from the resignation of new york governor andrew cuomo, to the white house response to the

taliban takeover in afghanistan, our yamiche alcindor and her panel break it all down, tonight on "washington week." and that's the newshour for tonight. i'm william brangham. join us online, and again here monday evening. for all of us at the pbs newshour, thank you, please stay safe, and have a good weekend. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> fidelity wealth management. >> consumer cellular. >> johnson & johnson. >> bnsf railway. >> financial services firm raymond james. >> the william and flora hewlett foundation. for more than 50 years, advancing ideaand supporting institutions to promote a better world. at www.hewlett.org. >> supporting social entrepreneurs and their solutions to the world's most pressing problems-- skollfoundation.org.

>> and with the ongoing support of these institutions and friends of the newshour. >> this program was made ssible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. captioning sponsored by newshour productions, llc captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org

hello, everyone. and welcome to "amanpour and company." here's what's coming up. the taliban breakthrough into afghanistan's second largest city. what does this mean for the future of the country as the u.s. withdraws? >> then -- >> after years and years of infrastructure week, we're on the cusp of an infrastructure decade. >> how trillions of dollars of investment could transform america. >> plus -- >> all over this planet, wild fires are burning us alive. >> feeling the heat. her new documentary on california's deadliest fires. >> also ahead -- >> it is pretty stunning. >> former u.s. attorney and lt