yamiche: cries sees, foreign and domestic. the taliban captures key cities in afghanistan in stunning speed. >> this is the thing to do. yamiche: and the pentagon prepares to send in 3,000 u.s. troops to evacuate american personnel. >> things will need a booster. yamiche: the f.d.a. authorizes vaccine booster shots. >> the best way i can help now is if i step aside -- yamiche: and new york governor resigns after ak cue sayings that he sexually harassed

numerous women. what happens, next? >> this is "washington week." corporate funding is provided b- >> consumer cellular. additional funding is provided by the estate of adams and things wing committed tore bridging cultural differences and sandra and carl. the corporation for public broadcasting and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like things. thank things. once again, from washington, yamiche alcindor. yamiche: we begin with breaking news. the taliban have taken control over large parts of the country

and the pentagon is moving 3,000 troops and another 4,000 troops to the region. >> this is a temporary mission with a narrow focus. yamiche: the forces will be helping american personnel evacuate. the move is total withdrawal. the delta variant keeps igniting hot spots and political battles. president biden pledges support for those defying mandates. >> we have heroes like things and i stand with things and america should stand with things as well. yamiche: i have ronan faro from "the new yorker". vivian salaama from the washington street journal and

jonathan martin from "new york times" and eva mcend. white house sources told me the speed of which this is happening. and presidentiden has no redress and says after dpaps must defend themselves. what is happening and women face danger and what is the particular fallout for president biden? >> things know, the u.n. secretary germ said it best that afghanistan is spinning out of control. that was his quote. we have seen and seen kandahar and a couple of others fall in just the last couple of days that the taliban has taken over the south and western parts of the country and positionings

themselves to move into cab you'll. and so -- kabul. the biden administration is saying they are surprised but people within the intelligence mmunity are not surprised that u.s. control could empower the taliban and what we have seen in recent days. and it is rather shocking spoo the administration and others who have seen the taliban getting stronger and afghan security forces getting weaker. so the biden administration is grappling with the situation that the president that the scales are tipping in favor and ultimately and it is so great that he wants to focus that 20

years was too long to be there for the afghan people and afghan government. they relied so heavily on the u.s. and nato forces and now they are left on their own and people are seeing them fume pling quickly. yamiche: president biden said they have trained afghans but u.s. veterans are saying why didn't my friend get blown up. tell us what happened to all that training and sacrifices? how is the taliban able to move that quickly? >> it's going to take us years to diesct what went wrong but the u.s. afghan military relied on air power and support and any targets they needed to support

their grouped forces and the military said it is possible. and you have widespread corruption within the afghan government and the military. andrea: also -- [indiscernible] >> and it is so meager that it is hardly an incentive to risk their lives that the taliban are much more stronger and much more organized in terms of their objectives. this is what we are seeing. and u.s. officials who risk their lives and people who lost limbs out there because of roadside bombs and other horrible situation are looking back in the has 20 years and said we went in there to help the people of afghanistan to get back. but strategy was a big question

and not just on the biden administration, it goes to the predecessors did the u.s. have strategy that they could help the afghan government construct itself and form institutions and all the things that things need to form it. and these are the questions in the closing days. jam. yamiche: they said it was not to nation build but the question. ronan, things worked and covered the state department and wrote a book and america has a weak record in creating peace what does this mean for the region and the world? ronan: this is repeating itself and richard holbrook who ran the

state department spent his final days and lost his life in that job, arguing that we had lost a moment of leveraging where we had military muscle on the ground in that country and the threat could have been continued and he thought that could be negotiations with the taliban and the things government didn't want to do that. that fits with a pattern of military-first approaches to afghanistan and even what we see is, yes, talks john going in doha about the taliban and its future but what we don't see is any coordination between our military withdrawal and those talks. and richard holbrook and many people may disagree with him that we are in a position where we squander the moment, once

things are in talks with a complete withdrawal already underway, you don't have any teeth or anything to back the talks up with. and yet again, what we are seeing is a failure of diplomacy as well in this moment and the consequences are going to be on a human level. i think they are going to be held politicly if cab you'll falls -- kabul falls and if there is a return to the dark ages that is something that the biden administration is going to feel. >> this is so tragic and poignant coming up on the anniversary of 9/11 and 20th anniversary of 9/11, this is terrible for the biden administration and speaking of administration and fall of sighing on, speaking of

holbrook, someone who knows the chalnges we had in vietnam and here we are again pulling out of a country where winning and losing was never clearly defined and leaving and having to vak evacuate. it is just eerie. i think the challenge for bieden here. the honeymoon is clearly over. he is facing enormous challenges here at home and abroad. and rising inflation which is creating challenges for americans at the hump, at the grocery store, which is overshadowing which the economy is but the inflation part is joaferl shadowing and covid coming back, he has a lot on his plate.

yamiche: thanks so much, vivian and i appreciate things coming on. meanwhile, of course, the delta variant is fueling spikes in covid cases across t country, politics continues to be at the center. president biden has been calling out the governors of florida and texas and have banned for enforcing mask mandates and we watched this from tennessee of protestors surrounding health care workers. what does ts tell things about the impact of weapon eyeing anti-science views? eva: what things saw in the video, but we are seeing the same tone in the congress, a fierce resistance amongst congressional republicans on mask mandates and vaccine

requirements and at the outset, it was a few republicans and now coming from the leadership like kevin mccarthy, very vocal against continuing to take these measures to suppress these measures. senator ranked paul getting into a public spat with youtube where they banded him where he argued that cloth masks are ineffective and how long he has been marking that argument and i ask dr. deborah best of your recollection and are clothe masks completely ineffective? and she said no. that was not the case that senator paul's comments are inaccurate and we are seeing this is a political issue amo republicans and i don't know if it is going to help them or they are feeling that these measures and mandates have gone too far.

yamiche: and i want to narrow the conversation, president biden has liked setting these markers, july 4 and celebrate normalizing parts of our life, august 31, withdraw totally from afghanistan and seen both of those days ploa up. is he setting deadlines too soon? jonathan: i think he was trying to oversell and he did if he cantively but as in every administration, events drive the administration not an arbitrary deadline that things set in the events that have taken place with covid and the unexpected resurgence of the taliban have overwhelmed those two dates that things mentioned that administration and it is

frustrating to the white house folks saying we have gotten this big bill passed through the senate on 69 votes and i talked to people on the bipartisan bill on infrastructure. we don't hear it. afghanistan is about to fall to the taliban and covid is surging and that is squeezing out the good-news story. yamiche: another story that did dominate this week. new york governor once a star in the democratic party resigned. a report found that he sexually harassed. >> there are generational and cultural shifts that i just didn't fully appreciate, and i should have. no excuses.

yamiche: now lieutenant governor hochul is to become the first female governor and will remove any staffers that acted unethically. >> no one will describe my administration as a toxic work environment. yamiche: you have worked extensively, what patterns of power from cuomo's and about who the governor is? ronan: what we saw happen with the sharp downfall of governor cuomo is not a me-too, story. there is a story that has to deal with sexual harrisment and apows and the attorney general's report would be classified as class c misdemeanor in the new

york. and could be punishable to a few months in jail and that's serious but what we are seeing around cuomo is a consequence of years and years of corruption, bullying, a willingness to subvert and processes around him my recent reporting was that. he dismantled corruption commissions looking into him and he bullied officials who sought to scrutinize his actions and around the closure of an anti-corruption was a call he made to the white house seemingly, if not trying to get the top federal prosecutor in manhattan fired but to undercut him and we saw around the release of the sexual harassment

report similar tactics. some of the very same players he was undermined in the past. and try to -- an author was personal and political. these are tactics that andrew cuomo relied again and again and how it connects to the me, too movement a by journalists and activists is that there is less tolerance of that particular leadership style. has it gone away? no. we have seen a diminished willingness to put up with that as a hallmark of leadership. yamiche: new york state assembly is suspending its impeachment

resignation. whato you make of the timing of that? jonathan: if cuomo wants to run again is actually helpful, if he is to impeach again -- i think it is a long shot that he will run for office down the road. but he has a history of trying to come back and run again in 2022. and ran again for governor. if not totally crazy by not impeaching him he would have that opening to try to come back down the road. yamiche: eva, things were a reporter in your days at the hudson valley. republicans and former president trump, they are able to hold on and face the political consequences. on the democratic side, but

there are men like al franken. is there a double standard? eva: democrats and republicans have come out and expressed different positions on this, different values. democrats say we are the party of women, we trust and believe women and wn it is one of their own who is accused of sexualmis conduct, it becomes difficult. that is why we see the response. and what was powerful. collectively we are asking ourselves is this a moment we are seeing our shift in our politics. because some of the hallmarks of governor cuomo, the bullying and family legacy and we are moving away from the aspects and to the people in the hudson valley and sullivan county and catskills

are thrilled by this outcome maybe not for the allegations against him but other shoes like gun control and filth they didn't have a voice in new york state because the charge voting population re-elects democrats. >> his per sonna is a throw-back and got away with it as long as he did. jonathan: he was progressive and culturally and his per sonna in the year 2021 and democrats -- yamiche: i want to give things the last word. people who have never spoken out including to things, could governor cuomo face criminal prosecution? and that was a great point

there? ronan: jonathan makes this a great point and that's something to be thankful for. we have seen an industry after industry, that kind of bullying style lose its purchase. and in andrew cuomo, he presided over an administration that could be argued that was fairly corrupt, the kind of interference was widespread and before his tenure and during his tenure new york remaipped one of the more corrupt -- remained one of the most corrupt are states in the country. it has tolerated this kind of interference and bullying and i think we are seeing a wakeup call where those changes that

jonathan alluded to are colliding with an old-school style of leadership. yamiche: things started out this strain of the changing times and the shifting ideas and the ideas that may be work on the dpop side and running on your family's name is a changing idea in american politics. so i appreciate both of things coming on. and i want to say thank things so much to the reporters. i have to leave things a couple minutes early so things can support your local pbs station and thank things for joining us. and latest on the taliban takeover of afghanistan cities, we will have reporting from the region. find it on our social media and talking about climate change

from u.n. report. good night from washington. >> corporate funding for "washington week" is provided b- >> consumer cellular has been offering contract plans to help people design on more what they like and help find a plan that fits things. visit consumercancel things lar . tv. >> the estate of adams the ings wing foundation committed tore bridging cultural

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announcer: funding for this program made possible by man: babbel, a language learning program developed by over 100 language specialists. babbel teaches real life conversations in spanish, french, russian and more. babbel's 10 to 15 minute lessons are available as an app, or online at babbel.com. my mom grew up really poor in locust grove, oklahoma, on a farm. i think my mom was so poor that it's just unbelievable that she managed to leave. as a matter of fact, when i moved to new york after college, my mom said, "jennifer, no matter what you do, "it will never be as big of a deal as it was for me to leave that farm." when a friend of mine was dying,