we have to wait a few weeks for them to come back for them to take it up again, craig. >> it did seem as though we heard senator schumer opened the possibility of adjusting the filibuster or did i hear that wrong, very quickly. >> no big news there, the same position he had. everything is on the table, craig. >> everything is always on the table. leigh ann caldwell for us there from the capitol rotunda. leigh ann, thank you. and thank you for joining me. that will do it for me this hour. special presidential envoy for climate john kerry will join andrea mitchell right now on "andrea mitchell reports." and good day. this is "andrea mitchell reports" in washington where president biden is calling on business and university leaders to mandate vaccine requirements in the ongoing fight against the delta variant slamming communities and hospitals across

the country. that discussion this hour is the president and leading republican governors continue their fight over mask mandates for schools. >> people should not be dying from a viral illness. period. they shouldn't be dying from covid-19. we're seeing pretty rapid changes to the health of the individuals that are infected with the virus. >> and a day after andrew cuomo's announcement that he's going to resign we will hear for the first time from his successor lieutenant governor kathy hochul who in the 13 days will make history as new york's first woman governor. we will hear about the potential legal fallout still to come for cuomo. president biden holding firm on the withdrawal from afghanistan on the midst that the taliban's rapid moves can threaten kabul. >> we trained with equipment over 300 afghan forces, they have to fight for themselves and

fight for their nation. >> on the urgent climate threat and the alarming u.n. report, i'll be joined by the president's special envoy for a climate, former secretary of state john kerry. let's begin with the states getting hit hardest by the coronavirus. joining me now are nbc's dasha burns in johnson city, tennessee, in appalachia, and kerry sanders in florida. first to you, ron desantis fighting this battle for mask mandates at both the local and national level and speaking out again today. >> reporter: indeed, andrea. we are seeing an increase in the number of children with covid up 20% in the state, but the governor says there is no need for a mask mandate. in fact, he's threatened school districts in the state of florida all 67 counties that if they put a mask mandate in he will cut not only the salaries to the superintendents and also to the school board. i'm here in riviera beach.

this is in palm beach county. the kids here have been told to wear masks. their parents can opt out. in some of the community in the state they're defying the governor saying no, you must wear masks and there won't be an opt out. the governor says while the numbers are increasing and gives a nod to the fact the percentage of kids that are testing remains the same. so more kids are indeed, also showing at hospitals that they're testing positive for coronavirus, but it remains a constant of 1.3%. this is what the governor had to say a short time ago about his continued support of no mask mandates. >> our view is, of course, that we believe that this is a decision for the parent to make. what we found, fortunately, is there's actually higher infection rates when you're just in the community versus when you're in the classroom particularly for the younger kids. these kindergartners and first

graders are not people that are really transmitting this in significant levels. i think what they do is do what they've been doing and if there's somebody that's sick, stay home. >> reporter: for parents who are sending their kids to school, this is a real conundrum. so they're telling their kids that they want them to wear masks, but there are, in some cases, kids one desk over that are not wearing masks, and so for those parents who feel that their children are being potentially exposed and turn to the teachers for some sort of enforcement, the teachers say that here in palm beach county, they're not given a list of the children whose parents have said opt out, they don't have to wear a mask. so if the kid especially in the high school because high school kids are a little bit more independent pull off the mask the teacher really has no idea whether they should be wearing a mask or not. so all of this leaves parents fearful of the spread of the variant, delta variant, which we know is having a real impact on

kids here, andrea. >> kerry, we will fact check with doctors about what the governor had to say about children in school in just a few moments and thank you so much for starting us off. dasha, tennessee lagging below a 40% vaccination level after firing the head of the state's health department and in neighboring kentucky, we are seeing the governor being proactive and instituting a mask mandate for his state schools. so what are you seeing in tennessee today? >> reporter: andrea, i'm in the appalachian highlands and they're telling us what they're seeing among kids is unprecedented. the hospital system in this region said that yesterday 29% of positive tests in their system were among those under the age of 18 and here in washington county, schools came back just over a week ago.

they've already seen 50 positive cases among students and staff and 194 in quarantine, but andrea, despite these numbers, there is no mask mandate in place and no social distancing requirements and no strict protocols around quarantining kids who have been exposed at school and this school district and the majority of districts in this area and health workers are seeing these trends and they're terrified of what's coming to these hospitals in the coming weeks as the kids get deeper into the school year. i spoke to the ceo of ballad health's children's hospital. take a listen to what she had to say. >> think the hardest part for me personally is trying to get people to understand. i stood in the pediatric intensive care unit last week and watched everything that was unfolding and it was just heartbreaking. i mean, it was just heartbreaking to see.

it's important to relay that message to the community and again to counter some of that misinformation and to counter some of the things out there that just aren't true. this is affecting children. >> reporter: a group of local physicians, andrea, sent a signed letter to superintendents in this area pleading with them to reconsider a mask mandate. i asked a superintendent in washington county about this. he said they are still not requiring masks. he says they're re-evaluatingy every day, but emphasize this will be a local decision and emphasize the importance of personal choice here, andrea? >> dasha burn, thank you so much. the situation in tennessee and then to texas, one of the other national hot spots and students in austin, texas, heading back to school with masks on as they're disregarding the mask ban in an effort to prevent covid transmission in the classroom. joining me now, austin mayor steve adler. good to see you again.

a dallas district judge has granted its county a temporary authority to defy the governor's order and allow mask mandate on campuses and what could this mean for students with covid cases and hospitalizations? >> i think it means that we aren't going to completely follow the data and the doctors which is really good news. the cdc, the american academy of pediatrics all indicate that the way to keep our children safe is for people to be masking in schools and we're going to do, everything we can with our resources to keep our community and children safe. >> do you think you can resist the governor's order? can he override the courts and what do you see as the legal outcome there? >> in the city of austin we've taken the position that the local health authority and local government officials have the power to decide what it is that happens in their local communities with community

support. we've been in court twice with the governor so far this year. we've won both times at the district court level. the supreme court hasn't ruled on the merits yet and there's some uncertainty there, but regardless, it's important that we take a strong stance and so that the messaging and the communication is just unequivocal to the community and the community is doing everything that we can do to keep the kids safe. >> and texas is, as you know better than we do, one of the four states getting hit the hardest by the most recent wave on the delta variant cases. they're 50% of those eligible to be vaccinated. how do you get more shots in arms? what are you doing that's different? >> at this point we're literally going door to door to make the shots available to people to make it as easy as we can. we're trying to get out the information that the vaccines are safe and effective and billions of people have taken it at this point. we're telling people that sharing with them what's happening in our hospitals right

now, we're virtually everyone there are not vaccinated and almost everyone in our icus. we're talking to the community about the fact that even if they don't get covid, if they end up on an ems, an emergency vehicle, right now they're having trouble unloading non-covid patients in our hospitals because so much space is being taken up with covid patients. the choices people are making not to get vaccinated for themselves are not choices just for themselves. the choices they're making to leave themselves is impacting everyone. that's why it's important to especially protect our children. a parent can make a choice for their child except that the choice that they make impacts everybody else in the classroom, and people should have a right to pick a choice and to be able to be in a classroom that keeps their children safe. as we said from the very

beginning we will follow the doctors and the data even when we have the governor that seems to be following the donors and not the doctors. >> you know your community so well. how much difference would it make if in the coming days as we are now being told might happen? we go beyond emergency authorization use and the vaccines, the vaccines become fully authorized. >> i think that will help. the more information that we can get to those that are hesitant and not for political or ideological reasons, i don't know how we reach those people except with leaders in those communities stepping forward and recognizing that at one point in time everybody needs to mask, but those other kinds of thing, when we get the ongoing and permanent approval, my hope is that more people will get the vaccination. we're seeing an uptick in people

getting the vaccines right now and that's a very good sign. >> let's hope that continues. thanks so much, mayor steve adler in austin, texas. >> and the new concerns for children with dr. mark klein at children's hospital and zeke emanuel at the university of pennsylvania and a member of president biden's covid-19 advisory board during the transition. dr. klein, first to you, you have 17 children, i'm told, and maybe the numbers changed today hospitalized in portland, at least 12 children under the age of 12. we are hearing of children on ventilators and how much worse is this latest wave where you are? >> delta has been a game changer for us, andrea. we are seeing more children far more ill with the virus than we've had before and more hospital admissions and the prevalence of the outpatient network is 25% which is a higher

covid prevalence rate than we've ever seen among children here in new orleans or louisiana. it's interesting that most of the children that we are admitting to the hospital are young. the majority under 2 years of age. these are kids that are not eligible for vaccination just yet and they're getting cases in their environment. >> when can their children under the age of 12 get vaccinated? are we getting any closer to that announcement or is it the end of the year or beginning, and it will be fall or early winter when we get that, between 2 and 11. we do know that children above the age of 12 can get the vaccine and parents need to ramp

that up. we still in the country up 50% of the country fully vaccinated and that's a big difference and if you look at the states that aren't having a big delta outbreak and vermont, massachusetts, connecticut and those are states that have a much higher vaccination rate and there does seem to be a close correlation between places that can handle delta and the high vaccination rate. >> i also want to ask you, ron emanuel, what ron desantis, that kindergartners will not -- >> what we have seen vaccinated

people have a pretty high viral load and that is, i think what is probably fuelling this and making people very, very concerned and this is another where governor desantis acting like he has a medical degree when he doesn't have a medical degree and it recalls president trump when he gave out medical advice that turned out to be false. >> i want to give an idea of what your state is dealing with, this latest data from louisiana and the department of health saying unvaccinated citizens account for 90% of the cases. that replicates pretty much what we're seeing nationally in 91% of the hospitalizations. so how devastating are these numbers for the state health workers? >> well, they're putting an incredible burden on the state and if we're talking about children in particular 20% of the new covid cases in louisiana

now are occurring among children and adolescents. so this is, as i said before, delta has been a game changer and it's absolutely new for us. we were already dealing with a very large epidemic of another virus, rsv, and so we've been battling that for a couple of months and then have this influx of patients on top of that caused by covid, and if the numbers increase as they're projected to do we're going to be in big trouble. we are grateful that our governor john bell edwards issued a statement, and it pertains to children as young as 5 and teachers and staff members, and i feel very strongly that a mask mandate in the schools is just a common sense public health measure.

when governor desantis says that they haven't seen widespread transmission of the virus in kindergarten and first grade and so on, he's not talking about this delta variant that's so much more transmissible. >> dr. manuel, what about masking in general? some saying cloth masks give 20% protection and medical masks, 40%. should everyone be wearing n95? >> you can get them foldable and get them like in the screen, a cup version and you can get them in the duck bill version and they really do make a difference. they're not very expensive. they're reusable, and if you're going inside, i do think we have to up our ante. wearing gators or simple cloth masks are not good enough and getting n95 is good. it's also important to make sure you are getting an n95 that's

nya approved and there are a lot of fakes out there. 60% appear to be counterfeit and a lot of them not made to the high standards of 95% protection, but i totally agree with you, andrea, that we do need to up our game. it's not just masking. it's proper masking including the nose and it's masking with a good mask like an n95. >> and finally, the cdc, dr. emanuel is meeting friday to talk about boosters or third shots for immune compromised people, some cancer patient, transplant patients. what is your advice for people wanting third shots? >> first, we have to see what the acip, the advisory committee on immunization practices that is meeting on friday comes out with, but we do know that from israel where they have given the

mrna boosters to people who have -- are immunocompromised because they're transplant patients. about 2% had made enough antibodies and after three shots over 70% had made enough antibodies. i am pretty sure and i don't want to second guess that they'll recommend vaccinating immunocompromised people and that includes cancer patients and other people on immune-suppressant drugs. the whole population is probably not a good idea. >> and do we have enough supply right now? >> supply is not our problem. both pfizer and moderna are turning out enough millions and millions of doses a day, and we're only immunizing around about 700,000 people a day, so supply is not the issue. >> dr. zeke emanuel and dr. klein, thanks so much to both of

you for real medical advice and not what we get from some politicians and prepared to lead. new york lieutenant governor kathy hochul speaking for the first time since governor andrew cuomo announced his resignation at this hour how she plans to steer the state forward as he faces more legal trouble potentially. you're watching "andrea mitchell reports" on msnbc. ute! this one is too cool! [ grunts ] this one is just right. [ grunts ] oh! find your just right at kohler.com. oh! are you using liberty mutual's coverage customizer tool? so you only pay for what you need. sorry? limu, you're an animal! only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪

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in just a few hours we'll hear from kathy hochul for the first time since understand rue cuomo's resignation. he still can face civil suitors on criminal charges stemming from the allegations and possibly an impeachment investigation by the state assembly and looking into how he handled nursing home, vaccine distribution and publishing the book on the pandemic for which he reportedly received $5 million. governor cuomo continues to deny any wrongdoing and disputes many of the allegations against him.

joining me is anne thompson who is covering the story and has been on it since the beginning and what do we expect to hear from the lieutenant governor and the next governor of new york state today? >> well, andrea, here are the three things that i'm looking for. first of all, can hochul explain why is there a 14-day delay between cuomo resigning and her taking office? what's the origins of that? who requested that? who signed off on it? two, is her style of leadership going to be different? andrew cuomo is known for a dictatorial style of leadership leading by fear and intimidation in albany, is she going to lead in a different way? and thirdly, what is she going to do about the major crises facing new york state, covid, rent relief and the return to schools. those are the big issues facing her immediately on top of just

moving the state beyond seven months of scandal. andrea? >> and she, of course, has the impeachment inquiry and we'll have a better idea and that is hanging over everything and the other legal troubles hanging over cuomo. his resignation doesn't have any impact on the impeachment inquiry or all of those legal troubles that you spoke of. the judiciary committee for the assembly will meet on monday. they will take up the issue of whether to go forward with impeachment, why would they go forward with impeachment? two reason, one, to find out what really happened in the nursing home scandal. i talked to an assembly member, and he feels that the attorney general's report on sexual harassment was pretty clear, but the question he has surround the nursing home deaths during the pandemic and how they were accounted for by the cuomo administration, and the second

reason is if cuomo was impeached he would be barred from seeking public office. today everybody looks at the scandal and thinks i can't imagine that he would run for anything, but you just don't know what will come in the future. >> andrea? >> people who say that don't know how andrew cuomo has come back from political disasters before. it's great to see you, anne thompson. thank so much. time running out. extreme heat, wildfires and tornados and tropical storms and all things that the u.n. warns we'll be seeing more of if things don't start changing now. john kerry, president biden's presidential climate envoy joins me next and the steps we need to take. this is andrea mitchell reports "only on msnbc.

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president biden scored a major win with the senate passing his infrastructure proposal and a budget bill for a much larger program, but hard work for democratic leaders still lies ahead for sure and the house divisions are deepening between moderates and progressives who disagree on the path forward for both bills and is already a challenge in the senate. senator joe manchin today after voting to proceed with the budget resolution and criticizing it has almost no chance of moving it without manchin's support. if nine moderate democrats are urging speaker police toehold an immediate vote on the bipartisan

bill on its own rather than linking it to the budget plan and the progressives are objecting and she is, as well, how much pressure can they put on the speaker when they return from the recess and they return early on august 23rd. >> you will see a very delicate dance being done on both sides on both chambers when they return in september on this. progressives have been very clear from the beginning that this spending bill was contingent on that additional reconciliation bill that one cannot be had without the other, and as expected we are seeing moderates balking at the size of the price tag and so the speaker will have to try to find a way to bring both sides of that together and you're already seeing on the senate side with senator manchin bulking up the sides of that bill and something that we expected to see, but it's already showing signs.

and phil, the democrats are having problems on the senate side, as well. how do you see the senate shaping up? >> they don't have any margin of error. they have a $3 trillion bill and the democrats will need support from two moderates in particular, joe manchin of west virginia and kirstin sinema and ultimately when they would need to get final passage down the road likely in september and we can expect some protracted negotiations among the democrats to secure those two votes because without either one of those votes, manchin and sinema, this bill is dead on arrival most likely. >> and senator schumer was also questioned today already about

the debt ceiling. you know that janet yellen wants a stand alone bill and schumer made the point that it's been bipartisan for the last numbers of cycles and what you saw from mitch mcconnell and republicans is that they're not going along with the debt ceiling right now. they want it to be part of the reconciliation bill. or rather part of the bipartisan bill. >> sorry. is that for me? yes, and what you're seeing is certainly a turnaround from the past when the debt ceiling was not a problem for republicans during republican administrations and now you're seeing that pushback. it's just showing that despite the fact that we had this really big bipartisan show on the infrastructure bill, that was really an exception to what's happening on capitol hill and not the rule that you're really still seeing these partisan divisions that's basically based on the party of the lawmakers

and who is in the white house. >> phil, what about the other parts of what they're trying to accomplish? they dealt with sort of a blank page on voting rights overnight without any details, schumer says that there will be significant things in it when they come back and actually write the bill, but it's scaled back and tim scott is missing another deadline as he and karen try to negotiate police reform and we've heard nothing on that for quite a while. phil? >> that's right, andrea, there had been some hope earlier this year on a bipartisan breakthrough on police reform and also some hope from progressives that the white house would muscle through this voting rights bill, but we're now reaching the summer recess without much progress on either front and it's really to be determined, i think, what those two measures look like come fall when the congress returns, but i think we can expect to see increased pressure from, you

know, liberals and in particular from civil rights advocates outside of washington calling on the white house and on democrats at the capitol to really prioritize voting rights because it is so essential as they start dealing with the loss that are coming into the fore in all of these different states and begin positioning and figuring out the electoral environment in the 2022 mid-term elections which would, of course, determine which party controls the congress. >> phil and of course, phil is the co-author of "the new york times" best-seller with carol linick, i alone can fix it and kimberly atkins, thanks to both of you. >> thank you. and the u.n. this week issuing a stark warning on climate change. the u.n. secretary-general actually describing his report as a code red for humanity tying the extreme weather that we've witnessed recently, from fires

russia and greece and the earth is the hottest it's been in the last 125,000 years. so what can be done now to protect the planet? joining us now is the answer man, john kerry, presidential envoy for climate and former secretary of state. mr. secretary, it is always good to see you so let's talk about -- >> thank you. >> what we are seeing is a disastrous summer all over the world. the american west, of course, we've just seen historic floods in europe, shocking in europe and china. you write for the boston globe, it is not too late for the world to act and it doesn't have to be this way. you are the voice of optimism and hope here. give us an idea. how do we confront this reality? >> by making the decisions that are available to us to deploy alternative, renewable merge and begin to transition rapidly away from the current course. the scientists tell us, the same

scientists that are sending us this red code tell us they have this ten-year window within which, we can implement and if we reduce emissions and other major emitters are joining in that effort and then we have a chance at keeping the warning limited to 1.5 degrees or somewhere below 2 degrees. that's our goal and right now, 55% of global gdp has signed up with president biden's summit to do exactly that. we still need to bring the other 45% onboard and together, the 20 nations that are the major economies of the world equal 80% of all emissions in the world so we begin to move and move rapidly. we can't get this thing limited to less than the worst consequences.

some of the damage is already baked in. we can't change the current intensity of the storms and the rising of the tides and the way in which the arctic and antarctic are currently melting. that's damage done to a large measure, but what we have to do is recognize the reality of what the science is and begin to move and here's why i am actually optimistic in the sense that the bright side of this is there are millions of jobs to be created in building the new technologies, building the new electric vehicle structure and deploying the charging stations, doing what's necessary to bring hydrogen online as a no-emissions fuel. there are so many possibilities, andrea, and we are just not -- it's not a lack of capacity. it's a lack of political will thus far, and we have to change that. >> you talked about the 55% in april and the president's summit

who went along with it, but the 45% include russia and china. china alone is 27% of the emissions. so what leverage do we have with two of our toughest adversaries, really, competitor, china and -- geopolitical adversary russia. >> we've been meeting with both, andrea. i went to russia just recently. we had negotiations with their team. they are building a new plan to try to axe dress some of this. we don't know how much that will be yet. we're going to obviously encourage them to do what they need to do. china, likewise, we've had a great number of sessions. i've been to china and going again in three weeks and my hope is that china will also step up as they have been considering a whole bunch of different options. we know we need china, rush a

india, mexico, south africa, brazil, indonesia and there are a whole group of countries that have got to step up here and we're shlg woing very closely with them to try to show them how that can happen, and in ways that we can cooperate. >> a place you know very well is the united states senate and they passed that $3.5 trillion budget overnight. a big component is combatting climate change and senator manchin today is casting doubt on its entire future saying it's irresponsible because it spends too much. with your vast knowledge of the senate, how do we get that across the finish line? >> i know that senator manchin wants to help deal with the crisis and deal with the problem. i'm not going to get into the amounts of money and where they are at this point in time, but this is the beginning of the process and the beginning of the

negotiation and obviously, senator manchin has proven himself extremely capable and adept at trying to protect the interests of his state and do what he thinks is right. so i'm confident the process and president biden's leadership, she's got a great group of people working diligently with the senate over the past months and my belief is that they will get something that helps to put america where it ought to be in terms of addressing this challenge. we can't do it without the congress stepping up, and it is critical for the united states to have that happen and our credibility in terms of our rirps with other countries and the negotiating we're engaged in this and no one country can solve this problem. likewise, nor can a group of

countries like china -- excuse me, like japan, canada, the u.s., the eu, and the uk which constitute that 55% of gdp, they can't do it alone. you've got to have every country in the world being part of the solution even those countries that don't emit a lot have to avoid making the mistakes of the past by building a coal fired plant when they could be building any number of alternatives that exist today. >> and president biden, speak of alternatives says he can move the u.s. fleet to 50% electric, fuel cell, plug-in hybrid by 2030. despite massive investments already in june 3.8% of cars sold were electric. so wouldn't it be most effective to go back to an old idea which is a higher federal gas tax.

wouldn't that accomplish more in the near-term? >> i don't think -- that's not what you need here. what you need here is a very rapid deployment of the charging stations. people need to get over their distance anxiety about electric car. they want to know they can get through the day, through the week, the month where they need to get through, and the charging is absolutely critical here and the second thing is the price of electric cars is going to come down. some people i know -- i'd like to buy an electric car, but can't afford it and it's understandable. those prices are going to come down. as more and more competition enters the field and more and more cars are introduced that are electric and i think people will find that they're a pleasure to try, and i think it's going move very rapidly. i had a conversation with the head of gm, mary barra, a few

days ago and i don't think -- she is committed to this idea that this can move faster. i think a 50% goal is a big goal, but it is achievable, and i think we will see a massive moment and consumers will demand a difference ask price will come down and that will accelerate further the transition. >> i want to ask you about undoing the changes with the paris climate accord ask there have been such a blame game, not just through the p.a. and related agencies. doesn't it restore the confidence in the regular government. >> it takes place some sometimes, and it would be very helpful if my cleggs in the

senate, they would accelerate the process. i think that's an important tradition that we need to honor both sides of the aisle because america does better when that happens and we need to see our country making a lot of decisions faster in order to accelerate a lot of the things that are challenging us right now. so my sense is that we have an essential team in place, and what you are seeing is a reflection of the capacity that president biden has brought together and to me, it's a very exciting moment because a lot of this is overdue and over the next six months people will recognize that the economy of our nation is going to do far

better by embracing these initiatives and moving in this direction. we have a vast infrastructure in dire need of repair and buildout. we need a legitimate smart grid in america with we can send one part to another and raise it for citizen across our country and the fact is that, andry a the fastest growing job in america was wind turbine technician and the third fastest was solar panel installer and the labor department says that those are two of the jobs that have grown fastest over 50% again this year. so i think we're seeing an economic transformation begin to take place and millions of jobs are there to be created. i think most of the economic analysis worth their salt all state that this is an economic

plus for our nation and for the world, and we're looking at the potential of the largest market the world has ever known, creating the greatest transformation we've since the industrial revolution. i believe that's going to happen. green hydrogen with storage, whether it's battery storage or other kinds of storage of electricity and with new transmission lines and with new fuels for aircraft, sustainable aviation fuel and all these things are in the happening, and i think it's pretty exciting. >> clearly, you are excited about it and we are excited to talk to you about that today. thank you. >> thank you. >> climate envoy john kerry. the taliban is advancing. afghans fleeing their cities and more of the countries are falling to insurgents and new fears that the capital could be in jeopardy. a live report from afghanistan

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is always part of the plan. whether the taliban could be closing in on afghanistan's capital kabul. taliban fighters gaining control of a lot more territory as fighting is breaking out now in 24 of the country's 34 provinces. hundreds of afghans trying to escape the taliban. turning this into a makeshift camp. joining me now, nbc's kelly cobiella. what are these people telling you about their fears as they've run from the taliban with no place to go? >> reporter: well, andrea, first of all, a lot of these people have basically the same story about this speed with which all of this happened.

telling me that they had no time whatsoever to take anything from their homes. it was, you know, in the dark of night. they were told they had to get out if they valued their lives and literally left with the clothes on their back. one teacher, a 68-year-old woman, with 9 grandchildren said she left so quickly all she could take was her bag full of a few documents and her teaching certificate. they walked for hours, grabbing a car where they prices for taxis ex-or tant exorbitant because so many of fleeing. young women unmarried, because they want to force them to marry taliban fighters. also said that they are specifically targeting government workers. she herself is a court clerk and said one of her colleagues was killed. take a listen.

>> translator: they burned her hair, and then they killed her because she was a daughter that gave up the -- >> reporter: and now with so many of these provinces experiencing active fighting between government forces and the taliban, there actually is a real worry in kabul. there is no fighting here in kabul, to be clear. the nearest fighting is about 150 miles away, across a mountain range. still women here are worried sick. one young woman, 27 years old, unmarried, told me today that her mother bought her a burka that full-length covering for women that is synonymous with the five-year rule of the taliban back in the '90s. bought it for her because she says, we need to be prepared. andrea? >> and i was there back there in the '90s, and the -- what they did to women was unspeakable.

kelly, please, stay safe. thank you very much for your report today, and as always. general mccaffrey, the president yesterday said he does not regret decision to withdraw troops from afghanistan. let's listen. >> we spent over $1 trillion, over 20 years. we trained and equipped with modern equipment over 300,000 afghan forces. they've got to fight for themselves. fight for their nation. >> general, are you surprised that they are not fighting for themselves? why have they not been more successful? >> well, it's hard to disagree with anything prd said. we have invest add long decade of building the afghan police, the afghan army, the commando forces. cia special units. we've paid their salaries.

they've never come together. that central government -- by the way, just a comment, as i've been in and out of afghanistan over the years. inside the u.s. embassy is very difficult for staffers for the last ten years to ever leave the grounds, ever leave the kabul area. same with the presidential compound. i don't remember going over to brief karzai on the situation, drug situation over in afghanistan. they're protected and have a different view what's going on in the nation. out there in the cities and districts, the afghan army in particular has a back way. the afghan police are handing over weapons or joining the taliban. some of these districts fell to a dozen taliban fighters. and i also -- majority of the population does not want to return to the misery, the brutality of taliban rule, but

here we are. no support to go in, in any way. nato out. no military leverage significant that we have on this situation. >> and when i was talking to former defense secretary panetta, he says the u.s. has to do something, but is it air cover? from a standoff position? i mean, we're basically out of there. >> yeah. absolutely. once we head over bagram, that was the end there. out in the indian ocean, we have long-range unmanned area vehicles that can have some influence on it. except for the cia nobody is on the ground now to try to adjudicate, and is this a legitimate air power gheft a built up area? how do we avoid collateral damage, i.e., killing civilians. we just have no tools, really, to influence the situation.

there's always the danger of a -- the afghan security forces liquefying, suddenly overnight they stop fighting. that's a current concern in kabul. >> general mccaffrey, thanks for being with us and thanks to kelly cobiella. that does it for "andrea mitchell reports". chuck todd is up next on msnbc. hey, i just got a text from my sister. you remember rick, her neighbor?

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