>> good day, everybody, from msnbc world headquarters in new york. it's high noon in the east, 9:00 out west. welcome to alex witt reports. i'm lindsey reiser. a frantic and historic day in afghanistan. the imminent fall of kabul with taliban fighters now inside the capital city. the day began with gunshots. the taliban announcing their arrival within city limits. here's a part from stewart ramsey at that very moment. >> i hear a lot of shouting coming down the road behind me. in fact, it is -- i think it's a procession of the taliban. yes, it is. there's the white flag. and they're coming down the

street just next to us. they're led by a white flag, and they're chanting as they go down. i don't think from our position, we can't show you that. we're about two or three stories, four stories up. but there they are, right here. hopefully they keep going past this hotel. >> a spokesman for the taliban told nbc news they ordered fighters to enter kabul to prevent looting since police appear to have abandoned their positions. there's been steady helicopter traffic all day over the u.s. embassy with evacuations taking an urgent turn when the taliban surrounded the city. smoke is rising as officials scramble to burn sensitive documents. >> they're destroying classified documents as i speak. the visa process has stopped. and now, president biden said in

july this is not going to be saigon. it's not like south vietnam. guess what, when i talked to ambassador crocker, we thing it's going to be worse. >> a few hours ago, taliban fighters seized control of jabalabad and four other provinces. >> president biden has increased the deployment of u.s. troops to kabul to 5,000 to help with evacuations. and debate continues over which administration is responsible for the fall. >> there's no question that president trump, his administration, secretary pompeo, they also bear very significant responsibility for this. president trump told us that the taliban was going to fight terror. secretary pompeo told us the taliban was going to renounce al qaeda. none of that has happened. none of it has happened. >> we have our team of journalists covering this breaking news from the u.s. and around the world. we're going to go to ali arouzi

in tehran. a lot of people have been fleeing afghanistan to go into iran's borders. what are you learning about what's happening? >> reporter: that's right. there's been an exodus of afghans trying to flee afghanistan after those very upsetting images you see of the taliban entering kabul and pretty much the rest of the country. now, the iranians have set up three refugee camps in three places along the poorest border they share with afghanistan, and already, people are pouring in there, leaving what little they had behind in afghanistan, just to try to come into iran for a safe haven. as we discussed before, life for afghans in iran is very difficult. they have to do menial jobs. they don't have any benefits. they don't have any insurance. you see young kids as young as 13 or 14 years old working on construction sites. but it's better than the option

facing them in afghanistan, which is now pretty much in hands of the taliban. so we're going to see, i think, a huge influx of refugees coming here, trying to find safe haven in iran. there have been calls, through the years you work in iran, you meet a lot of people, they're calling everybody they know in the country to lend them money, help them with anybody they may know to get their family out of afghanistan and into iran just so they can figure out their next move. so i think over the next few days, you're going to see a lot of refugee camps building up with afghans here, but at the same point, the iranians are not holding the taliban to account for this. they're trying to restore relations, if you will, with the taliban. a spokesman from the iranian government has said that the taliban has guaranteed the safety of iranian personnel in

herat, in kabul, and unlike many of the western embassies we see there, the iranian diplomats are not evacuating afghanistan. but they're seeing if they can do business with the taliban that are now in control of the country. >> you know, as we have been reporting throughout the day, there's been this issue of timing and the fact that maybe the biden administration, their intelligence was saying this was going to happen in a matter of months, not necessarily days or even hours as we're seeing today. what the sentiment on the ground from your reporting in iran? is the timing always surprising them? >> not particularly. i think for people that are familiar with afghanistan, people that have been there, that have seen the afghan army, that have seen the taliban, yes, maybe people are surprised at just how quickly kabul fell into the hands of the taliban. but it shouldn't really come as a surprise that it did. look, the afghan army are not as motivated as the taliban.

they're not as organized as the taliban. the taliban are much more battle hardened and experienced. and they have a lot more discipline than the afghan army. there's a lot of reasons for this that we can sit and discuss until the morning, but the fact of the matter is that they are a much stronger force, and without the support of nato and u.s. troops, the afghan army simply doesn't have a fighting chance against the taliban, so this shouldn't come as a huge surprise that it fell. yes, maybe the timing of how quickly it happened is surprising, but that it ultimately happened shouldn't come as a shock. a lot of people here in iran, regular people and the government people, also saw that coming. the afghan army just wasn't a match for the taliban, if they're not being supported by u.s. troops, u.s. intelligence, and u.s. air force. yes, the afghan commandos do a

certain job, but they don't really make up the 300 strong afghan personnel. >> all right, ali arouzi in tehran, thank you. we want to go to pentagon correspondent courtney kube. you have been on the air all morning. earlier, you were breaking news that bagram air base had been taken by the taliban. what are you hearing? >> that's right. as ali was saying, this is really evolving. i wouldn't even say hour by hour but almost minute by minute. you mentioned bagram, the taliban is now in control of bagham, and they're in control of the large prison facility that's really co-located there with bagram, and the thousands of taliban and some al qaeda fighters have actually been now released from there. it's a smaller number of al qaeda fighters but the ones who were there were hardened, strong fighters that in many cases had been held there for years. that's a very significant development. what we know is the u.s.

military's continuing to flow additional forces into afghanistan as we speak. there are more than 1,000 who are there already. some of them were already there for the embassy and airport security, the mission that's been ongoing now for several weeks. additional forces, primarily marines, have been moving in over the last 24 to 48 hours and more are going in, but they have a tailored and focused mission, according to the u.s. military officials we have been speaking with. that is the evacuation of americans there in afghanistan, specifically the americans who have been working at the embassy there. in addition to that, they also have a mission of helping any afghans who may be eligible to leave under u.s. diplomatic services, particularly the special immigrant visa process. right now, the full contgent of nearly 5,000 u.s. military are not on the fwround. they're still flowing in. what is unclear is exactly what's going to happen in the next several days. these americans who were working for the embassy, they'll start

to move out. we're told they will be moved out much faster than was originally anticipated. in the coming literally hours. but what happens after that? the worst case scenario is that as the taliban move into the city, as they begin a potential big military offensive, the worst case scenario is they move to the u.s. embassy and that diplomatic area and they move to the airport and try to take that. if the taliban take over the airport, they could ground any aircraft, and they could stop americans and afghans from leaving that country. that is what military officials are very concerned about right now. it's what we're trying to watch and trying to get any sense of what's actually going on there at the airport right now. >> and do you have any reporting, we heard from michael mccaul, who is a ranking member on the foreign affairs committee, and he was telling cnn that right now, visa applications have stopped. we know richard engle was at a visa application center this morning tweeting that it was a

mad scramble there at that center. people were even coming up to him and begging for help, begging to get out of the country. at this point, if you are an afghan resident and you don't have a special bracelet or some kind of special immigrant visa, are you able to get out at this point? >> no, it is a dire situation. it's a situation that's been dire for the past couple weeks and it's really gotten into this critical mass period right now. the best case scenario for some of these individuals is to try to get out of the country on their own and then work on their visa process. but that is not -- that is not easily done. if commercial flights are coming and going right now, which it's not clear whether they are, then the afghans need to have the ability to get on one. they need to have the means to pay for it, and they need to have a place they can go, and then they need to work on their visa process. so it is a very critical situation. now, the u.s. military has -- is

flowing about 1,000 additional soldiers and airmen to qatar to help with this application process, but that means those individuals have to get to qatar before they can do it, and that is in some cases a herculean task. >> incredible reporting there, courtney kube. we'll continue to call upon you. >> new word also from the state department. secretary of state antony blinken on nbc's "meet the press" with chuck todd today talking about the status of the u.s. departure from the embassy in kabul, and an assessment of the afghan military efforts. we'll play part now. >> i want to play something you said in june about the withdrawal. and get you to respond to it on the other side. here it is. >> i don't think it's going to be something that happens from a friday to a monday. so i wouldn't necessarily equate the departure of our forces in july, august, or by early september with some kind of immediate deterioration in the

situation. >> how did that assessment end up so wrong? is that an intelligence assessment that went wrong? is that a pentagon assessment that went wrong? your own? it does not age well. >> two things, chuck. first, we have known all along that the taliban was at its strongest position in terms of its strength since 2001 when we came into office, that was the fact. and we said all along, including back then, that there was a real chance the taliban would make a significant gain throughout afghanistan. but on the other hand, i have to tell you that the inability of afghan security forces to defend their country has played a very powerful role in what we have seen over the last few weeks. the fact is we invested, the international community invested over 20 years billions of dollars in these forces. 300,000 of them. with an air force, something the taliban did not have, with the

most modern, sophisticated equipment. unfortunately, tragically, they have not been able to defend the country. i think that explains why this has moved as quickly as it's moved. >> joining me on the phone is nbc news chief foreign affairs correspondent and host of andrea mitchell reports on this network, andrea mitchell. you heard what the secretary of state said. from your reporting, do you have any clear reason why or how this assessment was so wrong here on how quickly this might unfold? even this morning, earlier this morning on msnbc, you were telling me very clearly, there is an active evacuation going on in kabul, although the u.s. government wasn't calling it that. >> well, they weren't then calling it an evacuation, but after secretary blinken spoke on "meet the press," it was clear what was going on. i think the fact is there was a complete misunderstanding of how well the afghan military force would perform. these were questions that were

asked, i was told by a participant, by house members, democrats and republicans, of secretary blinken, general milley, the chairman of the joint chiefs, the defense secretary austin this morning in a telephone briefing that nancy pelosi arranged for members of both parties with the top officials. how did we miss this? we missed it because we had been spending billions of dollars, we, the u.s., for 20 years to build up the afghan forces. they had 300,000 troops. they had heavy equipment, and they turned and ran. and they did it in province after province. special forces that had performed well in the past did not do well, what the top officials told the house members today was it was a failure of leadership, failure of military leadership and of the political leadership as well. that is very, very clear. it was a complete misjudgment on that. it's going to be described as a failure of u.s. intelligence, but this goes all the way back because for decades we have been

building that force up, and you know, for years there were problems, including american troops who were put at risk from afghan fighters. afghan fighters killing american troops. that has not been happening in recent years, but we're presuming and the u.s. is presuming and we're all being told the afghan fighters were being better, and they vastly outnumbered the taliban, but the taliban had heart and soul in this, and clearly, the afghan fighters did not. it's happened so much more quickly, by yesterday, it was very clear to the top officias that that was the last stronghold, the last city before all of the provincial capitals would be going to the taliban and kabul needed to be evacuated and quickly. and that's when the president signed that order to send in 1,000 more troops to try to keep a clear path. the state department has been working in doha and in

afghanistan, but working in doha primarily with taliban officials and leaders from all of these other countries hosted by qatar, and trying to get them to agree to some sort of a transition, which was going to be inevitable because of the military situation on the ground failing rather helplessly, while telling the taliban, you're not going to have legitimately, you're not going to have u.s. aid, you're not going be respected by foreign governments if you take the country by force, when it was very clear to many of us, especially since they were already being all but recognized in beijing and moscow and tehran, they were going to be recognized because the facts on the ground are going to dictate what happens diplomatically, and diplomatically, the taliban are about to be totally in charge of afghanistan, militarily they already are, and all the americans can do is hope this will be without a bloody street by street, house by house battle for the city of kabul. that is what they have been

intensely trying to negotiate, that kabul itself will not be attacked so people can evacuate. but that will not account for evacuating all of the siv qualified people, and that does not nearly encompass all of the people who have worked for american companies, for american human rights organizations, for international organizations and educators and others who are going to have targets on their backs, and these are primarily the women. >> you know, on that note, i want to play for you what a journalist told our colleague ali velshi earlier. let's listen. >> my fear is the humanitarian catastrophe that could ensue. i think immediately, the good that has been done to transform the rights of girls, going to school, they'll probably stop, close down all girls' schools. they will kill or certainly imprison anyone who had anything to do with any western countries, so that means the interpreters, my colleagues i have worked with for years are

in grave danger. anyone who is tainted in any way by the west is in trouble. >> andrea, what kind of humanitarian crisis are we looking at? not only for the people who now might be refugees, but also for women and girls in afghanistan? >> it's a disaster from all reports. and already a disaster. so any promises of a peaceful takeover as far as these women are concerned, women already seeing children being kidnapped, girl children in particular. so the terrorizing of women around the country, especially those who have been teachered, who have worked, who believed in the american promise of civil society, become educated, unmarried women in particular, it's just horrific. >> from a security perspective, secretary blinken says the u.s. is going to be extremely vigilant to make sure there's no reemergent of a terror threat from afghanistan. it was part of an agreement

president trump signed with the taliban. right now, are members of the intelligence community certain that promise will hold? >> i don't think anybody is certain of anything anymore, to be very honest, no matter what anybody might say. i don't think they would presume to know how this is going to go. because the taliban are unpredictable. they're clearly not reliable interlocutors. we have been negotiating with them for more than a year. it was a promise of peace to the trump administration. if we withdrew from the country on may 1st, we withdrew -- started to withdraw on may 1st that trump had promised and committed to, and we didn't see attacks on americans so far, but as to retaliation against afghanistans, i wouldn't presume anything. >> andrea mitchell, thank you so much for joining us on the phone there to share some of your reporting. we want to go to shannon pettypiece who is live at the white house, and shannon, the president and the house, they have been briefed on the current

situation, the senate too. what more do we know? >> well, we're really getting this sense today of the administration being on defense. we saw that from the secretary of state's comments coming out on the sunday morning shows today. trying to defend this decision amid all of these images you're seeing played out. and one of the key defenses we're hearing them make is that regardless of how much longer the u.s. stayed in there, that there was really nothing that could be done if the afghan forces, if the afghan government wasn't able to unite and defend off the taliban. we heard that clear in a length haey statement from the president today. we're also hearing the defense of how this operation was handled. there certainly have been a number of parallels between the fall of saigon and what we're seeing happening now with a helicopter once again evacuating americans from an embassy as a city is under assault. secretary of state blinken said that he does not see that

parallel, that this is a planned mission that is going on. but clearly, it is not going as administration officials had said it would, even just two days ago. and so not only is the administration under sort of on the defense, but they're not really having anyone come to their defense either. we're not hearing a lot of democratic members of congress, for example, coming out and speaking out and defending them. and instead, we are hearing a few of them raise criticisms, including this comparing and parallel to the fall of saigon. and also notably, a number of obama administration officials coming out and criticizing the administration and their handling of this. so we don't anticipate hearing from the president today on this. you mentioned the white house put out a brief statement saying that the president had been briefed. he is at camp david where he was supposed to be on a quasi-vacation. august in washington is typically when you see the president head out of town.

he's not having a full-fledgedivation now because of the situation, but because of him being out of the white house, we don't have an opportunity to ask him questions, and there are no public events on his schedule. so we just continue to wait and see what this administration is going to do as these scenes continue to unfold. >> all right, shannon pettypiece there at the white house, thank you so much. joining me right now is congressman jason crow, democrat from colorado. a former army ranger who served a tour in iraq and two tours in afghanistan. congressman, thank you for joining us today on this day. what can you tell us about the briefing? we heard andrea mitchell tell us a little bit about it. what did you hear on the briefing this morning? >> yeah, hi, lindsey. this is very, very hard to watch. i'm actually pretty heartbroken and trying to find the right words for what i'm seeing this morning. before being a member of congress, i was an army ranger. i served two tours in

afghanistan in a combat capacity and just seeing the images i'm seeing right now, knowing the friends i fought with shoulder to shoulder and the position they're in and the fear they're in right now is really a hard pill to swallow. i don't think anybody anticipated this would happen, that kabul would fall as quickly as it has. there's going to be a lot of answered. i'm a member of congress now, i sit on the armed services committee and intel committee and i can say this. nobody anticipated the 20-year build-up of an afghan army with hundreds of billions of dollars that we poured into it, that that army would not last a month. and i can also say the intelligence streams i have been the last couple months are just wrong. they were just off. i'm going to be asking some extremely hard questions in the months ahead as to how we got this so wrong and how we fix it, but the bottom line is we have a mission right now. there are thousands of people,

our friends, our comrades who are there, who are going to die if we don't respond. and the days ahead, it's all about this. and i'm calling on the administration to put as much combat power on the ground at the international airport as we can muster, put as many troops on the ground and hold that airport for as long as we can to allow as many of our friends to get out. use all of the resources of the united states of america to make this happen and save lives. >> congressman, you have been very vocal about that pressing president biden, asking for the immediate evacuation of afghans who supported u.s. efforts there, trying to persuade as well neighboring countries to open their borders to refugees. what kind of headway have you made. courtney kube said their priority is to get americans out of the embassy. are you worried there will be far too many people left behind? >> i am worried. here's the sad reality.

we're not going to get everybody oument. b we're just not. it's hard for me to say, but that's the truth. that's why go back to april, the day the president announced our withdrawal, i started talking, banging the drum with many of my colleagues, republican and democrat, saying let's start the evacuation and start it now. i knew there was a potential we would be in this position we're in now, that we're not going to be able to get everybody out. we're going to have time to have that debate and do the after action review and figure out what went wrong and what we need to do better, but that's not going to help the situation today. today, we have an obligation to hold that airport, to send in the troops necessary to do that, and to get as many out as we possibly can. >> and i do respect that right now there is the mission in front of us, but i do want to show you a tweet from liz cheney who says, quote, this isn't ending endless wars. this is americans surrendering and empowering our enemies and insuring our children and grandchildren will have to fight

this war at a much higher cost. congressman. even if we kept troops in at a certain level, to what extent was the taliban takeover preventable? >> yeah, you know, i actually agree with liz cheney on some areas. i disagree with her on others. liz cheney and i actually sponsored an amendment to the national defense authorization act back in 2019 that would actually compel the then-trump administration to meet certain benchmarks for withdrawal to insure that something like this didn't happen. that made it into law in both the trump administration and biden administration waived that requirement, much to our consternation. but i will say that i disagree with her on one thing. this should not be a perpetual american war. i agree with president biden to conduct that withdrawal. because, you know, you can't buy the will to fight. we built a 300,000 person military. best weapons, best training we could provide them. and they just didn't fight.

they walked away. you can't purchase the will to fight. you can't force people to want to do that. you can't force people to lead. and we couldn't do that five years ago. we can't do that today. we wouldn't be able to do that five years from now. i'm not sure anything we would have done by staying would have changed this outcome, but the discussion now is about what our obligation is to the folks we need to get out and how we can save lives. >> it does seem, though, with u.s. troops on the ground doing this evacuation mission, that the taliban is holding off. they're not engaging. of course, the u.s. has said if they do so, they will be met with a swift and efficient response. do you think the presence of troops could have been more of a deterrent even just waiting maybe six months from now? >> i think we're going to have to send in more troops than we're already planning to send in. you have to understand the taliban. this isn't a formal army. this is a looseaffiliation of

different groups. even if the leadership of the taliban negotiation and sate they're going to hold off, that doesn't prevent the rank and file, but there's also isis that has a presence in taliban and the haqqani network that has a presence in kabul as well. i could very much see them doing provocation attacks. they don't want to see a peaceful exit. tay don't want to give us the opportunity to evacuate. i think there will be provocation acts by these offshoot organizations. sphthere's a moment for overkill for military presence, this is it. we will send in and must send in everything possible to make sure we can hold that airport, get folks out, protect u.s. citizens, protect u.s. troops, and get as many of our friends and allies out as possible. >> congressman, finally, before we let you go, we know you have connections to the region, having served there and having worked with the locals there. what do you fear most now for the people who you say can't get everybody out, what do you fear

most for the men, women, and girls left behind? >> yeah, i have been on the phone almost constantly the last couple days. i'm sitting here, got my iphone with me, and every time i open my iphone, i check my messages, i'm getting messages from people begging for help. i'm getting passport photos from afghans wanting me to help get their children out. i'm hearing stories saying they're making suicide pacts so when the taliban roll into their neighborhood, they're going to do what's necessary to make sure their children, their daughters aren't enslaved by the taliban. this is just really beyond description, what we're dealing with here, and the human cost of this, and it's very hard. again, i call on the administration to send in the troops, send in the power necessary to get as many folks out as we can. >> frankly, congressman, i'm pretty speechless after having you say that, but thank you for your candor and for coming on

with us. >> we want to go to capitol hill now. that is where we're hearing just as we discussed with the congressman there, lawmakers coming out of that unclassified briefing. nbc's ali vitali is on the hill for us. ali, beyond what we heard from representative crow, what are you hearing about? we know defense secretary lloyd austin, general mark milley, and secretary blinken were on that call. what did they tell lawmakers? >> yeah, first, that was a really stunning moment of candor from congressman crow there, who served in afghanistan. really giving a grim layout of what is happening right now on the ground. and frankly, that was really also the content of the unclassified briefing here. the briefers reminding lawmakers that the top priority at this point is making sure that u.s. citizens and u.s. allies on the ground are evacuated as expediently as possible. there was a nod to the fact that

this is an intense and frankly risky mission that they are on right now. but nevertheless, the first in a series of briefings that lawmakers are going to get from the administration. this one was virtual and unclassified. lawmakers right now both in the house and senate are home, scattered across the country on recess, but when the house reconvened in the week of august 23rd, they're going to get a classified briefing on this issue. senators for their part before they left town, they were given a briefing on this issue then. so certainly not the first that these lawmakers are hearing on it, but definitely not the last. also in that call, though, and the dust far from settled on the ground in afghanistan, but already, the blame game happening here among lawmakers and among members of each political party. for instance, kevin mccarthy on that call likened this situation to vietnam. his was a tense exchange with biden administration briefers. but also, the sentiment echoed

by house foreign affairs ranking member mccaul, listen to what he said this morning. >> they totally blew this one. they completely underestimated the strength of the taliban, and you know, jake, they didn't listen to the intelligence community. every time i got an ic briefing, an assessment, it was probably the grimmest assessment i have ever heard. >> the blame is also being argued the other way, though, from people like secretary of state blinken and i even saw a statement pass through my inbox from steny hoyer, arguing that the timing of this, which is certainly something that experts are going to discuss and debate and go back and forth on for a while, the timing of this was something that was locked into by the trump administration. so there's going to be a lot of debate and a lot of discussion about house this happened, but we're beginning to see the fault lines form among lawmakers as the news is still very much

rolling in and happening in real time. >> as someone who spent so much time on the hill, in the uk, they call their parliament back from august vacation. do you get any sense that either of the chambers will be coming back from recesses? >> it's early to tell that, but the house is already coming back earlier than we thought they would from their recess. that reasoning was in part for issues like infrastructure and voting rights. that's going to happen the week of august 23rd. we're not sure even how many days they're actually actively going to be back in washington for during that week period. at the same time, though, we'll keep an ear out for this because this certainly is the first foreign policy test of the administration as they end america's longest war. >> ali vitali, thank you. we want to bring in now msnbc military analyst and former national security counsel member, general barry mccaffrey, and peter baker, msnbc political analyst and chief white house correspondent for "the new york times." and peter, you were the first american newspaper journalist to

report from the rebel-held northern afghanistan area after 9/11. you spent the next eight months covering the overthrow of the taliban, the emergence of a new government. what do you make of what's happening now and how it compared to 20 years ago? >> it's striking. when i landed in september of 2001, shortly after 9/11, to report from there, what we found was a country controlled by one of the most treacherous and vicious regimes the modern world has seen. now, here we are heading to the 20th anniversary of 9/11 and basically it's going to be that all over again. the people who are rightfully questioning what we have accomplished in 20 years, you know, the people who are going to suffer are the afghans because they're the ones who will be left behind. they're seeing in taliban controlled territory the beginnings of the same kind of thing we saw 20 years ago which is the say the repression of women, the violence and

retribution. if they take over kabul, there are thousands and thousands of afghans who worked with us who are afraid of what will happen to them, understandably. and so to look back at that 20 years ago and think about where we are today and how we got from there to today is just a great tragedy all around. it's a tragedy for america, but it's especially a tragedy for afghanistan. >> you know, general, we have been showing the images from 2001 around the time that peter was there. but i'm curious, when you're looking at the images today, and we're seeing the helicopters that are swooping in, coming in and out over the embassy. we're seeing plumes of smoke today, present day. what do you make right now of, for example, what peter just said, the questions that will arise of what we accomplished and what concerns you most about the mission at hand? >> well, first of all, let me go directly to the tactical situation on the ground in

kabul, and be clear-eyed about what is about to happen. we have a minimal force on the ground. i don't think the taliban are going to try to overrun the airport or probably the embassy, but they're going to close in on it in the next 48 hours. the kabul evacuation is over except for with the tolerance of the taliban. they can interdict the air space over karzai international easily. we don't have enough combat power to fight our way through the four miles into the u.s. embassy and the embassy district. that's over. we don't have enough helicopters to evacuate from roofs or wherever else the thousands of afghan military or commandos or cia operatives or embassy employees to get them out to this so-called siv process. i was fascinated by the

interview with congressman crow. magnificent human being and politician and army ranger. but we're not going to pump more forces in there. if we still had bagram airfield far outside the city, it might be feasible. so we ought to understand that this process has now stopped and what we're going to try to do is get american citizens out with the tolerance of the taliban. >> general, just want to ask a quick follow-up to what you said, the taliban in the next 48 hours will move in on the airport, will move in on the embassy. is that an intimidation tactic? is that threatening, like hurry up, we're waiting? >> well, i mean, we teach intelligence officers early on in their career, don't ever talk about enemy intentions. talk about their capabilities. and right now, the taliban having, for example, just released all of the prisoners throughout the country to rejoin their ranks, will be dominant on

the ground. and they will be capable of bringing up captured armor, anti-aircraft weapons, and besieging both the embassy district and the kabul airport. that's what they'll do. and then there will be a dialogue, and i'm reasonably sure that we'll be allowed to continue the evacuation of americans. but unless they start selling us as hostages, those who work for the americans, that process is now over. millions are moving in to adjoining countries as refugees in share sheer terror. just a comment on vietnam having been heavily involved in that also. the difference between kabul and vietnam is the u.s. navy and the ocean. afghanistan is at the end of the world. so you know, there won't be any tool to grab 200,000 people who

get on rafts or boats and get out to the united states navy. so this process, we are now out of military options. and we don't want to push our luck on this. we want to get the americans out safely. that's likely to happen, i hope. >> all right, peter, in president biden's statement, he said in part, when i came to office, i inherited a deal cut by my predecessor which he invited the taliban to camp david to discuss. that left the taliban in the strongest position militarily since 2001 and imposed a may 1, 2021 deadline on u.s. forces. peter, over the last year, we have seen president biden roll back several trump initiatives so why did he go forward with this one? >> he was under no obligation to continue with that agreement. he didn't abide by the may 1st deadline. he set a new deadline. he showed in that announcement

he did not feel bound by that agreement, at least in all of its parts. if he decided he didn't want to go with it, he didn't have to go with it. certainly he has on other things. he's using that now as a way of saying it wasn't my fault, i had no choice, but the truth is this is what president biden wanted to do whether there was an agreement by president trump or not. he made clear as a candidate, he made clear as vice president, he didn't think our remaining in afghanistan was all that useful and it was time to get out. he owned it three, four months ago when he announced and was proud of it when he announced it. now he's trying to say i had no choice. it was forced upon me. this is what he wanted to do. he thought we needed to get out, and understandably, a lot of americans agree because they felt like 20 years is enough and it's the afghans' problem and it's up to them to fight their own wars and why should we stay. if there was a frustration by biden that staying wasn't going to help things, we have now seen leaving can make things worse.

whether you support the policy or not, the way it's played out is not the way president biden or anybody else would have hoped because the pictures we're seeing from afghanistan and the stories we're going to start hearing in the days and weeking to come as the taliban consolidates its power, i think, will be, you know, etched in history as the, you know, one more embarrassment of a superpower after the british in the 19th century and the russians in the 20th century. >> we're talking about timing and how this was interpreted so wrong. your colleagues at the time said as recently as june intelligence agencies were thinking the taliban wouldn't gain power for at least a year and a half before kabul would be threatened. this week, we heard potentially 90 days. how are these calculations so off? >> well, that's a good question. that's a question they'll have to answer no doubt, congress, i would imagine would ask some of these intelligence directors to come and explain these

assessments and estimates that proved so wrong. remember, it was the president himself who said just 38 days ago that the likelihood there's going to be taliban overrunning everything and owning the whole country is highly unlikely. so clearly, you know, there was at the very least a failure of imagination or perhaps a failure of candor about how this could happen. because in fact, there were people inside the government who said this is the inevitable outcome if we leave. while we didn't have many troops there, only 2500, they provided an outsized stabilizing force and there would be a consequence if we pulled them out. the question is how fast it happened versus whether it would happen, whether it would happen seems to be something everybody understood was going to take place. >> all right, peter baker, general mccaffrey, thank you both so much for your time. we appreciate it. we want to get to breaking news out of haiti. officials saying within the last hour that the death toll from that massive earthquake has climbed to more than 700 people. rescuers right now are digging

for survivors. many people became lost in the rubble that you see on your screen there, when that earthquake hit yesterday. and then overnight, the island was hit with a really strong aftershock. okay, here's another. a tropical storm is now bearing down on the nation that's still stunned by the assassination of its president. nbc's vaughn hillyard joins us from miami. what are you hearing about the conditions of haiti, the death toll this morning was around 300, now 700. >> exactly. we knew last night that that death toll was only going to increase here. you're talking about one of the poorest nations on earth here, with hardly any electricity. only increasing the toughness in which this search and rescue effort is under way here. you're talking about that southwestern peninsula here that is so very much separated from the capital of port-au-prince. these are several numerous communities of tens of thousands of individuals. this is very much an active situation on the ground.

>> thousands of haitians still in the streets, searching for loved ones and neighbors after saturday's devastating quake. at least 300 people are confirmed dead and more than 1800 wounded. >> we don't have many manpower to help. we don't have brothers and sisters, we wasn't handle by ourself what is happening in southern haiti. >> the country already one of the poorest in the world, left reeling. schools, churches, roads, and homes all gone. in 2010, a powerful earthquake ravaged the country's populated capital, port-au-prince, killing up to 3,000. but this one decimated communities with tens of thousands of residents. >> this is an area that is virtually cut off from the capital and a lot of life-saving aid right now. >> this young girl saved from under the rubble. and further complicating relief

efforts, the high winds and rain from tropical storm grace slated to hit the island on monday. all this just a month after the assassination of the country's president. the new crisis unfolding amidst a leadership void. >> when people sit at home in america, they're used to the government, fema, showing up. there is no fema in haiti. >> the biden administration has tapped usaid administrator sumaltha power to coordinate the response from the united states, and samantha power announcing they would be deploying a disaster response team to the island. but again, we're talking about 724 at least confirmed dead. more than 2800 injured. as we continue to get more footage coming in, you're now hearing about planes that are being transporting victims into port-au-prince with a lack of medical aid on the ground here, this is a harrowing situation with schools, with churches, with hospitals condemned,

buildings turned to rubble. this is a tough situation on the ground in that southwestern peninsula of haiti right now. >> one thing after another. vaughn, thank you so much. >> we want to get now back to the breaking news out of afghanistan, where the evacuation is under way now that the taliban is officially inside kabul. president biden is increasing the number of troops deployed to 5,000 to help manage the situation. meanwhile, in the uk, the parliament is being recalled early from vacation to discuss what's happening right now in afghanistan. nbc's meagan fitzgerald is in london. what's the feeling there among the u.s.'s closest allies on afghanistan? >> i can tell you a lot of disappointment and frustration. keep in mind, the uk sent more than 100,000 troops into afghanistan to fight alongside the americans. of course, the americans experiencing more casualties with more than 2400 troops losing their lives, but the brits lost hundreds of their

own. so this is incredibly personal. you know, these men and women spending years trying to build up the afghan government, trying to train the afghan soldiers to be able to fight and defend their own land on their own one day. so of course, seeing, for example, just within the last week, seeing how in many instances, these soldiers gave up the fight before even trying to fight back against the taliban, was very difficult for veterans to see, and you hear them speaking out about that here in the uk as well as the united states. and most certainly, that is how the taliban has managed to steamroll through, taking control of practically the entire country of afghanistan, just yesterday, of course, one of the biggest headlines is seizing control of the last northern stronghold there, which meant that the taliban controlled the entire northern part of the country, and that is how many of those taliban troops made their way into kabul this

morning, where lindsey, right now, we're told they're trying to negotiate with the afghan government as they seek a change of power. >> the world is watching, and the world is reacting. thank you so much for that live report. >> as the city of kabul is on the brink of collapse, this morning the current and former secretaries of state are pointing fingers. >> we inherited a deadline. negotiated by the previous administration. that deadline was may 1st. the idea that we could have maintained the status quo beyond may 1st if the president had decided to stay, i think, is a fiction. >> this did not happen on our watch. we reduced our forces significantly. the taliban didn't advance on capitals all across afghanistan. it's a plain old fact this is happening in the biden administration's leadership, now almost a quarter of a way into his first term. >> joining me right now is don callaway, democratic strategist and founder of the national voter protection action fund. susan del percio, republican

strategist and msnbc political analyst, and david jolly, former congressman from florida and msnbc contributor. david, your reaction to that. i mean, everybody we have been talking to today says of course we have a critical mission at hand there. there can be plenty of finger pointing later. at this point, does it matter who's to blame? >> no, given the human events occurring in afghanistan, and with the implications for our domestic security here at home, look, i think it's important to be dispassionate about this. we have one president at a time. our president is joe biden. the buck stops with him. you can make the case very strongly, he inherited a very bad situation. but joe biden is the united states president today. he is the one who made the call. he's the one who bears responsibility. the question is, are there real political implications for what is a now disaster that is occurring in afghanistan with the rise of the taliban?

this is not an issue that might influence voters. the taliban elevating back to authority in afghanistan. but look, seven months into joe biden's presidency, this is now part of his legacy. the one question politically for joe biden is, this is now a more dangerous world with the taliban taking control of afghanistan. if it has implications for our domestic security here in the united states, that absolutely informs the political opinions of voters in the united states. should the u.s. under the biden administration keep the united states safe despite the fact the taliban now rules afghanistan. >> do you think this outcome was inevitable? >> no, it was absolutely not inevitable to have to end our occupation of afghanistan. if one or five more years would

not have make a difference, then 25 or 50 years would not have make a difference. as humans, particularly as americans, we look for these clean-cut beginnings and endings of things, but this is a situation where we should detach ourselves from our political brains and think about what the real human consequences are of ending this just for the sake of having a clean break. we understand our men and women of the military are putting themselves at risk and their lives add risk and everything back here at risk, and that's unfortunate, but i can't see a circumstance in which this was the right thing to do knowing full well that it would return to a lawless land under terrorist fundamentalist terrorist control. david is right, the world is a far more dangerous place. vladimir putin is still an extraordinary enemy of our country, and he can now coordinate directly with the taliban and afghanistan. there are remarkably horrendous

implications of this. if five more years would not have make a difference, then why pull them out? we know pulling them out with no plan and no safe leadership is just a horrific and dangerous place. >> first and foremost, thank you for your service and protecting our country and those around the world. that's what our to hundreds and thousands of people not just there, but in afghanistan but in the region. it was a stabilizing force.

i president biden. he changed the deadline from may 1st to september 11th. he already was able to change deadlines. we should hold him accountable for his leadership during this time which has been an utter failure. this what we're seeing on the ground right now should have been done differently and there is only one person to hold responsible and that is presidentre biden. >> david, i want to listen to something that secretary of state said this morning on "meet the press." let's listen. >> we went into afghanistan 20 years ago for one mission and that was to deal with folks that attacked us on 9/11 and make sure they would not be able to do that again from afghanistan.

bin laden has been brought to justice an decade ago. we have the capacity going forward to make sure we have forces in the region and deal wl reemergence of terrorism. we succeeded in achieving those fundamental objectives. >> david, do you agree? >> it's hard to measure if we succeed and and ensuring this never happens again. i thinkve that's the issue and e concern. the taliban gives safe harbor to al qaeda. the taliban wishes to do harm on the united states. we have to deal with an enemy that wants to attack the u.s. the u.s. is in a more dangerous footing than we were two weeks ago. i'm not sure i agree with the secretary's position on this. >> don, do you want to weigh in? >> it's just the hallmark of trump's administration is he is not thoughtful. he would do and say stuff, including we're going to pull

out on this day because it makes people feel good politically. joe biden is a thoughtful guy and ifu wish he thought about t real life human implications of end this when he didn't have to. >> we'll have to leave it there for today. thank you fore joining us on ts today. as we approach the top of the next hour, we want to share a few numbers. first the war in afghanistan is america's longest war. it's been called the forgotten car -- war and america's paid the pprice. 20,000 wounded, 2,000 killed. the u.s. spent about $2.25 trillion. 143 billion was spent on rebuilding the country after ridding it of the taliban. there were new reports that kabul airport is taking fire.is gunshots there. at the top of the hour my colleague will join me. we'llgu go through all the late breaking developments there.

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let's get you up to speed in last hour. we have reports of the airport in kabul taking fire. alert from the u.s. embassy asking u.s. citizens to shelter in place. just in the last three minutes we have learned the president and vice president of the united states, president biden, vice president harris have met with their national security team to get updates on the draw doumpb the personnel in afghanistan. that's according to a white house official. we'll have more on what our sources are saying on that front. you have a number of news outlets reporting that the president has fled the country in afghanistan. we have to note that's been not been confirmed by nbc but it would be significant. why? these are signs that the fall of kabul could be imminent. you have u.s. forces frantically working to get our u.s. citizens out.