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.

they came down at that moment. watch. >> i hear lot of shouting coming down the road. i think it's a procession of the taliban. just next to us. a white flag. they are chanting as they go down. i don't think from our position we can't show you that. they are right here. hopefully they keep going past this hotel. >> that was what was unfolding at the moment that the taliban entered the city. a spokesperson says they ordered fighters to kabul to prevent looting.

officials scrambling to burn sensitive documents. you had taliban forces seizing control of four provinces as president biden is boosting the number of troops working on this evacuation mission with this desperate plea from some to not leave our allies behind. >> i'm getting messages from people begging for help of getting passport photos. wanting me to help get their children out. i'm hearing story of afghanistan saying they are making suicide pacts so when the taliban roll into the neighborhood, they will do what's necessary to make their share daughters and children aren't enslaved by the taliban. this is beyond description of what we're dealing with here. it's very hard. my call on the administration is send in the troop, send in the power necessary to get as many folks out as we can. >> beyond description.

all of it chilling. washington watching and waiting to see where this goes next. >> there's still no strategy other than to race to the airport and evacuate as many people as you can. >> this was president biden's saigon moment. seems like they got this wrong. >> the terrorist organization housed al qaeda when they plotted and planned the attacks against us. >> we have team of correspondents to bring us the latest reporting on these developments in afghanistan. >> the politics of this will be dissected but at this moment, there's an immediate and urgent threat to people's lives, to people's safety. what do we know about that and people who are looking to get

out of afghanistan who are make coming to your neck of the woods to iran where you are? >> reporter: there's a desperate exodus going on among afghans trying to get out of afghanistan. many of them are crossing the border and coming here into iran. there's already about 2.5 million afghans living in iran. most of them undocumented. that number is set to rise significantly. the iranians have set up three temporary refugee camps along the porous border with afghanistan because they are suspecting a huge influx of people to come in here. as i mentioned before, it's a very, very difficult life for afghanistans here. they have to do small jobs, usually dangerous jobs. they don't get paid well. they don't have any insurance and their kids can't go to school. they would still prefer that life to the one in afghanistan. even bigger picture than that,

the afghanistan refugees are coming in from the eastern border into iran. most of them don't want to stay here. they are all trying to get out onto the western border into turkey so they can get into europe and find a better life. they can't behind them. many of the afghans i've spoken to said it's all over. afghanistan is finished for them. whatever they have there, they have to leave behind. homes, belongings rgs all of this stuff just to try to get an existence here. it's a very desperate situation for them. their lives have fallen apart. >> shannon, can we swing over the you at the white house. there's new reporting from a white house official as the world is watching what's happening in afghanistan, it's obvious that president biden would be as well. we understand that today, just learned about this in the last couple of minutes, he's met with

top national security team. who is involved? what do we know? >> we know the president was briefed there morning and the white house just saying that the president and the vice president via secure teleconference, the president is at camp david met with their national security team. the secretary of defense, other top military fishes were involved as was the secretary of state. bringing the president up to speed on the situation that's on the ground. this white house official said the focus of that conversation was on how the operations are going when it comes to getting out those americans and assisting the afghans in tun tri who have aided the u.s. government. how the process is going and trying to get them out. as the reporting on the ground indicates that's been a chaotic situation with thousands of afghans still trying to get visa applications approved. i will note in all these stams we have heard from the white house in the past few days about where the president's focus is,

his focus is on getting out the americans and the afghans that assist the u.s. it's an america first focus. it's not trying to do anything to support the afghan forces. it's not about afghan women and girls. the administration says the images o concerning and distressing but the focus from this white house is on the american interest. we heard the secretary of state talk about this a bit more and about how there is no u.s. national security interest in keeping america and troops in the country. here is a bit more of what he had to say. >> look, what we're focused on now is making sure we can get our people to safe and secure place. that we can do right by the people who stood with us in afghanistan all these years, including afghans who worked for the embassy, worked for our

military. we have a massive effort urn way to bring afghans at risk out of the country if that's what they desire. ultimately, it's up to the afghans themselves. st up to the afghan government and the taliban to decide the way forward. >> reporter: the secretary of state being the one out there, the public face of this administration today. we do not anticipate hearing from the president. there's nothing scheduled at this point as he is at camp david. a fastly changing situation. >> shannon, thank you for that reporting. courtney, we want to go to you at the pentagon. what are you hearing about the latest details we're getting? you said not all 5,000 troops are there. the efforts to evacuate the folks from the airport hearing shots fired there in the area and also this other report that nbc news hasn't confirmed that the president of afghanistan has fled the country. >> reporter: the u.s. embassy is

saying there are report of shots fired at the airport. they are warning americans to shelter in place. obviously, this is, if it turns out there's shots being fired or any attempt to contest the security at the airport, this is a very serious and potentially grave development in afghanistan but at this point, it's just reports of shots fired. as you mentioned, there's been also reports, largely on social media but some local media outlets are starting to pick it up that some of the afghan leadership have been fleeing the country or attempting the flee. i think we talked about this in the 5:00 or 6:00 hour. these were two of the things that i've been warned to really watch today. number one, any attempts to take solid airport by the taliban by force and any indications that the afghan government may be fleeing the country. those are two serious developments that we need to be watching for. at this point from a u.s. military perspective, we know there were roughly 1,000 u.s.

troops that were already there as part of this ongoing mission to secure the embassy and the airport. some early element of these new battalions started coming in over the weekend. the total force, which president biden released statement about yesterday, which is roughly 5,000 troops, they are nowhere near that number. they were still flowing those forces in. that shows the speed with which the taliban have been moving forward in this offensive and just how quickly they have been able to not only isolate kabul in the last several days, literally days, but how quickly they have been able to move into kabul and part of the reason they've been able to do that is these last several provinces and towns and cities they have rolled through have been largely uncontested as they have moved through. it's been at lightning speed

they moved into kabul now. the big question going forward now is have the afghan government leaders begun to leave? have they reached any agreement with the taliban for them to leave safely and what is the status of the airport? those are the big questions we're trying to answer here. >> i have two more questions for this and if the answer is we don't know, that's totally reasonable. do we know how many people are left that need to get out? do we have a rough number? >> reporter: we don't have a number but they were at the very beginning stages of getting americans out when kabul, the taliban began to enter kabul hours ago. we know there were roughly 1400 americans who were working at the embassy. there's a roughly 4,000 member staff there. that's off the top, that's thousands of people that potentially would need to leave.

when you add onto that part of the u.s. military mission was not just the americans but help some of these afghan civilian who is may be eligible for the special immigrant visa process. that could be potentially thousands of people. considering they were at the early stages of getting any of those vijs out, we don't have confirmation any got out. we are still most likely talking about thousands of people who would be in kabul trying to leave the country under the auspices of this new effort to get them out. >> how long, based on, this is a bit of an unknowable question but based on your reporting of the region, in the country, your sources you built, what is your sense you're hearing on how long it might be? is it possible that there's any chance that afghan forces could hold off the taliban, a day, two days, three days or we're

talking a matter hours here in. >> they have the capability. what we have seen is the struggle between capability and will and motivation and that's where we -- we -- there's no question the afghan military had the capability to fight off the taliban in some of these cases. they have this one -- they have three major -- what the military would call aasmet tri trick advantages. they have very well trained commandoes that the taliban does not have. the third thing is the afghan military has an air force. the taliban does not. even with those advantages, the taliban has rolled through be p they have shown a motivation, a momentum and a will to fight that the afghan military, in many cases, simply have not shown during this offensive. that was the big question going

into kabul is would the afghan military and some of the afghan military, the commandoe, snds these more elite forces that are responsible for securing the palace and the government institutions there in kabul have the ability to hold off an offensive but so far we're not seeing they have done that. we also need to point out what we're seeing is not some large, coordinated military offensive by the taliban. they have moved into the city. there's some sporadic cases of fire. they seem to be isolated elements of young fighters but what we're seeing in kabul is not some large taliban military offensive. the question is, if they are negotiating with the afghan government, does that hold off and we don't see some big military offensive and they have a negotiated settlement that doesn't see massive fighting.

i know there was, i heard from a unusual of officials that the more senior elders, taliban elders who have been working on this peace negotiation that they were encouraging the young fighters not to go into kabul and blow the place up. they are at the end here. why blow up the infrastructure that you may be able to take over. is that message being relayed and being listened to by the taliban fighters on the ground. we don't know yet. that was a long answer of saying we don't know what they are planning. >> thank you so much. we know you'll still around for us as this continues to evolve over the afternoon. joining us is msnbc chief correspondent and host of andrea mitchell reports. joining us on the phone right now. we know this is a dangerous situation. courtney laid it out for us. how would you describe the mode

right now that the state department is in. it's orderly as secretary blinken suggested or do you think there's a hint of concern or panic given the accelerated time line now? >> more than a hint. this is a disaster for them. this is not the orderly withdrawal, the evacuation that they have planned. this is way sooner than they thought. the entire u.s. government is responding with urgency to a crisis of unparalleled proportions. accept if you go back to vietnam which is a comparison they don't want to make. it will be an afteraction report of whether intelligence failures, why rely on the afghan military. why did we pour billions into them and rely on their leadership as well as the political leadership. all of that is suggested in some of the answers, some of the questions and answers that house members were getting during a briefing that they held with

unclassified briefing that they held with the defense secretary, the secretary of state and the chairman of the joint chiefs. those questions are yet to come. what we have to worry about is what came out of the embassy which was this warning that american citizens should stay in place rather than heading to the airport. p they are hearing and they acknowledge what courts are firing at the airport. if the airport comes under fire as courtney was discussing, then all bets are off. secretary blinken said today, to chuck todd is u.s. citizen, u.s. personnel are the first and second order of priority. getting americans out. then the afghan colleagues who have worked for us, who have approved status and their families, they are the afghan

translaters and those who qualify in a very cumbersome process. then the non-military related afghan who is have worked in human rights group, women groups and other leaders in civil society, educators, those desperate people and their families, many of them women who have taken the courageous step of working with the u.s. for decades now and raising their daughters and college girls who have never known what it's like to be under that mideviel taliban rule when i first went many the 90s. those are the people not listed or approved for the special visas. you're talk about thousands of people. for the americans to be told to shelter in place and not keep heading to the airport is a huge set back. >> how prepared is the u.s. for a fast deteriorating situation there. as we were discussing with courtney, we have these report of shots fired near the airport.

unconfirmed by nbc reports that the president of afghanistan has fled the country. it sounds like intelligence and the administration got some of this timing wrong. how prepared are they to engage with taliban fighters? >> we know from courtney's reporting and other reporting that the 5,000, the additional 1,000 which would bring the total to 5,000 troops were just ordered in yesterday. that's when the president announced the issue of that order from camp david. instead of having 5,000 forces which is what they anticipated they would need to perform this original orderly evacuation, we're now, at least, down to 4,000, if they are all in place. you don't have the full come policemen of forces yesterday. that's how rapidly this is escalated and how little

prepared we are. there are afghan forces who would join with the u.s. in defending any attack on the airport and attack on the orderly evacuation, peaceful evacuation that was promised in intensive negotiations overnight from the taliban. we don't know how unified the taliban command is either and what the shots at the airport were. we should not jump to any conclusions whether this has te -- deteriorated. >> we have been talking about this on the broadcast in the last 20 minutes or so. this is an urgent and immediate threat to people's lives and safety. you describe it as a huge set back. there's been this directive now to shelter in place because these reports of shots fired at the airport. what is the resolution and the immediate short term here to something like that. you got to get these people out. if they are sheltering in place, they can't get out. how does this get resolved, if

you will. what is happening. take us behind the scenes as to what is happening on that front? >> probably trying to find out where the shots came from. then you have to figure out how to get people from their homes if they are u.s. personnel in that zone around the embassy. most people that i knew of were staying in tell me bas si who i went to a couple of years ago on a diplomatic trip. we were told to stay in the embassy. it's to be outside of the embassy pa wha was an nbc location. admit night efb had to be back in. i really stayed out overnight because we were on the air at 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning. most could be el kopterred out. is it safe to fly? depending on what kind of --

this is totally hypothetical if there were shots fired, what kind of safety there is. all of those helicopters are well armed and have the ability to fire back. i'm sure they don't want to risk that if there's a lot of action going on. once they establish a perimeter, they have a procedure to get them to go door to door if they have to. that's very intensive and very dangerous. until they can establish some kind of procedure and a perimeter and find out what's happening, they will presume people are safer at home and not in the streets. >> it does seem rather extraordinary how quickly this developed not just in last three days but the last four or five, six, seven hours here. >> it's absolutely extraordinary. thinking back to the 1970s,

saigon was much more predictable than this. this as recently as thursday, wednesday, briefings we were being told we were negotiating and there is procedure for this all respective foreign leaders if you take this by military force. then we began to see the collapse point by point of not just kandahar but one capital after another and it was all over. >> i'll bring in retired army

general. >> it feels like morning. we have been covering this all day. >> good afternoon. >> you might have heard earlier many the show, we have been talking about how quickly the developments have happened. even just in the last half an hour out, we have gotten these reports of shots fired at the airport, this shelter in place order. we have president and the vice president huddling with top national security officials to talk about this draw down and evacuation. this urgent crisis that's going on in afghanistan for u.s. citizens, for key afghan allies as well. how do you see this? >> the situation is very precarious. conducting a withdrawal in combat is one of the more dangerous and precarious

missions and operations. i have to wonder about the plan and how this was conducted. . the fluidity of the taliban in taking different cities and district capitals so quickly. problems with morale and the will of the afghan forces to fight. many ways it appears we have abandoned them. we needed to leave afghanistan. no question about that. this is not how it should have happened. should have been sure the afghan forces could hold their own and had confidence we could be assisting them. >> we want to ask about the implications for the people left behind and the immediate nature of this. do you have concerns about the safety of this mission knowing that he expects the taliban to

be circle in on that u.s. embassy and the airport. maybe sooner we're hearing shots fired. cautioning us before we know the origin of the gunshots. how concerned are you with the immediate safety of the people not only the troops but the people that are trying to get out? >> i do have concerns. the taliban are moving. i'm moving into the capital. the number of troops the administration is set not all ride. it is a precarious situation. making sure that the airport perimeter is type and secure because the airport will be the lifeline in and out for incoming forces as well as evacuating american civilians. very concerned about that. i do have faith in our american military in ensuring that

happens. >> all right. thank you so much for your time today. we appreciate it. >> i want to pick up on that threat. director, thank you for being with us. >> sure. >> there's the short term piece of this. the next six hours, 24 hours, there's the longer term piece of was this an intelligence failure. let me get you on both of these. let me get your reaction to what we have seen unfoal today and the pace at which this developed. how do you read this? >> i think what we have seen a nationwide flood in afghanistan where the taliban is moving into all these areas that the afghan military once held and now collapsed and now the noose is getting tighter around kabul. my concern is a lot of these are commanded by individual

commanders who may have their own agendas going after revenge of afghan officials or against u.s. military and dipdiplomats. i think this is a dynamic situation now. it's important to get our personnel out or helicopter fights. i think security will come under increasing threat. that's why it's important for the u.s. military to be able to secure the perimeter the best they can but clearly taliban forces are sensing a momentum here. it's a force multiflier as far as the psychological impact on the afghan forces that may be still trying to fight. from a standpoint of the intelligence, it's unclear what the forecast but i don't think anybody should be surprised at the rapid collapse of those

forces once it was announced we would be getting out. it wasn't just the 250 u.s. troops but the u.s. contractors, intelligence officers and others dependent on the u.s. military. >> director, it's lindsay here. there's been a lot of finger pointing here choefr administration is to blame and the immediate concern is getting people out and getting them out safely. we know there will be questions to be answered here and from your work in the administration and granted i don't necessarily know how involved, if it all you were in the last couple of years of negotiating there with the taliban, did you ever foresee this ending as its ending today and if you could maybe play armchair dip employee mat, would you in. >> i think the trump administration deciding to engage in negotiations with the taliban and leave the afghan government out of this, i think

it was a serious mistake. their decision to agree to a withdrawal of u.s. forces by may of this year and also release a large number of taliban prisoners, i think we the agreement itself was flawed. then the biden administration picked up on that agreement and had to make some decisions. i understand that president biden wanted to get our troops out of harm's way but i don't think any of us who have worked on the afghan problem or the tourism problem from that part of the world envisioned this would be the end game. we hoped there would be a more stable traens igs but there would have been a protracted period of that u.s. draw down but i think it was the quick drop in u.s. presence there that really signalled to the taliban that they were to a lot of folks in the basic began government they were going to be losing their main benefactor.

this is just an unfortunate development that i think is still unfolding and i think the days and weeks and month ahead are going to have a number of developments that i think are going to be equally, if not more tragic for the afterbegan people especially those in kabul. the women, girls who really have so much on the progress they made of the last two decades to try to secure their future? >> director, what is the priority at this moment? at this exact second. if you're in the room with president biden and advising him, say you've been in the situation with other leaders. what are you telling him based your expertise here? what do we do now? >> i think the focus has to been on securing the security of u.s. personnel, military diplomats and others.

try to find some way to prevent the taliban from rushing into the airport and kabul. i think you're talking about some of the tactical decisions that have to be made in terms of making sure that americans are not going to come into harm's way. we have to be mindful of those afghans who are scared, now understandably so. believing their future is not just at risk but threatened. they are looking at what steps have we taken and have as much confidence as possibly that the situation will not further devolve into chaos and

bloodshed. >> looking long term here at the forecast of what could happen, i want to know your take on what we could see for several groups here. we're talking not only the people who may be refugees left behind, the women and children whose future seems uncertain and also the potential for afghanistan to once again become a safe harbor for terrorism. what do you think today's events and the events over the next couple of days will mean long term? >> i think a lot depends on what the taliban will do and who is going to rise to the top of that organization in terms of some real hard liners within that group and some real extremists. they have become emboldened and empowered as results of the developments of last several months.

are they goichk to clamp down hard throughout the country on women and girls and close schools and are they going to return to some of the atrociies in the past. what we see in the several weeks where there's been the summary executions of afghan soldiers who tried to surrender, i think it will a lot of the hard line elements within the taliban that are going to make their presence felt throughout the country. i think a lot depends on how the taliban is going to evolve. now they will be the government of kabul, how are they going to change? are they going to change at all from being this insurgence organization and to a government ? how is the international community going to engage with

them? i think there's many more chapters of the story that will be playing out. a lot does depend on what the taliban decides to do and whether or not there can be some discipline within the organization to enforce some type of discipline on these red tag groups that have tremendous arsenal of weapons and arms that they can use. >> we will continue to call upon you as we look into this new normal world in which it looks as though the taliban will have control of afghanistan. thank you for your time. >> thank you. joining us by phone is richard engel in kabul. the most important thing is you're in a position where you can be reporting safely. can you tell us what you're been seeing and what's been unfolding in the last hours since we

talked to you? >> the taliban are now in control. the government hear in kabul has collapsed. the president has left the country. when he left the country, it was more or less game over. initially and this has been a long day. so much as happened since early morning. initially, this was the day when the taliban were saying they had already taken over the big cities. they knew they could take over kabul when they wanted. this day began with the taliban saying they weren't going to take over kabul. they weren't going to push on the city. they were just going to wait until americans had finished their evacuation and take over the city in a compromised agreement with the government. that is how the day was supposed to play out. they met. the taliban met in kabul with

the afghan government. the conversations did not go well. the taliban were not willing to accept any of these compromises and in the only compromise they were willing to accept was no compromise. was victory and the president got on a plane, left the country and then the taliban decided we're not going to wait anymore. we're going to go out into the streets and take over. they started coming out right around the time of darkness at about 8:00 this time of year and i saw them driving through the streets. i saw dozens of them armed. driving in new afghan security vehicles. they were quite open and people were coming up to them. afghans were coming up to them and congratulating them, celebrating them. probably engratiaing themselves with their new rulers. while this was happening, the government was fighting their last battle before the

government collapsed and the taliban took to the streets of kabul. the americans, almost like parallel track, almost not part of the equation, were flying over the city shuttling back and forth between the embassy and the airport and down below the taliban were taking territory. you could see as i was watching the taliban spreading out on the streets, could see still the helicopters with personnel above them. the taliban didn't seem to be too bothered by that. it the know the operation will be over quickly. >> do you have any sense of how many people might have been part of that operation so far already? do we have any hard numbers at all? >> how many people the u.s. i evacuating? >> how many have gotten out so far? >> the short answer is i don't

know. i know the flag is down from the embassy. the ambassador is not the building anymore. the flights were going at rapid clip. my sense based on the fact the taliban were spreading out in city, that most of them were out of there. i don't know that. i haven't been inside the embassy. >> i get it. >> can you give -- you're on the phone with us now. people have been watching our viewers on msnbc reports as this breaking news has been developing over the last several hours. watching some video. it's dark in kabul now. the video you're seeing is from earlier in afghanistan where richard is now and some of the areas in and around kabul. if you give us a sense as you have been working the longest day ever.

what is it like at this moment ? is it quiet? give us a sense of what it is on the ground? >> we're waiting for a big announcement from the taliban. which would be -- >> how will they do that, just so people know? >> usually the taliban, they have a social media channel. they generally put things out over social media. they have a spokesman and they are quiet organized in putting out videos of their activities. that's probably what we're going to expect is they will put out video of them, of the taliban leadership inside the presidential palace and declare, this is whag is expected, they will declare the return of the islamic emirate. that is what their called their government.

you could say we're right back to where we were 20 years ago. it was the islamic emirate of the taliban. over the last 20 years th taliban has getten better the weapons we bought for the afghan security forces are now many the taliban. they have yell copters. they have drowns. unclear if they know,000 fly them but they can bring in other like minded foreigners who will know how to fly them for them. they are now going to be in charge of a country whether they manage it or or badly is to be determined. clearly, they will manage it a way that suits their ideology. it will be horrible for women, for girls. there's already been report of

fighters kidnapping girls and turning them into child brides. they will grab a young woman they like and wed her off against her will to one of the young soldiers. that's the taliban mentality. that's the mentality that's rising. they are better armed and have this boost of momentum and they have the bragging rights they can say they pushed out the united states. that will carry them very far. >> two months ago, two weeks ago, did you think it would go down this quickly? this would all happen as fast as it did? >> i did. i talked about this on air today. i don't know why so many in the u.s. didn't see this coming. i think there was so many horrible intelligence failures. one that they thought it was going -- the afghan government would hold.

when the u.s. started pulling out in may, immediately afghan army units started to collapse. the taliban gained momentum quickly. i did reports saying the only units fighting are the afghan commandoes. everybody else is falling apart pch each time the taliban would take a territory, they would seize up the weapons. i had no idea why people thought it was going to take -- that the u.s. military would take a month. i was scrambling to get back in here pause i didn't want to miss the collapse. i was looking at my watch saying i better get back in there. they were talking about september 11th as the deadline for the withdrawal. i never thought it was going to last until september 11th.

i think most people didn't think it was going last until september 11th. military commanders didn't think it would last until september 11th. somehow the reporting up the chain and you know what washington is like, there's a group think, reporting up the chain ended up saying it was going to last for months more. there's a story to tell about how the intelligence, how this intelligence failure happened. >> it's a story i know you and our team are working on. i want to thank you you. i know you've had a crazy day. we'll see more of your reporting on this network. richard, thank you. stay safe. >> bye. sure. >> i want to turn it back over. lindsay said something at the top of his reporting that nbc you are cnbc team has confirmed the president has left the country. we knew and we said this at the

top of the prod cast there's reports of that that nbc had not confirmed it. we have. it's another piece to this incredibly significant development that's occurred because as richard has confirmed, this is one of the lynch pins for the taliban to take over the capital and make that declaration. i want to make sure people knew that. >> that's the latest coing out of afghanistan. we want to get reaction from congresswoman jackie speir. congresswoman, before we ask you about what richard said about the intelligence failures here. what is your reaction to afghan president fleeing the country? >> he's the commander in chief of the afghan armed forces. what does that tell us? it tells us that the army is no

longer with a leader. this is a crisis of untold proportions. i would agree with richard. this is an intelligence failure. we underestimated the taliban and over estimated the resolve of the p afghan army. we spent $2 trillion in afghanistan over 20 years in terms of training and equipping the armed forces. providing them with the planes that they needed. giving the country all kinds of resources for reconstruction and we saw it happen over and over again where money was used for other purposes. there was corruption in the government. there was corruption in those to which u.s. money was given. my fear now is we have 3.5 million young girls who have been educated now, we have seen

women hit life expectancy increase by 20 years. 27% of the parliament was made up of women. i have been saying for months that we needed to address the women in afghanistan. i introduced legislation to create a special priority to refugee status for journalists and legislatures and judicial personnel and civil servants because they are going to be massacred. >> congresswoman, i want to ask you, we know that house minority leader kevin mccarthy has requested a second briefing. i'm sure you were on the call this morning with mark milley and lloyd austin and some of his caucus said they weren't able to ask questions. what's your reaction to this

request for a second briefing. what questions and answers will you be demanding? >> my biggest concern is getting all of those who helped us whether they were interpreters or drivers or journalists out of the country safely. that should be our number one priority. my expectation is that the embassy has been evacuated. i will say there were questions that were answered that they weren't limited this morning so i don't know what minority leader mccarthy is saying. he did ask one of the first questions and it was answered. whether or not we should have a second briefing today, i would welcome one. this is such a fast changing set of circumstances. we have got to focus on saving lives. >> we know the president is at camp david, not vacationing in all likelihood because of the recent developments and he and vice president harris have been briefed on the situation.

do you want to hear from the president? do you expect to hare from the president? >> i believe the president should speak to the american people. there's no question that the forever war was not going to gain us the kind of success we wanted to see there. i think president biden had since 2010 been of the mind that we shouldn't be in afghanistan. he was forced into a corner by then president trump who negotiated not with the taliban and the afghans but only with the taliban and came up with this may 1st date. we were really strapped by that date and were negotiating a means by which we could extend the time frame to get people out. i don't think we ever anticipated that the afghan army would literally roll over and allow the taliban to take all of these cities so quickly and all

these capitals. >> what's your biggest fear for not only the residents in afghanistan who will be left behind but also women and girls there in the future? >> that's where i ache with the greatest pain because they have been so many great benefits that have accrued to women. i just had an e-mail this morning, there's 1500 human rightsadvocates that are desperate to get out of there now. are desperate to get out of there now. status in the united states. we owe them that >> representative jackie speier, thank you for your time, for joining us on this fast-developing day. thank you so much. >> we want to get the ally vitale who is reporting on the

hill for us. congressman spehr making headlines, interesting saying she would like to hear from president biden, he should be addressing americans about this sometime soon. are you getting any send that pressure is building on the president to do just that? >> look, it is clear that the normal political rules no longer apply in this situation when it comes to foreign policy, especially in a place like afghanistan, that has seen the fingerprints of republican and democratic administrations over the course of the last few decades that we have been in this longest american war. while we are seeing fault lines begin to form specifically among some republicans in leadership who are talking about this as president biden's saigon moment, referencing the vietnam war, there are just as many people both on republican and democratic sides of the spectrum who say that the time for politicking this moment is not now and instead the priority as

all of our guests mentioned is making sure that american personnel and allies on ground will are evacuated and able to be done so safely. at the same time, though, we are also talking about kevin mccarthy asking for a second briefing from the white house. i think at this point this isesque t-- there is the political reasoning for that at the same time, though, there are a lot of questions broadly about how this situation could have deteriorated so quickly many of the same questions that you have been peppering your experts and your guests with are questions that lawmakers here on the hill have as well. because even though they have been briefed on this before, even though they have done policy work to make sure that the visa process could be expedited, they are still wondering how the intelligence could have been so wrong on how long it would take for the taliban to get to kabul. at the same time, just general questions about what was the plan here. >> ally vitale live for us on capitol hill thank you so much.

i appreciate your reporting and being here with us i want to bring in mall some -- malcolm entz you heard congresswoman speier saying, and we have heard this echoed for years is that this was nothing less than an intelligence failure of an enormous attitude. is that your assessment as well? >> no, this isn't an intelligence failure of enormous magnitude because one of the things we learned very early -- full disclosure, i went into afghanistan in january of 2005 to do an intelligence assessment of the post torah bora operations where bin laden and his men escaped into a neighboring country, escaped into pakistan. we have known for a he have very long time that afghanistan is not a nation state afghanistan is a collection of and these tribal leaders,

locally, regionally, and some of the war lords on the national level, they play for themselves. they don't play for a centralized government. the whole concept of a central government is a failure. you know, when i went there, one of the things that i did first washi i read a book by a guy nad alexander burns called kabul, it was written in 1843 at the end of the first british/afghan war in which all of the british forces in that city were slaughtered by a war lord and a regional tribal chief. it played out in the 1890s again. it was going to play out for the russians. and it was going to play out for us. f u.s. intelligence can only give you so much information. it is the decision makers who act on it. this deal that was cut with the taliban was cut in the previous administration. was supposed to be carried out at camp david and signed on september 11th that gave the

taliban the belief the united states was going to run, which means all resources were going to be thrown at this operation. the failure is, that we should have known that every tribal chief, every regional governor was going to flip instandr stantley and cut a deal with the taliban because it is their culture. >> malcolm, i only have a minute. we have got to be quick.av does that mean that you agree withag former cia director john brennan who we spoke with in the last half hour that that agreement that the trump administration penned with taliban was fundamentally flawed? >> yes, absolutely i agree with director brennan. it was fundamentally flawed because the first part of it they cut the government of afghanistan that we have been propping up for over 19 years out of the negotiations. they were angry, furious that they f weren't part of the negotiations. and saying we will talk to them later is absolutely ludicrous. i think to a certain extent the

previous administrationt wante to giant grand deal to show they could bring peace to afghanistan and get u.s. forces out of there. the taliban are a tribal religious force. i know. i meet with one of the last people to see osama bin laden alive before he went to pakistan. a local imam. and the only reason he spoke to me becausest was i could speak arabic and read the koran and pray with him. this is them. blind cultural ignorance that led to us doing all thee shooting and not welcoming in the culture itself. >> malcolm nantz, thank you so much. that's our time for the day. thank you to all of our guests. i'm healthy jackson. >> richard louie picks up your

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good day from msnbc world headquarters in new york city. welcome in to alec wit reports. i'm richard lui in for alec. here's what's happening 2:00 p.m. eastern, 11 a.m. pacific, 10 p.m. in afghanistan. we have fast developing happenings in afghanistan. as night falls, new report the airport in kabul taking gunfire. that is after u.s. troops spent the day moving americans and allies from the embassy to the airport. the embassy is now advising all u.s. citizens to shelter in place instead of heading to the airport. also, we can now report that msnbc now has confirmed afghan president asgraf ghani has fled the country. earlier today a spokesman for the taliban told nbc news they ordered fighters to