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tv   Andrea Mitchell Reports  MSNBC  August 17, 2021 9:00am-10:00am PDT

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♪♪ ♪♪ good day, everyone. this is "andrea mitchell reports" in washington, as president biden is back at camp david leading his national security team to defend the chaotic withdrawal from afghanistan and the political fallout. right now thousands of american troops in kabul are focused on keeping the airport open. the only way out for support staff, families and commercial passengers. >> it remains secure. it is currently open for military flight operations as well as limited commercial flight operations. the speed of evacuation will pick up. right now we are looking at one
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aircraft per hour in and out of h kaya, it could look like 5,000 passengers departing per day, but we are mindful that a number of factors influence this effort. >> the most stunning image going viral. more than 600 afghans squeezing into a c-17 transport plane, and they are the lucky ones. >> you have likely seen the image of afghan families in a cargo plane. this speaks to the humanity of our troops in this mission. the skill and professionalism of our u.s. military. >> the president sending a clear message monday that while acknowledging surprise at the speed of the taliban takeover, he has no apologies, no regrets for the decision to withdraw. >> i am now the fourth american president to preside over war in afghanistan, two democrats and two republicans.
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i will not pass this responsibility on to a fifth president. i am president of the united states of america, and the buck stops with me. >>. >> the main concern is the taliban. the group promising today not to attack foreign embassies while trying to assure after gans they are committed to rights for women, but, a big but the, but only through the strict confines of sharia law. the taliban's growing power within the country. >> afghans are running from the taliban now in full control, setting up checkpoints with the very weapons american taxpayers bought for the afghan army which collapsed instead of fighting after the u.s. pulled out of bases and left them without air support. today the taliban told afghans they have nothing to fear. the group called on civil servants to return to work. offered a non-specific general amnesty and called on women to
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join their new government, but the taliban also said they will always be guided by strict, islamic sharia law as all beauty salons and advertising showing women are now being painted over. >> this hour, i'll be speaking to former defense secretary leon panetta that the long-term implications of the biden policy, and joining me now, nbc chief white house correspondent peter alexander, nbc national security correspondent courtney kubi, former ambassador to russia and foreign correspondent and author adiya abbawi. >> let's talk about what you heard at this pentagon briefing, kirby giving you details about their recent talks with the taliban. yeah, that's right. we knew that the centcom commander frank mckenzie had spoken to the taliban commander in doha and now we know that military commanders on the
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ground in kabul are speaking with taliban commanders there in the city. we don't know a whole lot about it. it seems to have an overall theme that the u.s. wants to finish their evacuation of both americans and as many afghans as they can get out as safely and without the taliban interfere, but we don't know much more beyond that, with john kirby saying that the results speak for themselves and they won't talk about any of the specifics and one of the big questions is in these talks is there a deadline set. right now the u.s. military is under orders to complete the full evacuation of all u.s. troops by august 31st. is that still the case or are these talks with the taliban, do they have to get out earlier. that's one of the big questions that we're asking. another sort of operational piece of what's going on on the ground there, now flights, evacuation flights have resumed. they were stopped for a number of hours on monday, but that means that more u.s. troops, soldiers and marines are moving into kabul as we speak and they
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are able to get some americans and some afghans out. as of late yesterday they had only taken out about 700. now that number has doubled and 1400 to 1500 people and nearly 200 of those americans and many of them are afghans and country nationals and most of them are eligible for the visa process. so the good news coming out of kabul right now is this evacuation mission is now gaining some momentum. it is starting to move forward again with this goal of eventually moving -- or working their way up to having one aircraft flowing out every single hour up to 9,000 people evacuated every single day, andrea. >> let me just share with our viewers, john kirby's comments to you and others at the pentagon briefing and get you to comment on the other side. >> our commanders at the airport are in communication with
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taliban commanders on the ground outside the airport. there have been discussions, there is communication between them and us, and i would just let the results speak for themselves. i'm not going to get into the details of how those discussions are progressions because there are interactions multiple times a day. >> can you clarify? is that basically trying to get taliban assurance that our troops are going to be safe there? are there rules of engagement, i guess, i'm asking? >> that's what we're trying to figure out. it seems these are technical talks with the taliban and a mill to mill level sort of like the u.s. and russia for deconflicttion and specifically between the taliban and the security force at karzai international airport right now.
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>> courtney, thanks so much for your reporting. >> peter alexander, i want to drill down with you on the president's message and the fact that he went back to camp david and we know you'll have a briefing with jen psaki who has come back from vacation for this. the national security adviser, as well. he's leaving it to them to explain the approximately see. what he did yesterday, to my mind was, again, explain why he's withdrawing and there are a lot of people, democrats and some republicans who agree with that policy. the controversy was over the surprise that he acknowledged how it's been carried out, the expediting and what will happen next in terms of all of the afghans that are so desperate to getting out and are not accounted for in the state department with a limited program. >> you are right. the fundamental question is even after the president's remarks is president biden as the
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contingencies existed why does this withdrawal appear to be such a chaotic mess at this point. that's a message that a lot of critics have been directing this way and that's the question they're asking right now and one that will be posed to jen psaki and the press secretary and jay sullivan when we hear about an hour and a half from now. there are a couple of details we can tell you having spoken to senior officials. i asked if that august 31st deadline will be extended in case they are able to get out, all of the americans and the allies that they're trying to evacuate. that remains the mission end date and they'll not discuss hypotheticals. in spite of the political questions that are swirling is to focus on the safe e effective and orderly evacuation of the people right now. certainly, there is a lot of criticism. the president laying much of the blame on the afghan political leaders and the afghan military
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for effectively not even putting up a fight in these circumstances here. so the question now for the president is can he find some way out of this? can they, in this limited military effort get as many of those americans out and are they willing to expand the perimeter and what will they do to secure safe passage for those afghans and americans outside of kabul? we've heard among other, president j. bush expressing great sadness about the situation in afghanistan right now and more notably calling on the u.s. government and calling on the biden administration to cut the red tape, to erase all of the bureaucracy and to get out, to provide safe and secure passage to all of those afghans who helped the united states in the past, andrea? >> that brings me to atia abbawi, former colleague, friend and author who has spent so many years in kabul for nbc and has
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written so much about the country. atia, i know you are hearing desperate pleas from people well beyond the translators and the military -- the military drivers and others who have some ability to get to the state department and get on that list, but the women and the others who are being targeted for their human rights efforts and for just being women, what do you think of the taliban's promises today that women can be in government as long as they obey sharia law? they've made many promises that they've broken in the past. time will tell if they will keep these promises, but if history has taught us anything about the taliban regime including in 1991 they came in promising to protect the people from the brutal civil war prior to the taliban regime and from '96 to 2001 that drastically changed. that drastically changed.
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women are terrified. when i talk to the men on the ground they're about to lose freedoms themselves, but they're not as terrified as the women that i speak to. i just heard from someone that they are trying desperately to get a woman who is in charge of a women's shelter. she helped battered afghan women and the taliban came to her shelter and said this is a brothel. stop. i'm talking to female politicians who want to leave the country and the taliban are outside of their doors so they can't leave. the fear right now is that once the media is gone, the attention is gone, the americans are gone and the last plane leaves kabul, what's going to happen then? the taliban are outside of their houses literally waiting for us to leave, and it's terrifying for me to watch, for us to watch. imagine being that woman in that house counting the clock.
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>> atia, you say that people feel betrayed by the american withdrawal. >> they feel terribly betrayed. i spoke to one woman who was a doctor in france. she was an afghan refugee for 20+ years and decided to give up her job and go back to afghanistan in 2001 and work to help build the country. she worked for the u.n. and i'm not even going to mention the organization that she works for because it could get her in trouble, but she is the head of that organization, and when i called her she used to be the happiest person when i would talk to her with so much hope. she loved america and she came to america to study and further her education. when i spoke to her i had never heard her cry before. she broke down in tears, and she said why did they betray us like that? they promised they would continue to help us. they said they were our friend, and i had no response to her.
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i want to emphasize that there were choices between full-on abandonment and this was full-on abandonment. there is an olympic stadium in kabul that was used for sports. during the taliban it was used for executions, and it was remodeled by us, by our money in 2011 and it produced female olympians. we saw a female sprinter. it may be used for executions again in the future. michael, let's talk about that, the fear of abandonment by our allies and the larger implications around the world and we'll be talking about china and russia is certainly making moves so our protestations of the taliban have been warned they can't take over because if they can't take over by force no one will recognize them as
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legitimate. there is reporting and "the washington post" is picking this up, as well that the u.s. froze all of the afghan government reserves which are held at the federal reserve on sunday so that the afghan government cannot get it unless they are recognized as the official government by the u.n. and other nations. >> i don't know where's to start. there's the short term and the long term, but let me start first with the short term. with respect to the people in afghanistan, many of whom i've worked with over the decades as well and with respect to how the rest of the world looks at it. no matter what your position on whether we should withdraw or not and when that decision was made and how credibly our hands were tied, the implementation of the evacuation failed. the first plan failed. the only way to correct for that is for the second plan to
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succeed, and that second plan needs to be not just americans, first and foremost, of course, not just the afghans that work for the united states government, but all of the people that you were just talking about with your previous guest because president biden said yesterday that it was a mistake to build democracy and state build, maybe that's his view and there are literally tens of thousands of afghans that believed in that common mission and worked with american ngos and took american money to build schools, to build programs to work as journalists in that mission whose lives are now in danger. the way you correct for the first failure of the implementation plan is to have that implementation plan succeed mow matter what the cost, in my view. >> michael, that's exactly what president and laura bush were saying in their extraordinary statement. rare for them to have a joint statement that is anything other than honoring say the passing of some revered friend or foreign
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figure, but this is a joint statement. this president bush 43 has not criticized president biden at all, has not criticized his successors on rare occasions. his one comment about afghanistan was back in april when he said he worried about the women on the "today" show because laura bush did so much for afghan women, for co of education at the university in kabul. they feel tremendous sadness about this and there needs to be a large refugee program as you described it for this larger population and not just the people on the special state department list. >> exactly. i spent time reading his policy on afghanistan. we can have the right vision or the wrong vision for another
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day. there are certain lots of people in afghanistan who believed in the bigger vision that we now owe it to them, and i want to be more clear about that. it's not just that we owe it to them, by bringing them here they will make american society better. this -- this, you know, this imagery that we are bringing in these immigrants that don't belong here, i want people to relax that assumption. i want you to go back and read about what some people said in 1975. the horrific things they said. that turned out to be not true in '75, and it won't be true today. >> just look at the refugees from vietnam and cuba and what they've brought to american society. that productivity, that brilliance of all of those hardworking people and that is the clear analogy here. peter alexander, atia abawi, my friend to courtney kubi, thanks so much for starting us off. coming up, power play, a world super power prepared to work for
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the taliban and what that might mean for washington. >> he oversaw the raid that killed bin laden and former cia director leon panetta is calling the fall of kabul president biden's bay of pigs. leon panetta joints me after the break. stay with us. this is "andrea mitchell reports" on msnbc. ing age is just a number. and mine's unlisted. try boost® high protein with 20 grams of protein for muscle health. versus 16 grams in ensure high protein. boost® high protein also has key nutrients for immune support. boost® high protein. get ready. it's time for the savings event of the year. the homeandautobundle xtravafestasaveathon! at this homeandautobundle xtravafestasaveathon, there's no telling what we might bundle! homeandautobundle xtravafestasaveathon! bundle cars, trucks, colonials, bungalows, and that weird hut your uncle lives in.
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in a dramatic rebuke to u.s. insistence that no major power would accept the taliban as
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legitimate, china is taking the first steps as recognizing the group as a legitimate government of afghanistan. china shares the border and this comes weeks after china met with the political chief in china. rather awkward photo-op. janice is live in beijing. it is great to see you and hear about the strategic implications of this. >> well, beijing had been laying the groundwork to have what it calls friendly relations with the taliban, and the most obvious sign was just over two weeks ago when china's foreign minister hosted talks with the taliban delegation led by mullah baradar. there was the awkward photo-op and statements about productive talks. china has economic interests in afghanistan, and they are looking to protect those, but what's driving these warming
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ties between china and the taliban is security. china fears extremism in the western part of the country in tianjin and how they've justified the crackdowns and detention of hundreds of thousands of uighurs. at those meetings the taliban did give security assurances and saying afghan territory would not be used as a base for attacks inside china. the problem, of course, for china is that the success of radical militant group in taking over a country is seen as a threatening force, and there's also concerns and risk of the so-called inspiration effect that a taliban resurgence can have across the region. so at this point, andrea, china is not given outright recognition to the taliban as the legitimate government of afghanistan, but they are acknowledging that the taliban
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is in power and with that comes cautious support from china and it's one of the few countries to extend that. >> thanks so much, janice frayer from beijing. joining us now is leon panetta former cia director that helped oversee the successful hunt for osama bin laden. secretary panetta, first, let's listen to part of what president biden said yesterday about afghanistan. afghanistan political leaders gave up and fled the country. the afghan military collapsed sometimes without trying to fight. if anything, the developments of the past week reinforced that any u.s. involvement in afghanistan now was the right decision. american troops cannot and should not be fighting in a war and dying in a war that afghan forces are not willing to fight
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for themselves. >> there's been some pushback against that claim and clearly the afghan troops did not fight, but to blame them when they were according to veterans were cure courageous and they felt abandoned and we announced the withdrawal, closed bagram and they hadn't been paid in months by the afghan corrupt government. so blaming them entirely doesn't seem fair. >> no, i -- i really wish that the president hadn't tried to lay the blame on people for what has happened in afghanistan because, frankly, there's a lot of blame to go around for everybody, and what is most gut-wrenching about this whole situation as somebody who was
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involved in deploying people to afghanistan both at the cia and as secretary of defense is first of all, all of those brave individuals who went there and put their lives on the line in order to protect our country in order to make sure that we would not have another 9/11, and what we did was we worked with many brave afghans who were willing to fight, were willing to work with us to try to make sure that we could protect the security of afghanistan, and in my experience, i saw many afghans who fought bravely and really believed in trying to make sure that afghanistan could be a country that could secure
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itself. i think that the afghan situation itself -- the fact is what people fought for was worthwhile. we were able to achieve progress in afghanistan. for 20 years we prevented afghanistan from becoming a safe haven for terrorists. for 20 years we advanced the rights of people, the rights of women and the ability to vote and the ability to enjoy freedoms there that were important for afghanistan. those were worth fighting for, and i think we need to recognize the valor of not only americans who fought there and also the afghans. >> what is the chance that they are again going to become a haven under taliban rule when there were these jihadi troops in celebration of the taliban victory and we no longer have
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eyes on the ground. we no longer have britain intelligence. >> i don't think there's any question that our national security is threatened by what has happened in afghanistan. we went there for two mission, one to go after al qaeda and the leadership of al qaeda and bin laden because of what they did in attacking our country on 9/11 and we were successful of going after al qaeda and obviously, i am very proud of the mission to go after bin laden, but there was a second mission which was to prevent afghanistan from ever becoming a safe haven for terrorism again. unfortunately, we have failed at that mission and with the taliban now controlling afghanistan, there is no question that they will provide
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a safe haven for al qaeda and for isis and for other terrorists to be able to re-organize, strengthen themselves again and potentially use afghanistan as a base for attacking not just the united states, but other countries, as well. this is a national security threat and it's not going to be easy to go into afghanistan controlled by the taliban. when we were there, we had the cooperation of the afghans. we worked with the military, there were a lot of partnerships involved. we had good intelligence on where the targets were. we'll have none of that with taliban control and how we are going to be able to protect our country in that situation will be a difficult challenge. >> the airport is now the only exit and they control the
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perimeter, egress and access to it. >> you know, i guess there aren't many that now question the decision by the president because what we've seen happen in afghanistan and and the taliban's quick ability to take over the country and the collapse of what happened in terms of afghanistan. i'm not sure that any strategy could have prevented what has happened. the problem now is going to be how do we make sure that our national security is protected. how are we going to make sure that the taliban working with these terrorist groups does not
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represent another threat to the united states and for that to happen, we are going have to make sure that we build alliances and we strengthen those alliances and that we make clear that afghanistan is not going to become, regardless of the control of the taliban, it cannot become a safe haven for those who would attack the united states of america. >> leon panetta, as always, thank you very, very much. very difficult times ahead. >> and on the coronavirus front, that third shot. will most vaccinated people be rolling up their dose for a third vaccine come fall as total u.s. cases now top 37 million. this is "andrea mitchell reports." stay with us on msnbc.
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and we have breaking news and nbc news confirming that a tally that there has now been over 37 million cases of covid-19 in the u.s. since the start of the pandemic last year. >> it is expected to announce most americans to get a third dose of covid vaccine possibly by next month. those extra shots would be eight months after the second shot of pfizer or moderna vkzs, ending fda authorization. joining me now is shaq brewster live in detroit. this is a separate program
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that's been initiated in michigan and an vaccination site where immunocompromised people that are getting third shots recommended by the fda and approved by the cdc. shaq? >> that's exactly right, andrea. there's a lot of excitement. third time's the charm as one person put it to me. we spoke to the health department and the requirements are simple. you need to be fully vaccinated for at least six months with the pfizer or moderna vaccine. if you did get the vaccine, you need to say that you are immunocompromise and no doctor's note required and people who feel they're at risk want to come in and get that vaccine dose and those are people who are most at risk for this virus talking to folks, they've watched the surge of the delta variant in other parts of the country and it hasn't hit here yet and there's an increase of what they're seeing and a man by the name of jimmy and listen to the confidence in his voice.
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>> what did you think when they said you are able, you are available and eligible to get that third booster shot? >> there was no hesitation. >> why not when so many people hesitate, why weren't you hesitating? >> because i trust science. >> reporter: the mayor is saying that while they are opening up to a third dose, they're still prioritizing people getting the first two doses and only 42% of people here in detroit have received a first dose of a vaccine, andrea? >> shaq brewster, thank you so much. joining me is dr. zeke emanuel and a member of president biden's covid-19 advisory board during the transition. zeke, i'm sure you were happy to watch what shaq is showing there because that's exactly the public health message you have been preaching and so men medical experts. >> it is very important to have people believe in science and get the vaccine.
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i think also for immunocompromised people to get a third vaccine does seem to be supported by the data that they're seeing. whether for everyone else to get a third dose, we haven't really seen a lot of data and we haven't seen data that the eight-month mark is the right time. >> so that's something that comes, i guess, out of pfizer's initial studies. so how common do you think it should be? what is your sense of whether third doses are going to become commonly approved? we are hearing it might come as soon as september. >> i do think it is quite clear it would be better for the unvaccinated to get vaccinated in order to really stop the spread of delta, and the third dose we're not -- i think 100% sure how well it's going to work. we do have data from israel that appears to suggest that the
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third dose does decrease the number of cases and i think that's important. we still do know that the pfizer vaccine and the moderna vaccine are very effective at preventing hospitalization and death and it may not be as effective as preventing the hospitalization in the delta virus, but they do remain very effective in that regard. >> left out of this conversation are people who got the single shot j&j. weigh don't know if a third dose would help them or it hasn't been tested because the only testing has been done by pfizer. >> right. we need a second dose. and again, this points to one of my frustrations with the current situation which is we have almost 170 million americans who are fully vaccinated and yet we seem to have almost no data on what their antibodies level are, how well they're going up or down. the breakthrough infections by
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vaccination status. we're relying on data from israel and data from the uk. you would think that with such great clinical research here we should be able to get data from the united states from the 170 million people had been vaccinated. i wish i had more data to look at and seeing the data underlied by this administration. >> where is the breakdown there? is it because we're not testing enough or not doing antibody tests or should it be done through the cdc? >> well, definitely at cdc we need nih follow-up studies from people who have been vaccinated and it is the case that we're just not looking hard enough and on the j&j, vaccine problem, we would have thought that we would have j&j, and a second booster for those people, too, with the mrna and it would be nice have
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data to look at that much more systematically. >> and saying nothing of the fact that most of the world is not vaccinated at all and we are about to start widely vaccinating people with a third dose. >> that's 170 million doses and then if we approve it for kids 5 to 11 that's another 25 to 30 million people who need to be vaccinated with two doses. so 60 million doses. that's right. the world does need more vaccines because we know that the delta virus didn't start in the united states, but came in from overseas. so we as americans need to be concerned about making sure the whole rest of the world is. >> dr. zeke emanuel. thanks very much. good to see you. >> thank you, andrea. >> heart broken. an air force veteran has been sounding the alarm about the
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rapid withdrawal from afghanistan and she says she feels gutted. chrissy houla joins us next. you're watching "andrea mitchell reports" on msnbc. ♪
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that's why there's only one best network. there's been a wave of reactions from u.s. service members who served in the 20-year conflict in afghanistan. others are angry that the administration was caught flat-footeda they call it on the president's to do more to help afghans who worked for the u.s., but are now fearing for their lives. >> you want to believe that your government is sending you for a purpose, and that you've accomplished something and the sacrifice and the loss and the pain that it was worth it. i think it will get a lot worse. i think this is just the beginning. >> we need to use the military. i know it's controversial and not popular, but my goodness, what is more popular the mass
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death that you're about to see on tv? >> joining me now is democratic congresswoman and air force veteran, chrissy houla of pennsylvania. congresswoman, you said you were gutted and heart broken watching the scenes out of kabul this week and the administration ignored warnings. tell me about that. >> i am gutted, and i think it's probably a very natural feeling to watch those scenes as we all share of people climbing onboard our aircraft trying to get out of the country and we should all feel a certain sense of sadness and remorse, but here is where we are. we are here that our commander in chief has made a decision and a decision that many people support that we cannot win this conflict through war and we need to withdraw. we need two things and respectful that here is where we are and address the evacuation of people who have helped us and
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of our own people and we need to address the refugee crisis and making sure we're engaging our partners in that and engaging our ngos and non-profit organizations and to the degree that we are engaging in sanctions and those sorts of thing, but we also need to be doing the other side of the evasion which is the hard job, business of asking why. why are we here right now? how did we get here? what decision process did we go to to the point that we are watching those images on tv. we need to ask the question about accountability and why was congress, frankly with a lot of my colleagues who are post-9/11 veterans the ones who were crying out for sib conversations, why did we have this poor intelligence about the afghan army's intentions and abilities. why did we believe the taliban that they would behave in a way that they have not historically behaved and why did we telegraph
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the time line and accelerate that timeline, as well? that's my job. my job is to ask those questions and to get those answers and also to make sure that i'm supporting as your piece before us, supporting those thousands of men and women who went before and served our nation and made sure that there was a purpose to that service. >> how do you explain the fact that they were not prepared for evacuation in an organized way? >> i'm having a hard time explaining that to myself. i'm doing as much reading and researching and researching as i possibly can, and i'm hearing a lot of different signals from different parts of our government and our administration and the dod and the state department? was it our intelligence committees of one form or another, who knew what? when and those are all questions that i would like to have some answers to because i'm not quite sure i understand the speed with which we moved forward when even
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our own time line was september 11th. i don't frankly understand that as a timeline when that sort of is not what you normally try to do when you're in a situation with a known enemy. so there are lots and lots of questions that i think we should all be asking the answers for and hold ourselves accountable for what the answers to those questions are. >> and you were among those warning them and trying to speed up the siv program that was legislation last month. >> there was, and again, i question why was it that the congress was asking the dod? why was it that congress was asking the white house what do you need to make sure that we can get all of these people out who have been so helpful to us? tens of thousands of people in need of evacuation and protection. why it's the congress' job to answer to those kinds of questions and not necessarily to be asking those kinds of questions and it's, i think,
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important to note that a lot of the people who were asking those questions in the congress were veterans and were people who served as you've talked about it in that theater, and i think it's interesting and worth noting that that push was coming from within the congress rather than the dod example. >> congresswoman chrissy houlahan, thank you very much. >> you're welcome. thank you for having me. and airlifted out. nbc news was there as the coast guard pulled haiti earthquake survivors after they were swamped by a tropical storm. gabe gutierrez is back on the ground, joins us live with a full report from port-au-prince next. you're watching "andrea mitchell reports" on msnbc. reports" on msnbc. so you can focus on what matters most. whether it's ensuring food arrives as fresh as when it departs. being first on the scene, when every second counts. or teaching biology without a lab. we are the leader in 5g. #1 in customer satisfaction. and a partner who includes 5g in every plan,
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find your breaking point. then break it. every emergen-c gives you a potent blend of nutrients so you can emerge your best with emergen-c. heavy ranges from tropical storm grace are making a terrible situation worse in haiti as the country tries to pick up pieces from a deadly earthquake that killed more than 1400 people. nbc news correspondent gabe gutierrez got back from a tour of devastation that the u.s. coast guard team gave. what did you see? >> reporter: hey there, andrea. right now, there's a massive international relief operation under way. you can see behind me, three coast guard helicopters now waiting to load up with supplies and volunteers before they head to effected areas. also aid organizations from other parts of the u.s. this morning, we went with the
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first coast guard helicopter to go in after tropical storm grace rolled through the region dumping heavy rain into haiti's southern peninsula. the town of lakai, largest town that bore the brunt of the earthquake over the weekend was swamped with rain and the challenge was how to evacuate some of the patients that still needed to be evacuated three days after the earthquake. we got there this morning, there were seven haitians boarding on our helicopter alone, some extremely young, a baby several months old, young child with a broken leg, needed to be evacuated along with his mother. it is difficult to see the sense of desperation in lakai which we saw yesterday and saw a hospital overwhelmed. men, women, children hooked up to ivs in the stifling heat. overnight, andrea, rain came
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pouring down in the area, makeshift tents collapsed. a difficult situation. short time ago we spoke with an aid worker on the ground. >> tell me how desperate are some people here to get out? >> i mean, you've got some urgent medical cases that need to get out but we're working to resource the hospitals. the medical staff here is doing excellent. they are significantly overrun, underresourced, med supplies and critical support is necessary. >> reporter: andrea, as i speak, one of the coast guard helicopters is getting ready to take off. as you mention, so far, the latest death toll, more than 1400 dead, 6,000 injured, and at least 37,000 buildings damaged or destroyed across this country. andrea? >> gabe, it is heartbreaking. thank you very much for what you're doing there. that does it for this edition of
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