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this hour, national security adviser jake sullivan is expected to at least have to answer questions in the white house briefing room as president biden tries to focus on why we're leaving afghanistan rather than how. the biden administration supports a third vaccine shot for most americans. mark eight months on the calendar, check your vaccine cards. at your 8 month anniversary from dose two, time for dose three. welcome to "mtp daily." i am chuck todd. another busy august day in washington. this hour, we expect an update on the situation in afghanistan when white house press secretary jen psaki will be joined by jake sullivan in the briefing room. we'll go live to the white house when that begins.

next hour, we expect to hear from the state department for their update as evacuations continue at the kabul airport. one would assume semi orchestrated here in washington. first the white house, then state. the pentagon confirmed the kabul airport is secure and the defense department goal is to have one flight leaving per hour in the next 24 hours, and they hope to move out 5 to 9,000 evacuees per day. those operations were suspended for part of yesterday as afghans desperate to flee the country rushed the tarmac at the airport. this is going to be the scene that will always sort of mark withdrawal from afghanistan for us. defense officials say as many as 800 passengers left from the airport overnight, once operations resumed. u.s. troops continue to arrive and create perimeter today. as many as 5,000 could be on the ground to assist in evacuations. this photo of hundreds of

afghans crammed into a u.s. military cargo jet shows you how dire the situation is for those that feel the need to get out any means necessary. passengers desperate to escape the taliban crammed on the flight from kabul to qatar. and the taliban had its own news conference today, the pentagon confirmed u.s. military leaders had been in touch with the taliban. >> we have had no hostile interactions, no attack, no threat by the taliban. we remain vigilant. we also have not experienced any additional security incidents. >> coming out of discussions with senior taliban leaders, our commanders at the airport are in communication with taliban commanders on the ground outside the airport. there have been discussions,

there is communication between them and us and i would just let results speak for themselves. >> you can see, we don't want to say we're negotiating with the taliban or asking permission from the taliban. they're being very careful with their words. expect national security adviser jake sullivan to face questions, what are the communications with the taliban in the white house briefing in a few minutes. the chaotic withdrawal is easily the biggest crisis of the young biden presidency. also comes when biden's domestic problems are piling up. the u.s. topped 37 million covid cases, five states report record number of cases as the pandemic which appeared to be under control just a month ago continues to worsen. of course, that has economic impact. and we have the situation at the border. this was supposed to be the time we would see the border let up a bit. guess what, we saw record number of illegal crossings, despite the heat. then the increasingly

complicated process of getting his agenda through congress. that will be a big time mess. upcoming recall election of the california governor, bit tighter than democrats think it should be, and that also sort of added to the pile of major to minor headaches piling up for this white house. all of it happening as democrats look ahead to the 2022 midterms. all likely going to get worse politically for the president before it gets better. only thing he can be happy about is that the calendar is an odd numbered year, not even numbered. mike memoli is near camp david where president biden is. courtney kube, and long time columnist from "the washington post" and nbc and msnbc contributor. mike, let me start with you with the president at camp david. how are they feeling now the day

after. if the speech was attempt to at least provide some i don't want to say unity for the country but unity for his own party, doesn't look like it went that well. >> reporter: chuck, there's just something about august, isn't there. you know well from your own time on this beat in 2009, this was the summer of the tea party, the town halls that posted the first significant test for the obama administration. four years ago almost exactly that president trump stood in the lobby of trump tower, talked about very fine people on both sides. as the story goes, that's what motivated joe biden, private citizen, to consider a run for president himself. this is a very critical moment for this administration and if there were already not enough warning signs for them, we heard two serious ones in the last hour on this network. you had leon panetta who either didn't get or quickly discarded talking points from the

administration warning about the national security impact of the president's decision. leon panetta sat in the situation room with vice president biden during debates about afghanistan. then you heard congressman chrissy houlahan, that the white house closely aligned itself with, saying frankly she can't explain this decision, is having a hard time explaining the decision. the x factor politically for president biden has been this perception of competency, even more, understanding of the electorate that many others in his party don't necessarily feel they share as well. he always had the benefit of the doubt. this white house insisted they have a better understanding of what the american people believe than twitter or the press. certainly a lot of members of their own party. that very much seems to be in doubt. yes, the president did an important thing as far as the administration is concerned. yesterday, spoke quickly, helped

to reassert his confidence in his decision. the white house needed this time to regroup themselves again because it is august. a lot of them were scattered around. they're starting to mount political defense that is nesat this moment. we'll see that later this hour with the white house press secretary and national security adviser. but the other thing to keep in mind is that this administration has always bit at us for jumping to conclusions. the most interesting in the past 24 hours, one where they were asking me how it plays out politically. that speaks to level of uncertainty about this moment for them. >> that's a fair point. let me move to courtney at the pentagon. if yesterday morning the conversation of where's the president, he needs to be out there, paper statement doesn't cut it, he did, i think it is telling that the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff and secretary of defense have not

been in front of cameras. look, there's a lot of ways to interpret it in washington. that's usually if they don't have something supportive to say, don't want to have to be forced to answer a question that perhaps their boss won't like the answer to. is that how we should look at this? i mean, the pentagon is not putting its two most important faces in front of the camera. >> yeah. there's no question about the fact that the u.s. military was against the idea of military withdrawing from afghanistan. that's not even in question any more. once the president made the decision and announcement back in april, then look at what's happened since then. the military under commanding general in kabul at the time, general scott miller, they took the order, said we have to be out by september 11th and accelerated that. for the safety of troops, they were going to move out before september, that was the safest thing for them to do. all along we have been hearing

from defense officials about the need to deal with this special immigrant process. the military has been holding drills, they have been prepared to evacuate, large numbers, tens of thousands of people if necessary. they were just waiting for the state department to give them the names and tell them who to take out and when, really to tell them to do it, to move forward. that process just began several weeks ago. so there's certainly a lot of frustration about that, but you're right. we have not heard directly from secretary austin or general milley. he has been providing as much information as he can, but it is telling when you don't hear from the most senior people about the

issues. this is, you touched on it at the beginning, this mission, evacuation mission, there was a huge hiccup in it for much of monday when we saw civilians flooding onto the runway and made it unsafe for flights to come and go. the mission to send u.s. troops, soldiers and marines to kabul was stalled for hours. the mission to get americans and afghans out also stalled for hours. so they're really in an effort now to not only get this moving again, to ramp it up to get civilians out and americans out as quickly as possible. >> courtney at the pentagon, thanks. let me move to capitol hill. garrett, again as i said i know part of the reason for the president to come out, and he made a bit more of a political speech if you will, essentially making the case against being in afghanistan any longer.

it didn't seem to, if it was designed to at least keep the democratic party from completely fracturing on the issue, i don't know if it did its job. what have you seen or heard on the hill? >> reporter: there's a little patience from democrats to see how the airlift operation plays out, to see if the u.s. military can stabilize what has been a horrible decision here, horrible course of events i should say over the last few days. really, the only cover biden has gotten from congressional democrats has ironically come from progressives, from speaker pelosi and the caucus that wanted them out of afghanistan long before joe biden was president. they were most happy with this decision on the front end, have given him the most cover on the back end. when congress resumes session in september, you could potentially see two different senate committees, two different house committees doing hearings on this, doing investigatory

hearings on the activity of the white house. that is not a situation president biden wants to be in, and more broadly, everything congressional democrats and the president have been able to accomplish so far in his term has evolved total unity. needed total unity for the rescue package and the infrastructure bill. now they don't have it. in the last hour, there was a conference call, congressional leadership leaning on members on the infrastructure piece of this. the same is ultimately probably going to be true around afghanistan, as is always the case, the party who is most united tends to be in the stronger position, democrats are not as of now on the same page about afghanistan and what to do next. >> and republicans may be in disagreement about long term ideas in afghanistan, but they're unified, hawks and isolationists in jumping on, being critical of president biden. let me bring in david ignatius. i want to play a quote from president biden yesterday.

i actually think there's a lot of analysis of the speech that he was casting blame a lot of directions, but this part of his speech almost absolved anybody of some blame. take a listen. >> the events we're seeing now are sadly proof that no amount of military force would ever deliver a stable, united, secure afghanistan. known is history as the graveyard of empires. what's happening now could just as easily happen five years ago or 15 years in the future. you have to be honest. >> this is to me the challenge of analyzing the president's speech yesterday. yes, he put himself in position of i have been right all along and everybody else was wrong, see, i told you so, and at the same time as much as aides want to say the trump administration tied his hands to do x, y, and

z, that's not the president's stance. the president is coming out saying no matter when we withdrew, there's never a good time, essentially saying it is possible this would have happened no matter what scenario you would have chosen. is that how you interpreted that? >> i had a similar feeling, chuck. the way in which the ghani government clamsed, inability of the afghan military that we worked so hard to train to fight effectively around the country and in kabul in a sense seemed to support biden's view this just wasn't ever going to work, time had come to get out. the caution i make is the force we had left was small, has been small for several years. as one former senior commander put it to me, we have been buying a term insurance with

this small force. we gave up long ago what ideas we might have had about nation building, about broad counter insurgency, term insurance, we buy it year to year, force of under 5,000 people the last several years that allows us to have some confidence that we can deal with the terrorism problem that we know is very real in afghanistan. that's what i think biden can be faulted for. he traded the term insurance policy for what at least in the last week has been chaos. we'll see if things stabilize now with the taliban taking over, holding press conferences, but i think that's the weakness in his argument. >> look, we talked a lot about domestic political hit the president is taking, likely to continue to take. i would like to talk about the global political hit america has

taken. you know, there's some that would argue well, if you worry about belarus, worry about ukraine, taiwan, yesterday was a bad day. what say you? >> so what we've seen this week, chuck, is the enormous psychological impact of american decisions. if ever you wanted a demonstration that credibility, reliability, staying the course makes a difference, just look at how quickly the afghan army and everything in afghanistan collapsed. it is right to worry about knock on effects, american credibility does matter. i am concerned jihadists around the world that really were in retreat after defeat of isis, after so many successes the u.s. had will now be embolden.

they'll say the taliban held out, they won. here they are, governing kabul again. then we have again a global problem to worry about. >> you start to look at america's role leading the west in this century and whether libya triggered directly or indirectly triggered a migration crisis, created a political crisis in europe, it is possible this triggers a migration crisis, political crises. is it fair to say that sort of the west, whether it is the united states or the eu but generally, i mean, this is a lot of defeats for sort of the western point of view of the global order. >> well, our way of stabilizing things has not proven successful. certainly our ability to use military power to achieve political goals has not been

effective in iraq or afghanistan. we have seen the destabilizing effects of refugee migrant flows on europe. europe's political problems, shift to the right was generated in significant part by the refugees streaming out of syria, out of libya, out of africa, and there's more of that ahead. i worry about that knock on effect in particular. we could have one to two million afghan refugees coming out of the country desperately, coming into pakistan, which is a fragile country in the best of times, coming into europe, governments that are so vulnerable to right wing pressure. i think as you're suggesting, it is the secondary knock on effects of destabilization and then kind of number is of people who flow out of the countries that are desperate, will go

anywhere. >> look, we could get to this longer, it is important to note, all of this stuff is connected. it is not disconnected. it is a domino. one triggers another triggers another. i guess we're all wondering where the next domino is going to fall. great reporting team. thanks for getting us started. david, great to have your expertise and thoughtfulness on the air. we expect to hear from national security adviser jake sullivan joining jen psaki for the briefing. what assurances are the taliban giving the united states? we'll bring you all of that live when it happens. first, the other major crisis in this country, covid. a much needed boost as cases and hospitalizations rise, americans could be in line for getting a third coronavirus shot, assuming you have gotten one and two. and live in alabama where vaccination rates are still low and hospitals are over capacity. and hospitals are over capacity. usaa is made for the safe pilots.

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welcome back. the biden administration is expected to announce a new recommendation that americans get a third dose of pfizer or moderna. 8 months after dose two they say you should be ready for dose three. the formal recommendation could come the next few days, could be implemented as early as september. cdc and fda already gave the green light for americans with compromised immune systems to get a third shot. all of this coming as the united states passed the threshold for 37 million covid cases this morning. daily covid numbers surged to levels we haven't seen since start of vaccination. according to the cdc, average of 10,000 new covid patients are admitted to hospitals daily. think about it. 10,000 covid patients a day are being admitted. let that sink in. this is with vaccinations, folks. although the rate of covid in

children continues to be relatively low, pediatric hospitalization rate is at its highest since the beginning of the pandemic. we're going to talk to an infectious disease physician in a moment with some of the medical facts and questions you may have. vaughn hillyard is in mobile, alabama, where hospitals are being inundated with covid patients. vaughn, similar story to florida and texas. tell us the alabama story. >> chuck, you know this region of the country all too well from the florida pan handle to here to mississippi and louisiana. it is this region here, hottest spots in the country. looking at alabama, vaccination rate of just 35%, lowest in the country. you saw the trajectory of all of the curves, they're all going up. there are more than 2500 individuals hospitalized in alabama. double from two weeks ago, averaging more than 4,000 cases a day. and 25 deaths a day on average

in the state of alabama. that's where hospitals are already exceeding capacity, they're trying to build out units to ramp up equipment and abilities to operate on the excess number of covid patients. i want to let you hear from dr. michael chang. when i asked him the question of where is this going from here, take a listen. >> we're not expecting things to get better for a minimum of three to four weeks, if even then. so we are preparing for what we think is coming, and we have to work our way through it. >> why do you expect it won't get better for three or four weeks? >> the vaccination rate is just now popping up. it could drop off a bit, one of two things. number one, masking and social distancing takes a hold down here. the other would be as the delta variant runs through the community, that it will eventually sort of work through

what we call history of the disease. >> reporter: chuck, the other story line, the fact that there are hospital staff out of work because of covid symptoms, the hospital behind me today, more than 200 individuals are out of work because of covid-like symptoms. chuck? >> vaughn hillyard for us. thank you. doctor, i want to start with sort of a when are we going to start to hit our peak. i saw that missouri was the canary in a coal mine, they were first. they're finally looks like their curve is starting to round out. what does that tell you, we're looking end of september, early october at best here? >> i think that, chuck, you and

i talked about because we have geographically disparate country, you may see texas and florida increase cases, they're still vertical. cases are still going up. two other things may change in fall, that's why it is unknown for me. one, our kids will go to school, more kids will go to school, colleges will start. how will that impact transmission in areas with higher transmission rate. and the other, colder weather. this is a respiratory illness more transmissible during colder weather. we don't know how the two elements will impact how long we see that. for those states that had earlier peaks, there's a decline in cases in those areas. >> so we're getting word they're going to formally recommend a third shot if you already, assuming on pfizer and moderna. i feel for people that got the johnson & johnson vaccine, they never seem to provide important

information about what do you do if you have that. let me ask you. what did you tell a johnson & johnson vaccine recipient? >> i have been speaking out about this as well. i think for those immuno compromised, or high risk, should be more input from the administration because i would be worried at least as much for them as those that got the mrna vaccine. particularly those that are high risk, many of us dealing with immuno compromised patients, we ask them to come in and see if they can access a third dose or sorry, second dose in their case. boosters are an interesting scenario. this is coming at the heel of new data showing immunity seems to wane in those over 65, data was updated monday shows for those over 65, got a second dose in january, they saw

effectiveness for severe disease go down to 55%. that's not in line with data from mayo last month that showed in a study you can still be protected from severe disease, although you may get more break through infections. boosters keep more hospitalizations from occurring in that group, and could be helpful for everybody, may reduce transmission. if you get more break through infections and the vaccinated in some cases could transmit to others, maybe that reduces transmission. the only thing i will say, it doesn't solve two big problems we have. one is majority of the pandemic is driven by people that chose not to be vaccinated, not even getting the first dose. and sets us further behind in global vaccine equity. >> right. does the announcement, though, because i know there were studies out of israel that showed this sort of slow erosion of efficacy, one way to describe

it. it seems to make it inevitable we are staring at near annual shot in some form, a la the flu shot. it appears this doesn't end, we're not going to get rid of covid, it is going to be endemic, which means, sounds like it means annual shots in some form off another, right? >> yeah, we have seen that with other viral diseases. seeing the drop in antibody response, seeing there are clinically more cases the longer you are, but there's also another reason. the virus is evolving, more it transmits, where there's so much global transmission, we may be looking at future boosters to also potentially address new variants. this is the thing that worries me. only 16% of the world is currently vaccinated. this transmission continues, it can come up to us in the form of threat of new variants as well.

>> yeah. we're going to have a refugee crisis around the world, a million plus people looking for a place to find safety and security. and we don't know if they have been vaccinated. just shows you, this is going to be a long, hard slog for the world. thank you for coming on with your expertise. up next as we await the white house briefing with the national security adviser, many who still cannot get vaccinated, kids, are caught in the middle over the fight over mask mandates in schools. we head to austin, texas, first day of school. the district having to defy the governor implementing a mask mandate. state courts took the governor's side. how is the school district handling that. the schl oodistrt handling that. i've been married to my high school sweetheart for 35 years. i'm a mother of four-- always busy. i was starting to feel a little foggy. just didn't feel like things were as sharp as i knew they once were.

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jen psaki and jake sullivan leading the briefing. >> in terms of the president's engagement today, engaging with his national security team, make a few comments broadly on the situation, then i'll be happy to take your questions. this morning, the president spoke with military commanders for an operational briefing on security at the international airport, known as hkaya. spoke with secretary austin, milley, base lee, and myself. they have procured h kaya. and flights are taking off. following the operational briefing with military commanders, the president and vice president met by secure video krchls with their national security team to hear intelligence, security, and diplomatic updates on the evolving situation in afghanistan. they discussed status of ongoing

evacuations of u.s. citizens, siv applicants and other vulnerable afghans at risk and how we would do this safely and efficiently with laser focus of the team monitoring, preventing any potential terrorist threats at or around there, including from isis. they were joined by secretary blinken, chairman milly, haynes, burns, myself, kalil zod, general mackenzie and other senior officials. to say a few words where we come from, where we are, i want to start by saluting troops and civilian personnel at the kabul airport. i want to salute the defense department, intelligence community, state department, department of homeland security, and especially our country team in kabul doing incredible work under trying circumstances. they have safely and effectively drawn down the compound, retro graded diplomatic personnel.

they have now secured the airfield, are conducting flights out of the country. they're moving american citizens as well as afghan nationals and third country nationals. they're facilitating flights for allies and partners to get citizens and others out of afghanistan. these operations will continue in coming days as we move to vaulkt american citizens and nationals that worked with us along with other vulnerable afghans. we are engaging diplomatically at the same time with allies in regional countries and with the united nations to address the situation in afghanistan. we are in contact with the taliban to ensure the safe passage of people to the airport. we are monitoring for any potential terrorist threats as i just mentioned, including from isis k. we intend to continue operations in the coming days before completing the draw down. when you work on any policy issue, domestic policy, foreign policy, any policy issue, the

human cost and consequences loom large and we are all contending with the human costs of these developments. the images from the past couple of days at the airport have been heartbreaking. president biden had to think about the human cost of the alternative path, which was to stay in the middle of civil conflict in afghanistan. there are those that argue with 2500 forces, the number of forces in country when president biden took office, we could have sustained a stable, peaceful afghanistan. that is simply wrong. the previous administration drew down from 15,000 troops to 2500 troops, and even at 15,000, the afghan government forces were losing ground. what unfolded in the past month has proven decisively it would take significant presence, multiple times greater than president biden was handed to stop the onslaught. and we would have taken

casualties. american men and women would be fighting and dying again in afghanistan and president biden was not prepared to send additional forces or ask any american personnel to do that over the period ahead. there have been questions raised whether we should have drawn down our embassy and evacuated afghan allies earlier. these are reasonable questions. we did dramatically accelerate sid process, move out substantial amount of applicants and families, but the afghan government and its supporters, including many of the people now seeking to leave, made a passionate case we should not conduct mass evacuation less we trigger loss of confidence in the government. our signaling support for the government obviously didn't save the government, but this was a considered judgment. when you conclude 20 years of military action in a civil war in another country with impacts of 20 years of decisions that piled up, you have to make a lot of hard calls, none with clean

outcomes. what you can do is plan for all contingencies. we did that. the american forces now on the ground at h kaya are there from contingency planning we did for months. planning for dire scenarios. president biden ordered multiple battalions prepositioned in theater an act aggrevated them before the fall of kabul. yes, there were chaotic scenes yesterday. as admiral kirby said, even well drawn plans don't survive first contact with reality, and they require adjustments, and we made those adjustments. we will stay in close touch with allies and partners in days ahead as we contend with immediate need to complete the evacuation mission and as we deal with broader challenges posed by the new reality in

afghanistan. and we will remain persistently vigilant against the terrorism threat in afghanistan and in multiple other theaters across multiple continents. we can suppress terrorism without significant amount on the ground. >> i want to ask the president yesterday said that the buck stops with him. i want to get an understanding of what did he mean, what is he taking ownership of, not just leaving afghanistan. is he taking responsibility for the chaos that happened during the evacuations, were the decisions not to do them sooner, is he taking responsibility for that and for any bloodshed that may be happening now. is he taking responsibility for that? >> he is taking responsibility

for every decision the united states took with regard to afghanistan, as he said, the buck stops with him. i am also taking responsibility. so are my colleagues, secretary of state, secretary of defense, chairman of joint chiefs of staff, directors of intelligence agencies. we as a national security team collectively take responsibility for every decision, good decision every decision that doesn't bring good outcomes. at the same time, doesn't change the fact other parties here are responsible as well who have taken actions and decisions that lead us to where we are. from our perspective, we have to focus on the task at hand. you mention chaos at the airport yesterday. at the end of the day, the question is can we effectively evacuate those people we intend to evacuate, that's what we are planning for, executing against, beginning today, airport is

secure, flights are going, people are coming. we will continue to do that in the days ahead. >> what is president biden's response to the afghan people that are fearful the u.s. will abandon them to the aggression of china. follow-up to that, what is president biden's response to people in israel and other countries who may also believe the u.s. will abandon them to terrorists. >> to the first question, president biden and all of us are heartbroken by the human consequences that have unfolded, could continue to unfold in afghanistan. we believe passionately in human rights and human dignity and we want to work with the international community to advance that wherever we can. but president biden was not prepared to have american men and women continue to fight and die in the civil war of another country to achieve that. we will use every other tool at

our disposal to achieve that, and we will do so day after day, month after month on behalf of the people of afghanistan. to your question about allies. we gave 20 years of american blood, treasure, sweat and tears in afghanistan. we gave them every capacity in terms of training and equipment to stand up, fight for themselves. at some point it was the time for the united states to say that the afghan people had to stand up for themselves. we believe our commitments to our allies and partners are sacrosanct. we believe our commitment to taiwan and israel remains strong as it has ever been. keep in mind, with respect to afghanistan, we said back in 2011 we would be out in 2014. we stayed another seven years, far more than we agreed to more than a decade ago.

last thing i would say, president biden is laser focused on observing the national core objectives of the united states. when it comes to afghanistan, it was getting bin laden, degrading al qaeda. we accomplished that. he believes it is time for troops to come home. >> just now you described a kind of choice that the president, that was in front of the president, either save the folks, the allies in afghanistan, folks that helped the united states the last few decades, or sacrifice more american young men. i think the question out there on capitol hill and around washington and elsewhere is wasn't there another choice, wasn't there a way you could have ended, president biden could have ended the war in the way he wanted to end the war so americans don't sacrifice further lives for this war, at the same time, do a better job of either ignoring ghani's

request to not start evacuations or figuring some way that we wouldn't end up in a situation where there's masses of people crushing through the airport and execution of the last four, five, six days that has seemed to just about everybody as not the way competent administration, not the result a competent administration has in the end. isn't that a false choice, and why couldn't you do both? >> first, what i would say is that we were clear eyed going in when we made this decision that it was possible that the taliban would end up in control of afghanistan. we were clear eyed about that. as the president said in his remarks, we did not anticipate it would happen at the speed we

planned for these contingencies. the reason i say that at the outset, we knew it was possible they could take over, had to be built in calculus in making the determination to draw down forces is because once the taliban came into kabul, we were going to be faced with a situation, no matter if there were still u.s. troops on the ground or no u.s. troops on the ground of dealing with significant number of people wanting to come to the airport to get evacuated. we communicated with american citizens for weeks, telling them to get out of the country. we offered financial assistance for those that wouldn't be able to afford to get on flights themselves. many chose to stay until the end. that was their choice. we now are faced with a circumstance, we have to help evacuate those. that's our responsibility as the u.s. government. the point i am making is that when a civil war comes to an end with an opposing force marching on the capital, there are going

to be scenes of chaos, there are going to be lots of people leaving the country. that is not something that can be fundamentally avoided. so while it is a point for reasonable debate in my view, how to think about the right moment to signal complete loss of confidence in a government or not, and which is going to lead to more suffering and death or not, the fact is that we made the judgments we made based on the information we had at the time while preparing for the alternative contingency, which was having to flow in troops to get out folks in a mass evacuation. yes. >> do you believe that the mission could be completed by august 31st, as a national security adviser, what do you see the scenario in september for us, do you think the taliban in 2021 are different than 2001? do you see another situation to

arrive where new terrorist organization will be born, like isis like out of iraq, for example. >> just on the last point, it is fairly well documented that the taliban and isis k fight one another, struggle against one another. i do not foresee a symbiotic relationship there. these are dynamic scenarios, we'll have to see how it plays. we are working day to day to get people out. i am not going to speculate on the timetable question you laid out. finally on what we expect from the taliban going forward, that is something that will have to be watched and observed over time, whether in fact they are prepared to meet their obligations to basic human rights and human dignity of people, to safe passage of people to the airport, fair and just treatment of civilians. that's something they have to

show. i come at this with no expectations but only a sense that they will have to prove to the international community who they ultimately are going to end up being. yes. >> can you tell us what is it exactly, the commitment you got from the taliban regarding safe passage of americans as well as tens of thousands. >> the taliban informed us that they are prepared to provide safe passage of civilians to the airport and we intend to hold them to that commitment. >> just for clarity, is there a deadline set, has the taliban given assurances this will go to august 31st, deadline before that or after that for clarity on what you said. >> we believe this can go until the 31st. we are talking to them about what the exact timetable is for how this will play out. i don't want to negotiate in public. i am working out the best

modality to get the most people out in the most efficient way as possible. >> i have a question on that. yesterday, president biden said that the united states military is no national interest. [ inaudible question ] >> the president, as he has said repeatedly, has no intention of drawing down forces from south korea or europe, where we have sustained troop presences for a very long time, not in the middle of a civil war, but to deal with the potential of an external enemy and to protect our ally against that enemy. it's a fundamentally different kind of situation from the one we're presented with in afghanistan. >> the president yesterday said the situation in afghanistan was -- numerous officials have

told abc that there were key intelligence assessments warning the taliban could overwhelm the country and take the capital within weeks. did the white house disregard that intelligence and push ahead? >> i'm not actually familiar with the intelligence assessment you're describing, but i also don't want to get into specific intelligence products. one thing i will not do from this podium or anywhere else is talk about what a different component of the interagency did or didn't do, because from my perspective, we are one team trying to execute and do so in the best interests and values. >> -- august 31st and there are americans and afghan allies who remain there, will the u.s. stay

or leave? >> i'm focused on the task at hand which is getting as many people out as rapidly as possible. we'll take it day by day. >> the large number of christian missionaries and aid workers are particularly vulnerable because they're christians. is there any plan to get them to the airport and get them out? >> we're working with a variety of different types of groups, journalists, aid workers, ngo workers to aid their departure from the country. >> when did your administration know that another 6,000 troops were going to be needed for this withdrawal? >> on wednesday evening the president convened the principals to discuss the deteriorating situation on the ground in afghanistan. he posed the question as to whether we had to floe more -- flow more forces in to secure

evacuation. thursday morning he gave the order to flow those forces in. as we watched the situation unfold over the coming days, we determined that we would go from step one of that contingency plan which was about 3,000 troops to step two which is about 6,000 troops. >> on thursday he knew. why did he leave the white house on friday? >> the president worked throughout the entire weekend. i was intimately familiar with his working habits over the course of the weekend, because i was on the phone with him constantly, secretary austin, chairman milley, secretary blinken. he was monitoring developments hour by hour throughout that time and has been giving us direction and guidance about how to take the shape of this mission and execute it. and asking our military who is leading this mission what do you need, i will get you anything

you need. he asked that question multiple times every single day. president biden has been deeply engaged. yes? >> there's a lot of anger in australia this morning about the way this has played out. we've got citizens and then, of course, so many afghans who have helped the australian forces and helped the u.s. mission over the past 20 years. does the administration accept some responsibility or perhaps what would be your response to those people who are trapped and some are fearing execution because of the exit strategy or perhaps lack of competent exit strategy? >> we do take some responsibility for our allies and partners in afghanistan. in fact, as i said in my opening comments, we are working to facilitate flights and have already done so for countries that have gotten their citizens to the airport. we're eager to work with australia to help get out australian citizens and other

individuals who australians would like to see get out. >> what do you say to the next generation of afghan women and young childrens who face fundamentally different human rights? >> i say that truly, deeply, my heart goes out to afghan women and girls in the country today under the taliban. we've seen what they've done before. that's a very hard thing for any of us to face. but this wasn't a choice just between saving those women and girls and not saving those women and girls. the alternative choice had its own set of human costs and consequences. those human costs and consequences would have involved a substantial ramp-up of american participation in the civil war with more loss of life, more bloodshed, families here in the united states who would be asking a different form of the question you just asked. these are the choices the president has to make. and it doesn't mean because we don't have forces in this

country that we're not going to fight on behalf of women and girls and human rights and human dignity. we are. we do in many other countries where we don't have active military participation. we'll do it in afghanistan too. we'll attempt to use every measure of tool and influence we have along with our international allies and partners to alleviate the burden those women and girls will face in the days ahead. we are absolutely resolutely committed to that. [ inaudible question ] >> right knew there is a chaotic situation in kabul, where we don't even have the establishment of a governing authority. it would be really premature to address that question. ultimately it's going to be up to the taliban to show the rest of the world who they are and how they intend to proceed. the track record has not been good, but it's premature to address that question at this point. >> -- committed to safe package to the airport. our reporting is instead of

checkpoints outside the airport, people are being beaten and whipped when they try and cross these checkpoints and some of the evacuation points are nearly empty as a result what assurances do you have specifically about these checkpoints? >> two things about that. first, the earliest evacuation flights in any evacuation tend not to have every seat filled because the process of getting any evacuation underway has a through-put issue. we believe that is being resolved with each successive flight and we will be putting 300 passengers on your average military cargo plane heading out of the country one after the other, hot on loading and hot off loading. by and large we've found that people have been able to get to the airport and present themselves. there have been instances where we have received reports of people being turned away or pushed back or even beaten. we are taking that up in a

channel with the taliban to try to resolve those issues. and we are concerned about whether that will continue to unfold in the coming days. what we are finding is we are getting people through the gate, getting them lined up and on planes. but this is an hour by hour issue and it's something we're clear-eyed about and focused on, holding the taliban to the plan. [ inaudible question ] >> that's a good question. it's one that we will conduct an extensive hot wash, as we say. we'll take a look at every aspect of this from top to bot

bottom. i'm spending every hour on the mission before us, which is getting all these people out. >> has the president spoken to any other world leaders since kabul fell to the taliban? >> he has not yet spoken with any other world leaders. myself, secretary blinken, several other senior members of the team have been engaged on a regular basis with foreign counterparts. we intend to do so in the coming days. right now the main issue is about how we coordinate with them to help them get their people out. we are operating through logistical channels and policy channels to try to make that happen. yes? >> you just said you will conduct a review of what went wrong here on the u.s.'s response. i know you said there are other additional factors about what happened on the ground in afghanistan that led to this. will you publicly disclose what went wrong and who misjudged the intelligence here? >> i didn't describe we were doing a what went wrong review. what i said is we'll do a hot

wash. we'll look at everything that happened in this entire operation from start to finish and areas of improvement where we can do better, where we can find holes or weaknesses and plug them as we go forward. and of course we intend after we've had the opportunity to run that analysis to share that with people. yes? >> you noted that you had encouraged americans on the ground there to leave and many chose not to. i just wanted to follow up on that. will the u.s. government commit to ensuring any americans currently on the ground in afghanistan get out? >> that's what we're doing right now. we have asked them all to come to the airport to get on flights and take them home. >> former officials from multiple administrations, the obama administration, the bush administration has said they are certain afghanistan will become a safe haven for terrorists. i know you