and enjoy the ride a little more. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ now, get new lower auto rates with allstate. because better protection costs a whole lot less. you're in good hands with allstate. click or call for a lower auto rate today. and good morning, everybody. i am aaron gilchrist in for stephanie ruhle today. it is thursday, august 19th. we start in afghanistan where the number of evacuees is creeping up slowly but surely. 6,000 as of last night. this morning, new scenes of chaos just outside the airport. we want to warn you, this video may be disturbing.

now, we don't know who the soldiers are or who is doing the shooting here but we do know this is apparently happening multiple times a day outside the airport. you see children in the area as well. president biden says as many as 65,000 afghan allies and families are still stuck in the country, along with up to 15,000 americans. the big problem, of course, is while the u.s. controls kabul airport, the taliban controls all the roads leading into the area, leading to scenes like this with crowds gathered just beyond the walls. on wednesday, defense secretary lloyd austin said there are no plans to use american soldiers to open a path to the airport. that left many afghans at the

mercy of taliban fighters that control the roads, beating and whipping people trying to get in. some cases, people managed to access the airport by climbing walls. you can see american soldiers helping a woman over the top, onto the airport grounds. as for evacuations themselves, the u.s. says it is running about 20 flights a day, things are not moving as quickly as they would hope. that said wednesday, president biden said the u.s. is not leaving until we bring everyone home. >> we are supposed to be out august 31st, even if americans and allies are trying to get out, they're going to leave? >> we're going to do everything in our power to get all americans out and our allies out. if there's american citizens left, we're going to stay until we get them all out. >> richard engle in kabul has the latest on how the evacuation is going at this point. richard? >> reporter: this is the military side of kabul

international airport, and this is where the evacuation of american citizens, afghan asylum seekers, foreign contractors is taking place. they're leaving on transport jets like this one, and the pace is picking up. it started off quite slow. now they're around 2,000 people evacuated every day. the biggest problem is getting here. while this basis controlled by u.s. forces and other nato forces, the perimeter like all of afghanistan is now controlled by the taliban. and the taliban in order to keep people away from here have been extremely aggressive. they have been whipping people, beating people with clubs, they also have been firing in the air. now the taliban say they are going to offer asylum, offer safe passage to people so they can come through and get on this base. that would immensely speed up the process, it would also change the tone and mood of the afghans when they finally get

here. i have seen this over the last several days. when afghans arrive, they're exhausted. they've run through a horrible taliban gauntlet, maybe been beaten. they get here, they're nervous, stressed out, worried, makes it difficult for american troops to process them. when the americans ask them to go through security or wait in a holding area, some afghans think they're not going to get through, they're being stopped, can be a bit of panic, a rush on doors. voices get elevated and things get tense. i have seen afghans passing babies from one family to the next because they think they're not going to make it. once they made it this far, once they're on this base, they are getting on one of these planes. the other very important thing is this base was the scene of utter desperation as the taliban were taking over afghanistan. the civilian side of the airport which is there, white planes in the distance was overrun. it was overrun by afghans

desperate to leave. several thousand came storming in. the marines didn't know who was coming at them, according to witnesses i have spoken to. they thought maybe it was taliban. they rushed out in small numbers then larger numbers to push them back, things escalated. there were clashes. marines took out weapons. they were firing in the air, trying to disburse crowds. but crowds did not disburse. some hung on to the bottom of the c-17 transport, and according to witnesses, as it took off, at least two people fell to their deaths, fell from about 400 feet. richard engle. nbc news, kabul. >> i want to bring in nbc's chief white house correspondent peter alexander. courtney kube who covers the pentagon for us, and ronald newman, former u.s. ambassador to afghanistan and president of the american academy of diplomacy as well as peter baker, chief white house correspondent for "new york

times." peter alexander, start with you. we are hearing from the president this morning about the situation we are watching unfold at the kabul airport and extensive interview. what stood out? >> reporter: a series of headlines, most importantly on the ground as richard reported, the president's commitment to saying he is leaving no american behind, that u.s. troops would stay there beyond the president's self imposed august 31st end of month deadline to get troops out. he would not make the same commitment for tens of thousands of afghan allies and their families that are there. obviously the challenge still exists now to try to get these americans and afghans, many scattered throughout the country, the defense secretary yesterday saying he was not going to be leaving, troops would not be leaving the airport perimeter to go get folks. they have to get there on their own safely. beyond that as relates to fallout, criticism the president is facing now, effectively what

he said in the new interview is all along he thought there's no way to do this without chaos ensuing, that that was effectively inevitability. in april when he announced withdrawal, there would not be hasty rush to exit, the process would be done deliberately, responsibly, orderly. in many ways it is not appearing to be going as planned. here's more of what he said in that interview. >> sounds like you think we should have gotten out a long time ago. >> we should have. >> and accept the idea it would be messy no matter what? >> what would be messy if we got out a long time ago, getting out would be messy no matter when it occurred. >> throughout the interview, the president admits no mistakes, defending his decision to pull american troops out, above other things, the take away is there's no good time to do this. the messaging from this president and his administration in the last several months has

been very different from the way it played out and the way the president now admits he thought it would play out all along which is with chaos. >> ambassador newman, what's your reaction to what's unfolding, the scramble to get folks out of the u.s. government entity in afghanistan, to get that group out and chaos we see around the airport and on the streets and the fact that the president is saying there's no way to avoid that. >> well, that's a misstatement to be polite. the decision to leave is one thing. the execution of that decision has been absolutely abomb inable. it has been rushed. it caused part of the panic, it has added to it. the business of taking out interpreters, special immigrant visa people was kept on slow walk for several months after the withdrawal decision.

they could have been processed months ago and they weren't. so the president is defending himself, which you expect the president to do, but there was time still to deal with this. i was in kabul a month ago, things were not anywhere near what h where they are now, they could have been doing things that are now in chaos. >> you were in kabul a month ago. to you did it seem, was it obvious that the afghan government was wobbly, they wouldn't be able to stand against the taliban push into kabul and to take over? >> well, of course, everybody likes to say they understood everything perfectly. let me point you back to two pieces i wrote after i came back. one with several other ambassadors a couple weeks ago where we saw the possibility things could unravel quickly. we said a big piece of it was collapse of morale, risk of collapse of morale in afghan forces because they believe we

betrayed them. they did not believe president biden's commitments that we would continue to work with them and we pointed out, i pointed out earlier a number of steps we could have taken to shore up that morale, whether they would have worked, i can't tell you that, but i can tell you there were things we could have done which could have made this at least a much slower process and more controls one and we did not take them. the president likes to stand at the straw man, have to get out or reinforce. that's utter nonsense. american military was telling me two years ago on one of my trips to afghanistan they thought we needed about 4500 troops then. after the afghan army has been fighting for years, taking thousands of casualties where we were taking very few. and none last year. when you do this collapse, it is a question of morale and change, not that the afghans were not capable of fighting. there's a lot of sound bites

that are wrong. >> courtney, look at what the ambassador referenced. i want to play part of what the president said during an interview with abc news. specifically he talks about the idea of keeping a small force in afghanistan. >> your top military advisers warned against withdrawing on this timeline, wanted to keep 2500 troops. >> no, they didn't, that was split. that wasn't true. that wasn't true. >> they didn't tell you they wanted troops to stay? >> no. not in terms of whether we were going to get out in a time frame all troops. they didn't argue against that. >> no one told, your military advisers didn't tell you no, we should keep 2500 troops, it has been a stable situation the last several years, we can do that, continue to do that? >> no, no one said that to me that i can recall. >> courtney, help us fact check that exchange. >> the defense officials i have spoken with said across the board the u.s. military advice was that the u.s. maintain a small presence of troops there,

i heard the 4500 number the ambassador spoke to. when the real discussions earlier this year were taking place on maintaining troop presence or complete withdrawal, the number i kept hearing was 2500. they could maintain with a relatively small footprint, shore up the afghan government and support the military in a way that prevents taliban from full scale takeover. the people that were against that argued there was already agreement in place with the taliban in february of 2020 that the u.s., there would be full withdrawal. the reason the taliban hadn't been attacking americans and nato allies in the year plus since the agreement was because of agreement they were adhering to one piece of it, wanted the u.s. to get out. if the u.s. decided to stay, the taliban would start attacking. we don't know. nobody knows what the taliban would have done had the u.s. decided to stay. across the board, i heard

defense officials wanted to maintain a presence there. the ambassador makes an excellent point about one of the main reasons for doing that, that was to maintain morale among the afghan government and the afghan military, they would know they have the u.s. and nato allies behind them when they were fighting the taliban and al qaeda and isis presence there. i was also in afghanistan about a month ago. while i was there, i spoke with several of these leaders, the national security adviser under president ghani. they said they believe if the u.s. maintained a presence there, they would have continued this stalemate with the taliban. they could have continued some sort of talks going on in doha and they would be able to keep the taliban out. according to now former afghan government officials, they believed the same thing, aaron. >> peter baker, obviously the president has been steadfast saying he doesn't regret his decision to withdraw from

afghanistan. he is basically doubling do you know how things have been handled there. where's the line between showing strength and resolve and looking like you're a bit out of touch with what's going on? >> that's a great question because obviously to say that chaos inevitable is to say he had no control over this, and it was going to happen no matter what, he doesn't take any responsibility. i am also struck that you have a president that came to office on the idea he was a man of empathy, right? that was one of his selling points against president trump, that he is somebody that cares about other people, he can feel their pain in effect. there's been very little of that in the last week. very little expression from him about consequences, what's about to happen, it is already happening to the afghan people. forget people trying to get out long after we are gone, getting them out. 38 million afghans will be left to the mercy of the taliban. the taliban say they were changed and reformed, there's no evidence of that.

we are seeing reports from jalalabad about a proetd, responded to viciously by taliban soldiers. we have seen reports of women being repressed once over again. the idea that there's no expression of empathy or sympathy really in any kind of extended way in any way from this president about what's about to happen in afghanistan, beyond the current immediate crisis is rather striking given the way he presented himself as a candidate last year. >> for the moment, we will leave the consideration there. thank you all. still ahead. severe flooding in the east and raging wildfires in the west causing mass evacuations. we'll bring you the latest from the ground. first, president biden taking on republican governors.

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offer a third booster shot starting september 20th. the additional dose will be available to everybody eight months after a second dose of pfizer or moderna vaccine. the plan doesn't include people that received the johnson & johnson vaccine. at the same time, president biden says he is directing department of education to use its legal authority against republican governors trying to block schools from requiring students to wear a face mask. >> as i said before, if you aren't going to fight covid-19, at least get out of the way of everyone else that's trying. >> the president giving ultimatum to nursing homes, require staff members to be vaccinated or lose federal funding. erin mclaughlin in arizona, ellison bounder, and dr. gounder, joins us. is the need for booster because risk is going up and

effectiveness of vaccines is going down because of the delta variant? >> so the cdc released three studies yesterday looking at the durability of the protection you get from vaccines, and what we're seeing is that the vaccines remain highly effective in protecting against hospitalization and death. remember, we evacuate not to prevent the common cold but to really save lives. where we have seen reduction in vaccine effectiveness is with respect to breakthrough infections which are much milder, and the vast majority do not land people in the hospital. the decision to offer doses of vaccines to the general population is quite controversial. >> i reference the breakthrough infections. "new york times" is reporting arising number of breakthrough infection because of the delta variant in so many of the cases here. we all thought we were doing the right thing, got vaccinated,

thought we would be okay. thought we could go back to normal lives. now that may not be the complete case. how concerned should those of us vaccinated be about not being able to live normally? >> look, i think the guidance made that we could drop masks if we were vaccinated was frankly quite premature. again, that was a controversial decision. as long as you have a lot of virus circulating in the community, there's a risk. vaccines are not perfect. they provide a percent risk reduction, but if baseline risk in the community is still high because other people are not vaccinated, because they are behaving in ways that might lead to more virus transmission, you're still at risk. we do recommend layering different protections in addition to vaccination. things like masking, ventilation, air filtration, socializing outdoors as much as possible. all those things will help

protect you even more. >> people will still try to follow that advice. really frustrating when you thought you would be okay a few months ago. ellison barber, they had to open a second field hospital because of surging covid cases, including a surge in cases of children getting covid. tell us what you can about what's happening there. >> yeah. this is a field hospital in a parking garage. this is run and funded and staffed by samaritans purse. the second field hospital opened up on the campus of the university of mississippi medical center in less than a month. they have 32 beds at this field hospital. fairly high levels of care, icu and step down beds. expect to have it full of covid patients by end of the week. this here is foray dult covid patients, but this is a big medical system, big campus.

they have a children's hospital just down the road here. this is the only children's hospital in the state of mississippi. 23 children were hospitalized here with covid-19 as of yesterday. kids makeup higher percentage of hospitalized covid population than ever before. one of those children is an 11-year-old, donovan evans. i spoke to his parents yesterday evening. he again is 11. that means he is not eligible to get vaccinated. his parents planned to get him vaccinated as soon as he turned 12. he wore a mask at school, they kept him home most of the summer because he has asthma. sent him to school a couple weeks ago. he wore a mask, but at his school like most in the state, masks were optional, others were not wearing them. his parents believe he contracted covid-19 at school or on the school bus. he was admitted at the hospital here on monday. listen to what his parents told

us. >> september 22nd will be his birthday. >> the school failed us. we spoke with the principal, he acted like he had no clue. my son come home crying, boo hooing, talking about he does not want to go back to school. he doesn't want to get on the bus, the bus is overpopulated. >> he take shots in his stomach to prevent blood clots. he has to get them twice a day. he's on steroids, doing breathing treatment, got iv. they just got him on antibiotics. it is a lot for an 11-year-old to go through, laying in bed and just wondering if you're going to make it the next hour. >> i would never have thought it

got to my son, but he is human, like anybody else on this earth, it is human. and it could happen to your child, to you, to anyone. so my advice to anyone and everyone, take precaution and take care of your kids and yourself by wearing your mask and getting the vaccination. >> reporter: doctors agree with the last bit. they say the majority of the pediatric cases of covid-19 that they're seeing are entirely preventable if masks were required at schools and children 12 and up eligible to get vaccinated were doing that. this hospital, they say not only are they seeing what one doctor called an astounding rise in number of children hospitalized with cases of severe acute covid-19, but they're also starting to see up tick in post covid associated syndrome known as misc. >> hard to see what's happening

while politics are debated around this health issue. speaking of politics and masking, erin, you're in arizona. the republican governor there is taking financial action against the schools that are mandating masks for students and faculty. what's happening in arizona? >> reporter: that's right, aaron. republican governor doug ducey announced creation of a school grant program amounting to $163 million worth of federal covid relief funds, but in order to be eligible for those funds, schools need to meet two main requirements. they need to remain open throughout the pandemic and also must be in full compliance with arizona state law, effectively making schools that choose to defy arizona state law and keep mask mandates in place ineligible to access those

funds. in a statement, governor explaining that safety recommendations are welcomed and encouraged. mandates that place more stress on students and families aren't. these grants acknowledge efforts by schools and educators following state laws and keeping their classroom doors open for arizona's students. now, this stirred outrage not only among democrats but also within the educational community, given the science that masks are one of the main tools that tools have to fight covid-19, and the mayor of tucson, arizona is calling the move evil. listen to what she had to say. >> it is a blow to schools because now what he is doing with these federal funds is that he is having schools choose between health and safety of their children and teachers or staff and necessary funding for them to be able to fight

covid-19 at the schools. it is just evil. >> reporter: and the governor's office says schools with mask mandates have ten days to drop those, to access federal funding. worth noting, arizona state law dropping mask mandates goes into effect end of september. aaron? >> dr. gounder, i want to give you the last word. you alluded to the fact kids under 12 can't get the vaccine now. are masks the only thing we can do to keep them safe? what are you telling parents when they want to get around some mask issues. >> masks are not the only tool, they're perhaps one of the most potent tools for kids under 12 as well as frankly for the broader public. parents really should be speaking with school officials about other things like ventilation, air filtration, trying to hold classes in a

covered place outdoors. all those things will help reduce risk of transmission in the classroom. >> we will leave it there for now. end of the day, we have to do better to protect our kids in whatever ways we can. thank you. coming up, the u.s. withdrawal from afghanistan sparking bipartisan backlash as lawmakers layout plans to investigate exactly what went wrong. a member of the house armed services committee will be here to discuss next. ommittee will b to discuss next. the savings e. 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. so strike up the homeandautobundle xtravafestasaveathon band for the deal that started forever ago and will probably never end. homeandautobundle xtravafestasaveathon. -say it with me. -homeandautobundle-- no one's leaving till you say it right. homeandauto...

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30 minutes from now, president biden and vice president harris meet with the national security team to talk about afghanistan, after house speaker nancy pelosi, kevin mccarthy and mitch mcconnell asked for a gang of eight briefing about what happened there. the ball is rolling with the house intelligence committee set to hold a briefing monday. joining me, democrat from california, and member of house armed services committee. we appreciate your time today. i want to know your committee, i know your committee is looking into and plans to look into hearings on this issue. who do you want to hear from, what do you want to hear? >> normally we would be hearing from top echelon of the military, probably the

secretary, of the chief of staff, others, centcom commander and we'll learn what's going on. we have been briefed in the past on run up to the situation and we'll get more information along the way. the real question is that the military, are they doing their job. the answer is undoubtedly yes. are there mistakes medicated, probably so. could we have anticipated the total collapse of the afghan government, army, police force would occur, probably not. we were a month ago with top leaders hearing everything was in order, all they needed was continuation of american air support and intelligence, all of which they had, and promise of continuing financial aid. they said they would be strong. turned out they were not. actually negotiations were under way between the taliban and their own government to turn

over various provincial capitals to the taliban. that we did not know. >> we heard from the president on the same lines what you just said. i want to play more of an interview that aired this morning with president biden. >> the idea that the taliban would take over was premised on the notion that somehow the 300,000 troops we trained and equipped would just collapse, they were going to give up. i don't think anybody anticipated that. >> congressman, here's the thing. the cia did warn about this. you said congress didn't expect how fast this all seemed to unfold in afghanistan. i have to wonder how it is no one got the memo. we have seasoned intelligence and seasoned military folks, folks in the administration, diplomats watching, lawmakers, members of congress. nobody saw that the afghan government was wobbly, despite them saying they were strong?

>> well, all intelligence reports come in with an assessment range, a range from good to the bad. you have to pick and choose within that range what is the most likely thing to occur. we know that we were supporting that army in multiple ways, a whole pile of money, perhaps several hundred billion over the course of the 20 years, trained them, equipped them, all of that. and the assessment range was as i say from very good to very bad, very quick to several months or years out. we were working with that. we'll hear from the military why they chose the particular range that they did, which was that the government would continue to operate. when the president of the government turns tail and runs because he is fearful of his own life, that is a signal to the entire government, the army and

the police that he is getting out of town and they should too. well, that's what happened. this man shown on the screen abandoned his country, abandoned his people and abandoned the 20 years of support the american government gave to him and his predecessors. so here we are. where do we go from here? yes, we'll learn what happened in the past and much more important, where do we go from here. how do we deal with what is a new government. we know that today this government, the taliban, is being challenged among its own membership. we have known this a long time. the taliban is a collection of tribes, clans in various parts of afghanistan that have historically fought each other, occasionally got together, formed a central government. that isn't what is in process now. you see the leadership on the screen, are they able to form a strong central government?

we know that that is not happening right now in the northeastern part of the country. we know the clan in that area is objecting to the central taliban government that's trying to be established in kabul. no big surprise, this has been going on for millennia. >> very quickly, we know there's a humanitarian crisis unfolding. some bipartisan support for accepting afghan refugees, but obviously this could be a fight on capitol hill. how wide open should the door be for afghan refugees in this country? >> hello, u.s. senate, hello. the house of representatives passed a law to open the door for any and all people that supported the american government that wanted to get out of afghanistan, that bill has been sitting over in the senate for the last four weeks, three weeks. if the senate woke up this morning and under unanimous consent passed that bill, it

would be on the president's desk in time for his briefing with the national security council. that provides legal justification of opening the door. there's the practical problem, how are they getting through the airport or get out of afghanistan. those negotiations to allow them to do that are under way with the u.s. military and taliban military and perhaps taliban leadership to provide that opportunity. do keep in mind that in his presentation to the u.s. congress less than a month ago, karzai told us he did not want afghans to leave afghanistan. apparently the only person he wanted to leave was himself. >> congressman john garamendi, appreciate the time. thank you. >> thank you. on the west coast, thousands forced to evacuate after the

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developing this morning, extreme weather punishing the country coast to coast from wildfires out west to furious flooding in the east. our team of reporters is covering it all. katie beck is following flood damage in north carolina. let's start with jake ward, following the kalder fire in california. this fire forced a lot of people, thousands, out of homes. it burned 60,000 acres so far. what's the progress trying to get the fire contained? >> reporter: good morning, aaron. the tactic at this point does not seem to be real containment. we are waiting at this point for conditions to improve. conditions have improved overnight. it is about 42 degrees, that may cause the fire to lay down overnight. that's too late for all people

that had to evacuate. talking about 8 counties' worth of people, little more than 35,000 forced to leave their homes, flee sometimes in the dead of night to get away from flames, flames that cal fire, the local fire officials have said had moved in an unprecedented way driven by drought conditions, extraordinary high winds we have seen here and record dry fuel conditions. you pick up a piece of foliage off the ground, snap it between your fingers, it crumbles into dust. this cold weather overnight, possible dying downwind, may give the fire the chance to lay down. the idea that containment is going to happen will take some time, aaron. >> moving east to north carolina, dozens of people, katie beck, are missing after major flooding. that came from remnants of tropical storm fred. what's the latest on the ground

there? >> reporter: aaron, we're getting new information from emergency crews on the ground. we learned there are two confirmed fatalities as a result of the catastrophic flooding. we were told this morning there were 35 people still unaccounted for or missing. now that number has been reduced to 20. search and rescue crews are searching for a remaining 20 people that are probably stranded by roadways or bridges that collapsed or have been destroyed due to flooding. there are two locations really the hardest-hit. those locations are difficult for rescuers to reach at this point. they have been doing swift water rescue by boat, air, on foot, walking river banks, looking for signs of a possible rescue. at this point what we know is two confirmed fatalities as a result of flooding and 20 people unaccounted for. now, we know at least a dozen bridges have been destroyed or completely collapsed during this. schools buildings destroyed, school was cancelled today and

tomorrow. they're hoping to continue rescue efforts today and recover possibly more people. just that we are out of touch, out of communication. right now with incoming rain, they have concerns about that too. >> katie beck, jake ward, thank you both. stay safe. still ahead, democrats split over the infrastructure and human infrastructure bills with speaker pelosi caught in the middle. will she be able to get enough support to get either passed? that's next. that's next. and now get netflix on us. it's all included with 2 lines for only $70 bucks! only at t-mobile. ♪ ♪ when technology is easier to use... ♪ barriers don't stand a chance. ♪

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welcome back now to capitol hill where speaker nancy pell owescy bracing for a showdown over the infrastructure bill after nine moderates said they won't even consider the massive human infrastructure plan without passing the bipartisan deal first. earlier this week, pelosi met with the white house to talk strategy before the house returns next week and president biden made it clear he is on her side. let's go straight to capitol hill. politico white house reporter and playbook co-author eugene daniels is with us. sahil, you and i talked about this before. speaker pelosi can't afford to lose any votes here. is there any sign at this point that she has enough to get something done? >> reporter: not right now she does not, aaron. the vote is not right now. it's next week. she and her team are working feverishly to rally democrats

around a unity point to move this forward. let's take a step back and look at what will happen next week. they'll vote on this so-called rule, this process that sets up a series of votes, including the john lewis voting rights advancement act. that should pass easily without much of a problem. democrats are united on that. next they move to a budget resolution that begins the process of the $3.5 trillion budget bill that biden wants to pass. this is where pell owescy struggling to get moderates on board. there's a lot of discontent, many of whom are in swing districts, about the fact that she's holding up the infrastructure bill until this budget resolution can move forward. many moderates are insisting that the infrastructure bill come to a vote, they pass that, send it to president biden's desk and move to that separate, larger bill. progressives are not allowing that. they insist they will block that infrastructure bill because they are worried if the infrastructure bill passes, then the moderates ultimately will not be with them on the larger bill. there's not a lot of trust between the two factions here,

between the progressive faction and the moderate faction and speaker pelosi, governing with a wafer-thin majority, has just three democratic votes to lose. the stakes are enormous because president biden's agenda hinges not only on the infrastructure bill but also on this multi-trillion dollar bill which includes health care, education, climate change, paid leave and taxes on the wealthy. >> eugene, sa hichlt l laid it out nicely there. that was arguably the easy part of this, the infrastructure bill. how hard will it be for pelosi to pull off this two-track approach? and how long could it take? >> it could take months, right? this is all the work they have to do first. we're at the very, very beginning of the process for the house. they're actually coming back early so that they can get some of this done. it's nancy pelosi, so a lot of people i've talked to feel that eventually she'll get especially these moderates on board.

it's also not just progressives. nancy pelosi and the white house agree that this two track was the best way to operate and move forward. so whether or not moderates -- moderates are grumbling right now. whether or not they get in line when this vote happens that sahil just laid out, when this vote happens next week, that's to be seen. that's how moderates operate. they're not people to hold up the process as much as progressives or folks in the house freedom caucus, for example, want to do in the house. those things are what we're watching. the white house feels confident in pelosi's ability to get everyone together. even though they know it takes a couple of months, they need to get this done by the end of the year. in 2022, we'll be focusing on 2022, and all eyes in thes who will be focused on re-election. >> i'm sure we'll be talking to you about this next week as well. sahil kapur, eugene daniels, thank you both. >> thank you. i'll see you at noon eastern

on nbc news now. garrett haake picks up our coverage next, talking with the chairman of the house armed services committee, adam smith, as the pepto gone is expected to give an update in the next hour as well. as well. us. it's all included with 2 lines for only $70 bucks! only at t-mobile. i was drowning in student loan debt. then i discovered sofi. lower interest rate. my principal is going down. sofi is a place where you can start to tackle those money goals today. ♪♪ people with moderate to severe psoriasis, are rethinking the choices they make like the splash they create the entrance they make, the surprises they initiate. otezla. it's a choice you can make. otezla is not a cream. it's a pill that treats plaque psoriasis differently. with otezla, 75% clearer skin is achievable.

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desperate situation in afghanistan. we'll bring that to you live when it happens. u.s. military is racing to pick up the pace to get americans and others out of afghanistan. evacuating 1,800 more people for a total of nearly 6,000, since the taliban takeover this weekend. pentagon officials say around 4,500 troops remain in afghanistan, and president biden says they could stay beyond the august 31st withdrawal deadline to assist with continuing evacuations. >> we're going to stay until we get them all out. >> just ahead, in a first on msnbc, we'll speak with the chair of the armed services committee since the collapse of afghanistan. we'll take you to that pentagon briefing as soon as it starts. i'm garrett haake in for hallie jackson. courtney kube is at the pentagon, josh bradley is in lond.