there is no time to waste. the delta variant is dangerous and spreading and causing a pandemic among the unvaccinated. and while we are starting to see initial signs that cases may be declining in a few places, nationwide cases are still rising, especially among the unvaccinated. across the country, virtually all of the covid-19 hospitalizations and deaths continue to be among the unvaccinated. that is worse in states where the vaccination rates are overall low, but even in the states where the people are vaccinated, the unvaccinated are still at risk. let me be clear. there are cases where the vaccinated people do get covid-19, but they are far less common than unvaccinated people getting covid-19, and most importantly, their conditions are far less severe. the overwhelming majority of people in the hospital of covid-19 are almost all of those

dying from covid-19 are not vaccinated. not vaccinated. if you are fully vaccinated, both shots, plus two weeks, your risk of severe illness of covid-19 is very, very, very low. i know that parents are concerned about the covid-19 cases among their children. i will address this soon with secretary cordona to discuss how to get the kids back the school safely. the cases among the children are still rare, and the severe cases among children are very, very rare. but i know that the parents are thinking the about their own kids, and it is not as reassuring as anyone would like it to be. so let me say this as parents to the parents. as you have, you have the tools. you the tools to keep your child safer, and two of the tools above all are available to you. one, make sure that everyone

around your child who can be vaccinated is vaccinated. parents, adult, teens. two, make sure that your child is masked when they leave home. that is how we can best keep our kids safe. as i have said before, a pan determine of the unvaccinated is a tragedy that is preventable. people are dying, and will die, who don't have to. so, please, please, if you have not gotten your vaccination, and if you have not gotten vaccinated, do it now. you could save your life, and the lives of those you love. now, the good news is that people are getting vaccinated. for the past several weeks, my administration has imposed new vaccine requirements on federal workers, the armed forces, people working federal medical facilities and nursing home bourquers. governors, mayors and private sector leaders have done the same. we have also encouraged new

incentives. for example, in some states, you will get $100 if you get vaccinated, and the new requirements and incentives are accelerating the vaccinations once again giving us the hope that we can put this delta variant behind us in the weeks ahead. there are three facts that everyone should know about where we are in the fight against this pandemic. first, even as the delta variant has ravaged the unvaccinated, the deaths have climbed. the death rate is still 70% lower than it was last winter. why? because we did such a good job vaccinating those most at risk, senior citizens. america has about 54 million senior citizens. about 50 million have gotten at least one shot. that is almost 92%. secondly, overall weekly new

vaccinations are up 60% from where they were a month ago. last week, we saw a record of vaccinations, more than 1 million shots a day for three straight days. that is the first time this has happened since june. 6 million shots in the last seven days, and the highest seven-day total in a month and a half. remember, remember what we were trying to get 70% of the people over 18 at least one shot, well, we have not only gotten that done, but we have gotten 71% of everyone age 12 and older the first shot. that is over 200 million americans. and over 170 million are now fully vaccinated. third, states that have been lagging are seeing the vaccination rates grow faster. in fact n alabama, arkansas, louisiana and mississippi, more people got new vaccinations in

the past month than in the prior two months combined. the progress that we are making on the vaccinations now is going to produce results in the weeks ahead. the sooner that you get fully vaccinated, the sooner you are protected. according to the experts from the yale school of public health, the pace of the vaccination effort has saved over 100,000 lives and prevented more than 450,000 hospitalizations. this is critical progress. we need to move faster. as i mentioned before, i have imposed vaccination requirements to reach millions of americans. today, i am calling on more companies in the private sector to step up the vaccine requirements that will reach millions more people. if you are a business leader, a nonprofit leader, the state or local leader who has been waiting for full fda approval to

require vaccination, i call on you now to do that, require it. do what i did last month, require the employees to get vaccinated or face strict requirements. as i said last week, vaccination requirements have been around for decades for teachers and leaders and military personnel have had vaccinations like polio and smallpox and measles and rubella. and the reason that you don't worry about that today is because of the vaccines. it only means that covid should require a vaccine. and today, another good reason to get vaccinated. so please, get vaccinated now. if you go to vaccines.com, vaccines.com, or text your zip code to 438829, 438829, and you

can find a number of vaccine sites near you, just minutes away to where you can get your shot without an appointment. all around the world, people want these vaccines, and here in america, they are free, convenient and waiting for you. so, please, go today for yourself, for your loved ones and for your neighbors and for your country. i will close with this. we are in the midst of a wartime effort to beat this pandemic, and it is one of the biggest and the most complicated challenges in our history. and it is based on an unparalleled vaccination program that is saving lives and beating this virus. it is a vaccination program. it is getting us back to our loved ones, and a way of life that we are used to. it is happening. and it is going to keep

happening if it helps our economy and gets us moving and growing. together we have made significant progress in just seven months, and we just have to finish the job with science, facts and confidence. together, together as the united states of america, so please, get vaccinated today. god bless you all and may god protect the troops. thank you. >> all right. president biden there and not taking questions on the way out, and he said that the moment is here to get the vaccination today and with the fda giving full approval to the pfizer vaccine. let's unpack what we heard there and bring in heidi przybyla, and

also dr. hotez from baylor university, and can you tell us what you have heard? >> you are hearing frustration from the president that only half of the country is fully immunized and we need to reach 85% of the country and not just the adults if we halt transmission, and so we have gap of 80 million americans who have not gotten vaccines and another percentage without a single dose. so if you are saying that the excuse before is saying that the vaccines are only through a limited release and not fully

approved, then he is going to use this for a full release of military, you will have to be fully vaccinated and if you are in the v.a. administration, you will have to be fully vaccinate and this is going to help close the gap, and this approve means that the vaccine has checked every box and dotted every i and crossed every t that any other fully-approved vaccine has done, and the fda is the gold standard for the administration and the gold standard for world for regulatory body, and no other national regulatory body that matches the fda in terms of the rigor for both safety, for efficacy and for pharmaco vigilance. so this is a milestone. the only disappointment that i heard today was for 12 and up, and it stopped short at 16 and up. by not having approval for 12

and up, we will have to do some damage control in the pediatric science of making the parents understand that nothing bad has happened and the vaccine still good, but there needs to be additional data that they want to see, and i hope it does not have a chilling effect on vaccinating the 12 to 15-year-olds. >> yes, i wanted to ask if it is safety and efficacy or data which you answered. and heidi priz przybyla is with now. and what are you hearing? >> yes, this is a key and we have heard of some businesses like united and other state governments like oregon mandate this, and system of the concerns from the employees and the

individuals in the states is, well, it is an experimental drug, and it is not fully approved. we all know it is not the case. we know that there is a lot of scientific research and decades of research into the vaccines, but now we have here, the white house believes the official documents showing that many of the americans can now feel assured that they can take this vaccine that is about 3 in 10 individuals who are still unvaccinated who said they were waiting for this, and the white house is of course hoping that it is more of that, and when you hear the president say that already in some of the states hard hit like louisiana, like mississippi, and they had seen a doubling just within the past month or so compareded to the previous two months combined. so they are also looking at what the impact of this might be for instance on the boosters giving that a little bit of more of a push with the white house saying earlier that booster shots could also be prescribed by middle of

next month, and not just for the immunocompromised, but for the individuals over age 65, and indeed the entire adult population with the research coming in to show that there is waning efficacy after the eight months. another important point, geoff, that the president made here was the direct appeal to parents. look, this could not come at a more critical time, because delta is cresting as we are sending our children back to the buildings and even in the masked buildings there is an issue of what happens to the children for instance in the lunchrooms, geoff. there is a lot of focus on this in the coming weeks as many of the schools that have not reopened are right now this week and next week reopening with all of the questions that the president is trying to soothe some of the parents knowing that 12 and under, you can't get the vaccine, and so he said that hopefully do these things, to get everyone around the children vaccinated and mask them up.

of course, we know it is not possible in the states that have explicitly banned that. >> heidi, you are talking about what is happening around the country. we will bring in kerry sanders in south florida as the icus as i understand it are filling up. i saw you on "today" show where the doctors and the nurses are airing the frustration with treating unvaccinated patients now coming into the hospitals day by day and what more can you tell us about it? >> well, geoff, really for the first time, we saw the doctors and 75-plus doctors who gathered here out of frustration in the parking lot over my shoulder and the drone shot here and this is a simulated walk-out, and it is not as if they left the patients outside of the hospital, because this is shifts before or after the shifts of the covid ward to say "enough is enough" especially because they are seeing so many of the patients are those who have arrived, but they are not vaccinated.

>> what you should take away from this is that there is a consensus, a medical consensus, and maybe there is a fringe doctor on a youtube video, and this is what the medical community is saying. we are in this together, and we have each other's backs and we are telling you overwhelming, the science and the medicine supports getting the vaccine. >> the doctors here say that they hope that the lifting of emergency use authorization to approval is what is the game-changer now going forward, geoff. >> yeah. and a follow-up question, will it be? i understand that you have talked to a doctor and her patient about this very thing, and the answer that the patient gave was fairly instructive. >> and it is also troubling, because here is a woman 31 years old, both of her children have gotten covid and have recovered. 10 and 9 years old, i believe, and then you her uncle who has

coronavirus, and he is in the icu right now, and he and the doctor recorded a video in the icu begging, amanda, 31 years old to please get the vaccine. i asked her directly, now that it is no longer emergency use authorization, and now that it is approved by the fda, will you get the vaccine. just listen. >> reporter: you have those close to you who have the coronavirus? >> correct. >> reporter: you still won't get the vaccine, even though it is fully approved. >> i am thinking. >> reporter: what is the hesitancy? >> i am not comfortable with it. >> i have been trying to convince her for a year. the science is there and there is nothing to be convinced. we are using unapproved drugs to

be treating covid. so that is my point. >> reporter: and so before the lifting of the authorization, they were asking people who are hesitant, if it is approved by the fda, will you get a shot, and 3 of 10 said, i think so, which means 7 of 10 would not. so the doctors who have gathered here today really, that is a big part of the frustration, you know. i mean, the before shifts and after shifts, but they are exhausted and many of them doing double and triple shifts and tired of the fact that people hear the science and seemingly ignore it, geoff >> unbelievable. so let's turn to morgan chesky there in houston, and there, too, in texas, the covid in record highs and the first day of school in many parts of texas where you are, and there is a big fight over masks even though the public health experts say

that the masks keep kids safe, and what are the school administrators telling you? >> geoff, we have a firsthand look of what everyone's expectations are for school, and we are standing outside of parker elementary school, and before the first bell rang, dozens of parents and students ready to go inside to get their temperature checked before going into the classroom and everyone had the mask on, and i spoke to parents who said, really, it is down to the safety of the kids. they feel a little stuck in this back and forth between the school districts all over the state, and the texas governor greg abbott who had issued the executive order who had banned mask mandates. last week, the texas supreme court put a stay on it, and allowing districts like houston to issue their own mask rules for the upcoming school year. for the parents, it gave them hope going forward and listen to what one mother told me. >> i really was hoping that it

would not be like this, however, i am very grateful that they made a change to mask all of the kids, and i feel like as a parent, that gives me a little bit more, you know, feeling of safe for the year. but i am glad to be back in the building. >> reporter: grateful to be back in the building. she was saying that she was hoping that it would not come to at least having to mask up for the year, but she understands that statistically, it is certainly going to keep her kids safer, and that is the approach of the district superintendent, too, and i asked him following the pfizer's clearance by the fda if houston's clearance would have a change for their staff and going forward and he said that the topic has not come up, but they will be keeping an eye on the covid numbers going

forward. up the road in interstate 45, at conroe, there are more than 1,400 kids quarantined and/or in isolation, because they have tested positive for covid or showing symptoms. so, they started school earlier than houston, and everyone is going to be following this situation closely. >> morgan and heidi and kerry, i will cut you loose, because i know that you have more report, but dr. hotez, i want to pepper you with more questions. at the briefing today, dr. peter mark said that the fda proceeded the process in 40% of the time that it normally takes, and please tell us how that happened, because people will say they skirted part of the process and how did that happen so quickly? >> part of it is the rollout, and they vaccinated huge numbers of americans and so you had a

massive amount of data to identify and to really detect the safety signals and show that it is efficacious, and it has been all hands on deck even as the emergency use process was under way. so it is not like they just got it for the first time and then they were looking at it. it has been rolling data. that has a lot to do with it as well, and in other words, the fda regulators have been looking at this data all along, and so they were able to save a lot of time there. a lot went into the emergency use process, which is another really important point. how closely they were able to approximate the uea process to the full approval, and so the fact that this is now fully approved is a tremendous validation that they did with it. extraordinary rigor, and so this is a shining moment for the fda that they were able to protect the country even doing this through an emergency use authorization to a level that

has never been done before. so a lot of credit there. >> yeah. what about children under the age of 12 and now we have full approval for adults, but not even emergency use authorization for the kids. any update on the time line? now you have millions of kids across the country back in schools now that we are speaking to one another? >> again, this a reminder that the fda, geoff, they are being careful, and they don't want to be reckless on the younger kids and the bar is the highest there, and they don't want to rush it. they want to make sure they have all of the safety data and the efficacy data they need and in some cases, going back to ask for extra enrollment to get larger numbers and extending the time frames to make certain that there is no unexpected safety flare signal, so that has a lot to do with it. probably over the next -- we probably won't see it until the

fall, and this is upsetting the parents because the epidemic is raging, and the truth is that if we had vaccinated all of the parents and adolescents we would not be at this transmission right now, so this is still self-inflicted by the american people. >> dr. peter hotez, a calm voice in the crazy days. appreciate it. now live to tennessee where the desperate search for survivors continues after flash floods ripped through the state. dozen are unaccounted for. and now, back to afghanistan after our allies and others are complicated and even more to get them out. e complicated and even more to get them out.

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we are continuing to track the devastation and recovery after a weekend of extreme weather. utility crews are working to restore power to more than 65,000 customers after tropical

storm henri turned to the northeast sunday. now a tropical depression, henri is threatening more dangerous rain in the region triggering warnings in parts of new england. meanwhile, there is a frantic search after flash flooding has caught communities off guard. middle tennessee saw 21 inches of rain in a 24-hour period. that is a new record. 21 dead and 40 others are missing in tennessee. sam brock is in waverly, tennessee, and we will talk more about this in a moment, but we need to go to the white house room where there is an update about the afghanistan situation. the allies and the afghans at risk of persecution or worse. in the last 24 hours alone, 28 u.s. military flights have evacuated approximately 10,400

people from kabul. in addition, 61 coalition aircraft have evacuated approximately 5,900 additional people. and this is more than 16,000 people in 24 hours, and the flights are continuing hour by hour as we speak. we have established a network of transit centers in multiple countries in the gulf and where we are assisting to get u.s. citizens home, and running biometric and biochecks on other people to have them relocated. so all totaled there are four continents involved. this is one of the largest diplomatic, security and humanitarian undertaking and a testament to the power and the purpose of the united states and our allies. i want to provide an update on american citizens. we have helped thousands of

americans leave kabul already. we have contacted americans still in afghanistan by email, by phone, by text, to give them specific instructions. we have developed a method the safely and efficiently transfer groups of american citizens on to the airfield. for operational reasons, i won't go into further detail on this. people have asked reasonably why we can't provide a precise number of people in country. let me explain. when the americans have come to afghanistan over the years, we have asked them to register with the embassy, and many have left without deregistering, and others never register at all that is their right of course, and it is our responsibility to find them which we are now doing hour-by-hour. in the days remaining, we believe that we have the wherewithal to get out the american citizens who want to leave kabul. this operation is complex. it is dangerous. it is fraught with challenges,

operational, logistical, human. and it has produced searing images of pain and desperation. but no operation like this, no evacuation from a capital that has fallen in a civil war could have fallen without those images. the question is if we are on track to fulfill the objectives of this operation to bring out our people, so many of the afghans who helped us, and so many of the afghans at rigk, and we believe we are. as we conduct the operations, we are sustaining the highest level of vigilance for an attack against the airport by isis k or another terrorist group. the commanders on the ground have taken every step they can to prepare for an attack. our president has authorized every capability that those commanders have asked for the protect the airfield against such an attack. we have remained in close touch with the allies and partners to

coordinate the evacuation of their own citizens and the priority of their personnel as well as to respond to the ongoing political and security situation in afghanistan. the president has spoken twice now with the british prime minister, and spokewen the german chancellor and the italian president, and the crown prince of uae and also the president of qatar, and he is going to go to g7 to make sure that we are aligned going forward. we will address the acute humanitarian needs of the people, and continue with the pursuit against the terrorism against the threats on the ground and we have proven that we can do that in afghanistan and elsewhere. we are deeply moved by the

outpouring of americans and others including veterans to help the afghans at risk anded the afghans who are settled here in the united states. this is the best of the american spirit, and we are looking forward to working with them in the days and the weeks and the months ahead and with that i will be happy to take your questions. >> yes. the taliban spokesman said it would be a red line for us to keep the u.s. to have troops in afghanistan past the august 31st deadline and how are those talks going? >> we are in talks with the taliban on a daily basis in security channels and i won't get into the discussions here to protect those discussions which are covering a wide range of issues, and we are consulting closely with our allies and partners with the evacuation and the progress, and in fact, the president just got off of the phone with the british prime

minister a short time ago. we are taking this day by day and making enormous progress. and taking a step back, nobody in the briefing room would have thought that we were standing here with 37,000 people already evacuated from the country. we are going to make progress and keep making progress, and the president is going to make a decision about the precise scope and shape of the operation. >> has the president decided whether he is going to need more time beyond august 31st to get all american personnel and afghan people out of the country? >> as i said, the president believes that we are making substantial progress, and dozens of flights, and thousands now, and tens of thousands of people evacuated from the country, and we believe today is going to be an efficient and effective day, and tomorrow and the next day as well, and as i said, he is taking it day by day and he going to make the determinations as we go. yes? >> as a follow-up, does the administration think that they need the taliban agreement to extend beyond august 31st?

>> as i said, we are engaging with the taliban, consulting with the taliban on every aspect of what is happening in kabul right now, and on what is happening at the airport, and how we need to ensure that there is facilitated passage to the airport for american citizens, sivs, third-country nationals and so forth. we will continue the conversations with them, and ultimately, it is the president's decision how this proceeds and no one else's. >> and you said that we have the wherewithal to get the americans out, and forgive me to make sure that i get the statement right, but you did not say that we have the ability to get them out, and by the time frame of august 31st -- >> as i have said before, and the president believes that we have time to get out any american who wants to get out. yes. >> yes. i want to ask that you said that you have said multiple times and the president has said that you

could not leave afghanistan without these chaotic scenes no matter when you leave that would happen. so my question is why did the administration prepare the american public and say to the american public that they are going to be very chaotic scenes that you are going to see and it is going to be rough, and a rough couple of weeks before it happens and instead, you have the president saying don't worry, that we will be evacuating ambassadors or diplomats from the roof of the embassy and don't worry about that. why if you knew that there would be chaos did the administration not prepare the american people for the chaos? >> first, i am glad that you asked this question, and i want to take a step back to address the nature of an evacuation like this and then i will come to your specific point on messaging. whether kabul fell in august or september or december or next august, the fact is that whenever it fell, there were going to be american citizens in

kabul who needed to be evacuated. there were going to be third-country nationals in kabul who were going to bevac waited and have to be evacuated and there were going to be afghans still in the fight who had supported the u.s. war effort over the last 20 years who were going to have to be evacuated. so in an evacuation operation in a dangerous situation was going to have to happen at some point, and when you run an operation like that, and when you are trying to position assets to go in and secure an airfield in a city that has been taken by ap posing forces with a government that has collapsed, the contingency plan is going to hit head-on with the reality, and there are complexiies and challenges and so you adjust and get an operation that is now moving out thousands and tens of thousands of people daily. so that is what we have accomplished over the course of the week. it is not without the immense

difficulties and we are very mindful of the difficulties and clear-eyed about the difficulties, but that is how we have watched the last week unfold. why the president did not walk out, and says, let me explain to you exactly what is going to unfold in afghanistan, all along, the president has been clear that the united states was not going to enter a third decade of american military deployment in the middle of another country's civil war, and in the speech in april, and in the speech in july, and in comments that he has made since then, he has been clear that it could mean difficult times in afghanistan. we have been clear-eyed about this from the start, but what we were not prepared to do, and what the president was not prepared to do was to say that for that reason, with need to keep the american men and women dying in the civil war. yes. >> jared, whether it is august 31st or shortly thereafter, it is clear that all of the eligible afghans who worked for the u.s. forces and the u.s. government are not going to be

able to get out. for those watching, what do you say to them? what advice? should they try to get to a third country on their own? wait for some diplomatic solution? >> first, we are in touch with the afghans at risk eligible for special immigrant visas, and other categories of support from the u.s. government. we are trying to get as many of them to the airport as quickly as possible to get them on flights home, and as i said yesterday in comments on the sunday shows, we will continue to get afghans at risk out of the country, the even after u.s. military forces have left. yes. >> thank you. the president has criticized his predecessor, and he has criticized the afghan government for all of the failures, but one group that he has not criticized at length is the taliban, and why is that? and also, why does the president continue to say that the taliban is facing an existential

question of how it is going to be viewed on the world stage, but going door-to-door searching for the translators, and don't they already know who they are? >> well, first, the president has been very clear about his views of the taliban. you have asked him repeatedly, do you trust these guys, and he has told you repeatedly, no, i do not. of course he does not, and none of us do, because we have seen the horrific images of the last time that they were in power, and the last time they have conducted the war and because we have seen them to be responsible for the death of mens and womens through two decades of war, and the president was not willing to continue for another decade. so we have no illusions about the taliban, but from our perspective, what we need to focus on is at our hand, the task of thousands and thousands of people out of the country as safely and efficiencily --

efficiently as we can. >> thank you. friday, the president said that we got rid of al qaeda, and then state department said, no, and so are you advising the president when he makes these blind statements. >> he was referring to the attacks, and the intelligence today it is not present in afghanistan. what is present in afghanistan right now to our forces at the airport is a serious threat from isis-k which is what we are trying the deal with and of course, there is a possibility that al qaeda could reconstitute and be a threat from afghanistan, and that is why the president has repeatedly talked about an over the horizon capability that will allow the united states working with partners to continue to suppress the terrorism threat from

afghanistan from al qaeda, isis-k or anyone else, and just as we have worked to suppress it from yemen, somalia, and in the islamic mugrab and we have evolved to a point without keeping tens of thousands of troops on the ground. we have proven it out in other countries and this is what we intend to do in afghanistan, and the president has spoken about the terrorism threats in afghanistan on numerous occasions. >> is there a plan to evacuate more afghans who have worked with the united states. >> so i am glad that you spoke about that, because this is referring to the special immigrant visa program. this special immigrant visa program has been around for a number of years, and never designed as conceived by congress as a massive

immigration program. it was for 18 to 24 months per person to get through the various vetting and other requirements to get the visa. sometimes longer and sometimes multiple years. when we took office in january, the trump administration had not processed a single special immigrant visa since march 2020 in nearly a year. so what we did when we came in is to move as rapidly as possible and to move as many as possible and trimming months and months and months off of the process, and working with congress to get them to actually change the law over the summer to relax the requirements so that we could move people forward and even then we put in place an evacuation operation using charter aircrafts starting in july to begin moving the sivs

and their families out. now, as i said in the last time that i was at the podium, we did contemplate a big gray tail move of afghans and others in the early july and august time frame, but we made the determination not to do so because of the afghan government supporters and others including the people who want the come out now said that doing so would trigger a complete nonconfidence in the government, and as it turned out, not continuing did not save the afghan government. so that is a challenge that we faced at the time, but now not moving rapidly to secure the airfield to get the folks out is precisely what we did, and precisely what we are doing now. >> does the president tend to ask for the resignation of any of the white house personnel for the way it is handled? >> i have not heard him say so, but it is your job to ask those

questions, and it is my job to keep doing what we are doing which is to get as many people out as we can. >> what is the chances of getting the personnel out by the 31st, and the taliban says they will not extend, and is the united states willing to abide by the red lines? >> i will not take it as a hypothetical. so we are in touch with the taliban daily and in touch with the partners and reviewing the progress in this particular operation, which we feel has been substantial over the past few days and the president is going to make his own determinations. >> first, would you say that approximately number or percentage by the number of evacuees that are american citizens thus far, and secondly, i know that you don't want to get deep into the operational details, but the president has made it clear that the area around the airport, there is an expansion of the safe zone, and

so does that mean that americans are operating outside of the airport? >> american troops are not operating outside of the perimeter of the airport. what has happened is through the military communications of the operations with the taliban, they have extended the perimeter from the point of view of their checkpoints to allow the americans through to the third-country nationals through, and the siv holders through. that is what is happening, not right at the gate, but rather a substantial distance from the gate. i won't get into the precise details of the distances, but that is what he was referring to with respect to the extension of the perimeter, and on the question of the relative ratios and the significant memos of those coming out were on behalf of the evacuees. the number in country was relatively limited number of folks, so with the percentages of the 37,000, a number of them have included a few thousands of

americans who have been evacuated and we are working on the best. >> do you have anything specific or the people traveling with documentation or can you not answer that, are they not traveling with documentation? >> the reason that we can't give you a precise number is because not every single person puts themselves in a database at the embassy. and so it is not their responsibility, and so our responsibility is to work through every means possible to contact them as well as we could of the folks holding the passports to bring them to the airport. >> and with the americans saying that we need to get out, and how many americans have you taken? >> oh, see. we can get you the precise number on that. >> one other clarification. you said that you could get all americans out of kabul, and did you mean kabul or the entire country, and second, one of the things that you all bragged

about over the weekend was the rapidity with which you have been negotiating with the third country, the ability to bring flights into, you know, to expand the number of places throughout europe and the middle east, and why wasn't that done months ago, and you, yourself, you said that you knew that the chaos was going to erupt at some point, and why would there be the need to negotiate on the fly with these countries, if it could not have been done before. >> i will take the second question first. i will tell you they bristle at the fact that we bragged. okay. i have not bragged at anything. i am trying to give you the straight dope from here, the good and the bad. that means a lot to me. secondly, it is certainly the case that we have tried to add capacity and add in places that we have spent months in negotiating in transit centers both in the gulf and in europe. as it turns out, we have been able to produce a throughput

that exceededen the optimistic expectations in terms of the number of folks who could get out, and the fact is that we are actually overperforming in terms of the evacuation numbers, and therefore we need a higher ceiling in terms of beds, and other facilities, and transit centers. but you can't go from the standing start, and zero the yes in 24 hours. this something that we have prepared and prepositioned with allies over time so that when we pick up the phone and call, and they don't say, what are you asking for? they know that the ask has gone from 5,000 cap to 10,000 cap, and they adjust accordingly, and that is going to be because of of the painstaking preparations over months. >> and are you just getting americans out in kabul? >> we are trying to get americans out wherever they may

be in afghanistan. >> and what about the sivs. how many brought to the united states? is there a goal of how many you want to bring to the united states, and what is the plan to have other than or some target. so we're working to get as many out as we possibly can. if you think that there has been 20 years of conflict in afghanistan, the number of afghans who in one way or another worked for the united states, i'm not going to put a precise number on it. i won't put an estimate on it. i'm going to put a principle on it. the principle is we're working to get out as many afghan allies as we possibly can. >> did he make ask and the call and what did mr. johnson tell him when he makes that call today or tomorrow?

>> i'm not going to speak for prime minister johnson or read out the details of the call. the president continues to consult with the prime minister and our other allies on how this evacuation should proceed from here. >> what will will he say when prime minister johnson does ask? >> so i'm not going to preview what the president will say in the g-7 meeting tomorrow. at the moment, he's focused on private conversations with foreign lieders. he'll have the opportunity to have that engagement in that private session with the g-7 leaders tomorrow. and i'm not from the podium going to read out what our sensitive conversations among leaders between the united states and our allies are. [ inaudible ] how this administration's determining who is still left? what americans are still left? and which ones are not? he said there is some people that did register with the embassy. how is the administration trying to track who is there and who's

not. >> sure. so what we have done is we have put out through multiple different means, telephone, text, radio, online, through every possible both broadcast and targeted means possible to americans who may potentially be in afghanistan. please respond. please contact us. please tell us your location. please tell us if you'd like to leave. please tell us how many there are with you. so we have gone through that process. and then we have done a series of calls through all of the folks who responded. they tried to match it up against a plan as i said before put americans into groups to officially transfer them on to the airfield. when you're trying to ultimately determine precise fixed number, that is an on going process.

you are matching to make sure they're not there? >> so, with very gone through our list of everyone who believe is in country and reached out and tried to communicate with them in every way we know how. as far as they're concerned, there are two universes, the people that did register. we got in touch with all those people. folks who respond to the other call which doesn't match that first list that, is a different group of people, some of whom never registered in the first place and negotiating. we're discussing with them the best way to get them to the airport if in fact they want to come to the airport. last question. >> will president biden consider himself speaking with the

leaders of taliban? and the second question, president biden seems to be keeping the america first policy in the system. how can you say that america is back on the global stage after seeing this scenes in afghanistan. how do you think they're looking it at the united states or not? >> so on the second question, you look at the scenes of the kabul airport and what i see is the united states securing an airfield at the us are being of several thousand american troops to facilitate not just the evacuation of americans, but to facilitate the evacuation of third country nationals from friends and foes alike. and to facilitate the evacuation of tens of thousands of people who for humanitarian reasons want to leave afghanistan. there is no other country in the world that can pull something like this off, bar none. much with respect to whether or not the president biden is likely to speak with the

leadership of the taliban that, is not in contemplation at this time. thank you. #. >> jake sullivan says the administration is on track to meet its objectives, evacuating remains americans,al began allies and afghans at risk who are still in afghanistan. a white house official told me this morning the u.s. evacuated 37,000 people since august 14th. sullivan also said he believes that the evacuation can be done by president biden's existing with draw deadline of all 31st. yesterday in televised remarks, president biden said that there are on going discussions about whether or not that dead line has to be extended. this is, of course, against the backdrop of a taliban spokesperson saying yesterday to sky news that if the u.s. remains in afghanistan beyond

august 31. that will be a red line. we have a member of the board of directors for the organization no one left behind, howard manuel. and chief correspondent for pbs news hour. welcome to the three of you. so matt, you've been speaking with evacuees there who have made it out of afghanistan. what are they saying about how the u.s. is handling this process? >> well, there's a lot of anger and despair and also a lot of confusion. jake sullivan just mentioned how this was such a massive dup low matic security logistical undertaking here at the air base. it it's also a big bureaucratic undertaking. and just to point that we heard that there are some 6,000 to 7,000 afghans athis the base and they're coming in at least 36 flights from around the region. only two flights we confirmed so far, that number is about to be updated, only two flights have actually left onward to the states. i spoke with one man, he and a

u.s. passport, he is a u.s. citizen exactly the kind of man that jake sullivan was just talking about. here's what he had to say. >> are you angry, sir? had. >> yes. i am angry. >> angry at the americans? >> i'm completely angry because they could have managed this much better way. i live in the u.s. for the past 18 years. i know they can do it. they have to tell people how long they going to stay here and what happens next? i'm asking that for everybody. i don't know. i'm not sure. how long more? >> do you feel abandoned? >> yes. >> so these afghans that made it here, they're not lacking for food or shelter or health care. but they are looking for information. and they need it desperately. >> you've been speaking with a family in kabul struggling to escape that country. you've been recounting it on

social media. what has their experience been thus far? and what is the current status right now of them in this sort of prolonged evacuation process? >> jeff, i'm happy to be able to share some good news in all of the reporting we've been doing on this which is that bun family i've been following had been able to make it out. but it wasn't an he's why i task. and this was not a u.s. evacuation. this is a canadian evacuee family. they were running into the same logistical issues and security issues outside the airport. i do think this is a conversation which some of the specifics matter. you heard jake sullivan talk about the people eligible to leave. we hear a lot about the sivs and the thousands of people who evacuated so far. it's no small task. there san enormous undertaking to get out 37,000 people. just the sivs, leaving aside american citizens for a moment, we don't have a number, there are 20,000 siv aprilly kants in

the system. that doesn't count the tens of thousands of other afghan that's worked with u.s. affiliated projects and now consider themselves vulnerable. the big story here and big question is going to be how long will the president's commitment go to evacuate everyone who feels unsafe. >> such a great pount. and howard, you work with the group that coordinated a civilian effort. you chartered a private flight to an airport there. help us understand how that process worked and why it was necessary. >> yeah. thank you so much for having me on the air. so our organization no one left behind, we've been around for a while. working on this issue. obviously, have put in an idea of what is going on. we partner with other organizations to form save our allies. that group together we have now chartered i believe around nine flights to the middle east. and taking afghans from there

and putting them in a safe location. it's been a very worth while effort. you know, it's incredibly exciting time for us as an organization. with everything going on, i think the major thing that we focus on is the fact that, you know, not so much -- i think we just want to make sure that where the government is falling short we can fill in. because we know there is bureaucracy in many ways. but overall, things are going as smooth as they can. but we're always looking for support. so we ask people to go to www.nooneleft.org. >> thank you. my thanks to the three of you. sorry our time was short. hope to have you back soon. more of the day's coverage starts right now. >> good afternoon, everybody. i'm aaron gilchrist in for ayman mohyeldin. as president