>> karen greenburg, thanks so much. that does it for this edition. chuck todd is up next with "mtp daily" only on msnbc. well, don't worry, andrea, you're not going very far. we're coming back to you in a moment. welcome back to "mtp daily." a pair of explosions rocked kabul, have tloefr the u.s. evacuation efforts into turmoil, just five days before president biden's agreed to deadline to get americans out. u.s. officials tell nbc news at least three marines were wounded in the attack outside the airport. hospital officials are treating about 60 people injured and at least six killed. pentagon press secretary john

kirby tweeted there were two blasts in what he calls a complex attack. one of those explosions at the abbey gate and the other at a hotel. the briefing he was supposed to have was postponed by events on the ground as was the covid task force briefing. the administration says the president has been briefed on the situation. it is our understanding he is in the oval office after going in and out of the situation room. a taliban spokesman is saying at least 13 were killed, including children. while it is unclear who is responsible for the attack, two u.s. officials say they're operating it was the affiliate of isis. that's what our own intelligence officials were warning about and worrying about. we're going to the pentagon, check in with courtney kube in a moment. richard engle joins me from

doha, qatar. the threat was out there a few days. the specific threat from isis-k is something the administration was worried about, publicly warned about, and here it is. this is obviously setting back evacuation efforts. could this essentially end them? >> reporter: no, it couldn't end the evacuation, it shouldn't end the evacuation. it is not an attack of that kind of magnitude. it didn't impact the runways, didn't impact the planes. there were three main gates into the air base. what this was was a horrific attention grabbing suicide attack, complex attack, at least one suicide attack and another bomb right outside the gate, and all indications are this was the work of isis or of a member of isis, and as the taliban rolled

into kabul, they set free a lot of prisoners or prisoners in the chaos were able to set themselves free, break out of jail, and these are enemies of the taliban. for the last week or so, they've been roaming free. they've had no place to go. seems at least one or possibly more attackers took the opportunity today to carry out the attack. witnesses are saying and security source in kabul saying that 13 were killed, including several taliban guards who were outside the gate managing the flow of traffic and courtney's reporting, three u.s. marines that were injured. just to bear down a little bit on the geography where it took place because the area around military bases is sometimes quite complicated. you have the air base. we describe it as the military side of the kabul airport. it is a military base surrounded by walls. three main gates into it.

by one of the gates there's a hotel, the baron hotel, we stayed there, other journalists stay there, we were there a few days ago. that was built primarily for contractors because it is so close to the airport, that way they could get on and off the airport quickly, safely. from the baron hotel, there's a 200 yard corridor that leads to the abbey gate. one of the gates onto the base. that corridor is flanked with high concrete barriers, and within the corridor there's a deep sewage canal, drainage canal. perhaps using that drainage canal a suicide bomber was able to get to the corridor and detonate an explosive. the images we have seen on social media are absolutely horrific, people, bodies thrown into the sewage canal, some dead bodies, some people who are

grateful injured, other people pulling them out of the wastewater. and then ambulances coming in to take the wounded away and try to treat them. it will slow down pace of evacuations because one gate, i wouldn't say it is totally taken out of operation, but it has certainly caused a degree of chaos. they'll try to step up security. they did have a specific threat, seems like that specific threat was carried out. if it was isis, it is isis trying to put themselves back on the map, to do exactly what we're doing now, get them back in the conversation. >> make them a major cog when they shouldn't be treated as one. let me ask you, richard. we know the u.s. military is in charge of securing the airport, the base part of the airport. does that security perimeter, is this within the u.s. security perimeter or is the taliban in

charge of security closer to the hotel. >> reporter: the taliban do all of the security, they control afghanistan. it is now the islamic emrat of afghanistan. it is a taliban country except for a mountainous area putting up some say heroic, some say a doomed resistance movement, but the taliban control the country. they are patrolling the outer perimeter, they're controlling check points throughout the city, they're limiting people to get to the airport, they are trying to find isis fighters because they don't want this kind of thing to happen because they want the process to move smoothly and americans to leave. at the gate itself, there is a hand over. i saw that earlier this morning. you drive and it is a bizarre thing to witness. we saw taliban fighters and their guns and traditional dress, some in american style uniforms, you pass them, a few

yards later we saw troops from the 82nd airborne, and it is a stark contrast. i must say, the troops i saw, if you could see the expressions on their face, this is before the attack, they were not pleased with the situation. they were not pleased to be doing this evacuation, working a few yards away from their former enemies evacuating the people that worked with american troops and their allies and getting them out of the country, so the taliban control the outer perimeter, americans in the inner perimeter, and the americans are trying to get everybody out, and then this disruption today, a horrible incident at one of the gates. >> richard engle in doha, thank you. let me go to kelly o'donnell at the white house, rob sanchez, andrea mitchell is here with me in the bureau, military analyst colonel jack jacobs, and national security analyst clint

watts. this is basically cancel anything else today, this is the focus of the administration, this is disruption in evacuation plans. i'm sure we don't have the answer to this, is essentially this national security meeting, constant meeting happening with the president, about now what, what do we do now, can we still meet this deadline, do we try to extend, how do we secure the area. do you have any scope of the discussions going on inside? >> the word of the day is fluid. everything related to the president is fluid, who he is meeting with, what his schedule looks like, will we see him publicly, all of that. as to the question of the calculation the president needs to make, an event like is playing out with all its gory, deadly awfulness is one of the factors that the president said needed to be part of his

decision-making process about evacuations. the possibility which at that time was a threat stream of warnings, could that disrupt evacuations and what would they need to do to complete the mission of securing all americans who want to leave afghanistan, the number still at this point is somewhere roughly a thousand, not all of them determined to be american citizens who want to leave. that's the latest numbers we have there. then how does that factor into the deadline of august 31st. we've been told the president has been briefed on contingency plans, that had taken place before today's event. he spent an ex-tense if amount of time in the situation room with the defense secretary, national security team. we are told us in the oval office now. and the real challenge for the president is when this began, this evacuation began, and there was the initial chaos when the taliban took over and kabul fell, civilian deaths at the beginning, then the

administration was proud of the ramp up of evacuations being done safely, the president noting no one had died, and then today, the concern about the threat being there, urging americans to leave, and events that unfolded where there are clearly lots of injuries, at least three americans included in the injury tally. don't know how much further that will go, and the worst news could come. now we are back to the situation where the president has a different dynamic. does he need additional force protection, work with troops on the ground, and can he evacuate all of the embassy personnel and all the others in time. we don't have the answers but imagine having to work through those decisions with contingencies and with the difficult situation now. the president has a real burden on his plate. he made some of these choices, some are controlled by outside events. chuck? >> kelly o'donnell at the white

house, thank you. let me go to the pentagon. hit the main check points. let's go to the pentagon, courtney kube. do we have any new information or details on the attacks themselves? do we have more information, finding out more details of who is wounded, are americans part of the casualty count. what more information have you got? >> americans are part of the casualty count. the military includes casualty to be wounded and killed. what we know so far is there were three u.s. marines that were injured. we are trying to work on whether there may have been any u.s. military killed as well, and we're still working through that at this point. obviously that's something we take seriously and don't want to get wrong. we are working hard to figure out the ground truth. we know there were a number of afghans injured and killed. the video and pictures we are

seeing on social media are tough to watch. seems as if these are two large explosions, one at the abbey gate, and one at the nearby baron hotel, a hotel frequented by westerners, particularly americans and british for a long time, and even after the taliban took over kabul. we know there were at least two explosions. the u.s. was concerned about the potential for suicide attacks at that location and other gates around the airport, particularly there was a threat, a specific intelligence stream that warned about isis-k, isis khorasan, that they were trying to carry out attacks at the airport. everything is pointing that direction at this point, chuck. >> courtney, if the president made the decision he needed more reinforcements to finish the

evacuation, how quickly. the pentagon was staging folks in kuwait before preparing for the extra troops they ended up having to call up before. is that one of the contingency plans? >> when they announced deployment of additional troops, the pentagon announced they would be sending three battalions or one brigade combat team. 82nd airborne, immediate reaction force, a group supposed to be ready to go on hours-long notice to go pretty much anywhere in the world they need them. they sent those three battalions forward, all three were rerouted from kuwait to kabul. that gives you a sense this was more than a week ago, all went straight to kabul. if the u.s. wanted to shore up security at the airport, they could send additional troops in. the reality is they can get

troops pretty quickly. there are other marines as part of the special purpose marine air ground task force, they can go in, many are trained for embassy security and kinds of situations they might be facing at the airport. could get people in quickly. i have to stress, at this point we are not hearing indications that's in the works. >> of course. i just -- we know they're working through different scenarios, and obviously that would be something that would be a bit of a tell if we saw it there. courtney, thank you. let's go over to andrea mitchell, among her beats, the state department. hang on, andrea. kelly, you have a news update for us. >> i don't mean to step on our colleagues at the pentagon. john kirby now says we can confirm a number of u.s. service members were killed in today's complex attack at kabul airport. a number of others are being treated for wounds. we also know that a number of

afghans fell victim to this heinous attack. our thoughts and prayers go out to the loved ones and teammates of all those killed and injured. the worst news. americans among the dead. we have not heard from the president yet. this is a statement from john kirby, spokesman at the pentagon. chuck? >> kelly, thank you for alerting us to kirby's tweet. american service members are among those that died in the attack. andrea mitchell, what is the plan c, d, and e that the state department is thinking trying to get the remaining americans out, trying to get afghan allies out. obviously the gates are sitting targets. it is something clearly our own folks were concerned about, warnings were out there. there's not, are they going to have to helicopter people onto the runway? >> exactly. i think first, let me just say,

the fact that we first heard marines were injured, now we heard that there were americans killed, we don't know who or how many, that is just the worst possible tragedy obviously. this is going to bear heavily on the president and any decisions he makes. he said he wants to get all of the americans out. i think that getting people into the airport as difficult as it may be, there can be helicopter movements which if they identify people, those identified, as of yesterday, a thousand they were still trying to get in touch with. 500 we believe were already in the airport, if not evacuated safely already. so we are talking about a thousand people that were known to be americans, still in afghanistan, who had not said we want to stay. that was the other cohort, there

could be people, they're having great difficulty with that number. the difficulty could be helicopter and other movements trying to create some secure zones, but that's going to take awhile, with the cooperation of the taliban, presuming they were not complicit in this in any way, wouldn't seem they have an interest, but h.r. mcmaster is vigorous suspecting the motives of every one of these groups, thinking the hakani network, leader of that network from pakistan, showing up in kabul, a member of the taliban leadership, showing up in kabul last week, being told, we were told he was going to be in charges of kabul security. he showed up at friday prayers publicly. he is on the fbi most wanted list as a terrorist. he is not the same as the taliban who they have been negotiating with, at least in terms of the way the state

department is dealing with it, the way the white house is dealing with it. this is a mess and it is a terrible resurgence of terror from groups like al qaeda and parts of hakani. >> americans were told, the state department put out a briefing, do not go to these gates. they put out that warning. clearly they were worried. i guess one up side is our intelligence was pretty sound on this. what are americans being told to do now? just shelter in place until they hear from the state department or somebody else in government about where to go and when to go and how to go? >> precisely. and what we know is these were service members. we don't know about american civilians that may have been injured or killed in the terrible attacks today, but there were plenty of afghan civilians, saw that from videos earlier. they were desperate afghans trying to get to the airport. why they didn't know of state

department warnings, or believing they were so desperate to get out, they were taking the risk of being in a crowd, even though u.s. warnings were clear not to be in that crowd. the tragedy is that these are service members on the perimeter working with the taliban. there's got to be after action, of course, immediately as to how much the taliban did or did not know about this, and whether any of our assumptions have been misleading about relying on them as much as we were through our own leaders, general mackenzie and other military, using them and their acceptance of all of this in order to continue the evacuations. i do not see a lengthy extension past august 31st. if it is a day or two, but not much longer. >> andrea, stick around. don't go anywhere. we have been covering this mostly from the american government point of view, what

we are hearing from the american side. i want to go to raf sanchez monitoring the european side. any new information, new intelligence that our european allies surfaced on the attack, anything more you learned from your end? >> chuck, there's no indication now from any of the coalition allies that their service members were caught up in this attack which we now know killed americans. we heard from the british, from the italians, turks, germans that none of their service members were harmed. there are about a thousand uk troops at hamid karzai airport. the british had the second largest number of western troops in afghanistan over the course of the 20 year war. second largest number of troops

today. it is early evening. this morning, the government began to sound the alarm you are jeptly that there was threat of imminent and lethal explosion at kabul airport. this was not a general expression of concern, this was a very, very serious sounding of the alarm, and within a few hours of a british minister going on television and warning about this, that explosion came through. clearly there's been intelligence shared among different allies nations about this possibility. british and other allies tried and failed to convince president biden to extend the deadline beyond august 31st for keeping u.s. troops in the country. when the americans go, other allies are going to go with them. they cannot stay on the ground without u.s. support. we are beginning to see the other allies bringing an end to

their evacuation efforts. the last canadian and german flights have gone out today and the british are saying they'll begin to wind up too. >> raf sanchez in london, thank you. i appreciate the update. let's get more on the logistics of finishing the evacuation with colonel jacobs, one more on isis-k and the intelligence side. clint watts to cover that. jack, let me start with you. now you're dealing with a known security, clearly a security problem there, getting folks that get cued up to get evacuated. what kind of military options is the president being offered by military advisers to finish the job here? is it more reinforcements, is it change in how we get folks inside the airport perimeter? what are the various

options he is being handed by military advisers. >> typically what happens, chiefs will give him as many options as they can think of, including sending lots more troops to secure the area. accelerate the withdrawal with more planes and other people inside afghanistan. a wide variety of options from the ridiculous to sublime. and then they'll make a recommendation. recommendation is likely can't send more troops, that will make the final evacuation of troops much more difficult, but we'd like to see, joint chiefs talking, we'd like to see an extension of deadline of the 31st of august because we're not going to be able to get everybody out by then. this is a real logistical problem. roll the tape forward. even absent the horrendous attack today that slowed

everything down, think about what it is going to take to get everybody out that's remaining there, particularly troops. as you withdraw troops, those on the ground are smaller and smaller, less capable of defending themselves. the detachment left in contact, soldiers, sailors, were left behind at the end, going out on the last plane are most at risk, how are you going to protect them. with air strikes, overwatch and all the rest of that, at the end of the day some credence has to be given to the taliban to make sure they protect our troops. what's been demonstrated today is they can't do it. they certainty can't guarantee safety. the taliban want us out quickly as possible. they also need money. we would like more time to get

as many people out as we can. there's an argument that says there's a deal here. like andrea said, extension a couple of days to get as many out as we possibly can. and the exchanges, the taliban gets some or all of the money currently locked up and sequestered by western financial institutions. whether or not that's actually going to happen remains to be seen, but at the end of the day, some american's got to turn the lights out on the presence there and that's the most dangerous time. >> sounds like we're paying a ransom to the taliban. that's what it sounds like. that's an uncomfortable position for any american president. >> i think we've already paid a ransom to them agreeing that 31 august is the date.

safe passage until august 31st. that's the deal that was struck. >> let me talk to clint watt about isis-k. clearly the intelligence was correct here. the warnings were shouted from the rooftops here within the last day or so. and yet it happened anyway. you know, can we be sure that somehow isis, we know isis-k is called a sworn enemy of the taliban, the president keeps emphasizing that, but are people looking the other way? we were all looking out for this and it happened anyway. >> chuck, i'm not convinced of that. richard engle's reporting seemed to show they have a sophisticated plan and know the area to get in there. there's reporting already out there, there could be up to 100 isis-k operatives in and around

kabul. that would make sense. remember, we have been there ten days. if you're a terror group, want to execute attack against the americans, you start moving to the target, moving your supply chain to do explosive attacks into kabul. i am not convinced that the taliban would really be in on it. from their perspective, as soon as the americans go, that's better for them. the dangerous part of this is like colonel jacobs was saying, as we get a smaller footprint, the attack pattern gets more intense. what we are seeing now is kabul is the equivalent of mowing dish u or baghdad circa 2004. the taliban had taken over the country but do not control the country. there are tons of factions in and outside kabul now. we can't go out and expand the perimeter any more, we lost a lot of our intelligence capability or retracted it around protecting this airport.

i am curious about our allies, are they some of those that tipped us off about isis-k, they all seemed to be in on it quickly making a warning. some positive signs that we have the intelligence. down side, counterterrorism ground operations, air strikes in a major city, those aren't going to happen unless it is absolute devastation in terms of attacks there. our options are extremely limited in the final days headed up to 31 august. >> explain why isis-k is a sworn enemy of the taliban. >> so isis and al qaeda have been rivals. you may remember back to 2015, there was a split essentially between the islamic state, isis that became the islamic state and al qaeda. that's a younger generation of fighters. the hakani network are aligned with the taliban. over the last two years, particularly in the last year, there's been significant up tick

in isis khorasan. increasing terrorist attacks. here's the other challenge. isis doesn't control territory necessarily inside afghanistan, they're more of a terrorist group, they blend in with the population. if you want to retaliate, do something, there's nothing really to go after except that terrorist network, and at present, we can't do that. al qaeda and isis are in rivalry, al qaeda and taliban are in alignment, allies in a sense. they would love to do an attack like today, but repeat them over and over. it is a double whammy. they get to harm the united states as they execute withdrawal, get tons of global media coverage and going against the taliban which will be their enemy after the americans leave. >> clint watt with a little more information and context on who these various entities are for

viewers. let me go back to kelly o'donnell. we know we're going to hear from the president at some point today, anytime you have a situation like this, you will. i guess the question is when. kelly, do we have any idea when we may hear from him? >> reporter: we asked it many times. we are presuming given gravity of events we will hear from the president, but officials have not told us specifically yet. if you look at a guide of the biden white house, it tends to be later in the day. imagine what's happening behind the scenes, remarks have to be drafted, the president needs to get a command of facts that are on the ground, get information from what the assessment is of injuries and death and be able to say what comes next. it is not just seeing the president, decisions need to be made and articulated in a form he can present to the country, and perhaps even some ally phone calls need to take place or other things. there's a lot of work that would typically happen behind the

scenes to prepare that kind of address. i think it is fair to say this is the worst day of the biden presidency, when you have americans in harm's way killed and injured and this has been a presidency dealing with life and death drama of covid and economic worries, and then when you have men and women in uniform that are sent on a controversial mission in that there are so many opinions about what should happen with afghanistan, clearly a very difficult day for the president. he often speaks of not wanting to send more sons and daughters to afghanistan, speaks of his own son, late beau biden who served in iraq. you talk about all of that emotion, the decision making and need in what is clearly a moment on the ground to get facts, it would seem to me it will be awhile before the president addresses the nation. but we would expect to not get ahead of anything official, we would expect this kind of moment

requires it. chuck? >> thank you for that. andrea mitchell, the president last week, i am going to quote him directly, we carry out this departure. we made it clear if they attack our personnel, disrupt our operation, the u.s. presence will be swift and response will be swift and forceful. we will defend our people with devastating force if necessary, current military mission is short in time, limited in scope, focused on its objectives, get our people out, allies as quickly and safely as possible. those were pretty tough words obviously. it doesn't, right now, doesn't appear the taliban is involved. but at the same time, americans were killed. since he made that, drew that line in the sand. he's got to obviously respond here. what does a response look like? >> the problem is clint watts pointed out, whom do you target.

we're not talking about a nation state or leader somewhere, in fact, they're part of the population. the worst terrorists in the world. some of them were in those prisons throughout afghanistan that the taliban released at bagram and kabul. who are the leaders of isis-k, what about hakani walking in plain sight, who are you taking out, how do you determine responsibility? none of that has been accomplished as far as we know. i was talking to intelligence officials earlier today, they were saying we're not going to ascribe responsibility except that we knew there was this threat, level of threat from isis-k that started on saturday, accelerated, and was announced dramatically last night with alert for all americans to get away from the airport. times the last few days, you recall where evacuations were halted, telling americans not to come, just come if we call you.

what they said last night was don't come. don't come until we contact you. it clearly identified there was a threat. who pulled this off, what are the casualty counts. the president is probably right now calling families. i mean, there are terrible things a commander in chief is doing at this moment, both the emotional level and tactical level, and thinking also of the deadline and whether he sticks with the deadline, whether they try to get the last americans out. just to respond forcefully, you have to have a target and know who did it. i don't know how he can do that that quickly. >> let me bring in clint watts. what are the taliban's capabilities here of this uneasy relationship where we have to trust them in some form now as we get folks out. we have no other choice. is there reassurance they could

give our folks on security, would they have the capability, or do they as you point out, they're just getting control now, so they're in charge but not necessarily in control. >> chuck, that's part of it. i think that we have a sense that the taliban suddenly magically took over all of kabul and are in control, not meeting any resistance. most people in kabul didn't expect the taliban to take over that quickly so they have done this in such a short period of time. the taliban don't have as good of centers as they do the rest of the country. they're trying to figure out what's going on, secure as many areas as possible. you can see from the footage, this is not the same as the american military presence that was there in kabul and now to bagram air force base. we are relying on a group that may say i want to protect the

air base, we'll let you go, get out by the 31st, maybe has no capability to do that. some things to think about, remember when the u.s. took baghdad in 2003. there was a brief lull but it wasn't long after that that u.s. forces couldn't control all of baghdad. they did not have intelligence. you saw insurgencies pop up. i think you'll see a similar thing in a lot of afghan cities, taliban have varying degrees of control, understand the networks better, and our contacts or western allies, five eyes partners as they say like the uk who still have really good sensors, good human intelligence in a lot of networks, have to rely on a combination of factors. can't take at face value the taliban saying they'll do it, they have alternative motives. let's be honest about their capability to rule, govern, know everything about a town they came into two weeks ago. >> kelly o'donnell, back to the president's own words which i

know are going to get played for a lot of folks, what he said last week. this is complicated. on one hand, the operation was disrupted. american service members are dead because of this. yet there's no identifiable quote, unquote enemy here. what are the calculations the white house is dealing with. >> reporter: the president has to deal with how many american lives are at risk and taken by the attack, how do you respond. dealing with the immediate concern of force protection and those evacuees in the process. how do deal with that. one set of concerns. then the president said isis-k is sworn enemy of the united states and taliban. how to strike back at that. it is not lost on any of us that when americans died 20 years ago, it was u.s. forces that went into afghanistan in search of osama bin laden and al qaeda.

this is an attack of a much smaller scale but certainly it is impactful, will change lives of a number of american families and could alter sort of the dynamic on the ground there. these are complicated issues. what the president has been clear about is he did not believe it was in the long term national interest of the united states to be with a military presence in afghanistan. now the question is do you strike back in some targeted way. we know there are cia assets, special operators in the region, there has to be some intelligence as you mentioned earlier. this intelligence appeared to be spot on, so much so, they were giving americans through phone calls and emails and warnings, allied partners saying get away from the gates. and then many afghan civilians may not have been aware or willing to take the risk trying to get out. a lot of complicated issues for the president, how to respond,

protect those there, and what happens with the remaining evacuation operations. chuck? >> kelly o'donnell, andrea mitchell, raf sanchez, clint was thes, colonel jacobs, appreciate having you all onto help us navigate what's a terrible day here. that's for sure. as we learn more about the attacks, i want to bring in someone in contact with senior military officials in kabul, senior member of the house armed services committee, john gar mend ee. what details can you fill in. >> you covered almost every detail i have available to me. we know american service members lost their lives. tragic, heartbreaking. not unexpected. this is extremely dangerous operation from the moment it began. the collapse of the afghan

government. the taliban taking control or not taking control of the city. it is extremely dangerous. for all of us, we need to take a short pause here, gather the information, and then let the president and the military and the intelligence make a determination on the best step forward. right now, we can guess that we know, but we don't. the president will make a decision in due course here. whether the deadline is extended remains to be seen. where are those americans? in many places, we simply don't know where they are, they may or may not even exist. >> so let me ask you this. when it comes to trusting the taliban, i guess that's a strong word, they have to earn it over

time, but do you think we have no other choice but give the taliban some opportunity here to show that they can get control, do we use the frozen assets as a way to get tough, not allow an al qaeda or isis to sort of get safe harbor? clearly isis-k has safe harbor here. how much do we attempt to work with the taliban versus against them? >> we have no choice but work with the taliban, as long as they're in apparent control of kabul and other major cities. what leverage do we have? i suspect there are many and it may well be best for the united states to work through an international organization like the united nations. and to recognize that we're not the only player in this game. clearly the countries that are surrounding afghanistan have a

major and critical stake in what the future will hold and will undoubtedly be in touch with the taliban as we are trying to sort out what needs to be done there. the taliban face an awesome and difficult and dangerous situation of their own. they're not loved by everybody. in fact, they were hated and they were involved in fights, revenge killings and power conflicts are going on as we speak. all of those things create a very unstable situation. right now for the united states, it is to get all of our people out as the president says, those that want to get out, and as many of those people that helped us over the last 20 years. that's our goal. and then to extract the american military safely. obviously american military

personnel have lost their life and so the safety issue is even more on the minds of all of us, so it is going to be complex. the president needs all of our support as he works through a very difficult situation that actually began long before he became president and the stage was set for tragedy. here we are, everybody feared this happening and where do we go from here. be as safe as we can for military and try to get the americans out. >> colonel jack jacobs was on and he floated that one of the potential ideas that the president is being offered, i said put yourself in the shoes of general milley, secretary austin, what are the options he is being given. use the assets as leverage, get

a commitment from the taliban that look, we need to go longer. it is going to take us maybe one more week, maybe ten more days. it is in your interest. here's how. are you comfortable with that type of negotiating? >> there will be, negotiations are under way, have been under way from the outset of the taliban takeover of kabul and afghanistan. the cia director was there. we don't know what was in that discussion but we know that there was negotiation that presumably led to the taliban attempting to provide security outside of the airport. are there ongoing discussions now? certainly are with regard to military to military, such that the taliban has a military organization. are there quid pro quos? of course there are.

afghanistan is in deep, deep economic, financial, social chaos. they need, the taliban and afghan people, are going to need significant international support. everything from food to economic assets, all those things are on the table. are there some that are more imminent that would lead to an extension of the american presence? i suspect that there are. it doesn't do much good for me or for any of us to try to figure it all out. we do know that it is in the process of being figured out by the american military, by our diplomats and by the intelligence agencies. will it lead to an extension? possibly. will it lead to better access for americans to the base? hopefully. these things are under discussion. right now, the white house is

holed up in the situation room going through all the things i am sitting here guessing about and i just assume leave it to the president. he understands the wakt of this decision is going to be enormous, but my opinion is he has made the proper decisions along the way, given the hand he was dealt. he came into this situation with a may 1st deadline for american soldiers all out. three months, four months after he took office. so what is he to do? he extended the deadline, giving more time for americans to get out, for more stability for the afghan government. did any of us, i say any of us, the afghan government was at the white house and in the congress meeting with us two weeks before they simply fled afghanistan, giving us assurances they would fight to the death, just give us

the money, they said, give us the support, aerial support, all of which we gave them, then they up and left and abandoned the country, leaving a vacuum that was immediately filled, partially and unsuccessfully thus far, by the taliban. >> there's going to be a lot of after action hearings. >> you bet. >> if there's one big thing you want to get an answer to once we get this behind us and sort of unpack how the withdrawal process worked, what is the one issue you want to drill down on most? >> i want to look to the future. i want whatever hearings take place to provide a foundation of information about what america, what the world needs to do to deal with afghanistan. i would like to know what the sounding countries want to do, what their interests are, how we

can engage with others in providing as much stability as possible in afghanistan, providing the humanitarian support that afghan is desperately going to need and also how we and others can deal with international terrorism that could recur in afghanistan. those are the interests i have, as to who is responsible for what, when, and how, i have no interest in that, except that it could provide information about what we need going forward. >> john gar mend ee, veteran of both coasts here in government and politics. congressman, thanks for your time and input. >> thank you. let me bring in an admiral that was in charge of the nato command. jim, walk us through what the

president, what the options are being put forth on him, put forth before him now of dealing with this current security mess that we have at that airport, it's obviously harder to get people into the airport, it is not going to get easier, going to get harder. what are the various realistic options to finish the evacuation? >> option one will be wrap it up right now. stop taking anybody else and get our military out of there. i don't think he will select that. smack too much of lebanon response to the terrorist bombing where we decamped immediately. option two, chuck, continue the mission with a very firm eye toward getting out of here as currently postulated on tuesday, try to push the security perimeter out further, try to work with the taliban to get better security, but effectively option two is continue the

mission. option three would be to extend the mission, open it more broadly, perhaps conduct strikes against isis-k at their camps and so forth. i don't think the president is going to go there. i suspect the president will go there and he will land on some variant of option two. >> are there realistic targets for isis-k or is there intelligence solid enough that we were forewarned about this attack? so what is the sense of how quickly we could acquire the targets if we want to? >> my sense is that we could in fact find and exploit targets. it would be a big mission, a long range mission, and we would have to coordinate it. we would not have to, but we would probably need to coordinate it with the taliban.

it is very unlikely that we will want to do it, and low bang for the buck. think about those tomahawlaunch laden, that almost got him and his training camp. it is not that much effect. i doubt we go that way. >> the nato alliance, and we know that some of the alliances in europe are not happy with the way it has played out. i assume that these are disputes that can heal over time, but what is your feeling on the impact of nato going forward? >> i think it is a speed bump if you will. there are much bigger issues for the alliance going forward including working together to counter terrorism as we know that it is not going to deter russia to look to the arctic, and to work on cybersecurity, and to continue to stabilize the

balkans, and nato is not going away in the immediate future, and there is some grousing from some of the allies on this, but even there, chuck, over the last three days, you seen the biden administration working very hard to heal those, and convening the g7, and talking consistently with the allies, so that one, you can put behind us. >> and one thing, were there really in of our allies arguing for us to stay indefinitely when it came to afghanistan? were the brits making that case behind the scenes? i did not see a ton of evidence of that? but was any of the allies wanting us to stay? >> no, i think that our allies would have been willing if we would have wanted to have a presence in the u.s. of the 3,000 to 5,000 range, maybe the allies would have matched that one to one, and probably could

have built a continuing nato mission around 10,000 troops, they would have stayed, but when the u.s. made the decision to pull out, they were on board with that. >> admiral james stavridis, and it is a tough day losing american service members in a mission, but i know they all knew how dangerous this mission was, but it does not mean that we take these deaths any lightly. >> think of their families today. think of the families today. >> and thinking of the families who have not gotten the call yet, and wondering if they will get the call, too. thank you, jim. according to new estimates of the new york times, there are 250,000 afghans in afghanistan who worked for united states who have not been evacuated yet. so how is this latest attack on the ground going to affect the evacuations of the further. joining me is mark packette who is focused on this issue of the

refugees. mark, i know that you have a lot of contacts on the ground. what are you hearing about safety and security and the ability to get out right now? >> well, chuck, there is no safety and security, and there no ability to get out right now. even for the people who are u.s. citizens or the people who have special immigrant visa holders and let alone the vulnerable people, and the activists, and the religious minorities and the media and the ngos, they cannot get out right now. >> there is 250,000 afghans and some afghan-americans who can get out now, but they can't bring their a families with them, and explain that struggle. is this more having to do with the taliban or more having to do with our siv process? >> it has everything to do with our siv process. we had 20 years to prepare for this not unlikely outcome, and

it was not done. so as a result, we are now scrambling, and there a cascading effect. because we are scrambling to help the sivs who laid their lives down who helped the soldiers, we are not paying attention to the people who assisted. so refugees have to stop being a afterthought, and they should be in the forethought of going into these situations unlike 20 years ago. >> and so what about the president saying that we will get every american out who want out, and is your understanding it is every afghan american who can't get out, because they can't get out by themselves, and is that a better way to put it? >> exactly. most of the sivs high tailed it out of afghanistan when they got the status to do it. it is a 14-step process, and god knows if you were associated with the u.s. military, you are

not leaving your family behind. that is exactly it. there's just no leadership on this issue right now, chuck. there is no special envoy who is overseeing the evacuation process or the secretary-general to look at this stuff, and i don't understand why, but there has to be some leadership on this issue, and somebody with authority. >> well, walk us through the scope of what you expect in the next year when it comes to afghan refugees, and 250,000 afghans who have a direct connection to united states operation who deserve some sort of special status, but we will have a couple million afghans who are, you know, the next level down, who can't get the special, you know, can't qualify for the special visa, but they not going to be feeling as if the taliban are friendly to them, and how many do you expect them to get out, and where do you expect them to go?

>> well, there needs to be a humanitarian corridor the establish to get them out, whether it is a air corridor or the land corridor, but it is tough to leave afghanistan in the winter. it is almost impossible by land. so people will be trapped there. and that needs to be a multi national force, and if the u.s. is going to leave by the end of the month, i don't know how this going to happen. we have seen the show before unfortunately, and we know that there is going to be hundreds and thousands or more fleeing to pakistan and iran, and if you get to iran, good luck trying to get to united states from iran. >> obviously, the rise in this nationalism from eastern and central europe has made these refugee and migrant flows even more complicated. are you having a hard, and even the politics in our country, and you want to know why we don't have a czar and refugees and i might point to our current politics on what has happened on this issue, particularly on the

right side of our political spectrum, are you having more trouble with western nations being open to taking in the refugees? >> yeah, absolutely. we have refugees, and they are not refugees yet, because they are stuck in afghanistan, and they have flights lined up, and planes lined up, but people are not flying out. so they have absolutely, absolutely no place to go, whether it is a united states or a country in europe or the middle east. it is a st. louis situation, but the people are able to leave afghanistan, and so when i say st. louis -- >> right. jewish-german refugees turned away before world war ii. let me ask you this, who do you deal with in the administration, and who would you like to get some more facetime with, and it seems that you have been a

little bit at the wits ends here. >> well, the flaw of it is accountability spread across multiple departments, health and human services, homeland security, and law enforcement agen agencies, and intelligent agencies, and then the power of defense to implement, and so there is no one person, and there has to be someone who reports to the president to record all of the pieces. so the person that i should be talking to doesn't exist. >> that is basically what you are arguing for is that there needs to be almost a single person put in charge right now, because this is turning into a bureaucratic calamity is what you are describing. >> absolutely. who reports to the president, and can make things happen. >> all right. mark hetfield, the head of hias who is working entirely on the refugee situation, and in some ways it is a refugee situation,

because it means folks were able to get out of this. >> thank you, chuck. we will be back tomorrow with more "meet the press daily." i turn it over the my good friend geoff bennett. >> thank you, chuck. we want to bring you up to the minute with what we know as we are waiting for more breaking news from the pentagon. a short time ago, the pentagon confirmed that u.s. servicemen have been killed in kabul. more u.s. service members have been wounded. we don't know the exact numbers, but this what we know as best we can piece it together. two explosions near the airport and one at a crowd near the gate packed with afghans hoping to get t