because he could answer many of the questions that have just been posed. i have respect for my colleague, senator murphy, as he knows, but this was not a choice between either a dangerous escalation of the war, which has just been laid out or a precipitous, chaotic withdrawal that embarrassed us. around the globe. to say that it was not a sign of weakness the way we left, i mean, i don't know who you're talking to. but if you're talking to our allies and nato, they will say it was a sign of weakness. if you're talking honestly to our adversaries, they will certainly say it's a sign of weakness as will terrorist groups around the world. i hope the lesson we learned here is that this was the right way to leave. i hope the lesson was there was

a better way to love. if the decision was made to pull out, it should not have been a precipitous, chaotic, and unfortunately deadly departure. this afternoon, i'll be speaking on the floor and max soviak, one of the soldiers and marines killed on the wall trying to help others escape from the tyranny of the taliban. he should never have been put in this position. it was an impossible position. for our troops, for your diplomats. and the impossibility that they faced was due to our policy decisions. there was an alternative. bagram air base, it was shutdown in the middle of the night with no notice to anybody. it was a surprise. i've talked to people who know a lot more about the military side of this than i do who tell me that yes, the afghan troops were

a disappointment, but that's partly because they were used to having americans provide that close air support and if they had had that, they could have pushed back against the taliban. if the general were here, we would hear this. but we just left. like just pulled out all the military underpinnings without the cover literally, of closed air support. yeah, it became extremely dangerous and chaotic and we left a lot of people behind. senator romney's asked you to give him some numbers and you said you're still working on that. here are the numbers that i have. the best that i have as the ranking member on the homeland security committee, we pushed and pushed. 18 applicants for siv. we got 705 out. you said earlier a overwhelming number of people who were at risk got out. i don't think that's true. >> if i could --

>> let me -- the numbers that i have. we think about 30,000 at-risk afghans were evacuated out of 60,000. that's the best numbers we can come up with because we can't get good numbers from the administration, but that's the best estimate. so that's true. that we left people behind. who had stood with us and helped us. obviously american citizens were left behind. green card holders were left behind, but thousands of people who stood with us and helped us. then let's ask about who came. there was discussion about what kind of vetting has taken place. the best numbers we have is that there are about three quarters of the people who were evacuated were not green card holders. were not american citizens. were not siv applicants. were not p1 or p2 visa holders. so about three quarters of these individuals may not have qualified in the sense.

now, you say that they're being vetted. good, they should be. and you know, nobody knows because we can't get good information. from department of homeland security, from the state department and others, but you know, from the start, many of us have said what we do there needs to be based on conditions on the ground. quite frankly, the president's decision was not based on conditions on the ground. that's why it was a disastrous withdrawal. that's why it puts so many people at risk. it should have been an orderly withdrawal under the cover of superior, u.s. and nato and military force. we did have 2500 troops there. but we had 75 nato troops there, too. again, many of their commanders were shocked at what happened. it was not good coordination. there was a lack of coordination with the people who had stuck with us. talked about bagram. there was also a lack of

integrated interagency planning. of course we've seen this in terms of how the chaotic withdrawal occurred. these were preventable problems and they put our military and your diplomats in this impossible situation. they did the best they could. and i commend them for that. in an impossible situation, it's amazing they were able to perform. but it was so rushed and chaotic, that again, we didn't get the right people out and many who we did get out, seem not to fall in any of the categories that we were concerned about. so, now, what do we do? let's look forward as suggested by senator coons and i agree with that. you said you don't believe it will be a platform for terrorism going forward. that the current government, the taliban government has said they will fight back against terrorists. you believe that the haqqani network, and particularly the new secretary of the interior, who is a wanted terrorist, based

on your administration's assessment, do you believe that that is an indication that they are going to fight back against terrorists? >> the question, senator, from our perspective and our partner's perspective is whether the taliban will make good on the promise that afghanistan is not used as a place for outwardly directed terrorist attacks. they've made commitments, but we're not relying on those. we're going to make sure we have in place the ability to detect that. something we can talk about in more detail. >> is the haqqani network considered a terrorist group? >> it is. >> is the minister a leader of the haqqani network? >> that is accurate. >> i think sadly, we have shaken the foundations of a lot of our alliances and we have work to do and i think we have demonstrated weakness. and made the world more dangerous as a result.

let me ask you about one specific question. >> time of the senator has expired. >> i will follow up with record to some financing questions in a letter we sent to secretary yellen from senator rubio and myself regarding foreign assets. >> senator murphy. >> i want to turn to the humanitarian situation in afghanistan. half the children under a are malnourished. that 14 million in afghanistan are on the brink of starvation. that 31 of 34 provinces are at risk of losing their health services entirely and that 1% of the country is vaccinated. this is a fairly accurate description of the challenge for both food and for healthcare? >> it is the humanitarian

situation is dire. >> thank you. and the u.s. just participanted in a conference in which $1.1 billion was pledged, additional commitment by the united states. ngos, nongovernmental organizations that often are essential for providing aid are very concerned about a legal pathway to do so because in 2002, the taliban was listed as a specially designated global terrorist organization under the emergency powers act and it doesn't have a humanitarian exception. previously when we faced this situation in yemen, the treasury department stepped in to create a legal pathway and a number of senators have written to secretary yellen and with copies to you and to samantha powers saying let's use that same pathway here in which the office of foreign asset controls is a

general license creating an illegal insulation providing them humanitarian assistance. are you engaged in a conversation about how to provide humanitarian assistance? >> yes, we are. we've issued one. the treasury issued ten days ago and we're looking at what other authorities might be needed to make sure that humanitarian assistance can flow as best possible in afghanistan. >> great. thank you. that's absolutely essential and i think we have a significant responsibility. we have the chaos of war in combination with the pandemic and general disruption in the country and it's a moral responsibility to provide assistance. i'm going to ask to enter to the record the letter from september 2nd that the senators and members of the house sent to the administration. >> without objection. >> thank you.

as provincial capitals started to fall. we had nine fall in six days. there was a lot of discussion about whether the government of afghanistan would direct a reconsolidation of forces to essentially consolidate protection the territory still held. did the government of afghanistan take key strategic military decisions to consolidate its forces? >> it did not and this was a source of tremendous frustration. as the summer went on. we saw the taliban moving across the country. we repeatedly pressed the afghan government to consolidate forces. not to extend itself across the entire country which it didn't have the full capacity to do. and unfortunately, that

consolidation and the plan that we urged on them for how to effectively defend the major cities never took shape. >> what was the response of the government or from president ghani about why they chose not to protect the areas they controlled? >> in different moment, there were different responses. at some point, initially, the response was, oh, we can't seem to give up on any part of the country. never mind that you know, over the last five or six years, the amount of the part of the country by population controlled by the government in afghanistan if you go back to 2014, 2015, went from about 60% to at the end of last year, about 48%, so this was happening to some extent outside the cities, obviously.

relentlessly. slowly but relentlessly. but then as we pressed and pressed and pressed on them, the response was yes, we'll do it, but they didn't. >> we have seen over a number of year, we have the challenge of elections considered illegitimate by a portion of the country. we had abdullah and ghani against each other. as we analyze and try to understand the rapid collapse, d id the, was there essentially a failure to create an effective decision making capability within the afghanistan government? >> i think there are a number of factors an this is something i hope we all look at going back really over the last 20 years. certainly there was a lack of unity in the government because

it was comprised of different groups. different factions. and despite again very significant efforts to get them to act in a unified way, they couldn't or wouldn't. second, i think in terms of their effectiveness, there are serious concerns that manifested themselves and third, one of the endemic problems we've had over the last 20 years that we've not been able to address is pervasive corruption and that has so many consequences. one of the consequences though is that if you're being asked to fight and put your life on the line for a government, for an institution that's correct, that's a pretty hard decision to make. and so i think as we saw with many afghan forces, soldiers fighting very, very bravely, giving their live, but institutionally, the military collapsed in totally

unanticipated way in the course of 11 days, as we go back and look, we have to look at the impact that this pervasive corruption had in terms of given the institution the will to fight for the country. >> absolutely. in those final days as the provincial capitals were falling, president ghani refused to acknowledge that there were falling capitals. it was almost like a world in which he was disengaged and then the finance minister resigned and said he was leaving the country for family reason, but it was taken as a symbol of the government on the verge of collapse. then president ghani fled himself. i think it was sunday, august 15th. did we have fore warning of this beginning of the cabinet to essentially flee the country and how did we respond to that? >> we did not. on saturday, as it happens, i spoke to president ghani. we were working on a plan to

have a transfer of power to a taliban-led, but more broadly representative government to include many of the different actors in afghanistan working on that in doha. i was calling president ghani to make sure that he would support that. that was critical. he told me he would but, he said if the taliban wouldn't go ahead with it, he would, i'm paraphrasing here, fight to the death. that was saturday. he left afghanistan the next day, on sunday. >> thank you. >> thank you. for the awareness of senators, there's a vote going on. there's a subsequent vote going on as well. it's my intention to try to continue through the process. but i want to make members aware. senator paul. >> i've advocated to the end of the war for over a decade. i'm glad it's over. >> good day.

i'm andrea mitchell. being grilled by democrats and republicans about the timing of the withdrawal from afghanistan. a large number of afghan allies and some americans left behind. >> mr. secretary, the execution of the u.s. withdrawal was clearly and fatally flawed. this committee expects to receive a full explanation on the administration's decision on afghanistan since coming into august last january. there has to be accountability. >> you know, there's not enough lipstick in the world to put on this pig to make it look any different than it is. >> i don't know how it's possible, if in fact, the people in charge of our foreign policy did not see all of these factors and conclude that there was a very real possibility of a very rapid collapse, then we've got the wrong people making military and diplomacy decisions in our government. >> joining me now, nbc's garrett hague on capitol hill, former nato supreme allied commander

who led the forces in afghanistan and matt zeller, afghanistan combat veteran. a chair at the association of wartime allies. garrett, first of all, the majority of criticism has been from republicans, but also frustration from democrats as well. it's a lot worse than the house members who were demanding that blinken resign, but it still speaks to a deep seated concern about the policy of withdrawal, the timing of the withdrawal. romney in particular saying you know, you were wedded to me first with what you inherited because they keep saying they inherited it. you weren't wedded to that. you did it in july and august. so why didn't you do it later on? why didn't you do it after the fighting season? that's what people have been asking. >> a lot of different dynamics here. the senate is going to conduct itself with more decorum than does the house. we are seeing that here, but even some of the democrats on

the panel, including the chairman, have more of a muscular intervention type of policy than does president biden and you're seeing that play out here. you're hearing frustration from longer serving members that it was 20 years of bad decisions. you heard the idea that there were surrender discussions with the taliban under former president trump. that set the tone for this. and i think some of the most substantive questions from republicans has come from senator romney, as you pointed out. questioned blinken on the timeline element of this. why push the withdrawal date only to august and not further. blinken said that was based on military decision about how much time would be needed to get out and how strongly the afghan government could stand then on that second bit of it, on the intelligence, you heard some of that from rubio, saying he saw intelligence, there was clearly intelligence that indicated the afghan government could collapse as fast as it did.

pressing blinken on that. from democrat, you've seen a little cover provided to the administration on the pullout itself and chris murphy, one of the senator on the panel discuss, the extraordinary success of an air lift operation that did evacuate more than 130,000 people. now the questioning continues. rand paul questioning now. want to perhaps in fact i think the only republican on this panel who supported the idea of withdrawing from afghanistan. so we'll see what more we learn as the afternoon continues. >> and admiral, having read the troops and knowing so much about what the ground truth is, you can understand the frustration on all sides over a 20-year war and goals not being met. what is your assessment of the way the questions are being asked and the issues being raised? >> i think he's got it right which is to say that it's different tonal environment in the senate having testified

dozens of times over the years. it's a very different structure. but in both cases, these are hard questions and secretary of state blinken, who i know well, very smooth, very capable, very study in a situation like this, but boy, he's got a tough hand of cards and he's got, andrea, three big things he's got to be able to respond to. tactically, the real question is how are we going to get the rest of the people out of here? american citizens. green card holders. and of course our at-risk afghans. we'll hear more from matt in a moment. operationally, he's got to be able to answer what's the intelligence capability here? how are we going to know whether this new taliban is going to jump back into a deep relationship with al-qaeda? then thirdly, he's got a strategic challenge which a number of senators have raised

amount. american credibility in the wake of this. and are our allies going to have confidence in us going forward. tough hand of cards. i don't envy blinken. he's doing the best he can. >> he's a former staff member of this very committee when joe biden was the chairman. so he knows the senate so well. they know him so well. and i think there's probably a lot of sympathy for him for the hand that has been dealt. matt, you've been part of this military veterans coalition, this informal group that's come together. your organization leading the way in many cases, to try to get our afghan allies out. how is that working? >> unfortunately, we're not seeing any movement. in you're an afghan and not an american citizen, you don't have the able the ability to get out of afghanistan. there's a lot of questions before us. in the taliban government is not

recognized by the united states, will we accept passports issued by that government? who are the taliban going to allow the get passports for international travel is a question of great concern for us. the gentlemen currently in charge of their ministry of interior has a $5 million bounty on his head as one of the world most wanted terrorists. there's a lot of things our government is going to have to figure out going forward if we're going to try to get these afghans left behind and we still don't have a proper accounting of how many people have been left behind. our organization has done our best to try to come up with it. we're claiming it's at least 175,000 people, but we don't know where they all are in afghanistan and we don't know how many we got out in the first place which is why i've been most interested in can you give us facts and figures. after seeing two days of these

hearings, i'm convinced now more than ever is that we need a 9/11 still commission. there's too much to investigate. if you think about the numbers in congress, it's ten. five in each chamber. the armed services committees, foreign affair, foreign relations pertaining to which ever chamber you're talking about. the homeland security committees. the intelligence committees and the believe it or not, judiciary committees, which have jurisdiction over matters of immigration. this is going to get too unwieldly too quickly. what we need to do now is responsibly investigate everything that went wrong. from the failure of the siv program, which goes back multiple administrations to why did the afghanistan government collapse as quickly as it did given 20 years of training of which i was a part of.

we need to investigate the entirety of all the decisions made during the evacuation itself just from the months of july to august and we need to investigate why it was that the biden administration failed to heed so many warnings and begin that evacuation months ago. but to do that effectively, we're going to need the white house to own this and to call for that commission because i fear if we don't, what's going to happen is this is going to turn in kabuki theatre. we're not going to get to the bottom of what transpired and most importantly, we'll then never get to legislation that's needed to prevent this from ever happening again. veterans are more politically organized than we've ever been in our nation's history. this is going to be our issue for us. we want to ensure this never happens again at the end of another war and i think the best way we can do that is for what we're going to be calling the afghan commission and i'm hoping congress and the white house

will support its creation. >> matt, very interesting proposal given the history of trying to get a bipartisan committee, no less a commission, on january 6th, but i hear you. especially the jurisdictional questions. thanks to you, max. thanks, garrett. i know you've got to go back to covering the hearing. admiral, we're getting breaking news now. we're learning the first time that general mark milley called his chinese counterpart after the election and january 6th to try to avert an armed conflict because he was so worried that president trump might start a war with china or that china might misinterpret what his actions were because of his rhetoric. this comes from a new book and the end of the trump presidency and the beginning of the biden administration. written by bob woodward and robert costa. joining us now, phil rucker for the "washington post," also author of i'll fix it and michael schmidt, washington correspondent for the "new york

times." still with us, former nato supreme ally commander. michael, i think you have a copy of the book. supposed to come out next week. there you go. always on top of everything. let's talk about the book. it's credible from my reporting that general milley and i believe secretary of state and others in the government, a very small group, had as the election and the aftermath of the election and certainly after january 6th, got together and agreed they would counterman, if you would, any national security orders that came from the commander in chief because his, what they believed to be his instability. these are specifics though in the book. take it from there about this extraordinary calls with the chinese counterpart of our chairman of the joint chiefs. >> so milley was concerned about two things. one of them was in october of

2020. where u.s. intelligence showed that the chinese thought that trump to try to stay in office, to make himself the hero, may launch an attack on the chinese and milley knew that was not true and he had built a relationship with his chinese counterpart and he called them on this secret line to reassure him. now, what happens then is that on january 8th, obviously two days after january 6th, milley is again confronting his fears and fears about how the country could spiral and what could happen and what could happen with china. he knows that china is watching what's going on. he gets back on the phone with his counterpart and the counterpart has all these questions. like, you know, is the united states democracy falling apart? it certainly looked like that. was the united states military going to be taking any action? was there something up?

what was going on? and milley, who was dismayed by what happened on january 6th, says democracy is sloppy, things are under control, everything is okay. took an hour and a half to have this conversation, but even after it, milley didn't feel totally great about things. it's in the aftermath of that he sits down with commanders at the pentagon and goes over with them procedures of how a nuclear weapon can be used and he makes sure and goes over with them that the president of the united states has to be the person that orders it and that milley has to be on the call and has to be a part of it and sort of reading between the lines on what they say in the book, it seemed like milley was afraid that trump may tell someone to do something and they may try and move forward with an unlawful order to use one of these weapons. so these are the extraordinary

measures that milley went to to try and stop what was obviously an unbound president in the final days of his administration. >> and we should point out that this is after there had been when esper was replaced by miller, who was really part of the trump world of the white house, there were others who were put in place in the civilian positions in the pentagon who we saw on january 6th and there after, who were not following what would have been normal procedure in terms of the national guard deployment. that had to be also part of that calculation. from my past reporting about where the military side of the pentagon was. >> that's important context, andrea, because milley, throughout this period after the election was concerned about trump loyalists gaining power in the pentagon but also

potentially at the fbi and at the cia. remember there were those plots underway to try to remove christopher rey. this never ended up happening, but trump and his other hard line loyalists, political allies, wanted to see more loyal figures leading those law enforcement agencies, which all fed a fear that milley had and that others in the joint chiefs of staff shared, that there could potentially be a coup a foot. that the president could try to use his power as commander in chief to stay in office despite having lost the election. so that's the broader backdrop in context for why milley was so concerned about why his calls to his chinese counterpart were so important. >> admiral, you know so much about the chain of command, the military ism from china, which

was the context of the rhetoric coming from president trump and this larger issue of whether or not there would be a peaceful transfer of power. >> yeah. i haven't obviously read the book yet. i will look forward to doing so. he's always very well sourced and it all rings very plausibly. especially in the eyes of those overseas. in other words, if you're chinese or russian or iranian or north korean and you see the events of the 6th of january and you are awash in intelligence reporting, this all lines up to look like a coup. and so i think general milley was, if this is all reported accurately, in the right place to gather his very senior officers and simply walk through the procedures. this is what we do. we don't obey illegal orders.

this is how the chain of command operates. and then i think he was also within his ream to call his counterparts in china. perhaps in russia. who knows. when i was supreme ally commander of nato, i would call the supreme commander of the russian armed forces to defuse. but really, what you're trying to do is help the other side keep it in perspective in a way that will avoid some kind of an incident that could lead to the nation's really stumbling into, let's face it, a very serious conflict. i don't envy mark milley those days and i think i know him well. he was one of my generals. >> and we know bob woodward from his background. he was in the service, the navy, and he's always had extraordinary access to our military and intelligence community in all the books.

i've known this fact and we've all lived with it and admired a lot of the reporting over the course of four decades that i know of. probably longer than that, mike. >> no, i think that you know, woodward had experiences earlier in his career when he was in the navy on a aircraft carrier that was basically a place, you know, a safe haven place for the president to go if there was a problem and he dealt with issues related to major national security. procedures and questions at the time. the other thing about the book that struck me was some of the reporting about pence because the book depicts pence as much more mealy mouthed about january 6th than we thought he was. basically, you know, certainly my understanding, i think many people's understanding and certainly the way that the pence

people have crafted this is that pence was you know, went out and did this thing on january 6th and did the right thing. the book shows that pence took a pretty -- path to get there. there's a stark exchange pence has in late december with dan quyale, the former vice president, in which pence is asking him about the certification of the election. he did this in 1993 when bill clinton was elected and pence is asking him about this. he says, look, trump really wants me to do something extreme here and they say i have this power and dan quyale was like, knocking this down and saying absolutely not. you cannot do anything. you have to follow this. and pence is saying well, is there any way that i could delay in? then pence says look, you know, he said there are these problems

with voter questions in arizona and quyale says hey, i'm in arizona. no problems with the election results here. it just shows you that pence was either struggling deeply to deal with the pressure he was facing from trump or he was more open to this or whatever it was, but it is a very, very stark picture of these days and what mike pence was under. >> wow. dan quyale comes to the rescue of the republic. phil, you've got great sources in your book. general milley obviously played add major role, character in all that you wrote. this all rings true. it certainly rings true from what i has been told about the group of national security officials who were determined after january 6th in particular not to let anything happen, which would disturb, you know,

which would cause more disturb the international relationships. >> it absolutely rings true and fits a pattern of behavior, of concern, of action on the part of general milley in those pretty harrowing months after the election as they watched a president who to his eyes and to the eyes of many of the generals at the pentagon, who was increasingly unstable and willing to do anything to hold on to power. it fits the pattern that's been established in some of the earlier reporting. >> another bob woodward book. this time with robert costa as his co-author. we're eager to see the details. thanks for this early glimpse of it. to phil and to the admiral for the context that is invaluable to us and of course, the incredible michael schmidt. coming up, what the pfizer

ceo is saying today about vaccinations for kids. you're going to want to watch this. you're watching "andrea mitchell reports" on msnbc. re watching "l reports" on msnbc. by rootmetrics. and our customers rated us #1 for network quality in america according to j.d. power. number one in reliability, 16 times in a row. most awarded for network quality, 27 times in a row. proving once again that nobody builds networks like verizon. that's why we're building 5g right, that's why there's only one best network. lighting from $25. go ahead, shine your brightest! home there's no place like it. life... doesn't stop for diabetes. be ready for every moment, with glucerna. it's the number one doctor recommended brand that's

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the effort to vaccinate america's children. this morning, the ceo of pfizer saying his company is going to file for emergency use authorization in early october for emergency use in kids ages 5 to 11 years old. this as the number of covid cases has been skyrocketing with the new school year and in-classroom learning getting underway across the country, new data show that children accounted for nearly a third of all cases last week. you're at a public school where

masks are not required unlike where at a nearby charter school. what are you hearing about the contrast there in that community? >> that's right, andrea. to be clear, the reopening plan for this school district explicitly says that masks are not required but after a contentious board meeting last night, that's been updated to say that masks are strongly encouraged, but still, not required. that just underscores the divide that you have in the community where there's a resistance to masking, but you have medical officials pleading to folks. they're converting hospital hallways, classrooms, into additional bed space for patients. they're completely overrun. now what you have here in the community is somewhat of a divide because there are outliars. there's one charter school, a smaller school district, that has required masks. i spoke to the principal. listen to what he told me about why he eventually made it.

>> that's our main goal is we want to keep kids in school as much possible. current recommendations from the health department if kids are masked when in school and somebody tested positive, nobody else has to quarantine. >> and you get a little bit of a sample here because while they're in their third week of class, they have had two cases of students testing positive with the virus, but only those two students had to quarantine and leave class even after they did contact tracing because of those masks. you compare it with the public school district, they're in their second week and so far, 188 students are quarantined after testing positive or having close contact with someone who tested positive and they're not doing contact tracing. so you see the divide clearly with the masks. >> absolutely. doctor, what's your reaction to the pfizer announcement about filing for emergency use? >> this is good news. we know that there's a lot of eagerness to get children

vaccinated and we want that age group of 5 to 11 to have access as they're in school and there are some high risk children that would benefit from vaccine. so i think overall this is a good measure and is something we're going to likely get emergency use authorization perhaps before halloween. i think what we'll find is that the risk is going to be outweighed by the benefit of the vaccine for these children and we could have it as a less disruptive force on their lives. >> i want to ask you about that dispute over the two top fda scientists who left apparently because of the booster and the way they didn't like the messaging coming out of the white house about the third shot. and they've written in lan set that they think that introducing a third shot is too soon, you know, for the general population. not for those who are immune challenged. let's listen to what dr. fauci

had to say about this today to willie geist on "morning joe." >> that's a controversial article that i disagree mostly with. there are a couple of aspects that get conflated. nothing is going to get done until they make a determination from a regulatory standpoint of should we be given the boosters. myself as a scientist who have seen some of the data, i believe when you look at that data carefully, there's going to be a decision to actually give the boost as opposed to not giving it. >> doctor, what's your reaction to the article on this dispute? >> i tend to agree with what the article stated. we haven't seen strong data that healthy people need to get a booster because the vaccines are holding up to what matters. serious disease, hospitalization and death. none of us have actually seen

that and it needs to be something that's discussed and should have been something announced at the white house. this should have been something that went through the normal channels we do when we make a new vaccine policy recommendation. it's kind of happening in opposite order and there may be a time we need boosters. and it's important to be proactive about them. but i don't think eight month, six months or september 20th is the proper time. elderly patient, nursing home, there's a different discussion to be had there. >> thank you very much for that. not a dispute that's going to go away very soon. thanks to you and you, doctor. in california, 40 million voters have the future of governor newsom in their hands. there's a lot of mail-in balloting, so a lot of people have voted. it's a decision with national

stakes made clear when president biden stumped for him in the final hours last night. the president drew a pitch between larry elder and donald trump. >> this year, the lead republican running for governor is a closest thing to a trump clone that i've ever seen in your state. can you imagine him being governor of this state? >> no! >> you can't let that happen. >> joining me now, nbc's jake ward in huntington beach and steve patterson in sacramento, where the governor will be tonight when these returns come in. jake, you're in orange county where supporters will be relying on big republican area, big population area. how's the turnout seem to be? what can you tell based on mail-in voting?

>> you know when you think about california politics, you think of course about progressive politics, right? it's famous for a reputation for antiwar protests and progressive environmental policies. well this is not that california. this is orange county. referred to sometimes as the orange curtain as you cross from l.a. county to orange county. republicans outnumber democrats in this particular place and in a way you don't see in the rest of california. california's republican strongholds in the past have been rural places. this is an urban republican stronghold. very unusual in california. we're seeing turnout already at polling places in huntington beach of over 30% and in the people we have spoken to, there's a deep sentiment that taxes are too high, the state and country are going in the wrong direction and larry elder's name is on everyone's lips. have a listen to the sentiment. >> i think it's time we stand up

and just make our politics realize they can't be overstepping and failing to represent us. >> we're either going to have a place for decent people or we're not and the way california's going, it's less and less a place for decent people. >> so while the newsom campaign is confident, standing here speaking to people, there's the sense everywhere that the recall is very much what people want in this part of california. >> and steve, what about the question of turnout where you are in sacramento? >> well, look, i'm in a very heavily minority mixed black latino community within city limits. of course this area may skew democratic and of course democratic officials have been worried about an enthusiasm gap in a place like this. we haven't seen it here. you can take a look, you may not be able to see it based upon there's no big line that's coming out the door, but that's

because a lot of people as jacob mentioned, you know, got their mail-in ballots. the entire electorate did. most people opting instead of going inside to one of those machines, they're coming here to this pink lunchbox looking thing. as far as what voters are saying, people saying they want to keep governor newsom. also a significant amount of people want to recall the governor. that includes black and latino people, saying they're not happy with the state of the state. here's the reaction we heard from voters. listen. >> i think it's important to vote because i think that california needs balance and we haven't had that for more than a decade plus. >> i voted yes. >> okay. why yes? >> i don't like the direction california's going. >> i vote for gavin. he's helped us a lot and you know, all he's trying to do is to you know, help us to beat

this virus. >> as for the people that voted no, they don't want to recall the governor, i have to say most of those people weren't voting because they necessarily love h scared of the alternative on the other side, scared of policies larry elder may bring to the governor's office. >> and larry elder is so close to trump, not indicating in an interview with jacob soboroff, not indicating he would live with the results of it. back in that world where people don't believe the election is the election. thanks to you both. we'll be tracking it here on msnbc. secretary of state blinken being questioned by the senate foreign relations committee about the withdrawal from afghanistan. today, the taliban is tightening its grip. the u.n. warns basic services are close to collapse.

amid the poverty rate, there's hunger, million afghan children risk of starvation before the winter, girls returning to class in a number of places including the university in kabul. teachers say just 10% of the students are showing up, many scared off by the taliban. many that simply left the country. richard engle spoke to a 20-year-old who is studying international relations with hopes of someday becoming an ambassador, but she's beginning to lose all hope for her future. >> in my opinion, no future because they don't allow females to get education. sometimes, it is so hard. everything was not good. >> so why are you crying now? >> our country is done.

you know it. >> that was so affecting richard engle, joining us now from kabul. richard, the u.s. pledges $64 million a day, but the situation is growing so dire there and the humanitarian workers, u.n. workers and other aid groups are on the frontlines now. how is the taliban letting that aid get through? you know there's going to be an outcry in the u.s. if u.s. money is going directly to the taliban. >> reporter: so there's an economic collapse and as you saw in that little clip, there's an emotional collapse. there is a generation of people, that young woman is 20 years old, her entire life grew up under, spent her entire life under american protection. nato forces were here. that university was the first private university to open up in this country. they spent $20 million to build that campus. boys and girls studied together

in the same classroom. boyfriends, girlfriends. perhaps not on the same scale as many western countries but there were social interactions, fun place to go. they described it was like a family. now 10% of the students went, boys and girls are going on alternate days and they're waiting for the other shoe to drop which is the new curriculum. i spoke to teachers there who are very worried they're not going to be allowed to teach what they want to teach, that the education ministry which is run by the taliban are going to not only impose a new curriculum or certain standards to be met but they have personnel on campus making sure the rules are abided by and that there are not any violations. i was talking to the teachers. how are you going to teach science, how are you going to teach the human body. can you show anatomical maps.

about 14 universities are already putting their campus up for sale. there's an emotional collapse. and then there's the financial situation here. there's not money in circulation. if you go to the bank, you need to get an appointment three days in advance, then with that appointment three days in advance you can only take out $200 per time. doesn't matter how much you have. $200 per time. and if you have a corporate account, you are not allowed to take money out at all. on the streets, in the shops. people don't have money in their pockets, money to buy basic services. people are selling contents of their homes if they can find buyers for them. then there was that dire warning from the u.n. as winter comes on and winters in this country are extremely harsh that a million children could die or face severe malnutrition, starvation.

how do you get aid money in? it is not the people of afghanistan's fault the taliban took over as u.s. troops pulled out. they were dependent on foreign aid before. so there's talk of trying to get a work around, paying the u.n. directly, going through third countries, but at the end of the day they're going to have to be working with the taliban to distribute that aid. there's just no other way around it. >> richard engle, it is so heartbreaking. by the way, one of the things we learned from the hearings, richard, will interest you, i don't know what you're picking up on the ground, there have been small numbers of people that have gotten out over land, we thought to pakistan, that was at least a guess. apparently it was uzbekistan helping people get out with u.s. diplomats on the other side of the border, not so much pakistan. but to be continued as people continue to press to try to get

out. yes, richard? >> reporter: i thought that was a statement. yes, the road to pakistan is quite dangerous. there's been some banditry, people are being advised not to go there but to go north instead. but the big question is when the airports will open up. the airport is functional. aid flights and diplomatic envoys have been able to come in and out of that airport but there are still disputes over who is going to run it, who is going to be in charge, who will control the security, and for now, the airport is not open regularly for commercial flights to allow afghans to leave. once that happens, i think people will feel somewhat more relaxed, although it doesn't change the reality their country has been taken over by the taliban. >> and of course thanks to richard. watch richard sunday with on assignment, see the war through the eyes of an enlisted soldier and afghan people after facing

freedom face an uncertain future. this sunday at 10:00 eastern on msnbc. that does it for us. this edition of "andrea mitchell reports." follow us online. chuck todd is next with "mtp daily" only on msnbc. on msnbc cor to treat her frequent heartburn... claire could only imagine enjoying chocolate cake. now, she can have her cake and eat it too. nexium 24hr stops acid before it starts for all-day, all-night protection. can you imagine 24 hours without heartburn? (vo) at t-mobile for business, unconventional thinking means we see things differently, so you can focus on what matters most. whether it's ensuring food arrives as fresh as when it departs. being first on the scene, when every second counts. or teaching biology without a lab. we are the leader in 5g. #1 in customer satisfaction. and a partner who includes 5g in every plan, so you get it all. without trade-offs. unconventional thinking. it's better for business. ♪ ♪

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if it's tuesday, it is more than election day in california. it is a warning for democracy as voters cast their ballots in the state's recall election involving gavin newsom. republicans are pushing baseless voter fraud claims before the votes are counted. secretary of state antony blinken being grilled on afghanistan in front of the senate foreign relations committee. i speak with the committee's chairman along with reporting from the top military official worried trump may start a war with china as a last ditch effort to stay in office. and reports