peter baker: yeah. i think that's the cold calculation at the white house which is that basically as long as they get americans out, that america -- americans would be back at home won't care about whatever happens in afghanistan from now on. that this will fade. these pictures will be unpleasant for a few days. but basically they'll go away and americans will by the time they come back to the polls won't be voting on foreign policy because there won't be any american stake seen in afghanistan. and they have a point about that. i looked through front pages of newspapers across the country. in the last couple of days. and while this is obviously getting big play in the national media and the national networks, papers and cities like phoenix and fresno and austin, they weren't putting this on the front page anymore. so you can make the argument that's what they're making is that americans won't mind the fact that there was this chaotic messy departure. but there's also another argument. the other argument

and with that let's bring in our lead off guest on this wednesday night, peter baker, veteran journalist and author who is chief white house correspondent for the new york times, the aforementioned katie benner, justice department reporter, also with the times, she broke tonight's news about the former presidents attempts to subvert the election results. also back with us tonight michael osterholm, the director of the center for infectious disease, research and policy, university of minnesota. he was also a covid adviser to the biden transition team back then. michael, indeed, because of the news tonight, i would like to begin with you. during the simpler days of our single strain, uncontrolled pandemic, we made it a habit on this broadcast of asking you what inning we were in in the fight. those were the days before vaccines. i'm tempted to ask tonight, have they added on innings in the game or do we find ourselves, perhaps, in game one of a doubleheader? >> well, i guess i would take it a slightly different direction, brian, i gave up on innings and i am now in quarters, which minute o

just didn't have the kind of penetration despite 20 years of our presence that people hoped when peter baker others landed those first days. >> we have heard from the president in recent days, most specifically, peter, after the deaths of those 13 americans. what do you think that we might expect to hear from the president tomorrow? are you surprised, for example -- he put out a statement today and mentioned those 13 service members who were lost at the end of it. but were you surprised he didn't have something to say today? >> well, i mean, it is a little surprising in a way. it is the end of a 20-year war. usually you hear from a president. if we hear from him tomorrow, i don't think that matters a great deal in terms of timing. i think what he will probably say is, you know, to defend his decision to get out. the points he made now is that he promised this. his predecessor promised this as well, this deal he made with the taliban and something most americans want. it is a conclusion people have come to after 20 years of war, that it is time to get out. what i will be interesting to hear h

joining me is capitol hill correspondent, leigh ann caldwell and peter baker.you've had endless hours waiting with basically nothing happening because of bill haggerty from tennessee. but now we're about to get to final debate and a vote. >> reporter: that's right, andrea. this first track that senator schumer just mentioned regarding the bipartisan infrastructure bill, well, that train is about to reach its destination in the senate, regardless of the fact that senator bill haggerty slowed down this process for several days. he wasn't able to stop it, but just make it painfully longer. the senate could vote on final passage as early as 4:00 a.m. tomorrow morning. well, actually, i should back up. they could vote as early as today if senator haggerty and others allow them to do so, but time runs out on the clock at 4:00 a.m. tuesday morning when they can vote on this final passage. if they have an agreement, it could actually be in the daylight hours tomorrow as well. immediately after, they are going to move to this $3.5 trillion resolution, which is the first

peter baker, andrea mitchell, general mccaffrey.nk you for starting us off. >>> the unchartered waters we enter. the potential long-term consequences of the fall of afghanistan, the rise of the taliban. >>> later, what to make of this breaking news tonight about the booster shots even if the problem with this variant is the americans who refuse to get their first shot. all of it as the 11th hour is just getting under way on this back-to-work monday night. back-to-work monday night. or at least your 2021 version of what normal should be. and no matter what that is, walgreens is here to help you do it your way. with delivery in as little as one hour. because now... things come to you. same day vaccination appointments. because you're ready. and walgreens cash rewards you can donate back to your community. the new normal? have to admit, it does have its upside. walgreens. [sfx: radio being tuned] welcome to allstate. ♪ [band plays] ♪ a place where everyone lives life well-protected. ♪♪ and even when things go a bit wrong, we've got you

peter baker final question. the optics around joe biden, at camp david this weekend, we're not great. largely because there was no one around joe biden, at camp david this weekend. did they realize, in a slow rolling, way that he absolutely had to speak today. ? >> yes i think they did. i think camp david is a fully operational facility for any president. he can accomplish anything from -- but as a visual, the idea of the president just sitting there by himself, looking at a screen, while all of this is going on, is not the image the, white house wanted not the image that helps the way house in any way, so he came back to the white house to give his speech. but then turned around to impacts at camp david. i think the allowed a lot of questions to be raised about what he's doing at a time that's perilous events, not only endangering afghans, but as the general, said endangering americans to. this story is not yet over, and we have not necessarily seen the worst of. it the worst can be seen to, come in terms of am

and peter baker, chief white house correspondent for "the new york times" and msnbc political analyst. ravi, i want to start with you on this one. i am sure you were listening to my interview with the u.s. congressman and he talked about the timing of the withdrawal and how even the timing of the withdrawal was not exactly en pointe in addition to obviously the plan for this withdrawal. >> yeah, that's right. thank you for having me. that was an op-ed he wrote in "foreign policy" my magazine. he is right. there are many criticisms one could level at president biden right now about the way that the withdrawal took place but i think the one that sticks most is the timing is sort of the botched sense of the intelligence gathering, or at least listening to the intelligence that was coming in at various points. but the point that, you know, were this withdrawal to take place during the winter season when the taliban would be less likely to be mobile, that's very hard to disagree with. so it seems in that sense that there is some merit at least to the theory that this could have waited, and

with me now is peter baker, a reporter for "new york times," and also an msnbc analyst. tone earlier on "morning joe", but to me the biggest surprise has been the president's tone during everybody else. during the campaign empathy was joe biden's super power, and we haven't heard that much. will we hear any of that later today? >> i think that's a great question, garrett. it's been surprising, one of the appeals joe biden brought to the contest last fall is he would feel your pain in a way that donald trump did, that trump was incapable of connecting to americans in pain, and biden made that -- you're right, he hasn't shown a lot of that this week. they won't be flying out of the airport kabul, and they'll be living with a new regime that doesn't tolerate women and girls playing any role in life, in fact already reported to be going house to house looking for people who have been, in their view, treasonous to the taliban and taking revenge. so you've already begun to see a new or risen life in afghanistan. you haven't heard the president talk about any of that. he's talk

. >>> let's bring in peter baker, correspondent from "the new york times."se numbers, i will ask adam, our director, to put them back up, the poll numbers, showing 61% don't think the war in afghanistan was worth fighting. as josh said, flip it, you have 25% approving of the way that biden is handling afghanistan. how do you interpret these numbers? >> the calculations the white house is making when it comes to simply politics, americans will eventually forget how messy it was and be glad that the president got out, right? that by the time weeks and months have gone by these images will have faded in the public consciousness and all they will remember is we're no longer stuck there. that's the calculation the white house is making. i think the risk for them politically is it cements an idea this is a president who isn't as effective as he promised to be. he promised to come into office as the president of confidence and compassion after a president who didn't seem to exude either. yet this episode is not, in fact, demonstrated that on his part. and so the qu

with that, we bring in our starting line on this wednesday night, peter baker, veteran journalist and author chief white house correspondent for the new york times. claire mccaskill, former democrat and senator for the great state of missouri. and john author and journalist of national affairs analyst, cohost and executive producer of circus on showtime. executive editor and a host of the podcast allen high-water. good evening and welcome to you all. peter, walk us through what some of the circumstances could be, to trigger the kind of alert that went out to americans remaining behind in kabul. >> you've heard the biden administration say, that they are concerned about a possible attack on the people who are gathered at the airport, by a branch of isis that exists in afghanistan. it's possible, i don't know this to be fact. but it gives the impression that the administration feels like there is an imminent, possible threat. [inaudible] as we attempt to get peter's comms hook backup, senator let me go to you. as a former member of senate armed services, give me a review if you would, f

that people had hoped, when peter baker and others landed on those first days. >> we've heard from the president in recent days. most specifically peter after the deaths of those 13 americans, what do you think we might expect to hear from the president tomorrow? are you surprised for example? you put out a statement today and mentioned those 13 service members who were lost at the end of it. but were you surprised that he did not have something to say today? >> it's a little surprising in, away at the end of a 20-year war, usually you hear from a president, but we will hear from him, tomorrow i don't think that that matters a great deal in terms of timing. i think what he will probably say, is, to defend once again his decision to get out. to make the points that have been made here right now. which is that this is something he promised in the campaign, trail it's something his predecessor promise that, we'll do the steal the taliban. it's something most americans want. it's the conclusion that a lot of people have come to over 20 years of, war that it was time for us to get out. what

democratic pollster cornell belcher, anne gearan, republican pollster kristen soltis anderson and peter baker, chief kpous correspondent for "the new york times." welcome to sunday, it's "meet the press." >> announcer: from nbc news in washington, the longest running show in television history, this is "meet the press" with chuck todd. >>> taliban forces seized control of the city of jalalabad without a fight overnight. they've now entered the capital city of kabul. they're negotiating with the government to take over the city without bloodshed. they're looking for unconditional surrender. president biden increased the number of troops he's sending to kabul to help evacuate americans and our allies, and the u.s. embassy evacuation has now begun in full. in just the past week, the taliban have overrun government forces, seizing control of roughly two dozen provincial capitals, often without a fight as the afghan army simply melts away. the peril for president biden is clear, he runs the risk of repeating the versailles gone in 1975 image he hoped to avoid. in a statement he said the troop with

so i will let the military speak to those operational details on the ground. >> peter baker has the nextresident, in the last few days, has been critical of president trump, has been critical of the afghan government that has fallen, the afghan security forces and the afghan civilians were responsible for the fact they did not evacuate sooner because they didn't want to leave, he's not been critical at least not much of the taliban. i wonder if you can talk about that? is that a calculation at this point that we're trying not to offend them while we're evacuating. they're going house to house, meeting protests with force, beating journalists in the streets, what does he have to say about the taliban? >> peter, i would say, of course, he does not condone that kind of behavior. but look, i think the most important thing in this moment right now is to get people out of the country who want to get out of the country. so we are working with the taliban to facilitate safe passage of people to the airport. we're focused on the logistical and operational pieces that are necessary right now to ge

leigh ann caldwell is on capitol hill and peter baker, of course, an msnbc political analyst. dent biden is about to make his first sales pitch on reconciliation, and many of seeing the price tag on this signature bill. so how is he going to sell this especially to those senate moderates and active moderates in the house, as we know, nancy pelosi only has a three-seat margin. >> exactly right. you know, basically, president biden has lumped his entire domestic agenda practically into this one package. it's as if we're doing the entire society with one bill. and doing it, as you point out correctly. climate, immigration, medicare. universal pre-k. community college for free. all of these big priorities wrapped into one. very big, expensive package. back to this sort of kind of defining debate that washington used to have over the size and scale of government. right? very, very familiar, those of us who covered this going back decades, democrats advocate for a more robust view and republicans say tax and spending gone amok. the problem for president biden, barely a margin in the

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

, but as you can imagine we begin this hour in afghanistan, and here to start things off for us peter baker, "new york times" white house correspondent and an msnbc political analyst. we should note that peter was also first american newspaper journalist to report from afghanistan after 9/11. kevin barren is with us, the executive editor of defense. great to have you both with us. peter, let's start with you about what we know in terms of this briefing we're about to get. what should we expect to hear from lloyd austin and mark milley? >> well, i think you're going to hear them tell us that the situation is more under control than it has been 40 hours ago, that they have backed, you know, a relatively clear, crisp operation going in terms of evacuating more americans and afghans, burks of course, they will have to answer a lot of questions, questions about what they told the white house and when. what advice they gave. reports have come out, of course, that general milley and secretary austin warned president biden even before he made his decision to withdraw in april that there could be, y

and peter baker. admiral let me start with you.said this was perhaps not surprising except for the pace. what do you make of what's happening as we speak in afghan? >> that's a good summary, especially on friday the 13th. it is a bad day for the government in kabul. staying with the baseball theme it feels like the ninth inning. think kandahar that's like los angeles falling. herat, that's chicago. these are big cities, big population centers. so i think you categorize it about right, willie, which is to say many of us were predicting this would happen but the speed is quite remarkable. and you have to ask yourself why? why this collapse? considering we had trained the afghans, we had supplied them with superb equipment. they really had the tools to defend and they might still be able to put a perimeter around kabul but that looks doubtful. deployment of the u.s. troops is good. we want to avoid a complete collapse and saigon moment. we can avoid that. moving the troops in makes sense to me. but this administration appears quite cl

joining me is peter baker, chief white house correspondent for "the new york times," who is the first american journalist in american after 9/11, and john brannen, former director of the cia and obama administration. director brannen, was there an intelligence failure here, military intelligence? does it appear that the biden administration was caught off guard? were they listening and was the president determined to follow his game plan of withdrawing? >> well, they clearly were caught off guard by the events over the last 72 hours and the resurgence of u.s. military forces into the airport to secure the evacuation of our military and civilian personnel. the u.s. military, along with the u.s. contractors and american intelligence officers, have been the bloodstream that have sustained the afghan military and security forces for many, many years. with the abrupt severing of that bloodstream, it's clear that the afghan forces were not up to the task and then compounded by, i think, the psycholithdraw in a rapid way. so i don't know what the intelligence assessments were that went to th

mckenzie said, combatting isis-k, we can reduce the terror threat coming out of the region. >> peter baker, now that the planes have left, we are told that diplomats takeover and there will be a consular presence in doha. of course, we have ambassadors and other officials in pakistan across the border, but we also don't have a large presence in some of the other surrounding countries and obviously iran, no presence there. here is a picture that secretary blinken tweeted within the hour of the final picture of the diplomatic or last consular, people led by ambassador wilson with the american flag that's been folded up from the embassy as it's relocating to doha. it's hardly an embassy in doha. it's 1200 miles away. >> yeah. that's exactly right. you mentioned i was in afghanistan shortly after 9/11 and we went into kabul after the taliban fell i went to visit the american embassy there which had been abandoned during the previous taliban regime, and it was a broken down, decrepit site, but there had been a taliban -- not taliban, an afghan security guard who had been guarding it for years s

msnbc military analyst and former national security counsel member, general barry mccaffrey, and peter baker, msnbc political analyst and chief white house correspondent for "the new york times." and peter, you were the first american newspaper journalist to report from the rebel-held northern afghanistan area after 9/11. you spent the next eight months covering the overthrow of the taliban, the emergence of a new government. what do you make of what's happening now and how it compared to 20 years ago? >> it's striking. when i landed in september of 2001, shortly after 9/11, to report from there, what we found was a country controlled by one of the most treacherous and vicious regimes the modern world has seen. now, here we are heading to the 20th anniversary of 9/11 and basically it's going to be that all over again. the people who are rightfully questioning what we have accomplished in 20 years, you know, the people who are going to suffer are the afghans because they're the ones who will be left behind. they're seeing in taliban controlled territory the beginnings of the same kind of thin

peter baker and john hudson, thank you both. >>> still ahead on "morning joe."ho shot and killed a woman during the january 6th insurrection, explains for the first time why he opened fire. >>> we continue to follow the aftermath of the attack in kabul. the flag at the white house is flying at half staff honoring the 13 service members killed. you're watching "morning joe" we'll be right back. >>> jill and i, our hearts ache for all those afghan families who lost loved ones, including small children, or who were wounded in this vicious attack. and we're outraged as well as heart broken. being the father of an army major who served for a year in iraq and before that was in kosovo as a u.s. attorney for the better part of six months, when he came home after a year in iraq, he was diagnosed, like many, many coming home with an aggressive and lethal cancer of the brain. we lost. we have some sense, like many of you do, what the families of these brave heroes are feeling today. you get this feeling like you're being sucked into a black hole in the middle of your ches

the times of james baker the third period it's written by here times white house correspondent peter baker wife susan glasser is a staff writer for the new yorker. i know you fully cooperated the research and setting up the interviews. you did not have any editorial control over the final product. i'm sure you have read it. what is it like to reaead a biography of yourself published by doubleday with huge reviews in the new york journal and wall street times, what did you think about the book and its presentation of your life? >> of course i was a little apprehensive. i am a conservative republican and that new yorker and the "new york times" are not cessarily conservative publications. but i determined there really wasn't anything out there for me too hide. so i gave them everything. i gave them boxes, files of correspondence from years ago with my parents and my sibling, my sister and others. i just said have added, i was not particular worried. was i a little bit apprehensive about what conclusions they might come to? you bet i was. are there some conclusions in the book that i would te

the life and times of james baker the third written by new york times white house correspondent peter baker and his wife susan glasser, staff writer for the new yorker. i know that you fully cooperated with peter and susan in the research and setting up the interviews but you did not have any editorial control over the final product. what is it like to read a biography of your self published by doubleday and reviews in the new york times and the wall street journal. what did you think of the book and its presentation of your life? >> i was a little apprehensive because as a conservative republican the new yorker and the new york times are not necessarily conservative publications but i determined there wasn't anything for me to hide. i gave them everything, boxes, files of correspondence from years ago with my parents and my sib, my sister and others and i said have added because i was not particularly worried. was i a little apprehensive about what conclusions they might come to? you bet i was. i their conclusions in the book that i would tend to disagree with, you bet there are. do i thin

peter baker, claire mccaskill, and john heilemann join us. good evening and welcome to you all. peter, walk us through what some of the circumstances could be to trigger the kind of alert that went out to americans remaining behind in kabul. >> well, you've heard the biden administration and the president himself say that they're concerned about possible attacks on the people who are gathered at the airport by a branch of isis that exists in afghanistan, right? and it's possible, i don't know this to be a fact, but the alert certainly gives the impression that the administration feels like there's an imminent possible threat. >> as we attempt to get peter's comms hooked back up, senator, give me the review, if you would, from your standpoint of of the evacuation as it's progressing right now, and also your review of the two members of congress two took it upon themselves to inspect the evacuation effort. >> i think we have to realize that i'm not sure there are very many countries that could have airlifted almost 100,000 people out of afghanistan. remember what a small percentage

it's written by new york times white house correspondent peter baker and his wife. susan glasser who's the staff writer for the new yorker? and i know that you fully cooperated with peter and susan in the in the research and the setting up the interviews. but you did not have any editorial control over the final product. so i'm sure you've read it. what's it like to read the biography of yourself? published by doubleday and huge reviews and wall street journal to new york times. what did you think of the book and its presentation of your life? well, of course, i was i was a little apprehensive because i am a conservative republican and and the new yorker and the new york times are not necessarily conservative publications. but i determined that that there really wasn't anything out there for me to hide so i gave them everything i gave them boxes files of correspondence you from years ago with my parents and with my sib? my sister and others and and i just said have had it because i was not really particularly worried was i a little bit apprehensive about what what c

peter baker with "the new york times" and greg myri, he was one of the first reporters to interview members by today and observing and writing about u.s. presidents. if you take the first remark, the first ten minutes, i don't think we have ever seen a tour of the range of emotions of a chief executive quite as kaleidoscoically as we saw them there. he called them the best of america, seconds later, we'll not forgive, or forget. we'll hunt you down and make you pay. we saw remarks that went from genuine and deep empathy to a promise of overwhelming violence and overwhelming retribution. i am curious to get your thoughts on it. >> he said what you expect a commander in chief to say. you have to combine the empathy and the humanity of the tragedy that's be fallen on our own troops there and demonstrate the results. the question of course is going to be not the words he said today but the actions he takes in the days and weeks to come. can he fulfill the vow he has made to respond to people who did this in a way that you know has a mark of credibility. it has been a very difficult few weeks al

as i bring in peter baker, chief white house correspondent for "the new york times" to the conversation it's been stated several times this is something that president biden never wanted to have to do presiding over these 13 service members in this dignified transfer. what comes next for this president? there's been numerous out cries on what should be done next. there's monday morning quarterbacking going on. >> for a president, any president, this is one of the worst days of their time in office. this kind of ceremony or this kind of transfer, this kind of event just brings home the cost not just of war but the decisions any president makes. this is true from president george w. bush at the beginning of this long war. it was true for president obama and president trump as well there's nothing harder on a president. it's two days of enormous tension and danger as they complete te vakuation that the president said will end on tuesday. there's a warning there's going to be another attack like this one that we're seeing the results of in this picture at the kabul airport. that's complicat

i'm joined now by shannon pettypiece as well as peter baker, a chief white house correspondent for "the and an msnbc political analyst. we just have a few minutes here, but shannon, this felt like a speech this president has wanted to give for some time to kind of fully defend his decision and the way in which it's been handled. >> yeah, absolutely. it was a defiant tone and an address that went after some of the criticism that he has been facing in recent weeks head on. of course criticism not just from republicans but democrats as well. he said he refused to continue a war that was no longer in the service of the vital national security interests of the country. he said he was not going to extend these forever wars, he was not going to extend a forever exit. and he put some blame in pretty specific terms on his predecessors, former president president trump, saying that the status quo was no longer an option because the trump administration had reached an agreement with the taliban to be out of the country by may 1st, so he faced either the choice of sending in additional u.s. troops

we thank our guests, peter baker and greg mire. we'll be going live to jen psaki as the president departures from the east room heading back to the oval office. jen psaki will take many, many questions, the press corp will have for her. with that, our forecast with ari melber. >> thank you, we are giving you this continuous coverage on a difficult day in afghanistan as brian williams just mentioned we are here awaiting this briefing from the white house's press secretary. many questions there. you can see reporters already getting into position. we'll bring it to you live. here is the latest on what we know tonight. two suicidal bombers detonated themselves in kabul. the death toll is high. 12 u.s. service members and 15 other americans wounded according to the information we have at this hour. many afghans were killed but based on a security situation, we don't have an exact number on that at this moment. the first explosion was outside the airport in kabul and followed a gunman opening fire by civilians and military targets. isis

let's bring back in peter baker. it's not a ceremony. there's nothing ceremonious about this. it's the way the united states military honors their fallen before they release the bodies, the remains to families of those loved ones gathered there just outside of view. 13 families mourning the loss o of their loved ones now. heidi, you've been following the president as he was leaving the white house earlier today. is there a sense from within the white house about how heavily this is weighing on president joe biden and the first lady. >> i think it's fair to say incredibly, we're not just in a mourning phase but an active phase of angst awaiting whether we will get our people out without additional casualties. it's fair to say this president is in an immediate phase here where he has to figure out what the tactical strategy is for getting out our people without more casualties and whether it's going be on the same time frame we have given the american people which is tuesday given that we know, according to the most recent figures there's 250 american who is are still there. we

well listen to peter baker's reporting for the "new york times."nlike his predecessor, president biden saw no middle ground in afghanistan and to that caller's point about his military advisors. it says that in his reporting, he said critics consider that mr. biden's all in, all out framing is disingenuous r at the very at least unimaginative. even if not especially satisfying ones that may have ever led to outright victory. instead, some including the current military leadership -- at her briefing on friday, the white house press secretary said the only real choice was sending tens of thousands of americans to potentially lose their lives or getting out. mason in rochester, new york. mason, when did you serve in afghanistan? caller: i served off and on when the war first began, i was there in the military. but i served off and on since 2003 with my current company, harris corporation at rochester, new york. training afghan military in communication systems and i've worked hand in hand and trained some of our afghan national people that helped us t

politico white house reporter and playbook co-author eugene daniels and also with us correspondent peter bakerene, first and foremost, we know lives are at stake in kabul. but as a political issue, how big a challenge, how important are these next five days for the president? >> it is huge, right? because is this a president who one of the reasons that he is pulling out of afghanistan is because he wants to focus on domestic issues, he wants to focus on china, on russia. and so what this does political capital is basically everything in washington, d.c. so the less he has, the less he is able to get done here at home. we're already seeing some democratic lawmakers saying -- kind of going against the president here's needs them to pass the rest of his agenda. we're seeing him take a hit in the polls because you also have an entire pandemic that is starting to ramp up in a lot of places like you covered in your last block there. and i think those are the things that we're watching, right? covid and afghanistan are the reason that the president's poll numbers have been pulled down, but to be hone

may interrupt any of the guests to jump to it, joining me is new york times chief correspondent peter baker, msnbc military analyst, and medal of honor winner jacobs and jeff baker a columnist. now, i will begin with you, jeff, the article in the washington post writes about vietnam, and for president biden, who had hoped for an orderly u.s. withdrawal from afghanistan, the chaos in kabul carries echos of the fall of saigon in 1975. so do we have images of that same images of saigon? >> yes, it is fair. i thought this it would look the taliban overtaking in 1984 and 1985, and nothing like that at all. it is much, much faster than that, and it is like vietnam in 1975, and what the adminvation is really hoping to avoid a reprise of 1979 when in iran, the people in the embassy were captured an incarcerated for 440 days and the administration is trying desperately to avoid that, garrett. >> and the pentagon says that 2,448 u.s. troops have died since the start of the war, and the lives seem to be the cost of to keeping the taliban at bay. and today, thousands of american families who are watchi

host: let me share with you and our guests, peter baker from the new york times tweeted this morning even if the taliban continue to gain power, it would be at least a year and a half before kabul would be threatened." guest: if the intelligence was that bad, particularly when we had people on the ground in afghanistan, that is not good! i do think when all is said and done, retrospectively, we need to look back and review who was right, who was wrong, who told the truth, who told falsehoods. that will teach us lessons to avoid these mistakes in the future. if part of it was " we knew we had bad intelligence in iraq," if part of it was, the intelligence was that bad we need to know that. guest: i am sensing what yogi be ar-a -- this sounds so much like after vietnam and other disasters we have had. there is always finger-pointing and evaluating and questions of who is to blame, what went wrong. that is what we are starting to see happen now. the gentleman who called in who talked about hauling the generals up for account, there are others aside from the generals involved. the papers

host: let me share with you and our guests, peter baker from the new york times tweeted this morningven if the taliban continue to gain power, it would be at least a year and a half before kabul would be threatened." guest: if the intelligence was that bad, particularly when we had people on the ground in afghanistan, that is not good! i do think when all is said and done, retrospectively, we need to look back and review who was right, who was wrong, who told the truth, who told falsehoods. that will teach us lessons to avoid these mistakes in the future. if part of it was " we knew we had bad intelligence in iraq," if part of it was, the intelligence was that bad we need to know that. guest: i am sensing what yogi be ar-a -- this sounds so much like after vietnam and other disasters we have had. there is always finger-pointing and evaluating and questions of who is to blame, what went wrong. that is what we are starting to see happen now. the gentleman who called in who talked about hauling the generals up for account, there are others aside from the generals involved. the papers we

well listen to peter baker's reporting for the "new york times."nlike his predecessor, president biden saw no middle ground in afghanistan and to that caller's point about his military advisors. it says that in his reporting, he said critics consider that mr. biden's all in, all out framing is disingenuous r at the very at least unimaginative. even if not especially satisfying ones that may have ever led to outright victory. instead, some including the current military leadership -- at her briefing on friday, the white house press secretary said the only real choice was sending tens of thousands of americans to potentially lose their lives or getting out. mason in rochester, new york. mason, when did you serve in afghanistan? caller: i served off and on when the war first began, i was there in the military. but i served off and on since 2003 with my current company, harris corporation at rochester, new york. training afghan military in communication systems and i've worked hand in hand and trained some of our afghan national people that helped us t