national security establishment. to be intellectually consistent, honest, you would make sure people understood the larger threat and lens through which all of this has transpired. that seems to be their point. so first of all, as you kindly recapped at the top, my story explains how even many trump officials say that they feel that the process that trump set in motion with the taliban laid the groundwork for this. and, you know, and i think you know, i think their view is it was a terrible deal, that it was basically providing political cover for the u.s. to withdraw without any, you know, real assurances from the taliban that we could count on or that meant much. they agreed to enter talks with the afghan government. we saw what became of that. the talks were kind of a joke. and they have promised not to harbor terrorists on their soil who threaten the u.s. or other
look, we ve had a situation, and we re prepared and looking for, from what i understand from the biden administration, listening now to more of the reporting, the excellent reporting that you are doing here at msnbc and others, that we did not know that the afghan security forces would simply sit down, particularly as they were about to enter kabul. the fact of the matter is, we were prepared, and that s why i think general austin and others had ships come by so that if the taliban came in shooting and firing, we were prepared for that. but they did not come in that way, because there was no afghan security forces to even protect if there was fighting when we got to kabul. they were all gone, they disappeared. and then we saw the president of the afghan administration flee, without any notice to anyone
interpreter who was on the front line with american forces in afghanistan. overnight taliban forces were coming to his door literally hunting him down. he was able to escape but obviously still in mortal danger. what would be your message to abdul, his wife, and his three young daughters? we want you to be able to get to the airport. contact us, we ll see whatever we can do to get you there. we ve got to get you out. we are committed to deal with you, your wife, and your child, to get all three of you out of afghanistan. that s the commitment. the united states stands by its commitment that we ve made to these people. and it includes other vulnerable afghans such as women leaders and journalists. in fact working in close coordination with management of the new york times, the washington post, and the wall street journal, we ve successfully evacuated their
countries. we ll see. and i guess their view is that president biden should have thrown the brakes on this, that he inherited a terrible deal. their argument would be president biden could have said no, this was a bad deal, we ve got to base it on conditions that we re seeing. the peace talks with the afghan government have to be making real progress, they can t just be blah blah blah, as the taliban advances militarily, and he should have said i m saying. as you know, nicolle, president biden says that was not practical because part of the agreement with the taliban, and i will say one condition the taliban did meet was that they stopped their attacks on u.s. forces, because i think clearly they wanted to see us leave. you know, bye-bye, thanks for coming, we re not going to shoot at you on the way out the door because we can t wait for you to be gone. so that was completely in their interests. president biden says if he stopped that withdrawal, that the attacks would resume, he wou
resorting to other brutal measures to try and disperse the thousands of people trying desperately to leave the country. while the airlift has led to a steady stream of recriminations even from republicans who supported the former president s exact same policy, his plan to get out of afghanistan at any cost, a few former trump officials are now saying that their boss and former secretary of state mike pompeo should shoulder some of the blame. the new york times lays out the history of the agreement that led to the u.s. withdrawal, writing, quote, at mr. trump s direction, the state department had begun face-to-face talks with the taliban in qatar to negotiate an american exit. they culminated in a february 2020 deal under which the u.s. agreed to withdraw in return for taliban promises not to harbor terrorists and to engage in their first direct negotiations with the afghan government. the times says, quote, some former senior trump officials now call that agreement fatally flawed,