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Biden administration right now, and they definitely, many members of them definitely sound, including the president at some points, sound like they are on the defensive, probably with good reason. theyre getting a lot of criticism. but you cant conflate criticism over the decision to withdraw, which is one thing, with criticism over the actual how we carried out that withdrawal. and that sounded to me like what our national security advisor just did. to a certain extent thats what president bide...

Hes telling the american people. hes a man who hates war. thats what we heard today. >> i also think, i just have to add, rick stengel, that he is someone who is in line with where the majority of the american people are on this war in afghanistan and there has not been majority public support -- this war has been fought by the whole country. the whole country did not go to war, the military fought this war and paid the price. i want to bring into our coverage national security advisor jake sull...

Be low risk. they knew and they said at the time that this could be -- youre going to be in exchange for that, unlike korea or germany where we have 25,000 troops, you know, youd have much fewer in afghanistan but the trade-off for that is going to be youre going to lose some troops every year for a long period of time. so there was no this is going to be a low risk situation because youre in -- youre in a war zone. but you have to differentiate that from the whole how this withdrawal was actual...

People died, including thousands and thousands of frenchmen, and that country is still not healed. those are disastrous withdrawals. we dont know what the extent of a truly disastrous withdrawal would have been. the counterfactuals are just immense. i mean i think when this is looked back on, people will say, yep, he got us out of there. a terrible tragedy that 13 american servicemen and women died. we got 100,000 people out. when we left vietnam in 1975, you could argue that every member, every...

But thats just some historical perspective. to your actual first question -- >> no, you know what, lets stay with the -- let me just give you another chance to address something else that weve all talked about already and that is this idea that hes leveling up, that hes being honest. lawrence odonnell said that was the most stunningly honest speech by an american president about what we were doing there, how we got there and the need to leave. is that your feeling? >> heres what i would say, and...

The presidents national security advisor, jake sullivan. but first for our ongoing coverage we are joined by helene cooper, pentagon correspondent for "the new york times," an msnbc contributor, former top state department official rick stengel, now also an msnbc political analyst and paul rieckhoff is here, founder of veterans of america and host of the podcast independent americans. helene, i start with you. if theres any question as to whether or not this president and this white house cease ...

800,000 service men, was all misbegotten. the strategy which originally started as counterterrorism and then turned into counterinsurgency and then turned to nation building was ass backward from the start. and thats pretty honest. there arent many american presidents have said that to the american people because -- and part of the reason is, is that soldiers who made an ultimate sacrifice, they go why did that happen? well, biden is saying because politicians and generals and the elites and for...

Having me. it was a clear effort to knock down critics, but, you know, when you -- he picked the criticisms that he wanted to knock down and kind of left the ones that were a little bit harder for him to knock down. so when he says that, you know, we shoulda, coulda -- the withdrawal could not have been gone -- could not have gone any differently and was going to be chaotic no matter what the united states did, there are elements of truth in that. its hard to imagine how any sort of ending of a ...

>> can i talk a little bit about what we were just talking about, nicolle. >> please. actually lets do that first and then well all come back to terrorism. id like your reaction to jake, your reaction to paul and to helenes reporting. take your time. >> yeah. at the risk of seeming like an ivory tower professor, i just want to put the withdrawal in historical context. heres a disastrous withdrawal. when the british left afghanistan in 1842, 4,500 troops left kabul and one englishman 11 days late...

Line for a government that is corrupt. president biden nodded to that. hes been frustrated with that for years. so thats certainly a criticism that you can knock down. what he didnt address and i found that interesting and i think probably the most of all the criticisms that youve heard about the biden administration handling of this withdrawal, and i think hes right to a certain degree that it would have been chaotic no matter what, you didnt hear president biden addressing the american immigra...