0 going in and out of the country. if that were to happen, big if. then the u.s. military, who are there, they will work to defense any u.s. americans who are there and to keep the airport open so they can get the americans out safely. also, though, it's important to point out, you know, there were about 1,000, less than 1,000 u.s. troops who were already there. only about a1,000, not really full 1,000 have made their way in. that total of 5,000. they are not there yet. >> yeah. >> the current plach is according to defense officials is to continue to flow those people in. but this is all happening so in quickly, you have to wonder in the next 48, 72 hours f they are not in there, are they going to have time to get all of them in. >> a looking at pictures, with helicopter evacuations from the green zoneli to the airport, th are looking to get this place cleared out faster than it would probably take those extra troops to get in there. let's reset. it is sunday, august 15th.h. i'm ali velshi. as you can see, we are following breaking news out of afghanistan where the taliban is on the brink of taking over the entire country. the group is closing in on the capital city of kabul. thisf map just in the last six hours is out of date. the dark orange areas are areas now controlled by taliban.ll they are closing in on the last major city they do not control, that is kabul. after capturing a series of cities all over the country amid the u.s. withdrawal of troops. let's look live at kabul right now. minutes ago we saw smoke in the air. but there are a series of helicopters movinge between th green zonemo that houses embasso and the airplane. those areas and the road between them are still under american control. and there is american air spoerpt, whichri you will see i terms of blackhawk helicopters. there are chinook helicopters evacuating americans right inno. bagram airbase north of the city is now in the hands of the taliban,n according to defense officials. they are also emptying out the parwan prison there, which has an estimated 5,000 to 7,000 prisoners including some hardened talibanud and al qaeda fighters. afghanistan interior minister -- there is one of those helicopters right there. that's a transport. power in the afghan government will be handed over temporarily to a third party. don't know who that third party is yet. nbc news reports the u.s. embassy in kabul will be closed once all have been transferred out. that is happeningll right now. we are also learning there have been intense negotiations with the talibannt for the safe passe out of taliban. those negotiations appear to be happening a the presidential palace in kabul where taliban negotiators are present. the taliban has negotiators inside the presidential palace right now. the u.s. troop withdrawal emboldened the taliban to seize cities in recent days. this morning, the taliban seized jalalabad. yesterday, they captured mazz ari -- mar -- mazz ar i sharif. we are about to hear from the secretary of state of the united states who is going to formalize some of what we are hearing. andat that is that they are evacuating kabul, that they have asked the taliban not to enter the city until such time that the americans are out. and that is expected within a 72-hour deadline from several hours ago. what we don't know, though, is this conversation about the interiorth minister in afghanisn saying that power will be handed to a third party. they are basically saying, we are giving up, we are out of this place, give us safe passage out and somehow we will have a bloodless transfer of authority. this has largely been a bloodless takeover. i am showing you helicopters. these are providing security, overflying the area. what dong we understand this to be. do you know anythinganis about this third party might be? >> htno, we don't know what thi third party is. it seems unusual there would be a third party involved if the taliban is essentially taking over the whole country. they have essentiallyhe taken or the country. it is unlikely they would even want to temporarily hand over power to anybody else when they see themselves as the new legitimate rulers of the country. but even if there is a third party involved, it is going to be temporary. the country isg back in the has of the taliban. and h within the next 72 hours, once they have spoken to the transitional government that's on its way out, they will be calling all the shots in that country. they will be talking to foreign powers.ngig they will be very happy to see the back of all u.s. troops from afghanistan. and it is going to be a place that looked very much like it did 20 years ago. the taliban will be in full control of the country. most of the social reforms in that country will be rolled back. and it's going to have a very archaic system of governance there, a very strict muslim country, muslim government in that country. and quite frankly, this had been building up. been to afghanistan many n times. without the u.s. support, without nato's support there, you could see this day coming. the afghan troops were simply not well enough equipped to deal with the taliban on their own. they didn't have that battlefield experience. they weren't motivated like the taliban. they weren't organized like the taliban. and now that all the foreign troops are leaving that country, it seemed pretty obvious that the taliban would take that place over without much of a fight. and that's what's happened. the question is, is how quickly will that happen, just in the 72 hours n the next three days, will wext see a total transanything that country? that's more likely it will i happen. as it happens, you are also seeing a mass exodus from that country. people who over the last two decades had hoped for a brighter future for themselves, for their children who thoughts, they had seen the end of that very harsh taliban rule are now escaping, pouring across the border here, into iran, leaving everything they have in that country behind, trying to desperately leave with their families w their children, their wives, to eek out some sort of a very difficult existence here in iran but something that's preferable to what they would face in afghanistan. >> stay close. want to keep coming back to you for analysis of what we are watching on the left side of the screen, the developments of what seems to be the imminent fall of kabul. you are seeing a lot of helicopter activity over that city. there are helicopters evacuating people from the green zone in the american embassy to the airplane.o joining me now, andrea mitchell, who did, report this earlier. i think now we have it officially from the state department, andrea, that the u.s. embassy is closing and being evacuated? >> the physical embassy is going toss close. but what we are also reporting is that the people from the embassy -- you are seeing the helicopters -- are moving to the airport. and it would be impossible to get all of them out. i mean, they are moving people out asre quickly as they can. they have got 5,000 troops as you know, a total of 5,000 troops that have flowed in to take this as safe a passage as possible. but at some point, the -- they will be getting them out of the airport as quickly as they can by fixed-wing aircraft. but in terms of this shuttling by helicopter. you are seeing the chinooks, what is happening over kabul in real time. people are being brought out. there were about 1,400 people in the embassy. that's the best estimate that we have.es for security reasons they are not tellingr us everything tha was going on at kabul embassy. but there were about 1,400 people still remaining after that initial ordered departure. butep starting to dwindle down. as prichks -- provincial capital after provincial capital fell, they were surprised with how rapidly they were turning things over to the taliban. giving up weapons, heavy equipment. they have got humvees, they have got helicopters. they have got all kinds of weaponry. they are now a very well armed force. even though there are 300,000 afghan forces, military, that had billions of dollars of training and equipment over the years, they have basically collapsed andal there is no lonr any assurance that kabul could bera defended. as you know and you have said previously, there have been attacksth inside the green zonen kabul. so there have been -- there is plenty of evidence h that the afghan capital was pell penetrated by terrorists who were supporting the taliban up until now. now, as we speak, secretary blinken has been on meet the press, speaking on meet the press and iss, confirming that e physical embassy is being closed. there will be a skeletal force of diplomats remaining at the airport where they r believe th they cane be protected. we have to see whether that actually takes place. but right now, it is a fallback position to recreate some kind of diplomatic presence. there are also trying to get oun some of the remaining people who have those siv visas a very controversial program. there was a lot of red tape in the way congress legit lated it. a number of weeks ago they passed amendments to try to cut some of the red tape for our afghan translators, for those who worked with us militarily, and also to expand in a in recent weeks. the state department announced trying to expand it to include some of the people from afghan civil society, some of the women's leaders, educators and human rights activists who worked closely with americans and certainly have targets on their backs. that was supposed to be expanded beyond the people who just worked with our military but it remains to be seen whether any of those people could actually get out givenco how rapidly thi is taking place. there are women throughout the country texting and sending videos as places have fallen. i saw a video friday night that was absolutely heart breaking of the taliban. i had not personally managed to authenticate it, but it has been authenticated by activists i know who are on the ground and heree in the u.s. that is vide of a taliban fighter -- taliban fighters coming into a town, a village, going door to door and taking girl children, taking little girls, out of the arms of their mothers. and i saw one video that is just horrifying. and that is what has been feared all along. but so far, at least, we know that the taliban is talking to american diplomats and others from around the world, the united nations, in doe hare, in qatar. and they have ban talking to afghan officials as you have been reporting from within the presidential palace in kabul. they have been trying to at least negotiate with some assurance that this evacuation of americans, american personnel will be safe. and that is the top priority right now. it is a terrible reality but right now the administration is trying to get the americans out first. >> was there another wayt out this? just in the way that afghan government was not widely supported byid its own people, this war has not been widely supported by americans for a long time. what were the alternatives? >> atat different stage there i may have been other alternatives. certainly when we went into afghanistan after 9/11 this war wasta supported. going after the base from which al qaeda hadse attacked america. so it had a lot of support initially. and over 20 years, it has ebbed and flow, as has the americans' troop strength. president obama obama reluctantly sent forces back in on the advice of his military. the one dissenter in the top circles of our government in the national security team was then vice president joe biden. he has been consistent thinking this was a failed war and something we should not keep doing now that osama bin laden ten years ago was captured, killed in that fight. and al qaeda, after that, essentially decimated. so once the terror threat that was the original mission was over -- m that has been the whi house rationale and they feel -- they say that their hands were tied by donald trump's decision to get out on may 1st, that -- as secretary blinken is telling meet b the press today, that on may 2nd, we would have been embroiled in this brutal civil war and having to send thousands andha thousands of troops back in order to stop the taliban because they had said that they would startth fighting the day after the may 1st withdrawal that had been agreed to by the previous administration. whether that is true or not, whether we could have kept 2,500 troops and then added more and still stabilized the country, i don't think anyone will ever know forhe sure. but that is going to be the debate that you are already seeing now. at this hour, i should point out nancy pelosi has arranged a briefing for all members of theh house, bipartisan. it's an unclassified briefing. there was supposed to be a classified briefing later in the week.ek but that is now taking place. congress members are being informed of the latest and of the plans in an unclassified setting. we are waiting to hear what is happening inside the presidential palace. >> yeah. >> the expectation is that president ghani, who has been very, very unpopular, even with american officials who feel he has not performed well and needs to make more concessions -- we were told by people from there during a briefing just on thursday that the situation on the ground had deteriorated so rapidly that president ghani was going to have to make more concessions to the taliban in doha in those diplomatic talks. so there was the expectation that there was going to be to have to be some sort of a stepping down of ghani and some sort of a transitional government even a couple of days ago. but nobody anticipated that this reality would take place so quickly. >> andrea, it is amazing to watch what we are watching right now, the evacuation of -- >> i know. >> ikabul, by not just america, but it may be the afghan government itself. andrea, thank you. i will keep checking in with you as these matters develop over the course of the hour. joining me now, vivian salama, a former colleague and now with the "wall street journal." good morning. what a thing we are watching in kabul. you have a lot of knowledge how this unfolded over the years. what's going flew your mind right now? >> it is extraordinary. i think a lot of us who spent time in these places, including afghanistan and pakistan, where i lived -- it is something we all kinds of geft was inevitable at some point when the u.s. left. but i think over the past 20 years so many journalists, academics whona look at this ha real expected that the u.s. would invest time more in strategy. there is this aversion here in the u.s. in recent years about this concept of nation building, administrations constandly say we are not going to places to nation build. butac to an extent there has toe some sort of strategy as far as creating institutions when you go into a country like afghanistan that had been decimated by the taliban andn then the u.s.ma went in with na allies post 9/11.t it was seen very much as a legitimate effort to root out al qaeda from the mountains of afghanistan. but over the course of the years thathe followed, there wasn't reallyn' a clear path as far as how we structure institutions and get afghanistan on its feeth there was a lot of focus on schools, empowering women, a lot of good things that came out of the u.s. presenceme over the la 20 tyears. but a lot of academics now looking back and saying, well, that nation building, which is seenis as such a bad word is no such a bad w thing when you are going into a country like afghanistan. you neednt institutions. you need to have some sort of a framework to move forward. folks really just disappointed in in the way that that didn't happen. as you heard andrea saying, president biden has been consistent, even in the days of the obama administration when president obama was trying to get outt and ended up sending more troops in when the situation began to deteriorate. but d even then vice president biden kept on telling him he doesn't thinkin it's a good ide to stay in achg. he doesn't see an end game there. he was consistent throughout.me so you hear lawmakers today, ben sass sent out a statement calling it the trump/biden doctrine of withdrawal from afghanistan.wi an interesting way to characterize it.ng inte this way they were in sync where president biden, now in office said listen, the u.s. is essentially providing life spoet for the afghan pill terry and government. we have problems at home with the economyt and covid and infrastructure and ay million other thing. and that's where he thinks our focus should be, 20 years later. as andrea was saying, we have accomplished the mission of getting bin laden out and al qaeda out. the pictures is raising questions about the veg of the biden administration and of the last 20 years of how u.s. failures equated. it is not just the u.s., obviously allies were involved, too, but how that's failures added up to this moment. want to go to kabul where richard engle is standing by. he has been reporting on the activity there allpo day. richard, what is the situation in kabul? >> well, we are still seeing the evacuation. we are hearing now more solid ground that it is going to take three days, and that the u.s. embassy is going to close after that.e i wouldn't be surprised, looking at the pace, if it is actually wrapped up before three days. that might be an outside estimate because we have been hearing and seeing the helicopters going all day long. here in kabul, i think it's fair to say that the situation -- that the city has collapsed. there is no real security on the streets anymore. we are starting to see signs of looting. i just got back. we were walking around an area that iwa reported on many times before. we used to go to this one salon, beauty salon because it was a good place to interview women and talk about women in society and their hopes. obviously, that's very different under the taliban. out in front of the shop, there were these large picture windows with l posters of women with thr hair done and makeup on. those posters have all been torn down or painted over. as we were walking around, people were angry, you could tell. blank looks on their faces, looking hard at us. there is increased reports of people pretending to be the taliban, going up, taking weapons off of police officers. more reports of police officers dropping their uniforms, putting on traditional dress. so this city is bracing culturally and physically for a taliban ptackover. and security has really collapsed. >> richard -- >>d. it is a city that could be taken now. it's just we are wait forth the americansre to leave doctor the are wait informing the americans to leave and how this transfer isve going to happen. >> the surpriseng here is not tt it's the happening, as much as how fast it is happening. would youis agree with that? >>th no. everyone keeps saying that. i have been listening all day. oh my god, we are shocked at how fast -- i am not shocked at all. last time i was here i was looking at the calendar and figuring out nowen with covid a travel when you are going to have to come back w and how lon you have to isolate. theu covid makes you have to pt ahead a little bit on traveling. i thought kabul was going to fall right around now. that was a gut instinct. i think lots of people i spoke toop believe that. last time i was here i spoke to hafg government officials, afghanistan military officials.f it was well-known security services were collapsing a e month, two months, three months ago. so this feigned surprise -- maybe it is genuine surprise, but if it is, i don't understand what it's based on. it was clear it was going to come to this when you started to see the taliban take territory without having to fight months ago. so, no, i am not at all surprised by the speed. these things snowball. once you have