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Flash Floods Sweeps Away Homes, Overturns Cars in Tennessee; President Biden Says First Priority is Getting Americans Out of Kabul; Families Separated, Conditions Worsen at Kabul Airport; Businesses Hit Hard by Flash Flooding in Central Tennessee; Kabul Evacuation Still a Complicated Mission; Inside the Scramble to Help Americans and Afghans Escape; Vaccine Expert Answers COVID-19 Questions; Baby Delivered Aboard C-17 During Evacuation from Kabul. Aired 8-9p ET

Aired August 22, 2021 - 20:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[20:00:00]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SAM KILEY, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: The airfield there's a great deal of nervousness indeed, because as the Pentagon has been saying, there's existing threat that the so-called Islamic State, the Daesh as they're called here, there is active intelligence that they are posing a threat.

JAKE SULLIVAN, NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: The threat is real. It is acute. It is persistent.

PAMELA BROWN, CNN HOST (voice-over): Tropical Storm Henri hits the East Coast bringing heavy rain to already water-logged areas, plus, deadly flooding and central to the sea.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It hit hard. It hit fast. It's notorious for Waverly.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: As I stepped on the glass step, I stepped into like maybe two feet of water and I was just -- I didn't know -- you know, I was like somehow knew God would get us through this.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: The FDA of course is poised to give full approval to Pfizer's vaccine this week. Do you expect that this decision is going to make more Americans willing to get vaccinated?

VIVEK MURTHY, U.S. SURGEON GENERAL: This may tip them over toward getting vaccinated.

(END OF VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: I'm Pamela Brown in Washington. You're live in the CNN NEWSROOM on this Sunday evening. And tonight we're following breaking news out of Tennessee. At least 21 people are dead and another 20 missing after staggering amounts of rain unleash catastrophic flash floods.

People in Humphryes County, that's about 60 miles west of Nashville, say the flood waters struck almost without warning. Some compared it to a tidal wave that swallowed its victims and swept them away. The Waverly police and fire chief reflecting tonight on how hard this has been for the close-knit community.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHIEF GRAN GILLESPIE, WAVERLY, TENNESSEE FIRE AND POLICE: We experienced devastating loss of life over the last couple of days. We've lost more people in this event than we did in the train explosion in 1978, but we've seen the community come together.

(END OF VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: CNN's Nick Valencia joins me now from a reunification center in MCU in Tennessee.

Nick, what have you seen on the ground there?

NICK VALENCIA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, this storm has been called catastrophic, a devastating event. We saw glimpses of that, Pamela, as we try to work our way into the hardest hit area. There were washed- out roads, a bridge that was washed out on our way there which is why we couldn't get to the center of that damage, but we did get to a reunification center where we're joined here by Cristy Brown. She's one of those with the Department of Education here in Humphreys County that's leading the reunification effort and helping with donations.

You lived through this this weekend. Tell us what it was like.

CRISTY BROWN, HUMPHREYS COUNTY, TENNESSEE DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION: Terrifying. It's devastating. Many of our close friends and family, students have been impacted. They lost everything. Many have lost their lives. We're still looking for a lot of them trying to account for them. So it's just been an unbelievable event.

VALENCIA: And it's been personal for you. You said that you actually know somebody or know people that are part of the missing?

C. BROWN: Yes.

VALENCIA: Is that right?

C. BROWN: Well, working for the Department of Education, of course, you know, I know a lot of the families, a lot of the students, and living in Waverly and McEwen all my life, you know, yes, obviously, I'm very close to a lot of the folks that have been mentioned.

VALENCIA: We spoke to a teacher just as we got here who said that her sophomore autistic student is among the missing. Is there anything that you can tell me about him?

C. BROWN: All I can say at this point is that the rescue and recovery efforts are ongoing. So we're trying to collect that information just as rapidly as we can. We're working with our local law enforcement, the shelters in Waverly, and trying to get that type of information sorted out just as quickly as we can. So at this time, I really can't give you a final on that particular student. VALENCIA: The missing has gone from in the 40s to around 20. And you

guys are helping with that effort. Can you tell us a little bit about what you're doing, the details there?

C. BROWN: Jackson Madison came in, Jackson Madison County Health Department came in last night with a mobile communications center, got us set up so that we could field calls from community members who are still missing loved ones or they can self-report if they are safe themselves. We had a list that was put out by 911 with people's names who were still unaccounted for. So we have been able to cut that list down dramatically throughout the day just collecting that information from community residents.

VALENCIA: And part of the problem is the cell phone here, I mean, the signal here. There's power outages, not only washed-out roads but also to try to communicate out of here. How has that contributed to just how difficult the process is?

C. BROWN: It's made it tremendously difficult. Just normally we have sketchy cell service in some of our --

VALENCIA: Under normal circumstantial stances here in rural area?

C. BROWN: In the rural areas, so that just paired with everything that took place yesterday in a short period of time, it just made the response very difficult.

VALENCIA: I don't want to take up too much more time but I do have to ask, you know, 17 inches of rain, it's reported about a third of your yearly total fell in 24 hours.

[20:05:03]

There was a local resident that said it felt more like eight hours. It felt like somebody with a fire hose he said outside of his window. Tell us, you know, any anecdotes that you have about going through such, you know, heavy rain.

C. BROWN: It's just unexplainable. I had no idea that it was -- you know, we had very little warning. We just got up that morning and it started in and it didn't let up. So it was very rapid, very dangerous situation for all of our responders who put their lives on the line. It was just one of those things that you have to actually live through to understand and comprehend.

VALENCIA: Well, we're so grateful for your time and we're so sorry we're meeting under these circumstances.

Cristy Brown, good luck with the rest of your day and your evening.

Still more than 20 people unaccounted for and the death toll stands at 21 right now and, you know, there is very little, as you hear from the residents here that they could have done to prepare for such a heavy rainfall here. The last time they had a storm come like this through was 2010 but those who lived through that say it's nothing compared to how bad it was this time around. And just very quickly, Pamela, we understand that the Dollar General

is where two people perished as a result of the storm. Behind that Dollar General is a low-income housing apartment complex. We understand among those missing, a lot of them are coming from that apartment complex. They got caught off guard, tried to go to the top of the roof, and were swept away according to some of the residents and eyewitnesses that we've spoken to. We're working on trying to get to that area as soon as we can -- Pamela.

BROWN: Nick Valencia, thank you very much for bringing us the latest there on the ground in Tennessee as the community rails from these devastating floods there.

And I want to bring in a storm chaser who travelled to Tennessee to capture the extent of the devastation. Steve Smith joins me now. He is a storm spotter for WZYP Radio in Huntsville, Alabama.

So I want to show you some of the video that you shot when you were in Tennessee yesterday and if you would, just walk us through what you saw.

STEVE SMITH, WZYP RADIO STORM SPOTTER: I woke up once we've got word of the flooding going on there. I do then, and go out and document storms and alert the National Weather Service, and tell people what's going on. When I got there, I expected to see typical flooding, you know, water inside homes and businesses, maybe covering some roads and get shots of that.

What I saw there was completely unexpected, though. It looked more like a tornado or a hurricane had been through that area with the power of the water just moving vehicles and pushing them in the homes. And homes wiped off their foundations. There was one scene, I believe, you've been shown a picture that I took of an Exxon convenience store gas station there. A home was literally pushed into the gas station and then an 18-wheeler truck was pushed into that home, and then the pickup truck pushed into the 18-wheeler, if that gives you an example of the things I was seeing yesterday.

BROWN: And we've seen residents appear just shellshocked. I spoke to a woman earlier who said she woke up yesterday morning and was just in shock by the flooding. Not just by, you know, the suddenness with which their lives changed but just the sheer scale of devastation. That has been part of the shock. What have people been telling you there?

SMITH: Stories of waking up early Saturday morning with water coming into their house and I talked to one lady in McEwen, Casey (PH), and her house literally moved them. You know, it went down the creek a bit until it got lodged into a tree. She was able to get out and go on to the roof with her son, and then wait for the water to come down. She's alive and she's very happy about that. Obviously very sad about her home but we're going to be collecting some items from my radio station ZYP in Huntsville for her family and everybody else in McEwen and also Waverly.

We're going to be collecting a big truck and taking those up there in the next couple days or so to help those folks out. But walking around yesterday in Waverly, just the things you see on the ground. I saw a record album broke in half. Personal pictures, cell phones, keyboards, gaming consoles, a statute of Jesus. Everything from people's houses just taken from those houses and washed right through the town. Devastating.

BROWN: Remnants of their lives. And you, as a storm spotter, you've seen a lot of storm damage. Is this one of the worst flooding events you've ever seen?

SMITH: Hands down this is the worst flooding event I've seen. I was at Hurricane Laura and a few hurricanes lately and some tornados. We had very bad tornado outbreak of course in north Alabama and central Alabama back in 2011. We went through that. Some of this damage looks like that with cars flipped over on top of each other, really bad.

I was not there when the water came through, luckily, Saturday morning. I got there shortly as the water was coming down. I could only imagine what those folks went through especially the ones that were asleep. This happened early Saturday morning. I know I would still be asleep on Saturday morning and what a horrible thing to wake up to. What do you do, you know?

BROWN: It's so true. Just horrible. Right?

[20:10:01]

Steve Smith, thanks for joining us.

SMITH: Thank you, Pamela. Appreciate it. Thanks for sharing the word.

BROWN: Thank you.

Well, as the U.S. military tries to evacuate thousands from Kabul. One of the planes completely packed with people ends up arriving in Germany with one more person than they took off with. A baby born in the cargo bay. That story is ahead.

Plus, President Biden now says there are talks about keeping the U.S. Military in Afghanistan past the August 31st deadline. The very latest coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: President Biden tells the nation his first priority in Kabul right now is getting out every American who wants to leave Afghanistan. But how to accomplish that safely? That is a big question tonight.

Let's bring in CNN's Kylie Atwood.

Kylie, so in his remarks President Biden referenced an extended perimeter around the Kabul airport but now we're getting some clarification on that within the last hour. So what more have we learned? KYLIE ATWOOD, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Yes. So he spoke

about an extended perimeter but he didn't really exactly say what he meant by that. It sounded like the U.S. Military may be expanding their perimeter. That is not what's happening. The U.S. Military operations at the airport in Kabul are staying there. They are not expanding beyond that. Of course, we've seen some efforts to get Americans safely to the airport, but with regard to the perimeter, they're not going outside of where they have been for the last few weeks there. What is changing is that the Taliban are going to be opening additional entry gates.

[20:15:03]

Now the Taliban have set up essentially their own perimeter that's beyond the U.S. perimeter. That has been one wretched with challenge, right, because Americans have had troubles getting through, Afghans have had troubles getting through. They're going to be opening up some additional gates I'm told by an administration official to essentially try and, you know, make sure that there's not only one place where people are coming through, spread out the vast number of Afghans who are coming to the airport.

So that is the change here. There are changes to the perimeter but it's just not the United States that is the one invoking these changes right now.

BROWN: OK. That is important context there.

ATWOOD: Yes.

BROWN: So if U.S. troops aren't expanding the perimeter, what are they doing exactly?

ATWOOD: Yes, so their focus is safety at the airport, right? We know that there are these ISIS-K threats. ISIS-K is a terrorist group in Afghanistan. They are posing a threat to the airport right now so they are clearly trying to make sure that's safe so these evacuation flights can continue going out. The other thing that President Biden has repeatedly said is that Americans, if they want to get out of the country, are going to get out of the country.

So the military is also focused on how to get Americans to safe places and then to safely get them to the airport. We know late last week that they took a helicopter. They got 169 Americans that were at a hotel close to the Kabul airport, brought them to the airport. So they're doing some things like that. We don't know the details probably for operational safety reasons, but President Biden made it clear that what is happening right now is not without risk. Listen to what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We are proving that we can move thousands a people a day out of Kabul. We're bringing our citizens, NATO allies, Afghanis who had helped us in the war effort. But we have a long way to go and a lot can still go wrong. (END OF VIDEO CLIP)

ATWOOD: A long way to go. So how long is it, Pam? What is the timeline? Well, the Biden administration has continually said August 31st is when they have decided U.S. Military will leave the airport in Kabul. President Biden was asked about that today and he said there are discussions among U.S. Military officials about extending that deadline but he hopes that they can get everything done before that.

BROWN: We'll have to wait and see. Kylie Atwood, thank you so much for that.

Well, sources tell CNN that the crowds at the Kabul airport have not been significantly diminished because more people just keep coming and as the clock ticks closer to the deadline, the desperation is growing as is the heartbreak.

CNN's Sam Kiley has this report.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KILEY: We've landed just a few moments ago here at Kabul international airport and clearly the pace of evacuation has been picking up. There are planes leaving pretty regularly now and large numbers of refugees, of evacuees getting ready to get on those flights. This is a group that are heading into Qatar where they're hoping then to either stay there or move on.

Qaam, you are about to leave. What is going through your mind and your heart at the moment?

QAAM NOORI, LEAVING AFGHANISTAN: Yes. Actually, I've told this many times that right now I have a mixed feeling that being a journalist myself probably I'm lucky enough to leave because of a lot of things that exist here, but I'm also leaving a family, a whole family behind, and that's a lot of friends behind and also, most -- I mean, most importantly my city Kabul that I've been raised and born here, that's really -- it seems that I'm just picking one piece of my soul but leaving a lot of pieces just back at home.

So it's really strange. I don't know how to describe this. Am I happy? Am I sad? With this government, with these new rulers, they -- I'm sure they will not leave us any space to be here.

KILEY: That must break your heart?

NOORI: Of course, certainly, that has already broken but, you know, that's the reality.

KILEY: Your heart's already broken?

NOORI: Yes, yes, yes. Yes.

KILEY: Good luck.

NOORI: Thank you. KILEY: It's not just personal tragedies that are so heartbreaking

here. It is the tragedy of Afghanistan itself. For 20 years so many millions of people believe that they would receive Western support, they believed in the evolution of female education, of the arts, of cinema. They thought they had a future. Now that future is getting on aircraft and leaving. As one of the evacuees just said to me, Afghanistan is seeing a total brain drain.

Sam Kiley, CNN, at Kabul International Airport.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: When it comes to the crisis in Afghanistan, there is plenty of blame to go around and there has been no shortage of factual criticism aimed at the Biden administration. But former Trump administration officials are trying to rewrite history.

[20:20:03]

Denouncing Biden while also misleading the public on the actions they took on Afghanistan. Former Vice President Mike Pence wrote an op-ed on the "Wall Street Journal" on Tuesday claiming the Trump administration's February 2020 peace deal with the Taliban, quote, "immediately brought to Afghanistan a stability unseen in decades." Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo echoed that sentiment on "FOX Business."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MIKE POMPEO, FORMER SECRETARY OF STATE: We were determined to get our young men and women out of there but we did that and kept the country stable.

(END OF VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: But for the record, there is no legitimate argument that Afghanistan experienced anything resembling stability after the U.S. deal with the Taliban. In fact, the Defense Department's inspector general says the Taliban escalated violence further right after that so-called peace deal was made.

And then there is this statement from former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley who tweeted on Wednesday, quote, "To have our generals say that they are depending on diplomacy with the Taliban is an unbelievable scenario. Negotiating with the Taliban is like dealing with the devil."

It's true that no one wants to have to depend on the Taliban. They aren't exactly the most reliable and peace-loving group out there obviously. But Haley is ignoring the fact that the Trump administration itself negotiated with the Taliban. There's Mike Pompeo's meeting with top Taliban leaders in Qatar last year. And Haley spoke favorably about peace negotiations while serving as U.N. ambassador.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) NIKKI HALEY, FORMER U.S. AMBASSADOR TO U.N. UNDER TRUMP: What I can tell you is from the United States' standpoint, it was a great trip to Afghanistan because the U.S. policy on Afghanistan is working. We can see dramatic changes in terms of what the U.S. policy has been doing. We are seeing that we're closer to talks with the Taliban and the peace process than we've seen before.

(END OF VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: And what about this new interview from Christopher Miller who served as acting Defense secretary for less than three months at the end of Trump's presidency. Miller told "Defense One" on Wednesday that Trump never actually intended to withdraw all U.S. troops from Afghanistan. That it was all a ruse. Not only does a former senior Trump administration official tells CNN that Miller's claims are false but earlier this summer, Trump bragged about boxing Biden in.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, FORMER PRESIDENT: I started the process, all the troops are coming back home. They couldn't stop the process. 21 years is enough. Don't we think? 21 years. They couldn't stop the process. They wanted to but it was very tough to stop the process.

(END OF VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: So for the record, President Biden owns this withdrawal debacle as commander in chief but the Trump administration is not free of blame here no matter how hard they try to rewrite history.

Afghan translators who helped Americans have been Taliban targets over the last 20 years as we know it. When we come back, I'm going to speak to Matt Zeller who spent five years getting the translator who saved his life out of the country and continued to get many more to safety.

Also ahead, the deadly flash flooding in Tennessee was so intense, it pushed homes off their foundations and flipped cars. We've got new reporting from the scene in just a moment and we'll be right back. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[20:27:10]

BROWN: We're monitoring developments in central Tennessee after catastrophic and deadly flash flooding there. Some have described it as a tidal wave that devoured communities. The flooding was a result of torrential rain. At least 21 people are dead and around 20 are still missing.

Take a look here. These are images of the aftermath near Waverly, Tennessee. And as you can see, homes destroyed. Cars thrown about. The state's governor saying what's happened is a devastating picture of loss and heartache.

Here is Marissa Sulek from our CNN affiliate WSMV with more. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MARISSA SULEK, WSMV REPORTER: For 50 years, Carrollton House has been a jewelry store the community of Waverly has supported. Now, one day after deadly flash floods hit the area, the community is showing that support.

RENEE MUHA, JEWELRY STORE OWNER: Every showcase was upside down.

SULEK: Owner Renee Muha says half a million dollars' worth of jewelry and clothing was gone in seconds.

MUHA: We checked on it at 9:00. We checked on it at 10:00 and at 11:00, it just exploded out of the banks. It just kept coming. This is how high the water got. So I'm 5'5" so I don't know what that is.

SULEK: And this Waterford crystal case shows the damage. The bottom three shelves full of dirt, the top two crystal clear.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Of course we got an influx of claims.

SULEK: Right next door, insurance agent Lynn Paschall says they already have 50 claims for those with flood insurance, but since his office is not a floodplain, that's not something Lynn thought twice about.

LYNN PASCHALL, INSURANCE AGENT: I don't have flood insurance. Didn't think I needed it just like a lot of the residents here in town.

TERRANCE CHRISTMAN, BUSINESS OWNER: It was probably about 10 foot in there. It was over the doors.

SULEK: And on the other side of the plaza, Terrance Christman says he and his employees had to climb on top of this office wall on the grocery store where they stayed for four hours.

CHRISTMAN: As crazy as it sounds, I think being in there was the safest bet.

MUHA: We found lots of diamonds and lots of jewelry in the mud.

SULEK: While these businesses are these owners' livelihood, they know it could have been far worse.

MUHA: This is brick and mortar. They lost a lot.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: And if you would like to help, the Tennessee Emergency Response Fund has been reactivated for this disaster. Donations can be made to the Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee and the Web address is cfmt.org.

Well, amid the chaos of trying to evacuate Afghan citizens from Kabul, there is also anger among hundreds of Afghans who worked at the U.S. embassy. Will they get a chance to escape?

CNN's Nick Paton Walsh has the latest on this complicated mission.

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN INTERNATIONAL SECURITY EDITOR: Pam, as ever, President Joe Biden projecting competence and order about this evacuation plan, although it is clear on the ground that that is not wholly reflected in what happened today.

[20:30:10]

I understand from a source close to the situation that despite President Biden announcing that in 36 hours they've managed to get 11,000 people off that airport, an extraordinary number but there are still 20,000 or so, a rough number there, of people on that airport. And that figure has simply stayed the same because while the people have been taken away, I understand more have been brought on to the base using these alternate routes that U.S. officials don't want to elaborate on for security reasons.

Now this raises a huge issue, of course, because they're now simply having to work out how long they can keep this up for. And a source I spoke to said some of the thinking is maybe four, maybe five days. President Biden said he would possibly discuss whether they would stay longer than the August 31st deadline but then that essentially could drag them into an indefinite process here.

They don't know how many Americans they are looking for in Afghanistan and it is unclear how many allied Afghans will meet that special immigrant visa requirement for eligibility. There could be tens of thousands. So the situation clearly today perilous. The gates closed. The most part around the airport. President Biden talking about the security safe zone may have been expanded. Hard to see how we'll get detail or really elaborate on that unless, of course, we're talking about U.S. troops further outside of the wild.

One other important element we heard of, too, though, is that local Afghan staff who worked for the U.S. embassy, hundreds of them are still somewhere out in Kabul awaiting rescue. A source I spoke to said they felt that these people have been screwed over. It was clear the State Department, the statement to us, said that they are of special importance and they're doing all they can to get them to the airport, but they're still out there and, you know, living with the images of the people they worked alongside the U.S. diplomats being evacuated by helicopter.

So this is the defining moment, clearly, for President Biden of the Afghan conflict. Purely a personal situation which he persists in saying he does not regret despite these scenes. In fact, he called them the inevitable scenes you would see around an evacuation like that.

I have to say, if this was inevitable, then help us all. I do think that the real question now, though, Pam, is how much longer this can go on for. It could potentially be weeks, months until they satisfy the demands of every Afghan who could be eligible on to this, and these scenes will continue potentially to get ugly. The Taliban still have a vote in this and ISIS-K, the terror group

U.S. officials are continually warning about, they have a vote, too. So a vital speech to try and reset the path here but clearly not yet reflected in a massively improved situation on the ground -- Pam.

BROWN: Our thanks to Nick Paton Walsh.

And for Afghan interpreters who worked with coalition forces these past two decades, the anxiety of getting out is excruciating. I mean, in many cases, they and their families have been targeted for death by the Taliban. One of CNN's Heroes, former Army Captain Matt Zeller shares a story of the man that he says saved his life during the Taliban attack and why he was determined to return the favor.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MATT ZELLER, AFGHANISTAN WAR VETERAN, CNN HERO: I literally would not be here today if it wasn't for Janis Shinwari, my translator during the deployment with the U.S. Army in Afghanistan. He actually saved my life when he shot and killed two Taliban fighters who were about to kill me in a battle.

Afghan and Iraqi translators, they put themselves and their families at extreme risks to help us with our military's mission. Janis was hunted. The Taliban assigned a hit team to go after him and his family. There were bounties placed on their heads.

(END OF VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: Afghanistan war veteran Matt Zeller joins me now. He is also the co-founder of No One Left Behind.

Matt, thank you for joining us. You got your friend and his family out and your nonprofit has helped thousands of other Afghan and Iraqi translators escape danger and start new lives in the U.S. Tell us what you've been feeling watching these chaotic images, some Afghan parents handing their babies over barbed wire at the airport and others being bloodied by the Taliban on the way there.

ZELLER: It's a mixed feeling. I feel a mix of profound betrayal because so many of us tried to warn the president and his team this was coming and here we are now forcing our brothers and sisters in Afghanistan into that hell to try to escape it, but also, I feel -- I'm sorry to feel a little bit of hope and pride because I see the best in the American people rising to the occasion to try to solve this.

Let's be clear, our leadership did not get this right but the people who are now trying to execute the impossible at the 11th hour are heroes.

[20:35:03]

They are people in government that are working around the clock to try to save these people. There are veterans all over the world who have united in sort of digital Dunkirk that are just -- it's incredible to see us falling back into our skill sets and, you know, organizing ourselves by the various different jobs we did in the military to try to figure out, hey, you know, who knows logistics best, who knows intelligence best, to try to help people figure out how to navigate Taliban checkpoints in real time.

That to me, you know, this is the big thing, the huge question mark in all of this, the thing that gives us the most anxiety is we still haven't heard the president of the United States say the one word that we need him to, which is that we're going to stay until mission complete. They keep talking about this end date and the Taliban having a say in that. We can't let that happen. If we leave these people behind, the Taliban are going to kill them.

BROWN: And he said today that there is consideration, talk in the military about extending the August 31st deadline. He says that is not -- he hopes that that doesn't happen but you had said at the beginning that you were disappointed because you and others had been trying to convey to the White House what was going to happen, the inevitable.

Just walk us through that. What were your conversations like and in what way were you ignored?

ZELLER: So, last fall a lady by the name of Kim Staffieri who is the co-founder of an organization called the Association of Wartime Allies called me up and said, Matt, it doesn't really matter who wins the election, we're leaving Afghanistan next year and the special immigration visa program is broken. Now it's broken because the Trump administration purposely shut it down for four years and created a massive backlog.

Most of those people trying to get out right now could have been here years ago had people like Stephen Miller not gotten his way. So we wrote a white paper. We showed the government through that white paper how the program was broken and we quietly sent it to the government via e-mail to the contacts that we had as early as February. We warned that collapse was coming and that we recommended an evacuation of these people to Guam.

They never got back to us. So we publicized that report in April through an organization called the Truman Project. You can find it on their Web site. We started doing op-eds. We actually created a Web site called Evacuateourallies.org around May and June because we figured at that point if the government wasn't going to listen to us in private because we're desperate to tell them our plan before tipping off the Taliban, maybe we could at least give it to them in public and they would use it.

No one ever got back to us. I've posted on social media the literal screen shots of e-mails that we sent as late as July offering up the State Department Task Force meetings with our coalition to try to give them the list of Afghans that they're now desperately trying to identify around the country when we would have still been able to save them. Because at the time we were offering this information, again, from February all the way up until, you know, this week, along that way Afghanistan was still somewhat stable and then started to collapse and collapsed. So I argue is this, there is another alternative earth. Right? There

is another reality where they did listen to us, where this evacuation started in February, in the winter, when it wasn't fighting season. When we methodically started getting these people out little by little, when you wouldn't have had chaotic scenes at one airport because we had airports all over the country that we still controlled. We could have done this if just someone had listened to us.

BROWN: And now, you have President Biden vowing to bring every U.S. citizen home from Afghanistan. Will the U.S. be able to leave no one behind, do you think, and how is your organization No One Left Behind filling in the big gap?

ZELLER: Well, they're definitely going to leave people behind. Let's be clear. This evacuation is the people who can make it to Kabul and were already there to begin with. The Association of Wartime Allies has a unique relationship with those people. They are able to pull them in a regular basis and for weeks we were warning the government -- you know, about half of these people, some 50,000 individuals were outside of Kabul and didn't have the means to get there.

People who were in places like Kandahar and (INAUDIBLE), which is a city in Helmand, we haven't heard from them anymore. We were tracking 3200 people in Kandahar that are gone, that have just not been heard from. So there're definitely already people who've been left behind. The job of us now is to bear witness and to make sure that the Taliban's crimes don't go unpunished but most importantly, we have to keep the beach head that we have open in Kabul for as long as it takes to get as many of those individuals out as we can.

There is no future for them. Again, I keep telling people, this is not a matter of us and them. It's a matter of us. These are as much of American people as I am. They are as much of a veteran as I am. In fact, in many cases, more so. They did more tours than I did. So if people would just -- we can get these people here, I promise you this.

[20:40:04]

I ask the American people, everyone asks, you know, how can they help? Befriend these people. Welcome them into your homes and your communities, help them find jobs, and I guarantee you this, they will enrich your lives in ways that you can't even begin to imagine. You're going to have them at your Thanksgiving dinner table and they're going to want to have you over for iftar which is the meal that they use to break fast at Ramadan.

You're going to have wonderful new neighbors. I promise you. These are some of the most wonderful people, kind, caring. They just want to seek a better life and that's what we owe them.

BROWN: And you know this firsthand, Matt, because you developed a close relationship with your interpreter after he saved your life. So you know how much they can impact a life.

Matt Zeller, thank you for your time tonight and your perspective on this issue. ZELLER: Thanks for having me.

BROWN: As soon as tomorrow, the FDA could give full approval to the first COVID vaccine and it couldn't come a moment too soon. Dr. Peter Hotez joins us to talk about that and he'll answer your questions.

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BROWN: We're watching hopeful news in the battle against the coronavirus. Health officials claiming a full FDA approval of the Pfizer COVID vaccine may be imminent, maybe as soon as tomorrow. The U.S. is now averaging 1,000 COVID deaths a day.

[20:45:03]

And we have not seen these numbers since March when the pandemic was still raging. Add to that CDC data showing roughly 30 percent of Americans who are eligible to receive the vaccine still aren't vaccinated. And at former president Donald Trump's rally in Alabama last night, a state where COVID cases are surging, some in the crowd booed when he told them he got vaccinated and that they should, too.

Vaccine expert Dr. Peter Hotez joins me now to answer your questions. He's a professor and dean of tropical medicine at Baylor College of Medicine, and author of "Preventing the Next Pandemic: Vaccine Diplomacy in a Time of Anti-Science."

Nice to see you, Dr. Hotez. So we have several viewer questions. I want to get right to it. This viewer asks several months back it was advised that if two people were vaccinated, they could get together with reasonable safety indoors without a mask. Now four months later with Delta, is that the same advice?

DR. PETER HOTEZ, PROFESSOR AND DEAN OF TROPICAL MEDICINE, BAYLOR COLLEGE OF MEDICINE: Yes, it's probably safer if you still continue to wear a mask and here is why, Pamela. You know, against the original lineages in the U.K. variant, the vaccines were also halting asymptomatic transmission almost as well. 90 percent reduction so people were not shedding virus. Now with this Delta variant, protection against infection seems to be going down to 40 percent to 50 percent in terms so that you could be with someone who has asymptomatic infection and shedding virus, although it appears that such people only are shedding virus for a much shorter time, a couple days.

So it's still unvaccinated people who are shedding most of the virus and causing most of the transmission, but to be safe, it's probably better to now mask if you're with somebody you don't know even if you're both vaccinated.

BROWN: I'm just curious on that note. There's been a lot of talk about how this is now a pandemic among the unvaccinated. Is it still true in your view given what you've just laid out?

HOTEZ: Well, certainly in terms of hospitalizations and serious illness, it looks that way but this is why the White House made that recommendation last week about a third immunization, which would have the added benefit of bucking up against that waning immunity that we're starting to see, and I think we can restore a lot of that probably through third immunizations that will start beginning in September.

BROWN: And this viewer wants to know, how does Delta's increased transmission affect outdoor transmissibility?

HOTEZ: Yes, you know, it really depends on what you're doing outdoors. If you're, you know, doing exercise or taking a walk in your neighborhood and you're not in a big crowd, you can feel comfortable not wearing a mask. That's what I do. Or if I take a walk with my wife Ann in the morning, that's -- we don't have a mask on but if you're in a crowded venue, if you're in a sports arena or a music venue, you definitely want to have a mask on even if you're vaccinated.

BROWN: There are so many questions from parents about kids. Viewers are asking where are we at getting the vaccine approved for children under the age of 12. I'd like to get my kids vaccinated ASAP.

HOTEZ: Yes, getting this question quite a bit. The hope is that we can do this before the end of the year and we're hearing different time frames, September to October. It a matter of the FDA collecting all of the safety data and efficacy data showing that it works before we go ahead and make that recommendation. So hoping it comes later this fall.

BROWN: And this viewer wants to know, Doctor, if you've successfully battled COVID, are your chances low for developing subsequent severe cases, even if not vaccinated? This seems to be one of the major reasons I hear for not getting vaccinated, those who have already had COVID.

HOTEZ: You know, the problem is if you've been infected and recovered, you really don't know how strong your protection is and how durable your protection is because against different types of infections, people -- against different COVID infections, people develop varying degrees of virus neutralizing antibodies. So some individuals develop very low levels of immunity or practically non-existent immunity and you're quite susceptible. Others more robust, more long-lasting immunity and you have no way easily knowing which category you fall into.

One thing we do know, Pam, is that if those individuals get vaccinated, meaning infected, recovered and then vaccinated, they have very strong durable protection and quite a bit of resilience against variants. There seems to be this phenomenon of what's called an epitope broadening, meaning that you're quite resilient against new variants coming in so you definitely want to get vaccinated.

BROWN: All right. Dr. Peter Hotez, as always, thank you for telling us what we all need to know right now in this pandemic.

HOTEZ: Thanks so much.

[20:50:00] BROWN: And finally tonight, a miracle, a baby is born in the cargo bay of a U.S. Military flight carrying evacuees from Afghanistan.

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BROWN: Well, over the past few days, we have seen heartbreaking images of Afghans desperate to flee their country after the government quickly folded to the Taliban. But amid the chaos and uncertainty there was a shiny moment of hope.

Here's Atika Shubert.

ATIKA SHUBERT, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Pamela, we were at the Ramstein Airbase watching some of those first few flights arriving and it's such a mix of emotions for evacuees. They are tired, exhausted but also relieved and for one particular family yesterday, there was some very good news.

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SHUBERT (voice-over): An image of hope amid the chaos, a baby girl born in the cargo bay of a U.S. Air Force C-17 carrying Afghan evacuees. As the plane landed at the Ramstein Air Base, the 86th medical group rushed in to safely deliver her.

Ramstein Air Base in Germany has become the latest hub for evacuation flights out of Afghanistan. CNN filmed as some of the first flights arrived. More than 6,000 have been evacuated here with 17 flights landing in 24 hours, air base officials say, and more to come.

[20:55:09]

Here there is safety, basic shelter, food and water, but it is only a temporary measure. Many here do not know where they will go next or how. But for the moment, there is relief and reason to celebrate new life.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SHUBERT: Now the question for a lot of the evacuees is where to next. And they're desperate to get out because capacity at the base is only 7,500 and it is filling up very quickly. Keep in mind that more flights are expected Monday morning. So a lot of the evacuees we spoke to yesterday are saying where will they go to next. At the moment, there are no answers -- Pamela.

BROWN: Atika Shubert, thank you.

And for ways to help Afghan refugees during this crisis, go to CNN.com/impact.

And don't forget, you can tweet me @pamelabrownCNN. Also follow me on Instagram with the same handle. Thank you so much for joining me this evening. I'll see you again next weekend and I hope you have a great week ahead. When the going gets tough, the tough gets to watch some sitcoms to get

through it all because once you're laughing you forget everything else. Watch the series finale of "HISTORY OF THE SITCOM" up next.

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