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Hurricane Ida Relief Efforts; President Biden Addresses Nation on Afghanistan Withdrawal. Aired 3-3:30p ET

Aired August 31, 2021 - 15:00   ET

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

[15:00:00]

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN HOST: Hello, everyone. Second hour of NEWSROOM. I'm Alisyn Camerota.

VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN HOST: I'm Victor Blackwell. Good to be with you.

Any moment now, President Biden will address the nation from the State Dining Room there at the White House and confront this new place in American history, the president who ended the longest war in U.S. history in Afghanistan for the first time in two decades.

And after a chaotic and deadly two weeks, U.S. troops have ceased all military operations in Afghanistan. The Taliban is declaring victory. They're also flaunting some elements of their new arsenal.

BLACKWELL: So, with us now, we have CNN chief national affairs correspondent Jeff Zeleny.

So, Jeff, what does the president want to tell the country?

JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Well, Alisyn, and Victor, we do know that President Biden was meeting earlier this morning with his national security advisers here at the White House.

And some of the details from that meeting are likely to infuse his speech that he will be giving. We're told he's a little bit -- he's running a little bit behind here. They certainly are putting a lot of thought into the speech because it must carry a lot of weight, first, the historic weight of ending a 20-year war, something that he has long wanted to do, but certainly not necessarily in this manner.

He will thank, I am told, veterans for their service and sacrifice, including, of course, the 13 American service members who fell to their deaths last week during that frantic evacuation.

But I am told this is going to be more of a speech that has more elevation, not necessarily talking about the operational miscues that really have marred the last two weeks here. He's going to talk about how America got into this war, and why he believes it was a good decision to leave the war. We have heard him say time and time again he did not want to be

another American president to send a new generation of Americans into Afghanistan. Now, that position was largely one of the reasons he got elected. That position was widely supported by a strong majority of Americans, but it is the frantic and chaotic exit, quite frankly, that we have seen over the last couple of weeks that this administration is still trying to find an answer for.

But they do point to more than 120,000 people, Afghan partners and Americans alike, leaving Afghanistan safely. So that is certainly something he will be pointing to. But perhaps most specifically, the big burning question, the urgent question, how the U.S. plans to get out the 100 to 200 American citizens still on the ground in Afghanistan.

This, of course, is not a military mission. It's a diplomatic one that is fraught with so many questions, how he could do that. And then, finally, of course, how he plans to essentially keep eyes on Afghanistan, if you will, to protect the homeland from another terrorist strike.

CAMEROTA: Jeff Zeleny, thank you.

BLACKWELL: All right, we're joined now by a retired Army Major General James "Spider" Marks, CNN chief White House correspondent Kaitlan Collins, Pentagon correspondent Oren Liebermann, chief political correspondent Dana Bash, and chief international correspondent Clarissa Ward.

Dana, I'm going to come to you first.

This is a speech that this president has wanted to give, that the war in Afghanistan is over. It's a speech that the majority of Americans, through polling, want to hear, that this war is over. But it's the context in which it comes that this is not the end, this is a beginning for a lot of those Afghans who are still waiting to get out and, of course, the up to 200 Americans who still want to leave.

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely. And I'm hearing similar things that Jeff just reported on in terms of how the president wants to frame this speech, as a big picture kind of address to the nation to try to frame it the way that you initially described, Victor, as, remember, this is the end of the longest war, and I didn't want to be just another president in a long line of them.

We have heard him say that over and over again. The question is whether or not he is going to be forward-looking. And that is what a lot of sources in both parties I'm talking to on Capitol Hill in particular say that they're listening for. How is America going to deal with the Taliban? Will the United States recognize the Taliban?

[15:05:04]

Those kinds of questions are so crucial and so critical. Unclear if he's going to acknowledge that or if he's going to even bring that up in this speech today. The other question is, what about the refugees? He's going to clearly

talk about the role of America in this war, but also going forward and its place in the world. That was what he campaigned on. What will he do? And what will America do, not just to conduct the unbelievable airlift -- and it really was unbelievable, despite all of the frantic and chaotic problems with the last week or so.

But what now? What will the U.S. do with those refugees? And how will it do its part to absorb them?

CAMEROTA: Clarissa, obviously, we have all watched your reporting over these weeks.

And the big question -- I mean, one big question is, what happens now in Afghanistan? The Taliban has at times said the right things. They want good diplomatic relations, they claim, except that we already know anecdotally from people who've tried to get to the airport that they have blocked them, they have demanded money. They have already been back to some of their usual behavior.

And so where do you think we are?

CLARISSA WARD, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: I think there's a huge amount of uncertainty right now.

If you live in Kabul, if you're a woman, if you're educated, if you're a working professional, you are very afraid of what the future holds. We are seeing in Kabul huge lines outside banks. People are very concerned there's going to be an economic crisis. They are trying to take all of their savings out of those banks as quickly as they can. And they're trying to get out of the country.

Because despite the noises that the Taliban is making, which are positive, which are indicative of a more pragmatic, conciliatory posture, the reality is there's a huge concern about whether the Taliban has the wherewithal to properly govern a country. For the past 20 years, they have been an insurgency.

Before that, when they were governing a country, they were doing a very poor job over it. And so, yes, can they preside over a modern education system? Can they implement infrastructure projects?

And I think a lot of people will be looking to see what happens on Friday, when they are expected to announce some kind of a transitional government.

But, as I said before, if you bought into the American dream, if you bought into that project and spent 20 years thriving as a result of the U.S. presence in Afghanistan, this is a dark day for you, indeed, and there's no getting around that, because even if the Taliban doesn't launch retaliatory attacks, doesn't carry out any sort of bloodletting, purge or anything of that nature, there's still a sense for more progressive educated people, that their country is not heading in a positive direction.

On the other hand, you do have people who are celebrating in the streets today, they're waving Taliban flags, they're calling it independence day. It's never a simple black-and-white picture. But certainly fair to say, based on those I'm talking to, that there's a huge amount of anxiety and a huge amount of fear.

And it's going to take more than the Taliban talking the talk. They're going to have to walk the walk as well.

BLACKWELL: General, this war, again, the longest war in U.S. history, ends without a declaration of victory or defeat.

And I don't know -- I'd be interested to see what the president says on that today. But I wonder, from your perspective, if it is just a choice between those binary options of if the U.S. won or lost the war in Afghanistan.

BRIG. GEN. JAMES "SPIDER" MARKS (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: I don't think it is.

Remember, we went to war with an authorized use of military force, an AUMF, that has not been rewritten in 20 years.

What America -- Victor, in my view, what American gets from this is specifically two things from the military perspective. Look, our military has never been better trained, better equipped, and more prepared with immensely capable leadership at that junior officer level that are now running battalions and those senior noncommissioned officers.

But, sadly, at the strategic lever level, I don't think it's ever been worse. All we -- we don't have the strategic perspective of the relevance of what those very senior leaders need to be able to bring to the table to create the conditions for success.

The second thing is, geopolitically, I trust the United States is not going to abandon the region. Of course they shouldn't, nor should -- nor would they. However, Afghanistan is going to be with us for the long term. How are we going to have to address the inevitable concern that we have that Afghanistan goes back to its old ways of ungoverned space where terrorism can thrive, can prepare, where organizations can come together and export their form of terror.

[15:10:14]

We have got to be able to make sure that we have a presence, so that the over-the-horizon capability is enhanced and not diluted.

CAMEROTA: And so, Oren, that leads us to what the plan is.

There are still by I think the State Department's estimates more than 100 Americans who have been left in Afghanistan who want to leave. President Biden promised that they wouldn't be left behind. And so what's the Pentagon's plan now for helping them?

OREN LIEBERMANN, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Clear, I think, yesterday from General Frank McKenzie, the commander of U.S. Central Command, that it becomes a diplomatic mission.

That means the U.S. works with its allies to find some way to get U.S. citizens to Kabul International Airport or to some other location where they can be brought out of the country.

What was unmentioned yesterday was the prohibition on flights from the FAA that effectively makes it impossible for a U.S. aircraft, a U.S.- registered aircraft, to go into Afghanistan, or for a U.S. carrier to go into Afghanistan. So that has to be arranged with somebody else through another country's airline or a privately operated aircraft registered in another country.

Everything about getting the Americans out became far more difficult after that last C-17 took off than before. It has to be a diplomatic mission, because there is no military presence on the ground to carry out that mission, at least not one that the Pentagon is acknowledging.

And that diplomatic mission, because of the restriction on flights, has become more difficult. I have been looking at flight tracking Web sites for the last few days to see some of the flights going in and out. And at least according to those Web sites, the airspace over Afghanistan is pretty much empty right now. There aren't aircraft going in or out. So getting those last 100 or 200 Americans out has just become incredibly difficult.

And it'll be interesting to see what President Biden acknowledges about what kind of efforts there will be and what those efforts will look like, because it's a very difficult task right now, one that still requires, you would imagine, to some extent, Taliban cooperation and coordination.

They have been a part of this process pretty much since the beginning since the negotiations began that led to the Doha agreement that started that withdrawal. They became an even more critical part of the process down to the final hours. And it looks like even after the U.S. military withdrawal, they may still be a part of this process to get those last 100 or 200 out.

CAMEROTA: Alisyn, mentioned it. I want to play it. This is the promise from President Biden to extricate those Americans who want to leave. Let's watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS, ABC NEWS: Now, you committed to making sure that the troops stay until every American who wants to be out gets out?

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Yes. Yes.

STEPHANOPOULOS: So Americans should understand the troops might have to be there beyond August 31?

BIDEN: No, Americans should understand that we're going to try to get it done before August 31.

STEPHANOPOULOS: But, if we don't, the troops will stay?

BIDEN: If we don't, we will determine at the time who's left.

STEPHANOPOULOS: And?

BIDEN: And if there's American forces -- if there's American citizens left, we're going to stay until we get them all out.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: Kaitlan, that didn't happen. And the promise that was kept was to get out at or by August 31. Down to the minute, U.S. troops were out by that deadline, Americans still there.

The role that plays, apolitically, first just to get Americans home, but also within the president's party?

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, I think allies of the president would point to they got 6,000 Americans out of Afghanistan. They have been telling them for months that they needed to leave Afghanistan, the U.S. government, that is, sending those warnings.

And they tried really desperately, they said, to get a lot of the people who were still there out. However, you have to measure a president against a promise that he has made and words that he -- a statement that he has made, an assurance that he has made that he all U.S. troops -- or troops would stay until all Americans were brought home.

Of course, there are no longer any U.S. service members in Afghanistan, but there are still Americans who want to leave Afghanistan. And so the president, I think, will have to address that today, given the assurance he made just recently. That's going to be a big question for them, given what Oren was just saying, how much dicier the situation is, how much more difficult it is to actually get those Americans out now that the U.S. military presence is gone.

And I think another question, as they say this is turning to a diplomatic mission, is what that really looks like, because Secretary of State Blinken told us yesterday that there is no diplomatic presence in Kabul. They have moved it to Doha for the time being. They are going to be operating out of there.

But, of course, that is a lot different than being on the ground, as the presence was before, and as the U.S. had hoped to maintain before Kabul fell to the Taliban so quickly.

So I think how they're going to get those remaining Americans out who want to leave out is going to be a big question for the White House and also what this diplomatic presence that they say they are going to have is going to look like without actual diplomats on the ground.

CAMEROTA: Major General Spider Marks, I want to go from the big picture that we have all been talking about to the iconic picture that we -- many of us have now seen. [15:15:04]

And that is the last servicemen to leave Afghanistan. And when you know the backstory, it's even more poignant.

I mean, these photos -- this photo of him through this -- these night- vision goggles or this look is just so poignant, because this is Major General Chris Donahue, commanding general of the storied 82nd Airborne. He deployed 17 times in Afghanistan and Iraq and Syria and elsewhere.

And he spent much of his deployment, we understand, trying to train the Afghan army and the security forces after 9/11. And just hearing all of that just even makes this sort of, I don't know, his body language and the look on his face all the more profound. What do you see in this photo? And how -- I mean, I know that you can't speak for all veterans, but how are you feeling on this day? And how do you -- what do you think they're looking to hear from President Biden today?

MARKS: Well, to answer your very first question, Chris Donahue is an amazingly talented soldier.

And what you see in that image is a soldier doing his job. I don't mean to understate it. But that's what you would expect, first man in, last man out, or person. Doesn't matter the gender. And in his case, he really has got the obligation to ensure that no man is left behind.

He owned that airfield until the day and the moment he didn't. And so it was absolutely perfect. And it should be the way it was portrayed, that he'd be the last person on that aircraft.

And he would not make a big deal of this. I mean, this is just that soldier doing his job. That's exactly what this is. And then, in the -- in retrospect, I think we all have time to be reflective, and I have already made my one statement which I think is most important to me, in that we may not -- I think we could discuss this.

But I don't know that we're safer today than we were on 9/11. But I can tell you with certainty we're better prepared. We're better prepared in terms of individuals we have grown both in government and in uniform service. Our homeland security has never been stronger. Our technology, our sharing is great.

So we're better prepared, but we really need to stay vigilant as we totally -- all of us totally understand.

BLACKWELL: Important nuance there.

CAMEROTA: Thank you all very much for the analysis.

Please stick with us, because, any minute now, we expect President Biden to speak about all of this. Of course, we will bring you that live.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:23:33]

CAMEROTA: Rescues are under way right now in Louisiana, as residents try to recover from Idaho -- Ida, which was a Category 4 hurricane.

More than a million people are without power and now enduring oppressive heat. Temperatures could hit 100 degrees over the next several days and local officials warn that power may not be restored for three weeks or longer.

BLACKWELL: Long lines are forming for gas and food statewide. Cooling centers are opening across New Orleans. The governor warned evacuees not to return home until directed.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. JOHN BEL EDWARDS (D-LA): Right now, we have two confirmed deaths across Southeast Louisiana because of the storm. I expect that number is going to rise.

But, historically, we know that most people are injured and killed because of the response, not the storm itself, carbon monoxide poisoning for generators, driving through water that turns out to be deeper, or having more current than you realize, using power equipment that you're unaccustomed to, falling off of roofs when you're cleaning up, and heat exhaustion.

Now is really the most dangerous time.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: Well, that number has risen.

Before we go to Ed Lavandera, we just got this from Jefferson Parish corner that another Hurricane Ida storm-related death, this one due to drowning in Lafitte, Louisiana, 65-year-old woman found. This is the fifth storm-related death in the wake of this now killer hurricane.

Let's go to Ed Lavandera in LaPlace.

Ed, what are you seeing?

ED LAVANDERA, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Victor.

Well it's the cleanup time here in LaPlace. You have major power lines through the heart of the city that have been knocked down and will take considerable amount of time to clean up. And what is really striking here is just the amount of structural damage and rooftop damage that you have seen.

Many people here will tell you they have lived through storms over and over again, but they're used to the floodwaters and that they were stunned by the intensity that Hurricane Ida still had this far inland, and to a T., people describing just how ferocious those winds were and how it felt so very different from anything they had experienced before. And you also have long lines of cars waiting for gas. This gas station

is about two blocks away from where we're standing, and the line goes straight back as far as the eye can see. So, this is all part of the headache that many of these people will be living with for quite some time.

[15:25:03]

And local officials here are urging people to settle in and to brace themselves what could very well be a very long month.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JACLYN HOTARD, PRESIDENT OF ST. JOHN THE BAPTIST PARISH, LOUISIANA: This is going to be a marathon and not a sprint. But I have been in this community for Hurricane Isaac. And I know that we are a resilient group of people.

This is going to be very difficult, worst disaster that we have all seen in St. John Parish. And it's going to take a long time.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LAVANDERA: We spent part of the morning driving through various neighborhoods that had been so hard hit here Sunday night into Monday morning, neighborhoods that took anywhere from two or three feet of water up to almost 10 feet of water inside homes.

And you see a lot of people who have packed up belongings and have left. And then you also hear from local officials and the governor here saying that, if you have evacuated, if you're outside of this area, you might want to wait some time before you make your plans to come back -- Victor and Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: Ed Lavandera, thank you very much.

We are seeing stories of people pitch in to help others, like this man. We have some pictures of Christopher Villagran. He found his boat in his neighbor's yard. This is some video of him -- in his neighbor's yard.

He's been filling it up. He has gas cans and bottles of water to hand out to people who need help.

Christopher Villagran joins us now.

Christopher, give us an idea of what you're seeing there. I see you're trying to get around to people. What's it look like there in Metairie?

CHRISTOPHER VILLAGRAN, VOLUNTEER: Well, I was -- that was in LaPlace, Louisiana, where I live at.

BLACKWELL: Yes.

VILLAGRAN: And I had went back to go get some mementos with my wife and stuff. And I grabbed the boat just to go get a few items and stuff. And I ended

up just rescuing some people.

(CROSSTALK)

CAMEROTA: Yes, how did you rescue people? Where were they?

VILLAGRAN: They were trapped in their houses. They were sitting outside. They were just waiting on the Wildlife and Fishery and Cajun Navy to come rescue them.

And I just happened to walk by just cutting through people's backyards just to get to my house because the water was so high. And I got to my neighbor's boat. And I started to get my stuff. And as I'm walking through the water, I'm just telling people, just come on. And I was bringing them to the church up there.

I had one girl on my back. And the video that you saw is what I ended up finishing up at like 6:37 at night, just me going back and just getting the gas and water and stuff that I had in the back of my truck for the people that were at my truck to drink water or whatever, ended up bringing a couple back to Kenner, Louisiana, to their family.

And I was just -- by that time, I was just tired. It was a 12-hour day out there in LaPlace.

CAMEROTA: Yes.

BLACKWELL: Yes. We know that a lot of people didn't have much time to -- Christopher, let me cut you off.

We have to go now to the White House.

President Biden is now delivering a speech at the end of the war in Afghanistan.

BIDEN: Last night in Kabul, the United States ended 20 years of war in Afghanistan, the longest war in American history.

We completed one of the biggest airlifts in history, with more than 120,000 people evacuated to safety. That number is more than double what most experts thought were possible. No nation, no nation has ever done anything like it in all of history.

Only the United States had the capacity and the will and the ability to do it. And we did it today. The extraordinary success of this mission was due to the incredible skill, bravery, and selfless courage of the United States military and our diplomats and intelligence professionals.

For weeks, they risked their lives to get American citizens, Afghans who helped us, citizens of our allies and partners and others on board planes and out of the country. And they did it facing a crush of enormous crowds seeking to leave the country.

And they did it knowing ISIS-K terrorists, sworn enemies of the Taliban, were lurking in the midst of those crowds. And, still, the women and men of the United States military, our diplomatic corps, and intelligence professionals did their job and did it well, risking their lives, not for professional gains, but to serve others, not in a mission of war, but in a mission of mercy.

Twenty service members were wounded in the service of this mission. Thirteen heroes gave their lives.

I was just at Dover Air Force Base for the dignified transfer. We owe them and their families a debt of gratitude we can never repay.