Return to Transcripts main page

New Day

Some Attending Iowa Fair Vaccinated for COVID-19; Some Afghans Make Desperate Attempts to Leave Country after Taliban Takeover; U.S. Embassy in Afghanistan Advises Americans in Country to Use Best Judgment to Reach Kabul Airport for Evacuation. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired August 20, 2021 - 08:00   ET

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

[08:00:00]

DONIE O'SULLIVAN, CNN REPORTER: They said their decision to get the shot was, in part, because the next fair they are going to require staff to be vaccinated, and in part because they realize it was the safer thing to do.

Have you any concerns about the vaccine?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, I heard that other people had the vaccine, they still ended up getting COVID-19. So that was kind of a concern. But now that we're working the fairs and most of us don't wear a mask anymore, and this and that, so I wanted to be better protected.

Everyone should go on, and if they haven't had the vaccine, they should go on and take it.

O'SULLIVAN: When I'm vaccinated, I'm going to drop by the maze. See you guys.

(END VIDEO TAPE)

O'Sullivan: So, John, as you can see, there some folks who were a bit hesitant about the vaccine and now ready to get the shot. But also, as you saw, some people no matter what you tell them, no matter what people say and tell them, despite all the science, they will not get this shot.

JOHN AVLON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Donie O'Sullivan, live at the Iowa State Fair. Thank you very much, my friend.

NEW DAY continues right now.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is CNN breaking news.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: And good morning to viewers here in the United States and around the world. It is Friday, August 20th, and thousands of Americans and their Afghan allies are desperately trying to escape from Afghanistan this morning. And time may be running out. Just in, the U.S. embassy is warning of safety uncertainty getting to the Kabul airport -- 3,000 people were evacuated from Kabul in the last 24 hours on 16 military transport flights. About one-tenth of them, we're told, were U.S. citizens. For those left behind, the desperation is building. Video showing a young Afghan child being handed over to American troops, a baby we are told, on top of the wall at the airport perimeter.

AVLON: And President Biden will address the nation at 1:00 p.m. eastern today after getting briefed later this morning on Afghanistan. All U.S. senators will also be briefed virtually this afternoon.

We also have new details about a classified cable sent to the State Department by U.S. diplomats back in mid-July calling for swift action to prevent a catastrophe in Afghanistan.

A top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Admiral Peter Vasely, has been leading the effort to negotiate with the Taliban counterparts to maintain security as best they can at the Kabul airport while the State Department engages in high-level diplomatic talks with the Taliban in the neutral setting of Qatar.

KEILAR: CNN's chief international correspondent Clarissa Ward has been reporting all week on the chaos outside of the Kabul airport. Now she has managed to work her way inside.

(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)

CLARISSA WARD, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: This is the final furlong, when you're almost about to get on one of those military aircraft carriers. And you can probably see behind me, I'm trying not to move too much because our signal is pretty weak, there are a lot of people who have been standing out in that scorching sun for many hours.

And as I said, this is the last stage. It begins at the front barriers with the Taliban. We went through one gate this morning, a crush of people pushing, shoving, screaming, children crying out. I can honestly say it was one of the more harrowing things I have experienced.

Then for the lucky people who do get in, you go to the next phase where you sit and wait for several hours. I have talked to people here who have been waiting for two days, two days. And it's such a bottleneck trying to get all these people processed and all these people through. And the problem is that at these bottlenecks, you have these very dangerous situations where you have a crush of people and crowds. And one soldier was telling me that yesterday, two women actually threw their babies over the fence, trying to throw them to the U.S. soldiers. One soldier actually caught the baby in his arms. He went and found the woman afterwards to give the baby back.

But honestly, Brianna, what kind of desperation does a parent have to be in where that's your best hope, is to try to throw your baby to a soldier to get them out, to save them from being crushed, to give them a better future? And I think there is nothing that illustrates better the panic, the chaos, the fear than that description.

I talked to another British soldier who started talking to me, and he just started weeping. He said, I've done two tours in Helmand, but the PTSD I will have from this last week is worse than either of those deployments because people are getting trampled. I heard another story from a U.S. soldier, a woman trampled almost to death last night while we were sitting, waiting in a processing line for about five hours.

[08:05:00]

We saw a military vehicle come streaking through with a newborn baby. And we chased after it, and later we found out that the newborn baby had sunstroke and dehydration, and they had to rush it for medical care. The baby is OK. But let me tell you, there are so many babies.

There's a U.S. military vehicle there. This is a sort of holding area here where there are a lot of people, and there are several of these holding areas. They've been standing, waiting here for, I don't know, about three hours. It's very hot. There's no shade. There's water. But I wonder if we can get a little bit closer even and just take a look. We see children lying on the ground here. Imagine being here with your family for two days in the scorching sun, trying to take care of your children, with no sense of what the future will hold, what happens when you get to America.

I spoke to one woman who actually got separated from her family. She was inside here, but the rest of her family was stuck outside the base. There is no mechanism for dealing with a situation like that. If you lose your family, you lost your family. There's no way to reconnect people at this stage. There's no way to bring them in from the front gate. Honestly, there's no way to rescue anyone from the front gate. It's survival of the fittest.

(END VIDEO TAPE)

AVLON: As you can tell, there are a lot of moving parts to this developing crisis in Afghanistan. So, let's bring in Jeff Zeleny, CNN's chief national affairs correspondent, CNN national security correspondent Kylie Atwood, and CNN White House reporter Natasha Bertrand. It is great to see you all. Kylie, I understand you have got some new reporting about guidance that's come out around the U.S. embassy in Kabul and the airport.

KYLE ATWOOD, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Yes, so the embassy in Kabul sent out a security alert to all American citizens. They've already previously told them that they may not get to the airport safely. Now what they're telling them is that when they do get to the airport, they may face a situation where the gates that they are told to go to are unexpectedly closed. And they're saying that that's because of, of course, we've seen the crowds of people, the security situation on the ground there.

And so they're telling these people -- I just want to read you this line because I think it's important. "Please use your best judgment and attempt to enter the airport at any gate open." They're essentially telling American citizens who are still on the ground, get into the airport any way that you can because we, at this point, have no way of helping you get from the streets, get from these crowded and dangerous outdoor areas into the airport. KEILAR: Best judgment -- based on what? Based on what facts? Jeff,

what do people do with this? An does the administration realize that essentially telling Americans, hey, good luck, that isn't really helping?

JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Americans and Afghan allies, many of whom worked at the U.S. embassy for years, worked alongside American troops there.

The issue here is this. The Taliban is controlling access to the airport and controlling who is not going into the airport. So that explains the utter chaos there. But the challenge in question facing the Biden administration and, indeed, the president, who will address the nation later today is, are they going to do more to give more space to allow people to come to the airport? As you pointed out, too, White House official Kate Bedingfield in the last hour, other troops, the British and the French, and going into Kabul. So those questions are being discussed inside the White House right now.

Are they going to send more troops, are they going to expand this operation? As of now, no. And the president does not want to do that. But that is a question facing him as he goes into the weekend here. Are they going to do more outside of the airport? He's scheduled to address the nation this afternoon, was planning to give what they saw as good news overnight. There are planes running. They sent some 16 planes out overnight. But as we've seen with our own eyes on the ground there through Clarissa's great reporting, things are still very bottled up there. So no matter what they say at the White House, that doesn't change what happens on the ground.

KEILAR: And that there's empty seats. There are empty seats.

AVLON: And that's the logistical issue. But rhetoric never addresses reality. But Natasha, as we've seen, the Taliban holding back is really one of the reeds this entire situation holding on. If that situation escalates or devolves into further violence, all bets are off in what is already a chaotic transfer.

You've been reporting on the U.S. admiral in charge of the area and his negotiations with the Taliban. What are you learning?

NATASHA BERTRAND, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: So he is in touch with the Taliban commander, basically his counterpart in the Taliban, every day. They are talking multiple times a day at some points, and they are really hoping that diplomacy here can save the day.

[08:10:00]

They have reiterated that they don't really have control over what the Taliban are doing outside of the perimeter of the airport, setting up checkpoints, blocking Afghans from coming into the airport, in some cases blocking westerners from trying to get to the airport. So they are saying that we're trying our best to emphasize to the Taliban this needs to happen, because there are a number of ways that we have some kind of leverage, even if it's not militarily. We have leverage when it comes to international recognition of the Taliban. We have financial leverage in some cases. But ultimately, it really does come down to diplomacy.

AVLON: What specifically are we asking for? What specifically is the admiral asking for, and what's been the response from the Taliban?

BERTRAND: Safe passage for Americans is the priority at this point, trying to get to the airport. But the Taliban, they are facilitating that as much as possible. That's what they're telling the Americans, anyway, that they are willing to allow Americans to get to the airport. But again, it's hard because, as Kylie was just saying, if you're getting to the airport and these gates are closed unexpectedly, then what really is the use of the Taliban kind of allowing you to get there if there's chaos at the scene already?

So part of the big problem here is that it's just so unpredictable. White House official was telling me yesterday that there are multiple channels open to the Taliban, but it's still kind of unclear who controls what, who controls whom even with all of these fighters roaming the streets. Are those demands getting passed down the chain properly. And it's just kind of a mess at this point.

KEILAR: Yes, it would appear that they are not, because we've seen videos of Taliban whipping and beating Afghans, and we've heard reports, even the U.S. government is acknowledging reports of Americans who cannot get to the airport. A small number, they say, but that is the case.

Kylie, let's talk about this cable, this warning from diplomats, people who are actually at the embassy in Kabul.

ATWOOD: Yes, so this was a classified dissent memo written in the middle of July from diplomats who are at the embassy in Kabul, as you said, telling the secretary of state that the State Department needed to be taking more urgent action to process and to evacuate these Afghans for visas and refugee status before the situation got to where it was a crisis, right. They were on the ground. They were seeing what was happening. They saw the result of the president's decision to withdraw. So, therefore, they watched what was happening with the Taliban, and they predicted that the Afghan government was going to fall by the time of the U.S. complete withdrawal at the end of August.

Now, Jon Finer, the deputy national security advisor, spoke with Wolf Blitzer about this dissent memo just yesterday. He said, look, these diplomats did predict that the Afghan government was going to fall, but so did a lot of the government. No one predicted it would happen this quickly. He also said that some of the things that were in that dissent memo were actually acted upon by the administration.

That is significant, but what you have to recognize is that a dissent memo is the last-ditch effort for diplomats. They don't want to write to the secretary of state saying that their voices aren't being heard, but that's what they had to do here. So what this boils down to is that they thought things should have been done more early than they were. And they felt like they weren't being heard at the embassy. That's why they wrote to the secretary of state.

And one of the things that they did propose is a biometric enrollment program for these Afghans so that when you're starting to get them out of the country, you already have this program, this list to look at. Because that wasn't done quickly, that is one of the many things that is a major issue now.

KEILAR: That would made things a lot easier.

AVLON: That would have been useful about now. But Jeff, the presence of that cable contradicts the administration's public line to date, which is that nobody saw this coming, it happened much more quickly, and that it was extremely unlikely, as the president said, that you'd see a complete fall of the government. So given, now that the fact they need to confront the reality of this cable, which they acknowledge receiving, how do they build that credibility back? And what is the president's position? He's insisting no mistakes were made when clearly there is a disaster on his hands. How are they going to square that circle, because they need to clear that up to date or it cuts to the heart of the president's credibility?

ZELENY: Without a doubt. And the first way, the best way, perhaps the only way they can do that is a White House official told me the way to prove our competence is to get the situation at the airport under control. If by August 31st, which is a self-imposed deadline, it's his deadline, it's not some global deadline. If they can get all Americans and Afghan allies, or many of them out by then, and there is not, God forbid, some type of attack or something on the airport, it's one way to get the competence back.

But that is not going to answer the questions. Beginning next week on Capitol Hill, congressional hearings led by Democrats, many of whom are Afghan veterans as well or Iraq veterans, that is what's interesting about this Congress. It is made up of so many people who know more about this than the White House. So they are going to be asking questions about the dissent memo and other things.

The big question is no one thought it would fall this fast. That is a central part here. Of course, mistakes were made. The president -- talking to White House officials, they wish he wouldn't be quite as defensive on this.

[08:15:01]

So, we will see if his tune shifts a bit on this. But for right now, the best way to show confidence is to get that airport under control even more.

We should say it's under control in the sense they're controlling the airport, but that's not the point. It's what's outside the airport and that is the challenge here in the coming hours, the urgent challenge.

KEILAR: Yeah, the airport may be safe and secure. Does that really matter if you cannot get there safely and securely?

KYLIE ATWOOD, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: And does it matter if you can't process people quickly enough.

KEILAR: That's right. Very, very good point. Kylie, Natasha, thank you so much. Jeff, appreciate it.

JOHN AVLON, CNN ANCHOR: Thank you, guys.

And up next, we're going to speak with an Afghan interpreter who is pleading for his family to get out of Afghanistan. You got to hear his chilling story.

KEILAR: Plus, a CNN exclusive with the Air Force crew of this cargo plane. We have the crew that flew all of these people, Afghans fleeing the Taliban takeover. We'll talk to them live.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KEILAR: Our next guest is one of the many Afghans who worked alongside U.S. forces during the war as an interpreter. He is now an American citizen living here in the United States, but his family is in Kabul trying desperately to escape the Taliban.

And he is with us now. I do want to note as you can tell, we are hiding his identity. We are not telling you his name because he and we are concerned for his family's safety.

So, sir, I want to welcome you to the program.

[08:20:l0]

Thank you so much for joining us.

Tell us about your situation. You have a wife and other family members who are trying to get out of Kabul right now, but they can't get to the airport. Tell us their situation.

FORMER INTERPRETER FOR U.S. IN AFGHANISTAN: Good morning, Ms. Brianna, thank you very much. I'm glad to be here.

Since I have not slept in the past two weeks, specifically last week up to today, in the past whole week, I have only slept for 30 to 35 hours because of the situation that me, my family and thousands of other Afghan allies helping, working and supporting the U.S. troops in Afghanistan are going through. So forgive me if I make a mistake or if I --

KEILAR: Of course.

FORMER INTERPRETER FOR U.S. IN AFGHANISTAN: -- if I bluntly and frankly speak my pain that is messing with my head.

KEILAR: Well, sir, tell us what you are hearing from your family. Tell us how they are feeling. Tell us what you fear for.

FORMER INTERPRETER FOR U.S. IN AFGHANISTAN: I don't work for the past one week, me and my brother are not working, just sitting at home day and night just following, calling my family via different -- via text messages, via WhatsApp, via messengers to get the latest information on what they are going through. They are in an extreme fear because of our services, because of our support and work we did with, with the U.S. troops in Afghanistan. So our service have put some innocent people that have nothing to do whatsoever with the U.S. troops, plus the Taliban, but you're paying for it. They're just waiting right now and they are expecting that they will be murdered with the most heinous and brutal manner that the Taliban are executing people.

KEILAR: Can you -- tell us a little bit about your experience with the U.S. troops, you know, how long you worked for the military, the kinds of injuries that you personally sustained.

FORMER INTERPRETER FOR U.S. IN AFGHANISTAN: I have worked for almost a decade with the U.S. military in Afghanistan from 2005 all the way to 2012 I worked as a local, national linguist in Afghanistan, and then from February 2018 all the way up to beginning of March last year, I worked as a duty civilian contractors, throughout that time, working with the U.S. troops in Afghanistan in a very tiny and less populated country that made me to be a very high profile person.

So, and it's one decade, and people from the military background understand that working for one, with the U.S. troops in Afghanistan, what kind of situation I might have been or what I have seen there, yes. I have face with death several times -- not one time. There are scars, injuries in my body that's obvious and speaks what kind of situation I've been through.

Now, do you think I deserve this? Do my family deserve to go through that kind of situation? Is that what -- the reward is that I receive, is that what an American model is?

I take this very, very personally. I only have the chance to speak, come here and speak, but there are thousands and thousands of American allies, Afghan, that do not even have the chance to express their pain.

[08:25:10]

They're not even broadcasted. They are going even into worse. Is there someone watching this?

I sent -- I sent my brother's wife with his two kids, 17 months old and a 5 years old daughter yesterday at 7:30 in the morning, and they were all the way there for seven or up to eight hours --

KEILAR: To the airport?

FORMER INTERPRETER FOR U.S. IN AFGHANISTAN: To the airport to be evacuated.

And then later on my brother called me and told me that, hey, do you want -- do you -- do American government want to evacuate us alive or they want our deceased body to be evacuated? I told him, what are you talking about? He told me that there is 90 percent of death and 10 percent, if you make it to the gate, but there is no guarantee if we would be evacuated. And then they tell you, go, come back next day. It's a danger. You put

us in more danger. This is not the way to evacuate Americans or American allies.

This -- we are watched by the world. We are spitting on our own faces. They are American. I am an American. My -- that's my family.

KEILAR: Yeah, you are an American citizen and you -- your family is having this struggle, and they are in danger because of the help that you gave America. What led to you becoming an American citizen? Why did you become an American citizen?

FORMER INTERPRETER FOR U.S. IN AFGHANISTAN: Well, I became an American citizen because I believe this is not what America -- the world is watching us. I became an American because America is of value. America is ethic. America is dignity. America is generosity.

This is not what America is. Let me -- allow me to, to, to pass my message to the entire world, specifically to Afghans and those who supported the U.S. troops in Afghanistan. Our foundation fathers did not let us handle our national and international issues like that. This is not what America is.

All those Afghan allies that supported and worked with the U.S. troops and know that we are working to convince the concern authority to bring you safely with the most proper, professional and respectful manner, rescue your life from there and bring you to America. America is beautiful. America is not the way that you have been faced with. America means ethics.

Know that you were the ears, the eyes and the heart of American troops in Afghanistan. American troops would have been deaf, blind if you were not there. American troops left their ears, their eyes and their hearts in Afghanistan.

They are working -- it's very, very personal for me that I have been injured, deadly severe. I have been -- I have lost cousins -- I have lost American women and men in uniform, and this is a disrespect for me,

[08:30:00]