johning us john harwood and senior political analyst john avalon. so, yes, big road ahead as manu just laid out for us. john avalon, we can't ignore the historical significance here. how big of an accomplishment is this for president biden at this point in his first year? >> huge, and i think that's the way to think about this. what are the historical comps if any to this? i don't think any democratic president has had a more impactful first year legislatively since lbj. in terms of any president, i think you've got to go back to regan's first year where he was able to pass with bipartisan margins budget plan that changed the trajectory of american politics in fundamental ways. this is a huge win, not just for biden's promise he could make government work and cobble together bipartisan consensus. it's a huge deal, after republican killed a $50 billion infrastructure bill a decade ago. this broader budget, there are hurdles ahead. but there are going to be negotiations within the democratic conference. so in many ways the mostly difficult hurdle has

john harwood, um, the idea of isis-k. one level is going to be whether or not this expressed animosity between the taliban and them is really true because there are reports from the ground there that some suspect that the isis-k guys are in and among, insinuated among the taliban numbers there. but in terms of what the real threat is that's perceived by the white house, are they more worried about the taliban? or isis-k going forward? >> well, i think for the next five days, they are more worried about isis-k because as the president indicated today and as general mackenzie indicated, as well. the taliban and -- and u.s. forces have a significant common purpose, which is to get american troops out of there. and the taliban effective ly control the country. that compels cooperation with them. and to the extent that they want to make sure that americans leave, it is in their interest to help americans leave. obviously, the administration and u.s. military commanders don't entirely trust the taliban. but they've got to work

john avlon. good evening one and all, both johns by the way. john harwood, you first. let's start with this critical week for the president's domestic agenda. this is where the rubber really is going to meet the road here, and it comes down to the democrats this time. so give us the latest. what do you think? what do you know? >> well, look, don, the democrats are going to have to decide whether to hang together or hang separately, and this is -- the margins are so small in the house and senate that anybody or any small group of people in the house can take down the president's agenda if they want to. so you have this group of moderate democrats in the house who have been threatening to withhold support for the larger budget bill that they're going to do with democrats-only votes, the $3.5 trillion, unless they first get a vote on the bipartisan infrastructure bill. nancy pelosi doesn't want to do that because they're trying to manage the support of the progressives and the moderates at the same time. she has shown historically a lot of skill at legislating, and so you

also general mark hurtling, john harwood and nic robertson. general hurtling, let me start with you and your reaction to what we just learned from the pentagon, 12 u.s. service members killed, 15 wounded in the attacks. >> victor, what i'll tell you is when general mckenzie said that i was devastated. i didn't expect that number, truthfully. can i say,first of all, heart felt condolences go out to all the parents and loved ones of those who are probably going to get messages some time soon about their loved one who gave their life in the most difficult of missions. this is not just a combat mission. this is a humanitarian mission. it's getting people out of a contested place. it was a terrific briefing because he really shared the spectrum of the kinds of things they're doing. one of the things he said struck me because it reminded me -- i, unfortunately, during my time in iraq experienced several suicide bombings against troops and iraqi civilians. he said they didn't know if the suicide bomber was a male or a female. i'm going to make a conj

. >> i want to bring in now cnn white house correspondent john harwood. john, good evening. thank you so much. powerful words from president biden while honoring the officers who defended our capitol on january 6th. we cannot allow history to be rewritten. it's one thing to make sure that january 6th isn't whitewashed away, but could they be doing more to make sure it doesn't happen again? >> well, sure he could be doing more. he could have appointed a commission himself as president when the bipartisan commission was turned down on the hill. he could be talking about the issue more. i know there are some democrats who think given the stakes of the situation, the threat to american democracy, some people would like him to drop everything else and do a full-court press on voting rights and have his justice department do a full-court investigation of what's going on. joe biden has different priorities right now. he has -- his justice department has indicated they're not going to invoke executive privilege to get the testimony of some of these justice department officials that'

. >> i want to bring in now cnn white house correspondent john harwood. john, good evening, thank you so much. powerful words from president biden while honoring the officers who defended our capitol on january 6. we cannot allow history to be rewritten. it's one thing to make sure january 6 isn't white washed away. but could they be doing more to make sure it doesn't happen again? >> well, sure, he could be doing more. he could have appointed a commission himself, as president, when the bipartisan commission was turned down on the hill. he could be talking about the issue more. i know there are some democrats who think given the stakes of the situation, the threat to american democracy, some people would like him to drop everything else and do a full-court press on voting rights and have his justice department do a full court investigation of what's going on. joe biden has different priorities right now. he has -- his justice department has indicated they're not going to invoke executive privilege to get the testimony of some of these justice department

. >>> let's bring in cnn white house correspondent john harwood. john, good morning. appreciate you getting up with us. given where things stand, it seems that president biden's confidence in our exit from afghanistan may come back to haunt him and quickly. let's start with what the president said about the taliban back in july. >> the question now is where do they go from here, that, the jury is still out. but the likelihood that there is going to be taliban overrunning everything and owning the whole country is highly unlikely. >> yet that is precisely what has happened in just a matter of days. how does the president explain this to the american people in a way that they can understand, how do they persuade the american people that he was right about the decision to pull out? >> well, it won't be easy. this is a tremendously embarrassing punctuation point to this 20 year commitment by the united states and the president obviously got it wrong in terms of what situation going to happen in the near term. what i would expect him to do is to repeat what he did in the p

. >> along with john harwood, oren joins us now. the white us, the pentagon, all bracing for potentially more terror attacks. what will these evacuations look like between now and tuesday? >> first, it's important to note that they're ongoing. president joe biden made that clear. in fact, i'm looking at a flight tracking website on a monofor nex next to me. so the flights continue. the mission continues. but as i pointed out there in that story, the u.s. commanders there have asked the taliban to expand the security corridor, to close down some of the roads leading to the airport. they have already in light of the threats that we have heard in the last few days from isis-k and from others increased the security presence at the airport by shifting troops over to security. crucially, though, the evacuation continues. at some point it will start to transition from full evacuation to withdrawal of u.s. forces and that's simply inevitable as we get close tore that end date. but the evacuation continues for u.s. citizens and others. >> jo

both johns, by the way. john harwood, you first. let's start with this critical week for the president's domestic agenda. this is where the rubber really is going to meet the road here and it comes down to the democrats this time so give us the latest. what do you think? what do you know? >> look, don, the democrats will have to decide whether to hang together or hang rseparately. this is -- the margins are so small in the house and senate anybody or any small group of people in the house can take down the president's agenda if they want to. so you've had this group of moderate democrats in the house who have been threatening to withhold support for the larger budget bill that they're going to do with democrats only votes, the $3.5 trillion unless they first get a vote on the bipartisan infrastructure bill. nancy pelosi doesn't want to do that because they're trying to manage the support of the progressives and moderates at the same time. she has shown historically a lot of skill at legislating and so you'd have to bet at this momen

let's bring in john harwood. in that interview, john, with abc news the president appears both defensive and somewhat missing the point that the criticism right now isn't about the final decision to pull out of afghanistan, but the method of execution and what went wrong here. >> well, look, i think he is certainly defensive and i think that defensiveness is getting in the way of acknowledging mistakes that would be in his interests to acknowledge would help him get past this. on the other hand, i think he doesn't believe he is missing the point. he thinks his critics are. the point being that the immediate collapse unexpected which he acknowledges of the afghan government and security forces proves his point that this war was not worth continuing and that, second, under those circumstances, there is no way that you could avoid a mess. and then third, having gotten -- had the government collapse and had the scenes of panic and chaos ensue, that the military has in fact gotten control of the kabul airport and they

joining me now, cnn's white house correspondent john harwood, senior political analyst ron brownstein. gentlemen, so happy to have you. good evening to both of you. it's the top of the hour now. we're glad that you're here. john, two big wins for the biden administration today. the house voting to move forward on this massive $3.5 trillion budget and the john lewis voting rights act. the president also talking about the economic plan before the afghanistan announcement. does this show you where he thinks americans are focusing? >> it's not only where he thinks americans are focused, will be focused, but it's also what he thinks will be the best way he has to counter some of the political damage that he has sustained over afghanistan. joe biden has centered his presidency around trying to bring material changes to people's lives, trying to get the coronavirus pandemic under control, trying to deliver concrete benefits to people in the form of physical infrastructure, in the form of human benefits, child tax credits, expanded medicare benefits, free community college, a whole range of t

john avlon. gentlemen, good evening. thanks for joining. john harwood, i'll start with you. this information about the former u.s. attorney in atlanta. his name is b.j. pack. shows just how desperate trump was to overturn the election in his final days in office. what can you tell us about this testimony? >> well, the former u.s. attorney testified to the senate judiciary committee virtually today. this is part of a series of interviews that the committee is doing as members on -- democrats on capitol hill are trying to gather what they can in addition to what the select committee is doing about january 6th. and what they found was that this trump-appointed u.s. attorney was told by justice department officials he would be fired unless he affirmed trump's claims of voter fraud in georgia, which he could not because there was no evidence. and so he resigned without explanation in lieu of being fired. we also know that the replacement that donald trump put in the job, somebody shifted over from the u.s. attorney position in savannah, also found there was no evidence. the pictu

john harwood, nice to see you. >>> this is dramatic break down in the middle east. the taliban seizing control of the first major city in afghanistan to fall since the start of the u.s. withdrawal in may. the insurgence capital marking a big blow to the afghan government. nick paton walsh joining us now. it's a major taliban victory. it comes weeks before the withdrawal of u.s. troops set to end. what is in place here? >> we haven't seen a number of days fall now going on for five. quite as bad as this for the afghan government in the 20 years of the war. kunduz one of three cities that fell. great pressure on another key city, as well. to the southwest of kabul. taliban fighting for elements of that, too. it comes with the broader backdrop of the u.s. forces leaving very quickly. still using air strikes it seems. they're not clearly having success. what is so important about the cities falling is the afghan government strategy had been will aim at keeping the cities. what seems to be happening is the taliban are kind of making too many fires for afghan security for

let's bring in cnn's john harwood live at the white house. >>> look, still, still steps that need to be taken here for this to move forward and be a success. but, you know, it keeps plodding along and you can't really overstate what a big deal this is, john. >> reporter: brianna, there's lots that could still go wrong. many steps to go in this from process as you guys just indicated. but sometimes in the back and forth we forget about the magnitude of what president biden is trying to accomplish. and what we saw last night in those two votes, first to pass the infrastructure bill in the senate, then to pass this budget resolution in the early hours this morning, what you see is a two-track strategy that is on track to succeed. and if it does, it is -- has enormous ramifications for the biden presidency and also for the country. remember, joe biden said he was going to try to get things done across party lines, and he did that yesterday in the senate. but that's the lesser part of the bill, or the lesser part of the significance. the greater part is a big upgrade to roads, bridges, br

john harwood, jessica dean, thanks very much. >>> this just in to cnn. we're learning that vice president harris' travel delegation was delayed from departing singapore due to a report of a health incident. the details of this potentially alarming. cnn's natasha bertrand is here to explain. health incident, what are we talking about here? >> an anomalous health incident. that's what the u.s. calls havana syndrome. it is a weird constellation of syndromes that has sickened american diplomats over the years, things like traumatic brain injury, vertigo, in some cases forcing u.s. government employees to retire. this is a remarkable incident if it is confirmed. and the fact that they're being transparent about it is also kind of interesting. we have not previously reported that any of these cases have come out of vietnam, but they have been popping up all over the world. from europe to south america to china. and it's unclear at this point, the u.s. intelligence community doesn't exactly know what's causing it. they don't know if it's someone that is targeti

john harwood joins me from the white house. what is misleading about that is that we know some of the senior military officials opposed the withdrawal of all u.s. forces from afghanistan. perhaps at the final moments sticking to the deadline, a different decision. but it is not unanimous to withdrawal saul forces, particularly unconditionally. >> reporter: no, it definitely wasn't. and remember, joe biden has been arguing with generals about afghanistan for more than a decade. he argued against the surge that president obama ordered when he was vice president. he lost that argument. but now that he's the president, in position to dictate the outcome, he was not -- he thought that president obama had been pushed around by the generals. he decided he was not going to do that. he's willing to take the heat for that decision. and he's been taking a ton of heat for it. what i think that statement referred to was the decision not to extend the deadline for another week or two because of the presence of those 100 to 200 americans. ins

john harwood at the white house. thank you. >>> joining me now to discuss ambassador ronald newman, former ambassador to afghanistan, current president of the american academy of diplomacy. ambassador, thank you for taking the time this morning. >> thank you. good to be with you. i was in kabul just a week -- a month ago. >> goodness. given that experience there, long experience there, i've spoken to afghans, particularly those who worked for the u.s. government, who say their lives are in danger. the taliban is looking for them right now. is it a fact that it's a matter of life and death, that if you're an afghan who has really any tie to the outgoing u.s. forces there, u.s. government, that you'll be a target? >> there is a high probability because the taliban are speaking in two directions. on the one hand they're saying, oh, amnesty and nobody needs to be afraid. and on the other hand, we have constant reports coming in of taliban going door to door looking for people and some reports of executions. so, a very hi

this coming in according to a senior administration official to our correspondent john harwood over at the white house, in afghanistan, u.s. embassy personnel now mostly evacuated to the kabul airport. there's growing concern about how to keep them safe. a few hours ago, the embassy sent out a security alert warning there are reports of the airport taking fire. i want to bring in cnn's pentagon correspondent oren liebermann. this is a very precarious situation. where are u.s. troops in-country right now? what does the pentagon say about plans if control of this airport falls, which i suppose like everything else that we've seen, is possible? >> reporter: so let's be clear that if hamid karzai n international airport were to fall, that is the worst-case scenario. the need to retake an airport from insurgents or from some other group that tries to take it, that requires more troops than are on the ground now, and that's the worst-case scenario, but that's not what's happening right now. the bulk of u.s. troops are at hamid karzai international airport. there are some 3,000 troops on the

cnn john harwood joins me now from the white house. john. this is personal for this president and for any commander in cleave. you saw it in president biden face yesterday and he lost his son not during military service, to cancer, but he knows loss. so what is the message expected to be to the families. >> once the military finishes the next of kin notification procedure, the president will reach out to those families and his message will be a more intimate version of the one he gave to the nation yesterday. which is sharing in the grief of those families over the loss of life. hailing their selfless sacrifice that is putting themselves, their own lives in danger to try to save the lives of others. and also to indicate that the message -- the mission that took their lives is going to continue for the next five days at least. and that is trying to get as many of those americans and vulnerable afghan allies out. but the president acknowledged few hundred americans left, thousands more afghan allies left to be evacuated. he acknowledged yester

. >> cnn's john harwood joins us from the white house. those words are difficult to hear, right? that, in fact, the u.s. position there now, as well as those evacuations of people in effect fleeing the country for their lives is depending on cooperation from the taliban. do you sense the slightest of flexibility from the president, from the white house, about extending these evacuations and this deadline, or is it done? >> i think there is flexibility, jim. the president said yesterday that he'd asked the military for contingency plans in the event they need to extend the deadline. but overall, it is a balancing test from the point of view of the white house between achieving as much of their mission as is possible, doing the best they can to get people out, 82,000, as you indicated, over the last 11 days, and avoiding catastrophe as a result of the threat stream you alluded to at the beginning of the segment, either for those near the air base trying to get out or for u.s. troops. they have not had a single u.s. casualty as they've conducted this evacuation effort over the last

army and cnn security analyst and john harwood who covers the white house and cnn's barbara starr at the pentagon. great to have all of you. general, i want to start with you. i'm sure you were listening in as a national security advisor. jake sullivan was talking there. i'm still confused about the number of afghan helpers, translators, fixers, et cetera still trapped in afghanistan that fear for their lives and that are trying to get out. and i found, frankly, jen psaki and the national security advisor noncommittal if you can't get them all out at this rate by august 31st, can you guarantee them safe passage? you were on the ground and spent time in kabul more than a year. how hard will it be to save these people? >> thank you for the question. this is a painfully difficult problem set. yes, the intent would define a way to get them back but there is no mechanism to bring them out of the inner land. if they didn't get out before the final push of the taliban, this is a tragic aspect of this scenario that is unfolding. everybody is trying to do their best but unfortunately, we're a

let's go to the white house and john harwood is there. this struck both jim and myself, and that is the important question poses, why the self imposed august 31st deadline to get everyone out. the white house could ostensibly extend that in september if they deem it to be safe and do you know if the white house is willing to do that. >> well john kirby said that is a commander in chief decision. he's operating off -- or talking off the timeline that he has. and if you look at 14 days between now and the 31st of august, if they in fact could sustain a pace of 5,000 to 9,000 evacuees a day, you get to 100,000 in that time frame. and what was unclear and kirby was cagey about this, is how long and how significant is the accommodation that the taliban is going to make. he talked about securing the airport and getting people who get to the airport out. then there are the additional questions of the thousands people not near or at the kabul airport, can they get there. and he was not spelling out what the taliban has said or not said about thei

. > >>> joining me now, john harwood, john avlon, gentlemen, good evening. john, what can you tell us about the testimony of former federal prosecutor bj pak? >> this is part of a series of inte interviews the committee is doing as democrats on capitol hill are trying to gather what they can in addition to what the select committee is doing about january 6 and what they found was that this trump-appointed u.s. attorney was told by justice department officials he would be fired unless he affirmed trump's claims of voter fraud in georgia which h

> >>> joining me now, john harwood, john avlon, gentlemen, good evening. john, what can you tell us about the testimony of former federal prosecutor bj pak? >> this is part of a series of inte interviews the committee is doing as democrats on capitol hill are trying to gather what they can in addition to what the select committee is doing about january 6 and what they found was that this trump-appointed u.s. attorney was told by justice department officials he would be fired unless he affirmed trump's claims of voter fraud in georgia which he could not because there was no evidence. and so he resigned without explanation in lieu of being fired. we also know that the replacement that donald trump put in the job, somebody shifted over from the u.s. attorney position in savannah, also found there was no evidence. the picture that's emerging from some of these interviews, including those of jeffrey rosen, former acting u.s. attorney, is that donald trump was pushing across the body politic, looking for soft places where he could work his will. and it is fortun

let's bring in john harwood and author of "joe biden," the life, the run and what matters now. john, the president is insisting the afghanistan withdrawal is going as well as it could have. but in the memo raises questions about his administration handling of it. what do you know? >> well, look, they're clearly people within the government who felt there was greater urgency to the situation than the administration was reflecting. we have seen it in the state department memo, we have seen it in the leaks of the intelligence community suggesting there were some dire prediction in the intelligence community, of course president biden and chief of staff milley had said that there was not a consensus that the government was going to crumble so fast. from president biden's point of view, he had bad options. one is if he acted in an accelerated manner to have a mask evacuation, he risk undermining confidence in the government and accelerating the collapse of the government and sof of the statements he made of the taliban. had he hinted the taliban was going to take over, that would un

let's begin with john harwood at the white house. john, so some good news reaching that goal, though a month late. the question really now is how

cnn's white house correspondent john harwood is here and cnn senior political analyst kirsten powers. let's get into it. john, clearly the president is standing by his decision. what is the white house going to do about this unfolding disaster, what appears to be an unfolding disaster? >> what they're going to do, don, is focus as intently as they can on the very thing that will determine whether it is ultimately a failure, and that is the large scale evacuation of american citizens and afghan allies. the president has acknowledged that this collapse of the afghan government security forces was faster than he expected. general milley told us today "i had no intelligence saying it could happen in 11 days." our own colleague clarissa ward said this evening that nobody expected this could happen in 11 days. so as a result, the scenes that we're seeing are shocking and disorienting and you're seeing justifiable fear and panic among people who have good reason to be concerned for their lives. however we have not seen evidence of large scale loss of life. we have not had casualties among am

let's begin with john harwood at the white house. john, so some good news reaching that goal, though a month late. the question really now is how do you get to those folks still refusing to be vaccinated? what do we expect to hear from the president today? >> reporter: jim, as you say, it is good news but it is not good enough to slow down the delta variant. everything this administration wants to accomplish in terms of public health and economically and politically depending on getting this pandemic under control and the administration has hit a wall in terms of resistance both fueled by politics in some the red state and concern among some members of other communities in big cities who are reluctant to get vaccinated. we'll hear from the president today to talk about efforts to vaccinated the rest of the world. 110 million doses shipped overseas and looking to the private sector to galvanize vaccine requirements or very strong pushes to employees and to customers, we're expecting to get some news from new york city mayor de blasio

. >>> joining me now, cnn's john harwood and general mark hertling. general, i appreciate your remarks and the way you handled the coverage of the remains of the servicemen returning here. >> thanks, don, that's kind. >> it was riveting, and a great way that you paid tribute to those service members. john, i'm going to start with you. the u.s. is officially out of afghanistan. we're told there are still between 100 and 200 americans who needed to be evacuated. what are you hearing from the white house? is there a plan to get all of these people out of the country? >> don, it mostly involves exerting diplomatic pressure by the united states and its allies on the taliban to live up to the commitments that alex mentioned in that piece, to allow for safe passage for people with proper documentation to least country through the kabul airport. the united states is going to reengage with afghanistan from qatar. the embassies are closed within afghanistan but they'll operate from qatar. and for those 100 to 200 people, i think one of the things we have to rec

i think john harwood laid it out of what the rank rdorder of probabilities of getting people out. >> and you know the white house is saying that this august 31st deadline depends on the taliban cooperating. you are saying they will not be able to do it by the 31st. today the taliban is saying no longer, they are no longer going to left afghans leave the country or reach the airport. does that mean the situation on the ground is already shifted? >> i think so. that, that's actually, you know, a very disturbing, to me, it's a breech in faith by the taliban, which is certainly, you know, consistent with their pattern. so, that's a very worrisome development, there's many other ways or other ways, covert are probably of spiriting people out or going out and getting them. that will get increasingly dicey and risky. both for the people that are attempting to rescue as well as the rescuers. so, this is, it's a tough situation. >> this, the president specifically acknowledging the threat from isis-k today. tell us about that and about them? >> well, this is a, one of the franchises of isis.

cnn's john harwood is standing by. drug prices a major problem across the country. but is it clear what the president plans to do about it? >> reporter: well, he's got a plan. and it is embodied in this big reconciliation bill, $3.5 trillion that he's now turning to having gotten that physical infrastructure bill in place passed through the senate. and what he's got is a three-part approach. one is to allow medicare to negotiate with drug companies over the cost of prescription drugs which many people as you indicated think are too high. it is been a top priority of the american people. secondly, provide a mechanism to limit the out of pocket costs for prescription drugs. >> that would deal with a major cost concern. and also for others, people who are not on medicare, facilitate the importation of less expensive drugs from other countries in particular canada. that has been done to a limited degree so far. but it hasn't been done on a wide scale. these are all major priorities of the democratic party. they are bitterly opposed by pharmaceutical companies who see a

let's go to john harwood. how imminent? do you have a scent sense of how imminent more u.s. strikes could be? >> he couldn't have been more direct. he put out a statement saying his commanders have advised him it is highly likely that there will be another attack in the next 24 to 36 hours. you just heard from sam about the more specific credible threat tonight that's led to an immediate depart from the airport request from the u.s. embassy. now, while this is going on, evacuations have slowed but they haven't stopped. 2,000 in the last 12 hours. according to white house officials, a total of 113,000 since august 14th. that's an astounding number. what we've seen from the president in the last 24 hours since that suicide attack is an ability to communicate. one is to resolve to complete this mission on tuesday, and the second is determination to hit back on those who hit u.s. forces, took the lives of 13 u.s. troops, injured many others and killed tens of thousands of afghans. here's the president of the united states' statement this afternoon. i said we would go after the g

let's begin with john harwood at the white house. john, the president is standing by his stition and defiant and defensive at times in this interview. how does the white house believe he is messaging this? >> reporter: well, look, he is defiant because it is pretty clear that president biden believes for all of the incoming he's taking, from allies, from democrats, from republicans on capitol hill, he believe that's he's fundamentally correct about his decision. he's acknowledged that the collapse of the afghan security forces and government occurred much faster than he had anticipated, that mark milley had anticipated and our colleague clarissa ward had an tis pated. but having said that, he thinks there is no good time to do it and it was going to be messy in any event. he told george stephanopoulos in the interview, that the withdrawal has not failed despite the declarations that it has because they are ramping up the evacuations, we've not lost american troops and the test is in front of him. that is can they ramp up to the level

. >> joining me now, cnn white house correspondent john harwood and mark mckinnon. he is a former adviser to george w. bush and john mccain, and he's the executive producer of "the circus." gentlemen, good evening. the stories are really just unbelievable coming out of afghanistan. john, the president is back at the white house tonight while his administration tries to contain the fallout over the chaos and the fall of kabul. he is going to do an interview with abc news tomorrow, and he's sure to be pressed on what went so wrong. what do you think we'll hear? >> well, i'd expect that george stephanopoulos will press him on why it was that the united states was caught so unaware by the rapid collapse of the afghan government and security forces. president biden has said in his speech yesterday it was faster than we anticipated, but we don't really know why. the other question will be why didn't you do more wereith the e that you had to get tens of thousands of not only american personnel but afghan personnel who helped the united states out of the country? having sai

cnn's john harwood is live at the white house. manu, what is the path forward now after passing the infrastructure bill and the blueprint for this much bigger bill expanding the nation's social programs. >> it's a difficult road ahead. right now it's in the house's hands. remember, the budget blueprint that passed the senate in the early morning hours, 4:00 a.m., after 14 hours in the senate, that's a blueprint. both the house and senate need to approve the blueprint before they can move forward on binding legislation. the house is coming back august 23rd to pass the blueprint. afterwards, house and senate leaders, the democrats along with the rank and file will get behind closed doors and finish noting and drafting this massive expansion of the social safety net, $3.5 trillion, dealing with climate change, immigration, health care, a whole host of issues, paid for by raising taxes on corporations and the wealthy. but to get this passed, they'd have all 50 senate democrats on board and also have it pass the house. all 50 senate de

. >> john harwood, we'll be listening. >>> joining me now to discuss this is james clapper, former director of the national intelligence. thank you so much for joining us this morning. >> thanks, jim, for having me. >> so as you know, often in situations like this, you'll hear policymakers say well the intel we got was wrong. i remind people intelligence is a tool, it is not a policy. it is not a policy decision. but it is a fair question. did the intel community get this wrong? did it underestimate how quickly the taliban would take over? >> well, jim, there is an old saying in intelligence about the difference between mysteries and secrets. secrets are noble facts and mysteries are imponderable. the intelligence community for years led by cia has been very weary of the viability of the afghan government and the competence and willingness to fight of the afghan military. and certainly this goes back to the obama administration when president biden was vice president. so he's well aware of this. so if you look at this historically, there has always been concern about how strong the governme

cnn white house correspondent john harwood, and managing editor at axios, margaret. there's the bipartisan agreement on infrastructure that nine modera moderates want to vote on right away, and the democrat only plan of 3.5 billion in spending that other democrats want to see voted on first. the key thing is if nancy pelosi had the votes to push this through right now, she would have done it already. so they went to bed last night with no deal. as we wake up this morning, this is all up in the air. >> john, good morning, and it is up in the air. of course the house democrats go back as a caucus into talks around 9:00. there's going to be a lot of movement and pressure on this today, but if you're an average american at home watching this, you're like, what on earth is going on? i thought the senate passed an infrastructure deal, why isn't the house voting on it. i think it's the messaging concern that has pelosi so concerned because the average american is not thinking, if they're thinking about infrastructure at all right now, they're not thinking about the procedur

harwood. first off, it's been with a lot of other headlines, easy to take your eye off of the border. this is serious, tell us what you're seeing with the influx. >> the biden administration is grappling with the number of migrants at the u.s./mexico board. in july, more than 19,000 unaccompanied children were encountered. that already surpasses the record in march, when we were talking about more than 18,000, and over crowded border facilities. now, what the court filing noted is that this is one slice of an overall figure. in july, dhs is anticipating 210,000 arrests. now, this does include repeat crossers. it includes all migrants, families, single adults, and children but it is remarkably high, especially in the summer months. this is the time of year where we usually see a decline because of the summer heat. the biden administration facing criticism here from the left, saying they need to ditch a trump era border policy that allows border authorities to turn away migrants and from the rig

harwood cnn white house correspondent. i want to go back to that tweet from the lieutenant governor. and she says that the ag's investigation has documented repulsive, unlawful behavior. i believe these brave women and admire their courage coming forward. no one is above the law under new york's constitution. the assembly will now determine the next steps because lieutenant governor stands next in line for succession, it would not be appropriate to comment on this process further. she's not going directly at impeachment, but after a statement like that, what else does she have to say? >> impeachment is really the big question. if you watch the governor's statement today, he steered very clear of that. i thought it was conspicuous. he talked about how i look forward to my day in court. i think he's referring to civil suits there. he can and likely will be sued by some of these accusers. here are the real question for elected officials in new york, particularly the democrats in the assembly. everyone is talking big right now

harwood. also senior international correspondent ivan watson. gentlemen, thank you all for joining us on this friday evening with the breaking news. alex, i'm going to start with you. what are you learning about the strike? >> reporter: don, we heard these vows of revenge for yesterday's attack by isis-k from president joe biden, and now we appear to have seen some of it though we should be clear that we don't know whether there's a connection between yesterday's attack, which killed scores, and the targeting of this isis-k planner. so we're hearing from centcom, which is the part of the pentagon that is in charge of afghanistan. a spokesman for centcom saying an over the horizon counter-terrorism operation was carried out. that means it came from abroad, and that it was an unmanned air strike, so that means it came from a drone and targeted this i isis-k planner in nangarhar province. it says the strike was successful in taking out this planner and that it appears that no one else was wounded

joining me now, cnn white house correspondent john harwood and retired general mark hertling. thank you, gentlemen. i appreciate you being here. general, i just want to tell you i appreciate your remarks and the way you handle the coverage of the remains of the service members returning here. >> thanks, don. that's kind. >> thank you very much for that. riveted and just -- it was just a great way you've paid tribute to those service members. so, john, i'm going to start with you, though. the u.s. is officially out of afghanistan, but we're told that there are still between 100 and 200 americans who needed to be evacuated. what are you hearing from the white house? is there a plan to get all of these people out of the country? >> don, it mostly involves exerting diplomatic pressure by the united states and its allies on the taliban to live up to the commitments that alex mentioned in that piece, to allow safe passage for people with proper documentation to leave the country through the kabul airport. the united states is going to reengage with afghanistan from qatar. the embass

john harwood is at white house and joining us now with more on this. talk about this executive order. what does it actually do? >> well, what it does is set this goal of getting to 50% of new vehicle sales to be electric by 2030. but other elements of this economic plan lay some dollars and some regulations on table to try to accelerate that. the regulations are increasing fuel emissions standards which had begun to be increased under the obama administration, donald trump rolled them back. the biden administration is trying to increase them again. secondly, in the infrastructure plan, they've laid out billions of dollars for a network of electric vehicle charging stations around the country. that is designed to enhance the market. there are some manufacturing incentives for fuel cell and battery manufacturing. that is the design to accelerate this market and the administration is also using its own purchasing power trying to make the federal vehicle fleet which is pretty substantial make that dominated by electric vehicles over time. so are various wa

. >> john harwood joining the conversation now on this. that's clear. we heard over and over from american officials they are and they seem to in a way be patting themselves on the back for keeping a safe and secure airport but that misses the big issue here which is that what's the point of a safe and secure airport if you cannot get there, right? what are they doing about that? >> well, what they're doing is the conversations is that we were talking about with the taliban to try to figure out how they can allow people to get there. it is not going to be a perfect process. and i think it's important to recognize that if you got a country of 40 million people and you've had a long war in that country, and a civil war, and one side of that civil war collapses, there is no scenario, no amount of planning that is going to avoid desperation, people trying to leave the country. when the united states has been the protector of one side of that war, there are people aligned with the united states who are going to want to leave. even if you had a smooth evacuat

and john harwood is live at the white house with us. is the white house giving us any preview of what we could hear from the president? >> reporter: the apper tour of this war has shrunk to exactly what clarissa ward is describing, that is the ability to get people out and people to the airport and processed. and the president is going to talk about that. if, in fact, as clarisa said, they haven't been flights taking off for eight hours, the president needs to bring some clarity to that situation and help americans understand what is being done. and if there are holdups, why are there holdups and what are the prospects for the next ten days until we get to august 31st or perhaps beyond august 31st if the president has indicated if there are american citizens that they know of that are not yet evacuated. the view of the white house is that this disorder, this chaos, this desperation was going to happen whenever it was clear that the afghan government was going to fall. whether or not they tried to accelerate evacuations in july, whether

john harwood is at the white house where we learned a short time ago that the president has been briefed on the attack. beyond that, does the white house have a reaction to this and do they have any plans to respond? >> reporter: well, the question is going to be how serious the impact of this event has been. important to recognize that we still don't know the gravity of this attack, assuming it was a suicide attack. what the impact was and how many casualties there were on the afghan side or the american side if there were any and the scale of that impact would likely dictate whether or not the united states feels compelled to respond. but this is the nightmare scenario. this is the kind of nightmare scenario that the administration have been worried about as they get to the end of this evacuation process. that vulnerability would be heightened as you had desperate people trying to to get to the airport crowding around the gates and that is why they've tried to encourage people to leave the airport unless authorized to come in. but this is precisely what president biden has worried abou