Tamara Keith and Amy Walter on Afghanistan exit, COVID-19

Judy Woodruff:

It is another critical time for President Biden facing twin crises exiting Afghanistan and a massive hurricane at home, all amid a major covid surge. Michelle Sender is joined by our Politics Monday duo.

Yamiche Alcindor is joined by our Politics Monday duo.

Yamiche Alcindor:

Thank you, Judy.

They are, of course, Amy Walter, editor in chief of The Cook Political Report, and Tamara Keith, a White House correspondent for NPR.

Thank you both for being here.

America's longest war is finally over, Amy, and it is by a deadline that President Biden set himself.

What do you make of this historic moment, given that there is, of course, some heartbreak about the people that we left behind, but also a sense of accomplishment on the Biden administration's part?

Amy Walter, The Cook Political Report:

That's right.

I think you have — I think that's a good way to phrase it. You have the success of the airlift, but most of what we have seen for the past two weeks or so has been chaos and carnage. And that, I think, is what is really driving, at least for Americans, their — the way that they're interpreting this moment.

Now, how we're going to interpret Afghanistan a year from now, 10 years from now really unclear. But I do think that, for this moment in time, watching all these scenes, watching the reporting by Jane, what you see is a country that is still in the midst of chaos, but also just the way in which the planning for this operation did not go, shall we say, swimmingly, the execution of it.

And when you hear these stories of individuals actually trying to get friends, family, colleagues, people who served in the military out themselves, it raises a lot of questions about the role that the government should have played, but was unable to do.

Yamiche Alcindor:

And, Tamara, White House officials tell me they think that history is going to judge President Biden as having made the right decision. No surprise on their part there.

That said, as Amy just alluded to, there's a lot of criticism, especially from veterans that I have talked to, about how this all played out. What's your reporting reveal about this moment?

Tamara Keith, National Public Radio:

Certainly, this is — and we're going to hear from President Biden tomorrow. He's going to address the nation.

He will inevitably once again make the case for his decision. He has argued repeatedly that there was no other choice. They are highlighting the fact that 120,000 people got out. But the worst happened; 13 American service members were killed by terrorists.

There are still a lot of questions, very serious questions, about whether Americans are safer now than they were before, whether the military capacity and intelligence capacity exists to keep Americans safe, or whether Afghanistan is going to fall apart and become a place that harbors terrorists once again.

And one thing that stood out from today's remarks from Pentagon officials was, they were kind of like, our part is done, but the diplomatic mission continues.

Amy Walter:

Right.

Tamara Keith:

And I think the way Americans will judge how this all turned out really still is off the horizon.

And there are important questions about those people who were left behind, and there were people left behind. Will they be able to get out somehow? Or are we going to hear stories about people who helped America being targeted by the Taliban or by ISIS-K?

And we don't know the answers to a lot of these questions right now. But, certainly, President Biden, in his remarks tomorrow, is going to put down another marker to explain what he was thinking and certainly to try to highlight the positives of what has been a very difficult several weeks.

Yamiche Alcindor:

A very difficult several weeks. And not swimmingly is one way to put it.

Amy, there, of course, are going to be the political consequences of this, or at least possibly the political consequences of this. What do you think about this? The midterms are a long way away. Foreign policy isn't always at the top of the agenda for the American public.

But the stories that we hear, especially about people who are left behind, one analyst saying that Afghanistan might become the Las Vegas of terrorists. What kind of political consequences could that be — could that mean?

Amy Walter:

So, right. So, you're right.

We don't know really what we're going to be talking about a year from now. And Afghanistan, the fact that our troops are no longer there, there will not be a big American presence, means that it is unlikely that we're going to have these stories front and center every day.

Yes, there are going to be the stories of people who were left behind. But it's not the thing that's going to be driving interest among American voters.

What I keep hearing about over and over again, sitting in focus groups and listening to voters, COVID is still top of mind, and the uncertainty about COVID is still what is really frustrating to so many people, right, the fact that we were supposed to turn the corner, the corner has not yet been turned. Are schools going to be safe? What about my job? Is it going to be safe? Or am I going to get laid off once again?

So I think that those are the sorts of things that are really going to be driving the conversation going forward. But this was a formative moment for so many Americans, right? The president had the first six months of his presidency, it was pretty calm, right? He pretty much did the things that he wanted to do.

Since July, between COVID and Afghanistan, the growing — you can sort of see that the questions about his leadership and his abilities are coming under scrutiny from voters.

Yamiche Alcindor:

And you bring up COVID.

And I want to go to COVID. But I want to ask you, Tam, really quickly, the GOP, part of what's going on within the in that party right now is this deep divide over Afghan immigrants. Anyone who's sort of watching this can see that there's this — there's going to be this conversation around the corner.

What do you make of that? What's your reporting tell you about what might happen with some having anti-immigrant criticisms, with other saying, let's help these Afghan immigrants?

Tamara Keith:

And you will remember that, when there was a rush of Syrian refugees, it became a big fight. It became a big political touch point.

And it worked for Republicans, including former President Trump, to be anti-refugee, not wanting Syrian refugees to come into the United States.

This situation is a little bit different, or maybe a lot different, because these are people who have a direct connection to the United States, who have connections to American service members who they served alongside or who they translated for.

So these are families of people who are allies of the United States, which makes this a bit different, but you are already seeing some of those fissures erupt. And you see some Republican governors saying, we're here with open arms, and others not so much.

And I think that this is likely to be something that does emerge over time, because this initial wave is just the beginning.

Yamiche Alcindor:

Yes.

Tamara Keith:

There — this is going to continue for months and months and months. There are thousands of refugee families in third countries awaiting disposition of their paperwork.

And resettling them in the U.S. may not be as easy as resettling these first.

Yamiche Alcindor:

Jump in and talk about COVID.

There was supposed to be so much on the agenda of Congress. And then, of course, all this took over. But, of course, there are proxy battles, as you put it to our producer, when it comes to the back-to-school arguments over COVID. Talk about that.

Tamara Keith:

Yes.

So, school is back, and people are fighting about masks. Before they were fighting about masks, they were fighting about reopening schools, but now schools are reopened. And you are seeing in local school board elections, you are seeing a bigger fight. You are seeing local school board elections become a proxy war for conservatives — or Republicans vs. Democrats, when, normally, school boards are pretty sleepy, and it usually has very little to do with national politics and everything to do with like school bus routes.

But now it's about critical race theory. It's about school namings. It's about mask policy. And it will be fascinating. We're going to see a first test of whether sort of the anger in the suburbs is going to become a problem for Democrats in the Virginia governor's race and the legislative races.

Yamiche Alcindor:

We only have about five seconds left.

(LAUGHTER)

Tamara Keith:

Sorry.

Yamiche Alcindor:

But, Amy, I'm going to give you the last word.

Is there anything, quickly, you can say about COVID and this agenda that wasn't?

Amy Walter:

That wasn't.

This was the recess that members of Congress were supposed to go back and sell the $3.5 trillion social services package. They're not talking about that all that much now. It's more Afghanistan and COVID.

Yamiche Alcindor:

Yes.

Well, thank you so much, Amy and Tam. Hopefully, next time, we will give you a little bit more time, but I appreciate you both coming on.

Amy Walter:

You're welcome.

Tamara Keith:

You're welcome.