Joe Biden has told the G7 virtual summit to discuss the Afghanistan crisis with allied leaders that he will adhere to the self-imposed 31 August deadline to withdraw American forces from Afghanistan.
Republican members of Congress have slammed the president’s decision and say they will not work on other legislation until all Americans are out of Afghanistan. Democrats are so far backing Mr Biden’s decision.
The latest polls however offer no good news for the president. An aggregation of polls by FiveThirtyEight.com shows Mr Biden tied at 47.5 per cent approving of him and 47 per cent disapproving. Some individual polls have far worse numbers, with US Today publishing results that put him 41 per cent approve and 55 per cent disapprove.
In remarks updating the American people on the situation, Mr Biden noted that in ten days the US has evacuated 70,700 people, including 12,000 in just 12 hours. He says that US forces are on track to finish operations by 31 August, as the first reports come in of troops being withdrawn from the airport.
Meanwhile, reports have emerged that CIA Director William Burns held a secret meeting in Kabul yesterday with Taliban leader Abdul Ghani Baradar, as Mr Biden says that the exit deadline is contingent on their cooperation.
And on another front, Vice President Kamala Harris took off 90 minutes late from Singapore bound for Hanoi thanks to what was described as an “anomalous health incident” in the Vietnamese capital – a phrase the State Department has previously used to describe the mysterious so-called “Havana Syndrome”.
