Politics recap
- Joe Biden signaled a fundamental shift in US foreign policy away from what he cited as mistakes such as war missions with no clear vision for victory or an end. In prolonged nation-building missions, like Afghanistan, he said the US can get “bogged down”. The US president declared in a speech at the White House that the US-led war in Afghanistan is over and said: “It was time to end this war.”
- Volodymyr Zelenskiy, the president of Ukraine, will visit the White House tomorrow and the US announced new aid for the country. Donald Trump’s interactions with Zelenskiy led to the then Republican president’s impeachment.
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A new poll issued from Pew Research showed public support for the US withdrawal from Afghanistan but not for how Joe Biden got it done. In a survey conducted before the last US soldier left Afghanistan, 54% of adults said the decision to withdraw was the right one, while 42% said it was wrong.
- Biden signed HR 5085, the “Emergency Repatriation Assistance for Returning Americans Act,” which boosts funding to repatriate Americans returning from Afghanistan. The bill increases the amount the Department of Health and Human Services can spend to help repatriated Americans from $1m to $10m, by amending Section 1113 of the Social Security Act.
– Joanna Walters and Maanvi Singh
Updated
The long read: How the US created a world of endless war
On 23 May 2013, the peace activist Medea Benjamin attended a speech by President Barack Obama at Fort McNair in Washington DC, where he defended his administration’s use of armed drones in counter-terrorism. During his speech, Benjamin interrupted the president to criticise him for not having closed Guantánamo Bay and for pursuing military solutions over diplomatic ones. She was swiftly ejected by military police and the Secret Service. The Washington Post later dismissed her as a “heckler”. Obama himself had been more reflective at the event, engaging with her criticisms, which led to even deeper self-criticism of his own. It was the moment of greatest moral clarity about war during a presidency that did more than any other to bring its endless and humane American form fully into being.
For all its routine violence, the American way of war is more and more defined by a near complete immunity from harm for the American side and unprecedented care when it comes to killing people on the other. Today, there are more and more legal obligations to make war more humane – meaning, above all, the aim of minimising collateral harm. Countries like the US have agreed to obey those obligations, however permissively they interpret them and inadequately apply them in the field. Absolutely and relatively, fewer captives are mistreated and fewer civilians die than in the past. Yet, at the same time, the US’s military operations have become more expansive in scope and perpetual in time by virtue of these very facts.
The very idea of more humane war may seem a contradiction in terms. The US’s conflicts abroad remain brutal and deadly, but what’s frightening about them is not just the violence they inflict. This new kind of American war is revealing that the most elemental face of war is not death. Instead, it is control by domination and surveillance.
Read more:
Former Trump national security adviser Robert O’Brien has reportedly been in contact with Republicans in Congress to help them develop policy proposals.
Axios reports:
O’Brien has increasingly been working with Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) to help House Republicans in their effort to regain the majority in 2022. O’Brien recently joined McCarthy for his annual retreat in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. He also will appear alongside the minority leader Wednesday at the Richard Nixon Presidential Library in California, where the two will discuss the House Republicans’ foreign policy agenda with conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt. Aides bill the event as McCarthy’s most substantive foreign policy address to date ahead of 2022.
Republicans have tried to nail Biden and Democrats on the botched withdrawal from Afghanistan, while the president has repeatedly pointed out that it was Trump who started the withdrawal process.
Joe Biden has signed HR 5085, the “Emergency Repatriation Assistance for Returning Americans Act,” which boosts funding to repatriate Americans returning from Afghanistan.
The bill increases the amount the Department of Health and Human Services can spend to help repatriated Americans from $1m to $10m, by amending Section 1113 of the Social Security Act.
Kamala Harris presided over the Senate earlier today for the passage of the bill, making a rare appearance in the chamber during a pro forma session.
Updated
The Guardian view on the US departure from Afghanistan: its responsibilities don’t end here
The histories are already being written, but for now, two moments encapsulate the closing moments of America’s longest war. One was the eerie, lonely night-vision image of the last US soldier boarding the military’s final flight from Afghanistan. The other came a day earlier, when a retaliatory strike targeting Islamic State reportedly claimed the lives of 10 civilians, including at least six children. Together, they convey the sense of hopelessness and waste, after almost 20 years and $2tn, the carelessness which too often characterised both the US presence and its withdrawal, and the costs to Afghans.
Though Donald Trump set the clock for departure ticking, Joe Biden’s timing owed more to symbolism than pragmatism. The president promised that the US military would leave before 11 September – the 20th anniversary of the al-Qaida terrorist attacks that led the US to topple the Taliban.
Far from drawing a line under the war, the choice of date and the rushed, chaotic withdrawal have underscored its toll, most critically on Afghan lives, but also on America’s standing. A country already tarnished by the ascent of President Trump and then the assault by his supporters on the Capitol on 6 January 2021 and by the disastrous response to Covid, looks further diminished, reduced to bickering with one of its closest allies over who bears more responsibility for the scores of Afghans and 13 US personnel who died in the bombing at Kabul airport.
Above all, though the Biden administration talks up the achievements of its evacuation programme in airlifting more than 120,000 people, many – American citizens, Afghan allies and other vulnerable Afghans such as civil society activists – are left there. They and the rest of Afghanistan awoke on Tuesday to the new reality, with a triumphant Taliban promising a different approach while their fighters commit atrocities and rivals jockey for power.
For all the failures of the American intervention, many in Afghanistan had begun to forge a better way of life, and to hope for freedom and peace there. Many who had dedicated themselves to rebuilding their country have now fled abroad. Others cannot.
Over the last two decades, tens of thousands of Afghan civilians have lost their lives. They have suffered not only at the hands of the Taliban, but also of Afghan government forces and the US military. The US has said that it is not in a position to dispute reports that the drone strike on Sunday night claimed civilian lives; what is certain is that, since 2001, both US solo and joint operations have claimed too many innocent lives without even proper acknowledgment, let alone reparation.
America’s responsibilities do not end with its departure. Its first duty is to do all it can, within its very limited means, to support those still in Afghanistan. Whatever can be done to hold the Taliban to their pledges must be done. Its second duty is to take responsibility for its own actions, beginning with the latest drone strike. Accountability, honesty and restitution are required. This is all the more important as it contemplates an “over the horizon” counter-terrorism effort, aiming to tackle renewed threats in Afghanistan from afar – increasing the risks. Though the US has ended its two-decade conflict, it must not turn its back on Afghans who continue to live with the consequences.
Texas legislature approves restrictions on voting access
The Texas legislature gave its final approval on Tuesday to a new bill that would impose substantial new restrictions on voting access in the state.
The Texas House of Representatives gave its approval to a final form of the measure on Tuesday, 80-41. The senate quickly followed with an 18-13 vote Tuesday afternoon. The bill, nearly identical to a measure that passed the legislature last week, would prohibit 24-hour and drive-thru voting - two things officials in Harris County, home of Houston, used for the first time in 2020. It would also prohibit election officials from sending out unsolicited applications to vote by mail, give poll watchers more power in the polling place, and provide new regulations on those who assist voters.
“The bill now goes to the desk of Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican. Civil rights groups are expected to swiftly challenge the measure once it is signed into law.
The sole remaining point of disagreement between the two houses on Tuesday was a provision inserted by the House that would have clarified people could not be prosecuted for illegally voting unless they knew they were ineligible. The bipartisan provision was inserted after Crystal Mason, a woman from Fort Worth, was prosecuted and sentenced to five years in prison for mistakenly voting while ineligible in 2016. Lawmakers ultimately removed the protection after objections from the Texas senate Republicans, who said it could be used to protect non-citizens who illegally voted, according to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
The restrictions would only add to those already in place in Texas, which has some of the most burdensome voting requirements in the country and was among the states with the lowest voter turnout in 2020.
Updated
Today so far
It’s been a lively afternoon and my colleague on the US west coast, Maanvi Singh, will now take over the blog and bring you any remaining developments in US political news for the next few hours, so do stay tuned.
So far:
- Joe Biden signaled a fundamental shift in US foreign policy away from what he cited as mistakes such as war missions with no clear vision for victory or an end and missions that turn into prolonged nation-building where, like Afghanistan, he said the US can get “bogged down”.
- The US president declared in a speech at the White House that the US-led war in Afghanistan is over and said: “It was time to end this war.”
- Volodymyr Zelenskiy, the president of Ukraine, will visit the White House tomorrow and the US announced new aid for the country. Donald Trump’s interactions with Zelenskiy led to the-then Republican president’s impeachment.
- A new poll issued from Pew Research showed public support for the US withdrawal from Afghanistan but not for how Joe Biden got it done.
Updated
National security adviser Jake Sullivan hopped onto CNN moments after Joe Biden’s address at the White House to defend what anchor Jake Tapper suggested was a defiant speech by the US president over the chaotic US withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Sullivan countered that it was a speech of “passion and conviction” to end the war and that Biden was speaking form “his gut, his heart and his head”, which was why the president once again wanted “painstakingly” to walk the public through his reasoning.
He said those sitting comfortably at home claiming a continuing US military and diplomatic presence in Afghanistan would be “low grade, low cost, low risk” were wrong because there is nothing of those things in war.
Sullivan said that the thousands of American citizens in Afghanistan had been given messages and instructions since March about getting out but, nonetheless, the “up to” 200 Americans believed to be still in the country but wanting out will be helped to get out by air (working with other countries to get charter flights into Kabul) or by land (after seeking cooperation with some of Afghanistan’s neighbors).
Biden says he plans to 'turn the page' on US foreign policy
Joe Biden used his speech at the White House just now to do more than once again justify the fact of the US withdrawal from Afghanistan and the way it was handled.
He also signaled what he intends to be a fundamental shift in US foreign policy, having wanted for more than 10 years, when he was vice president, then a presidential candidate and now the occupant of the White House, the US to leave Afghanistan and not to “surge” more troops in to try to secure a victory or leave a force in to prop up a shaky Afghanistan regime agains the insurgent Taliban.
Biden: It's time to look to the future, not the past. A future that is safer and more secure.
— David Smith (@SmithInAmerica) August 31, 2021
The US president said: “As we turn the page on the foreign policy that has guided our nation for the last two decades we have got to learn from our mistakes. To me, there are two that are paramount; first, we set missions with clear, achievable goals, not ones we will never reach, and, second, we will stay clearly focused on the fundamental national security interest of the United States of America.
“This decision about Afghanistan is not just about Afghanistan, it’s about ending an era of major military operations to remake other countries. We saw a mission of counter-terrorism in Afghanistan morph into a counter-insurgency, nation-building, trying to create a democratic, cohesive and united Afghanistan, something that has never been in many centuries over Afghanistan’s history.
“Moving on from that mindset and those kind of large-scale troop deployments will make us stronger and more effective and safer at home. And for anyone who gets the wrong idea let me say clearly - to those who wish America harm, for those who engage in terrorism against the US or our allies, know this: the United States will never rest...we will hunt you down to the ends of the Earth and you will pay the ultimate price.”
Biden: "It was time to be honest with the American people again... After 20 years in Afghanistan, I refused to send another generation of Americans' son and daughters."
— David Smith (@SmithInAmerica) August 31, 2021
He said the US would continue to support Afghanistan through diplomacy, international influence and humanitarian aid, and would continue to speak out for the basic rights of the Afghan people, particularly women and girls.
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The US president finished his address and left the podium, walking down the red carpet out of the state dining room at the White House, without taking questions from the media.
Joe Biden said that the war in Afghanistan is over but the US would continue its fight against terrorism. He defended the messiness of the rapid withdrawal, insisting that he believed it was inevitable, while calling the massive airlift in the last 17 days that brought out almost all Americans who wanted to leave and many thousands of Afghan allies an “extraordinary success”.
Biden said that those urging the US to keep a military presence in Afghanistan - the US military force was down to about 2,500 troops prior to the accelerated final withdrawal - were advocating for “a third decade of war” in the country that was “not in the vital national interest”.
“I was not going to extend this ‘forever’ war,” he said.
And he warned: “The world is changing. We are engaged in a serious competition with China, we’re dealing with the challenges on multiple fronts with Russia, we are confronted with cyber attacks and nuclear proliferation.
“We have to show that America is competitive to meet these new challenges...and we can do both - fight terrorism and take on new threats that are here now and will continue to be here in the future,
“There is nothing Russia or China would rather have or want more in this competition than the US to be bogged down for another decade in Afghanistan.”
Updated
'It was time to end this war,' says Biden
The US president warned that the threat of overseas terrorism is “metastasizing” in many parts of the world. But that the US would continue to combat such terrorism without continuing a ground war in Afghanistan.
“It was time to end this war,” Joe Biden said, in an address from the state dining room at the White House.
“We will continue to support the Afghan people through diplomacy and engagement,” he said. He also again promoted the US ability to fight a war from “over the horizon” - drones and attacks launched from remote bases.
Biden a few moments ago said he took responsibility for the way the US withdrew from Afghanistan, which was dramatic, lethal, chaotic, frustrating and tragic for those left behind.
“I take responsibility,” he said, but added that if people thought there was a way to leave in “a more orderly manner” in the 17 days since the Taliban took over, he would “respectfully disagree”.
Biden added a few moments later that the war in Afghanistan “should have ended long ago” and that he intended to end an era of major military operations that become drawn out nation-building obligations.
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Biden said “no country has ever done more” in history to airlift the residents of another country out.
“We are far from done,” he said. It’s not clear if he’s referring to both the handful of Americans left in Afghanistan who apparently wanted to get out before August 31 and thousands of Afghans who worked with the Americans who were hoping to be evacuated but didn’t manage to reach the airport or the US flights out.
“For now I urge all Americans to join me in grateful prayer” for the massive airlift that was accomplished, the president said, praising not just the military but also US diplomats and intelligence officers who worked “at tremendous risk” to get people out of Afghanistan.
Biden on withdrawal: 'We were ready'
Joe Biden is claiming that the US was ready for “every eventuality” in its planned withdrawal from Afghanistan.
“Even this one,” the US president said, referring to the swift crumpling of the US-trained Afghan military and the Afghan government.
Afghan president Ashraf Ghani fled the country without warning on the day the Taliban insurgency took over Kabul on August 15, signaling the fall of Afghanistan to their radical Islamist theocracy.
The “assumption that the Afghan government would be able to hold on” for some time after the August 31 departure of the US military and diplomats, ahead of the previously-stated deadline of the US withdrawing completely from the country by September 11, the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 jihadist attacks against the US.
That assumption “turned out not to be accurate,” Biden said.
He’s now reviewing yet again the lead up to his decision and execution of the abrupt and deadly and chaotic departure of the US from Kabul.
“I was not extending this forever war,” he said.
Updated
Joe Biden is at the podium speaking now about the end of the US war in Afghanistan. He’s hailing the efforts that accomplished one of the biggest evacuation airlifts in history.
We’ll have the highlights for you asap, as he comes to the tougher questions.
Updated
The American military had a secret deal with the Taliban that resulted in insurgent fighters escorting Americans to the gates of the airport in Kabul as they tried to evacuate from Afghanistan, according to a report citing two defense officials.
One of the officials also revealed that US special operations forces set up a “secret gate” at the airport and established “call centers” to guide Americans through the evacuation process, CNN reports.
The cable network further tells us:
The officials said Americans were notified to gather at pre-set “muster points” close to the airport where the Taliban would gather the Americans, check their credentials and take them a short distance to a gate manned by American forces who were standing by to let them inside amid huge crowds of Afghans seeking to flee.
The US troops were able to see the Americans approach with their Taliban escorts in most cases in an attempt to ensure their safety.
The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the arrangements, which have not been disclosed until now because the US was concerned about Taliban reaction to any publicity as well as the threat of attacks from ISIS-K if its operatives had realized Americans were being escorted in groups, the officials said.
Throughout the evacuation, Biden administration officials stressed that the Taliban was cooperating and senior officials stated they had committed to provide “safe passage” for Americans.
The Taliban escort missions happened “several times a day” according to one of the officials. One of the key muster points was a Ministry of Interior building just outside on of the airport’s gates where nearby US forces were readily able to observe the Americans approach. Americans were notified by various messages about where to gather.
“It worked, it worked beautifully,” one official said of the arrangement. As of Monday when the US completed its withdrawal, more than 122,000 people in total had been airlifted from Hamid Karzai International Airport since July and more than 6,000 Americans civilians evacuated. However, 13 Americans service members and more than 170 Afghans were killed in a suicide blast at the airport last week.
It is not clear if the Taliban who were checking credentials during these efforts turned away any of the Americans.
Updated
The White House pool reporters are gathering in the state dining room, although there’s no sign of Joe Biden yet. He was due to speak on Afghanistan at the revised time of 2.45pm ET, so we wait.
Here’s the Associated Press with the context:
Biden is under heavy criticism, particularly from Republicans, for his handling of the final evacuation, which successfully airlifted more than 120,000 people from Kabul airport but left more than 100 Americans behind.
The White House signaled Biden would look to begin turning the corner on Afghanistan with his address.
“He will make clear that as president, he will approach our foreign policy through the prism of what is in our national interests, including how best to continue to keep the American people safe,” press secretary Jen Psaki said in a statement.
But the president still faces many questions about extracting the Americans and thousands of Afghans left behind, resettling tens of thousands of refugees who were able to flee and dealing with congressional criticism that the administration was caught flat-footed by the rapid collapse of the Afghan government.
Biden is also adjusting to a new relationship with the Taliban, the Islamist militant group that it toppled nearly 20 years ago that is now once again in power in Afghanistan.
The last Air Force transport plane departed Kabul one minute before midnight Monday, raising questions about why Biden didn’t continue the airlift for at least another day. He had set Tuesday as a deadline for ending the evacuation and pulling out remaining troops after the Taliban took over the country.
In a written statement Monday, Biden said military commanders unanimously favored ending the airlift instead of extending it. He said he asked Secretary of State Antony Blinken to coordinate with international partners to hold the Taliban to their promise of safe passage for Americans and others who want to leave in the days ahead.
Blinken put the number of Americans still in Afghanistan at under 200, “likely closer to 100,” and said the State Department would keep working to get them out. He said the U.S. diplomatic presence would shift to Doha, Qatar.Jake Sullivan, Biden’s national security adviser, said today of the effort to get remaining Americans out: “It’s just that it has shifted from a military mission to a diplomatic mission.” On ABC’s “Good Morning America,” he cited “considerable leverage” over the Taliban to complete that effort.
Updated
Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell released an ad today encouraging Americans to get vaccinated.
“As a boy, I fought polio. Today, America’s been polio-free for 40 years thanks to vaccinations,” McConnell says in the commercial. “We’ll beat Covid-19 with vaccines, too. Protect yourself and your family. Get vaccinated.”
Sen. Mitch McConnell in new PSA: "Protect yourself and your family. Get vaccinated." pic.twitter.com/kZ06aNw8mx
— The Hill (@thehill) August 31, 2021
McConnell has been a vocal supporter of vaccines, though other members of his party have amplified skepticism over the vaccine with little pushback from the minority leader.
As CNN points out, McConnell’s Kentucky counterpart, senator Rand Paul, has been a vocal dissenter against masks and has expressed skepticism over the vaccine. Earlier this month, YouTube suspended Paul for posting a video that claimed masks “don’t prevent infection”, citing the video as misinformation.
The governor of Virginia, Ralph Northam, has granted posthumous pardons to seven Black men who were executed in 1951 for the rape of a white woman, the Associated Press reports…
The case attracted pleas for mercy from around the world and in recent years has been denounced as an example of racial disparity in the use of the death penalty.
Northam announced the pardons after meeting descendants of the men and their advocates. Cries and sobs could be heard from some descendants after Northam’s announcement.
The Martinsville Seven, as the men became known, were convicted of raping 32-year-old Ruby Stroud Floyd, a white woman who went to a predominantly Black neighborhood in Martinsville, Virginia, on 8 January 1949, to collect money for clothes she had sold.
On 2 February 1951, four of the men were executed in the electric chair. The remaining three were electrocuted three days later. All were tried by all-white juries.
At the time, rape was a capital offense. On Tuesday, Northam said the death penalty for rape was applied almost exclusively to Black people. From 1908 – when Virginia began using the electric chair – to 1951, state records show that all 45 people executed for rape were Black, he said.
The pardons do not address guilt or innocence but Northam said they were an acknowledgement that the men did not receive due process and received a “racially biased death sentence not similarly applied to white defendants”.
“These men were executed because they were Black, and that’s not right,” Northam said. “Their punishment did not fit the crime. They should not have been executed.”
Joe Biden is expected to address the nation at 2.45pm ET about the country’s exit from Afghanistan.
Ahead of his remarks, Republican lawmakers held a press conference criticizing Biden’s “bungled” removal of troops from the country.
House Republicans calling for President Biden to get every American out of Afghanistan.
— Leigh Ann Caldwell (@LACaldwellDC) August 31, 2021
The State Dept. says as many as 200 Americans remain. pic.twitter.com/67TGoqYYjc
“This was a disgraceful and disastrous departure that will allow the Taliban and Al Qaeda to celebrate the 20th anniversary of 9/11 by having complete control of Afghanistan,” said Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell at the press conference.
Biden pulled out of Afghanistan under an agreement Donald Trump signed with the Taliban in February 2020, but that hasn’t stopped Republicans from using Afghanistan as their next line of attack against Biden and Democrats at large.
Some House Republicans have gone so far as to urge Biden to resign over the exit.
White House announces military aid for Ukraine
Volodymyr Zelenskiy – remember him – will visit the White House on Wednesday and Joe Biden has a welcome present: up to $60m in new military aid to Ukraine.
As the Associated Press reports, “the Biden administration said in a notification to Congress [on Tuesday] that the aid package for Ukraine was necessary because of a ‘major increase in Russian military activity along its border’ and because of mortar attacks, cease-fire violations and other provocations”.
The US has already announced $125m in military aid. Nonetheless, President Zelenskiy is expected to ask Biden why the US has not tried to block construction of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, a Russian project that bypasses Ukraine.
Zelinskiy has been at the heart of Washington drama before. In 2019, Donald Trump was alleged to have withheld both a White House visit and military aid for Ukraine, seeking the quid pro quo of dirt on Biden, then his likely opponent for the presidency.
Trump was impeached for the first time over the approach to Ukraine, and acquitted when only one Republican in Congress, Mitt Romney, voted to convict him of abusing his power.
In March 2020, Zelinskiy told the Guardian: “I think Ukraine has passed through this story proudly, with its head raised high.”
He also expressed frustration that he had not yet been given a White House visit.
“I was told it’s being prepared, he said. “It’s hard for me to hear that. I am a person who works to deadlines. Our diplomats are discussing it with American diplomats. I would like us to have a fruitful meeting.”
With Trump gone, this week he will have his chance.
Poll – Biden lags with public on Afghanistan withdrawal
A new poll from Pew Research shows public support for the US withdrawal from Afghanistan but not for how Joe Biden got it done.
In a survey conducted before the last US soldier left Afghanistan, 54% of adults said the decision to withdraw was the right one, while 42% said it was wrong.
A large majority, 69%, said the US had mostly failed to achieve its goals in Afghanistan, in the near-20 years troops were on the ground after the invasion post-9/11.
The administration has said it evacuated more than 122,000 people after the fall of Kabul to the Taliban, a period of a little more than two weeks.
Some American citizens and many Afghan allies did not make it out. National security adviser Jake Sullivan said on Tuesday the mission to help such people would continue via diplomatic rather than military means.
Only 26% of respondents to the Pew poll said the Biden administration had done a good or excellent job and 29% said it had done a fair job; 42% said it had done poorly.
Unsurprisingly, only 7% of Republicans or Republican-leaning independents rated the administration’s performance positively. Only 43% of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents rated Biden’s performance as good or excellent.
A year and change ahead of the midterm elections, the Biden administration is counting on public support for his decision to withdraw outlasting memories of how the withdrawal was done. Pew said responses to its survey did not noticeably change after the suicide attack near Kabul airport last week in which 13 US troops and as many as 170 Afghans were killed.
The US struck back at Islamic State terrorists via drone strikes, the second of which resulted in civilian deaths.
US veterans on seeing Afghanistan fall to the Taliban
June Spence remembers when she lost hope in the US military intervention in Afghanistan, writes Cecilia Saixue Watt.
Originally from Augusta, Georgia, Spence graduated from high school in 2009, during the economic recession.
“You couldn’t find a job, so the army was a pretty safe bet,” she said. “I grew up seeing American casualties on TV. And seeing all those welcome-home videos on YouTube, how great it was to be celebrated as a hero when you came back.”
She had wanted to see the world.
Spence was stationed in a rural part of Kandahar Province in 2012. She was 21 years old. One day she saw three young boys, no older than 14, whom she recognized – they were brothers with whom she had often played before, mock-fights with pebbles and slingshots. They were pushing a wheelbarrow covered with a tarp. Inside, she found components for building IEDs.
“I caught three children transporting weapons of war and acting like we were all friends,” she said. “That’s homegrown ideological fanaticism. How do you win against something like that?”
Afternoon summary
Here’s a quick summary of everything that’s happened today:
- Joe Biden’s national security advisor Jake Sullivan said that, as the White House sees it, Afghanistan has “shifted from a military mission to a diplomatic mission.” Amid criticism over the exit from the country, Biden is expected to speak on the country at 2.45pm ET.
- The Senate passed a bill that increases the amount of aid earmarked for Afghan refugees upon their arrival to the United States. The aid will be available to them within 90 days of arrival and can be used for necessary goods and services.
- A new poll shows hesitancy toward the Covid-19 vaccine is at its lowest ever at 20%. Parents in particular have become less hesitant toward the vaccine, with nearly 70% indicating their eligible children have gotten the vaccine or are planning to get it.
- Another poll showed that Republicans’ trust in national media outlets has cut in half since 2016. Trust in media among GOP supporters is now 35%, down from 70% in 2016.
Stay tuned for more live updates.
Updated
The Virginia Supreme Court upheld a ruling for a lower court that a PE teacher was exercising free speech when he told a school board that he would not follow a rule that would require teachers to address transgender students according to their gender identity.
Tanner Cross, a teacher at Leesburg Elementary in Leesburg, Virginia, was suspended after saying he would not follow the rule.
“I’m a teacher, but I serve God first. And I will not affirm that a biological boy can be a girl and vice versa, because it is against my religion. It’s lying to a child. It’s abuse to a child, Cross said at a hearing.
In a statement, the Loudoun County Public School system said that it “respectfully disagrees” with the ruling.
“Many students and parents at Leesburg Elementary have expressed fear, hurt and disappointment about coming to school,” the statement said, adding that while the school respects the rights of its employees freedom of speech and religion, “those rights do not outweigh the rights of students to be educated in a supportive and nurturing environment.”
Fox News is driving political violence in the US, a media watchdog warned, after the primetime host Tucker Carlson predicted “revolt” against the Biden administration.
In a Monday night monologue targeting the White House and military leaders over the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, Carlson demanded resignations. He also said: “When leaders refuse to hold themselves accountable over time, people revolt. That happens.
“We need to change course immediately and start acknowledging our mistakes. The people who made them need to start acknowledging them or else the consequences will be awful.”
Angelo Carusone, president and chief executive of Media Matters for America, a progressive group, said: “When there’s another big violent rightwing flashpoint that captures attention, way too many in media will wonder out loud: ‘How did this happen?’ ‘Were there the signs?’
“You don’t need to wade into the online fever-swamps to see the cauldron of extremism simmering. Fox News is ratcheting up heat and legitimising nightly.
“Fox News, not Facebook, will be the driver of the next insurrection. Plain and simple.”
Fox News declined to comment.
Poll: FDA approval of Covid vaccine led to drop in hesitancy
A new poll shows that full approval of the Covid-19 vaccine by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has led to a drop in vaccine hesitancy.
One in five Americans said they are not likely to get the vaccine, while 14% have effectively ruled it out completely, according to an Axios/Ipsos poll. While the new numbers don’t constitute huge differences from past polls, it continues a general downward trend in the percentage of people who say they don’t plan on getting the vaccine. In comparison, 34% of adults said they were not likely to get the vaccine in March, and 23% indicated the same two weeks ago.
The change has been particularly acute among parents, 68% of whom said that their children have already gotten the vaccine or are likely to get it soon. Two weeks ago, that percentage of parents was at 56%.
Updated
Senate unanimously passes bill giving aid to Afghan refugees
A bill giving aid to Afghan refugees just unanimously passed the Senate. The bill was approved by the House last month and increases the amount of aid earmarked for Americans who have been evacuated from Afghanistan.
The funding is meant to be temporary, being available for 90 days after arrival in the US. It can be used for medical care, transportation and other goods and services “necessary for the health or welfare” of the recipients.
1) The Senate has approved by unanimous consent a House approved bill to provide what Sen Ben Cardin (D-MD) says provides $10 million Afghan refugees in the US.
— Chad Pergram (@ChadPergram) August 31, 2021
Updated
Republican trust in national news organizations has dropped by half since 2016, falling from 70% down to 35% this year, according to new data from the Pew Research Center.
In comparison, 80% of Democrats say they have some or a lot of trust in national news organizations. The partisan gap has been the largest it’s been since the question was asked to survey participants in 2016.
Republicans are more likely to trust local news organizations, with 66% saying they have at least some trust in them. In comparison, 84% of Democrats say they trust local news.
A US representative who received the endorsement of Donald Trump for his upcoming race in the 2022 midterms is part of a family who played a major role in a company that went bankrupt, causing millions of dollars in loss to farmers.
Ted Budd, a US representative from North Carolina, has touted his background growing up on the family farm and his experience working in the agriculture industry. But according to the Washington Post, his family was accused of improperly transferring assets worth millions of dollars. A settlement was reached between the family and farmers, with the Budd family agreeing to pay under half of the amount initially earmarked for farmers.
“We got screwed and there was not a freaking thing we could do about it,” Wyoming farmer Scott Scheuerman told the Post. “We were the little guy. We were just a number, and they could care less about us.”
The campaign for the North Carolina Senate seat will be decisive for the Republicans, who are looking to take a majority in the 2022 midterms.
Los Angeles teachers are calling to make the Covid-19 vaccine mandatory for eligible students, according to a proposal submitted by the teacher’s union.
Public schools in Los Angeles are primarily back in school in-person, with mandatory testing of everyone on campus and mask mandates during the school day.
While many colleges have made the Covid vaccine mandatory for students coming back to campus, public schools have held off on requiring vaccination of students, especially since the vaccine’s use for individuals aged 12-15 is still under emergency use. Many schools have mandated the vaccines for teachers and staff.
The teachers union is also calling for a protocol that would quarantine an entire class of students if anyone in the class tests positive for Covid-19.
A day after the last US soldier left Afghanistan after 20 years of war, the effort to evacuate American citizens has “shifted from a military mission to a diplomatic mission”, national security adviser Jake Sullivan said on Tuesday.
At least 100 US citizens are believed to remain in Kabul, from where the last US flight left on Monday. Afghan allies of the US and other nations were also left in a country controlled by Taliban Islamic militants.
Sullivan was answering fierce criticism over the evacuation, including from Republicans who have seized on the admission that not all Americans were airlifted out as well as the deaths of 13 US troops, and as many as 170 Afghans, in a suicide attack at Kabul airport last week.
The hawkish Arkansas senator Tom Cotton, for one example, slammed “a disgraceful lack of leadership from an incompetent president”.
Speaking to ABC’s Good Morning America, Sullivan said: “Leadership means taking a look at the situation and asking the hard question, ‘What is going to be in the best interest of the United States of America, those American citizens still in Afghanistan and those Afghan allies.
“And [Joe Biden] got a unanimous recommendation from his secretary of state, his secretary of defense, all of his civilian advisors, all of his commanders on the ground, and all of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, that the best way to protect our forces and the best way to help those Americans was to transition this mission.”
The US flew around 122,000 people out of Afghanistan after the fall of Kabul two weeks ago.
Sullivan said: “On 14 August when this evacuation mission began, we believe that there were between 5,500 and 6,000 Americans in Afghanistan … we got out 97% or 98% of those on the ground, and a small number remain.
“We contacted [them] repeatedly over the course of two weeks to come to the airport: 5,500 or more did that. The small number who remain we are committed to getting out, and we will work through every available diplomatic means with the enormous leverage that we have and that the international community has.”
Such leverage with the Taliban, he said, included “humanitarian assistance that should go directly to the people of Afghanistan, they need help with respect to health and food aid and other forms of subsistence and we do intend to continue that.
“Secondly, when it comes to our economic and development assistance relationship with the Taliban, that will be about the Taliban’s actions.
“It will be about whether they follow through on their commitments to safe passage for Americans and Afghan allies, their commitment to not allow Afghanistan to be a base from which terrorists can attack the United States or any other country, their commitments with respect to upholding their international obligations.
“It’s going to be up to them.”
Good morning, and welcome to today’s politics live blog.
Washington is reeling from the official end of the Afghanistan war after the last US soldier left the country yesterday.
Lawmakers from both sides of the aisle have been criticizing Joe Biden for the chaotic exit out of Afghanistan. Republicans are sensing an opportunity to use Afghanistan as a line of attack against Biden, though the party pushed Donald Trump to exit the country during his presidency.
Unsurprisingly, Biden’s White House is already looking to leave Afghanistan in its rearview mirror, however hard that may be, trying to focus on Covid-19 and the economy in the months ahead.
“The path forward for them in the fall remains Covid and infrastructure,” Jennifer Palmieri, a former communications director for Barack Obama, told Politico. “The most important facts about Afghanistan remain that he got the US out, in terms of what the public cares about.”
Jake Sullivan, Biden’s national security advisor, told ABC’s Good Morning America this morning that Afghanistan has “shifted from a military mission to a diplomatic mission” as, moving forward, the US negotiates with the Taliban over peace and security.
While there is no shortage of domestic issues to focus on, polling has found a drop in Biden’s approval numbers since the US started its exit out of Afghanistan.
Biden is expected to speak about the end of the war in Afghanistan at 1.30pm ET.
Here’s what else we’re looking at today:
- Hurricane Ida has left hundreds of thousands of people in Louisiana without power, possibly for weeks, after the storm pummeled the state’s energy grid.
- Meanwhile in California, the raging Caldor wildfire has forced thousands of residents in a tourist town to evacuate.
- The battle over mask mandates in Florida schools continue after state officials announced that it has withheld department of education funding from two school districts that implemented mask mandates, defying the governor’s ban against mandates.
Stay tuned for more live updates.
