Politics recap
- As many as 1,500 Americans remain in Afghanistan, secretary of state Antony Blinken said today. Blinken estimated that roughly 6,000 US citizens were in Afghanistan on August 14, before the Taliban took control of Kabul, and 4,500 Americans have since been evacuated. The state department is in contact with another 500 Americans about leaving the country, and US officials are “aggressively” reaching out to the remaining 1,000 or so. Blinken emphasized there is “no deadline” for evacuating Americans out of Afghanistan, even as the US military looks to wrap up its mission by August 31.
- The US has helped evacuate more than 80,000 people out of Kabul, according to the latest update from the White House. During today’s Pentagon briefing, Major General Hank Taylor said an evacuation flight left Kabul every 39 minutes yesterday.
- The select committee investigating the Capitol insurrection issued a sweeping records request to eight government agencies. The committee is requesting a wide array of documents from the final days of Donald Trump’s presidency, including internal White House communications as the insurrection unfolded on 6 January.
- Johnson & Johnson shared data showing a booster shot of its coronavirus vaccine produced a “rapid and robust increase in spike-binding antibodies”. The promising news comes as intensive care units across the US fill up due to the continued spread of the Delta variant. In states like Florida, Texas and Mississippi, more than 90% of ICU beds are now being used, and more than half of ICU patients have coronavirus.
- A classified US intelligence study on the origins of coronavirus was inconclusive, according to reports. Joe Biden ordered the assessment earlier this year, but researchers were reportedly unable to reach a definitive conclusion on whether the virus jumped to humans via animals or escaped from a Chinese lab.
– Joan E Greve
For more updates on the situation in Afghanistan, follow the Guardian’s dedicated liveblog:
Updated
Disturbing review of California sheriff’s department finds serious abuses
Over the past year, as employees of the scandal-plagued Orange county sheriff’s department received their official use-of-force training, independent investigators from the county were sitting in.
Their goal was to identify problems that might lead to unnecessary killings or headline-grabbing cases of law enforcement violence. And, as a new report documents, they found plenty.
During a training about the duty to intervene when an officer uses excessive force, one instructor began the session by asking the trainees if they had joined the force in order to “rat on” their peers for misconduct. None of the trainees raised their hands.
Another instructor illustrated a discussion of mental health regulations in California with a photograph of three convicted killers and the caption, “Why do all mass shooters look like mass shooters?” That claim was wrong, and might also “encourage individuals to discriminate against and mistreat others who are perceived to be mentally ill”, the investigators warned.
The newly released investigation was conducted by the Office of Independent Review, a previously dormant Orange county public agency, and commissioned after the George Floyd protests last year. The report comes as the sheriff’s department, one of the largest in the country, has been embroiled in controversy for years over criminal behavior by deputies and even a former sheriff, who was indicted on corruption charges in 2007 and ultimately convicted on one count of witness tampering.
Read more:
A judge has imposed sanctions on Sidney Powell, a former Trump campaign lawyer, and other attorneys over their lawsuit challenging election results in Michigan.
District Judge Linda Parker ruled that the lawyers should have more thoroughly investigated voter fraud claims before suing. The lawyers “have scorned their oath, flouted the rules, and attempted to undermine the integrity of the judiciary along the way,” she wrote, requesting that a disciplinary body look into whether Powell and her colleagues should be disbarred for abusing “the well-established rules applicable to the litigation process by proffering claims not backed by law.”
Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani was suspended from practicing in New York over false statements he made challenging the election results.
Updated
Who’s to blame for the Afghanistan chaos? Remember the war’s cheerleaders, writes Guardian opinion columnist George Monbiot:
Everyone is to blame for the catastrophe in Afghanistan, except the people who started it. Yes, Joe Biden screwed up by rushing out so chaotically. Yes, Boris Johnson and Dominic Raab failed to make adequate and timely provisions for the evacuation of vulnerable people. But there is a frantic determination in the media to ensure that none of the blame is attached to those who began this open-ended war without realistic aims or an exit plan, then waged it with little concern for the lives and rights of the Afghan people: the then US president, George W Bush, the British prime minister Tony Blair and their entourages.
Indeed, Blair’s self-exoneration and transfer of blame to Biden last weekend was front-page news, while those who opposed his disastrous war 20 years ago remain cancelled across most of the media. Why? Because to acknowledge the mistakes of the men who prosecuted this war would be to expose the media’s role in facilitating it.
Any fair reckoning of what went wrong in Afghanistan, Iraq and the other nations swept up in the “war on terror” should include the disastrous performance of the media. Cheerleading for the war in Afghanistan was almost universal, and dissent was treated as intolerable. After the Northern Alliance stormed into Kabul, torturing and castrating its prisoners, raping women and children, the Telegraph urged us to “just rejoice, rejoice”, while the Sun ran a two-page editorial entitled “Shame of the traitors: wrong, wrong, wrong … the fools who said Allies faced disaster”. In the Guardian, Christopher Hitchens, a convert to US hegemony and war, marked the solemnity of the occasion with the words: “Well, ha ha ha, and yah, boo. It was … obvious that defeat was impossible. The Taliban will soon be history.”
The few journalists and public figures who dissented were added to the Telegraph’s daily list of “Osama bin Laden’s useful idiots”, accused of being “anti-American” and “pro-terrorism”, mocked, vilified and de-platformed almost everywhere. In the Independent, David Aaronovitch claimed that if you opposed the ongoing war, you were “indulging yourself in a cosmic whinge”.
Read more:
Kamala Harris Vietnam trip delayed after two US officials report Havana syndrome
The AP reports:
US vice-president Kamala Harris’ trip from Singapore to Vietnam was delayed by several hours on Tuesday by an investigation into two possible cases of the so-called Havana syndrome in Hanoi, administration officials said.
The investigation was in its early stages and officials deemed it safe for Harris to make her scheduled stop in Vietnam, which is part of her trip across Asia meant to reassure allies about American foreign policy amid the tumultuous evacuation of US forces from Afghanistan.
Havana syndrome is the name for a rash of mysterious health incidents first reported by American diplomats and other government employees in the Cuban capital beginning in 2016.
Press secretary Jen Psaki told a White House press briefing later that US officials “take any reported incident of Havana syndrome seriously”.
US officials had not yet confirmed the latest reported case, and it did not involve anyone travelling with Harris, Psaki said. In light of the reports, “there was an assessment done of the safety of the vice-president, and there was a decision made that she could continue travel along with her staff”, she said.
There have been two separate cases of unexplained health incidents reported by US personnel in Vietnam within the past week, the officials said. It was not immediately clear who was affected by the syndrome, though officials said it was not someone who worked for the vice-president or the White House.
Read more:
Biden has appointed Liz Allen as assistant secretary of State for global public affairs.
Allen, who also worked in the Obama administration, most recently as the White House deputy communications director and deputy assistant to Barack Obama. She has also worked for Biden as his deputy director of communications when he was vice president.
Her role will be to communicate the administration’s policies to Americans and foreigners affected by them.
When Gavin Newsom was first elected governor of California in 2018, he captured a greater share of the vote than any other Democrat in state history. And he has remained broadly popular, despite a global pandemic, economic catastrophe, and a scandalously ill-timed visit to the Michelin-starred restaurant the French Laundry.
But with California’s gubernatorial recall election under way, Newsom is fighting for his political life. The Democratic governor of a deep blue state could narrowly lose his seat to a fringe rightwing radio host – in large part due to inertia and apathy among voters.
Democrats outnumber Republicans nearly two to one in California – but while the former are distracted and disengaged this year, the latter are riled up, political strategists and pollsters say. By voting at higher rates, Republicans could capture the governor’s seat for the first time in a decade.
Only 36% of all registered voters want to oust Newsom, but that number rises to 47% when polling likely voters, according to a poll by the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies. And a recent CBS News poll found that 72% of Republican voters were “very motivated” to participate in the recall, while just 61% of Democrats felt the same.
“Turnout is likely to be far higher among Republicans than Democrats and ‘no party preference’ voters. And, since nearly all Republicans favor Newsom’s ouster, a larger proportion of likely voters are voting yes,” said Mark DiCamillo, the poll’s director.
Newsom spent the past few months characterizing the recall effort as a fringe, Republican “distraction” and kicked off his “Vote No” recall campaign in earnest just one month before the 14 September deadline to return ballots. Now he and the Democratic party are scrambling to mobilize voters. “People, we implore you: please vote,” he pleaded at a recent campaign event in Los Angeles.
Read more:
Today so far
That’s it from me today. My west coast colleague, Maanvi Singh, will take over the blog for the next few hours.
Here’s where the day stands so far:
- As many as 1,500 Americans remain in Afghanistan, secretary of state Antony Blinken said today. Blinken estimated that roughly 6,000 US citizens were in Afghanistan on August 14, before the Taliban took control of Kabul, and 4,500 Americans have since been evacuated. The state department is in contact with another 500 Americans about leaving the country, and US officials are “aggressively” reaching out to the remaining 1,000 or so. Blinken emphasized there is “no deadline” for evacuating Americans out of Afghanistan, even as the US military looks to wrap up its mission by August 31.
- The US has helped evacuate more than 80,000 people out of Kabul, according to the latest update from the White House. During today’s Pentagon briefing, Major General Hank Taylor said an evacuation flight left Kabul every 39 minutes yesterday.
- The select committee investigating the Capitol insurrection issued a sweeping records request to eight government agencies. The committee is requesting a wide array of documents from the final days of Donald Trump’s presidency, including internal White House communications as the insurrection unfolded on 6 January.
- Johnson & Johnson shared data showing a booster shot of its coronavirus vaccine produced a “rapid and robust increase in spike-binding antibodies”. The promising news comes as intensive care units across the US fill up due to the continued spread of the Delta variant. In states like Florida, Texas and Mississippi, more than 90% of ICU beds are now being used, and more than half of ICU patients have coronavirus.
-
A classified US intelligence study on the origins of coronavirus was inconclusive, according to reports. Joe Biden ordered the assessment earlier this year, but researchers were reportedly unable to reach a definitive conclusion on whether the virus jumped to humans via animals or escaped from a Chinese lab.
Maanvi will have more coming up, so stay tuned.
The Guardian’s Dan Sabbagh and Aubrey Allegretti report:
Afghans who want to flee to Britain may be better off “trying to get to the border” than awaiting RAF evacuation, the defence secretary has said as British troops made last-ditch attempts to airlift at least 1,500 remaining interpreters and others who have supported the UK.
Ben Wallace, in a briefing to MPs, signalled there were few places left on British rescue flights, which have evacuated more than 10,000 people from Kabul since the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan less than two weeks ago.
More than 80,000 people have been airlifted by western forces, with the US saying on Wednesday that planes were taking off almost every half hour from the capital’s airport. In 24 hours, 19,000 people were flown out on 90 planes as part of an operation that could surpass the 1975 evacuation of Saigon to become the biggest airlift in history.
It came as UK defence sources voiced growing concerns about the “high risk of a terrorist attack”, particularly a suicide bombing by the group Isis-K, an Islamic State-affiliated group. Extra security measures, including concrete barriers, have been installed around the evacuation processing centre by the airport.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki emphasized that the US military is evacuating people out of Afghanistan “free of cost”.
Asked whether the Biden administration will give advance notice before the final evacuation flight leaves Kabul, Psaki said the White House will not likely do so due to security concerns.
The White House said earlier today that the US has now helped evacuate more than 80,000 people out of Afghanistan since August 14.
Jen Psaki said the White House was not given advance notice of congressmen Seth Moulton and Peter Meijer’s trip to Afghanistan.
“We were not aware when they were en route, no,” Psaki said. “Our guidance continues to be to all American citizens, including elected officials, this is not the time to travel to Afghanistan.”
.@PressSec on Reps. Moulton & Meijer Afghanistan trip: "We were not aware when they were en route...this is not the time to travel to Afghanistan. Our focus, our objectives, our resources needs to be laser focused..."
— CSPAN (@cspan) August 25, 2021
Full video here: https://t.co/uTsjzgQqHN pic.twitter.com/sXPfB4JNLM
The White House press secretary added, “Our focus, our objectives, our resources need to be laser-focused on evacuating Afghan partners, evacuating American citizens, and that’s best done in the hands of the department of defense and state department professionals who are on the ground.”
The two congressmen have received widespread criticism for their trip, with some senior Biden administration officials complaining their presence drew resources away from the evacuation mission as the August 31 deadline approaches.
“They certainly took time away from what we had planned to do that day,” John Kirby, the Pentagon press secretary, said this morning.
The White House press secretary, Jen Psaki, is now holding her daily briefing, and she has already taken several questions about evacuation efforts in Afghanistan.
Asked whether US officials had given any cash or supplies to the Taliban to facilitate evacuations from Kabul, Psaki replied, “No, this is not a quid pro quo.”
The press secretary also said the Biden administration is not going to “put a cap” on the number of special immigrant visa applications that will be accepted, as many Afghan allies seek to enter the US.
Secretary of state Antony Blinken warned that there is a risk of a potential terrorist attack in Kabul as the US military continues its evacuation mission.
“It’s hard to overstate the complexity and the danger of this effort. We’re operating in a hostile environment in a city and country now controlled by the Taliban with the very real possibility of an Isis-K attack,” Blinken said. “We’re taking every precaution, but this is very high risk.”
.@SecBlinken: "It's hard to overstate the complexity and the danger of this effort. We're operating in a hostile environment in a city and country now controlled by the Taliban with the very real possibility of an ISIS-K attack." pic.twitter.com/GWuYRJoux2
— CSPAN (@cspan) August 25, 2021
Joe Biden issued a similar warning yesterday, as the president rejected calls from some American allies and lawmakers to extend the Kabul evacuation mission beyond August 31.
“Every day we’re on the ground is another day we know that Isis-K is seeking to target the airport and attack both US forces and allied forces and innocent civilians,” Biden said yesterday.
Blinken says there is 'no deadline' on evacuating Americans from Kabul
Secretary of state Antony Blinken emphasized that the US military would continue to help evacuate US citizens out of Afghanistan past the August 31 deadline if necessary.
Sec. Blinken says there is "no deadline" on efforts to evacuate American citizens and Afghan allies: "That effort will continue every day past August 31...People who want to leave Afghanistan after the U.S. military departs should be able to do so" https://t.co/6NyKdeHFGq pic.twitter.com/PcB6mffMi1
— CBS News (@CBSNews) August 25, 2021
“Let me be crystal clear about this: there is no deadline on our work to help any remaining American citizens who decide they want to leave, to do so, along with the many Afghans who have stood by us over these many years and want to leave and have been unable to do so,” Blinken said.
“That effort will continue every day past August 31. The Taliban have made public and private commitments to provide and permit safe passage for Americans, for third-county nationals and Afghans at risk going forward past August 31.”
Joe Biden indicated yesterday that the US military would be able to complete its evacuation mission by August 31, and Blinken said the state department is working to establish communication channels for facilitating departures after that deadline.
Blinken said, “Our expectation, the expectation of the international community, is that people who want to leave Afghanistan after the US military departs should be able to do so. Together, we will do everything we can to see that that expectation is met.”
Updated
As many as 1,500 Americans remain in Afghanistan, Blinken says
Secretary of state Antony Blinken is now providing an update on the evacuation mission in Kabul, as the US looks to complete the operation by August 31.
Blinken said the state department believes there were roughly 6,000 Americans in Afghanistan on August 14, before the Taliban took control of Kabul.
Since then, about 4,500 Americans have been evacuated, and another 500 US citizens are in contact with the state department about leaving the country.
That leaves about 1,000 Americans who may still be in Afghanistan and are not in contact with the US government. Blinken said the state department is “aggressively” reaching out to those people multiple times a day and in multiple different ways.
The secretary of state noted these numbers are “dynamic calculations” that are being refined hour by hour, as more evacuation flights leave Kabul.
Joe Biden is now holding a meeting on cybersecurity at the White House, following a string of recent high-profile ransomware attacks that have affected several major companies.
A number of well-known CEOS -- including Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan Chase, Sundar Pichai of Google’s parent company Alphabet and Tim Cook of Apple -- are present for the meeting.
(Reporters noted that, when Cook was previously at the White House, Donald Trump mistakenly referred to him as “Tim Apple”.)
The White House press pool was escorted into the East Room at the start of the meeting, and Peter Alexander of NBC News shouted a question at Biden about extending the Kabul evacuation mission past August 31 if there are still Americans left in Afghanistan at the end of the month.
After initially ignoring the question, Biden told Alexander, “You’ll be the first person I call.”
I asked President Biden what he will do if Americans are still in Afghanistan after the 8/31 deadline.
— Peter Alexander (@PeterAlexander) August 25, 2021
His response: “You’ll be the first person I call.”
Took no questions. pic.twitter.com/MlyFIayrMZ
Earlier this month, Donald Trump received bipartisan criticism for threatening the US Capitol Police officer who fatally shot Ashli Babbitt during the 6 January insurrection.
“I spoke to the wonderful mother and devoted husband of Ashli Babbitt, who was murdered at the hands of someone who should never have pulled the trigger of his gun,” Trump said in an 11 August statement.
“We know who he is. If that happened to the ‘other side,’ there would be riots all over America and yet, there are far more people represented by Ashli, who truly loved America, than there are on the other side.”
Babbitt was killed while participating in a violent insurrection that sought to overturn the results of a free and fair election. That insurrection ultimately resulted in the deaths of five people, including Babbitt.
After Trump issued the statement, lawmakers from both parties, including Republican congresswoman Liz Cheney, criticized the former president for using language that could provoke violence against USCP officers.
The brave law enforcement officers who defended the Capitol & Congress on January 6th deserve our deep gratitude and full support.
— Liz Cheney (@Liz_Cheney) August 12, 2021
Note for federal investigative agencies: the former president continues to use the same type of language he knows provoked violence in the past. pic.twitter.com/9LGbbZWRL2
In April, the US attorney’s office for the District of Columbia and the civil rights division of the US Department of Justice said that they would not pursue charges against the US Capitol officer, who killed Ashli Babbitt with a single shot.
To some on the far right, Babbitt, an air force veteran and believer in the QAnon conspiracy theory, has become a heroine.
Donald Trump has called for “justice”, saying earlier this month Babbitt “was murdered at the hands of someone who should have never pulled the trigger of his gun”.
Capitol police said in its statement about the internal investigation of the shooting: “The actions of the officer in this case potentially saved members and staff from serious injury and possible death.
“This officer and the officer’s family have been the subject of numerous credible and specific threats for actions that were taken as part of the job of all our officers: defending the Congress, members, staff and the democratic process.”
Officer who shot Ashli Babbitt to reveal his identity in NBC interview
NBC News anchor Lester Holt will sit down for an interview with the US Capitol police officer who fatally shot insurrectionist Ashli Babbitt, the network just announced.
“Speaking out and revealing his identity publicly for the first time, the officer will share his perspective on the events of that day, including the aftermath of the deadly insurrection and the threats he has received,” NBC said in a press release.
Holt’s interview with the USCP officer will air tomorrow night on NBC Nightly News at 6:30 PM ET.
.@NBCNews EXCLUSIVE: @LesterHoltNBC will sit down for an interview with the U.S. Capitol Police officer responsible for shooting and killing Ashli Babbitt while defending the U.S. House chamber during the January 6, 2021 Capitol attack. pic.twitter.com/FeXxzoslyN
— NBC News PR (@NBCNewsPR) August 25, 2021
The interview comes days after the USCP cleared the officer of wrongdoing in the fatal shooting, which occurred as Babbitt and other Trump supporters attacked the Capitol on 6 January.
In a statement released on Monday, USCP said: “After interviewing multiple witnesses and reviewing all the available evidence, including video and radio calls [we have] completed the internal investigation.
“USCP’s office of professional responsibility determined the officer’s conduct was lawful and within department policy, which says an officer may use deadly force only when the officer reasonably believes that action is in the defence of human life, including the officer’s own life, or in the defence of any person in immediate danger of serious physical injury.”
Babbitt has become somewhat of a cause célèbre among the far right, with some extremist groups painting the insurrectionist as a political martyr.
Updated
The chairman of the 6 January select committee, Democrat Bennie Thompson, gave government agencies two weeks to respond to their records request.
However, given the wide breadth of documents requested, the eight agencies named by the committee may not be able to meet that deadline.
The records request comes one month after the committee held its first hearing on the 6 January insurrection, which featured searing testimony from four police officers who responded to the attack.
Michael Fanone, a Metropolitan police department officer who suffered a heart attack and a brain injury on 6 January, recounted how he was attacked by Trump supporters as the insurrection unfolded.
“I was grabbed, beaten, Tased, all while being called a traitor to my country. I was at risk of being stripped of and killed with my own firearm, as I heard chants of ‘Kill him with his own gun,’” Fanone said. “I can still hear those words in my head today.”
The January 6 select committee is also seeking all internal White House communications regarding the following people as the Capitol attack unfolded:
- Hope Hicks
- Mark Meadows
- Dan Scavino
- Stephan Miller
- Kayleigh McEnany
- Ivanka Trump
- Eric Trump
- Lara Trump
- Donald Trump, Jr.
- Jared Kushner
- Melania Trump
- Kimberly Guilfoyle
- Steve Bannon
- Michael Flynn
- Rudy Giuliani
And that’s just a partial list of the people the committee is interested in. So there are going to be many documents swept up in this request.
6 January committee issues sweeping records request targeting Trump officials
The select committee investigating the 6 January insurrection has issued its first sweeping records request, seeking a wide range of documents regarding the Trump administration’s preparation for and response to the Capitol attack.
The sweeping request sought White House records from the National Archives and Records Administration and records from seven other Executive Branch agencies. pic.twitter.com/XcBigbzFDE
— January 6th Committee (@January6thCmte) August 25, 2021
“The Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol is examining the facts, circumstances, and causes of the January 6th attack,” the select committee chairman, Bennie Thompson, wrote in a letter to the National Archives and Records Administration.
“Our Constitution provides for a peaceful transfer of power, and this investigation seeks to evaluate threats to that process, identify lessons learned and recommend laws, policies, procedures, rules, or regulations necessary to protect our republic in the future.”
Eight government agencies, including the department of defense and the department of justice, received letters from the select committee requesting documents from the final days of Donald Trump’s presidency.
Among other records, the committee is asking for communications between Trump White House officials as the Capitol attack unfolded on 6 January.
Updated
An urgent update, readers! Blinken is now not due to speak until 2.30pm ET/6.30pm GMT.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki is due to brief the media at 3pm ET. “Due to” because these briefing often slip back and sometimes by a lot.
The first delay, when we had expected secretary of state Antony Blinken to make public remarks at 12.15pm follows a delay or more than five hours yesterday in what were scheduled to be public remarks by Joe Biden.
The US president had been due to speak at 12pm ET, finally spoke at 5.15pm and didn’t say much, or take questions.
It’s definitely not unusual for these kinds of scheduled addresses to get moved back, and Biden is not a good time-keeper at such events, in general, but 5+ hours for a nothing-burger address that lasted a few minutes and contained little new did rather cast Biden in a less than favorable light amid ongoing fears that many awaiting evacuation will be left behind at the mercy of the Taliban.
Updated
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is due to make public remarks at any moment, to update us on the latest situation with Afghanistan and US evacuations.
Blinken has strongly defended the Biden administration’s decision to pull out rapidly from Afghanistan, although he attracted criticism when he said that the withdrawal chaos was “manifestly not Saigon”, in relation to the US pull out from Vietnam as North Vietnamese forces took over.
For many the situation in Kabul has been manifestly worse than Saigon because the US has been in charge of supporting the Afghan government and training its security forces for the last 20 years before they crumpled in the face of the Taliban in less than two weeks.
My colleague Ed Pilkington reported Blinken’s remarks on Sunday 15 August even as Kabul was falling to the Taliban, the Afghan president was fleeing abroad with no warning, and panic was unfolding in the Afghan capital, writing:
Blinken’s rejection of any parallels with the iconic image of helicopters evacuating personnel from the US embassy in Saigon in April 1975 at the end of the Vietnam war came as the skies over the Afghan capital were filled with Chinooks and Black Hawks ferrying US embassy staff to a secure location at the international airport. The secretary of state made his remarks with Taliban forces amassing inside the capital, and with their representatives already negotiating a “peaceful transfer” of power at the presidential palace.
Updated
The Pentagon is not very happy about the surprise visit of two congressmen to Kabul airport yesterday.
Democrat Seth Moulton and Republican Peter Meijer, both of them Iraq veterans, said they made the stealth visit for the purpose of oversight of a critical situation.
.@PentagonPresSec on Reps. Moulton & Meijer Afghanistan trip: "We were not aware of this visit. We are obviously not encouraging VIP visits to a very tense, dangerous and dynamic situation...They certainly took time away from what we had been planning to do that day." pic.twitter.com/JTrcdzAcpa
— CSPAN (@cspan) August 25, 2021
“We were not aware of this visit, and we are obviously not encouraging VIP visits to a very tense, dangerous and dynamic situation at that airport and inside Kabul generally,” the Pentagon spokesman, John Kirby, said.
He added that he did not know whether the two visitors had taken seats on planes that would have gone to American or Afghan evacuees, but Kirby said pointedly: “They certainly took time away from what we had been planning to do that day.”
Today so far
Here’s where the day stands so far:
- Johnson & Johnson shared data showing a booster shot of its coronavirus vaccine produced a “rapid and robust increase in spike-binding antibodies”. The promising news comes as intensive care units across the US fill up due to the continued spread of the Delta variant. In states like Florida, Texas and Mississippi, more than 90% of ICU beds are now being used, and more than half of ICU patients have coronavirus.
- The US has helped evacuate more than 80,000 people out of Kabul, according to the latest update from the White House. During today’s Pentagon briefing, Major General Hank Taylor said an evacuation flight left Kabul every 39 minutes yesterday.
- A classified US intelligence study on the origins of coronavirus was inconclusive, according to reports. Joe Biden ordered the assessment earlier this year, but researchers were reportedly unable to reach a definitive conclusion on whether the virus jumped to humans via animals or escaped from a Chinese lab.
The blog will have more coming up, so stay tuned.
Asked about a report in Politico overnight that the threat of an attack on Kabul airport by Isis could jeopardise the evacuation, Maj Gen Hank Taylor said he would not go into specific threat but “we know, as previously reported, there is a threat.”
“This has been a dangerous place that has had threats by ISIS, and we continue to ensure that we collect [intelligence], and keep the force protection to the highest levels possible to ensure that we’re able to continue the evacuation operation,” Taylor said.
As the evacuation goes on, the Pentagon made clear today that military personnel and equipment would take up an increasing share of the capacity.
The US military presence at the airport is already beginning to draw down, from 5,800 at its peak in the past few days, to 5,400 now.
On the subject of the 31 August deadline, the Pentagon line remains the same. The military is working towards that date, but as a matter of course, has contingencies in case it needs to be extended. Apparently, in military-speak, such options are called “branches and sequels”.
The Pentagon has said there was a US helicopter rescue mission last night that brought people stranded in Kabul city to the airport.
“Last night, during the period of darkness, there was an operation to safely evacuate evacuees back into Kabul, they are at HKIA (Hamid Karzai International Airport), and they’re safely preparing to be evacuated,” Maj General Hank Taylor said at a press briefing.
Pentagon spokesman, John Kirby, would not give further details other than there were less than 20 evacuees on the flight.
It is the third such helicopter rescue, but the Pentagon said yesterday the US military is also conducting extractions by road, but will not release details for security reasons.
Two thousand Afghan interpreters and others who worked for the British government are still to be airlifted out of Kabul by the RAF, defence sources said, as the emergency evacuation reaches its final stages amid rising fears of a terrorist attack.
There also remain an unidentified number of “special cases” – human rights activists, judges, LGBTQ+ advocates and others – placed on a special list by the Foreign Office waiting to get out, plus a small number of single-nationality Britons.
A total of 10,291 people have been evacuated by the RAF since the fall of Kabul, including 6,380 Afghans and 2,570 Britons and their dependants, 341 embassy staff plus citizens of 38 other countries, according to official figures.
The Ministry of Defence would not be drawn on how long the evacuation would last – although defences sources suggested it would be as little as 24 to 36 hours to allow the British military to pack up, followed by the US before a final 31 August deadline.
Updated
Evacuation flights leaving Kabul every 39 minutes, Pentagon says
The Pentagon is giving its regular morning update on the progress of the evacuation operation in Kabul.
According to Maj Gen Hank Taylor, 90 evacuation flights left in the past 24 hours with 19,000 people aboard, a new daily record.
NEW: Pentagon updates on situation at Kabul airport:
— ABC News (@ABC) August 25, 2021
In past 24 hrs:
- 90 flights departed Kabul
- 19,000 evacuated
- Plane departed airport every 39 minutes
Total:
- 88,000 people evacuated
Currently:
- More than 10,000 at airport awaiting departure pic.twitter.com/Vi1ZwXlLUd
Of that total, 11,700 people left on 42 US military transports. Another 7,800 went on 48 planes flown by coalition nations and other countries.
On average, a flight left Kabul every 39 minutes. At the moment, there are 10,000 people at Kabul airport waiting for a flight out.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi praised the House’s “historic” passage of the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act yesterday.
The legislation is named for the late Democratic congressman John Lewis, who was violently assaulted while marching for voting rights during the Civil Rights Movement.
“This is fundamental to our democracy that we respect the sanctity of the vote,” Pelosi said at her weekly press conference. “That was what John Lewis’ life and risk of death was about.”
Pelosi on the House passing John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act: "This is fundamental to our democracy that we respect the sanctity of the vote. That was what John Lewis' life and risk of death was about." https://t.co/N5oZfxvFs3 pic.twitter.com/nsgq1RCvql
— CBS News (@CBSNews) August 25, 2021
The 219-212 vote fell along party lines, and the Democratic speaker criticized her Republican colleagues for opposing the legislation, noting that past voting rights bills have passed with bipartisan support.
“Unfortunately yesterday, you did not see that bipartisanship, and it was really sad,” Pelosi said.
The unanimous Republican opposition underscores the major hurdles ahead for the bill in the evenly divided Senate. Democrats will need to convince 10 Republicans to support the bill in order to overcome the expected Senate filibuster, which seems unlikely if not impossible.
House speaker Nancy Pelosi sharply criticized two members who flew to Afghanistan yesterday to “conduct oversight” of the US military’s evacuation mission in Kabul.
Asked about congressmen Seth Moulton and Peter Meijer’s trip at her weekly press conference, Pelosi said she did not learn about it until hours before it became publicly known.
“This is deadly serious,” Pelosi said. “We don’t want anybody to think this was a good idea and they should try to follow suit.”
She added, “It was not in my view a good idea.”
.@SpeakerPelosi on Reps. Seth Moulton (D-MA) and Peter Meijer (R-MI) going to Afghanistan: "This is deadly serious. I do not want members to go...It was not in my view a good idea."
— CSPAN (@cspan) August 25, 2021
Full video here: https://t.co/gzCBuLwhvh pic.twitter.com/uTq4PU8kDa
Moulton, a Democrat, and Meijer, a Republican, released a joint statement yesterday confirming they had made the trip, arguing such “oversight” was vital to the integrity of the mission.
“We conducted this visit in secret, speaking about it only after our departure, to minimize the risk and disruption to the people on the ground, and because we were there to gather information, not to grandstand,” the statement said.
“We left on a plane with empty seats, seated in crew-only seats to ensure that nobody who needed a seat would lose one because of our presence.”
The trip infuriated senior officials at the Pentagon and the state department, who told the Washington Post that the lawmakers’ presence had been a distraction from the evacuation mission itself as the military grapples with an August 31 deadline to leave Afghanistan.
Today with @RepMeijer I visited Kabul airport to conduct oversight on the evacuation.
— Seth Moulton (@sethmoulton) August 25, 2021
Witnessing our young Marines and soldiers at the gates, navigating a confluence of humanity as raw and visceral as the world has ever seen, was indescribable. pic.twitter.com/bWGQh1iw2c
Kabul evacuations surpass 80,000, White House says
The US military has now helped evacuate more than 80,000 people out of Kabul since the Taliban took control of the capital city earlier this month.
According to the latest numbers from the White House, about 19,000 people were evacuated between 3 am ET yesterday and 3 am ET today.
“This is the result of 42 US military flights (37 C-17s and 5 C-130s) which carried approximately 11,200 evacuees, and 48 coalition flights which carried 7,800 people,” a White House official told the press pool.
“Since August 14, the U.S. has evacuated and facilitated the evacuation of approximately 82,300 people on US military and coalition flights. Since the end of July, we have re-located approximately 87,900 people on US military and coalition flights.”
Some US allies have pushed Joe Biden to extend the August 31 deadline to complete the evacuation mission, but he indicated yesterday that he believed the military could complete the operation by the end of the month.
“We are currently on a pace to finish by August the 31st,” Biden said at the White House yesterday. “The sooner we can finish, the better. Each day of operations brings added risk to our troops.”
Hallie Golden reports for the Guardian on those suffering with long-term symptoms of coronavirus:
For months, Andrea Tomasek suspected she was suffering from debilitating symptoms brought on by a Covid-19 infection. She had a fever and her breathing was so labored she said it felt like her “lungs were sponges full of fluid”. She later experienced dizziness and periods where she would pass out.
But when the 37-year-old first started to feel sick in March 2020, the pandemic was still in its early days, so she couldn’t access a test in her home city of Savage, Minnesota, a suburb of Minneapolis.
Without that initial Covid-19 diagnosis, physicians repeatedly discounted the connection between her symptoms and the virus.
“It has been a huge struggle,” she said. “I’ve been gaslit. I’ve had doctors dismiss me outright and try and prescribe me anxiety medication. It’s been ridiculous.”
It wasn’t until October, when her symptoms still hadn’t let up, that she said a doctor made the connection between her illness and Covid, and referred her to the Mayo Clinic’s post-Covid care clinic.
US intelligence study inconclusive on Covid origins, according to reports
The Guardian’s Vincent Ni and agencies report:
A classified US intelligence report delivered to the White House was inconclusive on the origins of the Covid-19 pandemic, in part due to a lack of information from China, according to US media reports.
The assessment received on Tuesday, which was ordered by President Joe Biden 90 days ago, was unable to definitively conclude whether the virus that first emerged in central China had jumped to humans via animals or escaped a highly secure research facility in Wuhan, two US officials familiar with the matter told the Washington Post.
They said parts of the report could be declassified in the coming days.
Responding to reports, China’s foreign ministry spokesperson, Wang Wenbin, on Wednesday criticised Washington for “politicising” the issue of Covid origin-tracing.
“The United States says it lacks information from China,” Wang told a press briefing, according to China News service, a state-owned newswire. “I can tell the United States that this is just an excuse to cover up the failure of its intelligence in origin tracing.”
J&J touts booster shot as ICUs fill up with Covid patients
Greetings from Washington, live blog readers.
Johnson & Johnson has just shared data showing that a booster shot of its coronavirus vaccine produced a “rapid and robust increase in spike-binding antibodies”.
Dr Mathai Mammen, the global head of the company’s research and development team, said, “We look forward to discussing with public health officials a potential strategy for our Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine, boosting eight months or longer after the primary single-dose vaccination.”
JUST IN: Interim Phase 1/2a data suggest booster dose of our #COVID19 vaccine generates rapid, robust increase in spike-binding antibodies in adults (n=17). https://t.co/Sh2r3JybOX
— Johnson & Johnson (@JNJNews) August 25, 2021
The Janssen COVID-19 Vaccine has not been approved/licensed by FDA. https://t.co/Xnh5QXScdQ pic.twitter.com/kyaWNVTWkL
The news comes as the US grapples with a rise in coronavirus hospitalizations due to the continued spread of the Delta variant.
In states like Florida, Texas and Mississippi, more than 90% of the beds in intensive care units are now being used, and more than half of ICU patients have coronavirus, according to data from the department of health and human services.
Most coronavirus hospitalizations are occurring among unvaccinated Americans, and the Biden administration is hoping that the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of the Pfizer vaccine -- combined with the new data from Johnson & Johnson -- could encourage more people to get their shot.
Otherwise, those hospitalization numbers could get even worse.
The blog will have more coming up, so stay tuned.
