On Wednesday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “Craig Melvin Reports,” Rep. Colin Allred (D-TX) stated that “our mission is not going to end on August 31, in terms of trying to help people in Afghanistan who want to leave.” And there will be ongoing negotiations “to see what we can do to continue to try to help people get out after that date, who want to work with our allies, others who have relations with the Taliban. And it’s going to be contingent upon the Taliban.” Allred also argued that the U.S. still has many forms of leverage over the Taliban.
Allred said, “I’m also on the Foreign Affairs Committee and just got out of another classified briefing here. We have to, first, understand this is an incredibly dangerous situation and mission for our Marines, our troops, and our State Department personnel, every single day. And every single day it’s going to get more dangerous, and the president has said, and I agree, that any deadline is contingent upon a number of things, including how the Taliban continues to help us in terms of getting people to the airport safely. But our mission is not going to end on August 31, in terms of trying to help people in Afghanistan who want to leave. We already have some negotiations in place that are going to be ongoing to see what we can do to continue to try to help people get out after that date, who want to work with our allies, others who have relations with the Taliban. And it’s going to be contingent upon the Taliban. Which is — it is for any government around the world to, if they have citizens or if they have people in their country who want to leave, that they are allowed to do that. And we’re going to hold them to that as an international community. And there are a lot of levers that we do still have in place, including some pretty enormous financial levers over them to try and make sure that they continue to do that.”
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