During an information session with President Joe Biden’s top national security officials on Tuesday: Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, Secretary of State Tony Blinken, Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley and the Director of Intelligence National lawmaker Avril Haines urged lawmakers to try to convince Biden that evacuation efforts should be extended beyond the end of the month.
“There was strong bipartisan support to extend the Aug. 31 deadline,” Michigan Rep. Elissa Slotkin said. “That was an important issue, an important comment, an important point that we all tried to make, urging them to do more to defend with the president the extension of the term.”
The briefing came at a time when Biden had decided to stay with the Aug. 31 deadline to withdraw U.S. forces and complete the U.S. evacuation effort. This decision was motivated in part by security risks in a country now controlled by the Taliban, according to administration officials, although Biden has instructed his team to write a contingency plan in case the administration decides that the deadline needs to be extended.
“I’m pretty sure we’re going to get as many out of it as possible. Everything? This is going to be very, very difficult,” said House Armed Services President Adam Smith of Washington. “I asked about the 31st deadline. That’s still the goal. And it was very specific that they needed a plan to go beyond the 31st and they assured me yes.”
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said at a news conference that he left the session “less secure” that all Americans could be evacuated the following week, asking the House to focus on the ‘Afghanistan instead of infrastructure.
“At no point should the United States bend or allow the Taliban to tell us, when we need to stop taking out the Americans,” McCarthy said.
Lawmakers said Biden’s team acknowledged the challenge of removing everyone on Aug. 31, though officials did not contradict the president within the briefing. But they presented their case directly to national security officials in charge of the U.S. withdrawal to change course.
“We made it very clear to them that they had to let the president know, backing up that number,” said Rep. Mike Rogers of Alabama, the top Republican on the House Armed Services Committee. “Blinken kept trying to say we’ll do our best, but everyone recognized that it can’t be done. Not all Americans could be taken out, let alone Afghans.
Legislators ’setback on the deadline began on Monday even before Biden had decided to meet the August 31 deadline. After an intelligence community briefing, House Intelligence President Adam Schiff told reporters he did not see how it was possible to complete the evacuation ahead of schedule.
“I think it’s very unlikely given the number of Americans who have yet to be evacuated, the number of SIVs, the number of others who are members of the Afghan press, women leaders in civil society. It’s difficult for me to imagine all of this can be achieved by the end of the month, ”said Schiff, a California Democrat.
Representative Jason Crow, a Colorado Democrat, argued that conditions on the ground have changed and that the deadline should change.
“We are now in a different world than we were when that date was originally set. We have to respond to this different world and this different reality. We have to fulfill the mission,” Crow said. “The deadline is when the mission is achieved and we bring our people. End point.”
CNN’s Phil Mattingly and Sarah Fortinsky contributed to this report.