CNN "CNN Newsroom" - Transcript: Interview with Joni Ernst
Interview
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TAPPER: All right, Clarissa Ward in Kabul, we'll come back to you after the Biden speech.
But right now, I want to bring in Republican Senator Joni Ernst of Iowa. She deployed to Kuwait in Iraq as company commander the U.S. Army Reserves in addition to being a U.S. Senator from Iowa. Senator Ernst, good to see you, so we're seeing these heartbreaking images of Afghans --
SEN. JONI ERNST (R-IA): Thank you.
TAPPER: -- desperate to escape, clinging to planes as they take off. What goes through your mind as a veteran as you watch this situation at the airport?
ERNST: Well, Jake, I am a veteran. I know you're a dad, and I'm a mom. And it is absolutely heartbreaking.
There are thousands of Afghans that wish to flee the country. And their only hope is to get on one of those flights so they're trying to get their children to the airport. They're trying to get on those planes. They are trying to get out of the reach of the Taliban.
Right now, they are at the mercy of the Taliban. And, as you mentioned for women and younger girls, this is also very devastating for them. The humiliation that they will endure at the hands of the Taliban all around this is just a horrible, horrible mar on the United States under President Joe Biden.
TAPPER: What do you want to hear President Biden say to the American people as somebody who -- I mean, to be frank, neither former President Trump nor President Biden, who was then Vice President Biden, there was no debate about keeping troops in Afghanistan. Both of them seem to be on the same page about ending the war as soon as possible.
But what do you want to hear from President Biden tonight -- or today?
ERNST: The first thing that I want to hear from President Joe Biden is a thank you to the men and women that have served in the global war on terror. And he needs to be very clear that they are the ones that have protected our nation for the past two decades by taking the fight to the terrorists in Iraq and Afghanistan, and not allowing them to attack our homeland.
And, unfortunately, we see the resurgence of the Taliban and the reconstitution of al Qaeda in Afghanistan.
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