CNN "The Lead with Jake Tapper" - Transcript: Interview with Michael McCaul

Interview

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TAPPER: All right, Phil Mattingly at the White House. Thank you.

Joining us now, the top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Congressman Michael McCaul of Texas.

Congressman, you think the U.S. should stay in Afghanistan until -- at least until all Americans and Afghan allies who are special immigrant visa applicants are evacuated.

[16:10:12]

I'm sure many Americans look at yesterday's terrorist attack, however, one marine -- I mean, 11 marines killed, one navy corpsman killed, one soldier killed, and say, I don't want any more American service members killed in this 20-year war. What do you say to them?

REP. MICHAEL MCCAUL (R-TX): Well, it didn't have to happen. And as you know, you know I talked about this. The planning was -- was so bad.

You talk about Ambassador Crocker, we did an op-ed in "New York Times" asking -- advising the administration exactly what to do. Start evacuating the Americans months before this time. Get our Afghan partners and interpreters out of there. Establish an ISR capability close to Afghanistan.

And they did none of this. So now, we're down to the 11th hour. It is a crisis.

The ISIS-K threat is very real and they're the worst of the worst. A lot came out of the prisons. Khorasan, the K stands for that. I think you will see another attack.

I think our goal right now all we can hope for, the best, Jake, is to get every American we can out of Afghanistan by August 31st.

The airport is not even -- the gates are closed right now. And the only way we can get Americans out -- McKenzie, General McKenzie told me they're running JSOC, Joint Special Operation Command units to -- to get these Americans and get 'em into the airport, mostly by helicopter and by air.

With respect to the interpreters, and you know I have talked a long I'm about. I believe their fate is now -- their fate is doomed. In fact, they were not let in the Taliban checkpoints and perimeters for a while.

TAPPER: Uh-huh.

MCCAUL: They've been mistreated. And I think their fate now is certain. And that is -- that is -- they say no one left behind, well, we left them behind.

TAPPER: One of the problems, as you know, when it comes to getting these planes full of Afghans out of Kabul and other parts of Afghanistan is not a lot of countries want to take them in. I mean, the United States is accepting. Canada is accepting.

Some of the United States' allies in the Middle East, Qatar and UAE and others have -- have talked about taking some in. But they usually limit it.

There was talk of Tajikistan. There was talk of other locations. Albania has been taking some people in. But even European leaders are pushing back saying don't send people to Albania because they'll just end up in Europe.

Doesn't the rest of the world, all the people, all the other foreign countries that are -- that are tut-tutting at the United States right now, don't they need to step up and accept some of these Afghan refugees?

MCCAUL: Of course. They share the burden. And our NATO allies -- you know, I got a classified briefing and what I can say is that at the highest levels that we have 24 countries that are willing to take these Afghan partners, who can be fully vetted and, you know, that's -- we all share this burden.

But for the people that we had a moral obligation to, we said that we would protect them. And now, we're turning our backs on them. And their fate is certain. It's execution by the Taliban.

You know, for the ones we can get out and have gotten out of there, of course. And it's not just the United States that bears the burden of all these Afghan partners, all of our allies are standing up to the plate is my understanding.

But what I worried about the most, Jake, are the ones that, you know, even before this terror attack by ISIS-K, I heard numerous stories on the ground of the Taliban ripping papers, destroying cell phones, turning them away from the perimeter as the American citizens were moving in.

And I -- I think and unfortunately their fate is clear. And we are going to see this out. You've seen the horrible videos that came out from the terror attack and I think you are going to see even more of the Afghan allies of ours left (ph) in that country.

TAPPER: Yeah. Congressman, beyond the report that we saw in "Politico" and some other places that U.S. officials in Kabul gave the Taliban with whom the U.S. is trying to coordinate the evacuations -- gave -- gave them a list of American citizens, green card holders, and these SIV applicants.

We've seen this report. Biden was asked about it. He didn't deny it. Others in the administration have been asked about it. Did not deny it.

Are you aware of this happening? What do you know about this story?

MCCAUL: Yeah. And it's going to break more but I can tell you we were -- we have to unfortunately because we didn't get the American citizens out previously. Why would the military leave before our American citizens?

[16:15:04]

Seems to me that was backwards. You want to get the American citizens out, first, and then, the military and diplomats at the end.

TAPPER: Well, if I can just jump in for one second, Congressman. I apologize, but just one of the things that we hear from the administration as a response is the State Department has been out there saying we warned American citizens to leave in this warning on this date, in this warning on this date, and this warning on this date. That's how they are responding, saying we have been trying to tell people to leave.

MCCAUL: The situation got dire so fast that I'm sure American citizens in Afghanistan had no idea how fast it would happen. We know our intelligence community warned since May this administration, what would happen.

I think this president ignored his own generals, top generals, and his own intelligence community about how rapidly the deterioration was going to happen. And now, we're stuck in this really bad situation and we have to get every American out of there. We just can't leave them behind in enemy territory.

TAPPER: All right. Congressman Michael McCaul of Texas, thank you so much for your time as always. Good to see you.

MCCAUL: Thanks, Jake.

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