 Welcome back to News On. I'm Miranda Kahn. House moderates are now encouraging, as we mentioned with Nick Balancy in the previous block, that the president reconsider extending that deadline to get out of Afghanistan. Meanwhile, talks of American troops leaving the same day that the president decided to not extend the deadline, but saying that there are 1,500, as I mentioned, Americans, still estimated to be there, including California students. The blame game continuing. Secretary of State Antony Blinken now suggesting the American people who are there can only blame themselves. Here's specifically what he had to say. These are dynamic calculations that we are working hour by hour to refine for accuracy. And let me if I can just take a moment to explain why the numbers are difficult to pin down with absolute precision at any given moment. And let me start with Americans who are in Afghanistan and we believe want to leave. First, as I think all of you know, the U.S. government does not track Americans' movements when they travel around the world. When Americans visit a foreign country or if they reside there, we encourage them to enroll with the U.S. Embassy. Whether they do or not is up to them. It's voluntary. And then when Americans leave a foreign country, it's also up to them to de-enroll. And joining us live now to discuss this and so much more is former Obama Regional Campaign Director and Democratic Mayoral Candidate for Tucker, Georgia, Robin Byro, and also with us, Melissa Armo. She is the founder of Swoosh, Stock Swoosh. Do I say that right? Stock Swoosh, yeah. There we go. A lot going on today, guys. Breaking developments now. We have two explosions, as I mentioned, at the top of the show going on. The Pentagon, they're confirming it. One of them believed to be done by ISIS. Obviously, this is going to put some strain as far as getting those Americans out. We're hearing reports that they are in contact with 500 of those 1500 Americans. And I do just heard from Anthony Blinken suggesting that the reason why we don't have an exact number is because those people did not let the U.S. Embassy there know that they are, in fact, there. This is, as I mentioned, we have students there, young kids that are there trapped, stranded right now. And this certainly isn't helping matters. So, Robin, I want to start with you again. You're a veteran. I want to get your thoughts on what has just happened today and how this is going to obviously complicate efforts for not only our military, but again, those Americans and those Afghans that are still looking to escape. And also, what is your reaction to what Anthony Blinken had to say there, seemingly placing the blame on Americans who are still trapped there? Personally, I'm glad that he finally came back from vacation to deal with this. But this is not the message that we need to hear. Yes, if you're traveling overseas in a hostile territory like Afghanistan, you do, you really should register with the embassy there, the American embassy there. So he's got a point there, but the blame game is not going to help anything. We've got to get these people out. I have friends. I've sold your friends, ranger buddies over there trying to extricate people right now. I'm concerned for their safety. I did two tours in Afghanistan myself. It is a disaster. These people are terrorists, terrorists do what they do. And it's just going to be a nightmare. It's a gigantic mess. Well, so I do want to get your reaction. But real quickly, Robin, I mean, you served, you have friends. You mentioned that are there. I have to get your reaction to this because what are they telling you? Because they have to be fearful right now. If we're hearing reports that US Marines now have suffered casualties trying to get out. Yes, I've heard Miranda that there are four Marines that are casualties from what we know right now. I'm also hearing that the Taliban had designated security detail to a group associated with Al Qaeda. That's that's insane. So it's a it's a giant mess. My branger buddies are associating blame all the way going back to four for four presidential administrations ago. It's just whether this whether we got out of Afghanistan 10 years ago or 10 years from now, it all would have ended the same. But this doesn't need to be rushed. President Trump wants one of us out by May. That's not enough time. August 31st isn't enough time. We've got to have some kind of better plan, Miranda. Well, and get those Americans out and get our military personnel to safety and also those Afghan interpreters and refugees that we promised could leave. You know, safely. Melissa, your reaction again to what anti blinkin had to say and the breaking news that happened in Afghanistan again, two explosions there. First of all, the secretary of state has basically been a while, whether he had a planned vacation or not. He should have come back. This is a crisis. He has a job to do. He has hardly spoken. In fact, I think that was the first press conference he did. He was with the president a few days ago, but he didn't say anything. I think heads are gonna roll at some point with this, and he may be the fall guy for this because he's barely spoken. I don't think he should be blaming anyone for what's going on right now other than the particular the administration. If people are stuck over there, what the problem is right now that they've got four days left. Okay, so it's no surprise that the bombs happen today because they want to impede the enemy. Okay, the enemy, which is ISIS, want to impede the progress that the U. S is making to get people out. I'm not sure that they only have 1500 people left there. They may have more. The administration has not been clear, and they're trying to act like it's people who are not free there that they don't know how many people are there. Regardless of the fact is people were hurt today. Marines were hurt. We'll find out later today when they do the press conference exactly what they know about the casualties. Either way, this is a pivotal moment for President Biden and the administration. What are they going to do? Whether you look at it that we were attacked or not today, we were attacked. This was a planned action to try to prevent more people from getting out. Whether this happened now or in May or whenever it happened, I definitely feel whoever handled this situation in the way that they planned it, it could have been planned a lot better. All right, a group of 25 Republican senators demanding answers from the Pentagon also as to why U. S weapons have now fallen into the hands of the Taliban. We're talking about a total of 75,000 military vehicles in between the years 2003 and 2016. This is about 43,000 tactical vehicles, 22,000 Humvees, 9,000 medium tactical vehicles, 1000 mine resident vehicles, 1000 recovery vehicles, and about 200 armored personnel carriers. In total, the U. S government has spent an estimated $83 billion of taxpayer money on weapons, vehicles and airplanes for the Afghan military. Adding to that list, a federal audit found that detailed up to $200 million worth of drones that just disappeared along with 600,000 infantry weapons, 162,000 pieces of communication equipment and 16,000 night vision goggle devices. This coming from our news partners at just the news. Robin, that's a lot. It is a lot. And unfortunately, that's it happens. I like I said, I did two rotations. Equipment does get lost. And getting an out of Afghanistan is super incredibly expensive. So typically, destroy those things because it's more cost effective to do that than to try and bring that all the way back home through sometimes hostile territory. It's it's dangerous to our troops. But I agree. I've always been growth. It's grotesque of the amount of money up tax mere money that is actually wasted overseas. I was astonished when I saw it myself. It defies any logic. I served under two different presidential administrations, and it was the same for both. And it's just mind blowing. It doesn't make it. It never has made any sense to me, Miranda. Well, so I want to get your reaction to this report. Again, this audit of all this heavy artillery that's now in the hands of the Afghans, but more than likely, will end up in the hands of the Taliban if it hasn't already. And not ISIS. That's also a possibility in al Qaeda. I want to get your reaction to that when we come up after the break. Also, we're going to talk about a piece that was published by the New York magazine's intelligence or complaining how the media manufactured President Joe Biden's political fiasco. That is the title exactly that the media manufactured this fiasco.