Biden Says He Doesn't Trust The Taliban

Reporter: “On the question of the Taliban, do you trust them now?”

Biden: “I don’t trust anybody, including you.”

The President went on to say the Taliban “has to make a fundamental decision.”

The U.S. is placing “paramount priority” on defending crowds at Kabul airport seeking to leave Afghanistan against a potential Islamic State terrorist attack, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said.

“The threat is real, it is acute, it is persistent and it is something that we are focused on with every tool in our arsenal,” Sullivan said on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday. “We are working hard with our intelligence community to try to isolate and determine where an attack might come from.”

Terrorism has emerged as an acknowledged risk in recent days as some 6,000 U.S. troops seek to ensure what President Joe Biden has pledged to be an orderly and safe withdrawal from the Afghan capital. Islamic State has had a presence in Afghanistan for years, often striking against Taliban targets as well as Afghan government targets.

Biden is meeting with his national security team on Sunday morning and has scheduled a news conference on topics including Afghanistan for 4 p.m. in Washington. The president will hold a virtual meeting with other Group of Seven leaders on Tuesday to coordinate evacuations and discuss humanitarian aid for Afghan refugees, White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki said.

The Defense Department ordered U.S. airlines to provide 18 planes to transport evacuees, saying the extra capacity will help military aircraft focus on operations in and out of Kabul.

Activation of the Civil Reserve Air Fleet program involves four planes from United Airlines, three each from American Airlines, Atlas Air, Delta Air Lines and Omni Air and two from Hawaiian Airlines, Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said in a statement Sunday.

The activated aircraft won’t fly into the Kabul airport, where chaotic scenes of people desperate to leave the Afghan capital have been playing out. Instead, they’ll be used for onward movement of passengers from temporary safe havens and interim staging bases, Kirby said. No major impact on U.S. commercial flights is expected, he said.

The U.S. and its allies airlifted a combined 7,800 people out of Kabul in the latest 24-hour period, Sullivan said.

Some 25,000 people have been evacuated since Aug. 14, he said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” While the U.S. has sufficient forces on the ground, Biden asks his commanders “every single day” whether they might need more resources, Sullivan said.

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