Afghistan's collapse could prove damaging to President Biden's agenda but the public does not have a strong appetite for continuing a military presence there.

Transcript

TAMARA KEITH, HOST:

As the U.S. evacuates personnel and shutters parts of its embassy in Kabul, the image of a helicopter on a roof comes to mind. It was referenced yesterday on this program - the sight of diplomats and desperate civilians being airlifted from the U.S. embassy during the fall of Saigon in April 1975. Gerald Ford was president then, and Gallup says that by that point in the Vietnam War, 60% of the American public considered it a mistake to have sent troops to Vietnam. Two months later, Gallup measured Ford's approval, and it had increased. What does all this mean for Joe Biden, and are we reliving history? For more, we turn to NPR political correspondent Mara Liasson. Good morning, Mara.

MARA LIASSON, BYLINE: Good morning.

KEITH: So let's stick with that Gallup comparison we're talking about, 60% for Ford and Vietnam. Last month, 47% of respondents said involvement in Afghanistan was a mistake. So we're seeing a messy withdrawal from a conflict that was not as unpopular.

LIASSON: Not as unpopular but still really unpopular. Majorities of Americans decided, over 20 years and billions of dollars spent to train the Afghan forces with, it seems, very little result or zero result, that this wasn't worth it. And two consecutive American administrations decided that leaving troops in Afghanistan were not in America's national security interests. We don't know what the political fallout will be for Joe Biden. We know that majorities of Americans wanted to withdraw. America has - American voters have lost their stomach for foreign military interventions and especially long occupations over a very long period of time. And there are a lot of questions remaining that will determine the political fallout for him. For instance, will the Taliban give al-Qaida a safe haven again? And what happens now?

But I can tell you, at least for the moment, the elite reaction is really devastating. When you have Ryan Crocker, former ambassador to Afghanistan, saying, quote, "I'm left with some grave questions in my mind" about, quote, "Biden's ability to lead our nation as commander in chief, to have read this so wrong or, even worse, to have understood what was likely to happen and not care." I mean, that is just really devastating. Now, at the same time, anecdotally, we hear reports from members of Congress that they're just not getting calls about Afghanistan, even congressmen who represent large veteran populations.

KEITH: President Biden has been pretty firm in his stance that this war needed to end, that U.S. involvement needed to end. He was - he campaigned on it. He has been firm about it while in office. He has been asked whether this - if this goes poorly, whether he will be considered responsible. And he has essentially said, you know, it's not all on me. This is a long time in the coming. Is that an argument that works with the public? Or are you telling me that the public doesn't even really follow this?

LIASSON: Well, two things can be true at the same time. The public might not really care about what's happening there. On the other hand, he's the president of the United States while this is happening. Whenever America is humiliated or presides over something like what we're seeing now in Afghanistan, it's bad for the current president. There's just no doubt about that. Now, it's also true that Donald Trump did negotiate with the Taliban for a withdrawal as of May 1, and it's possible that the Biden administration concluded that the Taliban would have launched this attack anyway if the United States didn't pull out. And then Biden would have had to put more troops in - more than the 2,500 he had at the time. So there was only escalation or withdrawal. But there will be a lot of questions about - and you raised some of them earlier - could this have happened in a more orderly fashion? Could the withdrawal have been handled better? Why did the United States and the Biden administration so grossly underestimate what - the speed that the Taliban would move? I mean, so there's still a lot of questions.

KEITH: National political correspondent, NPR's Mara Liasson. Thank you for being with us, Mara.

LIASSON: You're welcome.

KEITH: And we're going to come back to you very soon.

And we're back now with NPR's Mara Liasson, talking about the Taliban reaching the outskirts of Kabul and the embassy being evacuated, helicopters buzzing over Kabul with evacuations taking place.

Mara, President Biden has said that after 20 years in Afghanistan, four presidents, that he refused to pass this on to a fifth. What do you make of that? And what type of political peril is he in now?

LIASSON: Well, I think that he was determined - as he said, I'm not the first president who decided Afghanistan wasn't worth it. But I certainly am going to be the last. In other words, he wasn't going to pass it on, as you said, to a fifth American president. I think the American people are with him on the basic decision to withdraw. They had grown tired of the occupation of Afghanistan for years. But the question is, what's happening now? And will Americans care about what happens in Afghanistan going forward?

AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:

Mara, this is Audie. I want to jump in then with a question. I put this to someone else earlier, Republican Senator Ben Sasse calling this the Trump-Biden disaster, trying to tie those two administrations together in what's happened. Is that something that follows based on - you know, is that a surprising criticism from a surprising source?

LIASSON: No, actually, from Ben Sasse, it's not a surprise at all. But I don't know how widespread that criticism will be because if it's going to be a political problem, a domestic political problem for Joe Biden, it's going to have to be a partisan issue. And it's hard to see Republicans saying, we should have stayed in Afghanistan. Donald Trump...

CORNISH: Is that in part because under Trump, you saw sort of the fall of the neocon wing of the party?

LIASSON: Yes, yes. And Donald Trump was very clear. He wanted out of Afghanistan. He's the one who negotiated this deal with the Taliban to be out by May 1. And it's - you know, even though, yes, this is a Trump policy that Biden continued because on this one, they saw eye to eye. It's not the only one. There are other issues, foreign policy issues like China, where there is some continuity. But it's hard to see Republicans saying, we should have stayed in Afghanistan. Ben Sasse is one of them, one of the Republicans who thinks we should have. But I don't think he represents the bulk of the party on that one. But as I said earlier, look, whenever America is humiliated, the current president is going to take responsibility. So this is not a good day politically for Joe Biden, but it's hard to see how this becomes a partisan political issue.

CORNISH: I notice you're using the word humiliated. Where is that coming from and in what words?

LIASSON: Well, I think whenever whenever America has to - it fails in a foreign policy venture, it's a humiliation. We're the greatest superpower in the world. We stayed in Afghanistan for 20 years. We poured billions and billions of dollars into training the Afghan forces, who even at the end of all this time, still couldn't or wouldn't defend themselves. So - and why was the Biden administration and previous administrations told by their military officers that everything was going great? Kind of a repeat of the Vietnam situation. Were they given advice that they didn't follow? We don't know. I think there will be inquiries into this. But this is not a good day for America when you see Americans being routed, basically, from a foreign country. And yes, that's why I use the word humiliation.

KEITH: Mara, we only have about 10 seconds left. But I just have to wonder if President Trump was still president, whether the reaction would be less muted than it has been.

LIASSON: I don't know the answer to that question. President Trump was criticized for abandoning the Kurds, which was a different situation. The Kurds were one of our few allies in the region. And there wasn't a whole lot of blowback on that. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.