Taliban has not changed, says Biden as evacuations continue – US politics live | US news

Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are now receiving a briefing from their national security team to get an update on evacuation efforts in Afghanistan.

The White House told the press pool, “Today, the President will meet with his national security team to manage efforts in Afghanistan, receive an update on the COVID-19 response, and engage with members of Congress regarding his Build Back Better agenda ahead of the House returning to Washington.”

A CNN reporter spotted defense secretary Lloyd Austin and the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, General Mark Milley, arriving at the White House for the briefing:

Roughly two-thirds of Americans believe the war in Afghanistan was not worth fighting, according to a new poll.

The AP-NORC survey found that 35% of Americans believe the war was worth fighting, while 62% say it was not.

Those numbers are notably similar when results are divided by political party, with 67% of Democrats and 57% of Republicans saying the war was not worthwhile.

But Americans are more divided on Joe Biden’s approach to foreign policy more broadly.

The poll found that 47% of Americans approve of Biden’s handling of international affairs, while 52% approve of the president’s national security policies.

The poll was conducted from August 12 to 16, so some responses were collected after the Taliban took control of Kabul.

The Guardian’s Hannah Ellis-Petersen and agencies report:

Joe Biden has said US troops may stay past a 31 August deadline so as to evacuate all Americans from Afghanistan, and defended the withdrawal, saying there was no way for the US to pull out “without chaos ensuing”.

As critics in the US and abroad questioned his handling of the withdrawal, the president said in his first on-camera interview since the Taliban took Kabul that troops would stay in the country to get American citizens out.

“If there’s American citizens left, we’re going to stay until we get them all out,” Biden told ABC News, signaling that he would listen to US lawmakers who had pressed him to extend the 31 August deadline he had set for a final pullout.

“We will determine at the time who is left and if they are not out we will stay,” he said, as more of the interview was aired on Thursday morning.

Asked if he thought the handling of the crisis could have gone better, Biden said: “No.”

Greetings from Washington, live blog readers.

Joe Biden sat down with ABC News anchor George Stephanopoulos to defend his decision to withdraw all US troops from Afghanistan, as the chaotic evacuation mission continues in Kabul.

Stephanopoulos asked Biden whether he believed the Taliban had changed. “No,” Biden replied.

The president added, “I think they’re going through a sort of existential crisis about: Do they want to be recognized by the international community as being a legitimate government? I’m not sure they do.”

Biden’s comments come as the Taliban has made efforts to at least appear more moderate on issues like women’s rights, but many Afghans remain deeply skeptical that the group has actually changed its ways.

“They also care about whether they have food to eat, whether they have an income that … can run an economy, they care about whether or not they can hold together the society that they in fact say they care so much about,” Biden said of the Taliban’s relationship with Afghan citizens. “I’m not counting on any of that.”

The blog will have more coming up, so stay tuned.