MSNBC "The Rachel Maddow Show" - Transcript: Interview with Jacob Auchincloss

Interview

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MADDOW: To help us better understand what this means in practical terms and what this means for Afghan allies and the Americans who served there. We`re joined by Jake Auchincloss he served as a Marine Infantry Commander in Afghanistan. He`s now Congressman from Massachusetts, Congressman Auchincloss thank you so much for joining us tonight. I know it`s a difficult day.

REP. JAKE AUCHINCLOSS (D-MA): Good to be back with you, Rachel, thanks for having me.

MADDOW: What is your reaction to seeing the news we spoke a few weeks ago after the U.S. withdrawal was well and truly underway. Obviously, this isn`t something that was predicted. But perhaps the speed of it is a bit of a surprise.

AUCHINCLOSS: When I was a Platoon Commander in Helmand in 2012, the Taliban had a maxim, they would say you have the watches, but we have the time. We could win battles for the next century in Afghanistan against the Taliban and still lose the war because counterinsurgency does not admit of a military solution.

It requires political leadership, and only the Afghans can do that. But the Americans must do right now is defend personnel from the United States who are in Afghanistan. We must evacuate our allied interpreters and other contractors who served alongside us for the last two decades. And we`ve got to maintain over the horizon counterterrorism operations to prevent any attacks on the homeland. Those are our three missions right now.

MADDOW: In terms of the evacuation when you were here, a few weeks ago, we talked about the effort to evacuate Afghan allies protect these thousands of Afghans, citizens who served as interpreters for the U.S. who served as support service personnel for U.S. troops there and for U.S. agencies, media organizations.

We have seen efforts this week by President Biden to order and escalation essentially in the pace of those evacuation efforts. But I think the wide consensus is that those efforts are still not enough. And they`re still too slow even with them being speeded up this week, do you share that view?

AUCHINCLOSS: I share the concern that we need to have as a sense of urgency around evacuating the tens of thousands of allies who served alongside us as interpreters or truck drivers, or medical personnel in Afghanistan.

This president, though, has delivered on his promises to date. This president has said he was going to get 100 million shots in arms. And he doubled that this president has said he was going to get a bipartisan infrastructure deal. He`s delivering that.

I have confidence in this president to keep America`s word and to evacuate, really the majority of people who served alongside of us.

MADDOW: In terms of the logistical efforts right now we are seeing thousands of Marines thousands of troops heading back in to facilitate evacuation efforts.

Do you anticipate that those that that effectively that redeployment of thousands of U.S. troops might not be a short term thing that those troops might be there as essentially a redeployed stabilization force to facilitate the kind of evacuation efforts that you were talking about that can`t be done instantly?

And to protect to the U.S. Embassy, which will be a matter of a factor - of a magnitude different in terms of its practical necessities, if the embassy is in a Kabul that is now held under Taliban control?

AUCHINCLOSS: The security instability of Kabul is clearly a primary concern right now. And I suspect and will certainly raise it in the security briefing that members of Congress will be getting in a couple of weeks` time.

Embassy security is core to the Marine Corps Mission; I have the utmost confidence that the Marines are going to be able to do that mission for as long as the president directs them to.

The larger concern here is can we maintain stability in Kabul for long enough to broker a power sharing agreement with Taliban that provides the leverage necessary for the United States to have a humanitarian and a diplomatic footprint excuse me in the country so that we can sustain some of the hard won gains we made in economic development and protecting the rights of women and girls and civil society and the rule of law.

The power sharing agreement really rests on the security of Kabul, and that`s why the capital region is of critical importance right now.

MADDOW: Massachusetts Congressman Jake Auchincloss who served in Afghanistan as the United States Marine. Sir, thank you for joining us I know it`s a tough time.

AUCHINCLOSS: Thank you, Rachel.

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