CNN "CNN Newsroom" - Transcript: Interview with Ben Cardin

Interview

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ACOSTA: All right, Kaitlan Collins, at the White House for us, thank you so much for that update.

Democratic Senator Ben Cardin joins me now. He's a senior member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Senator, President Biden says his commanders have informed him that an attack is highly likely, he says, quote, "In the next 24 to 36 hours in Kabul."

How worried are you that we might see another attack before Tuesday?

SEN. BEN CARDIN (D-MD): Well, Jim, we know it's a very dangerous situation at the airport, around the airport. We have control of the airport, but outside it's dangerous. We know that we rely a lot on the Taliban on who can get close to the

airport. That's not an area of comfort to us. So I think it's extremely dangerous.

I think the president's right. Our first priority is force protection, to protect our men and women who are serving in Kabul.

We also are going to try to get out as many as we possibly can in the last couple days.

The third issue will be to set up a continuing effort to get people out of Kabul that could in harm's way after August 31st.

And I know the president and his administration is working on that as well.

ACOSTA: The Taliban, we are understanding, in the last several minutes, that they've condemned this U.S. retaliatory strike on ISIS-K members.

Senator, does the Taliban's opinion matter at this point when it comes to these retaliatory strikes? You know, I don't give a damn, why should we give a damn what they think about that?

CARDIN: Right. Well, you're exactly right, Jim. We really don't concern ourselves about how the Taliban will respond.

We do know that we have leverage over the Taliban. We control a lot of the resources of Afghanistan.

We know the Taliban is going to try to seek some international legitimacy. And that will depend on what the United States recommends to our allies. So I think it's in their interest to cooperate with us.

But make no mistake about it, the Taliban is a brutal organization from the point of view of protecting human rights of the citizens of Afghanistan.

And we know there's a lot of people in Afghanistan, Afghans, who are at risk if they remain in that country.

ACOSTA: Do you want to see more strikes like the one that happened overnight? The president is indicating that that is coming.

CARDIN: Well, ISIS-K is an extremely dangerous terrorist organization. Anytime that we can compromise their effectiveness, we could take advantage of that.

So if we have intelligence information that can lead us to minimizing the risk factor of that terrorist group, we should take those actions.

ACOSTA: And according to local people in the area -- and this is just reporting coming into us -- at least one woman and a child were killed.

The Pentagon has said it knows of no civilian casualties, but that is what we're hearing.

I suppose that is -- that is the expectation in some of these situations that there might be civilian casualties.

CARDIN: There's always risk factors. We know that we take extreme precautions to avoid those types of casualties.

And we also cannot trust the information in which the -- being made available, particularly by the terrorist groups themselves. So their claims may not prove to be correct.

We do know we take those precautions against collateral losses, civilian losses, and that we try to have as much transparency as possible to recognize our responsibility.

[15:35:09]

ACOSTA: Senator, I guess Senators were briefed on Afghanistan yesterday. What questions did you have? What did you learn in the briefing? Any new information come up?

CARDIN: Well, first, Jim, of course, our condolences to the families of the soldiers who were killed. That was a good part of our briefing to express our collective sorrow.

Secondly, we want the mission to be successful as possible. That means protect our troops, but also get out as many people as possible.

We still have a few hundred American citizens that are in Afghanistan. We think most of them probably have made a decision to stay.

But we still want to make efforts to make sure we can get every American evacuated from Afghanistan before the 31st.

Secondly, there's a lot of others who are at risk because of their relationship to the United States or to our mission in Afghanistan. We recognize that many of these people will not be evacuated by August 31st.

So the questions that we asked is, what steps will be taken, and we received certain assurances that the United States is working on plans to help people leave Afghanistan after August 31st.

So I know some of that will be with some diplomatic presence, either directly or indirectly, and some accommodations we expect from the Taliban. Although, as we said before, we cannot rely upon their word.

ACOSTA: Are we just going to have to trust the Taliban after all our forces are out that they're going to help us get any remaining Americans out of the country?

CARDIN: We're not going to trust the Taliban, I can assure of that.

But we know we hold leverage over the Taliban, and I can tell you we'll use every tool in our tool kit to try to help those who are at risk as a result of the Taliban government. ACOSTA: Senator Cardin, thank you so much for joining us for this very

important conversation. We'll stay in touch with you in the days ahead weapon. Appreciate your time.

CARDIN: Thanks, Jim.

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