MSNBC "All In with Chris Hayes" - Transcript: Interview with Chris Murphy

Interview

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Now, many in Congress, including Democrats, are calling for investigations into how the withdraw is being conducted. Senator Chris Murphy, a Democratic Connecticut sits on the Foreign Relations Committee which announced it will investigate the circumstances around the withdrawal, including the Trump administration`s deal with the Taliban. He thinks the committee needs to look beyond even that and he joins me now.

Senator, first, let`s just start with the most sort of recent developments in the last say three or four days. It does seem that the pace, the efficacy of the airlift has appreciably improved and we`re getting more people out. What`s your reaction to that?

SEN. CHRIS MURPHY (D-CT): These images are heartbreaking to watch. Babies being lifted over walls, to hear the stories of Afghan families, people who helped us over the last 20 years, having difficulty getting to the airport, having their lives threatened. All that being said, the number are starting to speak for themselves. We have now taken out around 50,000 individuals just in the nine days since the country fell.

And whether or not we should have known that the government and military are going to collapse overnight, we`ve put this all together in a period of nine to 10 days. So, well, I think it`s hard to label any of this a success. It is extraordinary the effort that`s underway. And I guess what I worry is that we`re going to allow the people who cheer-led us into this war and to stay for 20 years, try to make the world and the country believe that there was some way to conduct this effort in a way that did not look chaotic.

I think when the government and the military fall overnight, like they did, there is no way to avoid some of the chaos that we are seeing. And I do applaud all the -- all those that are involved for getting to the numbers that we see today. 10,000 people every day being airlifted out.

HAYES: Yes, I want to -- I want to follow up on that. And first, I want to just talk about there`s a -- there`s an Intel briefing on the House side and some of those members coming out of that briefing. Jason Crow said that after -- that the he doesn`t think it`s possible to get everyone out by this August 31 deadline, urging Biden to keep troops there despite what the Taliban is saying which is basically look, we`re sort of going along with this. It`s not like they`ve been handing people roses and water, but they have not been, you know, pulling off large scale attacks.

They`re saying that changes after the 30 -- August 31. Crow is saying, these are our people. I just -- I don`t know. What do you think about this idea about the 31st and that is a deadline?

MURPHY: I don`t think we should let the Taliban decide when we stop airlifting Americans or those who were most closely helping us out of the country. Of course, it would be better to get all of this done by the 31st. But it may be that we will have to call the Taliban`s bluff here.

So, I leave that to the judgment of the administration. But I would certainly be willing to support U.S. for staying there for as long as it takes. This is, you know, an essential mission for the United States of America not leaving any of our people behind. At some point, we`ll have to have a really hard discussion about how many Afghans we can pull out, what is our obligation.

Obviously, there were 300,000 people fighting for the Afghan army at the time that we left. We can`t bring all of them out of the country, but certainly those that were working most closely with us we should. And it may take us beyond the end of this month to do that.

HAYES: You said something before that I -- that resonates with my reaction to watching this unfold. And again, I`ve been away. But I sort of feel like this is what it looks like when you lose a war. I mean, no one wants to say that. No one wants to utter those words. But we all know what the images of the Saigon helicopter or the U.S. Embassy was. And the reason that happened is because the army that we were fighting defeated the army that we were supporting quite quickly.

In this case, the army we were fighting defeated the army we were supporting after 20 years, in about as much time as they probably would have back in 2002, frankly. And I just feel like that is the fundamental core of the thing here that people don`t want to reckon with.

MURPHY: Yes, of course, there was going to be chaos. Of course, there was going to be panic on the streets of Kabul after their government and military fell apart overnight. Now, again, there will be a question as to whether we should have seen that coming, but the people of Afghanistan did not see that coming.

And so, when they heard that the United States of America was airlifting people out, of course, there was a rush to the airport. And so, again, I worry here that the same people who sort of fed us this story for 20 years that there was some magical way to train the Afghan army to be able to fight for itself are now sort of feeding us this story that there should have been a way for us to withdraw. And then in the wake of the collapse of the government and military, to avoid this kind of chaos.

I mean, the scenes, again, are devastating to watch. I`m just not sure that there was any way to avoid it, given what happened, given the fact that our 20-year occupation and training mission was a total complete failure. And when that came to light, there was inevitably going to be a (INAUDIBLE) situation on the ground and we`re trying to manage it.

HAYES: Senator Chris Murphy who`s on the Foreign Affairs Committee, thank you so much.

MURPHY: Thank you.

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