Chris Wallace Presses Jake Sullivan: ‘Do You Really Believe’ U.S. Will Have Leverage With Taliban for Evacuations After Deadline?
Fox News’ Chris Wallace directly confronted White House national security advisor Jake Sullivan on Sunday over whether the United States really thinks it has leverage over the Taliban to get more people evacuated even after the August 31st deadline.
Last week Secretary of State Antony Blinken said of the continued evacuations, “There is no deadline on our work to help any remaining American citizens who decide they want to leave to do so, along with the many of Afghans who have stood by us over these many years and have wanted to leave and have been unable to do so. That effort will continue every day past August 31st.”
Some U.S. officials have talked about the U.S. having “leverage” with the Taliban to ensure that after the 8/31 deadline. Sullivan told Wallace that beyond Tuesday, people “are not going to be stuck in Afghanistan.”
“We are going to ensure that we have a mechanism to get them out of the country should they choose in the future to come home. The Taliban had made commitments to us in that regard. We intend to hold them to those commitments. And we have leverage to hold them to those commitments,” he said.
Wallace brought up similar comments from Jen Psaki before pressing Sullivan:
Do you really believe that we have “enormous leverage” over the Taliban, enough that we’re going to be able to get out Americans and Afghan allies after we pull out? Do you really believe that? And do you really believe that there’s a chance that we might be able to… re-set up a U.S. Embassy in Kabul?
Sullivan said the U.S. is not trusting the Taliban, reiterating they do believe they have “substantial leverage to ensure that American citizens and others get safe passage out of that country.”
And if they don’t, he added, “we can bring to bear enormous pressure on the Taliban with a swift and forceful response to their blocking any American citizen, whether before August 31st or after August 31st.”
You can watch above, via Fox News Sunday.
