NBC’s Andrea Mitchell Challenges Blinken on Staff Stranded in Afghanistan: People Feel ‘Completely Betrayed’

NBC News’ Andrea Mitchell challenged Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Wednesday over locally-employed people in Afghanistan working for the U.S. government.

As part of a multi-layered question asked by Mitchell following Blinken’s remarks about the current state of U.S. evacuations of U.S. citizens from the airport in Kabul, Mitchell asked about the status of locally-employed staff who have worked with the U.S. government in Afghanistan. She mentioned that the Taliban “are not living up to their commitments” over allowing people to get to the airport and noted that the Taliban are preventing people from doing so. She added that there have been “total bottlenecks” leading to the airport.

“We evacuated our embassy and there have been cables back that I know you must be familiar with, or your teams are, of people who feel completely betrayed,” she said. “And these are thousands of people that we rely on in embassies around the world. The message is going forward that we will not be loyal. They were not told about the evacuation. They were not put on those choppers with our American staff.”

“And they will forced, many of them, to find their own way through the Taliban checkpoints, and then get turned away at the airport. Some even got turned away once they were inside,” continued Mitchell. “So, what is the message to people working for the U.S. government, veterans’ groups are angry about the SIVs, and then there are all the millions of Afghan women who have told their daughters and been raised under this promise of a future, which the Taliban are already … are denied.” SIVs, or Special Immigrant Visas, are for foreign nationals who’ve assisted the United States in Afghanistan or Iraq.

Concluding her questions, Mitchell said, “There are horrifying examples from provinces from inside Kabul of people being targeted door-to-door. People in safe houses being sought out. And all of this promise of you will be safe, the Taliban spokesman [Zabihullah Mujahid] said, you know, stay in your home because we haven’t told all of our people how to treat women, how to respect women. They also say you can go to school, you can work as long as you comply with Sharia law, which under their interpretation, is the most extreme example of the Islamic code that is seen anywhere in the world.”

Blinken responded, “First, of the 82,000 plus people who so far have been evacuated, about 45-46 percent have been women and children and we’ve been intensely focused, particularly on making sure that we can get women at risk out of harm’s way.”

“Second, with regard to women and other Afghans at risk going forward, we will use, I will use every diplomatic, economic, political and assistance tool at my disposal working closely with allies and partners that feel the same way to do everything possible to uphold their basic rights,” he continued. “And that’s going to be a relentless focus of our actions going forward.”

Blinken went on to say that “locally-employed staff along with American citizens, nothing is more important to me as secretary of state than to do right by the people who have been working side-by-side with American diplomats in our embassy. And I can tell you, Andrea, that we are relentlessly focused on getting the locally-employed staff out of Afghanistan, our of harm’s way. And let me leave it at that for now.”

Approximately 1,000 Americans remain in Afghanistan, which has been taken over by the Taliban – though that number is “likely lower” – as approximately 6,000 Americans in Afghanistan want to evacuate in which 4,500 have already done so, according to Blinken.

Watch above, via Fox News.