‘Not Hypothetical’: Reporter Pushes Back on Pentagon Spox Over US-Taliban Coordination in Afghanistan

NBC News’ Courtney Kube pushed back on Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby on Monday regarding coordination in Afghanistan between the United States and the Taliban.

During the Pentagon press briefing, Kube asked if the U.S. military will “coordinate with the Taliban or give them notice if you plan to commit to conduct more strikes against ISIS.”

Kube’s question comes in the aftermath of U.S. strikes over the past few days in response to an explosion on Thursday outside the airport in the Afghan capital of Kabul. ISIS-K, which is the Islamic State affiliate in Central and South Asia, took responsibility for the attack, which killed 13 U.S. service members.

“I don’t think it’s useful to get into hypothetical future operations one way or the other,” replied Kirby. “The only thing I would tell you is that the president has made it very clear that we will maintain robust over-the-horizon terrorism capability, the kind of capabilities that you’ve seen us use in just the last 24, 36 hours and we’ll have the ability to act in ways that are in keeping with our national security interest and help prevent attacks on the homeland. We still have that capability. We will use that capability.”

Kube shot back: “What’s not hypothetical is the fact that the U.S. military has been coordinating with the Taliban on the ground for the last two weeks or so. So to ask if you are going to continue coordinating with them in this case against ISIS-K isn’t hypothetical. Will you continue to coordinate with the Taliban after August 31st?”

“I beg to differ,” said Kirby. “I actually think your question is entirely hypothetical about something that is entirely different than what we’ve been coordinating with the Taliban on over the last two weeks which is to help us get as many people on to that airport as possible.”

“I do appreciate the sense of the question, I’m not trying to mock it. It is just that I don’t think it’s helpful for us to talk about what over-the-horizon counter-terrorism capability is going to look like going forward and how we’re going to execute it,” he continued. “Suffice it to say, we have the capability. We demonstrated that over just the last couple of days in strikes that were not coordinated with the Taliban. And we have that ability to go forward.”

Watch above, via CNN.