Yahoo Finance Editor-in-Chief Andy Serwer and Katherine Zimmerman American Enterprise Institute Fellow react to President Biden's comments on Monday afternoon.

Video Transcript

[INTERPOSING VOICES]

- Mr. President, what do you make of the Afghans [INAUDIBLE] the aircraft?

ADAM SHAPIRO: OK, we have been watching President Joe Biden address the nation on the withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan and the situation that we have all been witnessing. Some of the key quotes talking about, quote, "If they, the Taliban, attack our personnel or disrupt our operations, the US presence will be swift and forceful. We will defend our people." There is much more that we all need to pay attention to from what the president said. And to help us break this down and understand what happens next, we bring into the stream our correspondent in Washington, DC, Jessica Smith. Jessica?

JESSICA SMITH: Yeah, Adam, we did hear from the president there that he is sticking by his decision to withdraw troops from Afghanistan. He says he stands squarely behind the decision. And he went on to say the events that have unfolded over the past few days have shown that there is no good time to withdraw. He did admit that things have unfolded more quickly than the administration anticipated.

Now, he went on throughout the speech to paint this picture as either a stay or go situation. He addressed criticism for his decision to withdraw troops. But he did not spend much time addressing the big issue here that we've heard from people calling, calling it a catastrophe, a disaster, a debacle, and that is how the administration went about withdrawing these troops.

He did say that the buck stops with me, that he is deeply saddened. But he does not regret the decision. But we are still seeing this criticism of these heart-- of this situation where you have Americans, allies, people who have helped the US trying to get out of Afghanistan. And in the situation that we've seen at the airport there, those heartbreaking images, that is what people are really criticizing the president for there is how he went about withdrawing.

And he did not spend much time addressing that. He did not take questions from reporters. So that is going to be much more of what we see in the days ahead, how to get these people out of Afghanistan safely, how this happened, how this fell apart so quickly. And the administration seemingly was not prepared for it. So those are the questions that we'll be asking.

We've even heard from the chair of the Senate Intel Committee saying in a statement that he is going to have to ask the tough questions why the administration was not prepared for a worst case scenario. So that's what we'll be hearing in the coming days as lawmakers get back to Washington and the situation continues to unfold.

ADAM SHAPIRO: Jessica, we're going to continue to break this down in real time with Katherine Zimmerman, American Enterprise Institute fellow, as well as our editor-in-chief, Andy Serwer. And Andy, I'm going to go to you first on this because there was something the president said at the beginning. It was, quote, talking about "vital interests" other than Afghanistan. The exact quote is "significant vital interests in the world we cannot ignore." What are your thoughts about where the president is taking the country with this speech?

ANDY SERWER: Well, I think there are a couple of important points to remember here. First of all, this is a place, a rare place, where Joe Biden and Donald Trump were on the same page. They didn't agree about which month to withdraw. But they did agree that troops should leave Afghanistan. I think this is a major intelligence failure on the part of our security apparatus and the military that they didn't anticipate how quickly the government would fall and that they would actually flee the country.

I think the fallout for Joe Biden might not be that severe. Because, A, the Republicans will have a hard time pointing a finger because they themselves agreed with this withdrawal. Also, if there is not a situation like Iran where the Americans do get out safely, like Vietnam, then I think that this will go away rather quickly because Americans support leaving Afghanistan. Also, a third last point, this is not a vital country economically for the United States, quite frankly. And so from a markets and economic standpoint, there is not really going to be any fallout at all.

In fact, it becomes China's problem/opportunity. There are rare metals there. But the Chinese are interested. They're going to have to cope with this probably from the outside. So it really depends what happens over the next several days, I think, in terms of the fallout on this, Adam.

EMILY MCCORMICK: And Katherine, I want to turn this next question over to you. This is Emily McCormick speaking. And I want to really focus in on one thing that President Biden mentioned. And that's what's happening now in Afghanistan could just as easily have happened five years ago or 15 years from now. And I'm wondering how you assess these remarks, as well as all of the commentary and the address that Biden gave just now to the nation.

KATHERINE ZIMMERMAN: The president presented an argument that really created an idea of we either withdraw and this happens or we stay forever. And frankly, I think that was false. When you look at the president's decision to withdrawal, he made it. But the criticism now is what we were doing in terms of withdrawal.

The Afghans not registering for visas. It takes hundreds of days for the State Department to clear those visas. So many have tried. And they weren't simply able to get them, which leads to the chaos now at the airport. The fact that we didn't actually exfiltrate our personnel and those that helped us in advance of the military drawing down, the fact that we had to send troops back to Afghanistan in order to secure the airport for this withdrawal raises questions about the planning that went behind the withdrawal decision.

And I think that if you're looking at whether it would have happened 15 years from now or five years ago, certainly, the Afghan government has not been strong enough to hold the country on its own. That's a very valid point to make. And the Afghan security forces have been designed to have Americans next to them to fight the counterterrorism fight on the ground.

I think a clarifying point, just before I wrap up, is that American forces were not actually bearing the brunt of this fight at this stage. There were 2,500 troops. They were there primarily supporting the Afghan National Security Forces who were the ones fighting the Taliban and also to conduct the very necessary counterterrorism missions. It's scary to look at the revision of the intelligence assessments about the terror threat now from Afghanistan.

ADAM SHAPIRO: Andy, given what Katherine's just pointed out and the president, it almost-- my words, not the president-- sounded as if he was blaming the Afghans for this situation when he said that the Afghan government asked the US not to mobilize quickly, quote, "triggering a crisis of confidence." How's that going to play across our country?

ANDY SERWER: Yeah, I mean, again, Adam, it depends how much people care. I mean, there's no doubt. I agree with Katherine. I mean, it was handled badly. As I said before, the intelligence was rotten. The assessment was rotten. It wasn't handled.

I mean, you could point fingers like the president did and said, oh, they didn't let us do this or it takes a lot of time. But there is probably an orderly way to leave. Although our most recent experience was Vietnam. And it certainly wasn't orderly either. So, you know, it's hard.

I mean, President Trump tried to negotiate with the Taliban, right? And that was not so successful either. I mean, negotiating with a force like the Taliban, of course, is by definition incredibly fraught. And then you have, you know, a third axis, which is the Afghan government. So trying to sort of parse through that is extremely difficult. And, you know, one wonders if our government [INAUDIBLE] and let's move more quickly here and maybe more quickly than they should have.

EMILY MCCORMICK: Katherine, where do you think we go from here? Because President Biden talked a bit about the current mission authorizing 6,000 US troops to deploy to Afghanistan to assist in that evacuation of the US embassy and allies. And I'm wondering, what do you see as being these next steps or what should we really be looking for from the administration now?

KATHERINE ZIMMERMAN: My fear is that once we have the Americans out of Afghanistan and are able to control the imagery coming out of Afghanistan, that we leave. And that would be a huge mistake. It leaves our partners that have helped us at great risk from the Taliban, who have offered apparently to allow safe passage for anyone to leave. But once the Americans are gone, I think that that guarantee is gone as well. And, of course, the bigger concern is whether there is international recognition of the Taliban government. That would fundamentally erase the efforts that we've tried to make over the past 20 years to have a democratic government ruling-- and representative government ruling Afghanistan.

ADAM SHAPIRO: Katherine, quick question for you. When the president talked about vital interests elsewhere in the world, he went through the terrorist problems in different countries. But another thing that was talked about during the Trump administration and this administration was China and the need for US forces to be prepared for possibilities in China and elsewhere. I don't want to get into Taiwan. But is that what's really is going on here, one of our largest trading partners, as we're getting ready for a confrontation with them somehow?

KATHERINE ZIMMERMAN: Part of it is certainly preparing for this competition with China. And it's not a secret that the US military has focused too much on counterterrorism. But when we're framing it as we have to leave Afghanistan in order to counter China or compete with China, I think that we have presented a wrong picture. Because by the time that we got to the decision to withdraw, the mission in Afghanistan was a light footprint, it was sustainable, it was fundamentally designed to ensure that core American interests inside of that country were protected over the long term. That's gone now.