Top military officials continued to get grilled on the Afghanistan withdrawal. Already, there have been some contradictory statements. On Tuesday, Gen. Mark Milley and Gen. Kenneth McKenzie told senators they wanted to keep some troops in the country. That seems at odds with President Joe Biden’s claim; he couldn’t recall getting that advice. The White House says no military adviser recommended a long-term troop presence in the country. McKenzie also diverged from Biden by stating that “the war on terror is not over, and the war in Afghanistan is not over.”
Time is running out on Capitol Hill as Democrats continue to push to pass two massive packages. On the docket are striking a compromise on a massive expansion of the social safety net and passing the around $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure package. Progressives want the package to be as big as $3.5 trillion and expand programs like Medicaid, pre-K, and the child tax credit. Moderates, like Sens. Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin, don’t want to spend that much, but they’re also not ready to say publicly how high they’re willing to go.
Also on the docket is the debt ceiling. Democrats want to raise how much money the federal government can borrow in order to keep paying government workers, but Republicans are against raising the debt limit—all this while the government shutdown looms and questions arise around what that would mean. Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) said, “You can’t just keep spending money on this,” referring to the bill that would fund the government.
Tune into Deep Dive as we explore these topics and more.
