AUSTIN, Texas — In this edition of Texas This Week, Gov. Greg Abbott has COVID-19, the Texas House of Representatives is getting back to work and U.S. Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Austin) discusses the situation in Afghanistan.
Three things to know In Texas politics
- Gov. Greg Abbott tests positive for COVID-19
On Tuesday, Gov. Greg Abbott's office announced he tested positive for COVID-19. According to his office, Abbott is tested for COVID-19 daily and this was his first positive test. The governor is fully vaccinated and doesn't have any symptoms. He received his first dose on Dec. 22. The governor received Regeneron's monoclonal antibody treatment and was isolated in the Governor's Mansion. The day before his diagnosis, the governor's campaign shared video of him greeting people, posing for pictures and speaking to the Republican Club at Heritage Ranch. Heritage Ranch is a senior community outside of Dallas. Just 2.5 hours before his office released news of his diagnosis, the governor was posing for pictures with guitarist Jimmie Vaughn and Mayor of Cedar Park Corbin Van Arsdale. On Saturday, the governor tweeted his is now testing negative for the virus.
2. A quorum is present in the Texas House of Representatives
For the first time in more than a month, there was a quorum in the Texas House of Representatives on Thursday night after a handful of Democrats returned to the floor. The chamber wasted no time getting to work, holding committee hearings over the weekend. Meanwhile, some House Democrats are questioning the quorum. More than 30 Democrats released a joint statement claiming some lawmakers who signed in were not physically present at the Capitol on Thursday. They also say they feel betrayed by the Democrats who returned to the Capitol.
3. Central Texas school districts can enforce mask mandates
Central Texas school districts can enforce mask mandates for now. The Texas Supreme Court rejected a request from Attorney General Ken Paxton, stating he needed to go through an appeals court first. That means orders from an Austin district judge are still in place, allowing mask mandates to continue.
RELATED: Texas Supreme Court rejects Gov. Abbott's request to stay Travis County mask mandate orders
U.S. Rep. Michael McCaul discusses Afghanistan
American troops were pulled out of Afghanistan and, this week, the country quickly fell to the Taliban. Austin Congressman Michael McCaul (R) has spent his time in office serving on the House committees on homeland security and foreign affairs. He joined KVUE to discuss the situation in Afghanistan and what's next for the U.S.
Ashley Goudeau: First, I want you to talk to us about the decision to pull our troops out of Afghanistan – not the execution, but just the overall decision to leave. Was this, in your opinion, the right decision, the right time?
U.S. Rep. McCaul: "You know, I know people have, they're tired of being in Afghanistan, but I will tell you, I watched when we pulled out of Iraq and then ISIS and the caliphate reared its ugly head. We had a very light footprint left in Afghanistan. We used to have 100,000 troops, I think. Occupying a nation that's been occupied for thousands of years is probably not the right strategy. But we did have it down to 2,500 troops, which is a very light footprint, along with 6,500 NATO, and that did stabilize Afghanistan. It kept the Taliban at bay. They knew if they got out of line, they would get attacked and it would, it was all supposed to be conditions-based under this February agreement, which is very, very important, because any time the Taliban would violate those conditions, like not cutting ties to Al Qaeda, like hitting provincial capitals, we would respond with very strong force, and they understood that. I think the mistake here was to withdraw completely on a timetable without any conditions set on the ground. They knew exactly when we were going to get out of the country. There was no deterrents to bad behavior, and I think most importantly, Ashley, is that I don't understand how they got this so wrong. When the intelligence community briefed me, it was very clear the warnings and the grim, very grim assessment about what was going to happen. It was very clear, what they said was that the Taliban's going over in the country. The Afghan army cannot defend itself without our airpower, and they had a very grim assessment. Unfortunately, the administration ignored those warnings and instead went with the State Department and politicos in the White House assessment that it was a rosy picture, that we were on the cusp of striking a deal, a peace deal with the Taliban and Doha. I have to tell you, I've done counterterrorism most of my professional career. I had little faith that you could strike any deal with the Taliban ... I think one of the saddest things is this whole disaster, this unmitigated disaster of epic proportions, are the women left behind and what's going to happen to them. They'll be enslaved. They will be basically concubines to the Taliban. They've already asked the religious leaders, the imams, for all women between the ages of 14 to 45 to marry them off to the Taliban. The Afghan interpreters who worked alongside and risked their lives with our military, unfortunately, I don't know if they're going to get out, and I warned the administration for months to have a plan to get them out. And it's been an utter chaotic disaster at the airport. And then finally, ISR, that's intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance – when we shut down Bagram Air Base, we lost all of our eyes and ears on the ground in Afghanistan, and now the embassy has been shut down. We have no eyes and ears in Afghanistan."
Goudeau: So what happens next, both in Afghanistan, with our standing with the rest of the world, what are we going to do from here?
U.S. Rep. McCaul: "Well, you're already hearing the British parliament criticizing this, the U.K. prime minister criticizing this. What are our allies thinking about this – you know, Ukraine on the border with Russia, Taiwan? You know, the winners here are Russia, China and Iran. China is going to move in and take all the rare earth minerals and then the Taliban's going to have terror financing from that, and the losers are the Americans in an outright defeat, unconditional surrender with the Taliban flag over our embassy, maybe on Sept. 11, 20 years. That's going to be a big celebration for the jihadist community. It's going to be very hard to watch that visual, and I feel, fear the most for our veterans. If you see a veteran, tell them thank you. They're in a really bad place right now, and they asked the question, was it worth it? And to them, I say thank you for your service and we just can't thank them enough. But moving forward, what we have to do again is to get as many people out of there as we can, and then we have to find a way to set up this intelligence surveillance reconnaissance so we can see the threats from within Afghanistan and respond. The only vital interest left now is protecting the homeland from an external operation, and this decision was made against the advice of the top generals, against the advice of the intelligence community, and the way the evacuation itself was planned – they even denied it was an evacuation just days before, as we were destroying classified documents at the embassy. And, Ashley, this is not just a Republican, this is not a political game. This is not a Republican, you know – this is a bipartisan thing. I have talked to so many of my Democratic friends on the other side of the aisle who are so upset about this, and that is why on the Foreign Affairs Committee, we're going to have a classified briefing going back up there next week and we are going to move forward with bipartisan public hearings about what went wrong. How did this happen? Why did you ignore the advice of your top generals? Why did you ignore the advice of your intelligence community that warned you about what was going to happen and you were so ill-prepared to handle it."
The Last Word
In this week's The Last Word, Ashley responds to Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick's comment that "the biggest group in most states are African Americans who have not been vaccinated."
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