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Good morning. I'm Anna Palmer and welcome to The Daily Punch, brought to you by Punch Bowl News.

It's Tuesday, August 17th, 2021. Let's get into the mix.

Here are your Washington headlines of the day. Number one, we've got the latest on Afghanistan.

Number two, Joe Biden's agenda. And number three, Republicans, probably unsurprisingly,

are already fundraising off the situation in Afghanistan.

All right, let's get into the mix. It is just me this morning.

The first and biggest story across the world, of course, is the ongoing crisis in Afghanistan.

It is by far the most serious foreign policy problem that President Joe Biden's administration

has faced during nearly seven months in office.

And one of the things that really struck us about this story is the contrasting threads

that are playing out all at once.

And the fact that all of these things I'm about to say can't be true at the same time.

Number one, the February 2020 agreement between former President Donald Trump's administration

and the Taliban was a deeply flawed one.

Trump and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo have defended the deal as calling for a, quote-unquote, conditions-based withdrawal.

But one of the thing that's really important to remember is some of the most important provisions that were included in classified annexes were never seen by the American public.

Trump also excluded Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and his government from the talks leading up to the

...