Hey, good morning, Playbookers.

It's Friday, August 27th.

I'm Rugu Manavalin.

And this is your Politico Playbook Daily Briefing.

When Kabul fell to the Taliban several days ago, rocking President Joe Biden's pull-out operation.

The White House made a strategic choice at the time.

They doubled down, didn't apologize, and crossed their fingers that the nation would move on quickly. But now, at least 13 U.S. service members are dead following a pair of suicide bombs.

The first U.S. troops to be killed in Afghanistan in 18 months, the attack carried out by ISIS-K

is the deadliest assault on U.S. troops in the country

in a decade, and it's precisely the situation that Biden hoped to avoid by leaving Afghanistan.

As the Washington Post reports in their story about the situation, quote, Biden keeps

a tally of U.S. service members who have died in Iraq and Afghanistan on a card in his breast

pocket, and now, for the first

time, that tally will include some who lost their lives on his watch.

The tragedy fundamentally changes this situation for Biden.

It escalates a predicament and he hopes stabilized, it also has the markings of a billowing

crisis that threatens Biden on several fronts. Congressional Republicans are up in arms, arguing that none of this had to happen.

Some called on Biden to resign as president in the wake of the attack,

and it's not just conservative firebrands like Senators Josh Hawley and Marsha Blackburn,

but also Representative Tom Rice, who was one of only 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Donald Trump.

There's already talk about impeaching Biden over the ordeal if, as many expect,

the GP flips the House in the midterms next year.

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