Hello there I'm Chuck Todd and this is the Chuck Todd cast.

The Taliban took Kabul in the middle of August 2021 and in the weeks and months leading

up to their arrival there was a mass exodus refugees trying to get out of the country

fearing what life would be like under hard line rule.

But that exodus was only the punctuation market at the end of a much longer story of Afghan

refugees who have been trying to feel to free themselves from this civil war in hardship

in search of a better life.

My guest today is Matthew Aikins, journalist and author of the new book The Naked Don't

Fear the Water, an underground journey with Afghan refugees.

He was reporting for the New York Times during the fall of Kabul in his new book.

He tells the story of Omar, a friend and translator who Aikins accompanied in 2016 as he tried

to escape to Europe first through Turkey and then through Greece.

Matthew welcome to the Todd cast.

This book in some ways, let me ask it this way, how much of the story of what we saw in the

summer of 2021, do you think is reflected in the story you're telling of what happened

to Omar and we should say you've changed some of these names in your book and things

like that.

How much of an insight do you think will get this gift?

I had this horrible feeling of Deja Vu this summer when I saw this new wave of refugees

fleeing the country in response to the collapse.

When Omar decided to escape his country in 2015, he was a former interpreter with the

US military, whose application to emigrate for the SIV programs his own was denied.

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