that was, you know, I'm not,

[GoodTaste]

"Look, it was a simple choice, George," Biden said. "When you had the government of Afghanistan, the leader of that government, get in a plane and taking off and going to another country; when you saw the significant collapse of the Afghan troops we had trained, up to 300,000 of them, just leaving their equipment and taking off -- that was, you know, I'm not, that's what happened. That's simply what happened. And so the question was, in the beginning, the threshold question was, do w e commit to leave within the timeframe we set, do we extend it to Sept. 1, or do we put significantly more troops in?"

Source: ABCNews

What does "I'm not" mean? Something appears to be missing here. Can you figure out what "I'm not" mean? I'm not what?

 

[emsr2d2]

It's the way people speak, especially in public or when being interviewed, when they don't have a prepared scripts. He started a sentence with "That was", changed his plan and covered it up with "you know", then started something else with "I'm not" and then seemingly went back to his original thought to say "That's what happened". We'll never know what he might have said after "I'm not".

 

[GoodTaste]

Okay, the same context:

Does "You know, there wasn't any more" mean "You know, there wasn't any more "thing happening)"? But the president had already said "nothing was happening" - a simple repeat?

"I hear people say, well you had 2,500 folks in there and nothing was happening. You know, there wasn't any more -- but guess what, the fact was, that the reason that wasn't happening, was the last president negotiated a year earlier that he'd be out by May 1st and that the return, there'd be no attack on American forces. That's what was done. That's why nothing was happening," Biden said.

 

[Rover_KE]

It's the way people speak, especially in public or when being interviewed, when they don't have a prepared scripts.

Doesn't the same thing happen in China, GoodTaste?

It's a waste of time trying to analyse off-the-cuff remarks by flustered interviewees.

 

[slevlife]

Agree with emsr2d2 and Rover_KE. Just commenting to add that this is called a false start. For both of the things you highlighted, we don't have enough context to guess what he might have been planning to say before he interrupted himself and changed direction.

 

[emsr2d2]

I agree with emsr2d2 and Rover_KE. I'm just commenting to add that this is called a false start. For both of the things you highlighted, we don't have enough context to guess what he might have been planning to say before he interrupted himself and changed direction.

Slevlife, please note that we try to write in complete sentences at all times on the forum, so that learners can see how to construct sentences properly.