There are estimates anywhere between 10 and 80 plus thousand Americans.
And if you had the in the interpreters, those that America had promised that if they assist us on the ground that if God forbid anything ever went south or we were to leave and their lives were in jeopardy, that would they would be helped out.
That's a promise that was made by America to the individuals that were supposedly helping us to fight and win a war.
You know, why we're fighting wars that we don't win, I will never understand.
How ISIS was allowed to build out uh the way they were, um, I will never understand.
How Donald Trump systematically drove the caliphate into the ground is just a case in point with modern military technology, the capabilities we now have, we've never had before.
Obviously, could have been employed here had anyone had the will to do it, but they decided not to.
There was a moment, actually, a guy by the name of Matt Zeller is his name, passionately just just pounding Brian Williams and I guess former CIA director Brennan was on there as well, but I didn't hear a peep out of him in the clip that I saw about all of the Americans and then those that were our closest allies in this whole conflict over 20 years that are being left behind.
Listen, listen to what he says.
Oh, I'm curious to hear your reaction of this consequential speech by the American president.
Didn't run from it.
He owned it.
He owned his decision.
He owned the fact that as he put it, the buck stops with him.
I hope he gets owned their deaths too.
I I don't I feel like I watched a different speech than the rest of you guys.
I was appalled.
There is such a profound bold-faced lie in that speech.
The idea that we plan for every contingency.
I have been personally trying to tell this administration since it took office.
I've been trying to tell our government for years that this was coming.
We sent them plan after plan on how to evacuate these people.
Nobody listened to us.
They didn't plan for the evacuation of our Afghan wartime allies.
They're trying to conduct it now at the 11th hour.
The thing that they were most concerned about was the optics of a chaotic evacuation.
Well, they got exactly what they were most concerned of by failing to do what was right when we could have done it.
We had all the people and equipment in place to be able to save these people months ago, and we did nothing.
I'm appalled that he thinks we only need to take 2,000 people.
There's 86,000 people who are currently left behind in Afghanistan alone.
We've identified all of them for the government.
I have no idea why they he claims that people don't want to leave Afghanistan.
I have a list of 14,000 names right now of people who want to get out of Afghanistan.
And the idea that the Afghan military should be blamed for this, do you know how many casualties the Afghan military took in an average year?
More than the United States did in 20.
When you're not getting paid on a regular basis, when you're not getting fuel, when no one is supplying you with ammunition, and yet you're still showing up to the fight.
How dare us for having to blame these people for not having the audacity to be able to survive a Taliban onslaught?
No, no, no.
What we need to be doing right now, and what I am appalled that the president didn't say was we need to be talking about how we're going to get every single one of these people out.
Because let's be abundantly clear.
People like me looked these people in the eye and made them a promise.
We promised them that in their time of need, we would take care of them.
How do you ever expect anyone to ever trust us again if we don't do that now while we can?
And I'm sick and tired of trying to defer the Islamic emirate of Afghanistan on what we're going to do.
We're the United States of America.
They're terrified of us.
I have Afghans on the ground right now who are telling me they're going door to door in Kabul and they're making lists of people who used to work with us.
They're telling them with smiles on their face, evil smiles, that they're going to be back from them once we leave.
So we either take them now or these people are going to die.
I've been trying to tell anyone who will listen.
This is a never-again moment in the making.
I mean, it's it's a stunning rebuke of this idiocy of the likes of Brian Williams.
Um, well, he he owned it.
Uh you know, he this this was a consequential consequential consequential speech, and he owned it.
He didn't own it.
He blamed Trump.
He didn't own it, he blamed the Afghan president that fled.
He didn't own it.
He He blamed the Afghan military that he was praising two weeks ago as one of the best militaries in the world, and they're we're prepared for anything that the Taliban throws at them because they've got 300,000 trained people in an air force, and the Taliban only has seventy-five thousand.
How could you be so spectacularly wrong?
And now we're what we're watching and learning is that the Pentagon, they warned Biden for months and months about this debacle potential.
The Taliban now beating people who try to reach the airport.
And the hope is that you can get the people at the airport out in the tens of thousands.
And the Taliban is now consolidating their control in Afghanistan's capital.
And on top of everything, what I mentioned earlier is the top Taliban terrorist.
Yeah, Obama and Joe let him go from Gitmo.
We had him in our we had him captured already.
Great job, Joe.
Former Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich is with us to react to all of this and and how maybe possibly we can save these American lives and the lives of our those that risked everything there that we had promised to help.
Well, look uh I think we can save a lot of lives uh if we're prepared to uh bring massive air power into the region.
Uh and I think the minute you had six or eight or ten B-52s flying over various Taliban headquarters, um, you would have sent the signal uh that they need to stand down until we get done leading.
And if they're not going to stand down, I mean they're not in position to tell us we have two weeks.
We're in a position to tell them that we're gonna, you know, they would like to be in the seventh century.
We can help bomb them into it if they're really serious.
Um we know that very, very few Americans combined with air power, collaborating with a lot of very gutsy Afghans had fought the Taliban basically to to a defeat where they were able to operate in the rural areas, but they couldn't capture and keep any of the provincial towns.
Um this is entirely a function of the Biden left wing, you know, have a weak America, be nice to your enemies, uh, be bad to your your your allies.
And frankly, one of the most despicable things any president has said in my lifetime was Biden attacking uh the Afghans for not being willing to fight, as your last guest said, or the the tape you played.
They lost sixty-six thousand troops in a situation where they weren't always that's not what Biden Sir, I don't mean to interrupt, I apologize.
But that but Biden said that this is one of the most capable armies ever uh on the face of the earth, and that they'd destroy the Taliban.
How do you make such a traumatic miscalculation?
Well, I mean, one of the things Congress ought to do is dig into what was the real advice.
I mean, it was was the advice that Biden got three or four or five weeks ago from the Pentagon from the intelligence community from the State Department.
Was it accurate or not?
I mean, how d how does he go from uh we're clearly gonna win?
Remember the the promise?
I think by the way, a devastating commercial where he says you're never gonna see helicopters leave the American embassy like happened in Saigon.
Of course, he was a senator when they left the embassy in Saigon.
Um, of course, you you could play Biden saying that, and you could put next to it the footage of the American helicopters leaving the embassy in Kabul, and it just it just proves this isn't you know, this administration they can't control the border, they can't control spending, they can't control crime, and they can't defeat our enemies overseas.
Can I can I beg to differ?
It's not that they can't, they don't want to.
Well, I I I would I accept that.
I I think I think in fact they are they have a commitment to a weaker America.
I think these are mostly you know, Biden is surrounded by anti-American left wingers uh who don't want America to be strong.
Uh That's why they kill the pipeline in the U.S. and then go and beg uh OPEC to pump more oil and gas while giving the Russians permission to build a pipeline to Western Europe.
I mean, you you can't explain this administration except as a deep commitment to to weakening and undermining America.
Quick break more with former Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich.
By the way, is anyone stop to think at all about how gold star families are feeling today?
Those that lost loved ones.
Anyway, we'll get to that.
We'll get to your calls as well.
800-941 Shauna's our number.
All right, we continue.
Former Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich is with us analyzing this unmitigated disaster in Afghanistan.
So now my next question is very simple, because we're now being told by our State Department, Mr. Speaker, that Americans that are there need to shelter in place.
Then we're told defense officials, they're saying they're going to be able to extract about 5,000 Americans a day from Kabul when we've got up to 40,000 plus stranded in Kabul right now, many of them at the airport, and many that can't get to the airport, and Taliban fighters now have closed in on the airport and have created a perm uh a perimeter preventing anybody from getting anywhere near it if they wanted to.
What are we supposed to do about that?
Well, and remember, Kabul's only one city.
I mean, how many Americans are scattered across the countryside?
How many of them are in provincial capitals?
And and how many of our allies, I mean, I don't think we should uh focus only on the Americans.
How many interpreters who are marked for death and their families are marked for death?
How many Afghan pilots whose entire family is marked for death?
I mean, there are a lot of folks out there at risk because of Biden's cowardly withdrawal.
And I think that uh it's clear that they didn't do any kind of serious planning.
I I think you need to explain to people because they'd they probably likely don't know, and they're thinking, oh, here we go, we're gonna be the the world's welcome center for refugees around the world.
It's to me it almost takes on as the the gravity and significance of, for example, those people, refugees from Cuba, uh, that they know that they will be killed if they went back to Cuba uh at the time.
And I'm talking about early in the Castro regime.
Sure.
And okay, the significance of these interpreters, the Taliban knows who they are.
They will die because they were actively assisting us in our military efforts.
Their families will die as well.
They're dead.
They're marked for dead.
Right.
And I think there are two parts of it.
One is just honor.
We have a moral obligation to people who risk their lives to help us.
The other is practical.
We want to send a signal around the world that if you've got the guts to stand with the U.S., the U.S. is going to stand with you.
I mean, we are sending right now a terrible signal of weakness.
If you were in Taiwan or South Korea, uh, or if you're in Western Europe, uh, are you gonna trust the United States?
Are you gonna think, oh yeah, this administration's got real guts and they're gonna stand firmly with me?
Or are you gonna say, boy, I sure hope nothing happens, because I don't think I could count on Joe Biden for anything.
Well, it's uh it's uh it's a beyond a little bit scary here.
But the the Taliban now, this is in the UK mirror is now drawing up kill lists for the Afghanis that helped the U.S. Um it shows the level of dangerous incompetence here.
The fact that our I don't know if it's an intelligence failure or you know, or if Joe just didn't listen to the military.
I mean, that's yet to be determined.
The Pentagon is claiming very loudly that they warned Biden for months and months about this debacle and what would happen if it was handled this way.
And on the other end of it, and I'll know more because I'm interviewing President Trump on Hannity tonight.
I'll know more later tonight.
I am told that the big distinction in the president's withdrawal, planned withdrawal from Afghanistan, was that the Taliban and the president spoke directly, and the president said, Did you see what I did in Syria and how I destroyed the caliphate?
And apparently About the sternest warning you could ever give any group of people was sent out loud and clear that they will be blown into oblivion if they dare get in the way of any city.
Never mind the fact that as of late last week, they had sixty percent of Afghanistan or the I guess we should say Islamic emirates of Afghanistan uh under now Taliban control, and nobody seems to have the same fear of Joe Biden.
They that they they seem to walk with impunity.
They I think they're as shocked as everyone.
Well, you might remember one of the early steps of the Trump administration was to drop uh the largest bomb we've ever used, the the largest non-nuclear bomb we already used, uh, on a site uh to send a signal that uh there's no place you can hide.
There's there's no you know if if we come after you, we're gonna get you.
And I I do believe, and I've had uh similar conversation that you have with uh the with President Trump.
I do believe that he communicated with great force that if they if the Taliban broke their word, remember he had a very principled set of negotiating steps.
And if the Taliban broke any of the steps, then he reserved the right to use massive air power to punish them until they got back in line.
And so this this wasn't a one-time simple conversation.
This was a here is a roadmap by which we can end the fighting, save a lot of lives, but you guys aren't gonna get to occupy all of Afghanistan.
And there was no break in the Afghan army during the period that Trump was doing this, even though people knew he was doing it.
But they trusted him.
They believed that he would they trusted him, but also the Taliban feared him.
Right.
Well, the Afghan the Afghans on our side trusted him, and the Afghans on the Taliban side feared him.
All right, Mr. Speaker, we always appreciate having you.
Um 800 941 Sean is our number if you want to be a part of the program.
Well, full coverage of this with President Trump tonight.
Uh, what is different?
What was different in his planning?
Uh what was different in his planning at the border, what was different in his planning with energy and with COVID and inflation and everything else that we're experiencing, uh makes you kind of miss those mean tweets, doesn't it?
All right, 25 to the top of the hour, 800 941 Sean, if you want to be a part of the program.
Um I know so many of you have been wanting to get in here, and we got a lot of ground left to cover, including yeah, how do uh Gold Star families feel today?
How does our friend uh Billy Vaughn?
He lost his gold uh his his Navy SEAL son Aaron and our friend Israel del Toro.
Eighty percent of his body burned and very severe vern burns that he uh suffered when his Humvee rolled over an improv uh an IED.
How do you think everyone's feeling today?
What are we gonna do to extract these Americans?
Uh let's say hi to Eric in Alabama.
Eric Hi, how are you?
Glad you called.
I am doing great, sir.
How are you?
I'm good.
What's going on?
Um, first off, I've been following you since about nineteen ninety-six on Fox News, so I'm forty-four years old.
Uh I'd like to say thank you for being such a meaningful and instrumental um part of my life.
Um since you're going to be able to do that.
Thank you.
I really appreciate it.
Thank you very much.
It means a lot to me.
It really does.
You know, I was I spent years in Alabama.
I had a great time.
So oh, I'm down in the Gulf Coast.
It's if you've never been down here, it's a little bit better.
But um to my question, um, I would never ask anyone to speak for the late great Rush Limbaugh, but um I had been listening to him slightly longer than I was following you.
And he always said that don't panic.
I will tell you when it's time to panic.
And again, we don't have him to answer that question.
So I know that you were a true true friend through James Golden's comments on your show.
You weren't just a colleague, you weren't just similar careers, you were a true dear friend.
So you're probably I'm friends with the entire family.
His brother's been my attorney for over thirty years.
Um nobody could ever replace this man.
He was a patriot beyond words.
And we learned a lot about Russia in the last year of his life.
Not that I really didn't know it already.
We know what his bucket list was.
You know what his bucket list was, Eric?
To be on the air, get well enough.
His bucket list was to get what you know go through the the hell of chemo and and cancer treatment to get just well enough, barely, most days not really there, but he did it anyway to be on the air with the people that he loved most, his audience and his family.
You you were his family.
So you want is are you asking me is uh have we hit that inflection point where um I'll let you know when it's time to be there?
Um it's it I guess kind of like what in it how how would you think Rush would be feeling?
Would Rush be telling us it's time to panic?
And I don't mean in the literal pull your hair out, go crazy sense, of course.
No, I mean the Delta variant, the lambda lambda lambda variant, you know, the revenge of the nerds, what's going on in Afghanistan, the border, the inflation, just everything that's going on.
I personally don't think 2022 is going to matter.
Because I think uh Biden, I mean, he's he's a stroke of a pen away from doing something to take that away from us too.
So I'm not sure if 2022 truly I'm trying to hold on to hope.
I'm praying every night, but I don't know if 2022 is truly going to be the turning point because we're not far away from one poor decision or one backhanded deal, and we're done.
One of the things I loved about Rush, I don't I I wouldn't even begin to think that I could speak for him or in a way that he would articulate it himself and nobody could match it.
I would not ask you to, sir.
But but I would say this.
Am I at the point that I think it's over?
No, I'm not.
Am I at the point that I'm as worried as I've ever been?
I am.
Am I at the point, you know, when when I very specifically repeat um by design the the things that need to happen now so that we can have elections with integrity that we'll all have confidence in the results in, that being point number one.
Any time leftism, authoritarianism, socialism, or Levin calls it American Marxism or a post-constitutional America.
Anytime we hit these moments, it's amazing America snaps back because we see the failure unfolding on every level.
I said it in my opening monologue yesterday.
Can you name one thing that Joe Biden has done that is successful?
And I can't.
I don't care if it's the border, I don't care if it's COVID, I don't care if it's energy, I don't care if it's the economy, I don't care if it's inflation, I don't care if it's China, Russia, Afghanistan, Iran.
I I can't cite a single thing where it's working.
Now the hope I have is that states have come to the conclusion that as a result of the pandemic, laws were ignored in the 2020 election.
We know that for a fact.
It's indisputable.
When you have laws that say partisan observers can observe the vote count and you don't abide by them, then that's not abiding by the law.
And and we know these the the flurry of of last minute editions that would even in the case of Pennsylvania circumvent their own state constitution.
We know that happened too.
We read the Supreme Court, you know, three-four decision, the descent, a stinging descent by the chief justice in the Supreme Court of Wisconsin.
But the good news is is people are making those changes.
That's step one.
What Biden is doing is it it's like you just you just watch it unfold and fail.
I think you we're talking about it because it's so important.
We've got Americans now that have no idea if they're ever gonna make it home.
That are left in Afghanistan.
And I don't say that lightly.
They don't know if they're coming home.
And yes, we see China now threatening the U.S. regularly when they're not lecturing us on human rights.
And you know, I I think the Chinese communist newspapers uh admonition that you know they're saying that the US will abandon Taiwan just like they did Afghanistan.
I I think that probably is an accurate assertion.
That that is what they see.
They're not they don't they don't see Biden through the rose colored filtered glasses of the the media mob protection program.
Well, they don't have to be a good one.
But I do have hope how to see things.
That so they're they're Yeah, exactly.
I mean they don't they see Biden for who he is, and their description matches yours and mine that he's weak, frail, he's a cognitive mess and not in charge.
That's what they say.
That's what I say.
My description isn't allowed on the radio, sir.
Neither is mine.
You know, I could write a great book.
Everything I would say in the way I would say it, but can't say it because it'll get me fired, okay?
I can write that book.
Sign me up.
I'll be first in line to buy that one.
Um so but the answer is I'm not at the inflection point, and I'm gonna tell you why.
Because I know that the heart and soul of this country is full of good people.
America, as flawed as it is, always strives and has made incredible strides towards the more perfect union.
And that was the beauty of our founders and framers.
Is it as uh at risk as much as I've ever seen in my lifetime?
The answer to that question is yes.
You know, I will I'll I'll bring you into a private conversation than Rush and I had.
And I used to ask him, I said, I am not optimistic.
And he said, I have to be.
And I thought a lot about that answer since he's passed away.
And at one point he said, I hear exactly where you're coming from.
I'm there a lot, meaning that you wonder if our better days are behind us.
But I just believe in the people in this country that they will, we're going to fix this and we're going to get it right now.
It starts with election reform, it starts with the election in 2022 and then 2024.
And if we if we just look at that short term window, and it'll happen very quickly.
You know, we will bl look, I've been on radio 33 years.
I've been in TV 25.
I have no friggin' idea how that happened.
So time flies.
My kids are now, well, one's graduated from college, one's that's you know, finishing college.
So I just have faith and that the American people see what you and I see, and that we will that that there will be a course correction.
And I hope it's now, because we we really don't have much time.
I'm worried about the time frame now.
So um the panic button, now I'm not ready to hit the eject button yet, okay?
Does that help you?
Uh but like I said, I just felt you're the close your relationship with Rush.
If it was going to come from anybody, I feel that people would need to hear it from you since we don't have the great Rush Limbaugh to answer the question.
You know what I missed the most?
I'll tell you what I miss the most about him.
Is and I I never I didn't have a lot of time to listen to him because I have to prepare and and quiet every day.
It's just the way my mind works.
I'm I have my papers, I have to organize them, I have to put them in piles, and you know, I'm I'm like very regimented all week long.
I I live my life like a marine and and barely I just have a routine.
Work out, study, do a show, work out more, eat, do a show, you know, write, do a show.
Okay, then try and sleep.
And you know, what Rush had that I think was so unique to him is a take on everything that I'd always say, I wish I thought of that.
It's like Levin has a gift.
Levin's gift is his constitutional expertise.
He's a constitutional scholar.
It's his passion.
He studies it whether he's writing a book or not writing a book, because he shares it with me all the time.
We talk all the time.
And I think being angry on the radio and making it sound like how we all agree with.
We want each other.
I'll say it.
Nobody else will say it.
There.
I said it.
I used to I used to do I used to on stage occasionally do Rush.
Sean Hannity dropped the golden EIB mic.
What a great broadcaster.
You dented it also, did you not?
Yeah, okay.
You know what?
You know, I feel like going all Mark.
Get off my phone, you creep.
Anyway, um, you know, we're all spokes in a wheel.
And let me just tell you this, Eric.
No one spoke as more Important than the other.
This isn't about me.
It's not about Mark.
It's not a rush would want us to fight.
That I can tell you.
Rush loved this country.
His passion was this country.
His passion were the people of this country.
And you are as important a spoke as he was.
Mark is.
Whatever I am, I'm a spoke.
And you know, we need every spoke in the wheel to make this thing work.
And I don't care if if the only thing you do is call your state representatives and get integrity and election laws, just integrity, just fairness, that's all you're asking for.
Voter ID, signature verification.
If you just get out and vote and make sure that it's important to you, if you make sure that we we get the right candidates to run, if nothing else, if you you donate to people that really need to get a message out sometimes, I'm not allowed to do it because of what I do.
And you know, I that that wheel will turn back around, and we could turn the country around.
It's not just the United States that needs the United States.
It's our kids, it's our grandkids.
That's the first and foremost in our mind.
We've I don't know how old you said you're younger than I am, but um, you know, it's less about okay.
For me at this point in my life, it's less about me and more about my kids, my grandkids, and your kids and your grandkids.
I have five, I have five kids myself here.
So, that's zone defense, and then some good luck to you.
I don't know how the hell you do it.
Um, I was in a I was in a band when I was younger too.
So what did you did you sing or play guitar or the drums?
What'd you do?
Uh I played bass and I was uh like a co-lead singer, the the style of the music at the time in the early 90s before I joined the corps.
Uh well.
Sempre Fidelis Marine form.
Just remember this.
All of us matter here.
You know, there might be 10%, 15% of disagreement at times.
I don't care about that.
Reagan addressed that.
If you're 80% in agreement with me, you're not you're 80% my friend, you're not my enemy.
We have enough enemies out there.
We have enough people that want to silence us, cancel us, we have enough people that want to indoctrinate and brainwash our kids.
We have enough people that have no problem in the middle of a pandemic with open borders, enough people that are perfectly satisfied to have Joe Biden beg OPEC to increase oil production.
Uh other people perfectly fine.
The hell with the people that are stuck in Afghanistan.
Joe did the right thing.
No, he didn't.
Perfectly fine to be threatened by China, uh, let China take over Taiwan.
Perfectly fine with the Iranians getting a nuclear weapon.
I'm not fine with any of it.
And I just know that living in this country, it is the last greatest best hope for man on earth.
And it's as much as it's important for us and our kids and our grandkids, we are that important to the world.
That's how deep this is.
That's how concerned I am.
I'm not hitting a panic button after election day 2024.
I might.
I'll let you know.
Please don't please don't let me let that happen.
Don't let it happen.
We can prevent it from happening.
God bless you, Marine.
Thank you for all you do.
You're on for another 25 years.
All right.
All right, easy.
You know, I'm trying to get through one day at a time.