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Aug. 23, 2021 - Sean Hannity Show
28:41
Congressman Jim Banks on Afghanistan
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This is an iHeart Podcast.
All right, Hour 2, Sean Hannity Show.
Thanks for being with us.
800-941-SEAN.
You'll want to be a part of the program.
Let me go back to this exchange.
Peter Doocy, Fox News, Jen Psaki.
Jen Psaki saying it's irresponsible to say that Americans are stranded, that they are not.
Now, I went over in great specificity and great details every State Department memo that is being sent to Americans caught behind enemy lines.
You might want to make your way to the airport, but we cannot guarantee your safety.
And then don't go to the airport now.
That was Saturday.
That's what they said.
Then you go through everything that was said over the weekend.
Pentagon spokesman John Kirby, Al-Qaeda and ISIS.
Yeah, they have a presence in Afghanistan.
Kirby admitting that people are being beaten.
Some on the way to the Afghanistan airport wouldn't answer the Taliban very clearly telling Sky News that, in fact, that deadline is hard of August the 31st.
I don't have an exact inventory of the equipment seized by the Taliban, but it's estimated in the billions, apparently including Black Hawk helicopters.
We believe we have evacuated several thousand Americans.
No, we don't have any idea how many Americans are actually there.
We're not sure.
You know, then General Hank Taylor, unaware of Kabul Embassy warning about threats outside the airport.
That's the daily memo.
We can't guarantee your safety.
Oh, and Saturday, you better not go today.
Jake Sullivan, National Security Advisor, we can't give you the precise number of Americans in Afghanistan.
Then Sullivan says ISIS threat at Kabul airport is real.
Then Sullivan says we're communicating with the Taliban through military channels.
Okay, communicating with the Taliban, the terrorist organization, and Americans are trapped behind enemy lines, and they've got control of the perimeter of the airport.
Yeah, that now makes them ostensibly hostages to the whims of a terrorist organization.
You just can't make up how bad this is.
Or our defense secretary saying, yeah, there are incidents of people having tough encounters with the Taliban while trying to get to the airport, contradicting other parts of the administration.
Nobody predicted the Afghan government collapse in 11 days.
It wasn't 11 days.
They were on the march for months.
And then you have the spokesman of the Taliban, Suhail Shaheen, on Sky News.
If the evacuation deadline extends past August 31st, it's a problem.
It will provoke a reaction.
Then, of course, you've got Tony Blinken admitting the Taliban is in control of Kabul.
And then admitting that there's no clear plan in place to rescue Americans from Afghanistan.
You can't make it up.
Here's the exchange with Doocy and Gensaki.
The president had a sense that most of the criticism is not of leaving Afghanistan.
It's the way that he has ordered it to happen by pulling the troops before getting these Americans who are now stranded.
Does he have a sense of that?
First of all, I think it's irresponsible to say Americans are stranded.
They are not.
We are committed to bringing Americans who want to come home home.
We are in touch with them via phone, via text, via email, via any way that we can possibly reach Americans to get them home if they want to return home.
There are no Americans stranded is the White House's official position on what's happening in Afghanistan right now.
I'm just calling you out for a staying that we are stranding Americans in Afghanistan when I said when we have been very clear that we are not leaving Americans who want to return home, we are going to bring them home.
And I think that's important for the American public to hear and understand.
Well, that's not what Joe Biden said on Friday.
He said, I can't guarantee the outcome.
Joe Biden said that.
Any American who wants to come home can come home, but I can't guarantee the outcome.
Now we're getting lectures from French President Macron, who's telling Biden, apparently told Biden in a phone call that there is a collective moral responsibility to evacuate Afghani allies.
I've been telling you everything that's going on on the ground there.
Told you about the firefight erupting at Kabul airport today.
We told you the Taliban warning of dire consequences if they try and extend the evacuation deadline.
If they seek additional time, the Taliban spokesman, the U.S. or U.K., seeks additional time to continue evacuations.
The answer is no, according to the U.K. Independent, or there would be consequences.
If they are intent on continuing the occupation, it will provoke a reaction.
The answer is no.
And yet they can't identify every American that's there.
U.S. Embassy apparently overruled Biden telling Americans on Saturday not to travel to the airport, despite his advice.
We have the Taliban reports now that they are burning women.
U.K. Daily Mail.
Women are being burned to death, forced to marry Taliban fighters, also shipped overseas in coffins, says sex slaves.
Just the latest in the horror of the Taliban and their previous rule that we've chronicled extensively.
One woman set aflame by Taliban fighters because they didn't like the food that they forced her to cook for them.
Taliban is now filming their executions of Afghanis that were allied with the U.S.
This is a horrifying video has emerged online that appears to show in the U.K. Sun the Taliban is brutally executing a police chief.
I mean, it just breaks your heart.
Defense Secretary Austin confirming fleeing Americans are being beaten by the Taliban fighters.
You know, this whole team needs to go.
They've been so wrong and so incompetent on so many levels.
We had no idea this was going to happen.
It was happening before your very eyes if you just opened them.
You have Afghan resistance fighters, you know, trying to fight back in the north, but they're not doing well.
Should I keep going?
Joining us is Congressman Jim Banks of Indiana to react to all of this.
How can they possibly not know how many Americans are there?
How could they possibly have not seen this coming when the Taliban had been working their way, you know, through the entire country, taking larger and larger areas extremely quickly?
They had weeks' notice to prepare for this, and they should have expedited the evacuation efforts, destroyed our military equipment, not left it there, or tried to take it home would have been the better solution.
But, you know, how do we find ourselves in this situation, and how do you describe it, sir?
Well, Sean, either this administration is completely incompetent, or every step of the way they've been lying to us.
This administration, after all, is the big lie presidency of a president who we all know is incapable of leading as our commander-in-chief.
And now every step of the way, we're seeing that to be true.
Now, you might know I served in Afghanistan just prior to being elected to Congress.
I now serve on the Armed Services Committee.
I've been back to Afghanistan as a member of Congress.
All of this was predictable.
It was all preventable.
We know that.
But by closing down the Bagram Air Base, which I spent a lot of time at in uniform, we completely destroyed our chances of evacuating Americans and evacuating all of the billions of dollars of equipment that's now fallen into the hands of the Taliban.
These generals knew that would happen, and now they're lying to cover up their negligence, their role and responsibility, allowing all of that to happen to begin with.
So all along the way, I mean, we're just finding out how incapable and incompetent this administration is.
But the fact that they're lying to us, Sean, they need to be held responsible for it.
All right.
So now, if we haven't identified, today's the 23rd.
Okay, that gives us eight full days to evacuate every American and hopefully every, now we did promise those that allied with us that if this time, this day ever happened, not necessarily we'd bring them to America, but we'd get them the hell out of there.
Now, I think that part of the promise needs to be kept.
We promised people, now all these reports, the Taliban are going door to door, identifying anybody, and apparently they may even have a computer list that assisted the U.S. and Allied forces in the war over the last 20 years.
All of those people are marked for death, horrific death.
How we possibly, if we can't identify Americans there, we can't get them safely to the airport.
We've got an eight-day deadline.
What do we do now?
Well, we know that the administration has supposedly flown, they say, about 17,000 people out of Afghanistan.
Only about 2,500 of them, actually, though, are Americans.
And they're telling us that they're telling members of Congress that they're prioritizing Americans.
But we know that that is not the case.
Again, another lie by this administration is still an estimated 15,000 Americans who are in Afghanistan.
You heard Ginsaki in the clip that you played a little bit ago saying that anyone who wants to get out can get out, but they can't get to anywhere to get out.
And that's the problem.
Again, when we ceded the Bagram airfield, we gave up control of our only and best opportunity to fly Americans out of the country.
The fact that we're continuing to fly plane loads of Afghans out, and we still have Americans who are trapped in the country who can't get to an airport, tells you this administration is not prioritizing the Americans who want to get out of the country.
So that's one thing we're paying close attention to in the briefings that members of Congress are receiving today and tomorrow in demanding that the administration give us a plan for how they're going to prioritize Americans and get them out of the country.
And now this latest news, Sean, that the Taliban is drawing a red line and saying we've got to be out by August 31st.
I never thought I would see a day when the Taliban are playing off of Ronald Reagan's peace through strength mantra and strategy, and we're on the other side.
The Biden administration continues to play from a position of weakness and appeasement, and yet the Taliban drawing red lines rather than the United States of America.
I never thought I would see a day when that would come.
The Taliban clearly doesn't respect and they don't fear the United States of America, the most powerful military in the world, because this commander-in-chief has completely failed and given them every reason.
We really don't have any good options militarily even at this point, not knowing that they have control of the country.
And by the way, for people that may not know, Congressman Banks currently serves as a U.S. Navy Reserve and Supply Corps officer.
You actually took a leave of absence at the time from the Indiana State Senate to deploy to Afghanistan during Operation Enduring Freedom and Freedom Sentinel.
And you're watching all this unfold.
This is personal for you.
And I'm not sure exactly what the best, if there's any good option on the table, knowing what the Taliban is capable of doing with Americans that are under their control, ostensibly now trapped behind enemy lines.
And Sean, as you can imagine, hearing from many of the Afghan troops that I serve directly with.
When I serve there, I'm hearing from interpreters that I worked with When I was in Afghanistan, really not that long ago, 2014 and 15, they fear for their lives.
They fear for the lives of their family members because now we know the Taliban has ended up with all of the biometrics and information of everyone who ever served to help us on the Afghan side.
I mean, that's how chaotic and unbelievable.
How is it possible we left that information?
How is it possible we left billions of dollars in military equipment to arm them?
And the main question Biden's not answered: why do you trust the Taliban?
And I'm looking at the State Department spokesperson saying, well, we're not trusting the Taliban, but in reality, that's what Biden keeps saying, that they've made certain commitments.
I'm like, so you really are trusting the Taliban, and our fellow Americans are behind enemy lines and ostensibly hostage to the whims of the Taliban.
There's no other way to describe that accurately.
It's unfathomable.
I mean, I ever think that it would come to this point where the Taliban now has more Blackhawk helicopters than 85% of the UN countries.
I mean, think about that for a moment.
Do you know how many Blackhawks they got?
We know that at this point, the Taliban has 45 Blackhawk helicopters and about 50 smaller choppers, and in addition to 150 other aircraft that they have.
But that's just the least of it.
I mean, to think of the, again, this is what I directly did when I was in Afghanistan serving and assisting the Afghan army and helping them acquire American military equipment to give that to the Afghan Army and the police so they could fight against the Taliban.
Now the Taliban has weapons and ammunition, night vision goggles, medical supplies.
It's just unfathomable that it could take away.
They're parading it all over the place and sticking it right in our face.
It says propaganda, but it's not propaganda because it's real.
Congressman Jim Banks, Indiana, thank you.
Our prayers are with our fellow Americans.
We continue.
All right, 25 to the top of the hour.
I don't know if you saw the president's speech on Saturday.
Wow.
I don't know how many thousands of people were there.
Tens and tens and tens of thousands.
It was massive.
Anyway, the president weighed in extensively on what's going on in Afghanistan and basically said, yeah, it's a total surrender.
Listen.
It did not have to happen that way.
This is not a withdrawal.
This was a total surrender.
This surrender for no reason.
They weren't asking.
We had them.
I dealt with Abdul.
He was the leader.
I said, Abdul, anything happens, we are going to rain terror upon you.
It will be a terrible thing.
Don't touch our American citizens.
Don't ever come to our country.
Don't ever come to our country.
And you're going to continue fighting your civil war.
I can't do that.
They've been fighting it for hundreds of years.
That's what they do: they fight, and they're good fighters.
But I had a good relationship other than that one statement.
I said, after I said that, I said, now let's get down to business.
And we had a conditions-based agreement.
And they didn't meet the first two conditions.
And we hit them hard.
And then they met them.
And then they had a couple of other conditions that they were ready to meet.
And then we had a rigged election and we had a new president.
And the new president came into office and he dropped to his knees and he said, come on in and take everything that we have.
This is a disgraceful thing, the most embarrassing thing that we've ever seen in this country.
There's never been an embarrassment.
And the nations of the world.
That was the president at his rally in Alabama.
I mean, I couldn't believe.
I saw Dan Scovino at Dan Scovino and in his Twitter account.
I'm spending less and less and less time on Twitter.
Linda, have you noticed now?
We used to have so many people that would, you know, we tweeted out a comment or I was involved in a so many people supported us on Twitter for a long time.
All our supporters are like gone now.
I send out a tweet.
It's like, drop dead, Hannity.
Go to hell.
I mean, it's like, it's basically now a platform for left-wing lunatics and the blue check mark cult media mob, media mob cult that's all over Twitter.
It's like conservative away.
Yeah, they have an algorithm, and the algorithm is what is used to silence everyone that says anything that dares to think on their own and not like, you know, the group consciousness.
I mean, it's, it's complete absurdity.
Okay, it's like talking about Bitcoin and the algorithm and why Bitcoin.
All I know is that's what it is.
I mean, I remember talking to Ad Jack and him saying that, oh, my algorithm, it got hijacked.
They do different things to it.
Now, I'm like, dude, you're the president.
Make it right.
Make sure that everybody's voices.
I'm not over it.
I mean, I'll leave the account up, but it's honestly a waste of my time.
They really are.
The good thing is, Sean, most of those people, they're just bots.
They're just all the same person using different screen handles and doing the same thing.
And by the way, for our information, you can always go to Hannity.com, which is, you know, where we're putting everything up there.
Anything that shows up on my Twitter account was first pushed on Hannity.com anyway.
So the first source and something we control.
How many times a day do people try to hack that site?
Oh my God, forget about it.
It's unbelievable.
Blair gives me the hack attempt updates.
I'm like, oh, my God.
But let me tell you something.
To Blair's credit, I have no control over anything social media related ever.
It's crazy.
But, you know, he works really hard and they've never been successful.
Let's put it that way.
Well, knock on wood because they're pretty successful almost everywhere else, you know.
Anyway, appreciate the update, Linda.
Tim is in New York.
What's up, Tim?
What are you doing in New York?
You're paying too much taxes.
What are you out of your mind?
I'm trying to smarten up, Sean.
Thanks for taking my call.
So am I. What's going on, buddy?
Well, this disaster in Afghanistan is just completely disheartening.
And to me, it seems that this is just the latest in a long history of corruption and dereliction duty for many of our leaders.
And even when Republicans have taken the White House and the legislature, we seem to have no avenue to hold these guys accountable.
And so my question is, what needs to happen for us to have that ability?
And how do we get there?
You know, you're raising a good question.
The only answer that I have, because I know a lot of people would love to see Biden impeached.
I think most people, even the media now, they know.
I mean, everybody knows that Joe Biden is a cognitive mess.
Everybody sees it.
They just don't report it.
They just don't talk about it.
Nor do they even criticize me for saying it anymore.
And they're afraid to because they know that I have a very effective way of fighting back.
And that is playing Joe in his own words.
So they know that it's not a fight that they're going to win.
So they stay away from me.
They try to say, well, Hannity won't tell people what to say to do with their health.
No, I'm not qualified to.
I wish I was.
Please take the virus seriously, pretty please, with sugar on top.
I'm begging people.
I've seen the worst of this.
I have.
I've said no people on ventilators, no people that didn't survive ventilators.
I know the worst of it.
But it's really, I don't know your medical history.
I don't know your current medical condition.
Please talk to your doctor.
You know, 30% of LA cases, breakthrough cases.
The CDC acknowledging that the vaccine will not prevent transmission of the virus, meaning they have a lot of breakthrough cases.
What do you do then?
Well, that's where I've urged you to talk to your doctor about the different therapeutics that are available.
For me, the best one that I see, I keep talking about Regeneron, but that's between you and your doctor, too.
I refuse to do it.
I'm not going to play doctor on TV.
But how do you get rid of corrupt politicians?
You vote them out.
The first thing that needs to be done is voter integrity laws in every state.
The things that I have been repeating over and over again.
You know, I won't repeat them here, but that's the answer.
And I think that that's going to happen.
I can't guarantee anything.
But it's important that we have election integrity and confidence in results.
And that what, you know, the things, the laws that were ignored in 2022, like partisan observers, they ought to be able to watch the vote count start to finish.
Chain of custody control, updated voter rolls, signature verification, voter ID.
Why have the Democrats been fighting hard to get rid of voter ID?
I don't know because they don't seem to have a problem with vaccine mandate ID.
Why wouldn't they have voter ID?
Anyway, appreciate the call.
800-941 Sean, you want to be a part of the program.
Cindy is in Michigan.
Cindy, you're on the Sean Hannity show.
Glad you're checking in.
What's going on?
Hey, Sean.
Thanks for taking my call.
You know, I listened to your show.
Before all of this started, I pretty much was not into any politics.
And now all of a sudden, like Patriot channel is the only channel that's on in my car.
And when I hear people call in, it's like everybody's so angry.
And how do we not just complain and just try to, how do you get people to listen to you?
I think people are getting it.
You know, I wrote, I haven't written a book in 10 years.
Why did I write this book, Live Free and Die?
I don't like to write books.
Books are hard.
It's hard work.
I really like to focus and spend all of my time and energy and focus on doing this radio show and my TV show.
But I found the time, made the time to do it because I felt it was that important.
And I wanted everybody to know what was at stake.
As bad as I thought it would be, and that motivated me to do it, it's now worse than I ever dreamed.
I can't cite a single success of the Biden administration.
Borders, COVID, energy, foreign policy, the economy, inflation.
I can't cite a single thing that has benefited me.
I'm sorry?
Makes you miss 2020.
Well, I mean, maybe for the people, and, you know, I know you have all these rhino Republicans out there and these groups like the Lincoln group and the Liz Cheneys of the world.
You know, I'd take a mean tweet over what the hell's unfolding in Afghanistan any day.
I take secure borders and mean tweets over what's happened at our border any day.
I'd take energy independence and a mean tweet over, you know, what's happening today.
And we're begging OPEC to produce more oil.
I'd choose the mean tweet any day.
I mean, I know people didn't like Donald Trump's style.
Some people.
It never bothered me.
And I think people feigned outrage half the time and they weren't as outraged as they acted.
And if they are outraged, it should be now because we have Americans caught behind enemy lines and a Secretary of State admitting that the Taliban controls Afghanistan and they can't guarantee our safety.
The safety of Americans.
They're admitting it all.
They're saying it, you know, blinking.
The Taliban is in control of Kabul.
That's all you need to know about how bad this is.
Well, I was listening to something earlier and they were basically saying that, you know, the people that wake up, not woke, there'll be some that will wake up, but the others, we have to leave them behind.
And I was just like, wow, is that where we're at right now?
You know, kind of.
Isn't that sad?
Yes.
Short answer is yes, it's sad.
Right now, I am like sick.
I can do as much as I can.
You know, I don't hear the anger that you seem to hear.
I hear people aghast at the policies and that as bad as many thought it could be, it's even worse.
And I think people are genuinely fear what's happening to the country and the world as a consequence of having a president, you know, this cognitively deficient and weak and a group of people that are radical, you know, new Green Deal socialists around him that he's listening to.
Truth to that, but I'm a small business owner and we see probably over 600 people in my business a month and they're just not happy.
I mean, and maybe it's that.
Maybe it's fear.
People are just, they're angry.
They're done.
And I think people just feel helpless.
I think there is, I think there's a certain amount of urgency that everybody does need to feel.
Fear is not necessarily a bad thing.
Fear of consequences can be a good thing in life.
You know, fear is not necessarily a horrible thing.
Guilt, you know, everyone thinks guilt is a bad thing.
I don't think guilt is a bad thing necessarily either because it can change one's behavior and wake people up to the reality of bad choices they're making.
Right now, the country is on a really, really bad path.
And the only way that I see to overcome it is get election integrity laws in every state.
It's important.
And if your state is not working on it, try and organize groups to pressure them to do the right thing.
Look, signature verification, voter ID, updated voter rolls, chain of custody controls, and the partisan observers watching the vote count is not controversial to me.
It's something that benefits both sides.
It brings integrity to the system so that people will have faith in the outcome of our elections.
We've got to fix that.
Why Democrats don't want it only tells me that they have nefarious intentions.
And then short of that, pressure even Democratic senators.
If you live in West Virginia, that would be Manchin, Arizona.
That would be Kristen Cinema and anywhere else.
you've got to put pressure on them and let them know there'll be consequences for their bad policies.
And I think that I'm good in Michigan with that.
I hope so.
I'm watching.
All right.
Yes.
Hang in there.
You know, our hearts are troubled now, but political winds shift very quickly.
And I think they've shifted already.
Russell is in Florida.
Russell, you're on the Sean Hannity show.
Glad you called.
Hi, Sean.
I am a second generation American, 59 years old.
I love my country.
I love my military, but I'm about to make your head explode.
I don't think any of this could be laid on the hands of Biden.
And the reason is, Sean, have you ever been to Disney World, to the Hall of Presidents?
I've been to Disney World.
I don't remember the Hall of Presidents.
They have these animatronic robots that are just mouthing off things.
And when I see Biden, that's what I see, except one with major hardware and software glitches.
I mean, it's whoever's pulling Biden's strings, but come on, this guy can't navigate up the steps of Air Force One.
He can't get back from Marine One into the White House.
Half of the time, nobody can decode what he's saying.
All they do is press the button that says, come on, man.
I mean, Biden is not in it.
This guy is just so far removed.
And to think that he's not.
He's still the commander in chief.
If you're telling me that the military should recognize that he's out to lunch and take control, you know, they're not going to do that.
But with that said, they have not served him well either.
General Milley, the National Security Advisor, Secretary of State, Secretary of Defense, they've all failed miserably here.
And I'm not sure it was even an intelligence failure.
I know for a fact that the CIA got their people out seven weeks ago.
They saw what was coming.
I have every belief that they told the president how bad it is.
I have every belief that there were people in the military that said to move forward now.
And then I have every belief that Biden didn't make the call when he should have, when he could have, when it mattered.
And, you know, do I think it's a dereliction of duty and a failure of incalculable proportions?
Yeah, I do.
This is not going to end well for a lot of people.
I hope we get every American out first, but a lot of people are dying already.
According to reports, this is not going to end well, and they should have prepared for this.
They didn't.
And it is going to go down in history as one of the worst foreign policy disasters ever.
That I can promise you.
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