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Aug. 24, 2021 - Sean Hannity Show
31:08
President Biden Speaks - August 24th, Hour 3
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This is an iHeart Podcast.
Well, we've only been waiting four hours.
Uh, here's Joe Biden uh finally addressing the American people, supposedly about Afghanistan.
The uh before I update you on the meeting that I had with the leaders of the G7 earlier today, I want to say a word about the progress we're making on the Build Back Better agenda here at home.
Okay.
Just got all the time.
We've got Americans buying enemy lines and a deadline of one week, and this is how he starts this.
Good grief.
It's taken a significant step toward making historic investment.
It's going to transform America.
Cut taxes for working families and position the American economy for long-term, long-term growth.
When I became president, it was clear that we had to confront an immediate economic crisis, the most significant recession we've had since the Depression, or at least since Johnson.
But we but we weren't gonna, but that wasn't gonna be enough.
We also had to make some long-term investments in Americans and America itself.
The first thing we did was to write and pass the American Rescue Plan, and it's working.
Our economy has added four million jobs in my first six months in office.
Economic growth is up to the fastest it's been, the fastest rate in 40 years, and unemployment is coming down.
Right now, our economic growth is leading the world's advanced economies.
But to win the future, we need to take the next step.
Today, the House of Representatives did just that.
Today's vote in the House allowed them to consider my build back better agenda, a broad framework to make housing more affordable, bring down the cost of prescription drugs by giving Medicare the power to negotiate lower prices for drugs, make elder care more affordable,
provide two years of free universal, high-quality pre-K, and two years of free community college, provide clean energy tax credits, continue to give the middle class families the well-deserved tax cut for daycare and health care that they deserve, allowing a lot of women to get back to work primarily, and provide significant monthly tax cuts for working families with children through the child care tax credit.
These investments are going to lower out-of-pocket expenses for families and not just give them a little more breathing room.
In addition, we're going to make long-overdue much-needed investments in basic, hard infrastructure of this nation.
This is an area where we have broad bipartisan agreement to invest in our antiquated roads, highways, bridges, transit, drinking water systems, broadband, clean energy, environmental cleanup, and making our infrastructure more resilient to climate to the climate crisis and so much more.
And this is all paid for.
Instead of giving every break in the world to corporations and CEOs by the by the way, 55 of our largest companies in America paid zero dollars in federal taxes on more than 40 billion dollars in profit last year.
We can ask corporations and the very wealthy just to pay their fair share.
They can still be very wealthy, they can still make a lot of money, but just begin to pay their fair share.
So we can invest in making our country stronger and more competitive, create jobs and raise wages, and lift up the standard of living for everyone.
The bottom line is, in my view, we're a step closer to truly investing in the American people, positioning our economy for long-term growth, and building an America that outcompetes the rest of the world.
My goal is to build an economy from the bottom up and the middle out, not just the top down.
Look, I want to thank Speaker Pelosi, who was masterful in our leadership on this, and Leader Hoyer and Whip Clyburn and Chairman DeFazio, the entire House leadership team for the hard work, dedication, and determination to bring people together so we can make a difference in people's lives.
I also want to thank every Democrat in the House who worked so hard over the past few weeks to reach an agreement, and who supported the process for house consideration of the jobs and infrastructure plan, the Build Back Better effort.
There were differences, strong points of view.
They're always welcome.
What is important is that we came together to advance our agenda.
I think everyone who did that, I I think everyone, everyone who did it was there.
Look, I also want to thank everyone who voted to support the John Lewis Voting Rights Act.
You know, advancing uh it's an act to restore and expand voting protections, to prevent voter suppression, and to secure the most sacred of American rights, the right to vote freely, the right to vote fairly, and the right to have your vote counted.
The House is active.
The Senate also has to join them to send this uh important bill to my desk.
And the Senate has to move forward on the People's Act, critical legislation to protect our democracy and the right to vote.
We need both of those election bills.
But let me now turn to Afghanistan.
I've met this morning with my counterparts in the G7, as well as heads of the United Nations, NATO, and the European Union.
I express my thanks for the solidarity we have seen as we've stood up an unprecedented global effort.
I updated our partners on the significant progress we've made in the past 10 days.
As of this afternoon, we've helped evacuate 70,700 people just since August 14th, 75,900 people since the end of July.
Just in the past 12 hours, another 19 U.S. military flights, 18 C-17s and one C-130 carrying approximately 6,400 evacuees, and 31 coalition flights carrying 5,600 people have left Kabul just in the last 12 hours.
A total of 50 more flights, 12,000 more people since we updated you this morning.
These numbers are a testament to the efforts of our brave service women and men, to our diplomats on the ground in Kabul, and to our allies still standing with us.
And we had a productive discussion.
There was strong agreement among the leaders about both about the evacuation mission underway as well as the need to coordinate our approach to the Afghan to Afghanistan as we move forward.
First, on evacuation, we agreed that we will continue to close our close cooperation to get people out as efficiently and safely as possible.
We are currently on a pace to finish by August 31st.
The sooner we can finish, the better.
Each day of operations brings added risk to our troops.
But the completion by August 31st depends upon the Taliban continuing to cooperate and allow access to the airport for those who were transfer were transporting out and no disruptions to our operations.
In addition, I've asked the Pentagon and the State Department for contingency plans to adjust the timetable, should that become necessary.
I'm determined to ensure that we complete our mission, this mission.
I'm also mindful of the increasing risks that I've been briefed on and the need to factor those risks in.
They're real and significant challenges that we also have to take into consideration.
The longer we stay, starting with the acute and growing risk of an attack by a terrorist group known as ISIS K, a NISIS affiliate in Afghanistan, which is a sworn enemy of the Taliban as well.
Every day we're on the ground is another day we know that ISIS K is seeking to target the airport and attack both U.S. and Allied forces and innocent civilians.
Additionally, thus far, the Taliban have been taking steps to work with us so we can get our people out.
But it's a tenuous situation.
We're already had some gunfighting breakout.
We run a serious risk of it breaking down as time goes on.
Second, the G7 leaders and the leaders of the EU, NATO, and the U.N. all agreed that we will stand united in our approach to the Taliban.
We agreed the legitimacy of any future government depends on the approach it now takes to uphold international obligations, including to prevent Afghanistan from being used as a base for terrorism.
And we agree that none of us are going to take the Taliban's word for it.
We'll judge them by their actions, and we'll stay in close coordination on any steps that we take moving forward in response to the Taliban's behavior.
At the same time, we renewed our humanitarian commitment to the Afghan people and supported a proposal by the Secretary General Guterres of the United Nations-led international response with unfettered humanitarian access in Afghanistan.
Third, we talked about our mutual obligation to support refugees and evacuees currently fleeing Afghanistan.
The United States will be a leader in these efforts.
And we'll look to the international community and to our partners to do the same.
We're already seeing our allies' commitment.
They're bringing their bringing to their countries the Afghans who served alongside their forces as translators or in their embassies, just as we're bringing to the United States those Afghans who worked alongside our forces and diplomats.
We're continuing that effort.
We're conducting thorough security screening and the intermediate stops they're making for anyone who is not a U.S. citizen or a lawful permanent resident of the United States.
Anyone arriving in the United States will have undergone a background check.
And we must all work together to resettle thousands of Afghans who ultimately qualify for refugee status.
The United States will do our part.
And we are already working closely with refugee organizations to rebuild a system that was purposefully destroyed by my predecessor.
Finally, we agreed to stay vigilant against terrorist threats that have metastasized around the world.
We went to Afghanistan with our allies in 2001 for clear reasons.
One, to get the people who attacked us on 9-11 and to get Osama bin Laden, and to make sure that Afghanistan was not used again as a base from which to attack the United States or our allies.
We achieved that objective.
We delivered justice to bin Laden more than a decade ago.
But the current environment looks very different than it did in 2001.
And we have to meet the challenges we face today.
We run effective counterterrorism operations around the world, where we know terrorism is more of a threat than it is today in Afghanistan without any permanent military presence on the ground.
And we can and will do the same thing in Afghanistan with our over-the-horizon counterterrorism capability.
Cooperation with our closest partners on our enduring counterterrorism mission will continue to be an essential piece of our strategy.
In short, we all, all of us agreed today that we're going to stand shoulder to shoulder with our closest partners to meet the current challenges we face in Afghanistan, just as we have for the past 20 years.
We're acting in consultation and cooperation with our closest friends and fellow democracies.
And I want to again thank all of our allies and partners around the world who have rallied in support of our shared mission.
We ended the conversation today by a clear statement on all of our parts.
We are going to stay united, locked at the hip in terms of what we have to do.
We'll get that done.
And tomorrow, I've asked Secretary Blinken to give you an update and a detailed report on exactly how many Americans are still in Afghanistan, how many have gone out, and what our projection is.
So thank you again, and God bless you, and may God protect our diplomats and all those in harm's way.
Thank you.
No questions as usual, Joe Biden.
I don't even know where to be in.
He still is not given a number how many Americans are there.
He's still not responding to all the Americans saying we cannot get to the airport.
He's still not addressing his own State Department and his own State Department saying, yeah, we can't guarantee your safety getting to the airport.
The Taliban saying that Afghan ally uh Afghan citizens are no longer allowed to the airport.
He said depends upon the cooperation of the Taliban.
Okay, we're at their mercy, uh, and their goodwill At the whims of their goodwill were held hostage by it, and he said it's a tenuous situation, and then blame Trump.
Uh totally disconnected from what the reality is on the ground, which we'll explain coming up.
Now we're going to get to your call's final half hour today.
I'm also going to play what's really happening on the ground.
You know, Biden ends this presser today saying, uh, I'll have uh Tony Blinken tell you how many Americans are still there.
What?
You don't know?
You still don't know?
This artificial deadline.
You see, Joe has never been able to give us that number.
Joe never explained why he left all the military equipment, billions of dollars worth, including Black Hawk helicopters.
Joe can't tell us how many Americans are actually on the ground trap behind enemy lines right now.
Uh, but he did say two things about the Taliban.
Well, all of this is dependent upon the continued cooperation of the Taliban.
And the Taliban makes it a tenuous situation.
But we'll stay united with our allies.
Um, what does that mean to all the people that have been telling us they're not getting to the airport?
Or Joe's promise that all of our allies and interpreters that he promised he would get out safely, that can't that they the Taliban is now saying they will not allow to go to the airport.
No more Afghans are going to be allowed to go to the airport.
He didn't address the real situation on the ground.
We have Mike Waltz's comments from earlier today, also a woman who's saying we are stranded.
We can't get to the airport.
What's Joe going to do about that?
And why is Joe giving in to this artificial deadline?
It depends on the cooperation of the Taliban.
You know, the Pentagon, the State Department, you know, all of them now adjusting their timetables constantly based on whatever this guy says.
He doesn't even know what he's talking about.
And in the end, he blames Trump, but he had no problem abandoning Trump's policies on pretty much everything, including secure borders and energy independence, as he now begs OPEC.
Your call's coming up.
All right, 25 to the top of the hour.
So we just heard Joe Biden basically lay out his surrender plan, which is locked into the August 31st deadline.
But what he's not telling Americans is that the Taliban now has said they will not extend that deadline.
He did say it depends upon the cooperation, anything here moving forward, all of it depends upon the cooperation of the Taliban.
And the Taliban makes it a tenuous situation.
Uh, you think, Joe?
Nobody, he's never answered the question.
Why didn't you why didn't you evacuate every American when the Taliban didn't have control of Kabul?
Why didn't you identify every American when the Taliban didn't have control of Kabul?
Why didn't you identify every ally of ours for the last 20 years now that the Taliban has every computer program that identifies them before they took control of Kabul?
Why did you surrender control of Kabul?
Why didn't you see the Taliban on the march?
Why didn't you make a contingency plan to take our military equipment home?
Uh billions and billions of dollars worth, including Black Hawk helicopters, fairly expensive items, um, and leave it for the Taliban.
You know, why did you not at least destroy it, if nothing else, Joe?
You know, these numbers you're throwing out of all the numbers of people that you've flown out since June and July don't mean a thing when Americans are trapped behind enemy lines.
You can't even tell us how many Americans are there.
The Taliban's saying you're not going beyond that August 31st deadline, Joe.
So you're not exactly being honest with the American people.
I'm working in close cooperation with our allies and G-7 and NATO allies, blah, blah, blah.
The Pentagon, the State Department, the White House, they're all contradicting each other about, well, no, I haven't heard of any difficulty whatsoever of people getting to the airport.
Really?
Well, I have heard of difficulty of people getting to the airport.
I've heard of people threatened going to the airport.
Now the Taliban's saying that they're not going to allow any Afghans at all make it to the airport.
And guess what?
They have total control of the situation.
So it depends on their cooperation.
They're not letting any of our allies out moving forward.
Period.
They'll die.
Because now they've been able to identify who they are, And they're going door to door.
You haven't been watching the news of the atrocities of the Taliban, because we have.
Listen to Congressman Mike Waltz on the floor of the House today.
I personally have helped Afghan, my Afghan interpreters get back to the United States.
They're thriving now as American citizens, but their families are being hunted down as we speak.
I've also had one, one that fought with us.
His name was Little Spartacus.
He was such a fighter.
He was intercepted at a Taliban checkpoint with the very American documentation that he needed to get out of here.
They didn't just kill him.
They took him home to his village and beheaded his brothers and cousins in front of them before then beheading him.
I've seen school principals run out of town and murdered after they were hunted down.
Their crime, teaching girls.
And then the girls' school was burnt down.
The Taliban have not changed.
And what is clear from the briefings, what has been clear from the from the months of briefings that our committee have received on the armed services committee is that a Taliban takeover equals Al Qaeda 3.0.
Okay.
That's what that means.
So this will be the Islamic Emirates of Afghanistan.
And now Joe is even admitting it's all the goodwill of the Taliban.
The Taliban are dictating the August 31st deadline, not Joe Biden.
Nobody's asked Joe Biden, for example, um, will you leave any Americans behind if we've not identified them?
What would be your plan after you leave if Americans are left behind?
And what about Afghan allies that are now facing certain death that you will be leaving behind?
Do you care, Joe?
Why didn't you why when the Taliban was making its march and right up to Kabul, and all that time that intervened, which was months, didn't you see the handwriting was on the wall and extract everybody sooner when you had control?
Of course, these are not questions Joe's answering because he's not taking any questions.
He's taken a total of five questions since the Taliban have taken control of Kabul.
That's how bad it is.
Now, Gensaki yesterday said we're not stranding anybody in Afghanistan.
That's not true.
That's a lie.
How dare you, Peter Ducy?
Well, it just so happens Fox and Friends had on a woman this morning.
They used a pseudonym for her, Fatima, but not a real name, nor should it be.
And listen to what she says.
I've made several attempts to go to the airport.
First of all, I would like to thank the Fox News for letting me uh be the voice out there for many Americans trended in Afghanistan.
And yes, we are stranded.
And I would like to thank uh Carol Miller, our Congresswoman and her team for her continuous effort.
They've been in touch with me.
And um they have been my only strength here.
Oh hearing their voices makes me feel comfortable and makes me hopeful that maybe I'll be able to make it back again home.
So there's a lot of issues going on.
We are stranded and home.
We can get to the airport.
When we try to get to the airport, we either get beaten up or we're afraid for our lives.
I would like them to do whatever it takes to get U.S. nationals out and people that worked with the U.S. military, uh if it's the system or whatever it is, if it's bringing in more people here at the airport, bringing in more troops, because uh time is running out.
They really need to work on a on a strategy, they need to work on a plan that works.
We you know, we get more of uh news to uh stay put than to be told that you're gonna be evacuated.
This is not this is not comforting at all, because we don't know if we're gonna make it out.
They can't get to the airport, Joe.
Shelter in place, the State Department says.
Well, you may now want to begin your effort to get to the airport, but we can't guarantee your safety.
Oh, those are warm and comforting notes.
Follow us on Twitter and Facebook uh for the latest updates because all of the entry points change from moment to moment.
What if you're not on Facebook or or Twitter?
What if they shut down the internet?
Has anyone thought of that contingency?
Or the fact that the Taliban Control the perimeter to the airport, numerous instances of violence for people.
But Joe denies it.
I haven't heard of any.
Well, Zone State Department, Defense Department, and others have acknowledged, yeah, we've heard of instances like that happening.
And by the way, then on Saturday, don't make your way to the airport today.
It's a bad day.
Okay.
So shelter in place.
Shelter in place.
That's not getting to the airport.
That's not getting out.
Throwing numbers around.
How about we stay until every American is rescued?
That we ensure that every ally is rescued.
Why did you let this happen, Joe?
I'm disgusted.
It's it's an embarrassment beyond measure.
I want to thank you.
You know, voting rights act and the 4.1 trillion.
It's time for politics, Joe.
It's not now.
Saving every American life in Afghanistan, trapped behind enemy lines, uh held hostage at the whim of a terrorist group uh called the Taliban might be your top first and and most pressing priority.
Same with Nancy Pelosi.
It's unbelievable.
Taliban spokesperson.
Yeah, no, the airport has now been closed.
Afghans are not allowed to go there now.
Foreigners are allowed to go, but we have stopped Afghan nationals to go because the crowd is more, there's a danger that uh people will lose their lives.
There might be a stampede.
And further saying that uh don't encourage our engineers, doctors, and military.
We need them.
We're not in favor of allowing any Afghans to leave.
Joe, you didn't address that either.
That's from the Taliban spokesperson.
A Taliban spokesperson that said yesterday to Sky News uh that no, they will not extend the deadline.
So you're really giving in to their bullying and their demands, Joe.
And you're spinning it as if it's what this is some type of noble thing that you've done here.
No American president would have ever put Americans in such a compromising position and with the intelligence capabilities of this country to watch the Taliban take over large geographical parts of the country, and you're not lifting a finger.
Let's get to our phones here.
Uh Bob in Texas.
Bob, thanks for hanging in there.
Hurry you.
Oh, I'm doing well, Sean.
Hey, listen, I'm I'm retired major from uh from the military at special forces for a while.
This is no surprise to us.
No surprise at all.
If you look back at Benghazi, you look back at Mogadishu.
Every bit of it has has been handled pretty much with total incompetence.
This is this is the Democrats modus operundus.
I'm telling you flat out.
Uh, I've been in command, I've been watching, I've watched all this stuff happen, and the decision-making processes that these guys go through are literally ridiculous.
It is beyond any comprehension.
You know, I the Brits, the French, even the Dutch, have sent out their troops all throughout Kabul behind enemy lines to rescue their fellow citizens.
You know a country's been absent?
The United States of America went on sending our troops to go retrieve Americans and bring them to Kabul to Hamad Karzai International Airport.
Absolutely.
I'm a leader of a of a of a group of uh retired special forces guys, and every single one of them.
There's a little over 300 of them.
Just about every single one of them will say, hey, listen, if you don't want to risk the younger guys and us, we'll go and get our Americans.
Let's get them home.
The window is now closed, and Joe is allowing the the Taliban to dictate the terms.
Joe is surrendered to the Taliban.
The Taliban, and even said it in a speech three times.
Depends on their cooperation.
The Taliban makes it a tenuous situation.
He's at the mercy of the Taliban.
We don't have enough troops there to accomplish the task that you're you're rightly saying we ought to be involved in, and that is a rescue mission of American citizens trapped behind enemy lines.
You're you're a hundred percent right.
Whatever happened to leave no American behind.
Whatever happened and leave no American ally behind.
I never did.
Me either, sir.
Thank you for your service.
Mark in New York, you're next.
Glad you called.
Thank you for thank you for what you do every day.
Thanks for taking my call.
Thank you.
Hey, uh I just have uh two observations.
One, it it's nice to know that everything's gonna be okay if the Taliban just cooperates.
I don't mean to laugh.
I mean that's a cry.
It's not a laugh.
It is.
I just never could imagine those words, but go ahead.
Yeah.
Hey, uh, here's my my uh more important observation.
Look, when there are no logical answers to rational questions, it suggests that we're asking the wrong questions.
So, like uh a better logical question or another logical question uh or rational question would be who is influencing Biden to make these absurd decisions?
Uh are these politicians or these nation states?
I mean, who who's got their hand on him?
Because he doesn't have a logical explanation for most of what he's doing.
I I can't answer that except to say that it starts with the the buck does stop with him.
How our military and our intelligence communities now that there is some interesting things to share on this that I think are are worth bringing up at this particular point in time.
You know, MBC News reported just now that fury and disgust that the CIA, the Pentagon, and in Congress that thousands of Afghans will be left behind.
But there may be Americans part of that group, too.
My my sources have told me the CIA's been out of there for weeks.
They got the hell out of there.
They didn't hide this information from Joe Biden.
And our other intelligence agencies.
We have the best intelligence capabilities in the world.
We may not always have the best leadership.
That's right, but the rank and file are the best at what they do.
The 99%.
They they saw this coming.
They told Biden.
So I just don't believe for a second.
Imagine you're an American, you're you're behind enemy lines right now, and you're there, hostage to the whim and the feelings of the Taliban, a terrorist group.
Yeah.
You know, and I I just I don't even know what to say.
I just don't I don't think uh I don't think uh any of us do.
It's just it's crazy.
But hey, I just want to leave you with uh just uh a word.
Hey, let not your heart be troubled.
You know, as a Christian, um my hope isn't in politics, it's certainly not in politicians, uh it's in God.
Um my hope is too, but but but uh Mark, I gotta respectfully point out Jen Saki, who said it was irresponsible yesterday to say that Americans are stranded.
We just heard from that woman and she says they're not, and we're committed to bringing every American home that wants to come home, said today, we expect there could be some Americans left in Afghanistan after August 31st.
She said that today.
Yeah, I know what I would finish my thought with is you know, my heart breaks because people are suffering because of political decisions that leave our citizens and others who've been faithful to us in the lurch.
And so, you know, while we can't place our trust in politicians, we see we see the um just the bad things that happen when people turn away from making good moral decisions.
And whatever bison is doing, I just I can't imagine that in any respect.
We need a leader of moral decisions.
Yeah.
Trump would have obliterated the Taliban as they marched through Afghanistan long before this.
That's gonna wrap things up for today.
Uh Hannity tonight, nine Eastern on the Fox News channel, as we are loaded up tonight.
Personal stories, people on the ground contradicting everything Biden said today.
Ali North's military strategy to save every American life and ally life.
Uh Lindsay Graham, Marco Rubio, Pete Heggseth, Sarah Carter, Laura Trump, Morgan Ortega.
Back here tomorrow.
Thank you as always for being with us.
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