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Aug. 31, 2021 - Sean Hannity Show
44:33
President Biden Speaks - August 31st, Hour 1

President Biden speaks to the American People and has an incoherent list of excuses but no answers as to what happened in Afghanistan or what will happen next. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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This is an iHeart Podcast.
All right, Americans held hostage, day 17 behind enemy lines.
Now, I, for the life of me, can't explain this to you.
There's no, by the way, I I am in a really, really, really foul mood.
I am I am so disgusted.
I find this so repulsive.
The news I'm about to share with you is going to make everybody's blood pressure rise significantly today.
Because I guarantee you, if I took my blood pressure right now, my doctor would probably race right into the studio and say, here, take this now, whatever this is.
Um I what I am going to report to you is so outrageous.
It is not the America that I know.
It is not the America any of us know.
And later in the show, we'll talk to two gold star dads.
They lost their sons last week when Karzai International Airport, when the bombs went off, they were there.
They're dead.
One twenty, one thirty-one years old.
We're gonna have hear about their stories.
So the first outrage is a day after now we surrendered.
We left Americans behind, and and these estimates, they still can't give you an exact number.
How is that even possible?
But I I've spoken to senators, a number of them.
I've spoken to Congressmen and women, a number of them.
And they're like, the best guess is 300 to a thousand.
We don't think it's 300, like the White House is saying, we believe it's much larger, but nobody knows.
So I can't give you an accurate number, which in and of itself is infuriating.
You'd think we would know how many Americans we left behind enemy lines.
It with a terrorist group in charge of their destiny.
Pelosi, apparently, today is reported by the Wall Street Journal.
Um this is this is one day after the surrender, and and all our troops are gone now.
All our diplomats are gone.
Any American, hundreds of them, we don't know the exact number.
All those Americans are left to fend for themselves.
And wait till you hear some of the remarks about it.
Um anyway, we have uh one of we we lost 13 U.S. service members.
Uh Congressman Carlos Jimenez um just tweeted Nancy Pelosi and reported by the Wall Street Journal, blocked the names that he wanted to read on the House floor of these dead servicemen and women.
He blocked it.
She blocked it, blocking the reading of the names of the servicemen and women they that lost their lives last week.
Uh Congressman Brian Mast.
He's a wounded comp combat vet in Afghanistan.
I think he lost both both his legs.
We've interviewed him many times.
You know, uh Brian Mast, yeah.
And oh, hang on a second.
Something just breaking.
Okay, update.
Okay, yeah.
So we we've now confirmed with numerous sources that Nancy Pelosi wouldn't allow the names to be read of these bra.
Hold on a second.
It's not Nancy.
Well, that's what the Wall Street Journal said.
Okay, it was a pro tem in her place that she put in.
Thank you.
I appreciate it.
Because it's just but we literally got this just as we're coming on the air.
The Wall Street Journal had that she she's the one that made the decision.
Is it is this how is this your modern Democratic Party that you're proud of?
Because it did happen.
They wouldn't allow the reading of the names.
What a slap in the face to every parent of every child that was lost last week.
We lost a hundred and seventy people total.
200 more injured, severely, many of them.
You know, if you go back last week, Pelosi first tweeted after the Kabul attacks, making no mention of the bombing that left 13 Americans dead on that day, and what she was really fighting for that day had nothing to do with this.
And she just kept tweeting out over and over again.
Today and every day, let us summon our suffragists, uh, spirit and hope to strive and lift up voices of women across the nation.
This is the day that our brave men and women were murdered.
And if you're not mad enough yet, the Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said that Americans get stranded in countries all of the time.
Is that your answer to the hundreds that you abandon and deserted behind enemy lines?
Hostages based on the whims of a terrorist group.
That's dead wrong.
Americans still in Afghanistan have been abandoned.
Not really stranded.
They've been abandoned.
It's not being stranded.
They've been abandoned.
Biden National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan says the U.S. may deliver aid and economic assistance directly to the Taliban.
Let me tell you how I interpret that.
That sounds like a ransom payment coming.
How about before we give them anything?
And I know this is coming up a lot now.
You know, uh Howard Mortman tweets out we cannot uh and certainly will not walk away from seven.
This, by the way, is Biden 1022, okay.
Uh 2001.
We can't walk away from seven million displaced desperate Afghanis surviving on little more than grass and locusts, reluctant to use the word nation building, but if we leave Afghanistan in chaos, well, it will be another uh time bomb waiting to explode.
So Biden said a little over a month after 9-11, 2001.
That was on C-SPAN.
Now, we're getting some information about who did we abandon?
Because we abandoned them.
Jennifer Griffin of Fox News, who's done some amazing reporting based on, you know, who are some of the Americans left in Afghanistan, based on passports, visas.
We have seen Americans who remain in Afghanistan.
Many of the Americans left behind are babies with U.S. passports born to Afghans with green cards who gave birth in the U.S. Those babies were dependent on parents to get them to the airport, and many of these green card holders wanted to bring a dozen or more non-American family members with them, and the Taliban blocked them.
We knew that was happening now for a week.
Many had never been to America, etc.
So they're trying to spin this any way they can.
Again, she's just reporting on what they're saying.
We have an interesting story.
There is a three-year-old California boy stranded in Afghanistan.
That was on ABC 7 News.com out in Sacramento.
U.S. troop withdrawal from Afghanistan is stranded.
American citizens who want to return to the States.
One of them is a young boy born near Sacramento.
ITeam reporter Dan Noyes, noise, I know Y E S, I don't know how to pronounce that.
That's an exclusive frightening story about what lies ahead for the child and his family.
The three-year-old was born near Sacramento.
He's stuck behind enemy lines.
It's so bad there was a Wall Street Journal article 2008.
Turns out back in 2008, Joe Biden's life was saved by an Afghan interpreter who rescued him when his helicopter crashed behind enemy lines deep in Taliban country.
The interpreter is now stuck behind enemy lines himself.
Joe didn't even get that guy out.
He's been begging the White House to rescue him and to rescue his family.
There's no hope of that anymore.
Thirteen years ago, I'm reading from the Wall Street Journal, Afghan interpreter Mohammed helped rescue then Senator Joe Biden and two other senators stranded in a remote Afghanistan valley after the helicopter was forced to land in a snowstorm.
Now Mohammed's been asking President Biden to save him.
Hello, Mr. President.
Save me and my family, Mohammed, who asked us not to use his full name while in hiding, told the Wall Street Journal as the last Americans flew out of Kabul on Monday.
Don't forget me here.
Don't forget me here.
Him and his four children, hiding from the Taliban.
Apparently he's known to have helped Americans.
Joe just signed his death warrant.
They find him, they'll kill him.
Army vets call lawmakers, issue dire appeals to U.S. officials for help.
If you can only help one Afghan, choose Muhammad.
No, nobody chose him.
He's done.
What are you going to do now, Joe?
You know, uh it's just unbelievable.
Just unbelievable.
American woman trapped in Afghanistan and tear gassed at the airport.
The last flight is gone, and we were left behind.
American woman, former military interpreter, remains trapped in Afghanistan, a U.S. citizen, using a pseudonym for this article that showed up on Yahoo News.
And, you know, apparently, you know, said last night that she attempted to get out.
She attempted to get to U.S. checkpoints, was tear gassed, and she tried hard, as well as so many others with American passports that didn't get out.
Now, this was interesting from ABC News.
They're reporting.
Remember, Biden promised Georgie Stephanopoulos two weeks ago that he would get every American out of the country.
They wouldn't leave till every American got out of the country.
Listen.
The commitment holds to get everyone out that, in fact, we can get out and everyone should come out.
And that's the objective.
That's what we're doing now.
That's the path we're on.
I think we'll get back to it.
So Americans should understand the troops might have to be there beyond August 31st.
No, Americans understand that we're going to try to get it done before August 31st.
But if we don't, the troops will be.
If we don't, we'll determine at the time who's left.
And if they're American force, if there's American citizens left, we're going to stay till we get them all out.
Oh, we're going to stay till we get them all out.
Lie.
Two weeks ago, he lied to us.
Now, according to ABC News that General Frank McKenzie, the head of U.S. Central Command, speaking to reporters last night from his headquarters at McDill Air Force Base in Tampa.
He said, I'm here to announce the completion of our withdrawal from Afghanistan and the end of the military mission to evacuate Americans.
The last C-17 lifted off from Kabul, 329 Eastern time, almost 24 hours ago.
We didn't know it when we were on the air yesterday.
He said that in the final flights that took off, no Americans made it on board.
He admits hundreds left behind.
Apparently, Joe Biden also kept Congress in the dark about the risks posed by his withdrawal plan.
I'll tell you about that in a minute.
And apparently Joe got an earful from the mother of a Marine killed and other Gold Star family members at Dover Air Force Base on Sunday.
And others refused to just meet with absolutely refused to meet with him.
But don't worry, Biden's national security advisor says the White House hasn't ruled out economic aid for the Taliban.
Will be about the Taliban's actions.
That sounds like a quid and a pro and a quo.
Or where I grew up in New York, that sounds like ransom.
That's what it sounds like to me.
Told you you're going to get mad because I'm mad.
You should be mad.
Every American this is not political.
It's not Democrat, Republican, conservative, or liberal.
I don't give a I don't give a flying Adam shift what anybody's politics are.
They're Americans caught behind enemy lines.
We bring them home.
We don't abandon them.
We don't abandon them.
Expect Biden's gonna speak.
I guess I'm stuck covering the incoherent mumbling and bumbling.
My guess is it's gonna be short.
I doubt he'll take questions.
It's been such a disaster.
Everything we've told you, weak, frail, Joe, cognitive mess, all true.
And everybody now sees it.
A sister of a slain Marine yelled at Joe Biden across the airport tarmac.
I hope you burn in hell.
That was my brother, according to one of the other gold star parents.
Two of them will join us in our final hour free-for-all hour today.
Um anyway, uh that was yelled at Joe Biden.
Uh One person I interviewed last night attended the ceremony with his wife.
Another wouldn't not refuse to see him.
They wanted no part of them.
And I can't blame them either.
And Biden, even still, when they were being held in a separate room, tried to get in the room anyway.
And they're like, don't let him in.
We don't want him here.
Can you blame them?
You know, don't.
And anyway, so the and these parents were watching him look at the watch, and they were apoplectic, and I don't blame them.
One father said he glared as the president spent more time looking at his ex-wife while he spoke about his son Bo Biden, who died from cancer after leaving the military.
I said, don't ever forget that name, meaning his son.
Don't forget that face.
And don't you ever forget the names of the other 12.
And take some time to learn their stories.
Then Biden shot back, well, I do know their stories.
You can't run up and hug someone as if you had nothing to do with this.
It's not gonna work that way, and you're the commander-in-chief.
Slay Marine uh Corporal Lance uh Lance Corporal Riley McCollum's sister, you know, noted that Biden's words didn't comfort the family, especially her brother's wife who was pregnant with his child.
My dad and I did not want to speak to him.
You cannot kneel on our flag and pretend you care about our troops.
You can't F up as bad as he did and say you're sorry.
This did not need to happen.
Every life is on his hands.
She's not wrong.
The most the most preventable thing possible.
We saw the march begin in March of this year.
And March and April, more territory was taken.
And April to June, I'm sorry, April to May, more territory was taken.
And through May and June and July, we had full control of Kabul.
All right, Biden is going coming through the microphone now for our stations along the Sean Hannity Show Radio Network.
We will not be taking our usual half-hour break.
Let's go live to the president.
The longest war in American history.
We completed one of the biggest airlifts in history, with more than 120,000 people evacuated to safety.
That number is more than double what most experts felt were possible.
No nation, no nation has ever done anything like it in all of history.
The only United States had the capacity and the will and ability to do it, and we did it today.
Okay.
The extraordinary success of this mission was due to the incredible skill, bravery, and selfless courage of the United States military and our diplomats and intelligence professionals.
For weeks, they risked their lives to get American citizens, Afghans who helped us, citizens of our allies and partners and others on board planes and out of the country.
And they did it facing a crush of enormous crowds seeking to leave the country.
And they did it, knowing ISIS K terrorists, sworn enemies of the Taliban, were lurking in the midst of those crowds.
And still, the women and men of the United States military, our diplomatic corps, and intelligence professionals did their job and did it well, risking their lives, not for professional gains, but to serve others.
Not in a mission of war, but in a mission of mercy.
Twenty service members were wounded in the service of this mission.
13 heroes gave their lives.
I was just at Dover Air Force Base for the dignified transfer.
We owe them and their families a debt of gratitude we can never repay, but we should never, ever, ever forget.
In April, I made a decision to end this war.
As part of that decision, we set the date of August 31st for American troops to withdraw.
The assumption was that more than 300,000 Afghan national security forces that we had trained over the past two decades and equipped would be a strong adversary in their civil wars with the Taliban.
on.
That assumption that the Afghan government would be able to hold on for a period of time beyond military drawdown turned out not to be accurate.
But I still instructed our national security team to prepare for every eventuality, even that one.
And that's what we did.
So we were ready when the Afghan security forces, after two decades of fighting for their country and losing thousands of their own, did not hold on as long as anyone expected.
We were ready when they and the people of Afghanistan watched their own government collapse and the president flee amid the corruption and malfeasance, handing over the country to their enemy, the Taliban, and significantly increasing the risk to U.S. personnel and our allies.
As a result to safely extract American citizens before August 31st, as well as embassy personnel, allies and partners, and those Afghans who had worked with us and fought alongside of us for 20 years.
I had authorized 6,000 troops, American troops, to Kabul to help secure the airport.
As General McKenzie said, this is the way the mission was designed.
It was designed to operate under severe stress and attack, and that's what it did.
Since March, we reached out 19 times to Americans in Afghanistan with multiple warnings and offers to help them leave Afghanistan, all the way back as far as March.
After we started the evacuation 17 days ago, we did initial outreach and analysis and identified around 5,000 Americans who had decided earlier to stay in Afghanistan, but now wanted to leave.
Our Operation Allied Rescue ended up getting more than 5,500 Americans out.
We got out thousands of citizens and diplomats from those countries that went into Afghanistan with us to get bin Laden.
We got out locally employed staff at the United States Embassy and their families, totaling roughly 2,500 people.
We got thousands of Afghan translators and interpreters and others who supported the United States out as well.
Now we believe that about 100 to 200 Americans remain in Afghanistan with some intention to leave.
Most of those who remain are dual citizens, long-time residents who had earlier decided to stay because of their family roots in Afghanistan.
The bottom line, 90% of Americans in Afghanistan who wanted to leave were able to leave.
And for those remaining Americans, there is no deadline.
We remain committed to get them out if they want to come out.
We remain committed to get them out if they want to come out.
Secretary of State Blinken is leading the continued diplomatic efforts to ensure safe passage for any American, Afghan partner or foreign national who wants to leave Afghanistan.
In fact, just yesterday, the United Nations Security Council passed a resolution that sent a clear message about the international community expects the Taliban to deliver on moving forward, notably freedom of travel, freedom to leave.
And together, we are joined by over 100 countries that are determined to make sure the Taliban upholds those commitments.
It will include ongoing efforts in Afghanistan to reopen the airport, as well as overland routes, allowing for continued departure to those who want to leave and deliver humanitarian assistance to the people of Afghanistan.
The Taliban has made public commitments, broadcast on television and radio across Afghanistan on safe passage for anyone wanting to leave, including those who worked alongside Americans.
We don't take them by their word alone, but by their actions.
And we have leverage to make sure those commitments are met.
Let me be clear.
Leaving August 31st is not due to an arbitrary deadline.
It was designed to save American lives.
My predecessor, the former president, signed an agreement with the Taliban to remove U.S. troops by May the 1st, just months after I was inaugurated.
It included no requirement that Taliban work out a cooperative government arrangement with the Afghan government.
But it did authorize the release of 5,000 prisoners last year, including some of the Taliban's top war commanders among those who just took control of Afghanistan.
And by the time I came to office, the Taliban was in the strongest military position since 2001, controlling or contesting nearly half of the country.
The previous administration's agreement said that if we stuck to the May 1st deadline that they had signed on to leave by, the Taliban wouldn't attack any American forces.
But if we stayed, all bets were off.
So we're left with a simple decision.
Either follow through on the commitment made by the last administration and leave Afghanistan, or say we weren't leaving, and commit another tens of thousands more troops going back to war.
That was the choice, the real choice between leaving or escalating.
I was not going to extend this forever war.
And I was not extending a forever exit.
The decision to end the military lift operations at Kabul Airport was based on the unanimous recommendation of my civilian and military advisors, the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Defense, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and all the service chiefs and the commanders in the field.
Their recommendation was that the safest way to secure the passage of the remaining Americans and others out of the country was not to continue a 6,000 troops on the ground in harm's way in Kabul, but rather to get them out through non-military means.
In the 17 days that we operated in Kabul after the Taliban seized power, we engaged in an around-the-clock effort to provide every American the opportunity to leave.
Our State Department was working 24/7.
Contacting and talking, and in some cases, walking Americans into the airport.
Again, more than 5,500 Americans were airlifted out.
And for those who remain, we will make arrangements to get them out if they so choose.
As for the Afghans, we and our partners have airlifted 100,000 of them.
No country in history has done more to airlift out the residents of another country than we have done.
We will continue to work to help more people leave the country who are at risk.
Thank you.
We're far from done.
For now, I urge all Americans to join me in grateful prayer for our troops and diplomats and intelligence officers who carried out this mission of mercy in Kabul and a tremendous risk with such unparalleled results,
an airlift that evacuated tens of thousands to a network of volunteers and veterans who helped identify those needing evacuation, guide them to the airport, and provide them for their support along the way.
We're going to continue to need their help.
We need your help, and I'm looking forward to meeting with you and to everyone who is now offering or who will offer to welcome Afghan allies to their homes around the world, including in America.
We thank you.
I take responsibility for the decision.
Now some say we should have started mass evacuation sooner.
And couldn't this have been done, had been done in a more orderly manner.
I respectfully disagree.
Imagine if we'd begun evacuations in June or July, bringing in thousands of American troops and evacuating more than 120,000 people in the middle of a civil war.
There still would have been a rush to the airport, a breakdown of confidence and control of the government, and it still would have been very difficult and dangerous mission.
The bottom line is there is no evacuation, evacuation from the end of a war that you can run without the kinds of complexities, challenges, threats we faced.
None.
There are those who would say we should have stayed indefinitely for years on end.
They asked, why don't we just keep doing what we were doing?
Why do we have to change anything?
The fact is, everything had changed.
My predecessor had made a deal with the Taliban.
When I came into office, we faced a deadline, May 1.
The Taliban onslaught was coming.
We faced one of two choices.
Follow the agreement of the previous administration and extend it to have or extend to have more time for people to get out.
Or send in thousands of more troops and escalate the war.
To those asking for a third decade of war in Afghanistan, I ask, what is the vital national interest?
In my view, we only have one to make sure Afghanistan can never be used again to launch an attack on our homeland.
Remember why we went to Afghanistan in the first place?
Because we were attacked by Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda on September 11, 2001.
And they were based in Afghanistan.
We delivered justice to bin Laden on May 2nd, 2011, over a decade ago.
Al-Qaeda was decimated.
I respectfully suggest you ask yourself this question.
If we'd been attacked on September 11, 2001 from Yemen instead of Afghanistan, would we have ever gone to war in Afghanistan?
Even though the Taliban controlled Afghanistan in the year 2001.
I believe the honest answer is no.
That's because we had no vital interest in Afghanistan other than to prevent an attack on America's homeland and their friends, our friends.
And that's true today.
We succeeded in what we set out to do in Afghanistan over a decade ago.
Then we stayed for another decade.
It was time to end this war.
I This is a new world.
The terror threat has metastasized across the world, well beyond Afghanistan.
there.
We face threats from El Shabaab in Somalia, Al Qaeda affiliates in Syria and the Arabian Peninsula, and ISIS attempting to create a caliph fight in Syria and Iraq and establishing affiliates across Africa and Asia.
The fundamental obligation of a president, in my opinion, is to defend and protect America, not against threats of 2001, but against the threats of 2021 and tomorrow.
That is the guiding principle behind my decisions about Afghanistan.
I simply do not believe that the safety and security of America is enhanced by continuing to deploy thousands of American troops and spending billions of dollars a year in Afghanistan.
But I also know that the threat from terrorism continues in its pernicious and evil nature.
But it's changed, expanded to other countries.
Our strategy has to change too.
We will maintain the fight against terrorism in Afghanistan and other countries.
We just don't need to fight a ground war to do it.
We have what's called over-the-horizon capabilities, which means we can strike terrorists and targets without American boots on the ground, or very few if needed.
We've shown that capacity just in the last week.
We struck ISIS K remotely days after they murdered 13 of our service members and dozens of innocent Afghans.
And to ISIS K, we are not done with you yet.
As commander in chief, I firmly believe the best path to guard our safety and our security lies in a tough, unforgiving, targeted, precise strategy that goes after terror where it is today, not where it was two decades ago.
That's what's in our national interest.
And here's the critical thing to understand.
The world is changing.
We're engaged in a serious competition with China.
We're dealing with the challenges on multiple fronts with Russia.
We're confronted with cyber attacks and nuclear proliferation.
We have to shore up America's competitive to meet these new challenges in the competition for the 21st century.
And we can do both.
Fight terrorism and take on new threats that are here now and will continue to be here in the future.
And there's nothing China or Russia would rather have, would want more in this competition in the United States to be bogged down another decade in Afghanistan.
As we turn the page on the foreign policy that has guided our nation, our nation the last two decades, we've got to learn from our mistakes.
To me, there are two that are paramount.
First, we must set missions with clear, achievable goals, not ones we'll never reach.
And second, we must stay clearly focused on the fundamental national security interest of the United States of America.
This decision about Afghanistan is not just about Afghanistan.
It's about ending an era of major military operations to remake other countries.
We saw a mission of counterterrorism in Afghanistan.
Thank you.
Getting the terrorists and stopping attacks, morph into a counter-insurgency, nation building, trying to create a democratic, cohesive, and united Afghanistan, something that has never been done over many centuries of Afghan's history.
Moving on from that mindset and those kind of large-scale troop deployments will make us stronger and more effective and safer at home.
And for anyone who gets the wrong idea, let me say clearly.
To those who wish America harm, to those who engage in terrorism against us or our allies, know this.
We will not forgive.
We will not forget.
We'll hunt you down to the ends of the earth, and we will you will pay the ultimate price.
And let me be clear.
We'll continue to support the Afghan people through diplomacy, international influence, and humanitarian aid.
We'll continue to push for regional diplomacy engagement to prevent violence and instability.
We'll continue to speak out for the basic rights of the Afghan people, especially women and girls, as we speak out for women and girls all around the globe.
And I've been clear that human rights will be the center of our foreign policy.
But the way to do that is not through endless military deployments, but through diplomacy, economic tools, and we rallying the rest of the world for support.
My fellow Americans, war along the Sean Hannity Show Radio Network, we are bypassing this next breakstain with Joe Biden's yelling, lecturing, lying, and delusion.
My fellow Americans, the war in Afghanistan is now over.
I'm the fourth president who has faced the issue of whether and when to end this war.
When I was running for president, I made a commitment to the American people that I would end this war.
Today I've honored that commitment.
It was time to be honest with the American people again.
We no longer had a clear purpose in an open-ended mission in Afghanistan.
After 20 years of war in Afghanistan, I refused to send another generation of America's sons and daughters to fight a war that should have ended long ago.
After more than two trillion dollars spent in Afghanistan, the cost that researchers at Brown University estimated would be over $300 million a day for 20 years in Afghanistan for two decades.
Yes, the American people should hear this.
$300 million a day for two decades.
You take the number of $1 trillion, as many say, that's still $150 million a day for two decades.
What have we lost as a consequence in terms of opportunities?
I refuse to continue in a war that was no longer in the service of the vital national interest of our people.
And most of all, after 800,000 Americans serving Afghanistan, I've traveled that whole country.
Brave and honorable service.
After 20,744 American servicemen and women injured, and the loss of 2,0461 American personnel, including 13 lives lost just this week.
I refuse to open another decade of warfare in Afghanistan.
We've been a nation too long at war.
If you're 20 years old today, you've never known an America at peace.
So when I hear that we could have, should have continued the so-called low-grade effort in Afghanistan, at low risk to our service members, at low cost.
How much we have asked of the one percent of this country who put that uniform on, willing to put their lives on the line in defense of our nation.
Maybe it's because my deceased son Bo served in Iraq for a full year before that.
Well, maybe it's because of what I've seen over the years as senator, vice president, and president traveling in these countries.
A lot of our veterans and their families have gone through hell, deployment after deployment, months and years away from their families, missed birthdays, anniversaries, empty chairs and holidays, financial struggles, divorces, loss of limbs, traumatic brain injury, post-traumatic stress.
We see it in the struggles many have when they come home.
We see it in the strain on their families and caregivers.
We see it in the strain in their families when they're not there.
We see it in the grief borne by their survivors.
The cost of war.
They will carry with them their whole lives.
Most tragically, we see in the shocking and stunning statistic that should give pause to anyone who thinks war can ever be low grade, low risk or low cost.
18 veterans on average who die by suicide every single day in America.
not in a far off place, but right here in America.
There's nothing low-grade or low-risk or low-cost about any war.
It's time to end the war in Afghanistan.
It's time to end the war in Afghanistan.
As we close 20 years of war and strife and pain and sacrifice, it's time to look to the future, not the past.
To future that's safer, to future that's more secure, to future that honors those who served and all those who gave what President Lincoln called their last full measure of devotion.
I give you my word with all of my heart.
This is the right decision.
A wise decision, and the best decision for America.
Thank you.
Thank you, and may God bless you all, and may God protect our troops.
Right, wise, best decision, an extraordinary success, unparalleled uh results.
Uh clearly, here, Joe, drink some more coffee.
Drink another 12 cups before you come out.
It's so clear and so evident and so obvious.
Joe, you go out there, you be tough, Joey.
You gotta be tough today, yelling, lecturing, lying, and frankly, delusional.
It's gonna take me the next full half hour to break all of this down.
You know what he didn't tell you?
The truth about why did he wait until Kabul had fallen?
And stay on vacation, of course, for the weekend at Camp David.
Why didn't he extract our brave men and women and our American citizens?
Why didn't he do it when we had control of Kabul?
He can brag all he wants, all the biggest airlift, a safety lift ever.
No nation has ever done this.
It's such an extraordinary success with unparalleled results.
It was the right, the wise, the best decision.
The war is over.
No, Joe, the war's not over.
Because you abandon Americans behind enemy lines, Joe, because you didn't do it when you could do it safely when we control Kabul.
How about starting to tell some truth here?
We have a hundred countries that are gonna beg the Pentagon.
We're gonna beg the Taliban, and you think that's gonna work.
It will we would have had a crush of crowds under any circumstances.
ISIS is the sworn enemy of the Taliban.
The Taliban's a terrorist group, Joe.
Do you read a newspaper?
They're going door to door to door to get people and kill them.
And they have now the names and biometric data to do it.
You didn't answer why you left the equipment behind, Joe.
A lot more to get to.
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