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Sept. 29, 2021 - Sean Hannity Show
29:44
What Did The Generals Want? - September 29th, Hour 3
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This is an iHeart Podcast.
All right, news roundup information overload hour, Sean Hannity Show, 800-941-Sean is on number.
They have 46 Americans, their families, thousands of green card holders, people legally eligible to be in this country, and of course our Afghan allies, 46 days abandoned, and there's no plan in place to try to rescue any of them.
Any private efforts are being met with fierce resistance, even apparently, according to one article I read, an FBI investigation.
Why?
I don't know.
We're talking about people that I know that are behind enemy lines, trying to save Americans.
They're heroes, like retired Navy SEALs and special ops retired there trying to save our fellow Americans that Joe abandoned.
There was a particularly powerful moment yesterday with Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas asking General Milley why he has not resigned over this disaster of a withdrawal.
Let's play it.
General Milley, I can only conclude that your advice about staying in Afghanistan was rejected.
I'm shocked to learn that your advice wasn't sought until August 25th on staying past the August 31 deadline.
I understand that you're the principal military advisor, but you advise.
You don't decide.
The president decides.
But if all this is true, General Milley, why haven't you resigned?
Senator, as a senior military officer, resigning is a really serious thing.
It's a political act if I'm resigning in protest.
My job is to provide advice.
My statutory responsibility is to provide legal advice or best military advice to the president.
And that's my legal requirement.
That's what the law is.
The president doesn't have to agree with that advice.
He doesn't have to make those decisions just because we're generals.
All right.
That was from yesterday.
And on top of all of that, what else do we learn?
We know that the acting defense secretary at the time, Miller, said that he did not authorize Milley to make the China calls and said he should resign.
And then Milley yesterday even admitting and going as far as saying, you know, well, you'll hear all the chatter.
You'll hear it all.
And heck, I'll call you myself if we're going to attack you.
Okay, that alone is a fireable offense.
Anyway, Senator Tom Cotton is with us from the great state of Arkansas.
Senator, great to have you.
You were fantastic yesterday.
I think you and Josh Hawley and Marsha Blackburn were some of the heroes that came out of yesterday.
Well, thank you, Sean.
I think it's clear after yesterday that Joe Biden lied and Americans died as a result.
And I got to say, Sean, since it didn't happen in public, it wasn't just those three generals yesterday.
A couple weeks ago, we also heard testimony from General Scott Miller, who was our final commander on the ground in Afghanistan.
Scott Miller is a legend in the special operations community.
He commanded Delta Force.
He commanded JSOC.
He has spent almost half of the 20 years of war in Afghanistan on the ground in Afghanistan.
Scott Miller also testified that he recommended that the president keep a small force in Afghanistan to hold the status quo in place.
So General Miller, General McKenzie, General Milley, Secretary Austin all made identical or almost identical recommendations.
Joe Biden rejected them all.
Now back in April and May, he was swaggering around Washington and his senior aides were telling everyone how Joe Biden had stood up to the military and he didn't get rolled the way Barack Obama did back in 2009.
And this is what happens when you get a wise old experienced president like Joe Biden.
But in August, when George Stephanopoulos asked him after everything had already gone to hell in a handbasket, he lied to the American people.
He said, no one told me that.
First I've ever heard of it.
Everyone agreed with me.
He also lied when he said he wouldn't abandon Americans either.
That was 13 days ago.
And that's exactly right.
And let me point out another thing that came to light yesterday from Secretary Austin and General Milley.
Joe Biden has repeatedly said, as did some of those Democrats yesterday, well, it was the unanimous recommendation of the Joint Chiefs that we adhere to the August 31 deadline.
They testified that the White House didn't even seek their opinion until August 25th.
Sean, Kabul fell on August 15th.
Don't you think that those Joint Chiefs, maybe in whole, at least in part, would have recommended something different if they had had that question put to them on August 15th and not on August 25th?
Or maybe, Sean, what if someone had asked them the question a month earlier when Joe Biden was out saying at his press conference that no one envisions a rapid collapse of the governments or a collapse of Kabul, when, in fact, Scott Miller also testified that as he was leaving Afghanistan, forced to leave earlier that week by Joe Biden's withdrawal, that things would go downhill very rapidly and would get very bad very fast.
Repeatedly, they testified yesterday.
Unfortunately, it's all true.
And they even testified yesterday, Sean, as well, that the military began to lay out evacuation plans as early as April and May, immediately after Joe Biden made his fateful decision.
Now, the military is not responsible for non-combatant evacuation operations.
That decision rests with the State Department, which is run by Joe Biden's longtime aide, Tony Blinken.
And we heard yesterday that even when the military began to say, hey, guys, you know, things are going downhill pretty badly here in July or June or May, maybe we should start thinking about an evacuation.
They were repeatedly told by the State Department and the White House, no.
So we had time to get all Americans out and green card holders and their families and the vast majority, the vast majority of the approved and vetted special immigrant visa holders well before August.
And they wouldn't do it because they didn't want Joe Biden's decision to look like the catastrophe that it became clear to the world in August.
Senator, I won't assume that you ever watch my TV show.
I hope you do.
You're a great guest when you're on.
But I've made a very, we built out a very powerful map, and the map gives a timeline.
And the timeline is the Taliban on the march and how they started in southern Afghanistan and how much territory, geographical areas, the provinces that they were taking over in March, the month of March, in the month of April and May and June and July.
And by July, it was, I think, 50 to 60 percent of the country was in the control of the Taliban.
And they made their march straight to Kabul.
Now, it became inevitable as early as April that they were on the march.
Now, there were two things, two options available to the commander-in-chief.
One would have been to use successful drone strikes to push them back and stop their march to Kabul.
The second thing that they could have done, you addressed, and that is that they were told by the military repeatedly and by the intelligence community, and my sources have confirmed, numerous sources have confirmed, the CIA pulled out seven weeks prior to the fall of Kabul.
That speaks volumes.
I am told we did not have any intelligence failure, and there was no failure in military intelligence from people on the ground.
They knew the Afghan army that Joe was bragging about as late as July is some of the best trained, one of the best trained militaries in the world, and they even have an Air Force.
None of that was true because they were collapsing all the way all throughout the entire country, and the Taliban was rolling over them with little to no effort.
So there's no excuse, is there?
No, there's no excuse, Sean.
And I can tell you, because I sit on the intelligence committee and I see this intelligence and I saw it throughout the course of the year.
There was not an intelligence failure about the Taliban's rapid seizure of all 34 provinces.
Now, did the intelligence agency say it's going to happen on the morning of August 15th?
No, of course they didn't.
That's not the way intelligence works.
But I can tell you, starting at the beginning of the year and through July into August, the trend was highly, highly negative.
Every assessment that the intelligence community gave shortened the timeframe in which the Afghan government and the Afghan security forces could fight and stand up to the Taliban.
And that was manifestly clear in the first week of July when Joe Biden went out at that press conference and said that it is highly unlikely that you would see a rapid collapse of the security forces or the Afghan government.
So if we were to release, say, the presidential daily briefings from April, May, June, and July, and intelligence briefings that were given to the president, and we were to make them public, the message to the American people would be very clear that they all did their job.
They made a proper assessment of what was happening on the ground.
That's why the CIA pulled their people out seven weeks earlier.
CIA didn't leave for no reason.
They left because they saw what was coming.
And they were communicating that.
I've been assured by numerous sources that there was no ambiguity here.
They were very clear in saying what was going on on the ground.
Now the question is, why didn't Blinken act?
Why didn't the Defense Secretary act?
Why didn't the chairman of the Joint Chiefs act?
Why didn't they listen to somebody like General Scott Miller, who was on the ground for 10 years there?
And the answer is now, what do we do about the Americans that they abandoned?
What do we do now?
Because they say, by the way, that they have all the leverage.
I don't see that they have any leverage.
Yeah, no leverage whatsoever.
We don't even have an official presence in Afghanistan.
No, all of that intelligence would reveal that anyone paying attention to it knew the situation was deteriorating in Afghanistan rapidly and that President Biden and Tony Blinken had taken no steps to try to stabilize the situation as he announced a withdrawal, as the withdrawal continued, as they forced the closure of Bagram Air Base, and then in the final days.
And all those people who are there, many of them, Sean, I can tell you, as you probably know as well, they were in Afghanistan on August 15th in no small part because of Joe Biden's assurances.
Many of these people are Afghan Americans.
They've long been citizens of the United States, but they still have family there, and they go visit their family in Afghanistan.
The same reason that we go visit our family on the other side of Arkansas to introduce a new grandchild or to care for a sick parent or to attend a family funeral.
And so many people who contacted my office last month said, well, I had tickets to fly on on August 20th or August 28th or September 2nd, in part because our government assured them that Kabul would still be in the hands of the government and the airport would be open and commercial flights would be leaving.
They made their plans based on those assurances and they're stuck there now because of what Joe Biden said.
And what is your best estimate?
Do we, and remember, yesterday it actually came out in your hearing that at one point, oh, there may be as many as 4,000 Americans there.
I just don't know.
But we think it's less than 100.
Now, I've heard estimates from 100 to 300 to 500.
If you include family members, well over 1,000.
Do you have any earthly idea how many people, how many Americans we did abandon?
We know that Blinken admitted thousands of people with green cards.
We know we left a lot of our Afghan allies behind.
Do you have any earthly idea how many Americans we abandoned?
No, so when you include the special immigrant visa approved and vetted Afghans and their families, there's no question it's in the thousands.
I think it's got to be more than 100 right now, Sean.
I mean, they've been saying 100 for several days.
Just a few days ago, we had one of these private charter flights leave with more than 200 American citizens.
How do you have more than 200 American citizens on a flight if there's supposedly fewer than 100?
Okay, now my next question: why would the State Department say if you have a chartered flight, that's fine, but you're not allowed to land in the United States of America?
That was point one.
Point two is: if you get a third-party country that will accept your charter aircraft and allow you to land, that's fine.
But if they do need our permission and need our approval, it will not be forthcoming.
Can you explain that to me?
I cannot explain it, Sean.
And I've heard stories like that on multiple occasions since our presence ended on August 30th.
You have generous philanthropists, you have teams of old battle buddies reuniting.
Well, why is the FBI investigating them?
Did you read that?
I did.
No, you brought that to my attention yesterday, and we're trying to get to the bottom of it.
But to answer the first question is that I think the State Department and the White House don't want to be embarrassed and proven liars once again by allowing charters with hundreds of American citizens to come out.
Rather than admit your mistake and be grateful that there are people that step up to fix the mess you created, their ego is too involved in this, and they'd rather Americans stay caught behind enemy lines with terrorists rather than giving credit to other people for doing the job they should have done.
Is that it?
And that's it.
And trust that their friends in the media will turn the page and start focusing on how they're about to spend $6 trillion to transform America.
And then all this business about Afghanistan will soon be gone and forgotten.
All right, quick break.
More with Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton on the other side.
800-941-Sean, our number.
We'll get to your calls at the bottom of this half hour.
As we continue with Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton is with us.
Last question: Is this idiotic $3.5 trillion debacle new Green Deal going to pass in the Senate?
I'd say that the Democrats are in disarray, Sean.
I don't want to concede that they were ever in array.
The reason why they're not finding the votes for it in the House or the Senate right now is they've begun to see the writing on the wall that that bill is massively unpopular.
What do they expect with the largest tax hike in history and trying to implement the Green New Deal and get Republicans stay firm and not raise the debt ceiling?
That's my question.
There is zero chance that Republicans will supply the votes to Democrats to raise the debt.
Even Mitt Romney, even Lisa Murkowski?
They've all stated that as well.
If the Democrats want to spend $7 trillion on a party line basis, then the Democrats can raise the debt ceiling to accommodate that spending on a party basis.
All by themselves.
They don't need one Republican.
Okay.
Senator, you've been remarkable, and I need to point out, too, to this audience that I know for a fact your office has been responsible in helping to evacuate our fellow Americans without any help from the Biden administration or the State Department or anybody.
And I know you're still working on rescuing Americans that are trapped behind enemy lines.
And I thank you for your efforts.
Thank you, Sean.
800-941, Sean is on number.
We'll continue.
25 now to the top of the hour.
800-941, Sean, if you want to be a part of the program, Althea is in the great state of South Carolina.
Althea, how are you?
Glad you called.
Hi, Sean.
Thank you for taking my call.
I appreciate all that you do, and thank you for being a voice of reason.
I wanted to say if I lied on my job like these lifelong Democrats and Biden does, I wouldn't have a job.
You know, I truly think it's time for some resignations.
And I think our country needs to stand up and say Biden step down.
You know, look, it's the guy's not up to the job.
How else can I say it?
Now, these are the consequences when America gets all freaked out over mean tweets of Donald Trump.
These are the consequences.
You know, a Lincoln project, I hope you're happy.
John Bolton is now saying the Taliban can get nuclear weapons.
Okay, John, you know, you are begging me to put in a good word for you as if I had any sway whatsoever.
Anyway, you get hired.
You told me personally that you supported Trump's foreign policy.
You wouldn't have your own agenda.
Are you happy?
You know, you used to be one of the biggest hawks of all time.
Okay, maybe you didn't like Donald Trump's style.
Maybe he's too aggressive on Twitter.
Okay, how do you like his policies versus these policies?
Now the world can see what a weak, frail, cognitive mess, you know, what it means to the entire world and how we will all suffer as a country by having a weak president.
This is a guy that is weak and radical.
And this is a guy that has given in to the most radical wing of the Democratic Party, which now dominates the Democratic Party.
This is not Joe Lieberman's party anymore.
This is not Scoop Jackson's party anymore.
We're talking about more money than FDR's New Deal and the great society of LBJ combined.
We can't afford it.
It's being money thrown down the tubes.
I mean, if you just go through the shortlist of, you know, supporting illegal immigrants, everything from the new Green Deal, everything from the Bernie Biden manifesto, now a mileage tax.
People aren't paying a lot, you know, of attention to that.
Then you look at now we have the highest cost for a barrel of oil in years and years.
Natural gas prices are going through the roof.
We have more natural resources than all of these countries combined.
And we're artificially reducing the world supply, which automatically raises prices, which is an automatic tax on the American people.
Then they have the gall to tell you, well, if you don't make $400,000 a year, you won't pay an extra penny.
That is a lie too.
Corporations, when they raise their taxes, you're going to pay more by artificially reducing the supply of oil.
It's a simple formula.
Economics 101, supply and demand crisscross.
That will dictate the price.
When you artificially reduce the supply, which is America energy independence, then the net result is higher prices, more to fill your car, more for trucks to put diesel in it.
You'll pay more for heating and cooling your home, and you're going to pay more for every product and service that you buy.
And this idea, that's outrageous, that corporations would pass the cost on to consumers.
That's what Jensaki said.
Jensaki doesn't have a clue about economics 101.
And she's a paid propagandist.
I don't know.
I don't really feel too optimistic.
Arkansas, Stephanie, next, Sean Hannity Show.
Privilege it is to be on your show with you.
Thanks for taking my call.
Thank you.
I wanted to talk to you about, you know, it drives me crazy to listen to Joe Biden.
Every time I do, it seems like my blood pressure goes up.
But I happened to catch him talking about the mounted patrol on the border and kind of accusing them.
I mean, trying them in the court of public opinion before any investigation has started.
The statement that he said that they were strapping the Haitian people and that he promised that those people will pay.
I feel like I'm taking crazy pills, Sean, sometimes.
It's crazy to think that your city that used to be the greatest city in the world, New York City used to be, and you could agree, used to be the greatest city in the world, has had mounted patrol since 1958.
Yeah, by the way, I had friends of mine that were on the mounted patrol unit.
Friends of mine, I'd almost see them like on a weekly basis.
When I actually did the show from New York City, I don't do the show from New York City anymore, very rarely.
By the way, you want to know why?
I am a walking target in New York City.
You think it's safe for me to be walking down the streets of New York like it was prior to where the country is now?
I used to walk the streets of the city every single day.
I won't dare do it today.
That's how sad New York is.
We're waiting for you to come south.
We're waiting for you to call the hospital.
Trust me.
I'm coming.
I swear, I promise.
It may be on my deathbed, but I'm coming.
I promise I'm coming.
It's ridiculous to think that these men put their lives on the line every day and that our president is saying they're going to pay.
It is absolutely ridiculous.
And doing the job that they do is, of course, we know the COVID rate there is ridiculous, but they do it every day.
And they don't ask for fanfare.
They don't ask for everything that's going on.
But to say that our president, that they will pay makes me sick.
Makes me sick.
Do you ever take responsibility for the chaos that's unfolding?
Of course I take responsibility.
I'm president, but it was horrible what to see, as you saw.
To see people treated like they did, horses barely running them over, people being strapped.
It's outrageous.
I promise you, those people will pay.
They will be an investigation underway now, and there will be consequences.
There will be consequences.
It's an embarrassment, but it's beyond an embarrassment.
It's dangerous.
It's wrong.
It sends the wrong message around the world or sends the wrong message at home.
It's simply not who we are.
They will pay, but then they came out and lied again, and they said, oh, well, we weren't prejudging this.
That was not a rush to judgment.
I'm like, okay, how stupid do you think we are?
They just lie with a bandit.
Well, we don't need to COVID test them because if we COVID test them, you know, they're only going to be here a short while anyway.
Meanwhile, Maorcas is now admitting that as high as 20% of illegal immigrants coming into the country have COVID.
I'm like, great.
I have friends at Del River.
There's a super spreader for you.
Yeah, I have friends at Del Rio, and their lives are miserable now.
You know, they can't do anything without being overrun and their city is being destroyed.
And these are American citizens.
And what are we paying taxes for?
I don't quite get any of this.
It's like we're living in a different country now.
It's not the America that I remember.
I don't remember an America that would abandon our fellow citizens.
I don't remember America, an America where, you know, we're going to give a cradle-to-grave, womb-to-the-tomb, socialist society, because Americans knew inherently that capitalism, liberty, and freedom and opportunity proved to be the greatest wealth generator in the history of mankind.
I don't remember an America where you have one party that is openly welcoming illegal immigrants to come into the country.
I went through the list of countries that sell citizenship.
It's something of great value and great worth.
I'm pro-immigration, legal immigration.
Respect our laws, borders, sovereignty.
Simple.
I don't care where you come from.
I don't care what continent you're from.
I don't care what country you're from.
Do it legally.
We need a background check.
We need a health check.
And we need to know you can provide for yourself financially and not be a burden on the American people.
Then once we do all that and you go through the process legally, welcome to America.
We're glad you're here.
But not until then.
Thank you, Sean.
You're a voice of reason in the court.
But why do Democrats want to sneak amnesty in the reconciliation bill?
Because, you know, what Cyprus would charge $2.5 million for, I can become a citizen of Cyprus.
Did you know that?
You can too.
You can become a citizen of Antigua.
You can become a citizen of Belize and St. Kitts and Nevis and Australia and New Zealand.
Some of these countries cost millions and millions of dollars to become citizens.
You can pay for it.
It's something of high value.
America, we don't charge for citizenship.
Maybe we should consider it.
Apparently, these other countries are making a fortune.
If you make an investment into this, this, and this, or if you're willing to build your business in their country, you can get citizenship.
And America, we let people in for free.
Okay.
I'm just asking that people do it legally.
You know, maybe we should get in the business of selling citizenship.
It's working out for every other country.
But then Democrats are offering amnesty.
That becomes something of, can you even put a quantifiable number on it?
If it costs, you know, millions of dollars to get into New Zealand, Australia, Cyprus, Turkey, and these other countries, how much would a citizenship passport cost somebody from another country if they were going to pay for it because they want to be Americans?
I bet we'd make a lot of money.
These other countries are making a lot of money.
Democrats then say, here, we're the good people.
Don't go with those bad Republican people.
They don't want you here.
No, I don't care where you come from.
Just do it legally.
But they're going to offer it for free.
Oh, what?
They're not hoping that these, that when they give somebody something of great value, that there's not going to be a quid and a pro and a quo like Joe is used to his whole life.
So, you know, there's no rational reason while in the middle of a pandemic, you put burdens of COVID testing, vaccine mandates on the American people, and then you just lie and tell the American people, well, they're not going to be here very long when we know that all they're doing is requesting illegal immigrants show up in court, that are not even mandating they show up in court.
And then they're trying to sneak in amnesty provisions.
Well, it sounds to me like they're basically offering people something of great value for free.
And why would they do that?
I don't know.
I think everything's political in their minds.
Sad.
800-94-1 Sean, you want to be a part of the program?
George in Texas.
Hey, George.
How are you doing, Sean?
Love your shows.
First time I've ever called into a talk show, but I am a retired Houston.
I'm a retired Houston police sergeant, and I had an opportunity to go to Afghanistan for two years between 2009 and 2012.
I actually wore the Army uniform, went on missions with them, went outside the wire.
We were primarily tasked with the disruption of the IED networks, but we ended up doing a lot of corruption investigations on Afghan army generals, Afghan police chiefs, politicians, which was outside the realm of our responsibility.
But after just being in Afghanistan for a couple of months, I realized that we were just wasting our time.
The country was so corrupt, they never were going to stand a chance of standing on their own.
And the lowliest army private in the army could tell you that the Afghan army was never going to be able to stand up to that Taliban.
That as soon as we left, it would go right back the way it was before.
And I'll give you an example.
We went on a KLE, which is a key leader engagement, went in the little village, sat down with the villagers.
The senior guy there in the village, we were talking to him.
He goes, hey, look, I think it's great what you're doing here.
We like the water well that you built us.
We like the generator.
We like the food and the medicine and the little cell tower.
And we really appreciate that.
But when you're gone and you will leave, the Taliban are still going to be here.
So they were hedging their bets.
They knew there was a way to do this, by the way.
There really was a way to do it.
And the way to do it was the way Trump planned it.
And that is, it had to first be predicated on a real, credible threat of obliteration.
And Trump, you know what?
They believed Trump, and they knew he'd do it because he did it.
He crushed the caliphate that Joe Biden and Barack Obama let build.
You know, he crushed Solomani.
And that took a lot of nerve to pull that sucker off.
And I know the inside story of it because of my sources.
And it's an amazing story.
I hope it gets told one day.
I wasn't, I'm sorry, but I wasn't surprised that the Taliban took over.
I was surprised at the speed that he did it at.
No, I mean, all of this was predictable.
I mean, we saw it unfolding months and months right before our eyes.
There was no surprises here.
It wasn't one surprise.
No surprises.
No surprises.
All right, my friend.
I got to let you roll.
Appreciate you checking in with us, George.
Thank you for your service as a policeman, and thank you for your service in Afghanistan.
We appreciate it.
We never were going to change their way of life.
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