At least 13 U.S. service members have been killed in an attack on an airport terminal in Kabul, Afghanistan, according to reports. The White House has not confirmed the death toll, but there's no doubt that it's higher than the number of Americans in the airport at the time of the attack.
00:02:53.000I'm excited for tonight's conversation, but I am disturbed by what's been going on, so hopefully we can get all the way to the bottom of it.
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00:03:57.000We will hunt you down and make you pay, Biden said.
00:04:01.000Two suicide bombers and gunmen attacked crowds of Afghans flocking to Kabul's airport Thursday, transforming a scene of desperation into one of horror in the waning days of an airlift for those fleeing the Taliban takeover.
00:04:15.000The attacks killed at least 60 Afghans and 13 U.S.
00:04:21.000I think one of the most harrowing things I heard was a man who was an interpreter for the Marine Corps.
00:04:28.000Called into Fox News and said that after the blast there was a, you know, five-year-old little girl that he was trying to resuscitate and she died in his arms.
00:04:44.000So much of the criticism that has been directed at the Biden administration, which, by the way, they've tried to deflect by conflating criticism for how we are withdrawing with the very sort of non-existent criticism that we should have never left.
00:04:58.000The main argument isn't we shouldn't leave Afghanistan.
00:05:01.000I think most people actually do support that.
00:05:02.000A lot of polling shows that, especially recent polling.
00:05:05.000The criticism is for how we have done it.
00:05:09.000In the week since this has happened, it has been clear that everything they have done has been made up as they go.
00:05:14.000They claim they planned for all contingencies.
00:05:30.000After 20 years, it's like a bad boyfriend.
00:05:33.000So one thing that I hear repeatedly when I criticize or I talk about this on social media or write about it are these kind of, you know, the Twitter Biden stans respond with, oh, could you could you be doing it better?
00:06:13.000But so it's a very dense urban populated area.
00:06:16.000And now we're asking our soldiers and Marines and everyone else over there to essentially ferry these people to safety, despite the fact they're completely surrounded.
00:06:23.000This needs to be stressed to all of the people who are desperate to say it's not Biden's fault.
00:06:30.000First thing I'll give you is when they say it's George W. Bush fault, I go, all right, well, to a certain degree, I would agree with that.
00:06:36.000But Donald Trump had a peace deal and a plan for, for, for the evacuation, for the pullout.
00:06:42.000And yeah, I don't think Joe Biden had a plan.
00:06:45.000No, that's the thing too, is like, look, we can say Trump's plan was garbage.
00:06:57.000And he has shown repeatedly, he has no problem overturning Trump executive actions, Trump policies, or anything else related to Trump.
00:07:03.000He ran on the fact that he would overturn everything.
00:07:05.000So the idea that, cause he's been striking this bizarre tone where it's paradoxical, where he says, no, yeah, I made the decision because I care about America also.
00:07:23.000You should not, in the middle of the night, skip out on your strategic air force base, which is, I believe, about 45 miles outside of Kabul.
00:07:33.000So, I mean, the first thing I started reading when I'm reading from the opinions of national security experts, military experts, in these various op-eds, Why did they, in the middle of the night, abandon the base, along with our resources, our weapons, just the Blackhawk helicopters, and then say, okay, now for everybody who's still there, if you want to leave, go to the airport.
00:08:00.000I'm genuinely confused, because let me just stress this point.
00:08:05.000Either they're really, really dumb, or they did it on purpose.
00:08:09.000This is something we keep coming back to where you, you know, the old saying is never attribute malice to that which can be explained simply by stupidity.
00:08:18.000But you're looking at this is how we left military aircraft, which now the Taliban have and they're almost certainly going to sell that to the Chinese or Russians to disseminate and study and make their own versions.
00:09:37.000That's the other thing to point out is that he keeps saying, I am tied to what Trump did.
00:09:41.000They already blew through the deadline established by the Trump administration.
00:09:44.000And the point we keep coming back to is Trump's plan didn't involve shuttering Bagram, getting the military out first, and then abandoning U.S.
00:09:56.000It's hard for me to believe they're this dumb, to be completely honest, because you know that if you pull the military out before the civilians and you abandon an Air Force base, you know this is going to happen.
00:10:07.000So, I mean, look, we keep coming back.
00:11:43.000Biden also claimed today that he was advised by his top commanders and military advisors that Bagram could be left because it didn't provide much of a strategic output.
00:11:52.000So like again, I don't want to jump on the impeach train or whatever too soon, but at this point there need to be hearings.
00:11:57.000Especially now that American blood has been shed, which I just want to clarify.
00:12:01.000One of the more really irritating and insidious narratives that has been kind of bubbling up in the press right now is Well, you know, not a lot of Americans have died.
00:13:35.000But I have a feeling, like, there's a chance that we're gonna at least just taper off here.
00:13:40.000It's not gonna escalate to that point.
00:13:42.000And I think it was me being naively hopeful, you know what I mean?
00:13:45.000Well, but also, like I was saying before the show too, the Taliban, I think the Taliban wants to be recognized legitimately as the government of Afghanistan, so they're willing to play ball here and make sure these people get out safely, but there's lots of rogue elements with explosives that want to kill.
00:13:59.000Well, ISIS-K has claimed responsibility for the bombing today, which apparently ISIS-K is the off-branch of the old ISIS, but to your point, I think a lot of us are going to have to prepare ourselves emotionally, mentally, spiritually, whatever, for if there are Americans left behind, which I guess I should add right now, the White House is very clearly signaling that they themselves believe Americans will be left behind.
00:14:20.000They will be captured and we will see happen to them most likely what ISIS has done to their prisoners.
00:14:25.000They line them up in their orange suits and they make propaganda out of them.
00:14:30.000My friends, I hope you are prepared for the next story we have for you and I hope you're prepared to sit, I hope you're sitting down for this.
00:14:38.000With the amount of people that are estimated to be trapped in Afghanistan, be it Afghan allies, even the citizens, but American citizens especially, who we have a responsibility to as our, as our, you know, Our brothers and sisters, you know, as well as our Afghan allies for sure, and to humanity in general, there's estimates between 1,000-2,000 at the low end, where they're like, oh there's about 1,000 or 2,000 left of American citizens we've got to evacuate.
00:15:01.000Some are saying that it was, you know, NBC News reported 15,000, then they evacuated about 4,500, so it might be 10,000.
00:15:08.000When we hear, and I want you to remember this, that there are American hostages, I want you to remember what the Biden administration did from Politico.
00:15:18.000officials provided Taliban with names of Americans and Afghan allies to evacuate.
00:16:03.000And the President essentially confirmed it, saying there may be such lists being given to the Taliban, but I'm not sure.
00:16:08.000Which is, again, that doesn't inspire a lot of confidence in me that the Commander-in-Chief apparently doesn't know what's going on over there.
00:16:13.000We've seen the Taliban beating people.
00:16:19.000The Taliban can claim whatever they want, but they... Look, the leadership, like you mentioned just previously, Ian, that they want to be seen as... They do want to be seen as a legitimate government.
00:16:28.000They're calling themselves the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan.
00:16:31.000They don't want to be just this rogue element, the Taliban.
00:17:50.000Do you think that the Taliban checkpoints are legitimate checkpoints where they're going to be like, oh, yes, an American passport, right this way, sir.
00:17:56.000Or they're gonna be like, we got an American, okay, right that way, sir.
00:17:59.000Maybe, to your point, they might for the Americans, because they don't want to start another match.
00:18:04.000Who knows if Biden will actually make good on his threat, that ISIS-K will be met with swift retribution.
00:18:10.000Those Afghan allies, those people are as good as dead.
00:18:12.000The Taliban will make an example out of them.
00:18:57.000Marine, and one of the first things ISIS did when they came to power and started marauding through the Middle East is they killed anyone who worked with the United States Marines.
00:19:02.000So a lot of guys my brother worked with are now dead.
00:19:16.000Like we can say, we're crossing our fingers that the Taliban has enough control, they're going to say, get these Americans out of here before we cause more trouble.
00:19:23.000But this list of Afghan citizens who worked with them?
00:20:38.000People were willing to elect a man who was old and incapable simply because they hated Trump.
00:20:44.000And I mentioned this the other day, I genuinely believe there would at least be adults in the room like, okay, well, you know, this happened, but there's gonna be some adults in the room who are at least gonna be like, you know, when Grandpa falls asleep, I'll take this over and we'll finish up these documents and get a plan ready and just, you know, wheelchair him into the sun with a little burlap blanket on his lap.
00:21:04.000And now I kind of understand what's really going on with this administration.
00:21:07.000That Biden's at the meeting, and he mutters and stumbles, and they all just kind of look at each other and go, whatever, because all I care about is me.
00:21:14.000Where's Kamala Harris when all this goes down?
00:22:19.000Well, okay, Catholic sex abuse is such a clear-cut thing that the Church should be fighting.
00:22:26.000I'm a Roman Catholic, by the way, so I'm not just dumping on the Catholic Church.
00:22:29.000The fact that it is struggling to deal with what is clearly a vile and evil thing, and it's turned into a like, you know, it's difficult sometimes.
00:24:17.000And I'm telling you, if Americans are left and they're captured and they're made into propaganda tools and killed and executed, you don't weather that.
00:24:39.000Somebody said, don't forget to include Pelosi, because if you get Kamala, I don't see grounds for impeaching Kamala.
00:24:48.000Well, it turns into this whole weird thing where the Senate is already split, so I don't even think she gets the Vice President, because that's a lopsided vote.
00:24:54.000That's a whole weird thing, that's a parliamentarian.
00:24:56.000But we get into the issue, so what is the political angle?
00:24:59.000I can't, look, the moral angle we can simply, maybe simplistically say, they're just bad people.
00:25:05.000Which I think is fairly true at this point.
00:25:07.000But the political angle is like, what are you doing?
00:25:44.000So politically, why are they doing this?
00:25:46.000There's no upside to what they're doing.
00:25:48.000There's no rhyme or reason unless chaos is the answer.
00:25:51.000Because Biden is incompetent, he is well past his abilities to do this in his age, and the people around him are just sitting there waiting to scoop up the scraps.
00:26:04.000It's almost like there's no one there to actually support administration.
00:26:07.000That's why I say Trump got anti-elected.
00:26:10.000Because this is not an administration.
00:26:12.000They're not stepping up and saying, Biden, let me take care of this.
00:26:34.000Glenn Beck travels to the Middle East, shares updates from Afghanistan rescue efforts, and photos featuring scores of Afghan Christians boarding private planes.
00:26:44.000Glenn Beck is an extremely wealthy man.
00:27:23.000I could not imagine, you know, being somebody who served over there, who met a lot of good people, who risked their necks to help you, Secure the city, you know, stop terror attacks, and then when you leave, our government says, oh, that guy you knew and worked with for a few years?
00:27:49.000The Blaze reports, and The Blaze is Glenn Beck's outlet.
00:27:52.000Conservative firebrand Glenn Beck and the Nazarene Fund's incredible efforts in rescuing Afghan Christian refugees are paying off, and Beck and the Nazarene Fund together have been able to free scores and scores of people from war-torn Afghanistan.
00:28:07.000At the time of this reporting, the Nazarene Fund has raised more than $30 million to aid in the rescue of Afghan refugees.
00:28:13.000In an early Wednesday morning Instagram update, Beck wrote, I cannot specify for international relations and security reasons exactly where I am today, but I am in the Middle East at the home base of operations for the Nazarene Fund.
00:28:25.000I will try to join radio podcast right at the top of 9am on The Blaze.
00:28:29.000So I'm not sure he's actually in Afghanistan himself.
00:28:33.000He may be at the Ingestion Center, which could be only a few hundred miles away, just over a border or something.
00:30:38.000No, we respect them because they're the ones who stood up and said, you know, we're here to serve the country in good faith.
00:30:43.000We were angry with the establishment machine, the neocons, the big military-industrial complex, sending our brothers and sisters, men and women in uniform, our children into harm's way, and for what?
00:30:56.000And so right now, it is the worst of the worst example of this.
00:32:26.000If you did not know that he is one of the worst people on foreign policy, who's been wrong about every major foreign policy issue since the 1970s.
00:32:46.000Actually, I can't remember, it was a guest on your own show who was talking about this, but one of the things that the press did, and a quick sidebar, I will say one thing that's really impressed me, as much as anything about Afghanistan has impressed me, the press coverage has actually been really good.
00:32:58.000It's been thorough, it's been damning, it's been Completely just straightforward.
00:33:49.000Because they made, oh my god, you know what happened in Japan?
00:33:52.000Every single day, they terrified people into voting for anything that was Orange Man.
00:33:58.000I like to use the plumber analogy, but I think at this point we should use the mechanic analogy.
00:34:03.000I'd like you to imagine that your car breaks down, and you have two mechanics before you, and one guy is this tall, loud-mouthed orange guy going, it's a disgusting horse car, it's nasty, I hate it, but I'll fix it, I'll make it run, your car will be great.
00:34:18.000Jeez, and then you look over there's another guy and he's asleep and when you're like yo, are you gonna fix my car?
00:34:22.000He goes turn it on a shop at a pressure and you're like I'm gonna go with that guy who just said something random some random gibberish sentence I don't even know what he said and I'm gonna trust it and then you get in your car You're driving on the street and then you're coming to a red light and you press the brake down nothing happens and you're like what's happening?
00:34:36.000I'm so surprised that I chose the guy who couldn't even speak and now my car crashes But that's the thing.
00:35:24.000And I can tell you right now, Biden is not the man he was in 2012 when he filleted Paul Ryan during the vice presidential debate.
00:35:30.000But even beyond that, one of the greatest tricks in American politics is that Joe Biden rebranded as his kindly old ice cream eating uncle.
00:35:39.000He's been one of the meanest knife fighters in the Senate.
00:36:33.000And you know, all the things they would say about Trump, it's like, the big problem is, listen man, to all the Trump haters, I'm like, I hear you on a lot of it, but bro, when you come to me, like, I would sit down with someone and like, why do you dislike Trump?
00:36:46.000Seven out of the 10 things they said were fake news.
00:36:49.000Did you see what happened with Shinzo Abe when he's like just dumping he's making us look bad I'm like oh you mean when he did what Shinzo did first?
00:36:57.000Like Shinzo dumped the food in so Trump said okay and then followed suit?
00:37:37.000And it ended up being about a 13 page document if you print it out.
00:37:40.000And I stopped after 2017 because it was too much work.
00:37:43.000There's so much nonsense to the point and even now people are continuing some of it.
00:37:48.000Drawing a blank on his name, he's a presidential historian who works for NBC, is still railing against Melania Trump's renovation of the Rose Garden.
00:37:55.000Talking about how she made into some weird sort of fascist icon and she's just returning to the 1962 Kennedy blueprint.
00:38:01.000And he's like, she's destroyed with Jacqueline Kennedy.
00:38:04.000Remember when CNN reported that Trump's salt and pepper shaker was larger than everyone else's?
00:39:28.000You got the good guys and the bad guys and tonight Don Lemon's gonna take on parents who love their children and don't want them to be masked.
00:39:34.000Like last night he was like, just because you have kids doesn't mean you should have them.
00:39:39.000Just because you have kids doesn't mean you should have.
00:39:40.000Yeah, I'm not making this up, by the way.
00:39:42.000He was railing against- Like, the state should take your kids from you?
00:39:43.000He was railing against parents who are anti-having their kids masked for eight hours a day in school, and his big- the big line that people at Mediaite wrote about and stuff was, just because you have kids doesn't mean you should.
00:40:23.000He like walks out and everyone's like pointing and he's like, he looks over and there's a present and he opens it and it's a folding chair.
00:41:28.000Honestly, If you told me in 2016 that MSNBC would be the slightly more reputable network than CNN during the Trump era, I would have said you're crazy.
00:41:37.000But I have to say it, MSNBC actually was more reputable for all those years.
00:41:42.000But all this kind of seems almost beside the point.
00:41:44.000But this goes to, we have the president who we have now because people were told they need to be terrified of the other guy because the stuff he did was dangerous and going to get everyone killed.
00:41:53.000And the irony now is we're looking at a situation where a lot of people God forbid, you know, just keep praying that doesn't happen in Afghanistan.
00:43:24.000Yeah, what was that? New Day or no, that's CNN. That's CNN.
00:43:28.000That's America's newsroom. Yeah, they do a great job. I like Chris Wallace
00:43:31.000I know a lot of people don't care for Chris Wallace on the right after the last election
00:43:34.000I like Chris Wallace. I think he's straight. He's straight with the news
00:43:36.000And cnn is anything but it's hard to find, you know, I I I have this thing on my Instagram from a couple years ago.
00:43:43.000I think I called it the CNN challenge.
00:43:46.000And what you do is you turn on Fox News and then see what they're reporting and then switch to CNN and see if they're reporting on substantive world news.
00:44:00.000And so the challenge is, when you put on CNN, or you put on Fox News, what would I get?
00:44:04.000So I'm like, oh, there's protests in Iran.
00:44:07.000A week later, it's a hurricane, a large storm is coming to the U.S.
00:47:14.000Mitt Romney is such a difficult person because he's such, I think, he's a decent man, a good man, and a seasoned and successful executive, but he always carried himself like he was embarrassed to be a Republican.
00:47:27.000Like he was always kind of apologizing.
00:48:04.000You see this with cable news and even newspapers.
00:48:08.000The hallowed former GOP strategist who hasn't been a Republican or done anything conservative for the last 30 years, but they're trotted out to say something bad about Republicans.
00:48:17.000Because, you know, blue on red, that's expected.
00:48:25.000Oh, Adam Kinzinger, a Republican, said... Come on, does anybody really... What they're doing with Bill Kristol and these neocons who are now all of a sudden cheerleaders of the Democratic Party... Jennifer Rubin is one of the best, right?
00:48:58.000Then Trump, you know, gets voted out and they go, well, Trumpism is still the Republican
00:49:02.000party so we're with the Democrats, I guess.
00:49:04.000Yeah, now you have them going on being like, well, we're gonna have to save Gavin Newsom in California.
00:49:08.000I'm like, what part of this is conservative?
00:49:10.000Steve Schmidt is marched out to this day on MSNBC regularly in the Chiron, it says, former GOP strategist, and he comes out and he's like, the Republican Party is now the party of fascism, blah, blah, blah.
00:49:21.000Former GOP strategist, he hasn't done anything successful since Arnold Schwarzenegger was re-elected in 2006.
00:49:27.000He's dining out on that credit for almost as long as we've been in Afghanistan.
00:49:32.000And yet they just pump him out because this is, this is what they want.
00:49:35.000These are the Republicans that who are Republicans.
00:49:39.000I would not put Mitt Romney in the same category with Steve Schmidt.
00:49:41.000But there's that weird strain of, like, embarrassed.
00:49:44.000Like, oh, I know, my rank and file are loud and they wear red hats.
00:49:59.000The entirety of the Republican Party's thrown doing nothing.
00:50:02.000And then you get a small handful of people who actually stand up.
00:50:04.000And if I'm gonna look at the majority of the Republican Party as, you know, on their best day, a speed bump for Democrats, and then I look at, you know, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert, Rand Paul, Thomas Massey, who actually stand up for stuff, and Hawley, and a few others.
00:50:21.000I'm like, they're not the same as the Republicans.
00:50:25.000Arizona Democratic Senator Kristen Sinema is more reliable for what I want, and she's the Democrat.
00:50:32.000I'm like, they're actually more aligned with me than a lot of these other supposed celebrity Republicans who get trotted out on cable news to go, Trump is bad.
00:50:40.000Tucker called Lindsey Graham a leftist.
00:51:14.000The Republicans are suit-wearing, stodgy, and unhip, and they're not with it.
00:51:18.000So you get all these Republicans who are desperate to make the New York Times happy because they want to be cool, but they'll never be cool.
00:51:24.000Nobody likes being hated, but it just kind of blows my mind that a lot of these Republicans forget you've got like 50% of the country, if not more, behind you.
00:51:32.000You don't have to win over that other half that despises you.
00:53:25.000They have great, what's the word I'm looking for, discipline when it comes to sticking together.
00:53:29.000That's part of the reason why people like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez stick out, because they don't march the party line, which is different.
00:53:36.000But the fact that Republicans don't like their own party, I think that might be contributed to the fact that the Republican Party has been feckless for years, that it seems embarrassed of itself.
00:53:44.000But I also suspect a large part of it might have to do with the fact that conservative voters tend to be highly individualistic and they're not beholden to a tribe or that sort of loyalty might see from the team that believes in sort of like the collective, like the Borg floating through space.
00:54:13.000I think even in during good, well, yeah, even during good years, I think you would still find high unfavorability with Republicans, because I think part of being a conservative is not being a part of a tribe or beholden to it.
00:54:23.000So if you got some qualms with it, you're going to say it.
00:54:26.000And now I don't want to simplify it and be like, ah, Republican Party's fine.
00:54:28.000Republicans are just like, no, Republican Party's clearly got, I think Kevin McCarthy's way in and over his head.
00:54:33.000Way, the worst man for the moment right now.
00:54:35.000I think 97% of the Republican Party is just, it's like, it's dead air.
00:55:21.000Yeah, no, like, you even get into the area of... I'm not even trying to litigate what she said, whether it was right or wrong, but the fact that Republicans didn't say, look, I don't agree with it, but don't you dare, because we'll come for your anti-Semites.
00:55:33.000And that's the thing, too, with what Marjorie Greene-Taylor said, you can make a very clear argument that it was offensive, but the stuff that comes out of Ilhan Omar's mouth and Rashida Tlaib is straight up anti-Semitic.
00:56:38.000I hate to use the word because it's so overused by the press, and I was concerned trolling Republicans, but Trump did not have the temperament for the most important job in the world, not the country.
00:56:49.000I did not like his opponents, so I certainly didn't vote for them either.
00:57:02.000Um, but my point that I'm trying to get at after, you know, telling everyone my dirty secret is that actually my dirty secret, oh god, my dirty secret in 2016 is I vote for Evan McMullin.
00:57:25.000I didn't particularly care for the guy.
00:57:27.000I was trying to register my protest that neither one of these candidates Deserves my vote because I don't think either one of them deserves the office.
00:57:33.000Now what I can say is the Trump presidency was way better than I thought it was going to be.
00:57:37.000I think we, we being conservatives, benefited from the fact that he did surround himself with a lot of good people.
00:57:43.000He was actually great for pro-life issues.
00:58:13.000I didn't vote for the guy, but I think I would prefer that because what's happening now, I don't think would have happened under Trump's watch.
00:58:57.000That's why what's happening is happening.
00:58:59.000One of the symptoms of dementia is outbursts of rage, because people who are losing their mind get frustrated because they're desperately trying to hold on.
00:59:08.000And so, like, imagine you're having a conversation, and in your mind you're thinking, like, I would like to talk about, you know, my dog Fido, and then you're talking and all of a sudden your mind goes blank, and you get angry now.
00:59:20.000So you look at some of these things where Biden has snapped on reporters, Remember when he went to that guy and he was, he started yelling at him over and over again?
00:59:29.000It's because he gets asked a question and he, and he's like, it's like you mentioned, you know, back in 2012, how he, you know, he tore up, uh, Paul Ryan.
00:59:38.000And now imagine being that guy who's, who's winning, winning these elections for decades.
00:59:44.000And now you're sitting, you're unable to speak at the podium.
00:59:46.000You're going to get, you're going to get frustrated and angry.
00:59:48.000I only think I would say maybe slight pushback on that as it goes back to my earlier statement about we have a track record.
00:59:54.000Biden has been snapping on reporters for decades.
00:59:56.000That's actually how he usually interacts with an uncomfortable or unfriendly question.
01:00:01.000He's always been an expletive that I won't say on the air.
01:00:09.000This goes back to what I was saying earlier, the idea that he was able to rebrand himself as this kindly old man and everyone went along with him.
01:01:32.000And they said they didn't want a Blackhawk down moment.
01:01:35.000They didn't want to send in... This is like the Iranian hostage thing, which was the biggest, it was 52 people, 52, and already 13 people have been killed.
01:02:17.000I know people keep saying that when they try to say the plural, it's Afghan.
01:02:19.000Plenty of civilian Afghans, I believe, died in the event.
01:02:21.000Imagine serving on a ship with a captain who's, you know, let's just call him sporadic.
01:02:28.000And you're like, I'm here to do my duty.
01:02:30.000And then the people who are on shore are like, Hey, we're going to put this crazy old man up in there.
01:02:34.000I can't, I can't imagine what it must feel like for a lot of these guys who are like, I'm going to do my best, but they know deep down they're in trouble.
01:02:41.000Because if Biden's can control your ship, he fires at the enemy ship and he misses.
01:02:45.000And he does thinks about how to do it again.
01:02:47.000He's got people and then your ship gets hit with the, with the.
01:02:51.000They didn't think about any of this when, look, Joe Biden campaigned to be president.
01:03:30.000By the way, I mean, him being president the way he is, is like, you ever see that old Twilight Zone episode where the guy's finally alone to read all the books he wants, but he breaks his glasses?
01:03:39.000You spend your entire life Most of your entire life.
01:03:42.000You spent a lot of your life trying to be president, and you finally get it, and it turns out you were too incompetent to even execute the basic duties of your office.
01:04:17.000Kamala Harris, what if she comes out, because 25th Amendment requires the Vice President to come out and say the President is not competent, and then Pelosi set up that panel.
01:07:03.000Oh, I wouldn't want to be President Tim.
01:07:04.000I don't want to be President, but I need military strategy at the top of the game right now.
01:07:09.000I just want to be Vice President, just travel the world, shake hands, try new food, be great.
01:07:12.000We'd be better off with like, you know, Rick Smith from Dubuque, Iowa, who's like a local plumber.
01:07:20.000It's the old Buckley saying, he's like, you'd be better off being ruled by three random names from the phone book than most of these eggheads.
01:07:37.000Not only that, but some of the low-ranking guys in Afghanistan could have done a way better job.
01:07:41.000And I imagine that's got to be really frustrating to be deployed on the ground knowing and sitting there being like, why are they doing this?
01:07:46.000They're understaffed and they're under-resourced over there.
01:07:48.000They are working with what they have, which is not great.
01:07:51.000And the other thing too, I don't think a lot of people have been talking about this sort of psychological angle to this.
01:07:55.000The guys who are there now know that they're working on the final chapter to a big foreign policy failure.
01:08:01.000They know everything they're doing has been a buildup to failure, and they've been tasked now with trying to get the last Americans out while surrounded by the Taliban.
01:08:08.000Can you imagine what that job is even like?
01:08:10.000And then losing at least 13 of your colleagues all in the same day.
01:08:13.000I mean, this is... None of this had to happen to me.
01:08:18.000This was all done by a president and a White House that doesn't know what it's doing, or, as some people have suggested, is actually just malicious.
01:08:25.000I've had those jobs, man, where you're like, my boss is dumb, and they don't know how this stuff works.
01:08:30.000There's a lot of jobs you'll get where the manager is hired externally, and so they've never actually worked, say, the soda machine or the cash register.
01:08:37.000And they're sitting there trying to tell you how it works, and you're like, dude, you have no idea what you're talking about, right?
01:08:42.000I could not imagine what it must be like to be deployed in Afghanistan, and knowing what's going on in the country, knowing how the people react, knowing what the Taliban is, and then getting these orders where you're like, You want me to do what?
01:08:53.000Because this is your life on the line.
01:08:55.000This ain't a cheeseburger or a cash register.
01:08:58.000Marines feel like seeing Afghans, possible Afghan allies, UK nationals, people with their papers, and they can't take them or go out and defend them because they've been ordered to stay put.
01:09:09.000The 82nd Airborne has been ordered not to go outside of Kabul to save Americans and other people, while the British paratroopers are going in and the French Special Forces have been going into these sort of daring night raids all over and the Americans just have to sit there.
01:09:23.000I can't imagine how demoralizing, how much of a shock that must be.
01:09:28.000As an American, like look, as civilians, we know the idea that Americans being left behind is such a... I never thought that this could happen.
01:09:37.000I can't imagine what this is like for a guy who's dedicated his life to being in the armed services.
01:09:41.000Would it be like, you can't go out and get those Americans?
01:10:07.000I mean obviously the US troops and the loss of life is the biggest thing, but I'm just thinking like, if they didn't abandon the Afghan security forces the way they did, Afghanistan could have been successful.
01:10:21.000They could, in fact, you know, we've talked with other vets on the show where they said something like, you draw down, you know, the overall majority, 90 plus percent of American forces and leave a few commanders or, you know, strategy, logistics, with some air support, some drones, and it's done.
01:10:36.000We get out, that minimal support can help keep things secure.
01:10:39.000And then I look at what happened with evacuating the Air Force bases in the middle of the night, not informing the Afghan security forces.
01:10:46.000And I wonder if Biden did this properly, would there be a secure Afghanistan right now for their people?
01:10:54.000I mean, maybe a big problem that the US military is also reported is that the Afghan government is extremely corrupt and susceptible to bribes and looking at their way.
01:11:04.000Another problem that I know a lot of military have reported is that the Afghans that they've tried to train the training has been very difficult because there's a lot of lack of discipline.
01:11:23.000Because they don't want to do it anymore.
01:11:24.000So I don't know if Afghanistan would still be standing with just a few things differing.
01:11:29.000I mean, it's not like there was a lack of spending or a lack of arms or a lack of training.
01:11:35.000So maybe it would stay in, maybe it would fall.
01:11:38.000But the White House keeps saying, we plan for all contingencies.
01:11:42.000Apparently, Afghanistan falling to the Taliban was not one of those contingencies.
01:11:45.000And how you overlooked that, despite everything you were being told by your guys on the ground about how difficult it is to train them and how corrupt the government is.
01:13:01.000I'm not trying to get all, you know, Blue Lives Matter or whatever, but like, this is a very sort of strong culture in America of, you know, you pull over, you respect, dot, dot, dot, and you have that interaction.
01:13:11.000I have never once been tempted to slide a cop a $50 bill or anything.
01:13:15.000I think that would end very poorly for me.
01:14:01.000Because of Hillary Clinton getting away with the servers.
01:14:03.000I mean, I don't know if the two are generally connected, but I will say one thing that's really demoralizing and easy to give into anger is the expectation that people like Hunter and Hillary will never see justice.
01:14:15.000They break laws that anyone else would go away for.
01:15:04.000Right after the Articles of Confederation were signed, big, you know, I don't know if you know much about the Farmers' Rebellion that caused them, basically they had to centralize command of taxes because the states were taxing the farmers.
01:15:14.000The farmers didn't have the money to pay, so they revolted.
01:17:30.000And that famous letter from Thomas Jefferson about the Tree of Liberty comes from Shays' Rebellion.
01:17:34.000But at the very least, for the Capitol rioters, I'm still stuck on the sort of preferred term, insurrectionist, because I'm not sure if that's explicitly accurate.
01:17:44.000But at the very least, assaulting a police officer is a crime.
01:17:47.000A lot of officers were assaulted that day.
01:17:49.000I know the one was not beaten to death with a fire extinguisher.
01:17:52.000I'm still kind of amazed at the amount of false information that came out.
01:17:56.000Which, I mean, I guess I'm not amazed because when you have chaotic events, you get a lot of conflicting reports.
01:18:01.000Officer Sicknick, according to the D.C.
01:18:03.000Medical Examiner, did not succumb to any injuries, internal or external, suffered that day.
01:18:08.000But there is ample footage of people beating police officers, shoving them, the guy getting crushed in the door.
01:18:15.000Maybe you could pardon all the trespassing charges and then just, if people were violent, bust them for that.
01:18:20.000If they broke windows, bust them for that.
01:18:23.000You can see there was lots of damage done to the Capitol building.
01:18:26.000The one thing, I mean, it's a tricky issue for me to discuss because a lot of the legal ramifications and legalese that's involved in it.
01:18:35.000But one thing that has always struck me, I was watching it and I used to, when I was living in D.C.
01:18:40.000when it happened, I wasn't at the Capitol.
01:18:42.000I was a couple blocks away where I lived.
01:18:50.000One thing that struck me, though, is I thought for sure watching that whole unfold, the crowds, the nervousness, the screaming, the breaking through doors, the shattering windows.
01:18:59.000I was convinced that I was about to see live streamed Kent State 2.0.
01:19:27.000Whoever trained those police officers in, you know, violent response, I think should get an award.
01:19:32.000Because I thought for sure there was going to be guns were going to be drawn, people were, you know, because they were getting... The cops were letting them in.
01:19:38.000Some cops were, not all of them though, but especially when you had like that one part, uh, where the speaker's chamber, it goes in where Babbitt jumped in.
01:19:45.000I mean, they clearly were not letting him into that.
01:19:47.000That's where they were, they were, they were pushing against each other.
01:20:00.000What I'm saying is, There was this push into like one of the center doors, and then you get like the SWAT, the cops with special, they're shoving, people are getting smashed inside the, you know, rotunda or whatever.
01:20:11.000And then you had doors off to the side.
01:20:33.000We can kind of ferry people, get it out of your system, get out of the building.
01:20:36.000As opposed to, you know, you're not going to know Lord, the ring stand there with your shield and try to do a battle to the death, especially when you're grossly outnumbered.
01:20:43.000I don't know if we need to litigate all of this, but I just keep thinking about the day and the sort of chaos and confusion and I'm still amazed that there were not more like itchy trigger fingers.
01:20:54.000I think that's a huge blessing and I'm amazed.
01:20:56.000Again, I'm not trying to mitigate Babbitt's death or anything or make any legal judgment on that, but I'm surprised that there was one death.
01:21:20.000I'm surprised it didn't spiral more out of control, is what I'm saying.
01:21:22.000It is now definitive it was not an insurrection, as much as we were always saying it wasn't.
01:21:27.000The FBI came out and said that there's no evidence of coordination, not from the present or anybody else, and of the groups that actually planned on breaking in, they had no actual plans.
01:21:34.000But does that, and see this is why I was saying earlier, it's difficult to discuss because does that, I don't know if that negates the legal term for insurrection just because... No one's been charged with insurrection.
01:22:42.000Yeah, but like, no, no, I was saying like, the Zuccotti Park stuff, like a lot of that is just, you get this mentality, let's do it and be legends!
01:23:23.000So no, you can, you can, with the riot, you can break it down to, was it insurrection or was it just people got caught up and things got out of control?
01:23:31.000I think more of the latter is what it seems to me.
01:23:34.000The thing that I keep coming back to is I'm just surprised it didn't spiral more.
01:23:37.000With the lack of communication, half the cops apparently walked out and just like walked home.
01:23:41.000Some people walked out and some people were hospitalized.
01:23:44.000It's like, there was no communication.
01:23:45.000Half the cops didn't know what was happening.
01:23:47.000A lot of, about 140 police officers suffered various injuries.
01:23:51.000And yet, like, there wasn't shootings.
01:23:53.000There weren't people, you know, don't you move.
01:25:25.000There was very, very, very little violence.
01:25:27.000The Ashley Babbitt thing is terrifying, but she was, like, forcing her way, it looked like, into the inner chamber.
01:25:31.000And, you know, they're defending the Capitol.
01:25:33.000None of these, those people, basically, the cops and the people kept it pretty civil.
01:25:38.000So I think we should move on from this.
01:25:40.000My fear is that the Patriot Act, you know, terror investigators want to use this as an example to, like, use their state tools of spying on the American people.
01:25:52.000They're putting, they put the list together.
01:25:54.000They're going after the communications of Trump supporters.
01:25:56.000But it's, that doesn't make, that's not the liberty angle right now.
01:26:09.000Imagine if Joe Biden came out and announced a formal pardon for all of those involved in January 6th, and then all of the Democrats would come out supporting him, being like, you know, we agree this is the right thing to do.
01:26:20.000But how would that manifest in the culture?
01:26:21.000Yeah, people would start shivering because they have so much energy and they don't have anywhere to direct it.
01:26:25.000They'd have to start meditating, you know?
01:26:58.000No, it's interesting, though, watching some again.
01:27:00.000I think a lot of the international reporting on Afghanistan has been pretty sharp and very sort of like uncompromising.
01:27:06.000But it's been predictably disgusting watching how a lot of commentators and cable news talking heads.
01:27:13.000I mentioned this because of January 6th specifically, you have people like Joy Reid, who've been trying to redirect attention from Afghanistan to January 6th, being like, we should talk about the terrorists at home.
01:27:42.000So I don't, I would say don't let them distract.
01:27:44.000You can do both things at the same time.
01:27:46.000For me right now, my obvious interests lie in Afghanistan.
01:27:48.000That, to me, seems to be the more pressing and horrifying and real, you know, real and clear and present danger.
01:27:56.000The reality is that Afghanistan is a distraction for the fact that they should put out a list of Trump supporters and they're going after private communications and the Fascism is coming to the United States.
01:29:21.000Like, I mean, look, the stuff that they're going to dig up from these activists costs money for campaigns, and now they're just taking it all.
01:29:29.000But why would they go through this trouble when they already have stuff like Facebook in their pocket helping them with all their get-out-the-room stuff?
01:29:33.000They don't understand how Trump rallies people, and they want to understand his private metrics.
01:29:37.000They want all of his data going back from April until after the election, on the election, meaning they want Trump, all communications between all these different government agencies and all the people who worked on the Trump campaign.
01:29:49.000They want to know every detail of his campaign.
01:29:53.000I know it's not the point, but I did laugh when I saw the list of people because it said all Trump children except for Tiffany.
01:30:09.000They're going after all of them but Tiffany.
01:30:11.000That's a scary thing, though, man, that list.
01:30:13.000To me, it seems just like kind of a desperate fishing expedition.
01:30:15.000They're looking for something damming, so they're just... But to your point about Pressler, like, what does he have to do with any of this?
01:30:20.000Oh, but I mean, a bunch of people weren't even there on January 6th.
01:30:24.000And what does their data going back from April have to do with the insurrection?
01:30:58.000You know, we get to this point, I think, when we see 37.2% of the country want to secede, have their regional union secede from the greater country.
01:31:07.000And then you see that the Democrats are willing to pull out, producing a list to actually spy on American communications and rival campaigns.
01:31:14.000I'm like, man, we certainly crossed that Rubicon some time ago.
01:31:16.000You know, it's always surprised me and not surprised me.
01:31:19.000I found it so amusing during the Trump years, all that the mountain of news stories and commentary about how he he's him and the Russians stole the election with Facebook memes.
01:31:30.000You know, Facebook was weaponized against us.
01:31:35.000The glowing thousand plus word profiles you wrote after 2008 and 2012 about the Obama campaign's amazing Facebook strategy, how they work directly with Facebook to figure out where to find, I don't want to say not vulnerable, gettable voters and how the Obama people, they got this, they nailed it, but now using Facebook.
01:32:51.000And then you drill down a little further and they go, well, they hacked Tony Podesta's emails and some other various Democratic officials.
01:32:56.000I mean, you think that swayed the election?
01:32:58.000I would argue the FBI and the Love Tower Comey thing hurt her more, which I think they believe, which is part of the reason they hate Comey.
01:33:43.000That's like if we're going to write a new constitution for the 21st century, part of it has to be that if someone's going to remove your content, they need to give you an explicit reason why.
01:33:51.000Yeah, and there should be some kind of process for it.
01:34:25.000And I'm sorry, just to one of the things that I found particularly disgusting about all this is his first major press conference on the disaster over there.
01:34:32.000He actually blamed the Afghans for the Taliban takeover.
01:34:35.000He basically said those guys are too chicken, whatever word, a bunch of cowards.
01:34:40.000I'm not going to sacrifice American sons and daughters to fight a civil war the Afghans won't fight for themselves.
01:34:45.000I'm like, they have been 60,000, 60,000 Afghan police and national security members of the army have died since 2001 fighting the Taliban in their own backyard with every personal risk to their life and liberty in their own backyard.
01:36:58.000And we have some more treason comments.
01:37:01.000Trash Panda says, how is this not high treason?
01:37:03.000Forget impeachment, bring charges of high treason against Biden and his entire administration, including Harris.
01:37:09.000My guess is because we never declared war on the Taliban, so it's like it's ambiguous if they're even considered enemies at this point.
01:37:14.000We have a ceasefire with them and we're working with them to get our troops out.
01:37:20.000I tell you what, one of the strangest things today, the, I can't remember his name, Army General and Biden, both of them today, We're talking how we've been in regular communication with the Taliban and cooperating with them to help, you know, deal with ISIS and all that.
01:37:35.000And we sometimes share information with them, but also we can't trust them.
01:37:37.000I was like, well, you've been how long you've been sharing information with the Taliban and why?
01:39:56.000He spoke truth to power when he was at Fox News, and I highly recommend go check out his last episode with Fox.
01:40:02.000Because they fired him for calling out the Federal Reserve and all the people, the bureaucrats that were trading money between the revolving doors.
01:40:42.000He genuinely believes in his faith and he acts out of it.
01:40:45.000Sue Prove says the State Department is stonewalling Beck.
01:40:48.000They won't give him access to runways.
01:40:50.000Also, he was warned they had a meeting about him and are looking to destroy him.
01:40:54.000I hadn't heard that, but I would not be surprised because I was, as we were saying before the show, there was a, I cannot remember her name.
01:41:42.000I think if there was a general idea that maybe you should get out, you got a family, you got a business, I don't know, maybe, you know, it's a recommendation versus, oh my God, the Taliban now owns the entire country.
01:41:51.000They've just conquered every major city.
01:42:09.000They said there's a letter from the FDA that actually goes into detail about the Comirnaty vaccine and the Pfizer vaccine.
01:42:15.000People are trying to claim that they're two distinct vaccines.
01:42:19.000The FDA's website literally says, we are approving the vaccine that was formerly known as the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, and will now be marketed as Comirnity.
01:42:27.000And the FDA letter says, Comirnity and the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine are interchangeable and the same thing in the same formulation.
01:42:34.000And for some reason, people are coming out and claiming it's not true, and I don't know why.
01:44:09.000It's pretty messed up, but they have somebody running the domestic area and then someone that knows what they're doing running the military stuff.
01:45:22.000But this has already happened once, so I wouldn't be surprised if it happened again.
01:45:27.000The Wolf says, Millie and military are too busy dumping millions in a campaign to make memes and anything not in the SAW BLM agenda extremist in the military.
01:46:38.000I think if there's anything that was proven by the Trump administration, I hate the term deep state because people automatically start conjuring up conspiracy theories and all that.
01:46:46.000But it is absolutely true that there is a large contingent of deeply embedded career bureaucrats who have been there for years, who have a very specific idea of how they want things done, and they will work.
01:47:36.000The guy, anonymous from New York Times, Miles Taylor, straight up admitted, I work in the White House and I am actively thwarting the president's agenda.
01:49:01.000He considers himself, well he doesn't consider himself, he has very intentionally modeled himself after Orson Welles.
01:49:07.000He wants to be a sort of auteur, renaissance man, bringing back various arts and stuff.
01:49:14.000He loves Orson Welles, like adores Orson Welles, and he intentionally, he named it Mercury Radio Arts after Orson Welles' own production studio, which was Mercury.
01:49:51.000Because what actually happened is that the conflict in the colonies was essentially more war for the British when they were already at war in Europe.
01:50:32.000And if there was a revolution today in the United States and we had Biden as the commander trying to preserve the union, preserve the union, your main job.
01:51:10.000I wouldn't say it's unprecedented in world history.
01:51:13.000I mean, far worse has happened to far greater, far larger civilizations.
01:51:19.000Generally, though, in the longer span of time, it seems like we have very quickly learned how to Yeah, airplanes changes a lot because you literally get microchips.
01:51:35.000Our prime minister did a press conference on the attack in Kabul and was super cryptic saying that New Zealand will be part of an attack or invasion of Afghanistan.
01:52:39.000I'm not saying it's all going to fall apart and people are going to abandon their posts or whatever, but we need to make sure we look at this before.
01:52:52.000800,000 of them have had yet to be vaccinated as of like yesterday or day before, and they're going to force it by, well, I don't know what the date is that they said the 31st, four days from now, five days from now.
01:53:01.000So that's another, and if they don't want to do it, you know, talk about morale.
01:53:04.000Rory Shively with eight clown face emojis.
01:53:52.000The media is going to go full gung-ho with like Biden is a true president once he starts sending in the troops and once all these other countries start bolstering troops.
01:54:01.000He's going to rescue them from Trump's botched escape plan.
01:54:05.000I think a lot of people are underestimating how sapped a lot of Americans feel after this of 20 years.
01:54:10.000I don't think we talk about we're going to put more troops and they do it quietly like you were saying that's one thing but a big grand we got to do this America I don't there's not going to be support people don't want it.
01:54:22.000And the polls will come out, and the polls will ask very, like, funny questions like, do you think it would be bad if babies are killed in Afghanistan?
01:56:07.000I'm generally I'm generally supportive of McConnell.
01:56:10.000I have been impressed with he's he's a master parliamentarian and he has made so many gains in the judiciary.
01:56:15.000I think people always sell him a little short.
01:56:18.000The problem with conservatives is that they're Imagine you're playing a game of football and you tell your team to run to the end zone and defend it from there.
01:56:31.000And then the other team is like, okay, and they casually walk to the red zone.
01:56:35.000It's like, why would you let them do that?
01:56:47.000Because in ten years, all the judges are gonna be ultra-woke, and you're gonna be like, well, this one's only a little woke.
01:56:51.000Because you're not actually doing anything to defend your values or fight back.
01:56:55.000I mean, I don't know if I would blame McConnell for that explicitly.
01:56:59.000I mean, you can only blame him so much if the people he gets through aren't very good.
01:57:02.000He's still gotten through the best of the crop.
01:57:05.000But the thing I will say that you're absolutely right on is that social issues have long been put in the back burner and stuff like the Republican Party has basically tolerated pro-lifers since Roe v. Wade as just a necessary part of the coalition.
01:57:18.000They don't care what they think or what they believe.
01:58:31.000I'm like, so legislation by tangling things up in the judiciary, like that's not a way to legislate.
01:58:37.000I think what it really means is that if you are a landlord in any capacity, you can now just disregard the illegal decrees from the president because they have no merit in the country.
01:58:46.000And if you have to go to court, you'd win.
01:58:48.000Because you're going to be like, here's the Supreme Court, your honor is going to go... Going to court?
01:59:43.000Jessica Cora says, we left hundreds of portable biometric scanners with the fingerprint and eye scans of over 50,000 Afghanistan military officials.
02:00:19.000But this is where I get into this weird area of like, wait a minute, the Supreme Court, there's usually this assumption that the Supreme Court ruled and that's that.
02:01:00.000But you know the big challenges with getting politicians on the show?
02:01:03.000Every time we hit up one of these politicians, they're like, oh, we're fans, we'd love to come on the show, or, oh, definitely, it'd be great.
02:01:09.000Send an email to this person, and we'll set it up.
02:01:33.000And, but I actually have said that myself, like, I think we should have never gone into Afghanistan, but if we have, because we've had people on the show who have said this, we need a small, we need commanders, intelligence, logistics, but a very small group with drone support, and we're done.
02:01:49.000If it prevents this, if it means we're getting all of our troops out, we're not going to waste time on this, but we'll have to keep a little bit.
02:01:57.000It's so crazy to remember or to think in terms of everything that's happening now, that at the height of the Iraq war and even to the lead up to Obama withdrawing from Iraq, Afghanistan was always the good war, the justified war.
02:03:30.000I know this was, this was, it's, it's, it's so brutal because I'm like, you know, some days we have fun stories, uh, that are like still politically relevant and everything, but usually, you know, it's always so negative.
02:03:41.000So go to TimCast.com if you want to hear more of that.