Verdict with Ted Cruz - March 10, 2023


STUNNING Testimony - 13 Service Men & Women Murdered in Afghanistan COULD HAVE BEEN SAVED & Biden Admin Refused to Act


Episode Stats


Length

35 minutes

Words per minute

148.11224

Word count

5,194

Sentence count

362

Harmful content

Misogyny

3

sentences flagged

Toxicity

19

sentences flagged

Hate speech

19

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Ted Cruz and Ben Fergusons discuss the testimony from Army Sergeant Tyler Vazquez Andrews, who testified before the House Foreign Affairs Committee this week about the loss of 13 U.S. servicemen and women in an attack by a Taliban suicide bomber in Afghanistan.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 This is an iHeart Podcast.
00:00:02.540 Guaranteed human.
00:00:04.360 Welcome. It is Verdict with Senator Ted Cruz, Ben Ferguson with you as well.
00:00:09.020 And Senator, you and I have been preparing for this show today.
00:00:13.080 It is, in my opinion, maybe one of the most important podcasts that we've done together.
00:00:19.180 And it is under the premise of a headline that the military could have stopped Afghanistan bomber
00:00:25.500 who killed 13 American service members, but the military men on the ground,
00:00:31.740 the women on the ground, could not get authorization to take out this bomber 1.00
00:00:37.940 because the Biden administration basically turned this into a massive quagmire.
00:00:43.760 That is some shocking testimony that came out from a man that is lucky to still be alive
00:00:49.360 who told his story to Congress this week.
00:00:51.980 Well, that's right. Sergeant Tyler Vargas Andrews testified on Wednesday this week
00:00:57.880 before the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
00:01:00.780 And I've got to say, his testimony was incredibly powerful.
00:01:04.940 It is moving. It is personal. This man is an American hero.
00:01:10.520 And what he testified about, that the failure of the chain of command above him,
00:01:17.720 that these 13 servicemen and women who were murdered could have been saved,
00:01:23.300 is enormously consequential.
00:01:25.340 And I've got to tell you right now, Ben, I am pissed off that after this testimony,
00:01:31.320 there's been virtually zero coverage of this in the corporate media.
00:01:36.740 They've just completely ignored it.
00:01:39.040 What you're going to hear right now, you haven't heard on the 6 o'clock news.
00:01:45.620 You haven't heard on cable news.
00:01:48.260 And this testimony is important.
00:01:50.640 One of the things about this podcast, we cover issues of foreign policy and national security
00:01:55.900 that much of the corporate media ignores.
00:01:59.180 And this matters because people's lives were lost because of the incompetence of the Biden administration.
00:02:05.840 No doubt about it. And this is also emotional testimony.
00:02:10.340 We're going to play large chunks of this.
00:02:12.720 I will say this on the front end.
00:02:14.480 Please make sure that you share this podcast because every American needs to hear this testimony
00:02:21.520 so that you understand what happened in Afghanistan at that airport
00:02:26.820 when we were pulling out of Afghanistan and the lack of command and leadership from the Biden administration.
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00:03:33.840 Senator, this man, as you mentioned a moment ago, is a hero.
00:03:37.300 And you're going to hear him talk fast at some points to try to get through information
00:03:41.740 and then have very long pauses.
00:03:44.240 There were many times in his testimony that he was crying.
00:03:46.780 If you hear those long pauses, I just wanted you to know in context what was going on.
00:03:52.140 And I want you to hear him tell his story about what it was like to be at that airport
00:03:56.380 as they were trying to find Americans and American allies who had helped us in that war against terrorists.
00:04:02.960 Tens of thousands of people descended upon Abbey Gate.
00:04:06.460 We were looking for anyone with a blue passport, first and foremost.
00:04:09.820 People were suffering from extreme malnutrition, dehydration, heat casualties, and infants were dying.
00:04:14.420 Afghans were brutalized and tortured by the Taliban, flocked to us, pleading for help.
00:04:20.180 Some Afghans turned away from H. Kaya, tried to kill themselves on the razor wire in front of us
00:04:24.420 that we used as a deterrent.
00:04:26.240 They thought this was merciful compared to the Taliban torture that they faced.
00:04:29.260 They thought countless Afghans were murdered by the Taliban 155 yards in front of our position
00:04:39.740 day and night.
00:04:41.380 With only shipping containers between us, the Taliban would routinely murder people
00:04:44.960 under our observation at their checkpoint.
00:04:47.100 We communicated the atrocities to our chain of command and intel assets, but nothing came of it.
00:04:51.020 The troops on the ground had to tirelessly work to control the crowds day and night.
00:04:54.200 Department of State staff in H. Kaya would completely shut down processing Afghans every evening
00:04:58.660 and into the morning, leaving ground forces with a nightmare.
00:05:02.200 They did not work in reasonable rotations and very much presented an unwillingness to work
00:05:05.960 in other situations as well.
00:05:07.520 No matter our health or condition, the Marines stood watch and engaged in disorderly and dangerous crowds.
00:05:12.180 State was not prepared to be in H. Kaya.
00:05:15.140 In fact, State would not want to deal with the Afghans unable to be processed. 1.00
00:05:18.320 Weakening the security of the perimeter, State would take us away from our mission
00:05:21.520 to walk Afghans out to meet the fate of the Taliban, condemning them to death. 0.95
00:05:25.640 The Taliban grew in numbers and strengthened their position around H. Kaya with gun trucks
00:05:28.800 while having occasional visits by Taliban leadership.
00:05:31.720 On August 22nd, an improvised explosive device, IED, probe took place down the canal running
00:05:37.380 along the perimeter of H. Kaya.
00:05:38.860 This was ISIS or the Taliban performing an IED test run. 0.65
00:05:42.920 We reported this to our chain of command.
00:05:44.320 Days later, we received word to be on the lookout for two vehicle-borne IEDs,
00:05:49.140 described as a gold or white Corolla and a green Mazda convertible.
00:05:52.980 Around 2 a.m. on August 26th, Intel guys confirmed the suicide bomber in the vicinity of
00:05:57.280 and nearing Abbey Gate, described as clean-shaven, brown-dressed, black vest,
00:06:02.240 and traveling with an older companion.
00:06:04.000 I asked the Intel guys why he wasn't apprehended sooner since we had a full description.
00:06:09.340 I was told the asset could not be compromised.
00:06:12.320 Throughout the entirety of the day on August 26th, 2021,
00:06:14.780 we disseminated the suicide bomber information to ground forces at Abbey Gate.
00:06:19.740 He was spotted somewhere from noon to 1 p.m. by myself, then Sergeant Charles Schilling,
00:06:25.040 and another, the anomaly in the crowd who was clean-shaven
00:06:28.300 and fit the description exactly, traveling with an older gentleman.
00:06:31.480 The individual was consistently and nervously looking up at our position through the crowd.
00:06:35.240 The older of the two wore a black silky hijab that was covering his face most of the time.
00:06:40.520 They both had obvious mannerisms that go along with who we believed him to be.
00:06:43.760 They handed out small cards to the crowd periodically,
00:06:45.920 and the older man sat calmly and seemingly coached the bomber.
00:06:49.480 Over the communication network, we passed that there was a potential threat
00:06:52.080 and an IED attack imminent.
00:06:54.140 This was as serious as it could get.
00:06:56.600 I requested engagement authority while my team leader was ready
00:06:59.140 on the M110 semi-automatic sniper system.
00:07:02.020 The response, leadership did not have the engagement authority for us.
00:07:05.500 Do not engage.
00:07:06.960 I requested for the battalion commander, Lieutenant Colonel Brad Whited,
00:07:10.520 to come to the tower to see what we did.
00:07:12.180 While we waited for him, psychological operations individuals came to our tower immediately
00:07:16.900 and confirmed the suspect met the suicide bomber description.
00:07:20.080 He eventually arrived and we showed him our evidence, the photos we had of the two men.
00:07:24.000 We reassured him of the ease of fire on the suicide bomber.
00:07:26.240 Pointedly, we asked him for engagement authority and permission. 0.82
00:07:28.860 We asked him if we could shoot.
00:07:31.080 Our battalion commander said, and I quote,
00:07:33.020 I don't know, end quote.
00:07:34.400 Myself and my team leader asked very harshly, well, who does?
00:07:38.240 Because this is your responsibility, sir.
00:07:40.400 He again replied, he did not know, but would find out.
00:07:43.280 We received no update and never got our answer.
00:07:46.740 Eventually, the individual disappeared.
00:07:48.260 To this day, we believe he was a suicide bomber.
00:07:50.300 We made everyone on the ground aware.
00:07:52.340 Operations had briefly halted, but then started again.
00:07:54.800 Plain and simple, we were ignored.
00:07:56.040 Plain and simple, we were ignored.
00:08:00.680 Senator, your initial reaction to what you just heard.
00:08:05.000 There is so much about that that is infuriating.
00:08:09.480 Let's start with the fact that every bit of that was unnecessary.
00:08:15.720 One of the very first things the Biden administration did that was utterly incompetent
00:08:20.500 is they abandoned Bagram Airfield.
00:08:23.640 Bagram Airfield was a secure military base with two world-class runways that had a secure
00:08:31.660 perimeter that was safe, that you could fly people out, that you could do the vetting
00:08:35.620 with.
00:08:36.140 They abandoned it.
00:08:37.200 They just handed it over to the Taliban.
00:08:40.340 And so instead, they performed the evacuation through HKIA.
00:08:46.260 Now, what is HKIA?
00:08:47.240 HKIA is the Hamid Karzai International Airport.
00:08:51.800 It's a commercial airport.
00:08:53.120 It's an ordinary airport right in the middle of Kabul, right in the middle of a big populated
00:09:00.100 city, surrounded, not secure, not a military base.
00:09:04.620 The decision to conduct the evacuation from an unsecure commercial airport rather than a
00:09:12.800 secure military base was colossally incompetent.
00:09:18.680 It was unjustifiable.
00:09:20.480 The reason that happened is because the Biden White House put politics above everyone else
00:09:28.860 and everything else.
00:09:30.400 And so they ordered the troop drawdown before the evacuation was complete.
00:09:35.640 And so the military told the White House, well, at the level of troop drawdown you're ordering
00:09:41.180 us to hit, we can't keep Bagram Airfield.
00:09:45.640 And the White House essentially said, we don't care.
00:09:48.780 We picked a number out of our rear end and we're sticking to that number.
00:09:53.900 It doesn't matter if that's sufficient manpower to do the job or not.
00:09:58.940 We got a political endeavor.
00:10:00.560 So you've got a bunch of incompetent political operatives in the White House setting arbitrary
00:10:05.800 political tasks.
00:10:07.180 The result, look, the beginning of his testimony, he talks about how as they were turning away
00:10:13.260 Afghans, and many of these Afghans may have been interpreters, they may have been people
00:10:17.660 who gave assistance to our soldiers.
00:10:20.100 And he was talking about that the Afghans would throw themselves on the razor wire and try to 0.82
00:10:27.500 kill themselves on the razor wire rather than face torture and murder from the Taliban. 0.92
00:10:34.780 That's the consequence of the utter and complete incompetence. 1.00
00:10:38.620 But then you go forward.
00:10:40.520 Look, they had the intel that a suicide bomber was coming in.
00:10:44.920 They had the intel about what the suicide bomber looked like.
00:10:48.120 They had the intel about what he was wearing.
00:10:50.520 They had the intel about what his companion was.
00:10:53.120 And they spotted him.
00:10:54.660 They said, there he is.
00:10:55.920 He's right there.
00:10:57.180 It exactly fit the intel.
00:10:59.780 And this testimony says that the Marines said, we can take him out right now.
00:11:06.420 This is a sniper who is sitting there saying, we can take him out.
00:11:10.700 We know that a suicide bomber is coming.
00:11:13.020 We know what he looks like. 0.89
00:11:14.480 He is behaving exactly like a suicide bomber. 0.72
00:11:17.740 And the utter incompetence of the Biden administration is that, as you just heard,
00:11:25.140 we were ignored, we were ignored.
00:11:28.640 They didn't do anything.
00:11:30.980 And it's difficult to overstate how much that makes my blood boil.
00:11:37.020 One of the things that he said was he said it was the ease of fire.
00:11:40.980 Yes.
00:11:41.140 This was not a hard shot.
00:11:42.960 They were saying this is easy.
00:11:45.040 It is as safe as it can get.
00:11:47.320 It's as clear of a shot as we can get.
00:11:49.580 If you talk to people in the military, we're describing it that way.
00:11:52.920 They were saying this was a no-brainer scenario.
00:11:56.460 And they just couldn't get somebody to tell them to go ahead and shoot, based on the intelligence,
00:12:04.520 not based on a hunch, this individual.
00:12:07.560 And I got to ask you, Senator, going back in his testimony to another point he made.
00:12:13.820 He said that the Taliban had done a dry run or ISIS had done a dry run, right?
00:12:18.280 He also mentioned that they were killing people and they were doing it almost like for sport,
00:12:24.880 seeing if the Americans would respond in a react.
00:12:27.700 Right in front of them.
00:12:28.760 Right in front of them.
00:12:29.520 And they knew, I think clearly they were trying to figure out how weak America was at that moment.
00:12:34.820 And they're like, all right, well, if we kill this guy right here in front of them, they don't do anything.
00:12:39.360 We really are in control of this airfield.
00:12:41.760 We really are in control of the roadways to this airfield because the Americans are not given the power to engage. 0.96
00:12:51.720 That's exactly right.
00:12:53.000 And look, I want to convey a story to illustrate because there is a reason why this happened.
00:13:02.720 And early on in the Trump administration, I bumped into General Mark Milley.
00:13:08.900 General Milley, now the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
00:13:11.680 I've known General Milley since he was a three-star general when he was the commanding general at Fort Hood in Texas.
00:13:18.860 And I was talking with General Milley.
00:13:21.240 And it was the very beginning of the Trump administration.
00:13:25.460 And he told me, he said, I was asking about the Islamic State.
00:13:34.200 And the Islamic State, you'll recall, had seized land, their self-declared caliphate,
00:13:40.920 about the size of the state of Indiana, that they had control over.
00:13:46.980 And you'll recall, under Obama, we'd been fighting there for a long time and fighting there and making very little progress
00:13:53.480 and fighting there and making very little progress.
00:13:56.080 And I asked General Milley at the beginning of the Trump administration how things looked,
00:14:02.100 what his assessment was of our prospects for success for taking out the Islamic State.
00:14:08.860 And his answer shocked me.
00:14:11.980 He said, we will retake every square inch or virtually every square inch of the Islamic State caliphate in just a few months.
00:14:28.220 And I asked him, I said, what, why?
00:14:32.020 What changed?
00:14:34.100 And he said, one thing.
00:14:35.340 And I wondered, he said one thing.
00:14:39.160 He said, they've delegated decisions down to the battlefield of when and how to engage.
00:14:49.960 During the Obama administration, the White House made tactical battlefield decisions.
00:14:58.260 Susan Rice, who was the national security advisor, soldiers in the field would joke and they'd call her General Rice 1.00
00:15:05.540 because they were literally determining, you can engage here, you can't engage here.
00:15:11.440 You can engage in this instance, you can't engage in that instance.
00:15:14.080 And it was run out of the White House by the political operatives in the White House.
00:15:18.040 What Trump did at the outset is he said, what does it take to defeat these guys?
00:15:23.680 All right.
00:15:25.160 You have the authority on the battlefield to engage and take out the enemy and simply giving that operational control down to the battlefield,
00:15:35.420 transform the battlefield.
00:15:36.760 And it turned out what General Milley told me was right, that within just a couple of months from then,
00:15:42.700 every single square inch or virtually every square inch that the Islamic State had taken had fallen and they were utterly defeated.
00:15:52.980 And this testimony shows the consequences.
00:15:55.820 What does it tell us?
00:15:56.820 It tells us that Biden came in with these same nitwits who were running the Obama disastrous National Security Council and they did the same thing.
00:16:07.980 So so so in this instance, the sergeant testifies, they say, we've got the suicide bomber. 0.78
00:16:14.680 He's in front of us.
00:16:15.700 He's in our rifle sights.
00:16:17.580 We can take him out.
00:16:20.060 And his commander says, I don't even know who to ask.
00:16:24.320 It's got to be up in the chain.
00:16:25.740 I don't know if that had to go all the way to the National Security Council or not.
00:16:29.440 What I do know is the result was it had gone back to the same utterly ineffective ability for the warfighters to engage with the enemy.
00:16:42.340 And in this instance, the consequences were devastating.
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00:17:16.020 Not only were they devastating, but you also mentioned earlier, this was all decisions made on politics.
00:17:24.020 And I want to remind people, this was about having a victory lap for the Biden administration.
00:17:31.900 They wanted to say we got out of 9-11, a war that started because of 9-11, before the date on the anniversary of 9-11.
00:17:40.780 That was why they rushed everybody out of Afghanistan, is they wanted a victory lap, saying on this anniversary of 9-11, we are out of America's longest war.
00:17:50.200 And that was the obsession with that date and not caring about American carnage or anybody else that helped Americans or innocent people in Afghanistan, because that was ultimately the goal.
00:18:02.700 They wanted that press conference.
00:18:04.220 Look, that's exactly right, and we've seen, if you go back to the Vietnam War, when you have war fighting dictated by political operatives and politicians in Washington,
00:18:16.680 when they're micromanaging the engagement with the enemy, the result is that servicemen and women die.
00:18:25.180 Young men and young women, young Americans die.
00:18:30.700 And on that tragic day, that's exactly what happened.
00:18:35.620 It's truly sad.
00:18:37.200 I want to play this second part.
00:18:38.780 It's very emotional.
00:18:40.520 And I will say it again, everybody.
00:18:42.580 This should have been covered by the media.
00:18:45.080 It is not.
00:18:46.500 Make sure you share this with everybody you know.
00:18:50.480 Share the podcast on your social media, whether you're on Facebook or Instagram.
00:18:54.360 Share it so other people will hear this, because this testimony deserves to be heard, I would argue, by all Americans.
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00:20:10.160 Senator, the second part that we're going to play, and you're going to hear some pauses.
00:20:14.620 You're going to hear some tears.
00:20:16.500 This is a man that is telling his story to the world for the first time of what happened at that airport
00:20:22.380 as we were rushing to pull out of Afghanistan,
00:20:24.920 all because we're trying to hit an arbitrary date for political gain.
00:20:29.140 Here's the second part of his story.
00:20:32.380 Our expertise was disregarded.
00:20:34.560 No one was held accountable for our safety.
00:20:36.020 About 1730, Staff Sergeant Darren Hoover, friend and mentor,
00:20:43.020 came to get me from the tower to go help find an Afghan interpreter in the crowd.
00:20:51.800 We found the interpreter and his brother born with American passports.
00:21:21.800 They told us of five family members still in the canal.
00:21:26.340 I stayed there waiting for the family members standing against a two-foot canal wall.
00:21:30.360 Ten minutes passed.
00:21:34.220 Then a flash and a massive wave of pressure.
00:21:37.660 I'm thrown 12 feet onto the ground, but instantly knew what had happened.
00:21:41.380 I opened my eyes to Marines dead or unconscious lying around me.
00:21:51.800 A crowd of hundreds immediately vanished in front of me,
00:22:12.120 and my body was catastrophically wounded with 100 to 150 ball bearings now in it.
00:22:17.720 Almost immediately, we started taking fire from the neighborhood,
00:22:20.260 and I saw how injured I was with my right arm completely shredded and unusable.
00:22:26.400 I saw my lower abdomen soaked in blood.
00:22:28.420 I crawled backwards roughly seven feet because I thought I was still in harm's way.
00:22:41.580 My body was overwhelmed from the trauma of the blast.
00:22:44.720 My abdomen had been ripped open.
00:22:46.500 Every inch of my exposed body, except for my face, took ball bearings and shrapnel.
00:22:50.760 I tried to get up but could not.
00:22:55.520 Laying there for a few minutes, I started to lose consciousness
00:22:57.740 when I heard Chaz, my team leader, screaming my name as he ran to me.
00:23:04.180 His voice calling to me kept me awake.
00:23:08.280 His voice calling to me kept me awake.
00:23:38.260 I started plugging wounds with the help of the other Marines.
00:23:41.120 I was awake through most of it, screaming, moaning, and cursing.
00:23:44.860 Please ask, I asked you to please ask me about getting shot at the tower in Abbey Gate
00:23:49.640 and how no one wanted my report post-blast.
00:23:52.220 Even NCIS and the FBI failed to interview me.
00:23:54.940 Asked me to elaborate on my ordeal post-blast
00:23:57.340 and asked me about this one little girl and her family that I reunited.
00:24:01.480 Our military members and veterans deserve our best
00:24:04.420 because that is what we give to America.
00:24:06.240 The withdrawal was a catastrophe in my opinion
00:24:11.060 and there was an inexcusable lack of accountability and negligence.
00:24:17.060 The 11 Marines, one sailor, and one soldier that were murdered that day
00:24:23.380 have not been answered for.
00:24:24.580 Thank you for giving me this opportunity to speak.
00:24:30.000 Senator, my heart goes out to him
00:24:32.900 because you can hear the pain, the suffering,
00:24:35.300 and the fact that he says no one wanted to hear my story.
00:24:37.960 Let me say this.
00:24:42.740 Thank you to Sergeant Vargas Andrews.
00:24:47.640 Tyler Vargas Andrews is an American hero.
00:24:54.060 And he is a Marine
00:24:58.280 who was horribly failed by his commander-in-chief.
00:25:05.520 He's a Marine who was horribly failed
00:25:11.160 by the command chain above him
00:25:15.680 that was ordered to follow political dictates
00:25:22.140 and to elevate political priorities
00:25:25.380 above protecting the Marines
00:25:30.380 and the soldiers and sailors and airmen
00:25:32.260 who were there on the ground risking their lives.
00:25:39.400 I listened to that testimony.
00:25:45.260 You know, and I got to ask,
00:25:47.180 if you're a producer at ABC News
00:25:50.540 or NBC News or CBS
00:25:53.420 or CNN or MSNBC,
00:25:56.260 why didn't you air that testimony?
00:26:02.120 What possibly was happening
00:26:04.220 on Wednesday
00:26:05.980 that was more important
00:26:09.100 than what Sergeant Vargas Andrews had to say?
00:26:15.320 What was more important
00:26:18.200 than his testimony
00:26:19.540 that they knew about the suicide bomber,
00:26:22.780 that they had him in his sight,
00:26:24.300 that they could have taken him out,
00:26:25.760 that they could have saved the lives
00:26:27.760 of those 13 servicemen and women?
00:26:30.980 And their commanding officers
00:26:36.960 wouldn't let him do it.
00:26:39.960 I can't imagine
00:26:42.460 a news story more important than that.
00:26:50.700 And this young man,
00:26:52.320 this American hero,
00:26:53.320 100 to 150 ball bearings
00:26:57.640 in his body.
00:27:01.040 And it all could have been prevented,
00:27:03.940 number one,
00:27:04.660 if they'd stayed in Bagram Airfield
00:27:07.060 and done the evacuation
00:27:08.220 from a secure military base,
00:27:10.280 it could have been prevented there.
00:27:12.320 Or number two,
00:27:14.600 if they simply allowed war fighters
00:27:17.580 to defend themselves
00:27:19.900 and to take out the enemy
00:27:21.500 when they're engaging with him,
00:27:23.360 if they didn't play
00:27:24.860 like they're engaging
00:27:26.640 in a game of risk,
00:27:29.240 a board game
00:27:31.720 by a bunch of
00:27:32.960 political neophytes
00:27:35.900 who've never put on
00:27:38.080 a uniform in their lives,
00:27:41.220 but are more than happy to say,
00:27:44.200 well, look,
00:27:45.620 the headline is what we care about,
00:27:48.200 not how do you prevent
00:27:51.080 these young men
00:27:51.800 and young women
00:27:52.420 from being murdered
00:27:53.540 by the terrorists
00:27:55.520 to whom
00:27:56.340 they were in the process
00:27:57.960 of surrendering to.
00:28:00.840 There's also another question.
00:28:02.840 I say another.
00:28:04.000 There's quite a few.
00:28:05.220 But the fact that he wasn't
00:28:06.800 interviewed, Senator,
00:28:08.580 the only reason
00:28:10.080 why I can get
00:28:11.780 to a process of saying
00:28:14.140 why wouldn't you interview him
00:28:15.100 is because you knew
00:28:15.760 what he was going to say
00:28:16.660 and you didn't want to hear it
00:28:18.440 because you knew
00:28:19.520 how damning it was
00:28:21.060 and so therefore,
00:28:22.780 he said no one
00:28:23.660 interviewed him
00:28:24.060 from the FBI,
00:28:24.960 CIS,
00:28:25.660 nobody interviewed him
00:28:28.140 at all.
00:28:30.040 He was there.
00:28:31.320 He knew who the bomber was.
00:28:34.500 He was there
00:28:34.860 for the dry run.
00:28:36.120 All of this happens.
00:28:37.740 No one interviews him.
00:28:39.420 That, to me,
00:28:40.180 screams cover-up.
00:28:41.160 The administration
00:28:41.640 knew this was a problem.
00:28:43.660 The Pentagon,
00:28:44.860 DOJ,
00:28:45.400 knew this was a problem
00:28:46.440 and they said,
00:28:47.080 we don't want to hear
00:28:47.660 from the people
00:28:48.200 that were there
00:28:48.800 because we're too afraid
00:28:50.420 of what they're going to say.
00:28:52.260 Look, he says
00:28:53.040 when he asked
00:28:53.540 his superior officer,
00:28:55.560 where do you get authorization?
00:28:57.600 The answer was,
00:28:58.460 I don't know. 0.98
00:29:01.260 What in the hell 0.94
00:29:02.580 are these people doing? 0.89
00:29:05.980 If we are sending
00:29:07.400 Marines into combat 0.98
00:29:08.660 where they don't even know
00:29:10.500 where they get authorization
00:29:11.740 to take out
00:29:12.920 a suicide bomber 1.00
00:29:14.320 before that suicide bomber 1.00
00:29:16.160 murders them, 1.00
00:29:17.880 that's incompetent, 0.99
00:29:21.900 but it is also,
00:29:23.960 it's not just
00:29:25.100 that they're bad at it.
00:29:26.220 It's ideology
00:29:27.080 that is causing
00:29:28.780 that incompetence.
00:29:29.860 You're right.
00:29:30.480 They wanted to hit
00:29:31.340 the 9-11 anniversary
00:29:32.460 because you know what?
00:29:34.140 Their friends in the media
00:29:35.280 would say,
00:29:35.840 isn't that great?
00:29:36.660 Look, Joe Biden
00:29:37.440 had a great political victory
00:29:38.840 and, you know,
00:29:39.620 from their end,
00:29:40.760 doing it
00:29:44.240 so that people
00:29:45.880 didn't die,
00:29:48.420 doing it
00:29:49.120 so that
00:29:49.700 our servicemen
00:29:50.700 and women
00:29:51.180 were protected,
00:29:52.300 doing it
00:29:52.820 so you didn't have
00:29:53.780 Afghans 1.00
00:29:54.400 killing themselves 0.95
00:29:55.400 by throwing themselves 1.00
00:29:56.480 on razor wire.
00:30:00.900 None of that rose
00:30:02.260 even remotely
00:30:04.660 to the level
00:30:05.420 of their political objective
00:30:07.080 of getting a partisan win.
00:30:09.800 And you know
00:30:10.340 what's also infuriating, Ben?
00:30:12.840 To the best of my knowledge,
00:30:14.500 nobody was fired.
00:30:15.560 There was no accountability.
00:30:17.580 All of the top brass
00:30:18.880 are still there.
00:30:19.680 The Secretary of Defense
00:30:20.660 is still there.
00:30:22.820 No one lost their job.
00:30:25.000 You know,
00:30:25.180 one of the things
00:30:25.880 that the sergeant
00:30:29.660 testifies to
00:30:30.480 is that
00:30:30.920 the State Department
00:30:32.720 wasn't prepared
00:30:34.780 at all
00:30:35.140 to handle things
00:30:36.140 at
00:30:37.500 H.K.A.
00:30:39.600 You know what?
00:30:40.320 The Secretary of State,
00:30:41.280 he didn't lose his job.
00:30:42.500 Nobody up and down
00:30:43.460 the chain of command.
00:30:44.740 The only people
00:30:45.640 who paid a price
00:30:46.440 were the people
00:30:47.120 who were murdered,
00:30:48.580 the people who were
00:30:49.220 horribly injured,
00:30:50.200 the people who were
00:30:50.880 tortured
00:30:51.320 by the Taliban.
00:30:53.740 They're the ones
00:30:54.280 that paid the price,
00:30:55.160 but the political operatives
00:30:56.280 all up and down
00:30:57.320 are still just doing fine
00:30:59.600 and facing zero accountability
00:31:01.000 and they know
00:31:02.400 that the corporate media
00:31:03.580 has no interest
00:31:05.240 in accountability.
00:31:06.120 They have no interest
00:31:06.760 in what happened
00:31:07.820 that took the lives
00:31:10.020 of those heroic Americans.
00:31:13.120 Final question for you,
00:31:14.880 Senator.
00:31:16.100 Knowing that the Taliban 0.96
00:31:18.500 was testing us
00:31:19.700 in that moment,
00:31:20.820 seeing what they could
00:31:21.800 get away with, 0.91
00:31:23.060 seeing how weak
00:31:24.120 America's foreign policy
00:31:25.480 in real time
00:31:26.460 was becoming
00:31:27.160 when they were
00:31:27.700 killing people
00:31:28.700 in essence 1.00
00:31:29.200 for sport
00:31:29.760 just to basically
00:31:31.160 torture the American soldiers
00:31:32.600 because they realized,
00:31:33.560 wow, they're really
00:31:34.160 not going to engage.
00:31:36.200 It wasn't just
00:31:37.380 a catastrophe
00:31:37.940 that came out
00:31:38.860 of this in Afghanistan.
00:31:40.640 Many of the world
00:31:41.720 conflicts and problems
00:31:42.660 we're having right now,
00:31:43.800 I think,
00:31:44.740 came out
00:31:45.480 of this man's story
00:31:47.440 because the rest
00:31:48.500 of the world
00:31:49.020 realized
00:31:49.760 in that moment
00:31:51.340 they can do
00:31:52.420 whatever the hell
00:31:53.060 they want to do
00:31:53.680 and America
00:31:54.260 will not stop them.
00:31:56.100 And now that we have
00:31:57.660 this ball rolling
00:31:58.560 down the hill
00:31:59.280 of a weak America
00:32:00.720 and others
00:32:01.120 can do what they want,
00:32:02.120 how concerned
00:32:03.000 are you
00:32:03.280 from a national
00:32:03.880 security standpoint?
00:32:06.380 Enormously concerned.
00:32:07.660 Every enemy
00:32:08.460 of America
00:32:09.100 saw that disaster.
00:32:11.640 Putin saw it.
00:32:12.940 Xi saw it.
00:32:15.480 Iran saw it. 0.73
00:32:16.520 North Korea saw it.
00:32:17.720 Venezuela saw it.
00:32:19.820 Every terrorist
00:32:20.900 cell across the globe,
00:32:22.280 they all saw it
00:32:23.180 and all of them
00:32:24.600 came to the same
00:32:25.300 conclusion,
00:32:26.680 which is this is
00:32:27.500 a commander-in-chief,
00:32:28.840 chief who is weak 1.00
00:32:30.120 and incompetent. 0.99
00:32:32.520 This is a commander-in-chief 0.98
00:32:34.080 who is afraid
00:32:35.400 to fight.
00:32:36.460 This is a commander-in-chief
00:32:37.580 unwilling to do
00:32:38.620 what it takes
00:32:39.260 even to defend
00:32:40.620 his own servicemen
00:32:41.620 and women, 1.00
00:32:42.600 never mind anyone else.
00:32:45.360 And we're seeing
00:32:46.260 the consequences
00:32:46.920 of it right now
00:32:47.940 with the war
00:32:49.120 in Ukraine,
00:32:49.700 the first major
00:32:50.580 land war in Europe
00:32:51.440 since World War II.
00:32:53.200 And we're seeing
00:32:54.040 the consequences
00:32:54.720 of it in the Pacific
00:32:56.480 with China
00:32:57.300 more and more aggressive
00:32:58.900 and Taiwan
00:32:59.960 in greater and greater peril.
00:33:02.260 And I'll tell you,
00:33:03.180 I met today
00:33:04.380 with Taiwan's ambassador
00:33:06.520 and I told the ambassador,
00:33:09.200 I said,
00:33:09.560 look,
00:33:09.800 I think
00:33:10.280 the danger
00:33:12.920 that Taiwan 0.55
00:33:13.720 is in
00:33:14.480 for the next
00:33:15.460 two years
00:33:16.360 of the Biden
00:33:17.860 presidency
00:33:18.540 is enormous.
00:33:19.700 because she
00:33:21.180 looked at
00:33:22.200 what happened here
00:33:23.300 and concluded
00:33:25.480 this president
00:33:27.180 is not strong enough
00:33:28.540 to deter us
00:33:29.720 from doing anything.
00:33:31.080 Yeah,
00:33:31.640 it is amazing
00:33:32.820 how something like this
00:33:33.980 can turn into
00:33:34.700 such a bigger conflict
00:33:35.900 around the world.
00:33:38.100 And this is,
00:33:39.560 again,
00:33:39.780 one of those moments,
00:33:40.740 I'll say it,
00:33:41.740 I'll ask you,
00:33:42.500 make sure people hear
00:33:43.460 this man's story.
00:33:44.420 He's a hero.
00:33:45.820 And make sure
00:33:46.960 you share this podcast
00:33:47.880 with your family
00:33:48.600 and friends.
00:33:49.400 Finally,
00:33:49.820 I do want to remind you
00:33:50.600 about our good friends
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00:33:53.300 and you feel like
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00:33:56.180 and you're ready
00:33:56.600 to get that masculinity
00:33:57.480 back,
00:33:58.380 we desperately need it
00:33:59.300 in America today
00:34:00.180 in our society,
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00:34:47.840 Senator,
00:34:48.380 it's a pleasure
00:34:49.020 as always to chat with you.
00:34:50.600 This is one of those shows
00:34:51.520 as we said at the beginning,
00:34:52.640 so important.
00:34:53.940 I hope people remember
00:34:55.240 this man's story
00:34:56.100 and let everybody hear it.
00:34:57.760 We'll see you back here
00:34:58.700 in a couple of days.
00:35:00.520 This is an iHeart podcast.
00:35:03.320 Guaranteed human.