Secretary let me just go right to this, President
Biden he gave his first address to the U.N. general assembly today, he
sounded triumphant about his ending of the conflict in Afghanistan saying quote
"we ended 20 years of conflict in Afghanistan and as we close this period of relentless war we're
opening a new era of relentless diplomacy". Is this a good reflection I mean of the state
of the Biden foreign policy, that suddenly we're going from we've ended this relentless
war and now it's relentless diplomacy?Jordan he forgets that the bad guys get to play
their cards too, and that's what he forgot in Afghanistan, it's the the piece that I wrote
talked about these unanswered questions we have some questions that are answered there are still
Americans left behind still a massive amount of American equipment behind we know that this
chaotic departure that didn't have to be, we'd left them a plan for the orderly transition
the orderly withdrawal of Americans folks with a firm set of conditions behind it they ripped it up
to create an arbitrary deadline on September 11th, and we know that the net results of this there
was 13 American lives lost and chaos inside of that country that almost certainly will result
in greater risk that were attacked from that place someday. You know Mike one of the things
that as I looked at it and looked at the speech I think it was just was not realistic it wasn't
reality it ignored as we've said the Afghan failure, it ignores the border crisis which is
still an ongoing disaster, it's we've got our- I said this earlier we've got France withdrawing
pulling it's- I mean with all of the the pushback we used to get and you used to get and others for
president Trump's action on diplomacy and whatnot which I think actually was great for America
and but I remember defending this and then France pulls back its diplomats from the United
States because our diplomats did not evidently, whether the deal was right or not, they didn't
handle it diplomatically I'll say it that way. When you look at all of that, does this speech
give more aid to our friends or does it make them more cautious? So I was chuckling only because
your point's so right, I remember we were the rubes we didn't know anything about diplomacy,
we were the barbarians at the gate breaking these international institutions, and these are the guys
who end up having the French polar ambassador back and a fellow named Ebrahim Raisi speaking at the
U.N. who's a mass murderer now running Iran and they're sitting in Vienna talking to him, I
must say that the vision that we had, and I remember the president I think it was his first
speech at the U.N. but it was a coherent theory of the case it said these top-down international
institutions are failing the world in American security and that sovereign nations are the right
way to approach this that's how we built out our foreign policy, today what we saw was a pretty
incoherent understanding- and when when president Biden said that he's one of the foremost foes of
terrorism I must say that the Houthis have been taken off the terrorists in Yemen, he refuses to
deal with the Taliban who we know or terrorists, his words are so deeply inconsistent with the
actions we've seen in the first eight months of administration, I hope they begin to actually
live up to that commitment that he made to make sure the terror continues to be fought wherever we
find it. We know that president Obama let ISIS run free, it looks like this is the second iteration
of that same model. In your new piece up that's up at ACLJ.org and again it's titled "On Afghanistan,
Far Too Many Questions Remain Unanswered" that is brand new from secretary Pompeo up at ACLJ.org
now. It seems as though you've got president Biden in this position he's- when he's talking
to the American people when he's addressing the U.N. like he did today, like putting a bow on
the Afghanistan withdrawal like this is done, but it seems like this like in your piece
so many questions remain unanswered I think- what was the Will, I'm talking to our producer
Will, that Mayorkas sound about how many people actually had the the special immigrant visa? Only
3% of the 60,000 Afghans that got out during the the airlift secretary Pompeo the DHS is
saying only 3% of those were the SIV's. There's going to be a lot of gnashing and gnawing
of teeth when we figure out precisely who all has been permitted to come into our country I'm
convinced of that. I don't think there was a rational path forward for this, so there were
decisions made where people who were deserving of getting a chance to come to America who we'd made
promises to over the last 20 years weren't able to get out, you see some of them still struggling to
find their way back, and I'm sure some of them are going to vanish, and then we have people who
came in that I'm convinced we will be trying to figure out a way to either find a crime
that they committed because they are putting Americans at risk, or we're trying to figure out
how to get them back out of the country. This was a chaotic departure from Afghanistan and you know
when you set an arbitrary deadline- president Trump wanted to get everybody out make no mistake
about it, but each time we would evaluate, were the condition's right, have we met the challenges
that America faces so we can actually do that, and as we drew down we put enormous costs on
the Taliban in a way that made sure we protected American forces and American property in the
country so we could deliver an orderly transition President Biden just chose to make a chaotic dash
for the exit. Well that chaotic dash has been unbelievable actually, and when you get statements
like this, and you point this out in your article, that's posted at ACLJ.org, that in Germany the
chancellor Merkels most likely successor called the execution of the withdrawal from Afghanistan
quote "the greatest debacle that NATO has experienced since its foundation" now that is
a huge statement Secretary Pompeo it's a huge statement because of the ramifications of what
it means because the United States orchestrated that withdrawal. Oh yes we drove it, president
Biden picked the date, he picked the time, he picked the hour, he picked the cap on American
forces, he forced the military into a constraint that required them to abandon Bagram air base the
one asset that could have really delivered high volume exfiltration of our equipment and American
people from the country, now these were political decisions, not strategic decisions, not military
decisions but the commander-in-chief himself made that call and our NATO allies suffered
for it, they are not happy about it and they, and that set of relationship that work
I remember I- you have to chuckle it was the Trump and Pompeo team that was going to destroy NATO, we
built NATO we created we built it was 400 billion dollars more resource when we left than when we
came, and we had developed those relationships, it was prickly at times for sure and now you can
see our NATO allies and partners very worried that American credibility is non-existent. I
remember actually being in some meetings when the you know we were dismantling NATO that
was the allegation right, and you know the the administration's dismantling NATO and
your offices are- and it was really all about you and the president saying NATO partners have to
actually financially participate in this defense, so meanwhile nothing happens in a negative
way with NATO, it's stronger than it's ever been and then it's Joe Biden's administration
that just bungles this withdrawal which cost 13 lives of marines and then seven kids in that
whole disaster where they went after the allegedly it was going to be a someone that
was about to do a terrorist act and it was an aid worker and I just think that duplicity in
this of the media though Mike is unreal here. It is, it's just a real
disservice to the American people who won't accurately reflect these two very
different visions for America's national security and what they really mean on the ground how they
impact American lives each and every day we know families that have their brothers and
sisters and kids that are serving in our armed forces around the world we built them
we resourced them we made sure that we protected them everywhere, we didn't have an attack on an
American soldier sailor airmen or marine since the February of 2019, a remarkable capacity for peace
through strength these folks have come in and put those kids at risk and the media wants to tell the
story the precise opposite way, 180 degrees out and it's an enormous disservice to our young men
and women in uniform and to the American people to understand the risk when you travel the world
and apologize for the United States of America you put us at risk. Yeah I'll be quite honest
I- it was much more enjoyable traveling the world under the Trump administration, the Obama
administration, especially in countries that we do work in where there's always that kind
of maybe countries are not always allies with the U.S. but they there was a healthy
respect for what it meant to be an American when you were overseas and you weren't just
part of the European espresso sipping class at the U.N. final question for today Secretary
Pompeo is this, all of these issues, I feel like today I kind of addressed this in one question
but for the final question, this idea of just trying to move on past Afghanistan move on past
these these disasters it's going to be up to the American people it's going to be up to people like
you speaking out our broadcast but also Congress and your former colleagues in the House the Senate
they've got to continue to press on this as well. I believe the American people witnessed
American weakness in Afghanistan they could see that the Biden administration wasn't ready
for prime time, wasn't ready to execute this really important mission set, and so I don't think
in spite of the fact that President Biden wants to turn the page, and pretend that Afghanistan was
a happy departure and a successful departure, I don't think the American people I think
they could see with their own eyes that that's not the case I suspect that this will be
in their minds for an awfully long time to come. Secretary Pompeo is always great to have you
as part of the team at the American Center for Law and Justice the new piece by Secretary
Pompeo's up at ACLJ.org, it's on Afghanistan far too many questions remain unanswered that's
brand new just up this morning at ACLJ.org.
