BREAKING: Active DC Bomb Threat Puts Capitol Hill on Lockdown

Breaking news today on Sekulow.

Capitol Hill is on lockdown as police investigate an active bob threat. Keeping you informed and engaged. Now more than ever, this is Sekulow. We want to hear from you. Share and post your comments or call 1-800-684-3110.

And now your host, Jordan Sekulow. Well listen, we're going to get into Afghanistan and other issues today as well. And we'll take your phone calls on it.

1-800-684-3110. I do want to go right to Capitol Hill, Washington D.C. Where Than Bennett is in our office, the ACLJ office on Capitol Hill. Than, we know that there have been some evacuations of congressional offices of the Supreme Court. You sent a picture of the police activity outside of our office. They're showing this truck from pretty far away near the Library of Congress.

What have they told people on Capitol Hill to do just to remain in place? At least for us, Jordan, we're inside that perimeter there asking us to stay inside, asking law enforcement to be allowed to move about freely. We've seen quite a bit of law enforcement actually going past, including some pretty big vehicles.

I assume to respond to that suspected vehicle, that there's suspected explosives in there, I guess. I mean, Jordan, this is one of the things that does happen in this area, but it's a bit of an active situation right now. We're about 60 to 90 minutes into it right now. The perimeter that they've evacuated is fairly small and we are outside of that, Jordan. But at this moment, they are asking everyone in this area to stay inside. So what we're going to do throughout the show, we'll keep you updated. Obviously, we've got people there that they don't feel like are in harm's way now. The police are very good about coming to the door if that evacuation order is issued and our team will be there, but they won't be joining us throughout the show.

So we will keep you updated there. But as breaking news happening right now in Washington, D.C., I do want to go to Afghanistan. I haven't been on the air since the fall of Kabul and we've seen this massive takeover so quickly by the Taliban of the entire country. of Afghanistan and all of the questions surrounding the moves by the United States, specifically the Biden administration. Remember, there's people trying to put blame on President Trump for drawing down the troop numbers, but he is not the one that initiated this final withdrawal from Afghanistan. This was done by President Biden and it was his team.

The blame is going everywhere, left and right, so it's hard to figure out exactly who is to blame. Let me go to Wes Smith, because Wes, you've served our military, you've been in these situations before where we rely heavily on a local population, and ultimately, yes, the American people wanted this war to end. But when we say end, I think that Americans who are not in the service sometimes think about that in a different way. When we've ended other wars, they may still act to be active combat zones, we've kept a sizable troop presence so that what we're seeing in Afghanistan does not occur.

Yeah, exactly. We kept troops in Germany for the last 70 years, in South Korea for the last 60 some odd years. Yeah, ending the war doesn't mean you withdraw everyone.

The thing about the whole withdrawal fiasco, and that's what it is right now, it's a chaotic fiasco, is that when President Trump set this in motion, his withdrawal was very much conditions-based. He let the Taliban know, he put them on notice, we will withdraw, but there are certain things you cannot do. Two of those things were to attack American forces, and they have not in about 18 months. But also, you cannot overthrow the government, and you cannot take the capital city of Kabul, and they have done both of those things. So President Trump had already told the Taliban, if you cross these lines, you will have a huge price to pay. Joe Biden comes in, speeds up the withdrawal with essentially no conditions, and so the Taliban ran through the country, one provincial capital falling after another, and finally the capital city itself with absolute impunity.

Nothing has happened to them. Folks, we'll take your comments on Facebook, YouTube, Periscope, and of course by phone if you want to talk to us and be on the air, 1-800-684-3110. I would love to hear from those of you who served Afghanistan.

This doesn't take away at all from your service. You were there, you carried out the job, you were tasked with, but this is the policy makers. That's where the blame lays, and ultimately the Commander in Chief. So I'd love to hear your thoughts, if you're a military family, if you served Afghanistan, 1-800-684-3110 to join us on air, that's 1-800-684-3110. Just an update on what's happening in Washington, DC.

Thanh just sent it to me by text that there's a Capitol Hill police press conference shortly on this vehicle, so we will again update you on what's happening in Washington as well. We get back on Secular. At the American Center for Law and Justice, we're engaged in critical issues at home and abroad. Whether it's defending religious freedom, protecting those who are persecuted for their faith, uncovering corruption in the Washington bureaucracy, and fighting to protect life in the courts and in Congress, the ACLJ would not be able to do any of this without your support.

For that, we are grateful. Now there's an opportunity for you to help in a unique way. For a limited time, you can participate in the ACLJ's Matching Challenge. For every dollar you donate, it will be matched. A $10 gift becomes $20.

A $50 gift becomes $100. This is a critical time for the ACLJ. The work we do simply would not occur without your generous support.

Take part in our Matching Challenge today. You can make a difference in the work we do, protecting the constitutional and religious freedoms that are most important to you and your family. Give a gift today online at ACLJ.org. Only when a society can agree that the most vulnerable and voiceless deserve to be protected is there any hope for that culture to survive. And that's exactly what you are saying when you stand with the American Center for Law and Justice to defend the right to life. We've created a free, powerful publication offering a panoramic view of the ACLJ's battle for the unborn.

It's called Mission Life. It will show you how you are personally impacting the pro-life battle through your support. And the publication includes a look at all major ACLJ pro-life cases, how we're fighting for the rights of pro-life activists, the ramifications of Roe v. Wade 40 years later, the Planned Parenthood's role in the abortion industry, and what Obamacare means to the pro-life movement. Discover the many ways your membership with the ACLJ is empowering the right to life. Request your free copy of Mission Life today online at ACLJ.org slash gift.

Welcome back to Secular. So 10 to 40,000, that is the number estimated of Americans still in Afghanistan. Now, you know, being told things by the Pentagon like it's easy to get to the Kabul airport, no problem.

And then, you know, the reporters who are on the ground, let me just be honest, I mean, CNN's doing a good job too of holding accountable these U.S. officials because it's just not true. Now, I hope that maybe that can change for those Americans who need to access the airport, but right now this is how it's been described. The Taliban controls the outside of the airport, the checkpoints leading into the airport. If you're an American, you have to then go through a Taliban checkpoint. This is after a 20-year war with the Taliban that came to a close four days ago with the Taliban seizing basically the entire country of Afghanistan, all the major cities. At the same time then, if you get inside the airport, you have the U.S. troops who are in control. And then you've got, of course, the massive amount of people from Afghanistan trying to flee.

So it's a very difficult situation. But President Biden, this whole interview hasn't been played yet. He sat down with George Stephanopoulos from ABC News. Take a listen.

We're getting some of the interview now that will air tonight. You don't think this could have been handled, this actually could have been handled better in any way? No mistakes? No, I don't think it could have been handled in a way that we're going to go back in hindsight and look, but the idea that somehow there's a way to have gotten out without chaos ensuing, I don't know how that happens. I don't know how that happened. So for you that was always priced into the decision?

Yes. You know, if this was, if there was no mistake here, if this could not have been handled better, Wes, I think there would have been a White House press briefing today. There's not. They wouldn't have had those out-of-office emails. They would have been prepared for at least some chaos, some chaos to the situation. We know that President Biden has said, you know, it's not going to look like Saigon.

It looked exactly like Saigon to people who remember those. Or just for those of us who have seen the images before of the military helicopters landing on the top of the embassy, the exact same image occurred. And we're seeing headlines like this from CNN that seven months into his term, President Biden is no longer getting credit simply for not being Donald Trump.

This is, I think, the first time the media has been in unison in holding this administration accountable. The border didn't do it. Some of the COVID miscommunications didn't do it.

But certainly this has. Yeah. And when he says that no mistakes were made, this could not have been handled without chaos, what a crazy inept kind of statement. It's not that operations like this are not complicated.

They are complicated. But I remember being in command in General Staff College for the Army and we talked about these kinds of scenarios. It is military operations 101. And so this has been bungled and mishandled by the President. And I'll be honest with you, by the senior leadership at the Pentagon in ways that I've never seen this or read about this in my lifetime. I've never done this before, but I'm at the point of saying that General Austin, the Secretary of Defense and General Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, should either resign or be relieved because this is crazy. A brand new army captain, Jordan, could have figured this operation out.

There are several things you do. First of all, you get the civilians out first before you move the troops out. Then you put a covering force with superior firepower at the airport and then you put armor at the entrances to the airport, not the Taliban guarding the entrances to the airport. And then you put infantry along the major highways to guard the routes leading to the airport and to guard the civilians. You use U.S. air power to hold the Taliban in check to keep them from taking the area around the airport and the capital city. And by the way, we built Bagram Air Base, which is a huge airfield, and then gave it up and let the Taliban take it. The Kabul Airport has one runway.

Bagram has several. We gave that to the Taliban. There were just so many mistakes made along the way. And so, again, for him to say this was unavoidable is absolutely, categorically wrong. Like I said, a brand new army captain out of the career course would have known that you cannot do what the Pentagon leadership and this President have tried to do.

And they're paying the price. Stephanopoulos pushes President Biden on this. This will air later tonight, but these are the clips that they're already saying, you know, was this a failure? And President Biden listened carefully, almost uses the term, but then tries to move away from it as a politician, doesn't want to say that.

Take a listen. When you look at what's happened over the last week, was it a failure of intelligence, planning, execution, or judgment? Look, I don't think it was a failure.

Look, it was a simple choice, George. When you had the government of Afghanistan, the leader of that government getting in a plane and taking off and going to another country, when you saw the significant collapse of the Afghan troops we had trained, up to 300,000 of them, just leaving their equipment and taking off, that was, you know, I'm not, that's what happened. That's simply what happened.

You know, he can say that's simply what happened. He's trying to blame the Afghan troops. You would think, Wes, and I'm going to go to Than, but Wes, that after these 20 years, our military should have been able to give a pretty good assessment of these troops, of the leaders in Afghanistan. Were they going to be the type who would risk their lives to fight to keep these cities under their control, to keep at least the major capitals, provincial cities and towns, under control?

And, obviously, they were not willing to. Their President fled, left the country, the military disappeared, but you would think that maybe we would have picked that up. That's something you would have picked up as a U.S. official trying to deal with some of this Afghan leadership. Well, and it was picked up by commanders on the ground. It was picked up by our intelligence agencies. Just yesterday, the Special Inspector General for Afghan Reconstruction issued his final report.

It is an assessment of the entire 20 years, and he points these kinds of things out. There was a lot of denial going on and wishful thinking on the part of the senior leadership in the military, but this inspector general points out some of the things that you alluded to, including the fact when the President says there were 300,000 Afghan troops, we know that that's not true. There was so much corruption in the Afghan government. What was happening in many cases is that they would have basically fake military units and fake military personnel because, keep in mind, we're paying their salaries and usually in cash. So the commander of a unit would inflate his roles and then pocket the cash.

This happened all over the country. I doubt seriously that there were 300,000 troops, and the President, I mean, he gets briefed by the Pentagon and the CIA. He should know these kinds of things.

I'm mystified as to why he doesn't know. When you hear these kind of numbers, Thanh, this is why we're already seeing on Capitol Hill, now this would be Democrats calling for hearings as well, a bipartisan call. Nancy Pelosi said there's going to be hearings as well. So Thanh, you've got no less than four congressional committees looking at holding hearings, coming back to Congress early this month to hold hearings on this. But I know that we talked about before, it is one thing to hold hearings on what has happened, the problems here. It's another if it becomes a partisan breakdown that everything else has become, and it's just finger pointing, well, Trump wanted to do this, Biden did this, and that's not really what we need right now is solutions. Yeah, Congress is going to have to remember we are in the midst of this emergency, Jordan.

I mean, we still have tens of thousands of Americans and other allies on the ground, also vulnerabilities that need evacuated. That's where the focus needs to be. You're right, we've heard from at least four committees on both sides of Capitol Hill, both the House and the Senate, that have said they're going to hold hearings on this next week when Congress returns to town. It will probably shift the attention away from the infrastructure and reconciliation bills, Jordan. I think there could actually be up to six committees that will ultimately look at this.

You would have armed services on both sides of the hill, you would have House foreign affairs, Senate foreign relations, and then likely the intel committees on both sides of the hill. But here's my concern, Jordan, I mean, you and I have seen this how many times before. You get into these hearings, there's a real emergency, there's a real situation that Congress has a very real duty to hold the administration accountable. I mean, look, they should be pressuring President Biden as well as the administration to make sure that these priority evacuations happen.

But what am I concerned about? I'm very concerned you're going to get inside that hearing and it's going to be all political, it's going to be all finger pointing, and it will be a giant waste of time and a distraction from what needs to take place. Now, look, I don't want to say that's going to happen, but I want our voices to be heard that when we get into these hearings next week, they need to be used as leverage to make the administration understand that the American people will stand for nothing less than every American getting out, every ally that's partnered with us, and the vulnerabilities that we're responsible to. That's where their focus needs to be, Jordan. We come back from the break, don't worry, as you'll hear from the national security adviser to the President, they've talked to the Taliban, everything will be fine.

So no, Jake Sullivan really said that. This is the same guy negotiating your Iranian nuclear deal. So I think what this is doing is putting the spotlight on the officials we've warned you about for so long as being people who have just had bad ideas, bad policies, and have no business being in these roles after failure after failure, but yet they were brought in and actually promoted under the Biden administration.

So this is really, if you want to point figures, it's Obama-Biden. I mean, this is because the same people moving on. Yes, you had four years of President Trump where there was a troop drawdown and they ultimately wanted to withdraw, but they didn't pull the trigger on that because I think they realized the complications involved.

President Trump has talked about what he would have done differently, what their plans were like, and it was, of course, getting the civilians out, getting the Afghans who assist us out, taking out the equipment, or at least destroying it if you have to, even destroying ports if necessary. We come back. We're going to take your phone calls. Bill and James, we'll get to you first, as well as update you on Capitol Hill. There was just an update from the Capitol Hill police, so we'll give that to you when we come back, but it's still an active situation there in Washington, D.C. We'll be right back on Secular.

Music Only when a society can agree that the most vulnerable and voiceless deserve to be protected is there any hope for that culture to survive. And that's exactly what you are saying when you stand with the American Center for Law and Justice to defend the right to life. We've created a free, powerful publication offering a panoramic view of the ACLJ's battle for the unborn.

It's called Mission Life. It will show you how you are personally impacting the pro-life battle through your support. And the publication includes a look at all major ACLJ pro-life cases, how we're fighting for the rights of pro-life activists, the ramifications of Roe v. Wade 40 years later, play on parenthood's role in the abortion industry, and what Obamacare means to the pro-life movement. Discover the many ways your membership with the ACLJ is empowering the right to life. Request your free copy of Mission Life today online at ACLJ.org slash gift. At the American Center for Law and Justice, we're engaged in critical issues at home and abroad. Whether it's defending religious freedom, protecting those who are persecuted for their faith, uncovering corruption in the Washington bureaucracy, and fighting to protect life in the courts and in Congress, the ACLJ would not be able to do any of this without your support.

For that, we are grateful. Now there's an opportunity for you to help in a unique way. For a limited time, you can participate in the ACLJ's Matching Challenge. For every dollar you donate, it will be matched. A $10 gift becomes $20.

A $50 gift becomes $100. This is a critical time for the ACLJ. The work we do simply would not occur without your generous support. Take part in our Matching Challenge today. You can make a difference in the work we do, protecting the constitutional and religious freedoms that are most important to you and your family.

Give a gift today online at ACLJ.org. This is the update from Capitol Hill Police. They are investigating, and we have the image up. I mean, it's an image up of the individual on Capitol Hill.

This is by the Library of Congress, so we'll put that up on the screen for you in a minute. Of the individuals in a truck, they are determining whether or not he does actually have a detonator connected to fuel. Police are negotiating with the suspect. Fox News was told it's a known figure to law enforcement. So, again, we'll show that photo.

Here's the photo. So you see some, like, cash scattered around, someone holding their phone, not moving the truck. The question is, does he have a detonation device? Is this real or not? We're going to keep covering it. I mean, listen, we're on Capitol Hill. We've got police outside of our office where Than is now. We're going to continue to update you throughout the show because, again, this is happening at a time when security is very high in Washington, D.C., but you still see that there's still vulnerabilities and whether or not these are actual individuals making threats, or if they can make good on their threat, you have to act as if they can. Let me go to the phones, 1-800-684-3110. That's 1-800-684-3110. Bill in Wyoming, first on Line 1. Hey, Bill, welcome to Sekulow. You're on the air. Thank you for taking my call. If you don't mind, real quick, as a sidebar concerning what happened to your uncle, I'd like for you to read Isaiah 66 verse 13. I would read it to you, but it would break me up over the air, and I don't want to do that.

I want to get to my question now. These civilians that are left over, my concern is whether or not they might wind up being a bargaining chip for one way or another in the future. Well, I think that's a huge concern. I mean, you're talking about 10,000 to 40,000 very vulnerable people right now without U.S. military that they could call on to evacuate or with a need, but they're being told this. This is, Bill, what is so surprising is they're being told this by Jake Sullivan and the U.S. government right now.

Take a listen by 46. The Taliban have informed us that they are prepared to provide the safe passage of civilians to the airport, and we intend to hold them to that commitment. Okay, so if they don't, are we looking at Afghan War Part 2? Because I wouldn't trust the Taliban providing safe passage to anyone, but especially not these Americans. Could you imagine if the influx of—they're not all in Kabul, but there's obviously a sizable amount because of the importance of Kabul. Trusting the Taliban and that we're going to hold them accountable, well, that sounds like another possible war.

Well, yeah, and I doubt that that will happen. If I had been a reporter there, I would ask Mr. Sullivan exactly how do you intend to hold them accountable? There are a lot of civilians in the country, all over the country, as you said, a lot in Kabul. If the Taliban is going to provide safe passage, how come they're not letting the civilians in Kabul make their way through the airport? Because there are reports now from people on the ground that as they try to go through the entrances to the airport, on the east side of the airport, they're frequently turned back. If they show a passport or papers, those are confiscated.

Their cell phones are broken, and many of them are beaten. That does not sound like safe passage, and yet we're at a point that the U.S. Department of State is imploring the Taliban to help us. We're depending on the good graces and the word of the Taliban to get Americans out.

I think their caller has a point. They could be used as bargaining chips. I tell you what else I think will happen, too, and it's most unfortunate and alarming. We still have prisoners at Gitmo, and I suspect that the Taliban will also try to use that as a bargaining chip, that we will cooperate, we'll let everyone out, but you have to let the prisoners out of Gitmo so they can return to Afghanistan. This is a dicey situation, and it still has the potential to get even worse than it is right now.

I pray it doesn't. What's shocking, too, out of this sound that we're getting from the Stephanopoulos interview is the President says he can't remember if he was told by the military to keep those 2,500 in place. I know we have a call from someone who served in Afghanistan, James in Arizona. Let's get that sound, guys. This is a President whose ability has been questioned whether he was up to this job, and then he says he can't remember if he was told by his top military leaders whether or not it had been a good idea to keep the 2,500 troops there, that have kept things relatively calm in Afghanistan during this period where the U.S. was figuring out what a withdrawal looked like.

And that could have been what a withdrawal looked like. 2,500 troops remaining, and you can still say this is over. They're here to keep the peace for our U.S. personnel and services and our interest in the region. Let's go to James in Arizona. Hey, James, welcome to Sekulow. You're on the air. Hey, guys, thanks for taking my call. I'm an Afghanistan veteran. I served four tours between 2001 and 2008. Thank you for your service. I feel like this abject failure by this administration just all at once pulling our people out, I feel like the friends that I lost over there died for nothing. Well, they didn't – I mean, James, I know that it's tough right now, and understand that the American people appreciate so much your service, your friend's service, those who were lost. You make the ultimate sacrifice that we have the freedoms that we do.

And I think that the average person, we all understand that, Wes. I mean, but I can understand if you serve there and you've lost friends and you've lost loved ones, you lost, you know, your buddies, and now you see this kind of bungled withdrawal, which seems like, well, you got the President saying he can't remember what he was told by his military advisors. Yeah, and James, my heart's with you, and it's easy to feel that way.

It is understandable to feel that way. And I've been asked by families, by Gold Star families who have lost loved ones there, did my loved one, my son or daughter or husband or wife, did they die in vain? And my answer is any time that evil is fought and faced and countered, it is not in vain.

But I understand his emotion, too. You wonder about it. As soldiers and sailors, marines, airmen, we do our job. And the guys and gals there did their job faithfully.

They have nothing to be ashamed or embarrassed about. The mission has been bungled by politicians in the past and by the administration now, but I would encourage James and others to know that, no, the sacrifice was not in vain. Duty was done, and any time evil is confronted, it's never completely in vain. But I feel his pain.

Absolutely. And for everybody who serves, let me just say thank you to everyone serving right now, to all who have served at the ACLJ, a lot of veterans on our staff. But again, I know these can be tough images to see, tough to process.

Reach out to clergy. Reach out if you need help. Because listen, it's tough scenes for people like me who didn't serve, who live with this conflict for 20 years of their life, to see it in this way.

With all those images that evoke other images of other conflicts that were not handled correctly. And so I understand as best I can, and I still won't totally understand what you're going through, but you know that you've got support. I know that you've got the American people have your back as well. When we come back, a second half hour coming up, we'll get more to this sound, where the President, he kind of makes the denial, no one ever said this to me. No one told me to ever keep troops there. And then at the last point he says, well not that I can recall.

So again, he hedges at the very end. We'll play that for you when we come back for the break. We'll take more of your calls. 1-800-684-3110. If you served in Afghanistan, if you're a veteran of that conflict, we'd love to hear your thoughts on what is going on right now. 1-800-684-3110. I know Wes too, you've got a new piece going up at ACLJ.org today.

Right, I do. About the inspector general's report on the 20-year war and how this withdrawal is being totally bungled unnecessarily goes up today. Alright folks, when we come back again, I encourage you to check out ACLJ.org. Support the work of the American Center for Law and Justice. We'll update you on what's going on in Capitol Hill as well.

As our team is there, of course, we've got an office right there. Support the work of the ACLJ during our matching challenge at ACLJ.org. Double the impact your donation.

We'll be right back. At the American Center for Law and Justice, we're engaged in critical issues at home and abroad. For a limited time, you can participate in the ACLJ's matching challenge. For every dollar you donate, it will be matched. A $10 gift becomes $20.

A $50 gift becomes $100. You can make a difference in the work we do, protecting the constitutional and religious freedoms that are most important to you and your family. Give a gift today online at ACLJ.org.

We will fight for the right to live in freedom. Keeping you informed and engaged. Now more than ever, this is Sekulow. And now your host, Jordan Sekulow.

Welcome back to Sekulow. So we've got, of course, what is developing in Afghanistan to cover, and I have been off the air, so I wanted to be able to respond to this too, but it's an ongoing situation. Second, there is breaking news out of Washington, D.C. If you join us, there is still an active situation, a bomb threat on Capitol Hill, near the Library of Congress, which means near the offices of the ACLJ. Of course, the Supreme Court has been evacuated.

Some congressional offices have been evacuated as well. I think we put the image up on the screen. So there's an individual in a truck that's right by the Library of Congress. It looks like a phone, but the Capitol Hill police did one briefing where they said what they're trying to determine. They know this individual. They didn't get in more detail than that. But whether or not there's actual detonation device and some kind of fuel connected to it, that they are still in the midst of. So that is still an ongoing situation. To Afghanistan as well, and I asked people who had served in Afghanistan to call.

Phone lines are full right now, but I'm sure some will clear up with 1-800-684-3110. This is how we're told by CNN. Well, let me play Jake Sullivan first. This is the National Security Advisor. This also was the guy under Obama who put together the miraculous and wonderful Iran nuclear deal. But now he's the National Security Advisor to President Biden.

A very important position inside the White House. And this is what he had to say about those Americans and people trying to get to the airport in Kabul, trying to get out. The Taliban have informed us that they are prepared to provide the safe passage of civilians to the airport.

And we intend to hold them to that commitment. So whatever that means, very scary though when you're going to have to rely on the Taliban to provide safe passage for you. Take a listen to Clarissa Ward from CNN about what the scene is actually like outside the airport. The Taliban is providing the first perimeter. Then there's a next level, which are Afghan Special Forces who are still sort of working with the U.S. or trying to help the U.S. with this. And we are hearing reports that they are being pretty brutal as well.

Some videos circulating online that I have to emphasize CNN hasn't independently verified yet, but that do appear to show them also beating people back. So we've got U.S. troops back in harm's way. But what's also clear there is that the Taliban is in charge of the first perimeter. You're not getting to that airport unless you're going through a Taliban checkpoint. And that we're supposedly working with the Taliban now. People that we were shooting five days ago are now people we're supposed to be trusting.

Yeah, I mean, this is incredibly naive and crazy. And not only that, we're flying in thousands of U.S. troops. And from a military, you know, perspective, you're going to fly thousands.

I know we have to, and I'm glad we're doing it. But you're flying thousands of troops into an airport that is completely encircled by the enemy. And you're going to rely on the enemy's word to let the civilians in and not to attack our troops.

And of course, our troops are armed and they would return fire. But this is insanity on steroids, Jordan. The headline at Daily Mail right now is Joe loses his grip. There's been a lot of criticism from the right about Joe Biden's fitness to serve. Now the left, now you've got people like George Stephanopoulos pushing him hard.

CNN said it's like for the first time in seven months into his presidency that they're not just giving him a pass for not being Donald Trump. Take a listen, though, to this, folks, as Joe Biden answers a question definitively twice and then gives the big hedge at the end. Top military advisers warned against withdrawing on this timeline. They wanted you to keep about 2,500 troops. No, they didn't.

It was split. That wasn't true. That wasn't true. They didn't tell you that they wanted troops to stay? No, not in terms of whether we were going to get out in a time frame all troops. They didn't argue against that. So no one told your military adviser to not tell you, no, we should just keep 2,500 troops. It's been a stable situation for the last several years. We can do that.

We can continue to do that. No, no one said that to me that I can recall. Not that I can recall. So after definitively saying, no, no, that's not true, now I can't remember.

That whole series of questions. It'd be very interesting to see this entire report by ABC because, again, as we've seen the media, Wall Street Journal headlined the Taliban captured Joe Biden. So you've got Daily Mail saying Joe loses grip. I mean, this is not good for America, though, because this is at the world stage. It's different than just squabbling over domestic politics. This is international geopolitical.

This is what makes you or breaks you as a superpower. We'll be right back. Take your calls, your comments on secular. At the American Center for Law and Justice, we're engaged in critical issues at home and abroad, whether it's defending religious freedom, protecting those who are persecuted for their faith. Uncovering corruption in the Washington bureaucracy and fighting to protect life in the courts and in Congress, the ACLJ would not be able to do any of this without your support.

For that, we are grateful. Now there's an opportunity for you to help in a unique way. For a limited time, you can participate in the ACLJ's Matching Challenge. For every dollar you donate, it will be matched. A $10 gift becomes $20.

A $50 gift becomes $100. This is a critical time for the ACLJ. The work we do simply would not occur without your generous support.

Take part in our Matching Challenge today. You can make a difference in the work we do, protecting the constitutional and religious freedoms that are most important to you and your family. Give a gift today online at ACLJ.org. Only when a society can agree that the most vulnerable and voiceless deserve to be protected is there any hope for that culture to survive. And that's exactly what you are saying when you stand with the American Center for Law and Justice to defend the right to life. We've created a free, powerful publication offering a panoramic view of the ACLJ's battle for the unborn.

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But he said no, and then he said why, I can't recall that. Then you have Jake Sullivan, National Security Advisor to the President of the United States of America, telling Americans and others who need to get out of Afghanistan, trust the Taliban. We talked to the Taliban, they said they'll provide safe passage. I mean, this is getting toward a level which we have not seen in a long time. I'll go to Thanh, I've been in Washington, D.C., because Thanh, it hasn't been a while since we've seen both Democrats and Republicans say we've got to hold hearings on this.

There is a concern that these hearings become absolutely political and not about the mission failure that we are seeing right now and how we can improve the situation, because we also know, on top of all of this, guess who is ready to go right into Afghanistan yet again? The Russians with the Chinese. So this time around, I think the Russians think they can do better because they would have the Chinese working with them as well. These governments don't go in and try to build up governments or militaries. They're happy to work with the Taliban, happy to work with human rights abusers. They themselves are human rights abusers. I mean, the Chinese are carrying out their own genocide in their own country. Do you think they have a problem dealing with the Taliban?

They work well together. But then Congress wants to get to the bottom of this because I think that if these members of Congress that have been there for a while, they've been authorizing this, they've been there before, they know the troops in their own districts, they know those who have lost their lives, they hear from veterans. I mean, it's very important to Congress too.

Well, I'm always concerned that hearings are going to become political because they so often do, but here's the hope that I have, Jordan, that it won't go that way. There was pretty strong bipartisan support for the withdrawal. This was true during the Trump administration. It was true during the Biden administration.

And so I think you have a bipartisan concern that while withdrawal was the correct thing to do, that of course it had to be done in an orderly fashion. I mean, look, here's the proof that President Biden wasn't up to this, Jordan. I mean, if you back up just a few weeks, just a couple of weeks, American forces, a very small amount of them, were keeping the Taliban at bay.

So of course, by definition, that would have been the moment to make sure that all Americans, all allies, all resources were out. By the way, Jordan, that's something we haven't talked about a whole lot today. Wes touched on it, but you have prisoners that were released from the American base.

You have weapons, you have buildings, you have ports, you have vehicles. How many of those, Jordan, are now in the hands of the Taliban? I think those are the questions that need to be asked by a bipartisan group of committees next week.

I hope it doesn't become political, and I will tell you this. Here's one question that I would like to see asked of the administration. You played the sound from Jake Sullivan that the Taliban was responsible for providing a safe passage to the airport. I want to know if Jake Sullivan or any other member of the administration would trust the Taliban to provide them safe passage, if their lives depended on it, to an airport, because I certainly would not. No, I mean, again, why would you trust the Taliban? We've been in an active conflict.

Wes, I want to play this by far. This is Bill Himmer talking to a Democrat member of Congress from the Foreign Affairs Committee, Susan Wild from Pennsylvania. So this is a Democrat. Take a listen. Has he communicated enough and effectively with what's happening there on the ground? Well, I think we've had a lot of communication from the White House.

I don't think we've had enough communication on Afghanistan and the situation right now. We deserve answers. We intend to get answers. You've already heard that the House Foreign Affairs Committee plans to conduct hearings as early as next week. We will be in Washington. I will be there.

I've got an awful lot of questions. I know my colleagues on both sides of the aisle do as well. I think this presents an opportunity for Congress to work together to not make this a partisan, Wes, like the military itself, and just to get into, okay, who said this would be a good idea to do it the way it was done?

Obviously, you can always point, you know, hindsight's always 20-20. That's one thing, but here it does appear that we already had such a small amount of troops there. This pulling of the plug that we did with the equipment, with the guns. Everybody's seen the pictures of the Taliban with all the new. Now they went from old AK-47s to updated weaponry to aircraft they can't even utilize. But they'll try. And an Afghan military that was trained that could also join them.

Sure, sure. This is a presidency-defining issue for Joe Biden. We have not been this embarrassed as a nation since the Iran hostage crisis in 1979. And President Biden's failure to acknowledge mistakes, to take responsibility, for God's sake, to show empathy about what's going on, is arrogant.

It's a break from reality. It's like the emperor has no clothes and either doesn't know it or won't admit it, and he needs to get dressed. His personal defensiveness about this, his inability to remember stuff, is shameful, it's shocking. Either when he says he doesn't remember what his military advisors told him about 2,500 troops, either he's not telling the truth or we have serious, serious problems with the man who is at the top of the military chain of command.

Either of those is pretty alarming. And by the way, one aside, you know, the Pentagon leadership have been as disingenuous and as broken as the White House is on this issue, in my opinion. Yesterday, when the Secretary of Defense was asked about whether or not we could go out and help bring some of our American citizens to the airport, his response was, well, we have 2,500 troops here, but their job is to guard the embassy, and so they can't go get the civilians. I'm sorry, the U.S. embassy closed days ago.

Essentially, there is no U.S. embassy. For him to look at the American people and say, we can't go get American citizens who are trapped, but by the way, we'll trust the Taliban to give them safe passage, this is craziness, Jordan. Yeah, I know that Laura on Facebook talked about the 10,000 U.S. citizens in Afghanistan. Robin's got a question about that, too, in New York.

Hey, Robin, welcome to Sekulow, you're on the air. My question is, from four other foreign nations, are the military, NGOs, and humanitarian organizations and civilians, are they able to get out of Afghanistan, and has the Biden administration given consideration to that at all? Well, I think, listen, they're talking about it now. We know other countries are doing the job that they, by the way, I know that in the U.K., they are extremely upset, Wes, again, because they're being told that they didn't get the info, and so they're now having to take, they're there, of course, in their role as NATO and as their ally, trying to do the same thing. We're focused, we've seen all this U.S. attention, but the other countries, one, they've got issues with getting their people out now safely. Two, yes, there are all these Americans that were working there for non-governmental organizations, for governmental organizations that are non-military, like USAID and all of the rebuilding and structuring that goes into place after the military's been through to kind of build up civil society. It seems like all those people were left, and they thought that they at least had 90 days, which is a long time, to figure out how to evacuate all these people, and instead it took four. Yeah, and not only that, some of these aid workers and missionaries and other people are all throughout the country, and over the last couple of months, the Taliban has taken the majority of the country.

So for some of those people, it was not safe to travel even weeks ago. I still think there's a way for this administration, if they had the courage to do it and the clarity, to say to the Taliban, look, we are going to get our people, stand back. We have the military power to do that. Unfortunately, I don't think this White House has the will. Dan, I want your reaction, too, because we heard from President Biden, it's not a failure.

Then we hear actual reports on the ground from CNN Bite 31. We heard President Biden say yesterday in his comments to ABC News that this is not a failure, and I think a lot of people outside that airport, particularly those taking the kinds of extreme actions we're just talking about, would like to know, if this isn't failure, what does failure look like exactly? So, Dan, I want to go right to you on this, because we know that there are this idea that this is going to be bad and around in Washington, D.C., but this, to me, it just seems like there was wide bipartisan support to withdraw from Afghanistan. And there was also support from the country.

70% of the country thought so. But I think everybody's idea of what that actually meant, was it a Germany situation, was it a Korea situation, or was it going to look like Vietnam? And this is looking like Vietnam. This is a failure, Jordan, and I would add to it, it's an ongoing failure. It's an ongoing failure because on the ground right now, we have American citizens, we have allies, we have contractors, and we have vulnerabilities whose lives are on the line right now.

Jordan, I know we don't have a lot of time coming to the end of the break. There are fathers who don't know where their young daughters are now because the U.S. pulled their security forces away without warning. That's not acceptable. The United States of America has to do better than that. No, we haven't even gotten into the issues now facing the Afghan people who, for 20 years, they reopened schooling for girls, women having active roles in civil society, in life, in business, and even in government, and now all of that, again, is under the Taliban's control. Christians in Afghanistan for 20 years had this protection.

Now the Taliban reportedly going door to door looking for them, and we're only touching the surface of the atrocities that are already occurring. Only when a society can agree that the most vulnerable and voiceless deserve to be protected is there any hope for that culture to survive. And that's exactly what you are saying when you stand with the American Center for Law and Justice to defend the right to life. We've created a free, powerful publication offering a panoramic view of the ACLJ's battle for the unborn.

It's called Mission Life. It will show you how you are personally impacting the pro-life battle through your support. And the publication includes a look at all major ACLJ pro-life cases, how we're fighting for the rights of pro-life activists, the ramifications of Roe v. Wade 40 years later, Planned Parenthood's role in the abortion industry, and what Obamacare means to the pro-life movement. Discover the many ways your membership with the ACLJ is empowering the right to life. Request your free copy of Mission Life today online at ACLJ.org slash gift. At the American Center for Law and Justice, we're engaged in critical issues at home and abroad. Whether it's defending religious freedom, protecting those who are persecuted for their faith, uncovering corruption in the Washington bureaucracy, and fighting to protect life in the courts and in Congress, the ACLJ would not be able to do any of this without your support.

For that, we are grateful. Now there's an opportunity for you to help in a unique way. For a limited time, you can participate in the ACLJ's Matching Challenge. For every dollar you donate, it will be matched. A $10 gift becomes $20.

A $50 gift becomes $100. This is a critical time for the ACLJ. The work we do simply would not occur without your generous support. Take part in our Matching Challenge today. You can make a difference in the work we do, protecting the constitutional and religious freedoms that are most important to you and your family.

Give a gift today online at ACLJ.org. One issue domestically we're going to be following very closely because of the impact our office in Washington. We see even this individual on Capitol Hill, this truck, saying it's loaded with explosives as he is live streaming.

I mean, this is the world we live in now. But, Thea, just an update, our team is still in this perimeter, has not been told to evacuate yet. There's ongoing negotiations with this individual. He's making a lot of threats. Again, law enforcement has to figure out how much of a threat do they try to take this individual out, what could they do.

Unfortunately, it comes at a time when there's high security presence in Washington, D.C. and a lot of tension. Yeah, Jordan, they did slightly expand the area that was evacuated. We're still outside that perimeter. We're inside the perimeter where they're asking people to shelter in place, essentially. So I'm able to stay on the air with you. We don't have to evacuate.

I'm sure we'll get a notice if that changes. Look, I would tell you this, especially after the last few months and actually the last several years, the law enforcement around here has been under a lot of duress. So I would say thoughts and prayers with the folks negotiating with this individual at the moment. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, they've been dealing with one thing after another. There's always action like this on Capitol Hill, but it seems to be more regular nowadays and more extreme.

And that's unfortunate because, again, it's our nation's capital and you want your nation's capital to be a place that can be welcoming, open as much as possible during everything else the country is dealing with with the pandemic. But, you know, this is, again, we're going to stay on this. We'll continue to update people as well.

I want to go. Do we have the sound yet from this? ABC News is putting out a lot from this Biden interview, which if they can put out this much, what else is there? But it's Biden again being pressed on the security situation, the airport situation, what we're all seeing with our own eyes. I was not obviously on the air.

I was with friends in Washington, D.C., some were working in the government, some were outside the government now. And just the images alone of the people trying to cling to a plane and fall off a plane was a reminder, you know, of kind of what we don't want as Americans, the opposite of what we fight against. But take a listen to how Biden explains what it's like at the airport in Kabul. Still a lot of pandemonium outside the airport.

Oh, there is. But look, but no one's being killed right now. God forgive me if I'm wrong about that, but no one's being killed right now. People are, we got a thousand somewhere, twelve hundred yesterday, a couple thousand a day, and it's increasing.

We're going to get those people out. But we've all seen the pictures. We've seen those hundreds of people packed into a C-17. We've seen Afghans falling. That was four days ago, five days ago.

Knocked on wood. The second thing is that he's talking about four or five days ago, but we know right now. The reports are that U.S. troops are having to engage as well with civilians, with the Taliban, trying to work still with what remains of the Afghan special forces. This idea that no one's been killed, we know at least a dozen people have been killed.

So that's not true. Now, he says everything like a politician, you know, like he like eventually he says, well, I don't recall if I was told to keep twenty five hundred troops there. He says that, you know, there, right now, no one is being killed.

I don't know what he means stand by right now. That's probably him being a politician to say, the second that I'm talking to you, no one got killed. But we know people are being killed, and we know, unfortunately, that with this withdrawal, we've got reports that the Taliban's going door-to-door. We haven't really even gotten to the human side of this. We're still talking about kind of the U.S. side of this. But the Taliban's going door-to-door looking for Christians specifically. They want to eradicate Christianity once again under their rule. We know the situation.

I'm a father of two young girls. This is the worst of the, one of the worst of the worst places to be is under the Taliban's control as a woman who experienced twenty years of freedom. Jordan, this is not a time to talk cute about the timing of people losing their lives. He knows good and well. People are losing their lives right now.

He knows good and well. People will continue to lose their lives as security forces back out. It will be those who are minorities. It will be women and girls. It will be Christians. It will be Muslim minorities. He knows that good and well, Jordan.

This is not the time to be a politician. It's the time to be the commander-in-chief and do something about it while the United States still can. And look, I would tell you the two groups of individuals that really get to me, the church in Afghanistan, definitely going to be under siege. And Jordan, I'm also a father of two young girls. And I think about the fathers that at this moment are having their young daughters taken away to be, quote, unquote, married to Taliban fighters.

Jordan, that's a fate that's worse than death in many cases. So look, I need my commander-in-chief, all Americans need our commander-in-chief to stop talking political, to stop talking cute, and to engage the strongest military, the strongest government in the world to do something about this ongoing emergency. It's not in the past. We're not finger-pointing.

We're not doing an autopsy, so to speak. This is an ongoing emergency and people's lives are on the line. I know, Thad, that there's many around the world that would love to say, you know, this is the death of America as a superpower as we know it. But you do have to look at these situations, like post World War II where we were clearly the superpower, then we got into Vietnam, looked a little, you know, it was also a chaotic time domestically. Now today, 20 years into Afghanistan, chaotic time domestically, around the world with a pandemic, at home with a pandemic, we saw the protests, we had an election controversy, all those things that have happened. So kind of a little bit of history repeating itself. So this is a defining moment, how you move forward.

Do you move forward and correct course so that you do remain the superpower? Because the fact that the Russians and the Chinese are right at the back door, they're ready to work alongside the Taliban, tells me they see this as that moment too. Jordan, I hope next week is the beginning of that moment. It can be if my concerns about the hearings becoming political doesn't come to fruition. If that is an opportunity in a bipartisan way for the American people through their elected representatives to remind the administration what we expect of them, because again, there's consensus on this withdrawal, or at least very close to consensus. We want it executed in a way, though, that protects American citizens, our allies, and the vulnerable on the ground. I think next week can be the opportunity for that, Jordan, but it's going to have to get past political games. It's going to have to get back to executing a proper withdrawal. And I would tell you this, just to be optimistic, you're absolutely correct that we can still be the superpower of the world, and we can still pull much of this disaster from the brink. And again, I would point you to the proof, Jordan, two weeks ago. Was the Taliban in charge?

No. The force of America was keeping the Taliban at bay, and we could have executed a safe withdrawal. It's harder now than it was then, but we can still get it done. You know, I think we all have to consider this, too, from a White House that said, you know, we're going to be transparent, we're going to be friendly with the press. What are they doing now when the press has the most questions? There's no press briefing today.

Now, I mean, President Biden is sitting down more. We haven't heard anything from Vice President Harris, really, on this. We hear some from Jake Sullivan, the National Security Advisor, but there was also mixed messaging coming out. You know, the military leadership were not exactly on the same message points as the White House. You would think it's something this important, whether it went as planned or not. But when you're in the planning stages, part of that is, okay, what's our communication strategy? We know this is going to be contentious, even if it went better than this, that we need a plan for how we're going to talk to the American people about what they're saying. How do we talk to our members of our military about what they are seeing after they have lost friends, after they have shed their own blood for these Afghans, and to keep us safe from the terrorist threat that becomes Afghanistan when it becomes rapidly, once again, it looks like, a safe haven for those that want to do us harm.

And they welcome in those groups. But I think it's even bigger than that. I think this is a defining moment for America, moving forward. Are we the shining city on the hill? Are we able to recover from this and continue to be the world's leader?

Again, elections have consequences, but this is bigger than even one election. So folks, we'll continue to update you, of course, on this throughout the week at ACLJ in Oregon, a new piece by Wes Smith. Also, continue to follow the news on what's happening on Capitol Hill. That has not come to an conclusion yet. Hopefully that comes to one that keeps everyone safe. We will talk to you tomorrow on Secular.

At the American Center for Law and Justice, we're engaged in critical issues at home and abroad. For a limited time, you can participate in the ACLJ's Matching Challenge. For every dollar you donate, it will be matched. A $10 gift becomes $20. A $50 gift becomes $100. You can make a difference in the work we do, protecting the constitutional and religious freedoms that are most important to you and your family. Give a gift today online at ACLJ.org.