BREAKING: Biden Asks for Contingency Plans on Afghanistan

Breaking news today on Sekulow as President Biden has asked the State Department, Department of Defense for contingency plans on Afghanistan and the withdrawal date.

Keeping you informed and engaged, now more than ever, this is Sekulow. In addition, I've asked the Pentagon and the State Department for contingency plans to adjust the timetable should that become necessary. I'm determined to ensure that we complete our mission, this mission. I'm also mindful of the increasing risks that I've been briefed on and the need to factor those risks in. They're real and significant challenges that we also have to take into consideration.

We want to hear from you. Share and post your comments or call 1-800-684-3110. Who's going to be doing security at the airport as those last US troops are leaving? Is there an agreement? It sounded as if you were saying that the Taliban will be responsible for security as the last Americans are leaving.

No, I said the Taliban will be responsible for running an airport that's in a city that they are now the titular heads of government there. And now your host, Jordan Sekulow. Hey, welcome to Sekulow. We're going to take your calls, your comments, 1-800-684-3110.

Facebook, Periscope, YouTube, get those comments in as well. Of course, President Biden in a speech yesterday addressing the nation once again on Afghanistan. In this meeting, he brought up the idea of the one, the August 31st deadline, where he really focused in on, which was an interesting way to pose it, which is we're so worried about potential terror attacks on US forces in Afghanistan that we feel like we need to leave. And the question is, when did that become such a threat to the United States? Because we've been in Afghanistan for two decades. And in the last five, six years, you didn't hear about the threats that these groups like ISIS-K or the Taliban itself and others were active, were an active threat to either Afghans or the US troops there on any more scale than what would be kind of average. But now he's focused in on that. At the same time, though, he left a big Washington, D.C.-style open door to a prolonged effort.

Now, there is a question, how long could you prolong this effort when you were starting to pack up? So we've talked about it since the beginning and since this all started happening at the airport in Kabul. We focused in on whether or not, you know, what would be the potential for an Afghan part two, Afghanistan part two, if something occurs, which obviously that's the one line message every one of the Biden officials is on the same point on, which is unique in this situation. They haven't been, but has been the threat from terrorist groups is increasing every day and that's an increased threat on our troops. But there is some point to make there, which is our troops, are we really in a situation where our troops can't defend themselves against these small militant groups?

Because if we are, in a matter of two weeks, we're not only destroying America's reputation around the world, but we look absolutely weak. And I think that's the real issue. Well, I mean, there was an interesting point raised today on as American troops leave Afghanistan in the last days, who's going to be protecting those troops? And basically, I don't know if we have that sound up from Admiral Kirby, but it's basically either we're relying on the Taliban.

I mean, this is this is the absurdity of this. Who's going to be doing security at the airport as those last U.S. troops are leaving? Is there an agreement or is it sounded as if you were saying that the Taliban will be responsible for security as the last Americans are leaving? No, I said the Taliban responsible for running an airport that's in a city that they are now the titular heads of government there. There's a lot to break down there, Wes.

We'll do it in the next segment. But we're relying on the Taliban? Yeah. Here's the real bottom line. This is reality, which apparently the White House is divorced from. At midnight on August the 31st, we either leave Americans behind in Afghanistan or we confront the Taliban, something we should be doing now. Yeah, that's the problem here, Jordan.

Well, yeah. Where why were we not confronting the Taliban this entire lead up to this so that they were weak while we were doing this drawdown instead of them coming back stronger than we've seen in 20 years when the Taliban was first defeated fairly rapidly by U.S. forces? Again, the whole issue here, the American people supported this withdrawal from Afghanistan and the drawdown in Afghanistan. The issue has been how we're doing it.

And the message it sends to the world, the long term implications for the United States, but also the short term implications for the U.S. And we see China and Russia trying to move in. Support the work of the ACLJ and ACLJ.org. We'll be right back. 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. I'm covering 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.

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Request your free copy of Mission Life today online at ACLJ.org slash gift. Well, we also saw today out of a press conference, and I'll be careful how I say this, so the State Department and John Kirby there, who is the spokesperson at the Pentagon, he gave the Taliban, he can't do it on his own, of course he can't recognize him as a government officially at the world level, but he did refer to the Taliban as the head of running Afghanistan. The titular head of the government. Yes, and also clarified, which we talked about on the air too, but there is no more U.S. Embassy in Kabul. It is at the airport. The actual embassy compound, they confirmed, it has no security, no presence there, so it's been entirely overrun by the Taliban.

So on the one hand, he is telling the truth when he's saying they are running the show. On the other hand, what we're finding out though is at what point does the U.S. respond to the Taliban because of any kind of aggressive steps, and we know the shutdown of the airport. All of those kind of moves can lead to more conflict, which could lead to loss of American life, loss of civilian life there, especially when you've got all those people crammed in trying to get to an airport. So I think, listen, this entire drawdown, it's made America look very weak, very confused. Very unprepared?

Very unprepared. Yeah, so you've got an article from Politico, not exactly a conservative paper, that says the definition of gaslighting is chaos unfolds at Kabul airport, Biden team projects calm, and then the reporter writes, meanwhile the West Wing is looking increasingly disconnected from reality as the Biden White House strives to project a sense of calm and competence even as the Taliban tighten their grip on Afghanistan. So here's, of course, the dilemma. Unless something unbelievable happens, by August 31st, Harry, we're not going to see all Americans, and by the way, they're hedging it.

All Americans who want to leave can leave. Somebody needs to ask General Kirby what that term means because he goes on my vote of absolutely no. Every time he gets up, I have less and less confidence in our government's capability to do this. But when I look at the projecting calm versus what's actually happening on the ground, Harry, from a policy perspective, I'm trying to figure out what is the policy.

Get out if you can. Well, I think the policy basically means that we have decided unilaterally to cave to the Taliban. So while Joe Biden attempts to project calm, while Jake Sullivan, his national security adviser, claims that we are actually overperforming in terms of the evacuation numbers, it is clear that the stench from Biden's foreign policy disaster mounts among the dead bodies of Afghan security forces, amid the chaos and the lack of sanitation at the airport, and among the Americans who are stranded in Afghanistan with no way out. Meanwhile, Joe Biden has zero answers, and when he issues an answer, guess what?

Admiral Kirby and the Defense Department and perhaps the State Department, they are contradicting what Biden has said less than an hour or so ago. So what we have is children who are running the asylum. Well, the problem is, and this can have devastating consequences, so right before the break we talked about this idea that as we draw the troops further and further down, 6,000 over there, as they're leaving, who protects them? Which is, you know, if you had a victory and a K in a military engagement, you have your troops there.

You don't have that here. So Wes, from a military standpoint, and I've got a question for Than, from a military standpoint, what is it looking like right now? There's 6,000 troops on the ground. Yeah, and thousands and thousands of civilians. You talk about a target-rich environment. That airport with thousands of people crowded into a small space is an attack waiting to happen for some group like Al Qaeda or ISIS.

But you're right, Jay. There's a real disconnect at the White House between their rhetoric and what they're trying to do to reassure the American people and reality on the ground as the Taliban tightens their grip and actually orders and directs U.S. policy and U.S. actions. Americans are still unable to find their way into the airport many times.

Some people with U.S. passports are turned away or they're told to go to a different gate to find that gate closed. There's reported tension between our troops and the State Department. There's disorganization. There's bureaucratic infighting and delays with ISIS threats still looming large. Meanwhile, the White House is reassuring us that everything is going according to plan. Secretary of Defense Austin said just yesterday that what we're doing there, the whole operation, is a tremendous piece of work. It's a piece of work, all right.

I'll give them that. It's totally a piece of work. It's divorce from reality. This is a real, real crisis. And the White House has said repeatedly this was unavoidable, and that is not true.

This was unavoidable. But they really mismanaged this exit from the military. You know, I was wondering about – yeah, I agree. I was wondering on the political side of this, Jordan and Than, what's the calculus here with the White House? Well, I think that their idea is that if they can – and I'll go to Than on this too in Washington. But the idea is if they project this image that, yes, short-term there's going to be these issues where, hey, that's not what's actually happening on the ground. But long-term, if they project that image that the American people just forget and move on. I think, though, the issue with that, Than, is that when you have a 20-year conflict, you have a lot of veterans, a lot of families of veterans.

So that may be more difficult. You also have a lot of members of Congress who served in this. I mean, when I think about when this started, I was just turning 20 years old. Now it's ending.

I'm about to be 40 years old. So you think – well, but that's important because now the people who grew up in this are starting to be leaders in our country. So I think that could be a problem for the Biden team is that this is going to be harder to just look away from as a country.

Jordan, it's a great point. I mean, there are a ton of members of Congress who actively served in Afghanistan. There are even more who have children that served in Afghanistan. So this is personal for them. I would tell you just on the political point – and, you know, it's not the most important one, but it is one you factor in in Washington, D.C. Jordan, I don't think they have any other option. I mean, because, look, you think about it, they've done a House-wide classified briefing. They've done a House Foreign Affairs classified briefing this morning. They've given an opportunity for people to be briefed by phone. And, Jordan, I haven't seen anyone who's been satisfied by those briefings. All members of Congress still think that this is an absolute disaster. And I would tell you just one point from the President's speech yesterday that I'm hearing a lot from Capitol Hill on when he says he's now requested a contingency plan. I mean, I think people will tacitly say, well, I mean, I guess it's good he's requesting it now. But, Jordan, in order for a contingency plan to be any good, you have to consider it and you have to land on it before you execute the withdrawal.

Why is that just happening now? That's not pacifying any of these members. Who in the world does a contingency plan – I mean, let's think rationally here. Who does a contingency plan in the middle of the engagement? I go argue a case at the Supreme Court. I've got argument A, I've got argument B, and then you always have the one I call the exit ramp.

How do you get out of that situation? That is decided months and months before. How do you not have a contingency plan militarily, Wes, when you're in the middle of the – well, toward the very end of the engagement? What does that look like, by the way, in the White House? What's going on with the military leadership on something like this? You know – They're planning?

They're planning the disappointment in all of this for me. And maybe there are conversations going on behind the scenes we don't know about, but it appears that your senior leadership, including General Milley and Secretary of Defense Austin, who's a retired four-star general, they are not confronting the White House. They're not giving them the hard truth. Well, they're not very confident building either. They're not. They're completely – you know, they lack confidence. They don't instill it in the rest of us. The mistake was trusting the Taliban in the first place.

Yeah. When they begin to take all the provincial capitals, that was violating the agreement we had on the withdrawal. When they overthrew the government, violates the agreement we had. And what was our action supposed to be? To attack and to push them back.

And we did not do that. And now we're trusting them to provide security for us as we leave with our tail between our legs. So I'm watching the – in our studios we have media feeds. So I'm watching this and now Secretary Blinken's about to speak. I mean, they're – obviously, Harry, they're trying to do some kind of media control here. But the fact is, if you were to ask for what is the coherent policy, I can't find it. Well, there isn't a coherent policy. Try to get out, I guess, is it? Try to get out. And so if you look at Secretary of State Blinken, if you look at the Department of Defense under Austin, if you look at General Milley, I think one of Biden's first mistakes was depending on the people that he handpicked.

That's number one. Number two, I think if you actually look at the operation we have created by giving up the Bagram Airport before exiting, before getting all Americans out of Afghanistan, essentially what we have here is Dunkirk without the competence. In other words, at the end of the day, this was all avoidable.

If you look at Dunkirk, for instance, that may have been unavoidable. But one of the great things about the Biden administration is that they failed to learn from history, so therefore they basically intend to repeat it. I think what we have to all discuss, and we'll get into this too when we come back from the break, is what we think about this August 31st deadline because of the way that he's left unopened to start drafting contingency plans. The idea with days to go, but the idea is again, is that even possible? Was that just something to seem like we have the ability if we want?

Because what he does not want, which is bizarre when you've been in a 20-year conflict, is any conflict with the U.S. troops and the Taliban. We're kind of running scared from that. So we'll get your reaction, we'll get your thoughts. Go to ACLJ.org as well, we have our matching channel throughout the month of August. Support our work, ACLJ.org.

Be right back. 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.

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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. So we've had the address by President Biden yesterday to the American people. Again, it just seems disconnected from reality. A guy who got elected, a lot of people say, because he was so empathetic during COVID and showed this different tone, is not showing that tone. He is straight up reading off the teleprompter.

So the parts that would sound like emotional that you would usually see someone like a Joe Biden-type individual, the way that they've campaigned before, the way they've held themselves out in the public, is very different than the kind of hard-nosed, everything's fine, no big deal, nothing to see here. Except for you wouldn't have to make these constant addresses to the nation if there was nothing to see here. So our President would continue to speak, you wouldn't see our secretary of state out, you wouldn't see these press conferences by John Kirby garnering the attention that they are. But this is why, take a listen, he said this today from the Pentagon by 34. The Taliban have set up checkpoints, we've talked about this before, and we are in daily communication with Taliban commanders about who we want to see get in and what the credentials are, what they look like, what's valid. And that communication happens literally every day. We have been nothing but open with the Taliban about who we expect them to let in. Again, fully recognize that not every step of this process is in our firm control and that there are going to be instances where it doesn't work as advertised. This guy, this guy, can I ask you something?

I know he's a three star, how did that happen? We have been upfront and open with the Taliban, like that's going to get you, I wouldn't be open with the Taliban like that. Here's what I would say. We know they're not letting Afghans through anymore, the Taliban announced that yesterday.

Okay, that's number one. And they're relying on the good what? The good offices of the Taliban because of the titular head of government now to do this? Yes, that's the position of the United States is somehow within a few weeks we went from controlling this country, every aspect, in every major city, there was no major presence from the Taliban or these other groups, they weren't carrying out massive attacks. The Afghan military was on the front lines, we were not having to be on the front lines. So things were relatively, for Afghanistan, calm, moving forward, women were going to school, women were being educated, there was a new kind of human rights and this new respect. That wasn't to say that the Afghan government was perfect or that their military was perfect. But again, 20 years is a long time for a war and a short time to develop an entire new nation.

And new structures of government, military, police, all those different things that you have to have, judicial systems, to function as a society. And it just feels like we just gave all that up instead of it being precise and focused. And not so, well we see the images, this is chaos.

And in chaos you can have, we are running away. That is the message I got from Joe Biden is he would rather us appear to be running away than engage in any kind of conflict with the Taliban, which is not giving enough respect to our military, the special forces that are there that can easily take on Taliban commandos. Well he says that we have let the Taliban know what our expectations are. They over and over violate our expectations, they don't cooperate and there are no repercussions.

So letting them know what we expect them to do is pretty hollow. Here's the thing also, and you alluded to it Jordan, 20 years later the Taliban today controls more than twice the land area than they did in 2001 when we went to war in that country. And they are calling the shots as to how and when we leave. Optically it looks like a complete victory for the Taliban and a complete rout of the United States of America.

Well that's how, look, here's the policy problem we have going forward. No matter what we say, we know what the Taliban are going to claim and we know that this is in fact going to embolden terrorists. We talked about it before we went on radio, you have all these armaments that are now located in Taliban control.

What prohibits them, the Taliban, from shipping those off to Hezbollah and Hamas? And the answer is nothing. So this awful withdrawal with now looking at contingencies while you're, here's what he's got. His plan is falling apart completely and while it's falling apart he calls his generals up, General Milley, and say, hey what else can we do here? We may need a contingency.

That's how this looks. But it's going to look like a total failure, I'm talking about on the global stage Harry, for the United States. That's what I'm concerned about also. How does this impact our allies who are already saying, don't do August 31st, don't stick to that deadline, G8 conference yesterday, President doesn't budge, the only thing we get out of it as well. He may look at contingencies. I think you're absolutely… Later I'll talk about what those contingencies could look like, because it could look like a war.

I think you're absolutely correct. So essentially what we have is a planned form of a national humiliation by the Biden administration. Basically Biden engaged in an intemperate decision, an ill-advised pullout from Afghanistan after giving up the Bagram airbase, after failing to identify all Americans in Afghanistan.

And so essentially he caved to what? A terrorist group. So if you look at it from a distance, what we have here is the second coming of Jimmy Carter. What we have is spinelessness. And so while Joe Biden continues to depend on the Taliban, we also have reports of violence against Americans by the groups manning the checkpoints outside of airports. DOD secretary Austin has acknowledged in a phone call with lawmakers on Friday that Americans are being beaten by the Taliban, saying the administration has, what, relayed to the Taliban leadership that such behavior is, what, unacceptable. And so guess what? Do you expect terrorists to find a note from Biden or Austin compelling?

I don't think so. So I think the United States has to up its game, and it has to be willing to take some risks. Why? To protect American citizens who are in harm's way. Listen to what Jenna Ben-Yehuda said. She's a 12-year veteran of both the Bush and Obama State Departments.

She's President of the Truman Center. I don't think the President's rhetoric matches the conditions on the ground. That's a pretty much an indictment of where he's coming from. But I think it's the idea of Politico, so he's gaslighting the country. But if they do that effectively and you look politically, and that's what they're, unfortunately, and I think if you realize from the last few shows, we haven't really talked about it in a partisan sense.

But that's what they're looking at then, and they're looking at it from, we can have this political move, as long as we all keep this, then history shows everybody will just shrug their shoulders and move along to domestic issues. The situation, Jordan, where you've got an airport under siege, you've got the Taliban controlling the access points to it, and what's the response from the commander-in-chief of the superpower of the world? It's, we're talking to that regime that's controlling the access routes to the airport. By the way, Jordan, to say nothing about the response they got from the Taliban, what was the response they got? The Taliban told them to take a hike.

Yes, right. I mean, they said, get out of here. I mean, here's the response from the Taliban. No. That's the Taliban's response. And we're saying, oh, General Milley, could you meet with Admiral Kirby, both confidence builders, and come up with some kind of contingency plan? This isn't a game.

They're playing with lives of Americans and people that helped Americans. We'll take your calls at 800-684-3110 when we come back from the break. Every dollar you donate, it will be matched. A $10 gift becomes $20.

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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. We want to talk in these last 48 hours, 72 hours, about the number of Americans in Afghanistan.

How do they get out? Now, what they're being told now is that, well, if you get to the airport in one city in Kabul, you can still get out as an American. We did get numbers today.

So I think this is important. For the first time, the Pentagon has given a number. Now, I want you to remember when you hear this that the scale is somewhere to 10,000 to 40,000 people who would be American citizens that they believe are in the country.

They don't know exactly. There's some good reason for that and some reasons they're utilizing the fact that you don't have to register as an American. You can, but you don't have to when you visit these countries. But we have a lot of contractors. We have all the USAID programs that were going on, nonprofit organizations that were working. And they're not just working in Kabul.

They were all around the country. So they could be in places that are not reachable right now. But here's the number that we got from Kirby and the Pentagon this morning, Byte33.

Two quick questions. I think yesterday you did put out a statement saying about 4,000 Americans have been evacuated. Is there an updated number?

And do you have the sort of base number? How many have to be evacuated now? It's right now today north of 4,400. And I don't have a specific number of total Americans that are still in need of leaving.

I don't have that. So there we go. I mean, 4,400 would not now, plus families, so we really don't have an exact number. But we know that's well less than 10,000 to 40,000. Yeah, and plus these Americans and our allies and their family members are not just in the capital city of Kabul.

They are all across the country. We are not securing routes. Unlike the French and the British, we're not sending special forces teams into various smaller cities and towns to grab our people. We're doing nothing other than relying on the graces and goodwill of our sworn enemy. So Harry, when you've got a situation like this and the State Department's working on what their position is, what should have been worked out before, let's deal with the crisis we're in. So there is a crisis. It's falling apart. It's a disaster. What do you do?

How do you regroup right now? Well, I think the first thing you do is you fire a number of these characters who have gotten us into the mess in the first place. I think one of the things that we should think about as a policy organization is we should look at the background of all of these individuals, from Blinken to Jake Sullivan.

And I think if you look at their background carefully, where do you find footprints, fingerprints? It's the Chinese government. And so I wonder, this is just speculation on my part, whether or not these individuals have made a strategic calculus that the United States will exit from Afghanistan because this will be pleasing somehow to China. And that we will get along better with China going forward. But I also think that they underestimate the Chinese government because now the Chinese government feels empowered, I think, to go after Taiwan eventually. And that could lead to a much wider war. So one of the things that we should always keep in mind is what Ronald Reagan said, trust but verify. And I think what we have in the Biden White House is trust but hope.

Here's an interesting thing. So this is from a reporter at Fox, just tweeted this out. Multiple sources tell Fox that there's a cohort of House members from both sides of the aisle, Republican Democrats, who are either trying to go to Afghanistan or instead to go to Afghanistan to help evacuate people. This comes despite an urging by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi not to do so.

We come back from the break. I'd like to get, it'd be great to get yours and fans' comments on the political ramifications of all of this. Yeah, I mean, the Biden team is thinking that long term, this is not how Americans don't make the decisions on this. COVID's pandemic, those are domestic issues.

But again, I think that they may be miscalculated because of how many Americans this impacts because of how long this conflict went on. Let me encourage you, though, support the work of the ACLJ at ACLJ.org. We have a matching challenge throughout the month of August. You double the impact of your donation.

That's at ACLJ.org. Donate today. We'll be right back on Secular. For those who are 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 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. Welcome back to Secular. So we're talking about all these issues, of course, this drawdown to August 31st and the sticking to August 31st.

I'm in agreement. I don't think that this goes past that unless something extreme happened on the ground, because it's clear this administration has no stomach for conflict here. So they are actively doing anything possible not to engage the Taliban. Some of that's outside of their control, though, as they've admitted that at a point if the Taliban sees weak U.S. troops. I think that where we don't want to see, but I think is what the Taliban is likely thinking, is if you can wait until they're running away, basically, or the image looks like that, creating that image, which means I think that the one thing they are being honest about is that this gets more and more dangerous every day for our troops, because the chaos means more danger, which leads to there's going to be less security on the ground, still not clear questions about how does the final plane take off? What does that actually look like in Afghanistan, in Kabul, when you've got 6,000 plus troops that you've put there?

In addition, so that's new to get what you're doing right now, how does that final plane take off with the threats that they're talking about? Well, you've got that, and then at the same time you have, again, this is what's being reported right now, is that defense officials in the last few days, now think about this for a moment, have proposed retaking Bagram Air Base, we talked about that the other day, which they should have kept in the first place, the military's main hub for American warfare since it was handed over to Afghanistan in July, it's now being controlled by, guess who? Not the Afghan soldiers anymore, the Taliban. But the important part of this is, in recent days they proposed retaking it.

Now, you know how you have to retake that? You have to engage in a war, because there's going to be hundreds or thousands of Taliban troops, and we saw how they look, put that picture on the screen again, in tactical gear, not caves anymore, and there it is. And that's mocking Iwo Jima, of course. But this would require a military engagement, so of course they decided not to do it, but they should have never evacuated it that way in the first place we wouldn't have gotten to this mess. Absolutely. This was mismanaged, you know, ill-planned from the get-go. We should have never given up Bagram until we actually were gone.

It is the largest base. We built it there. We should have gotten the civilians out first. Everything in this whole operation has been completely backwards. And Jay, when you have weak and feckless leadership politically at the White House, and you combine that with weak, vacillating military leadership, it is a recipe for humiliation and for defeat, and sadly, this is the stark truth.

This is where we are today. But do you not cringe, Wes, when you turn on the television, and we have all three networks, the major networks, the cable networks in our offices on the screen where we do our radio prep, and they're all on the same topic, and they've got Admiral Kirby and General Milley, and they're up there speaking. Do you not cringe when you listen to what they're saying? It's as if they don't know what's going on because they don't. They absolutely don't, and they're not willing to take hard, decisive action. Part of the problem, Jay, is they're very, very risk-averse. There are risks involved in this kind of an operation. There is a risk involved in rescuing your people. There is risk involved in confronting your enemy. They are so risk-averse. One of the officials at the Pentagon said the other day that the reason he was against retaking Bagram Airfield to use it as another port to get people out of the country and to get some of our weapons back, by the way, was that he felt like it would be unwise to antagonize the Taliban by taking it back. Are you kidding me? You're worried about antagonizing the Taliban. This goes to the whole mindset of the way this—I mean, this is Jimmy Carter 1979, Barack Obama from 2008 forward. I mean, we're right back.

It's amazing how the pendulum just shifts right back, and we're now right back in the foreign crisis. Now, we do need to say that the ACLJ, we're going to try to get answers here. We're not just analyzing, which is important, and we're getting a lot of information about this out. In fact, we are working on some very special projects on this right now, so you will be totally informed, because this thing could escalate in a minute. But we've got a Freedom of Information Act request going out probably Friday.

That's right. And what we're looking at there, of course, is two things. One is the elimination of the critical response unit at the State Department, which was put in place by the Trump administration. It's something that could be utilized right now when you have people that are outside of Kabul that need evacuation. That was eliminated by the Biden team. What was the process? Why do that?

Why not have a crisis response team at the State Department level? The second is, of course, what went into this August 31st. Why did that become the new deadline?

You know, that was shifted, but what happened? Why did that become this date certain? Why do we keep putting those dates certain?

We could have said, if you wanted to be that way, just say, broadly, August or June or summer or fall. But when you give those dates to the Taliban, they seize on that, of course. And so they're saying, you know, you stay one minute longer than that.

We don't know what's going to happen to you anymore. Now, this is all being said that we are putting the trust in the Taliban to keep things calm enough on the ground until August 31st. And if you look at the images of how close our troops are getting to these Taliban fighters, sometimes it's yards away, where in the crowd, they're walking through with their new machine guns, and you've got our troops right there. I mean, it's seconds away from a conflict, so you have to trust that the Taliban has enough leadership structure in place in the size of the city that is Kabul to actually make good on even if they are making any kind of assurances. I mean, it's also, we're treating this like it's some well-run machine, when in fact it's all these different factions put together.

So you have to look at different pieces. Plus, you have to understand that while the Taliban and ISIS are enemies, you know, again, we have thousands of our troops and other people crowd into a small space at an airport. All the Taliban has to do, and they would do it in order to say, well, we didn't do it, and somehow some crazy plausible deniability, to let an ISIS suicide bomber into that area.

They're the ones controlling who goes in and out. So it's a situation where our people and the people trying to escape that country, you know, are in real, real danger. And what this amounts to, I mean, and it's sad, it's shocking, essentially what the Biden administration planned in all of this was a planned defeat. They hoped the Taliban would not capitalize on it. I think part of the hope was that it would not become a big issue. But seriously, this was a surrender.

This was a planned defeat. But people did notice, our allies noticed, and the Taliban is capitalizing on it. And ISIS and Al Qaeda are waiting in the wings to attack Americans and America again. Sharon is calling from Kansas Online One. Hey, Sharon, welcome to Secular, you're on the air.

Thank you, and thank you for all you do. Quick question, I have been reading that a lot of private groups that have raised money to go rescue people. They have the planes, et cetera, that the State Department is kind of stonewalling, doing what they have to do in order for those people to go in. Is there any way you all can put pressure on the State Department to get that done?

You know, I understand what these private groups are trying to do, and I think the intentions are well-founded. But the reality is, this is a war zone. And when you're dealing with the war zone, you cannot override your government's interest. In the sense that the risk factor, now there are private charters going in and out of there, but those generally are coordinated by the government. I can't imagine a situation in a zone as dangerous as this, Harry, where private contractors could just go in.

Well, first of all, you've got a sovereign government, sort of, the Taliban, if that's what you want to call it, that could say no. Well, I tend to agree with you, but I also think at the margin, some private groups have had some success, and I think this is why. Because they have the will to do it. So, Senator Tom Cotton, for instance, he's been successful in rescuing a couple here or there, and he has basically shared his contact details with the American people and others. Glenn Beck, for instance, has raised, I believe, $27 or $28 million.

He gave it to a charity. I'm just not sure how they – they can't just fly planes in there, though. I tend to agree, but I also would point out that they are trying to make up for the government failure, can they be successful in the long term, perhaps not. You can coordinate. There are private flights going out. But that's coordinated with the U.S., too. You have to be coordinated with the U.S. government. There are some veteran groups, though, that are using their contacts on the ground simply to get people through the barricades into the airport to get on a plane, and that is working. And there's this whole drive of raising money for private aircraft to come in. If that's not coordinated with the government, that's going to be very difficult. No, I think that what we'll see is probably the likelihood that soldiers, the contract soldiers and fighters, which we've seen, use with success in these regions because we've talked about they have the will to do it, they're paid to do it, they have much higher pay, the risk, the reward. So they've made those calculations themselves.

But they're also working with a different level. There's a story about the $6,500 flight. That's for contractors.

That's for people who were there who could afford it. That's more of a corporate business-style evacuation. So, Thanh, you made a very interesting point just now. I think all of these things would have probably worked before we surrendered the country. Once you surrender the country, it becomes just infinitely more difficult. Yeah, right. They could have said to these groups, okay, we need your help with assistance, resettling people, getting through the process.

You see the pictures out at Dulles Airport, people who came straight out of Afghanistan, this drawdown, who are now in the United States. They're going to need a lot of assistance to get on their feet. We'll be right back on Secular. 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. 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. Welcome back to Sekulow. I want to play Congressman Waltz, a good friend of ours to the broadcast and a veteran of this conflict.

Take a listen by 42. Well, this Congress is going to lead. Our offices right now are operation centers calling gate guards, calling the Kabul airport, guiding people through, telling them how to avoid Taliban checkpoints, our own Congress.

It's unbelievable the lack of leadership, so I 100% agree. That blood is and will be on Joe Biden's hands, and this Congress will hold him accountable. And I think, too, to this point, what Jen Psaki yesterday said in response to the question from, I think it was Peter Duester Fox, basically, well, just give us their phone numbers. And she was doing this kind of confident, you know, not being, again, the fact that they're at that point, that's where the realistic of the crisis should be, right, which the White House press secretary is telling White House reporters, just like the Congressman's talking about there, well, if you know somebody, just give me their phone number and then we'll get them into the database to contact. That shows how chaotic this is, and of course, all of this chaos could lead to, and I think that's why the media, it's being covered in mass this way. Everyone is waiting for the moment this turns back into a war. And the risk of that, of course, is that these contingency plans are coming up, and I'm sure they're in war rooms right now, depending on figuring this out.

But let's just speculate for a moment here. So come the 31st, all the Americans are not out, and the Taliban start doing what Taliban terrorists do, start attacking, clamping down, doing horrible things to people, including their own citizens and Americans, then what do we do? So what's the contingency look like? Yeah, you know, it is so, so avoidable, but the contingency would have to involve either walking away, which I think politically and militarily is not a possibility for this, even for this administration, or we're going to have to engage military, which means major deployments, combat deployments back into Afghanistan, the major utilization of air power. You know, it's going to turn into war again, and their effort to try to avoid war, they've actually made war more likely. Listen to what, this was a reporter asking a question to Jen Psaki.

I mean, this is, here it is, take a listen. Say after the withdrawal, it's done, you know, it's declared, it's done, everyone's out. If one U.S. citizen was suddenly discovered, you know, saying, hey, I really want to get out and I'm stuck, who knows where, somewhere in Afghanistan or in Kabul, he's got any problem, would this trigger a diplomatic, military, or hands on deck type thing to get that person out, whatever the date? Our commitment continues to be to U.S. citizens, if they want to leave, we will help get them out. No matter what the date? Again, we expect there could be some, but I don't, I'm not going to get into it further.

Go ahead. What do you think, I mean, I know we're speculating here, Jordan, but what do you think that, who want to get out? Is that the mercenary, the paid soldiers?

Who are they fighting for at that point? Well, no, there's also, there are people that could be married to someone that aren't leaving, there could be people that, and there's a lot of people that might qualify as U.S. citizenship various ways after you've had a 20-year conflict there, people going back and forth between the United States, military, contractors, businesses, nonprofits. So there might be some who say, you know, I'm sticking with this, maybe they work for different internet, they can work for the UN, they can work for other entities.

Still be American citizens. But I think that's a small group. That's not 40,000 people. So the 40,000 has got to be primarily the people would be the staff, civilian staff, consulate staff, and that mixture. And I don't, I think that these members of Congress are right, I don't think that they're crying wolf on this, they're hearing from people who are trying to get out, they're trying to direct it themselves. No member of Congress, no congressional staff, that is not what those, they're doing it, they're trying to do their best, they're not set up to be the State Department on Capitol Hill. They're desperate, Jordan, and look, I mean, I don't think the two members that probably went over there probably helped the situation, you probably don't need members on the ground, but they're desperate, Jordan, because the administration is falling down on the job. And look, I mean, you know, Jen Psaki, I think she's using the minor exception of a very few people who would stay to give cover for those they're not going to get out. I mean, Jordan, okay, if those people gave Jen Psaki their number, she already told us what they're telling those people when they call them. They're telling those people, get to the airport, we can't help you get there.

That doesn't do any good. Yeah, I mean, this is the problem, Teresa, you told us, is this Benghazi all over again, large scale, much larger scale, we don't really know, we know people are dying, we know people are, that the situation's not good, we don't have numbers on that. The media is very, has a very small window into this, which is basically where they are at the airport, so we don't really know what's happening outside of that, other than reports.

We haven't seen a major conflict yet, that we know, and we have not seen that yet, so no one's shot rockets in. Don't you think the Taliban are smart enough, as evil and wicked as they are, to not engage in a military conflict while we have 6,000 troops there? I think that's a maybe, because they are the Taliban, the reason they have a reputation is as being Islamist, supporting terror groups.

Now, to the question, how bad do they think this is worth, and how much control do they actually have over these different units? There's also the question about Pakistan's role in this, because you've got these commandos now coming back in, who say they're the Taliban, they don't look like the Taliban, they don't dress like the Taliban, they don't have the same hair as the Taliban, they don't look as tribal, they look like they were trained military in major cities. They think that they were potentially trained by the Pakistani military, so they've come back, they are different, the Taliban, this structure, there's hardly any people there who were left over from the beginning of this conflict, there's like one or two left. But, I think it's not like Benghazi, there are tens of thousands of people armed, all walking around each other right now, in a chaotic situation, with guns pointed, that are loaded. Where there are thousands of people trapped there, not just an ambassador and his staff.

Yeah, so it's different than Benghazi. They've talked about putting Herman Karzai as the President, which starts looking like, I know we touched on this briefly yesterday, but when you put something like Karzai on, who was internationally respected, although he was a tribal leader before he was made into this reformer, they put him as President, Afghanistan starts looking like Iran. Except a populace that has never really experienced freedom, because in Iran they had, to some extent. And that, I wonder if what we're going to be looking at, Harry, post all of this, is this start looking like another Iran. Not as sophisticated on the nuclear weapons yet, but it certainly seems to be going in that direction if they decide to do that. I think that's very, very possible, and I think we should fear the possibility that Afghanistan becomes another source of terror. And so Iran has had the most impact on the United States by fomenting terror in Israel and elsewhere, and so I think Afghanistan is another safe haven. We all know, for instance, that Al Qaeda has now resumed residence within Afghanistan, notwithstanding President Biden's denials.

He was contradicted, by the way, by his own spokesperson, Admiral Kirby. So I think, here we go. I mean, we know that there is a deadline. We could keep hearing from our President, you know, we could keep hearing from these other leaders. The truth is, they've opened the door to contingency plans. We're going to keep on this. Everyone is keeping focused on this. To make sure this is not something we just shrug the shoulders and forget. And we're committed to that, the ACLJ.

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We'll talk to you tomorrow. Music 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.