'Hannity' on Americans held hostage behind enemy lines

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Hannity: The reality is we don't have a president capable of leading

'Hannity' says Biden abandoned or allies and American citizens

This is a rush transcript of "Hannity" on August 20, 2021. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

SEAN HANNITY, FOX NEWS HOST:  And welcome to HANNITY this Friday night.

Americans held hostage behind enemy lines. This is a day 6, and there is sadly, we can report, no end in sight tonight. 

A month ago in July, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, he was warned it directly five weeks ago, by 23 top diplomats inside of Afghanistan, that the fall of Kabul was, in fact, imminent. 

The Biden administration ignored that dire warning, and here we are in this situation, at this hour, where thousands of Americans, tens of thousands of our Afghan allies, are in extreme danger. Their lives are at risk. Many of these allies will be murdered if they are left behind, and the worst part of all is every bit of this was preventable. 

But the president of the United States, he has been completely checked out, missing in action. He ignored every clear warning that this was all going to occur.

In a press conference earlier today, Joe Biden once again showed his true colors, repeatedly told outright lies to you, the American people. A man without character, career politician, clearly no moral compass, withering, decrepit shell of a human being, who puts his own priorities, obviously, above those fellow Americans abroad. 

And until midday today, Joe's plans were to go back on vacation in Delaware until he was pretty much shamed into staying at the White House for the weekend. The reality for the country is this: we really don't have a president, seemingly aware and capable of leading. 

Just watch Joe Biden lie again and again today. Take a look. 

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES:  As we continue to work the logistics of evacuation, we're in constant contact with the Taliban, working to ensure civilians have safe passage to the airport. 

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HANNITY:  Safe passage to the airport. Please tell me he is not serious, because his own State Department sent a memo to those trapped in Afghanistan again today, reiterating, quote, the U.S. government cannot insure your safe passage to the airport. Oh, and the gates might change from time to time.

Maybe Joe didn't read his own State Department memo. 

And look at this, in a briefing call with lawmakers, Lloyd Austin said Americans have been beaten by the Taliban in Kabul, outside of the airport. 

Some were beaten with rubber fan belts. Joe Biden clearly lied, his own State Department and his own Defense Department are highlighting these lies. 

The Taliban is absolutely not allowing safe passage. Watch with your own eyes. 

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The president said he has no intelligence that Americans have been unable to get there. The question, obviously, does that square with reporting on the ground? 

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I mean, just totally not.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I don't think so that the icon lived here because journey not allowing anyone to go inside.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The most intense part was getting into the airport itself. It was just heartbreaking, people pushing, scrambling, crying, screaming, children crying out.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HANNITY:  If you can't get in you're obviously then a hostage behind enemy lines. Look at this headline, quote, CNN, ABC, NBC, FOX News correspondents fact-check Biden on Afghanistan evacuations, the reality and the rhetoric are miles apart.

Our very own Jennifer Griffin said, quote, I'm having a hard time digesting what we heard because I couldn't fact-check it in fast enough in real time. 

What's the point of controlling the airport Joe if you can't control the perimeter? The people controlling the perimeter right now, that would be the Taliban. And if people can't get inside, how do we get them home? 

It is so sad that even Joe's friends in the liberal media cannot and will not be able to shield him from this crisis and frankly for good reason. 

Would you want your family in the middle of this, forced to try and claw their way through several Taliban checkpoints in the midst of this utter chaos and count -- depend on the goodwill of the Taliban, a terrorist organization, to allow you to go to the airport when they're beating people?

Today's State Department memo says, we can't secure your safe passage to the airport and we can't guarantee what entry points will still be open. 

It is a nightmare, but the horrors don't end there. The lucky ones that have gotten past the Taliban beatings and the checkpoints and actually made it to the airport, they are then forced to wait for hours on end trapped between the walls of the airport and the Taliban fighters that are surrounding the perimeter of the airport behind them. Others are forced to move from gate to gate to gate until they can find one that is actually open. The gates open and close at a moment's notice, and in between each gate is another Taliban checkpoint. 

According to reports, the Taliban are using these checkpoints, they are searching for anyone and everyone on their hit lists. And to make matters even worse tonight, for over eight hours today, not a single flight took off from that airport, Karzai International Airport, not one. The primary reason for the holdup, only a handful of countries are now actually accepting our flights including Qatar, which they are now saying are at full capacity. They do not have the capacity to take any more incoming flights.

And meanwhile, the ever so compassionate Joe Biden is blocking Afghan refugees and their families from flying to the United States -- I thought that was a promise to them that if it ever got this bad, we would get them out. They don't have to stay here forever, but we promise them to get them out because they will die.

And get this -- according to Joe Biden, all of our allies, every one of them, they're applauding his heroic leadership. Okay. Another lie.

Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BIDEN:  I have seen no question of our credibility from our allies around the world. I've spoken with our NATO allies. We've spoken with NATO allies, the secretary of state, our national security adviser has been in contact with his counterparts throughout the world and our allies, as has the general, our -- excuse me, I keep calling them in general but my secretary of defense. 

The fact of the matter is I have not seen that. Matter of fact, the exact opposite I've gotten. The exact opposite thing is we're acting with dispatch, we're acting committing to what we said we would do.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HANNITY:  Here's a headline for you Joe from "The Telegraph", quote, British parliament holds Joe Biden in contempt over Afghanistan. 

Here's another: NATO allies urge rethink on alliance after Biden's unilateral Afghanistan exit.

And another, U.K., French, German leaders blast Biden over Afghanistan. We thought America was back. Joe Biden abandoned our allies, our friends, our partners and even our own fellow citizens in the middle of the night frankly.

But don't worry, according to Joe, little chaos was bound to happen. That was all factored into this, he said. And there's no reason for us to begin

-- to be in the region because al Qaeda he thinks magically has disappeared. Perhaps nobody told him that they were released from prisons just days ago. 

Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BIDEN:  Let's put this thing in perspective here what interest do we have in Afghanistan at this point with al Qaeda gone. We went to Afghanistan for the express purpose of getting rid of al Qaeda in Afghanistan as well as -- as well as getting Osama bin Laden and we did.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HANNITY:  And today, Joe's own Pentagon said the exact opposite, that al Qaeda is very much alive and well in Afghanistan, working alongside their Taliban partners and we don't even have an embassy presence or intel assets left to counter any threat.

And now, the Taliban may even -- al Qaeda has access to massive stockpiles, billions of dollars of sophisticated weaponry that we left behind, because there was no contingency plan. Thousands of guns and armored vehicles, yep, even Blackhawk military helicopters, night vision goggles, ammo uniforms, you name it, they got it all.

Look at your screen, these Taliban fighters are now mocking the United States of America in their own propaganda, dressed up in gear taken that we left, that Joe left them from U.S. stockpiles.

One notorious global terrorist was even pictured with a U.S. M4 rifle flanked by other terrorists wearing U.S. military gear from head to toe. 

There's no plan to recover our gear or weapons. There's no plan to get rid of them or destroy them. 

There isn't even a plan to rescue our fellow American citizens -- yep, that are held behind enemy lines. To get to the airport says Biden, trust the Taliban. They've guaranteed safe passage, he's telling us. 

Take your beatings? Risk your life? We can't ensure your safety? That's his plan? That's it?

The Taliban feared President Trump. They realized that their actions would have immediate and dire consequences and as a result, no Americans were killed for well over a year in the last year of Donald Trump's presidency. 

Now, no one respects Joe Biden, not the Taliban, not our geopolitical foes, Russia, hostile regime, China, the mullahs in Iran, they're all watching and guess what? Our allies don't even trust us at this point. And according to a breaking new report from Bloomberg, Biden promised G7 leaders, the U.S. would keep a security presence in Afghanistan to keep Kabul safe, and then utterly failed to keep that promise. 

Well, tonight, I always say let not your heart be troubled, my heart is troubled. Our fellow Americans are in deep trouble tonight behind enemy lines. Our friends, our allies are in deep trouble behind enemy lines. You know, leave no man or woman behind -- well, Great Britain and France to their credit they sent in troops to Kabul to escort citizens from Kabul successfully to the airport. Why haven't we? We have the best military fighting force on the face of the earth. Yeah, Americans now can't get to the airport held hostage and they're behind enemy lines day six.

Joining us now with more, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

I know you have plenty of contacts in the region. Without asking specific questions, which I will get to, I want you to give your best assessment of the situation on the ground and what potential options you might see to get our fellow Americans and allies out safely.

MIKE POMPEO, FORMER SECRETARY OF STATE:  Well, Sean, you pretty much cataloged the chaos and the tragedy of these past six days. We now have Americans trapped behind enemy lines. 

Today, what President Biden said frankly made it worse. I didn't hear a single thing from him today that would have given comfort to those families. There's still no plan to get these Americans back. I didn't hear a single thing that would give comfort to the very allies you spoke about.

I've heard from people in the region, they are frightened by the American collapse, the American collapse of temerity and strength, the power that we demonstrated for four years that had frankly kept the Taliban at bay and prevented precisely what you're seeing happening today.

And I didn't hear a single thing that would frighten a single Taliban who thinks there's any risk that this administration will post any cost on them for their activities, for what they're doing to Americans today and holding them hostage, not permitting them to get into the airport in Kabul, so that we can get them home to their families.

This is a debacle of significant proportions. We haven't seen anything like this in the United States in an awfully long time. 

America has the tools to fix this. Our military could certainly figure out a way to go get these folks back and to destroy some of these billions of dollars in equipment that we left behind. But it's going to take American resolve and leadership, and President Biden has refused to show this for the entire time.

HANNITY:  They could have done -- this is all preventable. The Biden White House was warned. They were warned by their own people. They were warned weeks ago this was inevitable. 

I'm told that, for example, the CIA pulled their people out over six weeks ago. They all saw it coming.

Here's my question: now, the Biden administration has been trying to place blame on both you and President Trump. I happen to know a little bit more than the average person because your plan was based, one, on conditions on the ground, before anything else, and also confirmed by the president and Mark Meadows, you are right up to your eyeballs as part of these negotiations before any negotiations take place. 

To the extent that you're able to share, my understanding is Donald Trump on the phone with the Taliban leader was clear and unambiguous. If you don't follow -- if we have a deal and you violate any aspect of that deal, let me tell you, the might and -- of the United States military will be brought to bear in ways that the world has never seen before, something to that effect. Is that true, sir?

POMPEO:  Sean, that's absolutely true. I was on that phone call. When he spoke with Mullah Baradar, he told him very plainly -- we set down a set of conditions. We have every expectation that you will comply with those conditions. If you don't comply with those conditions, we will rein American power on top of you. 

Indeed, Sean, from time to time, they pushed a little too far to checkpoint or took an action that was inconsistent with our understanding, and we crushed them. We applied American power -- a deterrence model that said America is strong, you're weak. You're going to do the things we want you to do and until you do, we're not going to comply with the promises we made.

Look, Sean, as much as we want to get everybody out, we didn't get to the point where the conditions were right to do precisely that. We went down from 15,000 to 2,500, and we maintained the order that had been in Afghanistan. We were successful in doing that.

Now they have twice as many, almost three times as many American military in there and it's chaos. This is because of failed leadership. This is because the Taliban think that they face no risk from this president of the United States.

HANNITY:  That threat was so real that, for over a year, not a single American was killed in Afghanistan and the Taliban understood what the consequences would be. 

My question is, we watched 10 percent of the country get taken over by the Taliban, 20 percent, 30 percent, 40 percent. Five weeks ago, the State Department said that Kabul will be overthrown. Where's the sense of urgency at that moment to immediately identify every American, where they are and extract every American, the logistics to get it done as expeditiously as possible? Why did that not happen, Mr. Secretary?

POMPEO:  Sean, it's pretty incomprehensible to me. I can't explain the absence of planning. At first, they said they planned and they said they couldn't have planned for it. I can't explain where when they saw this, they didn't do the right thing for the American people. 

I can assure you that President Trump and I would have done that. Every time the Taliban pushed, we pushed right back. We had a deterrence model in place. When the Taliban pushed here, 10 percent, 20 percent, we withdrew -- we withdrew the support that was needed to make sure that we could get these Americans out from behind what was to become enemy lines, to make sure that we could support our allies, the promises that we had made to them. 

All of these things, the things that the whole world is seeing now, American leadership crumble in the face of this Taliban might. This is -- this has got ramifications that will last an awfully long time, Sean. I hope this president is determined enough to begin to take back the capacity to exert American influence in this region and deal with the Taliban in a way that President Trump and I did for so long.

HANNITY:  Mr. Secretary, thank you.

Joining us now the co-host of "Outnumbered", FOX News contributor Kayleigh McEnany, media columnist for "The Hill", FOX News contributor Joe Concha.

Joe, even -- you know, we had what I called the media mob candidate protection program. That evolved into the media mob presidential protection program of all things Biden. But even the media saw today the lies one after another, and they said the rhetoric what Joe Biden is telling this country does not match the reality and their own reporting on the ground and the visuals of the images that were all witnessing ourselves.

JOE CONCHA, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR:  The visuals are there, right? The optics are there. You can't spin those in any way, shape or form. It'd be like watching a football game, you see the home teams down 42-nothing, and saying you know things aren't that bad.

But even -- I see earlier, it was Kate Bedingfield and she's the communications director for the Biden administration. And she said with a straight face to Willie Geist over on NBC, the president never shies away from taking questions. It's like, wow, we once had Baghdad Bob, now we have Kabul Kate Bedingfield in this case. 

And it would be hilarious it wasn't such an insult to our intelligence because there has not been a more protected, scripted, least accessible president in the TV era by country mile than Joe Biden. The proof is in the numbers, Biden has only done nine sit-down interviews since taking office, the same moment of his presidency, Donald Trump did five times as many, 50. 

And Mr. Biden's handlers are also petrified of White House correspondent Peter Doocy because he never seems to be on this limited list of predetermined reporters who Biden calls on by reading off a piece of paper given to him by Jen Psaki and other in the communications team. 

So, again, the president had some whoppers today that deserve follow-up questions that never came from that press corps. Biden claiming that he has no evidence of allies criticizing our credibility. That's funny. "Politico" 

had a headline that came out just this week -- disbelief and betrayal, Europe reacts to Biden's Afghanistan miscalculation, scare quotes.

Biden also broached the bin Laden raid today. That's funny. He failed to mention that he actually opposed that raid you may recall. The president saying that al Qaeda has no presence in Afghanistan, except they're in 15 provinces per "The New York Times", said there's no national security in Afghanistan, which makes no sense because we've been there for the past 20 years. 

So this is a hot mess and a dumpster fire, Sean, in what is now the world's most dangerous place and we have the president, the State Department and Pentagon telling us three different things. This is only going to get worse before it gets better.

HANNITY:  And if it gets better. I mean, that's the problem. We don't know

-- we'll get better.

Kayleigh, let me go to you. And, by the way, he only took a whopping five questions that needs to be discussed -- 

KAYLEIGH MCENANY, FOX NEWS ANALYST:  Right.

HANNITY:  As he was leaving, somebody screamed out, why do you trust the Taliban? Secretary of state -- former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has confirmed it, the president's confirmed it, Mark Meadows confirmed it, you were the White House press secretary at the time and that is that the Taliban -- the reason not a single American died in the last year plus of Donald Trump's presidency in Afghanistan in large part was due to the president's very strong admonition warning backed up by what he had done to the caliphate and defeated them in Syria, et cetera. 

My question is, when they make this statement that somehow I inherited the Trump plan, the Trump plan wouldn't have allowed them to take 10, 20, 30, 40, 60 percent of the country on their march all the way up to Kabul. 

That's the big difference, Kayleigh. What insight can you bring to us?

MCENANY:  Yes, let me be categorical. I was in the room. I was there with President Trump. This would have never happened under President Donald J. 

Trump. Never. 

The Taliban was on notice. You just heard Secretary Pompeo lay that out. 

The Taliban looked and they saw what happened to Soleimani who President Trump took out. They saw what happened in Syria when they gassed their own people and President Trump took immediate, swift action. There was no misunderstanding as to what President Trump would do if the Taliban acted out. 

I talked to the president this week. He talked to me about some of those conversations he had, some of the very ones Pompeo mentioned. He was tough. 

He was firm and the actions and the results showed.

This would not have happened, Sean, and it's amazing we have a president today who you have a reporter saying, why do you trust the Taliban. When you look back at Joe Biden's interview -- the interview with ABC -- I'm paraphrasing here but he said something like the Taliban's going through a reckoning where they're deciding their place in the world. 

Do you think the Taliban cares about their place in the world as they gun down women without burqas, as they beat up Americans and, yes, they are beating up Americans? And then he went on to say he was essentially grateful for the Taliban guaranteeing Americans free and safe passage.

No Americans are passing freely and safely. If they are, they're very few and it's a perilous journey to get there. Ask ABC, NBC, CNN, FOX News who have all dismissed that lie among many others that Joe just mentioned from President Biden.

HANNITY:  All right. Joe, thank you and, of course, Kayleigh, thank you.

When we come back, Sara Carter spent a lot of time in Afghanistan, has a lot of contacts there. She has an exclusive report for us out of Afghanistan tonight, where one of her contacts was beaten badly by the Taliban. Wait until you see this disturbing video.

Also tonight, as we continue our breaking news coverage, Afghan women continue to live in fear after the Talibans take over. Lara Logan, Morgan Ortagus, and much more. Stay with us this busy breaking news Friday night.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(NEWSBREAK)

HANNITY:  Tonight, Afghan women, they are living in fear. They are fearful for their fate, for their lives under oppressive Taliban rule. They know what it's like. Many of them lived through it before.

And according to multiple reports, the attacks, the torture, the human rights violations have already begun on many levels. 

Here with the very latest, she has reported many times now from Afghanistan, has many contacts in Afghanistan and has been in contact with people now for the better part of, you know, a week -- our own Sara Carter, investigative reporter.

Sara, what's the latest?

SARA CARTER, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR:  Oh, Sean, people are living in terror right now. Can you imagine being hunted down by the Taliban, hunted down like animals? Women are hiding. 

Most of my sources -- I've been speaking to over 30 people in various different groups some of my sources are around the Kabul embassy and around as well the Kabul International Airport. They're in hiding. They have been beaten. 

I have one source that was beaten so badly. His leg was almost broken. They had to escape. 

One of them had a baby. They were huddling all night. I was on the phone with them. 

Some of these folks actually have visas to enter in to the Kabul airport and cannot get into the Kabul airport because there is no one to allow them into the gates. The gates have been opened, they have been shut. Now, we're hearing they may open again. 

I've got other family members at home who are calling me during the day and during the middle of the night, I can literally hear the gunfire outside of their homes, as the Taliban is searching for them. 

I did receive video which I am not going to show video which you were privy to and some others, showing the Taliban behind some of the homes of some of the people that are high value targets for them, which means that their lives are directly, directly in danger. That if they are caught, they will automatically be killed.

This is a terrorizing situation for everyone. We've been in contact with the State Department. I've also been in contact with people at the Kabul airport. Believe me, there are a lot of Americans there, Sean, that are working so hard and diligently to try to get something done.

But unfortunately, there is absolutely no leadership coming from the White House or from the Department of Defense or from the State Department. 

They're hoping that maybe something will happen in the next few days and things will get under control. But right now, people's lives are literally in danger, people are hiding and they're on the run.

HANNITY:  And they're behind enemy lines and they're not allowed to get to the airport in spite of the fake news reporting out there by the Biden administration. Even the mainstream media mob has been calling them out on that lie.

All right. Sara, keep us updated. Our prayers are with your friends and people you know and everyone else in that situation. 

We're also learning even more about just how gruesome, just how brutal life under the Taliban really is. For example, an Afghan mom blinded by the Taliban says that they will feed women's bodies to dogs. 

An Afghan karate champion telling "Reuters" that she fears everything is finished for all female athletes in the country -- what an absolute human tragedy.

Here with more reaction, former State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus, along with FoxNation.com host, Lara Logan.

Lara, you have spent time there. I believe Morgan you as well. 

But, Lara, you know what the reality of the situation is on the ground. 

What are you hearing?

LARA LOGAN, FOXNATION.COM HOST: You know, Sean, as I've been sitting here listening and to the show, a friend of mine's brother was just shot inside the airport in Kabul, another friend of mine called because of a former intelligence official that we both know whose family is being hunted, it's not just immediate family. It's extended family as well. 

The Taliban have all the biometric records. They've taken over the intelligence agencies. They have addresses. They have detailed lists of everybody who they're looking for -- 

HANNITY:  Oh, boy.

LOGAN:  -- when they don't find them, they're killing their children and we're hearing that the same thing that Sara's hearing. The gates are open. 

The gates are closed. The checkpoints are open, the checkpoints are closed. 

Between the military and State, the orders are changing constantly. 

Nobody's making decisions. I'm talking to private American citizens, many of them former veterans but not all, some of whom are on the ground and some of whom here trying to rescue people, trying to hunt -- you know, find the families of special operations soldiers and move them to safe houses because they're being hunted. 

And what they're telling me is that they're literally on the brink of going to the Germans and the Australians to get permission because the U.S. 

military and State Department keep blocking the flights, they keep refusing clearances, and that they're so frustrated that at this point, they think that General Milley should resign. That he's making this mission impossible. 

They don't understand why there isn't a perimeter already established and controlled by the U.S. military, five days in at that point, at this point, they say it's unacceptable.

And what I'm hearing from Afghan security officials who have been directly involved and talking to people right now is that that August 31st deadline is not optional for the U.S. The Taliban is telling the U.S. that they have to be out of the country by then. They are pushing for a hundred percent power. They're ordering Afghan officials who they're supposedly in talks with to swear allegiance or bayat to the Taliban's Islamic emirates.

If you recall, Ayman al-Zawahiri who became the leader of al Qaeda after bin Laden, he swore bayat publicly to the Islamic emirate of the Taliban. 

And they want to see the Taliban flag flying over Afghanistan for the 20th anniversary of 9/11.

That's what Afghan intelligence and security officials have been telling me and they say the talks -- there are no talks, that the Europeans, everybody else knows it, and they're just grabbing up their people and running for the exits as fast as they can because this is going so far south.

HANNITY:  And they're not having success getting to the locations they want.

Morgan, you were with Secretary of State Pompeo during this entire time, that all of this had been negotiated, under very different circumstances and terms that would have dire consequences immediately, had the Taliban ever stepped out of line. We didn't lose a single American in over a year, in the last year of Donald Trump's presidency as a result of that.

Tell us what you know and what you're hearing. You know many people on the ground there today as we speak.

MORGAN ORTAGUS, FORMER STATE DEPARTMENT SPOKESPERSON:  Yeah, Sean, I've spent the last week trying to get uh friends out people that we've worked with you know over the last 10 years that I've been personally in and out of Afghanistan. I was there several times with Mike Pompeo. 

But you know, as you had on Kayleigh McEnany and others earlier talking about the plight of women in Afghanistan makes you remember just a few years ago in 2017, I went with the American University in Afghanistan to speak at a women's entrepreneurship conference in Afghanistan. I was at the Serena Hotel which you know Lara has traveled and reported in war zones throughout the world so she knows this hotel very well. I was speaking to a crowd of women at a conference, I think we were there for at least two days and the vision of those women is really burned into my head.

But I'll tell you what's different from when the Taliban ruled years ago to how they rule now. There's a generation of women --of young women that were born before -- you know, right when the Taliban fell or maybe they were toddlers. But they have grown up with social media. They've grown up in a free and independent Afghanistan and I see some of them still bravely protesting.

You know, I don't know how they have the guts to do this, but I've seen the images of some of them of some of them doing it, some of the female politicians speaking out. You know, I worry about the Afghanistan that we're leaving behind. Obviously, there are so many people that are desperately trying to get out.

You really have a brain drain, Sean. You know, I was helping a friend, thank God he got up who was a lawyer in Afghanistan, a Harvard educated lawyer in Afghanistan who we were able to get him and his immediate family out. 

So you think about all of these people that may have been educated in the United States or trained with us and the smartest people in Afghanistan are fleeing because they are subject to be killed by the Taliban.

So I think the real human tragedy of all of this that we'll see unfold is not only the fact that it's likely that al Qaeda will reconstitute, we think that that's probably a given, but the human aspect in all this. Not just what they're seeing right now, but the fact that the smartest people are fleeing the country. What's left?

HANNITY:  Yeah, if they can get out, that's a scary part. 

ORTAGUS:  That's right, right.

HANNITY:  And those lists that Lara was talking about are chilling because they have the names now.

They have the database. Thank you both. We appreciate getting some truth because we're not getting it up from Joe Biden.

All right. Don't forget watch part one of the new season "Lara Logan has No

Agenda: 21st Century Terrorism Revealed", time couldn't be any more appropriate. Well, this Sunday night 10:00 p.m. on the FOX News Channel. 

Don't miss it.

When we come back, the intel community continues to turn on Biden, as does the Pentagon, as does the State Department. You got the White House, the State Department, the Defense Department, the intel all giving us different stories. And amid fears, of course, that Afghanistan will become a pre-9/11 terror haven moving forward. Jason Chaffetz, Dan Hoffman with reaction, straight ahead.

Thank you for being with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HANNITY:  Now tonight, Biden is failing so badly, is so lost, so confused that even, yeah, our old friends in the deep state, yeah, his allies there are now being forced to face the truth and reality. 

Listen to James Clapper himself, part of the Russian hoax, earlier today. 

Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JAMES CLAPPER, FORMER DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE:  The intelligence community for years led by CIA has been very wary of the viability of the Afghan government and the competence and willingness to fight of the Afghan military and certainly this goes back to the Obama administration when President Biden was vice president. So he's well aware of this.

TV HOST:  Is it likely that Afghanistan becomes a terror haven much like it was before the U.S. invasion, before 9/11?

CLAPPER: Absolutely. I think it's just -- it's a question of time, and it's going to be sooner rather than later.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HANNITY:  Here with reaction, FOX News contributor Jason Chaffetz, along with former CIA station chief, Dan Hoffman, also a FOX News contributor.

Let me go to the intel news side of this first with Dan Hoffman.

Dan, the intel community -- my understanding is the CIA left six to eight weeks ago. They pulled all their people out. They didn't do that without telling the Biden administration. Now, we're getting evidence more every day as Biden today was contradicted by both the State Department and by his own Defense Department, and the intelligence community's been very clear we told them. How could this happen?

DAN HOFFMAN, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR:  Well, I think for sure the president had his own policy that he wanted to pursue and he might have listened to the CIA analytical assessment, but it wasn't going to influence his decision. 

You know, today was really important because DOD press spokesperson, Admiral Kirby, said that yes there's al Qaeda in Afghanistan and he was contradicting the president when he said that. But he also said he didn't know how many, and he didn't know where they were.

And the reason why is because we took away our intelligence footprint. We closed Bagram Air Force Base, we closed the embassy, we don't have the capability to detect the threats that are out there to us because if we think the war is over, it's not. The Taliban, ISIS and al Qaeda have us in their crosshairs and they want nothing more than a target us in the region and beyond, we know that. And the CIA has produced lots of intelligence about that. 

And we don't have the military to take kinetic action against them. So we are in a very precarious position right now.

HANNITY:  And it's only going to get worse. In that sense, Jason Chaffetz, I agree with James Clapper's assessment. It's inevitable. 

You're very aware of our intelligence capabilities. It's the greatest in the world. There's no doubt about it, and we got to give credit to the 99 percent that protect us and keep us safe every day.

But if you don't act on the intelligence and you don't listen to your own State Department diplomats on the ground five weeks ago and you're not prepared to use military force if necessary as the Taliban takes 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 percent of the country and not act, this then becomes inevitable. 

But at the end of the day, the buck does stop with him and he blew it.

Now, the question is, do you see any way to bring a successful conclusion defined by getting every American and Afghani ally that we promised that helped us for 20 years out of there safely?

JASON CHAFFETZ, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR:  I hope so. I pray for them.

Look, we were served well by the boots on the ground. We were screwed over by the suits. It's the boots versus the suits. I have no problem with the boots and how they acted.

But let's go back. Let's remember that it was Joe Biden and Barack Obama that released people out of Guantanamo Bay and put them back on the on the playing field. Let's remember that Joe Biden is backed up by Susan Rice and Victoria Nuland, and that whole team.

And so, when you get to this point where you realize that there were months where things could have been planned and executed properly, it was the Obama-Biden team that actually put things in motion that did not prioritize bringing out the civilians. It did not prioritize people holding American passports.

You look at those planes full of people, I'm glad we're helping people that were helpful to the United States, but I want to see Americans first put on those planes and brought home to the United States. And why do we give up the Kabul airport or give up the Bagram Air Force Base before we are able to extract those people?

I mean, this is like you could get a group of third graders in there and they could do better, it's about priorities and they've never had this as a priority. They've never believed in America first.

HANNITY:  How they didn't prepare for this I don't know. It's chilling on levels that I can't even describe.

Thank you both.

When we come back, California recall election fast approaching. The left is clearly panicking. Gavin Newsom continues to defend Joe Biden, talks about more draconian covert measures. Larry Elder, he was attacked by "The L.A. 

Times" today. He will respond.

We'll have a full breakdown, straight ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HANNITY:  Now Gavin Newsom, California Democrats, they are in an all out, full on panic ahead of the September 14th recall race. Polls now showing a race neck and neck, on whether to recall the failed far left governor. 

Now, just look at his disgusting headline from "The L.A. Times": Larry Elder is the blackface of white supremacy, you've been warned." "The L.A. 

Times" printed that. 

Here to react, he is leading in the polls, in terms of who would replace Gavin Newsom, if question one, he is recalled. 

I see you smiling. We have been friends a long time. I am sorry, I am genuinely friend to friend, sorry that you have to go through something as evil and horrific and racist as that. 

LARRY ELDER, CALIFORNIA GUBERNATORIAL CANDIDATE:  Well, Sean, thank you for that, but I anticipated that would happen. This is why a lot of people don't go into politics, because of the politics of personal destruction. 

This is not the first time the "L.A. Times" has attacked me. There is another writer that all but called me a black David Duke.

And I've been a politician now for a little more than a month. And at first, as you know, they tried to keep me off the ballot claiming I didn't probably turn over five years of taxes. We ended up suing and a left-wing judge said that Elder was right, ad threw that out, and putting me right back on the ballot.

And then I was accused of hating women because I wrote an article 21 years ago where I cited a study from the left-wing Annenberg School of Journalism that looked at 25 questions, ask of men and women, if men knew more about those questions as did women come. And I quoted a left-wing professor who said the reason women knew less is because they get their primary source from local news, quote, and she said watching local news makes you dumber," 

close quote. I didn't say that, she did.

And then I was accused of brandishing a firearm at a former girlfriend. I want to say right now, I have never brandished a firearm, loaded or unloaded, at anybody. As for the rest of the allegations she made, not going to dignify them by giving them a comment. 

And now we have this article from "The L.A. Times". You are right, Sean, they are scared to death. They know if California can elect a conservative governor like myself, and they can and they will come on September the 14th, that any state can, and they're deathly afraid of this. 

I am told that Senator Dianne Feinstein is more feeble than Joe Biden, and if she retires and becomes incapacitated, they are afraid that I will appoint a Republican governor, and that would shift the whole balance in the Senate. 

So, for all those reasons, it is mayday for the Democrats. And so, Joe Biden has weighed in, Kamala Harris has weighed in, Elizabeth Warren has cut a commercial, didn't defend his record on crime, on homelessness, on the rising cost of living, on the way he shut down the state without paying attention to science. They just attacked, attacked, attacked, and said it was driven by Republicans. That's all they've got. 

HANNITY:  And there's this rolling blackouts, brownouts, water shortages, paying for water, the COVID hypocrisy, and I guess Gavin Newsom has a very different view of what foreign policy should be as he praised Joe Biden this week, which I'm sure you took note of. 

ELDER:  Oh, I sure did. He said he is proud of what Joe Biden did in Afghanistan. 

It's a window into Gavin Newsom's incompetence. And you didn't mention the employment development department where he allowed $30 billion to go that should have gone to unemployment benefits for people in California, go to criminals inside the country and international criminals. 

The man is completely incompetent and that's why nearly 1.7 million people signed a petition, may be a third of them independents and Democrats who just voted for him two years earlier. And that's why I am asking people to go to electedelder.com because he can and will raise an unlimited amount of money. 

Already, he has already raised about $50 million, primarily from the teachers union -- they are afraid of me because I support school choice -- the public sector unions, Hollywood, and big tech. 

HANNITY:  Yeah, they are going to throw a lot of money at you. This just crosses so many lines and such a double standard among, you know, the woke snowflakes out there. Apparently you can say anything about an African- American and it's fine, even in the "L.A. Times." It's disgusting. Nobody should have to go through that in this day and age, period, end of sentence. 

Larry, thank you, and I'm sorry you had to go through that. 

More HANNITY right after this. 

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HANNITY:  All right. Unfortunately this Friday night, this is all the time we have left.

Please set your DVR. We hope you never miss an episode. 

I like to say let not your heart be troubled, but mine is. Let's pray for our fellow Americans and their safe return to this country as they remain tonight behind enemy lines. Keep them in your prayers. I know I will be keeping them in mind. 

Laura Ingraham is up next. We hope you have a great weekend. 

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