Hannity: Biden humiliated America on the world stage
'Hannity' host blasts the president for the botched Afghanistan withdrawal
This is a rush transcript from "Hannity," September 14, 2021. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
ANNOUNCER: Americans Held Hostage Abandoned Behind Enemy Lines, Day 31.
SEAN HANNITY, FOX NEWS HOST: Day 31, Americans abandoned, held behind enemy lines, hostage to the Taliban.
And tonight, the Biden administration is as clueless as ever it's even worse than we thought. They don't know how many Americans remain in Afghanistan. They don't know whether or not they're being mistreated, reports that they are.
They don't even know if the U.S. is planning on handing over billions of dollars to the Taliban. Oh I would view that in exchange for the release of our fellow citizens. Where I grew up, that would be called ransom if they do it.
And today in yet another hearing on Capitol Hill, secretary of state, the ever so clueless Anthony Blinken, could not seem to answer a single question. We have a lot more coming up and a lot of video for you to look at.
But, first, tonight, accusations of treason are now swirling around the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. That would be General Mark Milley.
According to an explosive upcoming book from Bob Woodward, Milley is accused of conspiring behind the scenes with communist Chinese to undermine President Trump in the fall of 2020. As "The Washington Post" details, quote, in the book's account, Milley went so far as to pledge that he would alert his counterpart in the event of a U.S. attack, his counterpart being in China, the communist Chinese.
The book claims that Milley had his Chinese counterpart, quote, General Lee, you and I have known each other for five years now, and if we're going to attack I'm going to call you ahead of time. It's not going to be a surprise. Okay, so what, they can attack us first?
If this is true, General Milley would be a traitor to this country. If true, he should be fired and tried for treason immediately, given America's enemies a heads up before an attack. Well, that's the worst possible offense that a member of our military could ever commit.
And there's more, according to the same upcoming book and that is that General Milley also conspired behind the scenes to neuter the commander-in- chief's ability to conduct his constitutional role as commander-in-chief and conduct military operations. From "USA Today", quote, joint chiefs of staff, Chairman General Milley, then former President Donald Trump's top military advisor, took precautions to limit the president's ability to launch a military strike or deploy a nuclear weapon, instructing those in charge of the national military command center that the pentagon's war room not to take orders from anyone without his involvement. I didn't know he was the commander-in-chief.
According to our very own Jennifer Griffin, this came around the same time that Speaker Pelosi was calling Milley and demanding that he take the nuclear football away from the president we should note that some of Griffin sources are also pushing back on the report that Milley promised to give the Chinese a warning in the event of an attack and Woodward I assume is standing by his story he better hope so because the chain of command in this country our constitution is clear.
It is the president duly elected by the people of course we have an electoral college is the commander-in-chief not Nancy Pelosi and not the Joint Chiefs of Staff. If this report is true, Milley must be held accountable and Pelosi as well.
But don't expect our current commander in chief to do anything Joe Biden the frail cowardly spineless kind of shell of a human being. I doubt he can even comprehend the issue. The buck does not stop with him after the catastrophic withdrawal from Afghanistan no one was fired. No one resigned.
Nobody was held accountable for the deaths of 13 American heroes. No one held responsible for abandoning and leaving Americans behind enemy lines in the hands of the Taliban.
And look at your screen. Biden is getting booed pretty much everywhere he goes including deep in right inside deep blue California, and for good reason. Joe Biden abandoned our fellow citizens in Afghanistan. We don't know their fate at this hour. We don't know how many are caught behind enemy lines. We don't know how many green holders that have -- that are held behind enemy lines, and we don't know exactly how many of our Afghan allies are going to end up getting killed because reports are coming out every day that they are getting killed.
Now, anyone who is a U.S. citizen or a green card holder or someone with an SIV or someone else with connections to the U.S., we do know this, they're again getting hunted down by the Taliban and their death squads. We know this because it's on video.
And this viewer warning, what you're about to see is an unarmed individual being brutally murdered by the professional and business-like Taliban as the Biden administration has been telling us. While watching, think about how professional and business-like you think this all is, right, Joe? Right, Jen Psaki? Take a look.
Now, our friends and allies in Afghanistan are being murdered now reports every day all because of Joe Biden all preventable others tortured others whipped and beaten young women and girls reports every day now are taken as brides by Taliban fighters, sex slaves.
The situation is obviously dire. Tony Blinken doesn't even know how many Americans are trapped. This is an unforgivable answer. Take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ANTHONY BLINKEN, SECRETARY OF STATE: On the American citizens who wish to leave, the number is about 100, and it's very hard to give a real-time number at any given moment because it's very fluid.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: It's very fluid and you have no clue and you have no leverage like you lied and told us you did.
Thirty-one days into the crisis and the secretary of state the president of the United States, they have no clue how many people are trapped. Darrell Issa on this program last night who's working hard to extract Americans caught behind enemy lines, he says it's over 500 and maybe over a thousand when we factor in family members. I guess they're more worried about equity and diversity.
And remember last week's lectures on inclusiveness and the Taliban's new government. Does he not know this is a terrorist organization? Can he really be that clueless?
Apparently so, because Tony Blinken doesn't even seem to know whether the United States killed an ISIS terrorist or an aid worker and seven kids during a recent drone strike in Kabul, the one they were bragging about. It turns out, according to "The New York Times",. "Washington Post", it was not an ISIS killer at all. Take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. RAND PAUL (R-KY): The guy the Biden administration droned, was he an aid worker or an ISIS-K operative?
BLINKEN: The administration is, of course, reviewing that strike. And I'm sure that, you know, full assessment will be will be --
PAUL: So, you don't know if it was an aid worker or an ISIS-K operative?
BLINKEN: I can't speak to that and I can't speak to that in this setting in any event.
PAUL: So you don't know or won't tell us?
BLINKEN: I don't -- I don't know, because we're reviewing it.
PAUL: Well, see, you'd think you'd kind of know before you off somebody with a predator drone, whether he's an aid worker or he's an ISIS-K.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: Yeah, you think you'd know that, Tony, right? You might have killed seven kids and just think for a moment, what if Donald Trump and his administration did this and didn't know?
Now, there's one thing Tony Blinken did know. Remember the reports about the U.S. State Department handing over lists of names of our friends our allies and citizens to the Taliban? Yeah, finally, we got the truth, had to admit this one. It actually happened. And, by the way, every name is pretty much a death sentence signed by Joe Biden.
Take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. TED CRUZ (R-TX): Did the State Department give the Taliban a list or multiple list of Americans and/or Afghans that we wanted out?
BLINKEN: Those reports and the idea that we would do anything to endanger our citizens or anyone else at a time when we were trying to save their lives is flat out wrong. Let me --
CRUZ: I just like a yes or no, did you give them the list?
BLINKEN: Let me -- let me be very clear, Senator, if I may please. Thank you.
In limited instances where we were seeking to get a bus or a group of people through a checkpoint, we gave a manifest to the people at the checkpoint.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: So, Tony, gave the list to the professional business-like murdering terrorists the Taliban. Okay, I wonder how many people on those lists were never able to get out before we left, before he abandoned them. And I wonder tonight how many are already dead.
And let's not forget the Taliban now controls $83 billion worth of U.S. weapons. We got that information after questioning by Senator Ron Johnson in Wisconsin. And according to officials, al Qaeda, well, they could be rebuilding in a year or two. They have all our weapons to do it.
We have been humiliated on the world stage. America's enemies all over the world are now emboldened. But according to Antony Blinken, well, they just didn't see it coming. They didn't see it coming in March, April, May, June, and they were still bragging about the faltering, failing Afghan trained army in July.
Joe was bragging about them in July, but they didn't see it coming at a point when they had already taken over the Taliban had 60 percent of the country. You really want us to believe this total Adam B Schiff?
Take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. MARCO RUBIO (R-FL): I think China and Russia and Iran, they look at this botched withdrawal, and what they see is incompetence that they think they might be able to exploit, may lead to miscalculation. I think the Europeans, our allies, who had very little say of any or control certainly over the timing and the execution of all this, they're now number one have to be one wondering about our reliability, the credibility of our of our defense agreements with them.
BLINKEN: We, the intelligence community, did not say that the countrywide collapse of all meaningful resistance would be likely to occur in a matter of days. And you referenced Chairman Milley as I did earlier, nothing that -- that he saw, that I saw, that we saw suggested that this government and security force would collapse in a matter of 11 days.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: My sources tell me that the CIA and our intelligence community, they bailed out seven weeks earlier and they warned you every single day. How about we release all of that intel that you were handed every day? You didn't see it coming in April, May, June, July, even though they're on the march?
You can see in that map right -- look at that, that's the Taliban on the move. The Intel community warned them daily. The world watched the Taliban on the move for months. You had full control of Kabul. You could have safely evacuated Americans, our Afghan allies and taking the billion dollars in our military equipment very safely had you acted in a timely manner, had you used drone strikes to push back the Taliban.
Just lie, stupidity and incompetence, and now, deadly consequences. Now, Blinken is just lying. He needs to go. He and Biden knew what was happening on the ground.
That information will come out in the form of paperwork and intel reports that some are probably bleach-biting right now on their computers. Instead of holding the Taliban accountable and stopping their advance and supporting the Afghan military with the air support that Donald Trump promised to use to obliterate them if they dared not by abide by the agreement, Biden encouraged the Afghan president -- what did he say to the Afghan president, you know, the one that ran with all the money? He said, just go out and lie, just tell people whether it's true or not, just tell them everything is great, all while he withdrew his forces in the middle of all of this, in the middle of the night.
And make no mistake, with Americans trapped, this crisis is not going away. It's going to get worse. And tonight, another crisis is brewing and that's a crisis of confidence in the Biden administration altogether. The American people no longer trust Joe Biden. Tonight, another new poll showing Biden underwater and for the first time he's under water over his handling of COVID-19, which we'll get to.
The illegal mandates are not popular. The American people are not stupid.
According to a study out of Israel, this is interesting, talk to your doctor about it, natural immunity is more powerful than vaccine immunity. So, why on earth should someone with T-cell immunity be forced to run out and listen to Dr. Joe who never went to medical school? My advice, talk to your doctor.
According to the developer of the Pfizer mRNA technology, the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, this guy Robert Malone, he came up with the technology. His quote was immune response in terms of T-and B-cells memory population is more diverse and more long-lasting than the breadth of immune response elicited by the spike-based vaccines alone. In other words, if you had COVID, if you have natural immunity.
Now, from COVID to Afghanistan to Texas, no longer being energy independent, begging OPEC to produce more oil, the so-called human infrastructure $5 trillion disaster, yeah, it's time for Biden to start being honest with the American people and stop scolding us and lecturing us when he can keep a coherent sentence together.
And guess what? We won't hold our breath because Biden isn't exactly known for candor.
Here with more on today's hearing, he was going hard at the secretary of state, Florida Senator Marco Rubio.
Senator, let me begin with you. They didn't see it. Now, Senator, I keep running this map and it's a time time-lapse map. And it shows the Taliban on the march, all the way through March and April and May and June, they had 60 percent of the country and Joe Biden was still bragging about the one of the best trained militaries ever, that being the Afghan military that was collapsing, those -- the entire time.
RUBIO: Yeah. So, first of all, let me tell you, Sean, they can spin that to a lot of different people. They can't spend that to me because I spend hours every week as my job as the vice chairman of the intelligence committee reviewing the exact same intelligence that the State Department had, that the White House had. And I went through it again earlier this week just to make sure that I wasn't mistaken in my memory.
Anyone who was reading consistently the reporting and the analysis for the better part of three to four months and didn't conclude that in fact this could unravel very quickly either, A, doesn't know how to analyze this stuff and does not belong in that position, or B, willfully ignored it because they wanted to reach an artificial timeline for political purposes. They wanted to have a big ceremony on September 11th, and brag about getting out of the war, and now they're lying about it.
They can't lie to me about it and what he said today what they continue to say is categorically false. They either knew or they should have known, and either one is bad. They're either incompetent or they're lying about it now.
HANNITY: Okay, so I want to be clear because the American people need to know. In April, they knew, they were warned. The intelligence did not fail the American people.
They knew in May, they knew in June, they knew in July. When Joe Biden said the Afghan army is not inevitable for the Taliban to take over, by that time, we knew the Afghan military was failing and the Taliban was on the march and they were taking over larger and larger geographical portions quickly in Afghanistan. We knew all of that.
RUBIO: Right.
HANNITY: So he knew all of that.
RUBIO: Yeah. So what they knew by June 8th when Joe Biden held a press conference where he had this -- July 8th when he stood up and sort of argued and this naive optimism about the state of the Afghan military, he knew that they had had the worst fighting season since the start of the conflict 20 years ago, he knew that they were slowly and methodically isolating Kabul, cutting off all its supply lines. He knew that because the air strikes had ended, the Taliban was not able to mass 5,000, 6,000 fighters outside of major cities.
You could see the writing of the wall. You could see what direction this was going and it was pretty clear, they were warned repeatedly that this could spiral very quickly and without warning, and they ignored it, because he wanted a big signing -- he wanted a big ceremony on September 11th to brag about how he got us out of the war on the 20th anniversary. And that's what he did.
And his artificial timeline and the reality of the real world did not match up and what we have now is this catastrophe, which has humiliated our country, and by the way, not let's just left behind American citizens, but green card holders. Permanent residents of the United States are stuck in Afghanistan tonight and may die because of this incompetent administration.
HANNITY: And they're held hostage.
I want to go to this letter that you have written to the president of the United States as it relates to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley, and the reports out of Bob Woodward's book that, in fact, he worked to actively undermine a sitting commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces and contemplated a treasonous leak of classified information to the Chinese Communist Party in advance of a potential armed conflict -- a conflict with the People's Republic of China. These actions demonstrate a clear lack of sound judgment. I urge you to dismiss him immediately.
And then also add to that from the book that Milley protected nuclear weapons from being launched by Donald Trump.
Can we talk about how deeply implications are in this? Now you referred to a lot of this in your -- in your letter to President Biden.
RUBIO: Well, first of all, anybody who knew Donald Trump and President Trump and worked around him knows that the notion that he was going to start a war at any anywhere in the world unnecessarily is just not realistic. That's not -- he was the opposite. He wanted to avoid these conflicts. He talked about it openly, that's number one.
Number two, I want everybody to understand, look, you don't have to like Donald Trump to be concerned about this, okay? You have a -- the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, a military leader, basically ignoring the Constitution, deciding he's going to call a potential adversary and an enemy of the United States and collude with them and tell them, if I'm ever ordered to do something, I'm going to tell you about it first. And also break the chain of command when it comes to the nuclear codes of this country and its control.
I honestly hope that tomorrow, we're going to have a statement from General Milley saying this is an absolute lie. This never happened, because the alternative is we basically now live in a country where a general can decide, I don't like what a president's doing, I don't think a president is in his right mind, I'm going to ignore his warning and I'm going to collude with our potential enemies to prevent our president elected by the people from taking action -- which by the way in this case there's no sign that that action he was trying to prevent was ever going to happen.
Imagine if tomorrow, General Milley decides I think Joe Biden is senile and so you know what? I'm not going to follow his orders, I'm going to collude with Russia and China to prevent us from acting, or our future president? I don't think he's in his right mind either because it is the essence a military coup for lack of a better term. That's what it would equate to.
HANNITY: So, would it be court-martial, insubordination, aid and comfort to the enemy, maybe even treason, if, in fact, he offered to aid an enemy of the United States?
RUBIO: I don't think there's any doubt that at a minimum he should be fired if this is true. Now, I hope it's not true. I really do for the sake of our country, I hope that it's not true. But if it is, if he had actually --
(CROSSTALK)
HANNITY: Do you think Bob Woodward might have lied? Is it possible --
RUBIO: I hope -- I don't know if you -- I don't know Bob Woodward. I don't know anything about.
I hope -- I hope for the sake of our country that this is not true, and we'll get a strong denial, because the alternative basically means that we have the person in charge of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is someone who decided that that he was more important in the Constitution, more important the chain of command, that he unilaterally was going to make a determination about colluding with a potential enemy of the United States and disobeying --
HANNITY: What do we do in a situation if it's he said versus he said here? He denies it, Woodward says, yeah, it happened?
RUBIO: Well, that story came from somewhere. So I think at that point, Woodward would then be compelled to produce the evidence that he has about whether it happened or not happened. I think at that point --
HANNITY: All right.
RUBIO: -- Woodward would have to come forward and show it.
Look, I really hope it's not true because if it is --
HANNITY: I hope it's not true too.
RUBIO: -- that's one of the most breaches of constitutional order that I have seen that I don't think any of us have ever seen in modern American history.
HANNITY: All right. Senator Rubio, great to have you. Thanks for being with us.
RUBIO: Thank you. Thanks.
HANNITY: We turn now recall election in California today. Polls are still open. Larry Elder will join us live in a moment.
Earlier today, Leo 2.0 Terrell asking Californians about that riveting speech and the ongoing California recall. And watch closely, there's somebody in there that's been a guest on this show. Take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LEO TERRELL, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: Who you vote for?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Gavin Newsom, I voted to keep Gavin Newsom as governor.
TERRELL: Why? Do you think Gavin Newsom doing a good job?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think to replace him would uh possibly be a disaster.
TERRELL: Why you voted for Larry?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I met him one time, great guy. I like his -- I like what he stands for and we need a change.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Get Newsom out of here.
TERRELL: Why -- why get Newsom out?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Because he's a crook.
TERRELL: Let me ask you. Joe Biden came in yesterday. What do you think of Joe Biden?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Even worse if it's possible.
TERRELL: Has Gavin Newsom done a horrible job? What's the problem with Gavin?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We'll let you start with the climate change and the fires and the -- and the masks and the -- what he's done to small business in this, you know? It's time to go.
TERRELL: You're going to vote?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: For Larry Elder.
TERRELL: Okay, tell me why you're going to vote for Larry Elder?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Democrats are ruining California.
TERRELL: Let me ask you a question. I want you to decide: who do you like better Leo Terrell or Sean Hannity?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Leo Terrell.
(LAUGHTER)
TERRELL: Love you, love you. You hear that, Sean?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: Unbelievable. Anyway, that was Suzanne Summers (ph) also in that piece. Leo Terrell reporting.
Joining us now, Larry Elder.
All right. Big night, Larry. We -- one thing we heard very -- I know, I can't win, right?
We've heard early we won't have results tonight probably, correct, even though they've been voting for how many weeks? And how many days after election day can actually correct a ballot or even vote?
LARRY ELDER (R), CALIFORNIA GUBERNATORIAL CANDIDATE: I think the secretary of state has about days to do that but, Sean, the lines are long. That's good news for our side, because the Democrats trust the mail. They vote early. But I'm hearing from people saying, I've been voting all my life. I've never seen lines like this.
And the reason that Leo had the reaction that he had is because this man's record is indefensible, on crime, on homelessness, on the way he shut down the state, a third of all small businesses are now gone forever. We've only recovered about half of our jobs pre-pandemic as opposed to two-thirds nationwide, people are leaving California for the first time, citing high cost of living, taxes, regulations.
Eight hundred thousand dollars is the average price of a home in California, that's 150 percent above the national average. Bad forest management, running out of water, our energy grid is poor.
There's no front where this man has done a good job. That's why all these people that have come in, whether it's Barack Obama or Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders cut a commercial for them -- none of them have said the following magical word, Sean, Gavin Newsom has done a fine job for the people of California.
HANNITY: You know, it's -- I may have to say Governor-elect Larry Elder next time you're on the program and I'm hoping I think long lines work in your favor. It's an uphill battle, always has been. I'm hoping for a political explosion out there, obviously electoral, in terms of an upset here and we're watching very closely and everybody has a more time to vote. So get out there if you haven't gotten out there.
Larry Elder, good luck. We'll be watching closely.
All right. When we come back, Senator Ted Cruz, he joins us to react to Antony Blinken's disastrous testimony at the congressional hearing earlier today. And the great one Mark Levin, yeah, he's got a lot to say tonight, straight ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HANNITY: Now, President Biden has been feeling the heat from the American people over his disastrous, unprecedented, unmitigated disaster of a withdrawal from Afghanistan now for weeks. But now, for the first time, the enablers on his team are now facing the wrath, at least some members of Congress are giving them and finally holding them accountable for their role in this entire debacle.
Now, Secretary of State Antony Blinken appeared before the House Foreign Affairs Committee yesterday. And today, yep, the Senate had their turn to grill him. And as we showed you earlier, it did not go well. It was a disaster for Blinken. Here's a bit more of what Texas Senator Ted Cruz had to say to the secretary.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CRUZ: Ever since the disaster began unfolding in Afghanistan, we've seen the Biden administration making political excuses we've seen Democrats on this committee explaining at great length how everything that happened in Afghanistan is Trump's fault. It's all Trump's fault.
Mr. Secretary, Joe Biden is the president of the United States. Kamala Harris is the vice president of the United States. You are the United States secretary of state, just like Jimmy Carter owns the disaster of the Iran hostage crisis, you own this.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: Senator Cruz joins us now.
It's interesting uh because Trump also left them secure borders, energy independence, we didn't have inflation. We had low gas prices. So that is one big lie and I'm glad you called him out on it, Senator.
Never in my lifetime, Senator Cruz, that I think we'd abandoned Americans behind enemy lines when we had months and months and months observing and watching with our intelligence community. This is not an intelligence failure, I've been told repeatedly by many sources telling them they're on the march, we could have safely extracted and withdrawn every American, every Afghan ally and all our military equipment.
This is beyond incompetence to me. Your thoughts?
CRUZ: Well, I think that's exactly right. This is the worst foreign policy disaster in a generation, and it was really two things that drove it.
One, radical ideology. These guys are naive. They think they're in a college faculty lounge. They think the Taliban wants to be welcomed and embraced at the U.N. coffee bar.
And number two, manifest incompetence. They combine the two with a series of decisions that were just disastrous. Abandoning the Bagram airfield, it has no justification.
A hundred years from now, Sean, at the War College, they're going to teach abandoning Bagram -- two secure airstrips, a secure perimeter protected from terrorist attacks -- and we gave it to the Taliban, moving our evacuation instead to the Kabul International Airport, a dense urban environment controlled by the Taliban. That cost the lives of 13 servicemen and women.
They didn't have to die. If we'd been at Bagram, there's a very good chance that secure perimeter would have kept them alive. This was incompetence and it was radical ideology.
And I'll tell you, Sean -- Blinken had two admissions today that were really significant. Number one, I asked him flat-out, is it true that the Biden administration gave the Taliban a list of Americans and a list of Afghans we wanted out? And after he hemmed and hawed, he finally said yes, we gave them a list.
That is terrifying and it may very well have functioned as a kill list putting them in harm's way.
And then secondly I asked him if it was true the reports that there had been a number of Afghan refugees, Afghan men who came with little girls, little girls who they claimed were their wives, were they facing child brides of little girls being sexually assaulted, being raped by grown Taliban men, again Blinken said, yes, the U.S. State Department was effectively trafficking child predators and children -- in both instances, he refused to answer the follow-up question, how many names did you give the Taliban? How many children are being sexually assaulted while the Biden administration is bringing them to U.S. soil?
HANNITY: I am aghast hearing you describe it, Senator. But they keep referring to the Taliban as professional and business-like, professional and business-like. How could they not understand these are terrorists?
They're now out there, we're chronicling beheadings. We're chronicling torture and literally ripping nails out of people's hands before shooting them in the head, and hunting people down, and beating women in the streets and child brides. It's only the beginning.
CRUZ: Yeah.
HANNITY: And no affirmation. We -- they still don't know how many Americans and how many green card holders and how many of our allies did they abandoned, because they abandoned them and many will die, Senator. Those people you're describing will die. They will be murdered brutally.
CRUZ: There are at least hundreds of Americans that they abandoned behind enemy lines. It may be thousands. There are thousands of legal permanent residents in America, green card holders that they abandoned, and there may well be tens of thousands of Afghans who risked their lives helping us who they abandoned behind enemy lines, and many of them tragically face the risk of torture or death or both.
HANNITY: Senator, you raised the issue about all the billions and billions of dollars of American military might left behind our equipment, and he actually tried to make the case that it will not be used against their neighbors, it will not be used against people that they deem to be their enemy.
Please tell me -- how does somebody how do I say this nicely? There's no nice way to say. How does -- how can somebody be that ignorant, that stupid, that naive, and that dumb to not believe, because we already know what's happening with the equipment?
CRUZ: Now, that's exactly right and he's repeating partisan talking points. Unfortunately, the Biden administration, they're playing the blame game and their talking point is it's Trump's fault, it's Trump's fault.
One Democrat at the hearing today said we should have hearings on George W. Bush, that it's not even just Trump's fault, it's Bush's fault. I mean, they're reaching for anything except for the actual commander-in-chief that screwed this up.
And I've got to say, when Blinken today said, well, yes some $80 billion of American weaponry and vehicles fell into the hands of the Taliban, but it will not be used against us or our allies. What utter nonsense, 33 Black Hawk helicopters -- last I checked, the terrorists didn't start with 33 Black Hawks.
And I'll tell you what may be actually the biggest game changer, because their point on the vehicles is that they don't have the equipment to maintain them. That may be right, so it may be in relatively short order, they can't keep them in the air. Although with the Chinese or Russians, they could get assistance in helping maintain those vehicles.
But what might be the biggest game changers, there are over 10,000 night vision goggles that the Taliban now has. If you talk to the refugees of Afghanistan, that was really the game changer that we owned the night, that we could see at night, we could take out the terrorists and they couldn't. They were blind at night.
They now have American night vision goggles and Americans will die because Joe Biden allowed the Taliban to get those night vision goggles.
HANNITY: Senator, thanks for being with us.
When we come back more on this brewing scandal with General Mark Milley. Is it insubordination? In fact, if it is, will he be court-martialed, tried? What would the result be? I'll ask the constitutional expert known as the great one, Mark Levin, right after this break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HANNITY: As we mentioned, breaking at the top of the show, outrage growing tonight over excerpts from a new book by Bob Woodward and Robert Costa of "The Washington Post" that claimed Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mark Milley promised China's top general advance warning if Donald Trump as president launched an attack during his final days in office.
Well, now, the Pentagon hasn't yet issued an on the record statement. Some sources are telling Fox's own Jennifer Griffin that Milley never did explicitly promise China a heads-up. So, we're going to follow this story obviously very closely.
But Milley is the highest ranking uniformed officer in the U.S. military and two top "Washington Post" writers are reporting that he undermined a duly elected commander-in-chief, promising to provide one of our country's most serious enemies with advance notice should we need to attack them.
Now, tonight, many are wondering if this is true, is this treason? Will Milley be punished? Will he be tried, court-martialed? Anyway, should he ever be trusted again?
Here with his take on all of this, we call them the great one for a reason, eight consecutive weeks number one "New York Times" bestseller, now over a million copies sold. It's called "American Marxism", call him the great one, Mark Levin, also "Life, Liberty and Levin".
Mark, I'll let you take it from here on General Milley.
MARK LEVIN, FOX NEWS HOST, "LIFE, LIBERY AND LEVIN": Well, we're experiencing "American Marxism", aren't we? A couple of things here, Sean.
Number one, Woodward and Costa are reporters for "The Washington Post". Takes two and a half to three months to print a book. That means Woodward and Costa and "The Washington Post", if this is true, sat on this story for months and months. Why would two reporters sit on a story like this for months and months and allow this man who I believe if this is true is utterly unhinged to serve as the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff?
You have two so-called journalists who sat on this for two or three months, a news story, they're journalists. I'm not. Why would they do something like that? You know why, Sean, this is what Woodward does, they drop this before the Sunday before his books are released. They get everybody worked up and stirred up, maybe they should be, maybe they shouldn't. He'll be on all the Sunday shows, so he and Costa, two so-called reporters, can make millions of dollars off this book.
And what does this book do? It's certainly in the front end. It attempts to trash President Trump. Let's take a look very briefly at this so people should boycott this book. People should not reward these people at all for their conduct as so-called journalists.
Journalism is corrupt and it's dead in this country. But let's look at the story.
First of all, it says in the middle of the story, "Peril", the author says based on interviews with more than 200 people conducted on the condition they not be named as sources. Who the hell writes a book with 200 anonymous sources? Well, we have the tapes. We have the notes. Yeah, but we don't.
The American people -- this is our country, don't we get to make a judgment about these things? It's not about Woodward, Costa and "The Washington Post". What kind of a news organization is this?
And if this did happen, it's big news. I've spent my life studying and defending the Constitution of the United States. You have here Mark Milley not once but twice before the election and after contacts the head of the communist military in China, our number one enemy. And the first time he does it it's based on he's concerned China's worried our military exercises in the South China Sea deepened by Trump's belligerent rhetoric toward China?
So, he calls China around the back of the commander-in-chief and tells them, don't worry about him, I have him under control pretty much? What is -- what?
And then after the election, he calls and he says, quote, General Lee, you and I have known each other for now five years, if we're going to attack, I'm going to call you ahead of time. I'm not going to be -- it's not going to be a surprise.
If the United States military -- just theoretically -- it's going to attack China, the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff knows every step of it, he's going to tell the enemy? If that's true, this SOB needs to be out of there as fast as possible without a debate.
What else does he do? He basically according to this article, if it's true, he tells his subordinate officers basically to take an oath of loyalty to him, to him. What else does he do? He conspires with the head of the CIA, who's worried about a right-wing coup. All this talk about right-wing coups, Russia collusion, criminal investigations of a sitting president, two impeachments, one of the sitting president, one of the ex-president when he's left office, going after tax returns trying to destroy. We know what a coup looks like we sat with for the last five years.
And what else? The head of the Joint Chiefs is collaborating with the head of the opposition party. Pelosi and Schumer, so he's collaborated, according to this story, with a communist Chinese military, with the head of the Democrats in the House, with the head of the Democrats in the Senate, he's got subordinate generals and others who he, according to this story, gets allegiances from them.
And the two reporters on the story sit on this for months and months and months, so they can make a buck on a book. Wouldn't it have been good to know about Milley before what happened in Afghanistan, so his ass could have been kicked out of office, so we could get a general in there like a George S. Patton type who wouldn't leave American citizens in enemy territory, who wouldn't leave patriotic Afghans in enemy territory who are being hunted down and killed as I speak with $85 billion of our equipment? General Milley, probably the worst general we've ever had, if this story is true.
And if the story is false , my god, General Milley, you're going to own "The Washington Post." Why don't you come out and tell the American people everything?
And, America, boycott these two journalists, boycott their book. They shouldn't make millions of dollars sitting on a story if true that we the people had a right to know, that the military had a right to know before Afghanistan. A pox on all their houses.
And let's be clear -- yes, they were, all of them, after President Donald Trump. It's the most disgusting thing I've seen in my life, from the intelligence agencies to the Defense Department to the FBI, to the Democrats, to the media -- how sickening. You want to see a coup? There were your attempted coups. I'm done.
HANNITY: "American Marxism," bookstores everywhere, amazon.com. Mark's show, "Life, Liberty and Levin," every Sunday, right here at FOX, 8:00 p.m. You don't ever want to miss.
When we come back, Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez's hypocrisy on full display once again, $30,000 tickets. She went to the Met Gala, shows up at a dress that said "tax the rich". Who paid for the dress?
Lara Trump, Joe Concha, next, straight ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HANNITY: Radical, self-proclaimed Democratic socialist congresswoman, the real speaker of the House, AOC, under heavy fire for her display of hypocrisy at the Met Gala in New York last night.
AOC took to the exclusive events, red carpet, I don't see a mask, in a dress scrawled with the phrase "tax the rich".
Here with reaction, FOX News contributors Lara Trump, and Joe Concha.
Lara, I'll start with you. I said on the way out, I wanted to know who paid for the dress. I really meant -- I want to know who paid the $30,000 for the ticket. That's what I meant to say. $30,000 is a lot for a ticket, isn't it?
LARA TRUMP, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: Wow. I mean, I love how these are the folks that love to lecture us about the injustices, the inequalities in the world, and she went there, Sean, we're so lucky, because she went there for all of us. She went there to spread a message and she went there for us, the little people.
It is so ridiculous to think that she had to suffer through the champagne and the caviar of arguably the most elite event in America because she needs to spread her social justice message. It's absurd to see. But I think one of the most frustrating aspects of all of this for me personally is to see the way she's continually fawned over by the media. She can do no wrong.
I'd like to know one good thing, Sean. She's actually done for her constituents in the Bronx and Queens in New York. Heck, I remember when she ran thousands of jobs out when she ran Amazon out of New York.
She has never done anything for the people that she represents. Yet she gets lauded by the media.
And then you have people like my husband who on the other hand raised $20 million for pediatric cancer and gets painted like a monster by that same media.
HANNITY: That was terrible.
L. TRUMP: It is disgusting and disgraceful. And here you see the result, you see this woman flaunting this at the Met Gala, as though she's not phony enough already. There you go folks.
HANNITY: Do you ever go to an event thirty thousand dollars a ticket, Joe Concha? Because I've never even been to a White House correspondents dinner being on TV 25 years. I don't like them and they don't like me.
JOE CONCHA, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: They certainly don't like you. That is true. I went to the White House correspondent once. It was free for me that the chicken was dry. I mean, the wine was, you know, like Boone strawberry ale, and I wasn't crazy about it.
Anyway, story for another time. This is a bit of a lost art, but let's give this a try anyway and this is where we read back one's own word, Sean, all right, one's own promises, as far as judging them by their actions and then seeing what they actually do. In this case, Ocasio-Cortez earlier this summer, quote, personally, I'm going to keep wearing my mask in indoor shared places like elevators subway grocery stores, et cetera.
Well, last night at the Met where as you said, tickets going thousand dollars a pop, you know, so no little people can take part. She wore no mask. She did interviews -- forget six feet distance -- within one foot of whoever was interviewing her.
Meanwhile if you have a kid in New York City in a Ocasio-Cortez's district, even those vaccinated over the age of 12, they have to wear a mask in 80- something degree --
HANNNITY: I want to know --
CONCHA: -- in schools.
HANNITY: I want to know who paid for the thirty thousand dollar ticket, because she complained the mom needs money --
L. TRUMP: Keep holding your breath on that, Sean.
HANNITY: -- we could have spent the money to help her mom.
All right. Thank you both.
More "Hannity" next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HANNITY: All right. Unfortunately, that's all the time we have left this evening. As always, we thank you for making the show possible and being with us. It is day 31. We still have our fellow Americans trapped, hostage to the winds of the Taliban behind enemy lines. They are people doing their damndest to help get them out.
Our thoughts and prayers. Let's not forget them. Joe Biden forgot them and abandoned them. We won't.
Let not your heart be troubled. Laura Ingraham -- is Raymond Arroyo mad at me now?
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