'Ingraham Angle' on holding Biden officials accountable for crisis in Afghanistan

close

Video

Angle: Building Back Weaker

Ingraham: Deadly, idiotic handling of Afghanistan withdrawal will be permanent stain on America’s foreign policy and military leadership

This is a rush transcript from "The Ingraham Angle," August 30, 2021. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

LAURA INGRAHAM, FOX NEWS HOST: I'm OK, Hannity, but we're going to pick it up where you left off. There's a lot. There's a lot to cover. Thank you so much.

I am Laura Ingraham. This is THE INGRAHAM ANGLE from Washington. The Biden's administration's mix of sheer incompetence and outright arrogance is laid bare. We're going to document all of it tonight. And we begin with "Building Back Weaker," that's the focus of "Tonight's Angle."

Now, of all the heart wrenching photos I've seen over the past few weeks, this one hit me right in the gut. Troops paying tribute to their brothers and sisters who died last Thursday, knowing full well that it could have been one of them. And then the somber scene at Dover during the dignified transfer, one that's been carried out 1000s of times, during the past 20 years of combat in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Parents, wives, husbands, children, even, lining up to greet the caskets. For many, the grief was too much to bear. Now, each life lost of the 13 and all of the others, all of them, every single one mattered. They were all tethered together in a strong, patriotic spirit of sacrifice. Many of them came from families with long histories of military service.

Today, I had the great privilege of speaking on the phone with a mom whose son died last week. Every one of these young people were exceptional human being she said, Every single one. Please let the people know that.

But now, the sadness for many of these families is mixed with rage, and justifiably so.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KATHY MCCOLLUM, MOTHER OF FALLEN MARINE: Genius child, an IQ of 156. He could have done anything he wanted to do in the military, and he chose to be a marine sniper. But I never thought in a million years he would die for nothing, for nothing because a feckless, dementia-ridden piece of crap decided he wanted a photo op on September 11. Every Democratic that's listening, you did this to my son to prop up a disgusting human being.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: Well, there's a lot to be angry about. The deadly idiotic handling of our Afghanistan withdrawal will be a permanent stain on America's foreign policy and our military leadership. When the predictable chaos started to unfold at the airport, the Biden team was off on summer break.

We learned this weekend that the Secretary of State was in the Hamptons with the fancy people. Biden was with Jill, and no cabinet officials at Camp David. The press secretary had a vacation autoreply set up on our White House e-mail. Apparently none of them thought something important might be happening in Afghanistan, while they were out having fun. It's disgraceful.

This isn't the junior varsity team. This is the team of people who couldn't make JV. And sadder for our troops and their families is that the kids cut from the JV squad are actually in charge of military planning as well.

Most Americans are not familiar with General McKenzie in charge of our Central Command. He's one of the most powerful military figures in America today.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JENNIFER GRIFFIN, FOX NEWS: After 20 years of war, you've served there, you've now watched the last troops leave, you've lost troops in recent days, how did it feel leaving Afghanistan to the very group that you overthrew 20 years ago - the Taliban?

GEN. KENNETH MCKENZIE, COMMANDER OF THE U.S. CENTRAL COMMAND: I was very conflicted, actually. But I would tell you, I was pretty much focused on the task at hand. I'll have days ahead to actually think about that. I'm sure I will do that in the future. But right now I'm pretty much consumed with the operational task at hand. That's a huge question, and I am going to be thinking about that in the days ahead.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: It seemed kind of like he was smiling at one point. Maybe it's just me, that's what I saw. But that's it? That's all he has to say? He's had years to think about this. Imagine this guy leading your son or daughter into battle. And the generals on TV, by the way, are just as useless.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LT. GENERAL MARK HERTLING, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: This has been a very difficult 20 years. I was in the basement of the Pentagon - the other situation room when this war started. Watching our allies and the U.S. forces fight this conflict over the last 20 years with the ups and downs, has brought a whole lot of thought and emotion.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: What does this mean? A whole lot of thought and emotion, what does that mean? The hard reality is, we lost. The U.S. military was given a mission to accomplish. It was given a series of missions actually. And under this military leadership over the last 20 years it failed to carry them out. The Taliban won the war and we're retreating in disgrace. That's what happened. Even though none of our made for TV generals want to say so.

Of course, we all love our troops. No one blames them. The best, the bravest soldiers, they can't be expected to succeed with weak and ineffective military leaders. Abraham Lincoln had to fire a whole series of generals until he found a team that would lead the army of the Potomac to victory.

We never found a general who could win in Afghanistan and so we lost. The Taliban one, and we're going to have to live with those facts. Now, believe me, I do not regret the pullout. Others do. It's long been clear that the Pentagon is simply incapable of advancing U.S. interests in the Middle East. We gave the generals every chance. The American people have spent more than $6.5 trillion on the war on terror and has little to show for it.

American soldiers, reservists and Special Ops, all were asked to do three, four, some of them five tours of duty. There was enormous sacrifice and suffering with huge financial costs to the American taxpayers. And in the end, the Taliban is left in charge, controlling more territory. And now with bragging rights - see the celebratory gunfire, laughing on camera? That they drove out and defeated what used to be regarded as the most powerful military in the world.

Americans deserve a full accounting of the mistakes that were made from Bush to Biden. Trump was really the only president who really wanted to end the war in a manner that wouldn't be an embarrassing disaster, but he never had a secretary of defense who agreed with him or even respected him.

The problems were widespread, with the military often closing ranks to cover them up. Many of the moral and ethical lapses of military leadership were blatant, they felt invulnerable, a lot of CEOs do as well, we know that. And no one should be surprised. After all, there's been precious little accountability for their failures in combat operations. So why would they have to be accountable on anything else?

They rely on our love and admiration of the enlisted men and women and their bravery to insulate them at the top from answering for years of mismanagement, misrepresentations and failures. Conservatives say that we shouldn't keep increasing the budgets of departments like education or HUD without tangible results and metrics being met. So why shouldn't the Pentagon be held to that same standard?

We have to demand better. Our country is in real danger. Our military isn't the Peace Corps or a refugee transportation service. We love these photos, cradling babies, handing out water bottles, it's wonderful humanitarian work, and we applaud it. But in essence, it's not the purpose of the U.S. Military. We need generals who can win wars. And we should never tolerate the type of failure we've seen over the past two decades.

Finally, we can't allow the Biden team to use the collapse of Afghanistan as yet another excuse to circumvent our immigration laws. The families of the fallen and the American taxpayers deserve to know why the lives of certain Afghans were prioritized over the lives of Americans still in the country?

The Biden Administration has proven itself completely untrustworthy and incompetent. And now, we have no reason to believe that they're going to handle the relocation of Afghans any better. Americans are very compassionate. We're very generous. But Americans also have the right to insist that our laws be followed. We should be told where the refugees will eventually be placed, by what legal authority they're here, and how their sizeable expenses will be covered.

Of course, the Biden people don't want accountability for their failures. They just keep saying, now's not the time to point fingers. Well, they're wrong. This is precisely when we should be demanding answers. We've already waited too long. we've wasted too much money. We've lost too many lives. Our patience is that an end, and that's "The Angle."

Joining me now is Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton who served in Afghanistan. Senator, what can you all do to demand accountability on behalf of the vast majority of Americans who are disgusted by the past few weeks?

SEN. TOM COTTON (R-AR): Laura, I share your sentiment that my patience has tapped here. For the last two weeks my office, like so many congressional offices, was focused on trying to get American citizens out of Afghanistan.

Joe Biden broke that promise. He promised that Taliban we'd be out by August 31st. He promised the Americans in Afghanistan, he'd stay to get them out. He kept his promise to the Taliban. He broke his promise to Americans.

Now that all troops are out of Afghanistan it is the time to demand answers, to hold accountable all those officials who created the terrible conditions that we've seen in Afghanistan for the last several weeks. Some of these things are very simple questions to which there are knowable answers.

What did the military recommend to Joe Biden about Bagram Air Base? Who decided to close Bagram Air Base? What were the arbitrary troop numbers that were kept that at the end that led to the closing of Bagram air base? There's a lot of very simple, but very critical questions to be asked and their answers are knowable. They're sitting on a piece of paper somewhere in the Pentagon, in the White House and it's time for Congress to demand those answers in the weeks ahead.

It's also time, as you say, to ensure that we are conducting rigorous oversight of the resettlement of refugees in this country. Look, we all want to protect and welcome those Afghans who served alongside American servicemembers. We've heard from so many people in my office, service members and veterans, who vouched personally for their translator or their interpreter.

But we evacuated more than 125,000 Afghans at last count. Many of these had very little, if any connection, to our service members over the last 20 years. Look, I'm glad they're out of the Taliban's grips. But they have to qualify under American law before we admit them into this country. They can't be a threat to this country.

And like the Trump Administration kept many Syrian refugees in Jordan, leveraging our relationship there, that's probably what we're going to need to do with most of the Afghan refugees who are in places like Qatar, Turkey, or Albania or other countries. I'm glad that they're out of the Taliban's grip, but it's not our responsibility to welcome every single one to the country if they do not contribute directly to our military forces there over the last 20 years.

INGRAHAM: Right. Well, we keep hearing things about Afghanis who are at risk, need to be out of the country, well, that's millions of people. That's not 120,000 people. We're talking several 100,000 or millions of people. And I again, everyone feels terrible for everyone suffering around the globe, but there are laws in place.

And Congress has a responsibility to make sure the laws are either changed, that refugee caps are lifted, and pretty much anyone can come here and live here, if they're Afghani and they don't want to be there. That law has to be written, passed by Congress. They have to live with it in the next campaign, and Biden has to sign it into law. Do you agree with that?

COTTON: Yes, Laura, part of our oversight, we'll be looking backwards at the failures that created these conditions in Afghanistan, but an important part of our oversight in Congress is exactly what you suggest, ensuring that the Biden Administration is following the law.

Those Afghans who served alongside of American troops, who have those troops vouching for them, so many of whom we've heard from over the last two weeks, are welcomed to our country. But, again, more than 125,000 Afghans were evacuated out of Afghanistan--

INGRAHAM: Yes.

COTTON: They're in places that may not have American standard of living, but at least they're safe from the Taliban.

INGRAHAM: Well, one thing them--

COTTON: That doesn't mean that we have to bring every single one to America.

INGRAHAM: Well, one of them is already - "The Washington Times" reporting on one Afghan who was convicted of rape, and deported and then made it back to America on one of the evacuation flights. Again, I just don't trust these people. To vet people properly or to handle this properly, there has to be rigorous oversight.

Let me get to one comment from General Mckenzie, that stuck out today. Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MCKENZIE: I will tell you, the Taliban had been very - very pragmatic and very business-like as we have approached this withdrawal. They were actually very helpful and useful to us as we closed down operations. They established a firm perimeter outside of the airfield to prevent people from coming on the airfield during our departure.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: Senator, we have 13 Americans dead and we have the CENTCOM Commander praising the Taliban. Your response.

COTTON: Yes, well, if the Taliban was such a good security partner that was carefully vetting everyone who got close to our troops at the airport, I don't understand how a suicide bomber got through their outer perimeter to our inner perimeter. These are the kinds of questions that Congress is going to be probing in the days ahead to figure out exactly how we got into the situation where we had to cooperate with a barbarian group of outlaws in Afghanistan, simply to get American citizens out of the country.

And now that we're actually sort of like acting as if that's something that we can be proud of, or that we should even celebrate, that we cooperated with the Taliban. We should have never gotten in that position from the beginning. And it all goes back to Joe Biden's terrible execution of this decision to withdraw our troops from Afghanistan.

INGRAHAM: Senator Cotton, thank you. And Biden and his team's staggering ineptitude has Afghan war veteran sounding the alarm. That includes my next guests who wrote recently in "The New York Times," "When the president spoke on Thursday night after the attack on the Abbey Gate, he nodded at sacrifice. That's fine. But what matters is to truly understand the value of service. If you do, you don't send troops to die on a poorly planned and poorly executed mission. Failing to understand the value of service results and incompetence."

Joining me now is retired Marine Elliot Ackerman. He served five tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, has received both the Bronze and silver Stars. Elliot, your reaction to just what we heard today from General McKenzie, understanding what happened last Thursday to 13 of our bravest young men and women. Your reaction?

ELLIOT ACKERMAN, RETIRED U.S. MARINE: Well, I think individuals who wear the uniform, as well as us as citizens, have the right to expect a certain amount of competence in the execution of these decisions. And what we see in the last two weeks has been nothing less than incompetence.

I mean, people have trotted out for a long time, is this going to be Saigon? Is it not going to be Saigon? This is way worse than Saigon. I mean - but you just look at a map, and at least Vietnam had hundreds of miles of coastline. Afghanistan is a landlocked country. So why would you begin shutting down all the airports like Bagram, Kandahar, Herat and leave us with only a single point of eagerness in Kabul?

So this has been mismanaged from the very beginning. And frankly, as Senator Cotton mentioned, fallen to veterans, these journalists, activists to try to get Afghans out in an extremely ad hoc manner. And with regards to the Taliban, I mean, if they're so organized and pragmatic - we just saw the Taliban flying a Black Hawk helicopter, above Kandahar with a dead body hanging from its bottom. Now are those our pragmatic partners? I think this whole thing is absurd. And, frankly, it's the most shameful thing I've seen in my adult life.

INGRAHAM: Were you at the airport yourself as you were helping some of these evacuations that were underway?

ACKERMAN: No, I've been I've been doing this - basically on the side along with dozens of other folks who have deep connections to Afghanistan. Coordinating on Signal, online with - I've had - I have - if you look at my notes, I had notes from hundreds of backends, many people I don't even know just begging for help. This is like watching 1000s of people thrown into a black hole all at once.

INGRAHAM: I had a former Marine - a combat ops soldier - excuse, I'm botching it, but a former Marine was over there, Elliot, and he was working morning, noon, and night, and he's an old friend of mine. So he's calling me going. It's so much worse what's happening on the ground. He's at the airport for only 24 hours. But he's back in another country helping.

He said it's so much worse than it's being shown on television. He said, like, he didn't even have words for it. He said it's - something bad is going to happen. And of course, two days later, that's what happened to our troops. Elliott, final thoughts. What next?

ACKERMAN: I think when what next is that - America is less safe based off of the - particularly the execution of this evacuation. I think our credibility with our allies and partners outside of Afghanistan needs to be rebuilt. And I think this country needs to do some real reckoning or how we got into this position where we are negotiating from a position of weakness with the Taliban. I mean, these people are thugs and barbarians. And we need to remember who we are, and we're the United States of America.

INGRAHAM: Do you agree Elliot that there needs to be a reckoning and reform that follows. Maybe we need more civilian leadership at the top of the Pentagon, maybe we need a new approach, because obviously 20 years of warfighting with the greatest army and greatest troops around and all this technology, and we weren't able to win.

ACKERMAN: Well, I think, ultimately, we need to ask ourselves what is winning? I mean, the United States has a very specific role in the world. And if we walk away from Afghanistan - we saw this story before. In 2011, all the troops came home from Iraq, and they wound up right back there 2014, because we had a foolish policy. We need to grow up.

There are people in this world who want to do us harm. And we need to accept that. And so ultimately, the NYPD doesn't talk about winning - winning the war against crime. It takes continued vigilance, and I'm sorry, it requires the same thing internationally.

INGRAHAM: And we need to bring the people along with us. So politically we have to make sure that people of the country are with us in every single conflict. Elliot, your piece in "The New York Times" was stunning. And congrats on all your success and what you're doing and writing and everything else. Thank you for joining us.

A Biden approved drone strike killed a family of 10, including seven kids, and we keep - being told it's ISIS, but the administration won't give us any details. Why is this? Glenn Greenwald has reaction in moments. And Jonathan Turley was alarmed by an admission from the Capitol Police officer who shot Ashli Babbitt. He's here to tell us what it is.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MAJOR GEN. HANK TAYLOR, JOINT STAFF DEPUTY DIRECTOR FOR REGIONAL OPERATIONS: Significant secondary explosions from the targeted vehicle indicated the presence of a substantial amount of explosive material. We are aware of reports of civilian casualties and we take these reports very seriously and we are continuing to assess the situation.

JEN PSAKI, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: We take efforts - take steps from the United States to avoid civilian casualties in every scenario, and probably more than almost any country in the world. I can't speak to you or confirm the numbers or cases of civilian casualties in this case.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: She can't, but "The New York Times" is reporting that 10 civilians, including seven children were killed by a drone strike in Kabul. Now, the Biden Pentagon assures us that this strike and others neutralized ISIS-K terrorists, who they of course, can't tell us anything about or identify. So what's going on here?

Joining us now is Independent Journalist Glenn Greenwald. Glenn, no one in the media seems too concerned about what looks like to be another intelligence failure. Why is that?

GLENN GREENWALD, INDEPENDENT JOURNALIST: It's pretty bizarre. I mean, right from the beginning there was a huge question lurking, at least for me, which is a month ago, Joe Biden assured everybody that there was very little chance that the Taliban would overrun the Afghan National Security Forces and would take over the country.

Of course, that's exactly what happened five weeks after he gave that assurance, which seems to suggest that if they weren't lying, they know very little about what's happening in this country we've been occupying for 20 years.

And then suddenly, we're told that they were able with pinpoint precision twice in a row to identify the location of two different ISIS-K planners or potters or commanders, which seems very inconsistent with the fact that they seem to have no idea what's going on in this country. They wouldn't give us the names of who these supposedly important people were. And they just asserted that there were no civilian casualties.

And unlike in the Trump years, when all these media outlets loved to say Trump says this with no evidence, Trump falsely claims - all their skepticism evaporated overnight, and they just repeated the fact that we got our target, they were no civilian casualties. And there was never any evidence for it and no questioning of it at all.

INGRAHAM: Well, the Pentagon is just they're not going to release the names - the identities of these terrorists. And it doesn't look like we're going to learn much more about it than we already have. Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN KIRBY, PENTAGON PRESS SECRETARY: There's probably a time when we can talk to you about the names, that's not the time right now. We are still dealing with, as we saw from last night's rocket attacks, very real, ongoing threats. And I think we're doing what we believe to be the prudent thing with respect to the release of information. We're giving you as much as we can, and as close to real time as we can. But we're not going to be able to give you everything.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: Glenn, this is the new trick. They say, well, now's not the time. Now's not the time to demand accountability, now's not the time to ask questions, now is not the time to give us any identities. But the fact is, it's never a good time.

GREENWALD: Look, this is one of the most major national security events, obviously, in the last decade or two, if not, in our lifetimes. People have different opinions about whether we should have left or shouldn't, how we should have done it. But we all have the right to know what actually is going on, what happened in Afghanistan.

And remember, the media during the Trump years made a big flamboyant showing of the importance of transparency. "The Washington Post" actually adopted a motto, specifically for the Trump era, that read "Democracy Dies in Darkness."

And so here's John Kirby, the Pentagon's spokesperson telling you that you have to believe them when they tell you that they killed the really important people involved in these attacks. But you can't even know who these people are. Why not? Why can't we know that? We're just being asked to accept their word on blind faith.

And every time this happens, Laura, where you go and you kill an entire family, just wipe them off the face of the planet - young children - it isn't that anybody questions whether or not we have the right to do a retaliatory strike after that hideous attack in Kabul? Of course we did. But every time that happens, it generates so much anti-American hatred and anti-American sentiment around the world.

We need to know, the very least, whether it was actually a legitimate strike or whether it was just something that was done for Biden to get rid of a bad news cycle and to prevent people from saying that he's weak. And the lack of interest on the part of the media is amazing in that.

INGRAHAM: Well, there's a lot of kids - there's a lot of kids who are dead. And I think we should know whether our drone strike actually killed them. It's basic question. Glenn, thank you.

And we turn now to another tragic killing, the shooting of Air Force vet Ashli Babbitt by a Capitol Police officer whose identity has finally been revealed. His name is Lieutenant Michael Byrd, and of course, he recently got the all-star treatment on NBC News. But during this interview, he said something that caught our attention.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LT. MICHAEL BYRD, OFFICER WHO SHOT ASHLI BABBITT: It was later found out that the subject did not have a weapon, but there was no way to know that at that time. And I could not fully see her hands or what was in the backpack, or what the intentions were. But they had shown violence leading up to that point.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: But wait a minute, the media told us Byrd's actions was exonerated by the FBI and Capitol police. How can that be with what he just said? Raising red flags.

Here with me now is Jonathan Turley, George Washington University law prof and FOX News contributor. Jonathan, I know you watched this closely. Your reaction to this, his statement? And does it blow up the whole he was exonerated narrative?

JONATHAN TURLEY, GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY LAW PROFESSOR: It was an astonishing interview. I wrote about it in "The Hill" because he basically went through the list of what you are not allowed to do as the basis for lethal force. He said I didn't see a weapon, I didn't know her intent, I didn't know what was on her back, I shot her. And obviously, all of us can sympathize in being in a closed room in the middle of a riot. Babbitt was engaged in criminal conduct, she was illegally trespassing, she was disobeying police orders, there was a great deal of damage, and she was going through a window at that time. So all of that is criminal conduct, but you can't just shoot criminal trespassers. You can't shoot people damaging government property. You have to show an imminent threat to yourself or to others.

And here you have an officer who actually says I really couldn't see her hands, I didn't know if she was armed or not. According to that interpretation he could have shot the next 20 people through the window. He could have shot hundreds of people that day on the Hill. But only one officer did so, that was Lieutenant Byrd. All the other officers, including officers who were attacked, who were injured, refrained from using lethal force. And I say that with a great deal of respect, because we demand of the officers a level of restraint and courage that most of us couldn't muster. It's a really difficult job. But what he described in the interview falls way outside of the standards for the use of lethal force.

INGRAHAM: Yes, outside the parameters. Here is more from the NBC interview.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Based on your training, In that case, does it matter that the person was armed or not?

LT. MICHAEL BYRD, OFFICER WHO SHOT ASHLI BABBITT: According to law, it does not. I know based on my training and my policy, what I did was appropriate.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: Jonathan, all fine according to his training.

TURLEY: Yes. Yes, I don't know where that comes from. I've heard from officers around the country who couldn't believe the interview, because it is true that you can use an authorized level of lethal force with someone how is unarmed if you believe they were unarmed and it was reasonable. We've had cases were officers thought someone was armed, maybe they threw a weapon away seconds before. We had a case like that in Chicago.

But he was describing something very different. He was saying he didn't have any idea whether she was armed. He had no idea what her intent was. All he knew is she was coming through a window against police orders. And under that argument, you could have shot hundreds of people in Seattle, Portland. There were police stations that were taken over. People went through those doors. Under this standard, every one of those protesters in Portland and Seattle that went into those government buildings destroying property --

INGRAHAM: Could have been shot.

TURLEY: -- could have been shot. Does that track? Right.

INGRAHAM: No. It's imminent bodily harm. Someone coming through a window, you're essentially shooting blind when you can't see if there's any weapon. Jonathan, your piece was so important, thank you.

And coming up, if you thought Biden's Afghanistan response has been a disaster, wait until you see how he is handling the hurricane so far. I'm talking about Ida. "Seen and Unseen" with Raymond next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

INGRAHAM: It's time for our "Seen and Unseen" segment where we expose the big cultural stories of the day. And joining us for hurricane Ida edition our own personal Ida refugee, FOX News contributor Raymond Arroyo who joins us from Florida. Ray, we're glad you're safe. But the president has been staging pressers, I've noticed, to assure everyone that he has this whole situation in hand, or his administration.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, (D) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: And the hard week of the FEMA team, all of whom are gathered behind me, many of whom are gathered behind me.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RAYMOND ARROYO, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: Well, it was 20,000 employees. Laura, what's 20,000 give or take the handful behind him? But this presser ended in classic Biden style.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, (D) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I'm not supposed to take any questions, but go ahead.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Mr. President, on Afghanistan --

BIDEN: I'm not going to answer Afghanistan now.

(CROSS TALK)

(APPLAUSE)

BIDEN: Thank you, thank you. I know there's no group of Americans who know how dangerous it is more than you guys do.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: First of all, he seems lost. He's lost.

ARROYO: He's coming, he's going. He can't find the exit.

INGRAHAM: Where is he going?

ARROYO: Exactly. But Laura, who is telling the president there are questions he's not supposed to answer? I want to see that list. Why is the president of the United States being controlled this way? He should come out and tell us the facts. He said he would shoot from the shoulder, give us the truth. We don't know what to believe it these press conferences.

ARROYO: And today Biden was at it again, Raymond. He was making even less sense, if that's possible, during a press conference call with governors and mayors who are all affected, of course, by the hurricane.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, (D) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I know you've got a lot to manage in your states, but the fact is that -- and we know hurricane Ida had the potential to cause massive, massive damage. And that's exactly what we saw. And I'm here with my senior advisor and a boy who knows Louisiana very, very well, and New Orleans. And Cedric Richmond.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ARROYO: My boy who knows Louisiana? This is a former congressman, our African American congressman from Louisiana. Why is the president calling him "boy"? And why is no one concerned about this, to say nothing of the syntax, ah, ah, ah? This is a sad display, Laura. And at a time when people are hurting, this does not engender confidence.

INGRAHAM: My favorite, though, Raymond, is the mask hanging from his ear because that's always a sign of someone who is fully in control. Was that a mask hanging down? That's ridiculous.

ARROYO: He seems completely programmed, Laura, and unable to even read his own 25 point font script.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, (D) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Now, Cedric, who are we going to next? Is Mayor Cantrell on? Mayor Cantrell, are you on? I don't think she was able to get connected.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't think so, Mr. President.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ARROYO: They can't even get the Zoom call right, Laura. The reason Cantrell isn't on the line is because we in New Orleans are not going to have electricity restored for at least three weeks. And by the way, we had failures, electric failures throughout the hurricane when the pumps didn't work. That is after you, the American taxpayer, paid $14 billion to increase and upgrade our levees and our pumping system. They still didn't really work.

Laura, the most galling thing about all of this, all day I've been watching all the networks -- they are focused on Afghanis and bringing them to the United States. We can evacuate Kabul, but we can't evacuate our own people from the path of a natural disaster. They worry about Afghanis at risk. I'm worried about Americans and New Orleanians and Louisianians at risk tonight, and it seems no one is worried about them now that the storm has moved northward. They are hurting, and they are dying in New Orleans.

INGRAHAM: But Raymond, don't worry, because LaToya Cantrell has it all covered. Raymond, thank you for everything, and we will pray for the people of New Orleans.

A bombshell new study confirms what this show has been telling you for months -- recovering from COVID could give you far better protection that a vaccine. My medicine cabinet breaks down the incredible new research, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

INGRAHAM: A groundbreaking new study from Israel finds those with natural immunity were up to 13 times less likely to contract the Delta variant then those who were given two jabs of the Pfizer vaccine.

Joining me now is Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, Professor of Medicine at Stanford University, and Dr. Harvey Risch, Professor of Epidemiology at the Yale School of Public Health. Dr. B., this flies in the face of the political and scientific establishment who are pushing now vaccine passports. Why do they continue to ignore natural immunity?

DR. JAY BHATTACHARYA, STANFORD UNIVERSITY EPIDEMIOLOGIST: It really does not make any sense. We've known for a very long time, at least since the middle of last year, that natural immunity was quite effective. We knew that basically because we saw so few documented reinfections. As the public health community continues to deny the efficacy of natural immunity, it really undermines confidence in them. And vaccine passports make absolutely no sense in light of this. Frankly, it might even be safer to be in a room filled with unvaccinated, COVID recovered patients that it is to be in a room filled with vaccinated patients. It's incredible. I really think this is amazing study, but even more amazing is that continuing denial of natural immunity by the public health community.

INGRAHAM: Former FDA commissioner Scott Gottlieb, who is on the board of Pfizer, is quick to dismiss natural immunity.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. SCOTT GOTTLIEB, FORMER FDA COMMISSIONER: I'd be careful about concluding that natural immunity is more robust than the immunity conferred by the vaccine based on that one study. I think the question of whether one is better than the other, frankly, from a policy standpoint, isn't that material. I still think the balance of the evidence tips the favor of the vaccine.

The spike protein in the vaccine is stabilized, so it makes a better target for the immune system than the spike protein in natural infection where the virus tries to hide it from our bodies.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: Dr. Risch, take it away.

DR. HARVEY RISCH, YALE SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH: Well, that one study is now no longer the only study. A study from Qatar came out a couple days later that showed exactly the same thing in some 800,000, 900,000 people showing that vaccine immunity wanes over three to six months. And you can't substitute actual data for theories, and Dr. Gottlieb has his theories, but the actual data show otherwise.

INGRAHAM: And Dr. Bhattacharya, Dr. Fauci has spoken out about the booster shot now, and apparently this is going to become the norm. Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, WHITE HOUSE CHIEF MEDICAL ADVISER: It is entirely conceivable that when all is said and done, the standard regiment will be a three dose shot for the MRNA and a two dose shot for J&J.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: But Dr. Bhattacharya, does the antibody response not ultimately wear off after three? Or does it become permanent?

BHATTACHARYA: We have no data whatsoever on the efficacy, the necessity of boosters. Actually, one thing, the vaccines, they will protect you even if the antibodies decline, so if you're elderly and you have not had COVID, the vaccine will protect you against severe disease and death. That's a good thing. There is no data on the boosters. I have no idea what Dr. Fauci is talking about, because no data has been released at all, clinical data, demonstrating the efficacy of the boosters.

INGRAHAM: And Dr. Risch, on that same topic, Israel's version of the vaccine passport we've been talking about for now a year-and-a-half almost, it's already hitting an expiration date because starting October 1st, the green pass will expire six months after the holder received the second or third dose, meaning those without a booster will no longer be eligible for this green pass, Dr. Risch, once six months have passed since their second dose. So where does this all end?

RISCH: It doesn't end. The vaccine passports is a useless idea. And in Israel they have already seen 15 cases of people who have had boosters and have gotten COVID after the boosters, after the third shot. So this doesn't end, it just keeps percolating around with trying to make policies over something that's meaningless. It just doesn't work.

INGRAHAM: And Dr. Bhattacharya, aren't we now at the point where we have to get used to living with COVID? The vulnerable getting vaccinated, the younger people are almost fine with COVID unless they have an underlying condition, take vitamin d, zinc, all the things that have worked, and take better common sense precautions at this point?

BHATTACHARYA: Laura, we have no technology to stop the spread of COVID. Lockdowns do not stop the spread of COVID. They cause devastating harms. The vaccines, they can protect you against severe disease, but they will not stop the spread of COVID. And no many how many boosters you do, we do not have a technology that will stop the spread of COVID. You're absolutely right, Laura. We have to learn to live with the virus.

We've made so much progress. we're better at treating it. We have a vaccine that can protect the vulnerable against severe disease. We should be celebrating good news as opposed to this dread with the vaccine mandates and violating people's rights. It just doesn't make any sense.

INGRAHAM: It's not working in Australia or New Zealand. They keep getting more cases the more they lock down. Gentlemen, thank you most.

And Blinken pulls a Biden at today's briefing. The Last Bite explains.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

INGRAHAM: As the U.S. retreats from Afghanistan, Secretary Blinken flees from the press poodles.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANTONY BLINKEN, U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: Thanks for listening.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: He said thank you for listening. That was a weird ending. Remind me again about how he is supposed to go toe to toe with the CCP. We're in trouble if that's it for our diplomatic corps.

And don't forget, set your DVR so you always stay connected with us. And finally, never forget to show that you understand what's at stake by wearing your Freedom Matters gear. We've got a lot of reaction to the gear out in California. A lot of people wanted it. I said you got to go to LauraIngraham.com to get it. It's all for charity, and made in the USA, which we love.

I want you to always remember, I'm going to say this every show, America now and forever.

Content and Programming Copyright 2021 Fox News Network, LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Copyright 2021 VIQ Media Transcription, Inc. All materials herein are protected by United States copyright law and may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, displayed, published or broadcast without the prior written permission of VIQ Media Transcription, Inc. You may not alter or remove any trademark, copyright or other notice from copies of the content.