This is a rush transcript from "Media Buzz" August 22, 2021. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
HOWARD KURTZ, FOX NEWS HOST: This is a Fox News alert. Tropical storm Henri is already pounding the northeast with high winds, flooding, and tidal surges. Let's go to the weather center where Rick Reichmuth has an update. Rick?
RICK REICHMUTH, FOX NEWS CHIEF METEOROLOGIST: Hey, Howie. Yes, center of the storm is getting close to probably the Rhode Island coastline, maybe right around Connecticut as well, over Block Island that is off the eastern tip of Long Island, continuing to pull towards the north.
Storm surge is coming in now, especially across near Gan. So bay, that said, high tide is receding or moving towards low tide, so a lot of water is trying to come out of the bay while the water is being pushed into the bay as well.
You also notice on the radar, not much rain to the east side of the storm. Most of the rain is off towards the west side of the storm where there's more population as well.
Tropical storm warnings are in effect now. The hurricane warning has been eliminated because storm weakened a little bit. It has moved over much colder water. A hurricane needs about 80-degree water temperature in order to sustain itself. Now, it's right here off the coast and water temps are just into the lower 70s and upper 60s, so rapid weakening of the storm.
It's going to move up towards the northwest before eventually moving off towards the east. That said we're talking about a really slow process here for about the next 24 hours. It is not very common in the northeast to have a slow-moving storm. This one is going to be moving very slow. Because of that, a much bigger flood threat for us. We're going to be seeing a lot of rain, very heavy rain.
Also, because the ground is pretty saturated in the interior sections, because of the remnants of what was last tropical storm Fred that moved through this week, this additional rain and the wind, maybe 40, 50 mile an hour range, it is going to probably knock over some trees and branches and that will cause some power outages across a pretty big area here.
But you get the idea areas of the Eastern Pennsylvania all the way up across parts of Vermont and New Hampshire in some sort of flood warnings right now. So that's going to be the immediate concern. The storm surge will subside over the next couple hours, and then we turn into this prolonged rain event.
New York City last night in one hour got more rain than they've ever recorded in any one hour period, almost two inches in an hour. And Brooklyn saw over six inches of rain already from this storm and that caused some pretty significant flooding.
So, more of that ahead. But that said the winds are now down to 60 miles an hour. That is certainly helpful, especially for some of the trees and maybe that diminish our power outage threat just a little bit. Howie?
KURTZ: What everyone wants to know, obviously, it is very unusual for a storm of this magnitude to hit the northeast, is this going to become a serious hurricane, still a tropical storm status, but is the expectation that it could become category 1, 2, 3 or higher?
REICHMUTH: Nope, not at all. That threat is completely gone. The water temperature, that the center of the storm is over, is not warm enough for that to happen. So we will only see a diminishing in the strength of the storm. No additional strengthening at all. So, no worries with that.
KURTZ: But a lot of worries for people who live in the path of that storm, particularly those on Long Island and up in New England who are not used in this sort of thing.
All right, thank you very much, Rick Reichmuth. We appreciate it.
REICHMUTH: You bet.
KURTZ (on camera): The whole world knows what happened. Everyone in the media knows what happened. No amount of spinning or deflecting or reframing or refocusing can change the heartbreaking humiliation, the sheer failure that this country has suffered in Afghanistan or the fact that President Biden entirely owns this debacle.
And nearly all the media establishments recognizes that with few exceptions, the anchors and reporters and pundits, including those usually quite friendly to the 46th president, are slamming him for the incompetent execution of the evacuation of Americans and our allies as Taliban seized the country without much of a fight.
Biden is drawing more media flak for telling ABC's George Stephanopoulos that this horror show, he used the word "messy," was basically inevitable.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS, ANCHOR, ABC NEWS: So you don't think this could have been handled better in any way, no mistakes?
JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: No, I don't think it could have been handled in a way that -- we're going to go back in hindsight and look, but the idea that somehow there is a way to have gotten out without chaos ensuing, I don't know how that happens.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KURTZ (on camera): But it's getting worse with evacuation flights just resuming this morning. Now, there's also more complicated story here for the press. A 20-year failure of lies and delusion, one in which George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Donald Trump all played a role, one in which most of the media moved on from because the endless fighting was depressing and it was ratings poison.
Most of the media is now trying to hold Biden and his top officials accountable for the empty promises that the Afghan government would hang on, that the Afghan military would fight. Instead, as we came on the air last Sunday morning, it was over in the blink of a news cycle.
I'm Howard Kurtz and this is "MEDIA BUZZ" from Los Angeles.
When President Biden strongly defended his decision to pull out of Afghanistan, even as Kabul was descending into chaos, he was eviscerated not just by journalists and commentators on the right, but by those who are more sympathetic to him.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BIDEN: The truth is, this did unfold more quickly than we had anticipated. American troops cannot and should not be fighting in a war and dying in a war that Afghan forces are not willing to fight for themselves.
JOE SCARBOROUGH, MSNBC HOST: Most Americans did support a withdrawal from Afghanistan. The president can say that he planned for every consistent contingency, but he knows that's not true, the White House knows that's not true, and the American people know that's not true.
LAURA INGRAHAM, FOX NEWS HOST: We've just suffered one of the most humiliating defeats in American history, a defeat made worse by their utter inability to predict anything with accuracy. And their response is that Biden isn't talking to anyone?
UNKNOWN: For White House that prides itself on being smart, being competent, getting things done, this isn't Trump anymore. This is -- this is good guys have come in. This has been a crushing week, I think.
RICHARD ENGEL, NBC NEWS CHIEF FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT: This was absolutely predictable. And I'm not -- I don't exactly believe all of this talk that nobody could have foreseen this, that no one saw this, that no one was warned. People were warning from here. I spoke to them.
MARC THIESSEN, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: Either Joe Biden completely miscalculated, in which case he is incompetent, or he knew that this would be the result and didn't care, in which case he's a horrible human being.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KURTZ (on camera): But some pro-Biden pundits are insisting on supporting the president in the midst of this travesty.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
FAREED ZAKARIA, CNN HOST: We have not been able to defeat the Taliban. Biden did pull the Band-Aid off. I think he took a very tough decision, a brave decision.
NICOLLE WALLACE, MSNBC HOST: Ninety-five percent of the American people will agree with everything he just said. Ninety-five percent of the press covering this White House will disagree.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KURTZ (on camera): Joining us now for this L.A. show to analyze the coverage, Guy Benson, host of Fox's "Guy Benson Radio Show," and Mara Liasson, NPR's national political reporter and a Fox News contributor. Guy, most of the media, in my view, have been aggressive, tough, even outraged at the scope of the failure in Afghanistan. Do they have much choice, given the magnitude of this debacle?
GUY BENSON, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR, RADIO SHOW HOST: No, there are some fiascos that are simply unspinnable, and this is one of them. And when the president of the United States comes out and gives a speech as he did the other day and takes just a handful of questions, and during that Q&A, he uncorks one just provably verifiably false assertion after another, you could see it watching the coverage across the dial, the response from anchors, journalists on the ground in Afghanistan, was one of astonishment where they said that there's no connection there in some of these answers to reality.
And you couple the spin and the deflections from the president on down in the administration with the images and the reports on the ground, and sometimes you just can't make a story look like anything other than what it is, and it is an absolute humiliating debacle.
KURTZ: No quarrel from me there. Mara, we're seeing anchors and correspondents who are ordinarily friendly to President Joe Biden saying this has shattered the image of competence that he ran on and it's very difficult to repair that or get it back. Clearly the roughest coverage of his presidency.
MARA LIASSON, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR, NATIONAL POLITICAL REPORTER FOR NPR: No doubt. I don't know if he can get it back. It's hard to make predictions, especially about the future. But, you know, this notion that somehow the mainstream media are reflexive partisans is just false. I mean, people are calling it the way they see it.
I think that's what journalists should do. I mean, like you said, it's hard to spin this any other way than this was a debacle. This wasn't anticipated. It sounds like no one in the military or -- there were some contrary voices, but the consensus view was that this wouldn't happen and it did happen.
So that's the media's job to call it as they see it and to compare what administration officials, including the president, say and what the reality is on the ground.
KURTZ: Guy, has Biden hurt himself in terms of the coverage by insisting as we saw a moment ago that this was inevitable, there was no way to avoid it, when he himself said -- everybody is rerunning this tape now -- in early July it was highly unlikely that the Taliban would overrun the country very quickly, there would be no Saigon-style exit? How much does that hurt him?
BENSON: Hugely, obviously, and I'm going to disagree politely with Mara about the overall biases of the media. But focusing on this particular story, you have the president and secretary of state as you note, Howie, making predictions not months ago, not years ago, weeks ago about how this was going to go.
And to have those completely blown up, their predictions, just crushed by the reality, it makes it even harder for them in their P.R. efforts here. I mean the president said among many other things, we planned for every contingency. I can't imagine how anyone could believe that at this stage.
He made other assertions. For example, oh, we couldn't really have seen this coming and then we see some of the evidence in the cables being leaked that perhaps they were warned that this is happening. He said there's no al-Qaeda left in Afghanistan. That's patently untrue. He said that Americans who want to get to the airport can get to the airport immediately. Anyone on the ground said, you know, laughably false.
KURTZ: Yeah.
BENSON: He said our alliances are stronger than ever. There's no questioning of American credibility. That is laughably not true, based on what was you saw in European capitals, for example, in the last few weeks. It's one after another.
KURTZ: What struck me the most was Biden was finally taking questions from the press on Friday, saying Americans can get to the airport. Not only is that difficult, but the very next day, which is yesterday, the NBC said, don't come to the airport, it is too dangerous, and the evacuation flights were halted for a day.
Mara, to the extent that some media liberals are trying to defend President Biden and his team, is that he made the difficult decision to get out, a withdrawal supported by more than 70 percent of the public in poll after poll, then it's that oh, the execution left something to be desired.
LIASSON: Well, look, there are two things here. There's the decision, the policy itself, to withdraw. Two consecutive administrations decided that was a good thing. Then there is the execution. That is what he is getting slammed for.
Presidents need to be seen as competent. Jimmy Carter had a crisis of competence with the Iran hostage situation. George W. Bush had one with Katrina. Donald Trump had one with COVID. Joe Biden ran on credibility and competence and foreign policy experience. And all of that has been belied by this episode.
KURTZ: I'm glad you brought up those historical examples because those were all turning points for those particular presidents and of course the question seven months into his term is whether this will color the rest of Joe Biden's term in office.
Guy, very important story in the Washington Post, let me read a quick excerpt. U.S. Military officials privately harboured fundamental doubts for the duration of the war that Afghan security forces could ever become competent or shed their dependency on U.S. on money and fire power. One official quoted in 2016, thinking we could build the military this fast and that well was insane. So, over several administrations, was this lying to the public or was itself delusion?
BENSON: My guess is it leans a little bit more in the self-delusion category. But when you're deluding yourself and if you're ignoring other counterexamples or data that sort of doesn't play into your delusion, that is a form of then being dishonest and misleading the public.
I was not alive during Vietnam. I've read about Vietnam. You hear stories about Vietnam. I think there are definitely some parallels across multiple administrations where the United States is dug in on a policy for a very long time.
The policy is in some ways obviously failing but they have to try to dress it up because there's so much American prestige on the line, their reputation is on the line. They feel like maybe, you know, a corner is going to be turned.
And if we're going to put our men and women in harm's way, we have to be completely honest with the American people, because otherwise, you're going to undermine the credibility and the believability of the government in general. And if we need to go to war at some time in the future, you're going to have a lot more people, I think, skeptical and asking questions --
KURTZ: Yeah.
BENSON: -- and it would be a self-inflicted wound by the ruling class.
KURTZ: Well, I was alive during Vietnam. In fact, I worried about my draft lottery number. This does carry echoes because there was what is called the 5:00 follies, the briefings in which there was always light at the end of the tunnel, everything was going to be fine. And of course, we found out from later books and research and the Pentagon papers that military officials knew that it was going very badly.
Mara, the president doesn't seem to be holding anyone accountable. Guy alluded to earlier a memo unearthed by "The Wall Street Journal," cable sent directly to Secretary of State Tony Blinken, saying that the Taliban could take over very quickly after the August 31st withdrawal deadline. Obviously, it didn't even take that long. Blinken on Fox News Sunday said he got the cable, he acted on it, but the evacuation didn't increase by very much. I think that is part of the -- become very much part of the story line here as well.
LIASSON: Yeah. Look, when the U.S. Intelligence Committee or the entire government is 180 degrees wrong over and over again, you know, whether it's covering up stuff in Vietnam, I actually agree with Guy, I don't think this was lying. I think they truly believed that the Taliban wouldn't work this swiftly.
Whether it was the failures before 9/11, to anticipate that, weapons of mass destruction, what happened to those, and now 20 years in Afghanistan with nothing to show for it, that is -- that shakes the foundation of the credibility of the world's foremost super power. What happens in the future? Do our allies --
KURTZ: Yeah.
LIASSON: -- and our enemies believe us? I mean, that's pretty --
KURTZ: That's an open question right now.
LIASSON: -- profound. Yeah.
KURTZ: Let me just mention that "The Wall Street Journal," "The New York Times" and "The Washington Post" did manage to evacuate 200 of their people, including Afghan allies with help from the administration. But that, of course, leaves us with fewer reporters on the ground there.
Let me get a break here. Ahead, Pulitzer Prize-winning Glenn Greenwald weighs in. When we come back, Donald Trump is saying this disaster never would have happened under him, and the media are pushing back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KURTZ (on camera): Joe Biden has only been in office seven months but Donald Trump has now called on him to resign after the quick toppling of the Afghan government. Here's what he told Sean Hannity.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: I don't think in all of the years our country has ever been so humiliated. I don't know what you call it, a military defeat or psychological defeat.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KURTZ (on camera): Guy Benson, it's understandable that Donald Trump is ripping his successor over what happened in Afghanistan, as are all Republicans, as are many Democrats and most of the media. But it's a fact for journalists that Trump negotiated the withdrawal deal with the Taliban that would have had all American troops out by May.
BENSON: That's true. There have been people critical of the idea of negotiating with the Taliban, the way that that went down, the details of the negotiation, some of the spin right now about what it did or did not entail.
Of course, to have the current administration, the people actually in charge now trying to pretend like their hands were tied by the previous administration, I think, is (INAUDIBLE). I mean, they have overturned Trump policy on almost every front, but on this one, they had to stick with it even though they had already pushed the deadline back. I think that's where their spin starts to fail.
And as for this notion that Trump would have done it better, it would have happened better and more competently under the previous administration, there's no way to prove or disprove that proposition, except to say it's very, very difficult for me to imagine this going any worse than it is under President Biden.
KURTZ: Mara, President Trump argues that his was a conditioned-based deal, that he could have halted the pullout if Taliban were not doing their part. As Guy says, we could debate the hypothetical. What would happen if Trump was still the president? We don't know. But the media have been reminding us that Biden basically carried out the Trump withdrawal plan. Both of them wanted out of this endless war.
LIASSON: Yeah. Look, two administrations decided that being in Afghanistan was not in the national security interest of the United States. Big majorities of American voters wanted out after 20 years and billions, even trillions of dollars. And also, don't forget, Joe Biden wanted out of Afghanistan before Donald Trump was elected president. He was skeptical of the surge under Obama. He always wanted out.
This is about the execution, not the policy itself. I think, as Guy said, t's impossible to prove or disprove whether Donald Trump would have done it better. I think that is completely irrelevant. Right now, Biden owns this. But Afghanistan was a four administration project starting with George W. Bush.
KURTZ: Yeah, that's a good historical point. Guy, a few in the media pointed out that President Trump released 5,000 Taliban prisoners as part of the negotiation process. He had invited Taliban leaders to Camp David. There was an uproar that never happened.
By the way, Barack Obama released Taliban leaders, much fewer numbers, of course, in exchange for American Bowe Bergdahl, very big uproar at the moment. But is that all ancient history now that we're dealing with the situation where there are still thousands of Americans and tens of thousands of Afghans who want to get out of the country and escape possible reprisals under Taliban rule?
BENSON: I would say that it's not ancient history because it was happening during all of our lifetimes. We all remember it. And history builds on itself. So it does matter how we got from point A to point B.
But I think Mara is right. Once you're at point B, the other stuff becomes irrelevant. If your policy is we're going to move forward with whatever it might be, it's on you to get it right. To say that they're not getting it right is a vast understatement.
Howie, as you say, thousands of Americans, we don't know how many, but thousands of Americans and tens of thousands of our allies are still stuck in Afghanistan. The administration doesn't know how many of them there are.
I saw earlier on TV, the national security advisor came out and said we will have a plan -- the secretary of state -- we will have a plan to get those people to the airport which means they're still trying to formulate a plan.
KURTZ: Yeah.
BENSON: How deep into this are we? And we're months into the administration.
KURTZ: Yeah, it's heart-breaking. All right, so we've all agreed that Biden is the commander in chief, this happened on his watch, it's on him right now. But Mara, some of the people from the Trump administration are doing a little bit of distancing. For example, former National Security advisor H.R. McMaster now says that his administration, Trump's administration, negotiated a surrender agreement with the Taliban and we defeated ourselves, according to him.
LIASSON: Oh, yeah. You know, they say what victory has a thousand fathers, defeat is an orphan. In this case, defeat has a thousand fathers. I mean, this was a long process of missing opportunities at every step, maybe the original conception of doing anything in Afghanistan beyond just denying al-Qaeda safe haven was foolhardy.
This is going to be chewed over by historians and analysts for years and hopefully, they'll come up with some lessons that can be applied so this kind of things doesn't happen again.
KURTZ: Yes, it should be chewed over. We are done chewing for now. Guy Benson, Mara Liasson, thanks very much. Up next, reporters at the White House, the Pentagon and elsewhere are aggressively challenging the spin by administration officials. That's next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KURTZ (on camera): As the Biden administration's promises about Afghanistan have crumbled, anchors have sharply challenged officials in interview. When the president finally took reporters' questions on Friday, the major networks corrected his optimistic assurances.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JENNIFER GRIFFIN, FOX NEWS NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: I'm having a hard time digesting what we heard because I couldn't fact-check it fast enough in real time because there were so many misrepresentations of what is happening on the ground.
IAN PANNELL, ABC NEWS SENIOR FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT: Does that square with reporting on the ground? I mean, just totally not.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KURTZ (on camera): Joining us now from Washington, Jacqui Heinrich, who covers the White House for Fox News. Jacqui, are reporters turning much more aggressive because the administration's spin and lack of answers is obviously out of sync with what military people call facts on the ground?
JACQUI HEINRICH, FOX NEWS WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, I think that this has just, you know, been shown time over time over the course of this week that what the president is saying is just so far from the reality of what's happening on the ground in Afghanistan. The rhetoric does not match the reporting that we're getting from people who are witnessing it first- hand.
There have been so many examples where it was, as Jennifer Griffin pointed out, you couldn't fact-check quickly enough. I mean, the president said none of his military advisors told him to keep 2,500 troops. She confirmed that back in March that the general -- General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint chiefs, advised to keep troops. He said al-Qaeda is gone from Afghanistan.
His secretary of state has said this morning that that is not actually completely true. He said we have no troops in Syria. The Pentagon said we have 900.
There have been so many other instances, especially considering when he said there were no problems with Americans getting to the airport and we've just seen image after image of people having trouble getting in.
KURTZ: Yeah.
HEINRICH: The Pentagon had to send a helicopter to get Americans out who couldn't reach that perimeter.
KURTZ: Yeah. When your words are contradicted by the pictures everybody sees, it's not a good situation. Washington Post columnist David Ignatius said the other day that many White House officials are shell-shocked by what's happening, by the magnitude of the failure that they did not expect. What's your sense from covering the building?
HEINRICH: You know, I think that might be true of some people in the press shop. I mean these are people who ran the president's campaign, who are used to going out and talking about their hopes and dreams for building the country back better. But the people who are making decisions, I think that these are people who have been around the block.
I mean, Blinken was, you know, he served in two administrations over 20 years, senior foreign policy position. Austin, secretary of defense, his service started in 1975. He's a four-star general. And the president himself, he served in the Senate for 36 years. He was VP for eight years. He has been in politics for half a century.
KURTZ: Yeah.
HEINRICH: I think people making decisions are not as shell-shocked but maybe dealing with the fallout of their bullishness in this whole withdrawal.
KURTZ: And just very briefly, Jacqui, the only questions that the president had taken all week was from his sit-down with George Stephanopoulos, until he finally took some reporters' questions after a speech on Friday. Was there a lot of pressure on him to talk to the press?
HEINRICH: There is a lot of pressure which I think is sort of interesting that he is choosing today to make a statement to pool a press that's limited, in-house pool. I'm here at the White House. I won't be able to go and then ask questions. It's happening on a Sunday.
KURTZ: Yes.
HEINRICH: There have few people here. So that tomorrow morning there won't be that same pressure. You're going to play that sound on the morning shows tomorrow and there won't be the questions of well, is the president going to talk today, he just did it yesterday. So, I think he's trying to get in ahead of this before more pressure builds up --
KURTZ: Right.
HEINRICH: -- which we saw last week.
KURTZ: All right. Jacqui Heinrich at the White House, thanks very much. Next on Media Buzz from Los Angeles, Glenn Greenwald says the pundits are always pushing for war, even those who wanted out of Afghanistan, are appalled by this disaster. And later, Geraldo will be here.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KURTZ (on camera): This is a Fox News alert, the White House has approved disaster declarations for New York, Connecticut and other states as tropical storm Henri pummels New England with high winds and drenching rain.
Alex Hogan is in the middle of the storm at Montauk at the tip of Long Island. Alex.
ALEX HOGAN, FOX NEWS NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Howie. We are in the outer ring of Henri as it passes through and to give you a look at what we're seeing right now, again, the wind is just pummeling us, you can even feel the sand being picked up by that strong wind and the rain.
But if you take a look out here, we actually have some teenagers swimming and this is exactly what officials and the National Hurricane Center are warning not to do because of these dangerous riptides that we see right now.
Fire island was actually evacuated yesterday, a voluntary evacuation, because of how high the storm surge would be and they even canceled all of the ferries today just because it would be impossible to get people off of the island because of these winds and of course the waves that we're seeing right here.
So, this is exactly what officials are urging people not to do, to stay home. Of course, the roads, many of them are flooded, urging people to stay back if they can. Of course, with supplies. We know that PSEG says that at least 1,800 customers now are out of power, something that unfortunately, Howie, is only expected to continue as this storm moves through continuing to knock out power and bringing flooding in its path. Back to you.
KURTZ: Alex Hogan on the scene, thanks very much from Long Island.
The media are extremely skeptical about assurances from Taliban leaders that they don't plan violence or reprisals against anyone, journalists included. There have been close calls as CNN's Clarissa Ward reported from Afghanistan.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CLARISSA WARD, CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT, CNN: The most frightening moment for our team came when our producer Brent Swails was taking video some video on his iPhone, two Taliban fighters just came up with their pistols and they were ready to pistol whip him. And we had to intervene and scream, and it was actually another Taliban fighter who came in and said no, no, no, don't do that, they're journalists.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KURTZ (on camera): Joining us now, Geraldo Rivera, the veteran Fox News correspondent who spent years --
GERALDO RIVERA, FOX NEWS CORRESPONDENT-AT-LARGE: Hi, Howie.
KURTZ: -- reporting from war zones. Hey, Geraldo. As a journalist who has gotten to know many soldiers, many in the military on your various reporting trips, you know the turf. You said you're embarrassed for America by what's happening in Afghanistan. Explain.
RIVERA: I thought President Biden really in every regard, Howie, blew this mission. Let's all start and assume that we all want peace, we wanted to pull out of Afghanistan. The thing you do is you don't remove your military. You don't remove the one arm that can impose some kind of order first. You keep them until everybody else, all the vulnerable civilians and other aid workers and government workers are removed and then the military is the last out.
That's always the way, we've all seen war movies. My goodness, it doesn't take any genius planning in the Pentagon to know the order of evacuation. And this was totally misjudged in my view, it was mishandled, it was misrepresented. I think in many ways will scar the Biden administration, certainly taint the aura of competence that it may have had.
We personally at Fox agonized over this, Howie, when our long-time friend and translator who I still will not name was trapped in a hotel there. We couldn't get him through, he and his family through the Taliban checkpoints to the airport. We were just living on pins and needles, worried.
The Taliban on the first night particularly that they were in the hotel came by knocking at the doors, knocking the door with their feet saying who is in here, who did you work for, you know, let me see your papers. You know, it was just so reminiscent of those World War II movies, it was just horrible.
We can report with the tremendous relief that he and his family did get through the checkpoints, the Qataris got them through the checkpoints, got them on the Qatari aircraft and even as we speak they are heading to Doha, the capital of that oil of-rich emirates and we -- presumably a better life awaits. But it was handled, --
KURTZ: Yes.
RIVERA: -- mishandled from start to finish, Howie.
KURTZ: Geraldo, I'm so relieved and glad to hear that. But of course, there are many, many stories like that of Afghans who worked either with the government or with journalists who have not been able to get out of that country.
You know, again, as a veteran war correspondent over the years, this was -- was this 20-year war, this effort to turn Afghanistan into a western style democracy with echoes of Iraq, was it a mistake? Did the media have to ask some difficult questions now about America propping up these weak regimes that collapse as soon as our soldiers leave?
RIVERA: I believe it was an absolute overreach, Howie, but I stuck with this mission right up until the night we heard from Jalalabad airport that Osama bin Laden had been taken out by the Navy SEALS. Indeed, as the Navy SEALS were communicating with their -- with their commanding officers back home they the body of Osama bin Laden lying there on the ground in Jalalabad airport even as they're watching Fox News reports that Bin Laden had been killed.
To me, that was the end of the war. That was -- we went there to get -- to revenge what happened on 9/11. We didn't go there to rebuild or remake Afghanistan. It's a savage place, a brutal place, a place that -- you know, I hope the Chinese take it over.
Let the Chinese now experience the bankrupting effect of trying to prop up a nation that destroyed the American military adventure just like it did the Soviet military adventure, --
KURTZ: Yes.
RIVERA: -- just like it did the British before them, and you know, going back to Genghis Khan and Alexander the Great. Let Afghanistan be Afghanistan. It will never be California.
KURTZ: Let me ask you about more recent history, which is you are friendly or have been friendly with Donald Trump. He obviously set the withdrawal negotiations in motion with the Taliban even as he denounces President Biden for the handling of this pullout and the debacle that it's become, doesn't the former president bear some responsibility?
RIVERA: Well, certainly, he decided, the president, the 45th president decided that the time had come to end the endless war. And everyone agreed with him even those who were smoldering in their dislike or their hatred of President Trump. I think everybody was on the same page.
But what happened is between the 45th and 46th president, they may have had some, you know, some ambitions in common but it was the execution and the military world everything is about execution. Plans don't even last past first contact with the enemy. It is the execution, it's what you do given the circumstances.
And what they did is they totally under-estimated the fragile nature of the Afghan military. Here we are, we're telling the Afghans, don't worry, buddy, you got this, you got 300,000, --
KURTZ: Yes.
RIVERA: -- you'll handle this even though you couldn't handle it when the United States had 150,000 troops there, you can handle it now. Some miracle is going to happen. It didn't happen. The country collapsed. Biden was caught flat footed.
KURTZ: Yes. Let me make sure to ask you his, though. Taliban leaders are on Twitter proclaiming they want peace, of course they want international aid. Not going to be any reprisals. There's already signs of violence there. But how is it that Taliban -- do you believe those assurances and how is it that leaders of the Taliban can be on Twitter and Donald Trump can't?
RIVERA: I think that the bitter irony of the fact that Trump is banned from Twitter and the Taliban guy has more followers than I do, something that really, I find very irksome. And it is -- it speaks to me volumes of Twitter's ideological motivation for many of these things. I think it's really, really unfortunate this dichotomy is very clear what is going on.
In terms of, you know, this, the execution of this plan, the fact that we had to rush all these troops to that airport, the fact that we had to try to impose order, the fact that we had to live through those several days of Vietnam style agony with people falling off aircraft, --
KURTZ: Yes.
RIVERA: -- getting shot by the Taliban, it's something that I think will scar America for some time as it should. We stayed way too long in Afghanistan. We spent way too much money in Afghanistan. We lost way too many lives in Afghanistan and we changed Afghanistan not at all. But I say this about the Taliban --
(CROSSTALK)
KURTZ: Yes, back to where we started.
RIVERA: -- though, if I can.
KURTZ: All right.
RIVERA: Briefly if I can.
KURTZ: I've got to get a break here.
RIVERA: OK.
KURTZ: All right.
RIVERA: OK. OK.
KURTZ: And we'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KURTZ (on camera): For all the undeniable chaos that has engulfed Afghanistan after the U.S. military withdrawal, President Biden continues to tell the public he made the right decision.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS, CHIEF ANCHOR, ABC NEWS: It sounds like you think we should have gotten out a long time ago.
JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: We should have.
STEPHANOPOULOS: And accept the idea that it was going to be messy no matter what.
BIDEN: Well, by the way, what would be messy?
STEPHANOPOULOS: The exit.
BIDEN: If we had gotten out a long time, you know, getting out would be messy no matter when it occurs.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KURTZ (on camera): And we're back with Geraldo Rivera. We had hoped to speak to Glenn Greenwald but we've in fact had some difficulties so that means more air time for you, Geraldo.
You actually as you alluded to last segment, favored pulling out of Afghanistan years ago. Here's Joe Biden saying no matter when we pulled out there would have been problems. Now everybody agrees, except those on, you know, on the administration payroll, that the execution was horribly, horribly flawed with tragic consequences.
But do you think in terms of the media coverage a lot of pundits really and the foreign policy media establishment are pro-war, are always saying we just need more money, a few more years, and therefore you could never leave a place like Afghanistan?
RIVERA: Well, that's an intriguing question, Howie. I do believe that the media is a big part of the military industrial complex. I do believe that there are many of our friends and colleagues who never met a war they didn't like, who any time there's a disturbance.
Let's take Cuba most recently, we had the people protesting because of the lack of vaccinations and food drying up in Cuba, there were people who wanted the United States to have some military adventure in Cuba. It is bizarre. It is incumbent on those of us who have some kind of prudence and some reasonable experience to pull back on that.
We should use the military less, not more. I just want to -- one quick note, question you had earlier about Taliban compliance to the ceasefire and allowing the evacuation. I told you the misery we had getting through the Taliban lines. We did it successfully.
But here is something that encourages me. The Taliban has taken over Afghanistan. They don't have a pot to take a leak in. They don't have any money. The banks are empty. All the financial credit of Afghanistan has been seized by the United States and other international regulators.
They have no one picking up the trash, no one making the water run, no one making the lights go on. Very shortly all of those necessary utilities will go by the wayside. The cell phones they treasure will soon not be working because there's no one maintaining the system.
I take now, excuse me, there is a rare chance to get the Taliban to comply, certainly to get the evacuations completed. I think that that is very necessary. In terms of the military --
(CROSSTALK)
KURTZ: Yes. My own take --
RIVERA: -- we just learn from Afghanistan we never will learn.
KURTZ: My own take, Geraldo, is that we may be looking at a kinder, gentler brutality on the part of this regime which I don't think can be trusted. But I take your point that it needs some financial aid from the world and maybe that moderates to behavior.
But coming back to this question of, you know, a lot of people, particularly on the right, but also some on the left who, you know, we've got to go into Iraq, weapons of mass destruction, we've got to go into Afghanistan, a very different situation of course in the wake of 9/11 and trying to get Bin Laden. And here we are 20 years later.
But isn't it true that most of their kids don't go to war, that it's usually sending people from other families?
RIVERA: Well, that's definitely true, now that we don't have the draft. I mean, I was against the war in Vietnam, mainly because I was targeted by the draft, I was one of the millions of people about to be drafted so I snuck into law school in my particular case and then I felt so guilty about it, Howie. I became a war correspondent and then chased wars around the -- around the globe ever, ever since.
KURTZ: So that was your motivation.
RIVERA: It was that particular -- that was my motivation.
KURTZ: Yes.
RIVERA: My prime motivation was guilt back in 1970, 1969, 1970. But I really do believe that Afghanistan, if we don't learn a lesson, Afghanistan is strategically irrelevant to the world. Afghanistan is a remote country in the middle of nowhere.
You know, now I think about Iran and Pakistan and China and the stands from the old Soviet Union that border Afghanistan, they have their hands full. You know, the job America did in policing this wild and crazy country, now falls to these neighbors. I hope China inherits it.
I want China to go broke. I want China to bring in these Muslim, you know, fundamentalists and have them mix with the Chinese Uyghurs, you know, the Muslim population on the western side of China, let's see how that works out for China. Afghanistan is going to have a chance --
(CROSSTALK)
KURTZ: But of course, Geraldo, -- of course, Geraldo, the argument that some in the media may who are perhaps more sympathetic to using the military -- U.S. military than you are is that we have to fight international terrorism and that Afghanistan under the Taliban could again become a haven for those who want to make violent trouble around the world including the U.S.
That's always the argument. And you see the retired general come on the air and say that. And it's not without significance given our history.
RIVERA: Although that is true, I think it is totally overblown, the impact of military power on terrorist activity. What does it take to make a bomb? You get -- one guy is Abdullah and Abdullah number two, they can, they get $25 worth of ingredients and they have an IED.
You know, the B-52 flying at 20,000 feet is not going to stop these two people from making their bomb. Terrorism is a private -- you know, sometimes it needs logistical support like 9/11. Nine-eleven is a bigger deal than they are usually capable of.
KURTZ: Yes. Revenge.
RIVERA: I believe that what you need is -- you need cops, you need, you know, people who blend into indigenous populations, you need undercover. You need spies. You know, if --
KURTZ: Yes.
RIVERA: You know, it is very difficult to stop total anarchists from creating chaos.
KURTZ: That is true.
RIVERA: You do the best you can --
KURTZ: And on that note --
RIVERA: -- with TSA at the airport and so forth and so far so good.
KURTZ: All right. Well, thanks for doing double duty, Geraldo, good to see you. I really appreciate it.
RIVERA: OK. OK. OK, Howie. My pleasure.
KURTZ: Still to come, Chris Cuomo defends his role in his brother's resignation and the new host of Jeopardy apologizes as he steps down.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KURTZ (on camera): Mike Richards, the new host of Jeopardy, is out after an embarrassing wave of rough media coverage. First, there were a couple lawsuits accusing Richards of treating women unfairly, we told you about that last week. Then the Ringer reported on disparaging remarks Richards made about women's views and others on his podcast seven years ago, such as calling his female co-host a booth slut.
The Jeopardy producer already accused of rigging the competition in his favor and clearly with the encouragement of Sony Pictures apologized for the unwanted negative attention that that has come to Jeopardy and said becoming the host would be too much of a distraction for our fans and not the right move for the show. He stays on as producer. What an embarrassment.
Now it's back to more celebrity tryouts. After all the critics slammed Chris Cuomo for the role he played in his brother's defense and resignation, the CNN host finally broke his silence and said there are fun filled interviews last year were always meant to be temporary.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHRIS CUOMO, HOST, CNN: I also said back then that a day would come when he would have to be held to account and I can't do that. I said point blank I can't be objective when it comes to my family. So I never reported on this scandal.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KURTZ (on camera): And he confirmed reports that he advised Andrew Cuomo to step down which the governor is doing tomorrow.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CUOMO: And yes, while it was something I never imagined ever having to do, I did urge my brother to resign when the time came. There are stories and critics saying all kinds of things about me, many unsupported. But know this, my position has never changed. I never misled anyone about the information I was delivering or not delivering on this program.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KURTZ (on camera): And there's no question Chris Cuomo made some mistakes and it would have been better if he spoke out sooner. But the biggest blunder was by CNN for allowing the earlier interviews only when Governor Cuomo was riding high.
A Naomi Osaka press conference ended in tears when a Cincinnati Enquirer reporter, Paul Daugherty asked about her reluctance in doing such sessions which the tennis star famously attributed to depression. Here is part of that exchange.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PAUL DAUGHERTY, REPORTER, THE CINCINNATI ENQUIRER: You're not crazy about dealing with us, especially in this format. Yet you have a lot of outside interests that are served by having a media platform. I guess my question is, how do you balance the two?
NAOMI OSAKA, JAPANESE TENNIS PLAYER: Than quite different to a lot of people and I can't really help that there are some things that I tweet or some things that I say that kind of create a lot of news articles and things like that and I know that it's because I've won a couple Grand Slams and I've gotten to do a lot of press conferences that these things happen. But I would also say like I -- I'm not really sure how to balance the two.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KURTZ (on camera): Osaka was overcome and they had to order a break. But here's the outrage. Osaka's agent accused the reporter of bullying and asking appalling questions. And I'm calling a double fault on that. Paul Daugherty asked perfectly fair questions politely and respectably. You just heard it there. And the highest paid female at lead in the world seem to recognize that.
Well, that's it for this edition of Media Buzz from Los Angeles. I'm Howard Kurtz. We post my daily columns there. And let's continue the conversation on Twitter at Howard Kurtz. You might also check out my podcast Media Buzz Meter. You can subscribe on lots of places, Apple iTunes, Google podcast or on you Amazon device.
I've enjoyed being out here. The L.A. staff is terrific. I'm now going ahead to the beach, I think. We are back in Washington next Sunday. You know the time, 11 Eastern. We'll see you all then with the latest buzz.
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