'Special Report' All-Star panel on Biden's Afghanistan speech

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This is a rush transcript from "Special Report" August 17, 2021. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated. 

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NAZIRA KARIMI, ARIANA TELEVISION NETWORK REPORTER: Afghan women didn't
expect that overnight all the Taliban -- they took off my flag. This is my
flag. They put their flag. Where is my president, former president Ghani?
He has to fight for his people. I have a lot of achievement. I left from
the Taliban like 20 years ago. Now we go back to the first state again.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BAIER: Afghanistan's President Ashraf Ghani left the country. Just to put
a cost on what the U.S. has spent in the total cost of the war, $978
billion from 2001 to 2020, not including, obviously, the blood and treasure
left there.

Let's bring in our panel, senior political analyst Brit Hume, Ben Domenech,
publisher of "The Federalist," Harold Ford Jr., former Tennessee
Congressman, CEO of Empowerment and Inclusion Capital, and Trey Gowdy,
former Congressman from South Carolina. Brit, your thoughts on the
president's speech particularly, and this day?

BRIT HUME, FOX NEWS SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, the president's speech
was about the one thing that he knows is still popular and that is the idea
of getting out of Afghanistan. But for much of the speech, I couldn't
figure out what war he was -- what so-called war he was talking about. We
have been getting out of Afghanistan gradually, slowly for years and years.
We were down now in that country to about 2,500 American soldiers on the
ground. No American soldier had been killed there in a year-and-a-half. But
that little modest force with the air power, the intelligence and the
logistical support and the advice that came with it, was enough to maintain
a kind of an uneasy stalemate in that country.

The president comes along and blows the whole thing up because he wants to
get out. We were getting out. And it mattered how we got out. It always
matters how you get out in a situation like this. Withdrawals and
evacuations are very militarily tricky and dangerous. And this one has been
utterly and completely botched. And apart from saying they didn't expect it
would go downhill this fast, the president really did nothing to explain
how that happened or why it has gone so badly.

BAIER: Trey Gowdy?

TREY GOWDY, FORMER SOUTH CAROLINA REPRESENTATIVE: Yes, we have choice when
it relates to withdraw. It was either the right policy wrongly executed, or
it's the wrongly policy wrongly executed. But I think everyone in the
country agrees this has been a debacle.

I keep thinking of the words of Robert Gates, not the Republican
congressman we just played, but Obama's former secretary of defense who
said Joe Biden for four decades was wrong on nearly every major foreign
policy and national security decision. That's Robert Gates saying that,
four decades worth. I'm happy he kept a campaign promise because he seems
really, really interested in doing that. I'm just sorry for all the carnage
left behind because he did.

BAIER: It has been interesting to watch the evolution of the week and how
this transpired very quickly. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is not just about the overall idea of leaving
Afghanistan. This is about leaving hastily and ineptly. Secretary Blinken,
how did President Biden get this so wrong?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So, was he misled by his own intelligence agencies? Did
he not listen to them? Why was he so wrong about that?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. Biden, who hasn't been shy about changing all sorts
of other policies he inherited from Iran to climate change, why was he
unwilling to change this policy?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There has been an implosion of U.S. policy, and I
think someone gets fired for this. In my opinion it would be Secretary
Blinken.

This is not the military's fault. This is an intelligence failure here in
Washington.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BAIER: Harold, reaction to all of that?

HAROLD FORD JR., FORMER TENNESSEE REPRESENTATIVE: Well, first off, thanks
for having me.

Look, I think, Brit and Trey are about right in this sense -- President
Biden declared to the country, three out of four Americans agree with him
that America should not be in Afghanistan any longer. There is no doubt. We
accomplished a lot of what we intended to accomplish. I was in Congress on
9/11. We believed that jihadists and Al-Qaeda were operating from
Afghanistan. We sent forces there to degrade them, to kill bin Laden, and
we did.

Any time you project military -- American military into engagement with a
clear objective or a desired outcome, they generally do very, very well.
But you invite trouble and you invite disappointment, you invite undesired
outcomes when the defined purpose is not so defined. And over the last
several years, it was not. He had that right.

But without question -- he, being President Biden. But, without question,
they have botched this exit. This national security team of his, the
pressure is mounting in many, many ways for them to fix this exit plan for
all of our Afghan allies. But I would hope those of us who wish to be
critical of the president -- I don't wish to be critical of him, but those
who wish to be critical of him, please do not conflate the two. The exit
from Afghanistan is the right thing to do. We have other priorities we need
to focus on. And if by some chance Afghanistan becomes a Woodstock for
jihadists, guess what, we will be able to marshal a coalition of the
willing, a bigger, stronger, and perhaps more resolute one than we did
under President Bush if that is indeed the case. But they have to fix this
exit plan. This will be President Biden's Achilles heel if he does not.

BAIER: We didn't hear about the rules of engagement for those troops
trying to get all those people out. We didn't hear how long the air bridge
really is going to run in the president's speech. And just in the past few
minutes, Ben, Associated Press, U.S. defense official confirms Taliban's
sudden accumulation of U.S. supplied Afghan equipment is, quote, enormous.

BEN DOMENECH, PUBLISHER, "THE FEDERALIST": This is a travesty in so many
ways. And I do think that we have to separate the policy here from the
execution. The policy is broadly popular. And I heard the president come
out and defend the policy of leaving Afghanistan. But it's a speech that he
could have given six months ago. And it really didn't wrestle with any of
the actual questions that people have over what they have seen over the
past several days, particularly as it relates to any kind of confidence
that we can have in our military leadership and our intelligence community
that promised that something like this was going to take months if it
happened.

And, frankly, we look back at that press conference that the president had,
where he was doing all this happy talk about the idea that the Afghan
military was prepared, that Taliban leadership was not a forgone
conclusion, that he expected them to fight, et cetera. And the question
really becomes is that what he really believed? Is that what he was being
told? And why, if he was saying that then, does his attitude now seem to
be, well, the people who need to get out, they should have been getting out
much earlier. They chose to stay there. Maybe they chose to stay there
because of the things they were hearing from the commander-in-chief of the
free world. And that's something that I think is only on him. He cannot put
that on Donald Trump. He cannot put that on previous administrations. It is
on him that he chose to say that, and it's on him that it turned out not to
be true.

BAIER: All right, some more thoughts with the panel after a quick break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER, SYNDICATED COLUMNIST: I think if you cannot trust the
advisers whom Americans are working with and who are the ones who will be
taking over when we leave, then the entire strategy of the transfer of
authority in power is in jeopardy. And I think it means they have to
recalculate as to whether, how, and when the Americans and the Europeans
can actually leave.

The Taliban understand exactly what's going to happen. If the allies, the
west, is going to leave, the war will resume, and they assume they will
ultimately defeat the government already in Kabul. So they have no
incentive to concede anything.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BAIER: Our late colleague Dr. Charles Krauthammer. We talked a lot about
Afghanistan on this panel over the years, as can you imagine. And he always
said that Taliban operated in years, not weeks and days.

We're back with the panel. Brit, today, the State Department spokesperson
said that the Taliban, we hope that it for an inclusive and representative
government. That's pretty hopeful.

HUME: Yes, I will say it is, Bret. You have got to feel for these people
at this time. For John Kerry at the Pentagon and that poor sap at the State
Department has got to come out and try to make sense of all this and try to
make it sound like there is some rational policy involved here. There is
not. This is a calamity, a disaster, a completely botched operation. And I
don't think you can blame the guys, the suits at the Pentagon or the suits
at the State Department. They are just doing the best they can to defend
it.

This is on Biden. He overruled his general's wishes and proceeded with
this. He didn't have to do it this way. He did it -- this is the way he
wanted to do it. And the political consequences of this, I think, will be
long lasting. His base will back him and people who wanted out will support
him and so on. But there are a lot of people in the middle here who watch
something as tragic as this and as hideous as this who will not come back
to him.

BAIER: Trey, a lot of people put in a broader context of what this means
for the rest of the world, how they now look as a result of this at the
U.S.

GOWDY: Yes, and they should. Great nations, like great men and women, keep
their word. And when I think of the Afghan translators, I think of the
Afghan women, I think of all the lives lost in Afghanistan, and we're --
the best we could do, the images that we are seeing, people holding on to
airplanes, trying to escape that country where we spent $2 trillion. Look,
I know Biden said the buck stopped with him today, Bret, but only after he
blamed everyone else. He blamed all the presidents before him and the
Afghan soldiers. That ain't the buck stopping with you when you blame
everybody else.

BAIER: Here is some of that international reaction today.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANTONIO GUTERRES, UNITED NATIONS SECRETARY-GENERAL: We are receiving
chilling reports of severe restrictions on human rights throughout the
country. And I am particularly concerned by accounts of mounting human
rights violations against the women and girls of Afghanistan who fear a
return to the darkest days.

GENG SHUANG, CHINESE FOREIGN MINISTRY (through translator): The chaos
currently in Afghanistan is directly relate to the hasty withdraw of
foreign troops. Relevant countries should earnestly deliver the commitment
to support peace, reconciliation, and reconstruction in Afghanistan and
play a constructive role.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BAIER: Harold, one of the things that the president said today is that
foreign policy, a center of it is human rights for him. But, also, you
couldn't be some place for a forever war. I asked this earlier, but what
does that mean for U.S. forces in South Korea?

FORD: Well, I'm reminded of -- first of all, it's always great to hear Dr.
Krauthammer's voice. And I'm not going to be lectured to by the Chinese
foreign minister about our military force leaving Afghanistan. But one
thing my mentor and late friend Richard Holbrooke always said is that the
military, our military's mission should never be nation-building. We are
not nation-building in South Korea or Germany or Japan. We are not propping
up a government in any of those nations. We are supporting policy and
supporting a government that support our policy.

So, I think we should be clear about that. I have seen some of that and
heard some of that criticism today. But I'd be careful. The Chinese foreign
minister shouldn't be lecturing us about our military engagement.

HUME: We haven't been nation-building in Afghanistan for years. We're down
to 2,500 troops. That's not a nation building force.

BAIER: Ben, final word here?

FORD: But -- OK.

DOMENECH: It's in America's interest, an America first policy would
recognize that it's in America's interest to have friends who trust us.
When we make commitments to them, they should have faith in us and not in
China or in Russia. Turning them away, leaving them behind is not an
America first policy.

BAIER: Harold, 10 seconds?

FORD: Bret, I would ask Brit, who I respect greatly, do you think we
should still be in Afghanistan with a massive force because Al-Qaeda was
already invading the Taliban and already mounting an offensive?

HUME: We haven't had a massive force in Afghanistan for a long, long time.
And we didn't have one now. And what Biden pulled out was a small force
doing a very big job.

BAIER: All right, that was more than 10 second. But when we come back,
tomorrow's headlines. Keep it here.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BAIER: Finally tonight, a look at tomorrow's headlines with the panel.
Harold?

FORD: After miscalculating the Taliban's capture of Kabul, the Biden
national security team better fix this exit plan for our Afghan allies.
Their reputation and credibility depend on it.

BAIER: Trey?

GOWDY: Afghan translators learn the American word for "betrayal."

BAIER: Brit?

HUME: President Biden announces the withdrawal of all American troops from
Germany and South Korea because, after all, these foreign deployments can't
go on forever.

BAIER: And Ben?

DOMENECH: Intelligence expert proven wrong again, promises he will be 100
percent right on next time.

BAIER: All right, panel, thank you. Just want to say for all the veterans
out there, hang in there if you were in Afghanistan. It's a tough time. And
we get it.

Thanks for inviting us into your home tonight. That's it for this SPECIAL
REPORT, fair, balanced, and still unafraid. FOX NEWS PRIMETIME hosted this
week by Will Cain starts right now. Hey, Will.

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