'Special Report' All-Star Panel on Biden's defense of Afghanistan withdrawal

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'Biden is vastly understating the risks of evacuation': Steve Hayes

'Special Report' All-Star Panel discusses Biden's defense of the Afghanistan withdrawal.

This is a rush transcript from "Special Report," August 20, 2021. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, (D) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Any American who wants to come home, we will get you home.

This is one of the largest, most difficult airlifts in history.

I cannot promise what the final outcome will be.

To the best of our knowledge, the Taliban checkpoints, they are letting through people showing American passports.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The president talked about all they had to do was present their passports and they would be allowed through. They were beaten by the Taliban with the rubber fan belt from a vehicle.

The reality and the rhetoric are miles apart. I'm not quite sure what advice the president is receiving, but the truth on the ground is that these people who are in fear of their lives can't get through.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BAIER: Well, with that, let's bring in our panel, "Washington Post" columnist Marc Thiessen, Juan Williams is a FOX News analyst, and Steve Hayes, editor of "The Dispatch." Steve, there were a number of things the president said this afternoon that just don't match up, and that ABC reporter on the ground talking about one of them, obviously.

STEVE HAYES, EDITOR, "THE DISPATCH": Yes, Bret. This is alarming. We have heard from President Biden this past week say a number of things that are provably, demonstrably untrue. We can show them. As you pointed out earlier, his claim that Al-Qaeda is gone from Afghanistan is an astonishing thing for the president of the United States to say, and I assure you that he is not using intelligence reports provided by the intelligence agencies to come to that conclusion.

In fact, there are indications that not only is Al-Qaeda continuing its presence on the ground in Afghanistan, but it's likely to grow. We saw with the prison releases, the Taliban prison releases, many Al-Qaeda fighters being part of those. You have seen history of Al-Qaeda leaders being killed in Afghanistan in recent months. And if you listen to the jihadist message boards and posts on social media, it sounds like they understand that Afghanistan is likely to be an even friendlier safe haven than it has been now with the Taliban in control.

So he is vastly understating the operational risks here in addition to all of the assessments that he has -- mis-assessments that he has made over the week. I think the most alarming thing from my perspective is that Joe Biden looks at what's happened over the past week and says validation of his strategy. That is just so at odds with reality and what everybody else is seeing it. It does make you question his fitness to continue to make these judgments.

BAIER: Yes, Juan, here is a little montage of contradictions this week.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, (D) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: As we continue to work the logistics of evacuation, we are in constant contact with the Taliban.

Do I trust the Taliban? No.

We have seen gut wrenching images of panicked people acting out of shear desperation.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We've seen those hundreds of people packed into a C-17. We have seen Afghans falling --

BIDEN: That was four days ago, five days ago.

I have seen no question of our credibility from our allies around the world.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So see their commander-in-chief call into question the courage of men I fought with, to claim that they ran, it's shameful.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BAIER: Juan, what do you think is really going on? Is it a staff thing? Is it the president? What's really happening?

JUAN WILLIAMS, FOX NEWS POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, obviously, I think the evacuation has not been orderly. President Biden could have handled it better. I think that he is sticking to his principles, and I think the good news there is, of course, that for all the back and forth, I think this week we have seen 13,000 people evacuated. The White House says 18,000 since the end of last month. So that's pretty good. But on the ground, you get these inconsistencies, different points of view.

But, to me, that's not the big point. To me the big point is after 20 years, after four presidents that were afraid of this kind of political static for saying we need to end this war, after that period, we finally this week ended the war in Afghanistan. To me, this is an incredible moment for America. We stopped the use of Afghanistan as a terrorist prime spot for 20 years.

BAIER: That's the question. That's the question. Is the forever war just going to come back in a different framework now with the Taliban, with billions of dollars of U.S. military equipment, Marc? And, you can say it was right to pull out all the troops. The Trump administration wanted to do that, too. But how you do it, and this particular moment in this week, seems like a real political loss, and potentially a loss of a lot of life. Marc.

MARC THIESSEN, COLUMNIST, "WASHINGTON POST": Yes, we didn't end the war. The enemy gets to vote. And you just have to go back and look at what happened in 2011 when Joe Biden presided over the disastrous withdrawal from Iraq. There were at that time according to John Brennan, the CIA director, only 700 ISIS terrorists left in the country, and they built a calibrate the size of Great Britain, and they spread their tentacles around the world and carried out 149 attacks in 20 countries that killed more than 2,000 people. Remember Charlie Hebdo, the Bataclan nightclub, the blowing up of the Brussels airport. They carried out attacks all across the world.

And Joe Biden says we have this over the horizon capability? First of all, we don't have any intelligence on the ground anymore. We don't have any Afghans who are going to tell us where the terrorists are. And even if we did, it's a landlocked country. Every other country he named has coastline. There is no coastline in Afghanistan. The only way to get to Afghanistan is over Pakistan or over Iran. So we are basically back where we were on 9/11 where our only option was to fire $2 million missile, as George Bush said, into a $10 tent and hit a camel in the butt. We have got no capability to knock down this threat when it rises up again.

BAIER: That was a good quote back then. Guys, I ran out of time. Have a great weekend. Thanks a lot.

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