'Special Report' All-Star panel on US evacuating Americans, Afghan allies from Afghanistan

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All-Star panel analyzes Biden admin's response to chaos in Afghanistan

All-Star panel weighs in on the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan on 'Special Report'

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

BAIER: The efforts to get Americans and Afghans who were supportive of the American effort in Afghanistan out is complicated, and it is potentially messy. Let's hope not.

Let's bring in our panel, 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.

Trey, in just the past few minutes Jake Sullivan, it looks like he is trying to do a little bit of a cleanup on that press conference, saying that "When I was asked about whether we are going to get all Americans out of Afghanistan, I said that's what we intend to do. And that's exactly what we will do." He goes on in the tweet. And he says that "Thanks to the incredible work of our troops and diplomats, we will do that." That's not what they said today, and people said, wait a second, you're not going to get everybody out?

TREY GOWDY, FORMER SOUTH CAROLINA REPRESENTATIVE: Yes, Bret, I'm always smiling because of all the glowing articles about Jake Sullivan and Joe Biden and his foreign policy experience. This was going to be the most experienced team ever assembled. And there were caught completely flatfooted. He can't tell us what they would have done differently. We know they didn't follow military advice. What we don't know is did you also reject intelligence assessments, or advice from anyone else? If he went out there today to make things better, they should send somebody else tomorrow.

BAIER: OK, the other one that caught me off guard today, and I was sitting listening to the briefing, Harold, and this was a question about world leaders and who the president has talked to. Let's take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Has the president spoken to any other world leaders since Kabul fell to the Taliban?

JAKE SULLIVAN, NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR: He has not yet spoken with any other world leaders.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BAIER: OK, that was this afternoon. And then a few hours later after there was a big hubbub about, wait a second, the president has not talked to a single world leader since Kabul fell? The White House put out that he just got off the phone with Boris Johnson from Great Britain.

So, now we are hearing that the president is coming back to the White House, Harold. What is next here?

FORD: The optics planning -- thanks for having me on. The optics planning around this has been, and the substantive planning has at a minimum been completely ill-conceived, including yesterday allowing the president to board a helicopter on Monday afternoon to go back to Camp David after announcing what he announced.

Look, history is going to judge this exit from Afghanistan, the planning around the exit, even whether or not we should have exited Afghanistan. I still believe that we should, and as I shared last night, I don't believe the planning was at all up to snuff. But serious-minded people have to be willing to think about what we do next. And I have to say, that was not reassuring, some of those word. Some of the words were, some of them were not.

We have to have a meeting of our allies to discuss. The president should announce tomorrow that he is convening the coalition of Afghanistan and even Iraq to determine if the Taliban harbors terrorists, what will our actions be? The American people need to understand that.

And, three, we have to have a plan, not a timeline, an August 31 timeline, but we have to make clear to the Taliban, you are not going to dictate the timeline to getting out our American citizens and our Afghan allies. We will do that. And thus far I haven't heard that.

BAIER: Meanwhile, the Taliban is holding press conferences for the western press in Kabul, and then talking to Al Jazeera in Arabic, saying different things that say that they will honor women's rights under strict Sharia law. Well, technically that doesn't work out so well if history is any judge.

BEN DOMENECH, PUBLISHER, "THE FEDERALIST": Not so much, Bret. This White House has come across as fundamentally unserious throughout this entire crisis. And whatever your opinion about Afghanistan, however you thought we should have left, a small number of Americans who think we should have stayed in some way, that is impossible to argue against at this point, even with this cleanup after cleanup of trying to make the argument that they were prepared for this instance.

Look, we can all see what's going on. We can all see the stories. We can read the stories of what's going on in Afghanistan. And it's obvious that this White House was woefully unprepared for what happened, and that there are lives that are going to suffer and are potentially going to end because of it. That is unconscionable, it's abhorrent, and every American should be embarrassed by it, and they should call this White House to account for this failure.

BAIER: A lot in this show, including the Pakistan ambassador to the U.N. saying that that border is open taking people in. One cleanup on my part -- eight months after your last shot, that's the booster potential they are going to talk about tomorrow eight months, not eight weeks.

When we come back, tomorrow's headlines.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BAIER: We ran out of time for tomorrow's headlines, but here is one from a reporter, Wesley Morgan, who has worked for a number of organizations. He tweets "Taliban searching my former interpreter's house. He is hiding out elsewhere and can see it via the app on his phone from his home security cameras." Stories coming out of Afghanistan are going to be some to watch very closely over the coming days, and we will have it for you here on FOX News Channel.

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