'Special Report' All-Star Panel on consequences of withdrawing from Afghanistan

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Panelists reflect on the Afghanistan crisis as the 9/11 anniversary nears

All-star panel analyzes the consequences of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan amid the turmoil on 'Special Report'

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

BRET BAIER, HOST: 20 years, all the U.S. troops are now out of Afghanistan. It's a major moment. But as we mentioned, Americans are still on the ground in harm's way.

Let's bring in our panel. Mollie Hemingway, senior editor at The Federalist. Juan Williams is a Fox News analyst, and Trey Gowdy, former congressman from South Carolina.

I want to go around the horn and I might interrupt you if the secretary of state comes out. And just think about this moment, this time, what it means, and what we've seen over the past 10 days.

Trey, first to you.

TREY YINGST, FOX NEWS CHANNEL FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT (on camera): 20 years, the same group that we ran off is running Afghanistan. Women and girls are still second-class citizens, religious minorities are still being targeted. Journalists are still being beaten, Terrorists are still killing Americans, as evidenced by this week, and the best we can do is diplomatic pressure, which is an oxymoron.

BAIER: Yes, Mollie?

MOLLIE HEMINGWAY, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR (on camera): Yes, that's exactly right.

The Taliban are bigger, stronger, they control more territory. They are more -- well-equipped as a military presence than they could have even dreamed of being on September 11th.

People are very focused on how incompetent this withdrawal was, and it was. And contrary to what we just heard, about how it couldn't have gone better. It was a disaster. And it was horrible and awful, the lives lost, and just the failures there.

But really, we need to not forget that 19 of the last 20 years of this war, led by woke generals and political leaders who moved to nation-building, instead of -- instead of having proper metrics for success of how to defeat an enemy, they've caused this.

This is the Taliban are in a position of strength, not because of the last 10 days, but because of the last 19 years. And we need to never fight a war this way ever again, it is one thing to do this with the Taliban, it's entirely another to do it with a nuclear adversary, which you know, is something that we might be facing in the years to come.

BAIER: You know, Juan, obviously, the administration is trying to put the best foot forward here. Talking a lot about the accomplishment of the airlift of getting 123,000 out, and not focusing on too much on the Americans on the ground, saying they'll have a plan to get those out. Talking about the success that they see of getting U.S. troops out.

But there is a lot of pushback. You heard a little bit about it from Mollie and Trey. Here is GOP backlash about how this has gone.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. KEVIN MCCARTHY (R-CA): We are now less safe. The Taliban has more Black Hawk helicopters than Australia. We have weaponized them.

SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL (R-KY): Just because we decided to quit fighting, doesn't mean the terrorists go away. There's so, they're still out there. They're invigorated. They're emboldened and excited about the success, basically, and bringing America to its knees.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BAIER: Thoughts on that one?

JUAN WILLIAMS, FOX NEWS CHANNEL POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, I think two things to say, and let me just say, I think this is a bold headline day for America that forever war is over. I think we accomplished the goals that we set when we went in there 20 years ago, that Afghanistan was not used as a terrorist launching site.

The American people want this war over. And when you think about the 13 heroes whose bodies came home this weekend to Dover, you think, you know what, those people died in a good cause. They helped with this evacuation to get people out safely. And it's a -- you know, more than 100,000 people, all of our military personnel now gone.

They are the last people who will have died in this, you know, America's longest war, as you said, Bret.

(CROSSTALK)

BAIER: Yes.

WILLIAMS: I think the key thing in response to those quotes that you just played, is to understand that the terrorist threat is very different today than it was 20 years ago. The element of surprise is gone. We have hardened our targets. We have networks of intelligence, we have the capacity, which we've shown over the last few days to strike back a terrorist in a way that we did not have 20 years ago.

(CROSSTALK)

BAIER: Yes. Let me say a couple of things. One is some of the family members have already expressed publicly that those Marines, that Navy corpsman, and that U.S. soldier didn't have to die. That it was unnecessary because of the way that this was handled. That's their words.

That's the criticism that those 13 did not have to die. There was not a single casualty since February of 2020 prior to this moment.

Now, the second thing is that this terrorism threat is real, no matter how you look at it. So, the war in Afghanistan, on the ground may be over, and the troops may be out of harm's way there.

But Juan, you know that if it pops up, and it likely will, it's a witch's brew of radical Islamic terrorism there that we're going to go there. And the problem is, is that the intelligence assets dry up when you don't have some aspect of ground presence.

JUAN WILLIAMS, FOX NEWS POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, I think that we'd still do have some asset, but clearly not what we had previously with our troops there and with our mission, our -- you know, our embassy there.

But I think that it's important to understand that the mission -- the mission was to prevent that area, Afghanistan, from being used as a terrorist launching site and I think that we have accomplished that.

And again, when you look at the reality on the ground and say that there are Americans there, there are a lot of Americans apparently out of that 250 who choose to be there. Most of those who are left there, in terms of the Afghans are people who wanted to get out, but we just couldn't manage it.

And I think that when you look at this, and you're looking at four presidents, Bret, you look at President Bush, who chose to go in there and didn't know how to get out. You look at President Obama. You know, he put more troops in, but it was like a band aid. He really didn't know how to get out. President Trump negotiating with the Taliban.

That's, you know -- and now, President Biden underestimated the strength of the Afghan government. There are a lot of mistakes here.

BAIER: All right, Trey, last word.

TREY GOWDY, FOX NEWS CHANNEL CONTRIBUTOR: I'm just trying to process how Afghanistan is no longer a launching site for terrorism with the 13 coffins that I saw at Dover Air Force Base.

So, apparently, it still is a launching pad for terrorism, because 13 of our soldiers were killed within the past week.

BAIER: Panel, we'll have you back in a bit. Again, we're waiting for the Secretary of State Tony Blinken at this -- at the State Department and we'll bring that to you live.

…

GEN. KENNETH MCKENZIE, U.S. CENTRAL COMMAND: Every single U.S. service member is now out of Afghanistan. I can say that with 100 percent certainty. You would like it bring out everybody that wanted to come out. We were not able to do that. The situation wouldn't allow it. I think we did a very good job of getting everybody that we could get out given the unique challenges of the tactical situation on the ground.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BAIER: Well, they did get 123,000 people out of Afghanistan, most of them Afghans, about 5,000 to 6,000 Americans. But there are some 250 to 300 Americans still on the ground.

We're back with the panel. We should point out that the secretary of state has started to have a statement at 5:00 and then 5:30, 6:00, it was going to be, and then 6:30. Now it's 6:50. So we don't know what's happening, so we're going to stop showing the podium because we don't think is he coming out before the end of the show.

Trey, the interesting thing about the Americans that are still on the ground, as we are talking about the 250, and the administration keeps on saying there are some people who wanted to stay, or some people wanted to be there. We know that there are some people that wanted to get out, of the people that are on the ground, let alone the fact that the Taliban has been holding hostage for about a year a Navy veteran. His name is Mark Frerichs. It took him about a year-and-a-half ago. And there was effort to make a deal. But they still hold him, hold hostage an American.

So the thought that suddenly these Americans on the ground are going to have an easy time just getting to the airport, I hope they do, we all hope they do. But they're holding an American hostage currently.

TREY GOWDY, FORMER SOUTH CAROLINA REPRESENTATIVE: Yes. Going through TSA is one thing. How would you like to go through the Taliban to get to the airport? Look, Biden said Americans, we're not leaving until Americans are gone, and we're gone, and there are still Americans there. And equally importantly, there are people who sided with America who will be killed because, come hell or high water, Joe Biden decided August 31st, that's it. We're out.

BAIER: Mollie?

MOLLIE HEMINGWAY, SENIOR EDITOR, "THE FEDERALIST": People keep conflating the proper decision to end the war in Afghanistan with the manner in which it was done. We just heard about President Biden saying that he wasn't going to leave until all Americans were out. He also said it would be a safe and orderly withdrawal. He said that it was highly unlikely that the Taliban would -- that the government would fall to the Taliban. It is the withdrawal that has been the problem, and this ending of the war does not change the fact that that incompetence must be dealt with.

BAIER: Juan, quickly?

JUAN WILLIAMS, FOX NEWS POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, I think there was never going to be any easy exit, and now you have warlords versus ISIS versus the Taliban making an even more dangerous scenario there. I just think it's a capital letter day to say this 20 year forever war is over.

BAIER: We hope it's over for good, Juan, and we don't have to go back in and do something else. But we will follow it day to day. Panel, thanks.

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