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'The Ingraham Angle' on Afghanistan crisis, 'shrinking' Biden
Published September 01, 2021
This is a rush transcript from "The Ingraham Angle" August 31, 2021. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
INGRAHAM: All right. Thanks, Sean. I'm Laura Ingraham. This is the INGRAHAM ANGLE from a very busy Washington tonight. We're going to get right to it. Our incredible shrinking president. That's the focus of tonight's "Angle".
Joe Biden thought that he'd wipe away the national disgrace of his Afghan withdrawal by addressing the nation with an angry and hectoring tone today.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: We reached out 19 times to Americans in Afghanistan with multiple warnings. The decision to end the military lift operations at Kabul airport was based on unanimous recommendation on my civilian and militaidary advisors. Their recommendation was that the safest way to secure the passage of remaining Americans and others out of the country was not to continuous 6000 troops on the ground in harm's way in Kabul, rather to get them out through non-military means.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
INGRAHAM: Less than two weeks ago, Biden said, would stay until every American got out of the country. But today, he claimed leaving 10 percent behind was a win.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BIDEN: The bottom line, 90 percent of Americans in Afghanistan who wanted to leave were able to leave. Secretary of State Blinken is leading the continued diplomatic efforts to ensure a safe passage for any American who wants to leave Afghanistan.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
INGRAHAM: Joe Biden thought he would reverse the public's growing distrust of his presidency with bragging and meaningless counterfactuals.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BIDEN: Imagine, if we'd begun evacuations in June or July, bringing in thousands of American troops and evacuating more than 120,000 people in the middle of a civil war still would have been a rush to the airport. The bottom line is there is no evacuation from the end of a war that you can run without the kinds of complexities, challenges and threats we faced, none.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
INGRAHAM: And a slew of former top military officials vehemently disagreed with him in a letter yesterday and they echoed what I've been saying on this show. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Mark Milley need to go immediately.
The nearly 90 retired generals wrote, "The consequences of this disaster are enormous and will reverberate for decades. Our adversaries are emboldened to move against America due to the weakness displayed in Afghanistan." Of course, the media, well, they gave this a little coverage today, which is a tad different from how they reacted anytime senior military or Intel officials hammered President Trump.
But back to our current shrinking President Biden. It's obvious from everything that's happened over the past several weeks that he doesn't care about the outcome here, only what it means for his personal poll numbers. Take for example, today's report about Biden's July 23 phone call with former Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, who since fled the country with a bunch of cash.
Now, Biden wasn't focused on the facts on the ground as much as how it would look if things ended up collapsing. "In much of the call, Biden focused on what he called the Afghan government's perception problem. I need not tell you the perception around the world and in parts of Afghanistan, I believe, is that things are not going well in terms of the fight against the Taliban, there's a need to project a different picture."
Well, once again, he and his team are not immersed in the details of the operation, but instead on the optics and the possible political fallout. During Trump's entire term in office, all we heard from the left was how unpresidential and how disrespectful he was and how he trampled on political norms. Remember all that?
But it was Mr. Joe Biden, the most experienced president ever, who was actually unpresidential and disrespectful at the Dover Air Force Base this past Sunday. Now, think about this, all he had to do was stand there and show genuine respect and empathy. But what it'll be remembered for is looking at his watch and some perfunctory comments to parents.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MARK SCHMITZ, FATHER OF JARED SCHMITZ: It didn't go well. He talked a bit more about his own son than we did my son. And that didn't sit well with me.
DARIN HOOVER, FATHER OF DARIN TAYLOR HOOVER JR: In reference to the checking of his watch, that didn't happen just once. That happened on every single one that came out of that airplane.
SCHMITZ: I couldn't look at him anymore after that, just considering especially the time and why we were there. It was - I found it to be the most disrespectful thing I've ever seen.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
INGRAHAM: But this is who Joe Biden is. He's always been a small-minded grafter who's a - generally been considered a self-promoting buffoon for most of his career. That's why he wasn't nominated in 2016 after being vice president to Barack Obama for eight years.
Think about it this way. Over the past 50 years, Biden never said anything significant or meaningful. Never. And it was the same today. His speech was supposed to mark the end of our longest war. And yet, he literally sounded like any random liberal pundit, like one of the Joyce, (inaudible) or [ph] Reid, petty and trivial. Even Trump hating Bill Kristol pundit.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BILL KRISTOL, CNN COMMENTATOR: At the end of a 20-year war, you should give a presidential speech. You should reflect on what it meant. Instead, it was a very kind of legalistic, defensive - defense of debating points in a way on what he had done over the last few weeks. The impression is, he's not quite meeting them at the moment, I think.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
INGRAHAM: First of all, I never thought I'd ever agree with him again in my life, nor did I ever think I would ever play a soundbite from Bill Kristol. But there you have it. Anything's possible.
It's almost as if Joe Biden's disappearing before our very eyes. He's just not all that relevant. The real political bait will continue between the hard left and the rest of us who want to save America from socialism and decline. At least through the midterms, domestic policy is in the hands of Schumer and Pelosi. Important foreign policy decisions going to be largely determined going forward by the EU and China, certainly not by this little fellow.
The fact is, the rest of the world doesn't take Biden seriously. His own people don't even take him seriously. Even they - either they don't let him answer questions, or they carefully choose the reporters he'll take questions from.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BIDEN: Ladies and gentlemen, they gave me a list here. The first person I was instructed to call on was Kelly O'Donnell, NBC.
I'll take your questions. And as usual, folks, they gave me a list of the people I'm going to call on.
I'm not supposed to take any questions, but go ahead.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Mr. President, on Afghanistan.
BIDEN: I'm not going to answer Afghanistan now.
(CROWD SHOUTING)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
INGRAHAM: Can you believe that? Today, he wouldn't answer any questions. He was just a warm up act for Jen Psaki, who occasionally does her best to spend Biden's incoherence. But Biden had that mask on as he turned around to make sure to grab that. Great job, Jill.
No one in the history of the world has ever changed his or her mind on anything as a result of a Joe Biden speech, and no one ever will. But after this latest disaster, not a single world leader is paying any attention to Joe Biden anyway. He and America under his leadership is diminished. Everything he touches goes sideways, and then he ends up getting angry at you when it does. He blames others, as he did with Donald Trump today, while claiming at the same time that the buck stops here.
Let me tell you what a real president would have done today. He would have taken actual responsibility for what unfolded, and he would have treated the families of the fallen with real respect and real compassion. He wouldn't have talked about his own family or his own loss. He would have fired everyone responsible for the catastrophe.
He would reassure the American people that under his watch, our troops would never again be left as sitting ducks, and that our country would never again be humiliated as we were in Kabul. And a real president, a real man wouldn't have left 10 percent of Americans behind in Afghanistan. He wouldn't have left one behind.
Unfortunately, for us, for America, we won't have a real president for at least another three years and five months. And that's the "Angle".
Joining us now is Newt Gingrich, former Speaker of the House and Fox News contributor. Newt, has there ever been a less consequential president managing a more incompetent senior leadership in modern American history?
NEWT GINGRICH, FORMER HOUSE SPEAKER: I don't think it has ever been in all of American history, anyone who, in two or three weeks, has done the amount of damage that Joe Biden has done. This is an astonishing performance. I don't think you and I could have imagined it as a [ph] novel.
Here's the guy who goes in, takes a totally winnable position, throws it away, positions the Americans so they can't defend themselves, then decides that he really has to all our enemies, people we fought for 20 years, they're now our allies overnight. And so he has to do what they tell him to do. They instruct him when to leave, and instruct him by the way while keeping $85 billion of American equipment.
This whole thing is sending signals around the entire planet, that Biden is hopeless, that the United States is out of the game. And it's dangerous, because you could imagine China making a grab at Taiwan, you can imagine the North Korean dictatorship deciding to be - to do something.
The Iranians have indicated they want to do war games in the golf with both China and Russia, which would be very dangerous for us. All these things are going on. You could also imagine Putin deciding to do something very aggressive in Ukraine. This is not just a one off brief moment in history, this is a man who has broken a sense of respect, a sense of reliability which we built from Pearl Harbor day on in December 7, 1941.
So we've had that entire period, where the world came to believe the United States kept its word. United States was powerful. United States had to be feared. And now we're being led by somebody who looks like a totally scared bunny rabbit on the danger of falling asleep. And his performance at Dover, it may have been the most disrespectful.
When Gold Star families attack the president, you know something's really sick.
INGRAHAM: Yes. And he wasn't political.
GINGRICH: And that sickness is called Joe Biden.
INGRAHAM: Yes. It wasn't political. It was heartfelt. It was common sense and it was heartfelt. And we're going to share another story tonight of a mom who's grieving after Joe Biden's incompetence last week.
But, Newt, I want to play this for you, because, again, a totally untethered to reality Joe Biden wants people to believe that we're actually safer because of his incompetence.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BIDEN: As we close 20 years of war and strife and pain and sacrifice, it's time to look to the future, not the past. To future that's safer, to future that's more secure.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
INGRAHAM: Newt, did this catastrophic management of this pullout make us positioned to be safer in the future?
GINGRICH: I don't think anybody on the planet, except hardlined left-wing Democrats believes that. The fact is, the way this happened makes America much more at risk. You have an open southern border. You have at least 5000 terrorists who've been released from prison at Bagram. You have all sorts of people flowing across national borders. The Europeans are braced for a huge wave of people coming in. They don't know how many of them will be terrorists.
And if you're a terrorist, this is the greatest victory in the long war with the West that you've seen in the last 50 or 60 years. I mean, every young terrorist on the planet is going to think, well, let's get out there and kill somebody. Let's get out there and destroy something. And I frankly worry about 9/11, from that perspective.
These guys aren't going to sit around and do nothing. They are not going to say, I'm really glad that the Americans left. Now I think I'll be calm and peaceful. They're going to take all that equipment, and they're going to send it all over the planet.
INGRAHAM: It's all disabled, Newt.
GINGRICH: That's what we don't get.
INGRAHAM: They can't use it at all. It's all disabled. That's (inaudible) I don't believe anything the Biden team is telling us about vetting refugees, about the disabled equipment, about the collateral damage of killing all these kids with a drone. I don't believe any of this until it's verified. But Newt, we got to roll.
GINGRICH: No administration in American history has lied as blatantly, as openly as the Biden administration. And that's where you start. I mean, if you don't understand, they lie to you all day.
INGRAHAM: All the time, every day. All right, Newt. It's great to see you tonight. Thank you so much.
And despite the fact that hundreds of Americans are stranded in Afghanistan still, Biden has his eye elsewhere.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BIDEN: As for the Afghans, we and our partners have airlifted 100,000 of them. We will continue to work to help more people leave the country who are at risk. We're far from done.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
INGRAHAM: And he'll have some help a little known U.S. based group called the Association of Wartime Allies is claiming there are at least 113,000 Afghans who are at risk. And they want to leave their home country too, presumably to come to the United States. But that's just the beginning.
This group also estimated that the number of Afghans eligible for expedited immigration status here could be more than 1 million. Joining me now is Stephen Miller, former Trump Senior Advisor, founder of America First Legal.
Stephen, first of all, is their current legal authority to allow for that many individuals vetted by the same geniuses who carried out this withdrawal to come to the United States?
STEPHEN MILLER, FORMER TRUMP WHITE HOUSE SENIOR ADVISER: Categorically, there is not, which is why my organization, America First Legal, has just put forward an oversight request to the administration to document that fact. The reality is the people that Joe Biden has evacuated from Afghanistan, or evacuated at random, my government sources have been very clear about this point. They do not qualify for, in most cases, lawful visas for the United States of America, nor are they going to go through the lawful refugee process.
So in other words, the lawful pathways are not being used. Instead, they're going to use a process known as parole, which is basically DACA for illegal immigrants outside your borders. In other words, we're familiar with deferred action, that's really immigrants who are already here. Parole is saying, you don't have lawful authority, but we're going to let you in anyways.
INGRAHAM: Stephen, The Wall Street Journal is reporting that "The government apparently has told the agencies, get this, to expect as many as 50,000 Afghans to arrive without visas. What you're talking about? Through Congress - though Congress allotted $500 million for the administration to provide these people some benefits, resettlement leaders say the money won't meet all those needs."
MILLER: Not even close. And the lifetime cost.
INGRAHAM: Yes. What are they per person?
MILLER: Well, the lifetime costs are probably going to be a quarter of a million per family. So let's not kid ourselves and think that we're even in the realm of what this is going to cost. But I want to be really clear about this point. Joe Biden's evacuation effort is a catastrophic failure. First, and most importantly, he abandoned U.S. citizens, something that Donald Trump would have never allowed to happen in a million, billion years.
Secondly, the people that the administration claims were a priority, interpreters and translators, or people who performed long well-documented service for the U.S. government, they were left behind too. As we saw today, in the Wall Street Journal, Joe Biden's - the interpreter who helped rescue Joe Biden was left behind. Instead, they had an airport that was pure chaos. That's why it was so unsafe for the people who were working there, including our courageous soldiers.
The theory was, if you can push your way onto a plane, you get to leave. The situation is so bad, if you can believe this, Laura, they have to bring in extra translators from overseas to our military bases, because the people they evacuated don't speak English. And there aren't enough translators they evacuated to translate.
In other words, the stated mission was to evacuate translators. They don't even have enough translators on the bases to do the translation.
INGRAHAM: Yes. I mean, I keep saying this as everyone - we know our heart breaks for everybody who wants to get out of an awful, rotten, corrupt regime. Everyone in China who wants to get out, everyone in Africa who wants to get - everyone here, our heart breaks for all of them.
MILLER: Syria, Libya.
INGRAHAM: Every - name the country. But we're now looking for overdue speakers, apparently, in their - in our bases in the Middle East because we can't communicate with the few translators we have. But every one, I think, in the United States is thinking, everyone coming out is a translator, or did something--
MILLER: Clearly, I mean, if we'd actually evacuated translators, we wouldn't need to be sending in translators to translate for the people that we evacuated who can't speak English. Bottom line, we are looking at long term over the next 10 years, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of thousands through this pipeline if we don't Congress to act.
INGRAHAM: Well, Republicans in Congress, wake up. OK, wake up. They screwed up withdrawal. They're going to screw this up as well. Stephen, thank you.
And as Newt mentioned, this administration, the Pentagon have lied to the American people for the past two months. We're going to document those lies, next. And Congressman Mark Green is here with a stunning revelation about what the State Department gave to the Taliban. Stay there.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
INGRAHAM: Now, the Biden administration, they haven't just mishandled the fallout from the Afghan withdrawal, they've lied to the American public, lied throughout the crisis.
Now, it all began weeks before Biden's chaotic airlift even began. Remember what he told us just last month.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BIDEN: I trust the capacity of the Afghan military, who was better trained, better equipped and more competent in terms of conducting war.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
INGRAHAM: False. The Afghan government and its army collapsed within a fortnight. No worries though, the Biden administration, at first just pretended this was their plan all along.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JAKE SULLIVAN, NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR TO U.S. PRESIDENT: The American forces now on the ground at HKIA are there because of contingency planning and drilling we did over the course of months, preparing for a range of scenarios, including dire scenarios.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
INGRAHAM: Oh, we know that's a lie, because the very next day General Milley threw the National Security Adviser under the bus.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GENERAL MARK MILLEY, CHAIRMAN OF THE JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF: Following our departure, there was nothing that I or anyone else saw that indicated a collapse of this army in this government in 11 days.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
INGRAHAM: In other words, unless he's lying to, this was not part of the plan. Of course, the idea that Milley or any other top general hadn't seen a shred of Intel, pointing to the imminent collapse of Afghanistan is farcical. Any random person on the street could have told you the hopelessly corrupt Afghan army wasn't going to stand a chance with this Taliban moving across the country as it was. But the same day Milley was deflecting blame for the crisis, Biden was giving false assurances.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS, ABC NEWS HOST: So Americans should understand the troops might have to be there beyond August 31?
BIDEN: And if there is American force - if there's American citizens left, we're going to stay till we get them all out.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
INGRAHAM: His eyes got really wide when he said that, so we're supposed to believe him. Well, as we know, sadly, hundreds of Americans are stuck in Afghanistan at the mercy of the Taliban and ISIS-K.
So the question is, when did Biden or whoever runs Biden decide to abandon them? Just a couple of days after falsely promising to leave no American behind, Biden was caught in a lie so agreed, just his own defense department couldn't even cover for him.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BIDEN: Look, let's put this thing in perspective here. What interest do we have in Afghanistan at this point with Al Qaeda gone?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The President just said that there is no Al Qaeda presence in Afghanistan.
JOHN KIRBY, PENTAGON PRESS SECRETARY: We know that Al Qaeda is a presence as well as ISIS in Afghanistan.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
INGRAHAM: Oh, my God. By the time, the retreat was on at the Kabul airport, Biden was in complete denial about the damage that he had done to the American prestige.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BIDEN: I have seen no question of our credibility from our allies around the world.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
INGRAHAM: But just days before that utterance, the UK Parliament held Biden in contempt. If only Congress were that brave. And the next day, Biden made an even more fallacious claim.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BIDEN: We know of no circumstance where American citizens are carrying an American passport, or trying to get through to the airport.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
INGRAHAM: Except within the hour, defense secretary Austin was telling Congress, the exact opposite. Americans were in fact being beaten, harassed, and even having their passports taken by the Taliban airport guards.
Now, the Biden White House is refusing to divulge relevant details about the drone strike that reportedly killed 10 Afghan civilians, including seven children. Did we actually kill ISIS-K fighters? If so, what are their names? Well, just stop asking those questions.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JEN PSAKI, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: I don't believe the military or CENTCOM has spoken to or confirmed what has been some reporting out there by news organizations. I will note that in CENTCOM's statement just two nights ago, they made clear that their assessment was that there was - the vehicle that was the target also had explosives in it. And those explosives may have also led to an impact on the ground, but there's an investigation that's ongoing.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
INGRAHAM: We don't believe that even with the hand gesture. Time and again, on issue after issue, this administration and our Pentagon has misled the American public, who can trust them on anything they say. They have the audacity, though, to think they deserve our trust. But our trust is in retreat.
Here's another Biden lie. His administration vehemently denies giving the Taliban lists of Americans that need to be evacuated. But my next guest played an instrumental role in exposing the truth in the administration's distortions. Joining us now is Tennessee Congressman Mark Green, Afghanistan War vet. Congressman, what have you learned?
REP. MARK GREEN, (R-TN) SERVED IN AFGHANISTAN: Laura, thanks for just pointing out the dishonesty of this administration. In this case, I was told by Americans on the ground, DOD inside the perimeter in Kabul, that manifests for our aircraft were shared with the Taliban commanders, meaning lists of both Americans and our SIVs that we were trying to evacuate that we had placed on aircraft, put names to seats, they gave that to the Taliban.
INGRAHAM: So they're just downright lying, period.
GREEN: They're downright lying. And you cited many. There are many, many other instances during this debacle where President Joe Biden has either -- it's either intentional dishonesty, or he is absolutely out of touch with reality of what's going on on the ground in Afghanistan. And the statements of both policy, their intentions, they're contradicting themselves, the statements of the situation on the ground where the DOD secretary, the secretary of state, within minutes are contradicting him on their press releases or press conferences. It's just boggling the mind. And it's really angering America.
INGRAHAM: In case you thought the Biden administration would show an ounce of accountability for the disaster, here's a guy a lot of people believe is actually running the White House, not just the operations but running the president, his Chief of Staff Ron Klain tonight.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RON KLAIN, WHITE HOUSE CHIEF OF STAFF: Any effort to unwind, any effort to bring our troops out, any effort to end our military presence in Afghanistan was going to be filled with heartbreaking scenes and difficulties. And I think the Biden administration has managed that as well as it could be managed under the circumstances we were placed in.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
INGRAHAM: Congressman, that's a political calculation that he made in that statement, that Americans wanted to get out. And so it would happen to anybody. Do you call this situation, as Ron Klain said, successfully managed?
GREEN: They're suggesting that it's inevitable that this happened the way that it did. That's absolutely false. I know for a fact that the packages presented by DOD to the president recommended more troops, temporarily, at Bagram Air Base, 4,500 troops, to secure it for a safe withdraw. He rejected that and pulled a number out of the hat. I want you to go down to 600 people. The leadership at the DOD said we can't even secure the embassy with 600 people. He said I don't care. Go to 600 people.
For him this is about political optics. It's not about taking care of people. It never has been for this president. That's why he's not stopping fentanyl coming across the southern border, killing Americans. He doesn't care. All that matters to him is his political poll numbers. That's it.
INGRAHAM: Congressman, thank you.
My next guest's son, Army Staff Sergeant Ryan Knauss, was one of the 13 U.S. service members killed in last Thursday's suicide bombing Kabul. In moments, Paula Knauss will tell us about her son and why this didn't need to happen. Stay there.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
INGRAHAM: Even in second grade, Ryan Knauss knew he wanted to be in the military. His wife, whom he met in high school in Tennessee, said he was a brilliant young man who could have done whatever he wanted. But he wanted to serve his country. And in May, 2016, he did just that, joining the Army and serving with distinction. Among his awards and decorations, the Purple Heart, the Bronze Star, and many others. He was a stellar soldier. As Knauss's commanding officer told it, he always led from the front. And he wanted to be the first one to stand up and serve his nation.
What a contrast to what we've gotten from politicians these days, which makes it all the more heartbreaking that Ryan lost his life in last week's suicide bombing at the Kabul airport. His loving mother, Paula, joins me now. Paula, we are devastated for your loss and the loss of all of our young men and women last week, and in weeks and months and years before this in Afghanistan and the war on terror. But I talked to you earlier this week, but what do you want Americans to remember about your son and his sacrifice?
PAULA KNAUSS: First of all, I want to thank all those who are in the military and all of their military families. I want to thank you for being a family to all those who wear the uniform. Thank you, first of all, to Ryan's ninth battalion. He served in the 82nd Airborne, and to those who served in other divisions, thank you. Thank you for making this young boy become a man.
The armed forces of the United States of America are the greatest forces in the world, and we are blessed that our son spent five years of his life learning how to become a better person and a better soldier, a better man. The first thing I want to say is, their armed forces are the best, and we are saluting you tonight. Mothers and fathers who have lost their loved ones, we salute you. We also say to you that you do a terrific job in keeping Americans safe, and we are honored, we are simply honored to know that we can sleep at night better because of what you do.
You make a difference in all of our lives, and tonight, I'm just one of many in the nation to say thank you. Thank you to every one of you who stand up for the rights of freedom. Thank you. Thank you that my son did not die in vain. He did his job well. He is a hero, and we salute him also, because you and the United States Army and all the military branches, you make men and women strong and proud and honored. Thank you for letting our family know how awesome it is to be in the best country in the world, in the best place to live in all of the world. We thank you for that freedom that you give us to say that.
INGRAHAM: Paula, if you don't mind sharing something maybe about Ryan that we weren't able to glean from some of the press reports. Obviously, he was an amazing soldier. He was a beautiful young man. He was going to celebrate his fifth wedding anniversary on the day, 20th anniversary of the invasion of Afghanistan. But what else about him should we know?
KNAUSS: Ryan always wanted to serve in the military. His first hour, he did a pushup. And to anybody that knows Ryan knows that that would just be Ryan. Ryan had a true passion and desire to see that in this country that we live in, that we don't forget it, that freedom is not free, and that a man who is willing to lay down his life, being able to do that when it's necessary. Ryan lived out a life of valor, and we are so proud of him.
INGRAHAM: Paula, have you had a chance to share stories or memories or, frankly, grief with other gold star families in recent days? Either some of the Marines or the Navy corpsmen who died in the same attack? Any who served with Ryan, were you able to talk with them?
KNAUSS: -- of our family have had the opportunity to talk with some of Ryan's battalion and some of the officers who are helping us through this time. And all I can tell you is, is that the United States Army, the armed forces of America is one of the family. And we want to thank the whole military force for their encouragement right now. And I know in the days to come there will be much help for us and other families who are grieving right now. Some of these men and women came back with all of their parts, all of their -- but there is heart left in this debacle that they had to leave behind anyone, including Americans on foreign soil. No, no -- when they are needing help from our nation. And tonight --
INGRAHAM: Paula. Paula, I'm sorry to interrupt. We have a bit of a delay here. But obviously, you know your son better than anybody, maybe other than his wife. And I'm just so heartbroken hearing your voice and the voices of so many of the families. Many of them are very angry and upset. Others are just, of course, drowning in grief. But Ryan, what I've gotten to know about him, talking to some of his pals, is that he was just an incredible young man. And people have to understand this about the military. These are incredible human beings. They're so different from politicians who seek to avoid accountability. They're all about accountability, day in and day out. Would he have wanted any American to be left behind if he could have prevented it?
KNAUSS: Ryan told me, in his own words -- he volunteered for this mission because he said, mom, if I don't go, just wait your turn. And he said mom, I've been trained -- I'll be in and I'll be out in no time. And, mom, it's going to be a shitshow. And he said, you just watch. We didn't know just what Ryan knew at the time until all of this is beginning to come out. Just how horrible these men and women had to face circumstances and the hasty exit out of the country, trying their best military effort to help so many people who were trying their best to flee. There should have been a better way of helping our armed branches get those people who are American out safely, and still lose no man or woman in uniform or in Afghanistan or anyone else who needed to be out.
It should never have happened the way it did. Who is accountable for this? Who will stand up and say that they will be accountable for the death of 13 young men and women? Who? Who will stand up and say I am the one that is responsible? I want to know that.
INGRAHAM: Paula, everything that you've shared with me privately and everything America has heard tonight about your son, indicates pretty clearly that he was someone who believed in accountability, in owning up to it. If you screw something up, you've got to own up to it. Today the president said that there was unanimity in decision making and that complexities and difficulties were bound to happen -- I'm paraphrasing -- in any withdraw. So this couldn't have been avoided. Does that give you solace?
KNAUSS: Anyone who knew and was watching, anyone, any person in this nation who was watching what was happening in front of our eyes saw that our men and women were not in a pursuit of the enemy, as we had been for almost 20 years. We were running, and we were trying to get out of there as fast as possible. This hasty exit was not necessary to finish what we had started 20 years ago. It was not necessary. Ryan, and all the men and women in uniform, stand, and they take orders, and they do their responsibilities, and they face the consequences of not doing them. Where in Congress, where in our nation's capital, who will stand up and say, I messed up, I am responsible? Who will do that?
INGRAHAM: Shouldn't it be the president of the United States, Paula? The president of the United States is the commander in chief. He said the buck stops here. That's what he said. But then he said Trump did various things, and kind of said it was complicated, it was going to be complicated.
KNAUSS: Listen, the president of the United States has the ability to help our troops have enough men and women to stay safe. In all of our history, in all of the time that we have been fighting, where did you leave these men and women at one airport, one location, one gate to funnel thousands through? And who did you trust? You trusted our enemy to allow who would come through. What does anyone in this great nation think when they think what would happen? No one has to have a military background to know that that was not going to go down well.
INGRAHAM: Paula Knauss, you have every right to demand answers and accountability, as does every member of the armed services. And do you seek to get answers from President Biden? Will you attempt to speak with him? I know you were not at Dover. Your daughter-in-law was at Dover with her mom, and did have some words, have a short conversation with President Biden. Will you seek to find answers directly from this administration? And have they reached out to you personally?
KNAUSS: First of all, I want to say that my daughter-in-law is the best daughter-in-law. She represented our family well by being there to meet my son. We gave her a chance to grieve. We gave her a chance to have an opportunity, and we're so thankful that she did that. If Mr. Biden would like to tell me how I can sleep better at night right now, or any American can, while he is serving in the administration, please, give me a call and let me know how I can sleep tonight, a full night, as my son, like all the sons and daughters, he didn't make it home. And it is on your watch, because he was doing his job well, and he counted on you to tell the troops what your desire was, and he followed through with your desires. So it is on you right now to tell me.
INGRAHAM: Paula, Paula, you deserve, you deserve an answer, a phone call, a visit. I am -- we are all devastated for your loss, and my prayers are with you, your entire family. Your story, your son's life, mattered. And it's important that we will never forget any of these names and these faces. They're not 13. They're individuals who had individual lives and individual families. You're a great mom, and I know you have a family grieving. We appreciate your time. Paula Knauss, anything we can do for you personally, I know you know how to get in touch with me. Thank you. Final thoughts when we return.
KNAUSS: Thank you, Laura.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
INGRAHAM: If Paula Knauss's appearance on this show tonight didn't get you thinking about the state of things in America, I don't know what to say. Ryan was a young man with an entire life ahead of him, along with the other 12 who died. They shouldn't have died. There's no accountability. Paula, her entire family, they deserve accountability and deserve to have their questions answered. It's America now and forever.
Greg Gutfeld takes it all from here.
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