Lara Logan shreds Biden admin, claims US 'actively working with its enemy'
Fox News host slams the Biden administration over the crisis in Afghanistan on 'Tucker Carlson Tonight'
This is a rush transcript of "Tucker Carlson Tonight" on September 10, 2021. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
LARA LOGAN, FOX NEWS HOST: Good evening and welcome to a Special Edition of TUCKER CARLSON TONIGHT. I'm Lara Logan in for Tucker.
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration or OSHA was established in the 1970s to inspect workplaces and establish standards to prevent industrial accidents but starting this summer the Biden administration gave OSHA a new role.
Joe Biden told OSHA to start hiding information from the public to promote the COVID vaccine. Until this summer, OSHA required employers to retain records of any worker who suffered a serious side effect from the vaccine, then in June, OSHA's guidance suddenly changed to this, quote: "OSHA will not enforce Federal recording requirements that require any employers to record worker side effects from COVID-19 vaccination."
That was a major change especially since we're still learning so much about these vaccines and their possible side effects.
Just hours ago, for example, "The Telegraph" in Britain reported that
quote: "Teenage boys are six times more likely to suffer from heart problems from the vaccine than be hospitalized from COVID-19." And in Israel, where more than 80 percent of adults are vaccinated, COVID cases are spiking. Israel now has one of the world's highest daily infection rates.
So what explains that?
In his remarks to the nation, Joe Biden didn't answer that. Instead, he put OSHA, the same agency that's been hiding evidence of vaccine side effects in charge of forcing millions of Americans to take the covet vaccine.
Joe Biden didn't even bother to ask Congress. He said the new mandate is justified because COVID is a quote, "emergency." Then he walked away without taking questions once again.
But let's look at the facts. On average, more than 98 percent of COVID-19 patients in the United States survive. That number is well over 99 percent for every age group except for the very elderly, whether they're vaccinated or not.
Meanwhile, we know that millions of Americans have natural immunity from previous COVID infections. Studies show they have far greater protection than the vaccine can provide.
Tony Fauci was just asked about this on CNN, if people have natural immunity why do they need the vaccine? He couldn't answer.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: As we talk about vaccine mandates, I get calls all the time people say, I've already had COVID. I'm protected and now the study says maybe even more protected than the vaccine alone. Should they also get the vaccine? How do you make the case to them?
DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS
DISEASES: You know that's a really good point, Sanjay. I don't have a really firm answer for you on that. That's something that we're going to have to discuss regarding the durability of the response.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LOGAN: "Discuss the durability of the response." "I don't have a firm answer for you on that." So, why are we forcing people with natural immunity to take the shot, for that matter? Why are illegal immigrants exempt from Joe Biden's order?
The Biden administration won't answer those questions either. Of course, our media is fine with all of this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DON LEMON, CNN ANCHOR: So today, President Joe Biden announced some mandates that he hopes will free the rest of us from this pandemic and try to move more people to get the vaccine, to do the right thing.
CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: You know what? Good for President Biden.
ELIE MYSTAL, JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT, THE NATION: Of course, the Federal government can mandate basic health and safety regulations.
MATTHEW DOWD, FORMER CHIEF STRATEGIST FOR PRESIDENT G. W. BUSH: Well, I a thousand percent agree with President Biden on this.
CHRIS HAYES, MSNBC HOST: He and his administration, his political advisers understand they are on the right side of both the politics and the substance here. They need to get COVID under control and it is not contained right now.
STEVE SCHMIDT, COMMUNICATIONS AND PUBLIC AFFAIRS STRATEGIST: And so I think that he should approach this with an iron fist and I think that the overwhelming majority of the country is going to be deeply appreciative of somebody standing up at long last and saying to the small minority of nuts in this country, enough.
JOY REID, MSNBC HOST: Yes, I think, I a hundred percent agree.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
LOGAN: "The small minority of nuts," "iron fist." Meanwhile, the doctors on CNN and MSNBC are insisting that Joe Biden's new mandate doesn't go far enough.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DR. JONATHAN REINER, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: I don't think the President went far enough. I was hoping that he would ban travel by unvaccinated people beginning in November. I also thought the President should have embraced a digital, difficult to counterfeit verification system.
DR. ZEKE EMANUEL, VICE PROVOST OF GLOBAL INITIATIVES, UNIVERSITY OF
PENNSYLVANIA: There are more mandates I wish he would have given.
I think mandating vaccines for air travel, train travel, or interstate bus travel would also be important.
DR. LEANA WEN, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: I don't think it goes far enough. I actually think that what Zeke said about interstate travel was exactly right.
DR. KAVITA PATEL, MSNBC CONTRIBUTOR: I will say he didn't go far enough. I would have loved to have seen him, but I know it was a step too far, to have a domestic travel mandate for vaccination.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LOGAN: The problem is that as a legal matter, this just isn't true. The Supreme Court has ruled repeatedly that the right to travel is protected by the Constitution, and there's a bigger issue here. Not long ago, our public health establishment said that vaccine mandates would never happen.
A year ago, Tony Fauci called the idea a conspiracy theory, never heard that one before, right? Quote: "If someone refuses the vaccine in the general public, then there is nothing you can do about that," Fauci said.
"You cannot force someone to take a vaccine." Only now, Tony Fauci endorses mandatory vaccines for everyone including children.
Things are changing so quickly that Kamala Harris can't seem to keep up.
Here she is reading the old talking points yesterday.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KAMALA HARRIS (D), VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Needless to say, the right of women to make decisions about their own bodies is not negotiable. The right of women to make decisions about their own bodies, it is their decision, it is their body.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LOGAN: As Kamala Harris was saying that, Joe Biden was announcing his vaccine mandate for millions of Americans. Fortunately, some Republicans are resisting this. J.D. Vance for example, he is calling for civil disobedience. The Republican National Committee and several State Governors are filing lawsuits.
So, where will all of this lead? We'll get reaction from Matt Finn.
None of the Biden administration's mandates are going to distract us from covering the debacle in Afghanistan. Recently, The Pentagon claimed it killed an ISIS target near Kabul's Airport. Now, we're learning what really happened.
FOX's Matt Finn has that story.
MATT FINN, FOX NEWS CORRESPONDENT: Lara, a "New York Times" investigation says the last known missile fired by the United States in the Afghan War on August 29th, which the Biden administration called a righteous strike might have actually killed 10 innocent people including seven children and a U.S.. aid worker.
The shocking report basically shows a step-by-step video of Zemari Ahmadi reportedly loading canisters of water into his trunk to bring to his family. The U.S. military was surveilling the man and thought those jugs of water could be explosives and that Ahmadi was communicating with ISIS, so the U.S. launched a hellfire missile obliterating the man's car in his driveway in a dense residential neighborhood.
Military officials said the drone strike might have killed three civilians, but "The New York Times" now tallies 10 innocent people killed. Army General Mark Milley said the strike was valid because there was reasonable conclusion that there were explosives in the white Toyota and that the U.S.
had very good intelligence that ISIS was planning some type of vehicle attack.
But "The New York Times" reports it spoke to witnesses on the ground who say Mr. Ahmadi had multiple passengers in his car that day, that denied loading or seeing any explosives and that Ahmadi was not related to ISIS.
Ahmadi had worked as an electrical engineer since 2006 for a California- based aid and lobbying group. Ahmadi's family insists he was innocent and applied for a refugee settlement here in the United States, Lara. We will keep you updated on this developing story.
LOGAN: Thank you so much for that, Matt. Incredible that the N.S.A. has to guess instead of just reading their intercepts, right? They should know if someone is talking to ISIS or not.
The Biden administration, they haven't just lied about that drone strike, they've lied about every other aspect of the war in Afghanistan, including the botched evacuation from Kabul, and we have the evidence. That's straight ahead on this Special Edition of TUCKER CARLSON TONIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LOGAN: Welcome back to a Special Edition of TUCKER CARLSON TONIGHT. It's hard to believe that it's been more than two weeks since 13 American service members and about a hundred Afghan civilians were killed by a suicide bomber outside Kabul's International Airport.
The news cycle and the Biden administration, well, they want you to move on, and in many ways they're doing everything they can to make sure you do.
They use COVID and vaccine mandates to distract from the chaos that they've created.
But we all remember the scenes they want us to forget. Afghans desperately clinging to a U.S. Air Force plane on the airport runway, Afghan mothers passing their children to American soldiers over an airport wall, and videos of the Taliban showcasing their new state-of-the-art military arsenal, bought and paid for by you, the U.S. taxpayer.
Everything we saw unfold, it wasn't only preventable, it still is and worse than that, we allowed it to happen. We're not doing anything to change the outcome here.
At any moment, Joe Biden and his officials in his administration could stop this. They can still use their power, diplomatic, economic, security, military, but instead they choose to blame our allies, many of whom are still there and still fighting.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Afghanistan political leaders gave up and fled the country. The Afghan military collapsed, some time, without trying to fight.
We trained and equipped an Afghan Military Force with some 300,000 strong incredibly well-equipped, a force larger in size than the militaries of many of our NATO allies. We gave them every tool they could need.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LOGAN: And then you took them away in one moment. U.S. air support, the contractors for the Afghan Air Force, everything, and it's just simply not true that all of these people just gave up and fled the country.
The Afghan government forces that the U.S. trained are still fighting the Taliban and other Islamic terrorists including the Afghan al-Qaeda in a region just north of Kabul called the Panjshir Valley. It is the last standing province in the entire country that these terrorists do not control and the Taliban, what they do control is the information flow.
They want you to think it's all been conquered, it's all over, while the democratically elected head of the country, Amrullah Saleh, who was Vice President at the time the President fled and became acting President, they want you to believe that he, along with all the forces, that soldiers in this country have fought beside, and all of our allies there for decades have not been abandoned by Joe Biden.
They are there continuing to fight the Islamic terrorists who are responsible for 9/11 with no help from the U.S. at all, while the enemy they face is supported by their allies -- Pakistan, China, Iran, and others. So, while our senior military leaders at home question their will, they have been abandoned.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GEN. MARK MILLEY, CHAIRMAN OF THE JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF: The Afghan Security Forces had the capacity, and by that, I mean, they had the training, the size, and the capability to defend their country. This comes down to an issue of will and leadership and no, I did not nor did anyone else see a collapse of an army that size in 11 days.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LOGAN: Will and leadership. It is interesting, curious to see if General Milley actually knows what either of those things mean, because not only did we abandon our allies, the U.S. is actively working with their enemy, which until a very short time ago was our enemy, too.
The Taliban, you know, if you consider what Secretary of State Antony Blinken said just a few days ago is now our best friend, on the eve of the 20th anniversary of 9/11. Think about that? The 20th anniversary of 9/11.
Is this how you want your leaders to speak about terrorists who killed thousands of Americans?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ANTONY BLINKEN, U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: Our engagement with the Taliban and with a government, interim or long term, will be for purposes of advancing the national interest, advancing our interests, the interests of our partners.
We have and we will find ways to engage the Taliban. The nature of a Taliban-led government's relationship with us, with the international community will depend entirely on its actions.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LOGAN: How is turning a terrorist group into a nation state in the interests of the United States? That's a question that just isn't asked, and yesterday, a spokeswoman for Joe Biden's National Security Council named Emily Horne, well, she praised the Taliban who have been murdering their way across Afghanistan for their quote, "cooperation" in allowing U.S. citizens to board a commercial flight out of Afghanistan, saying
quote: "They have shown flexibility and they've been businesslike and professional in our dealings with them in this effort."
They haven't allowed green card holders and our Afghan allies who are most vulnerable and high risk to leave, but who exactly is the White House praising as businesslike and professional? It's a question that is worth asking, so we looked into it.
Shortly after the Taliban entered Kabul in mid-August, its Deputy Commander, a man named Siraj Haqqani who also runs his own terrorist organization known as the Haqqani Network, he put his uncle Khalil ur Rahman Haqqani, in charge of security in the Afghan capital, so with the exception of the airport itself, which was being secured and operated by U.S. forces, the rest of Kabul and the country is what Joe Biden called behind enemy lines. Well, that was under control of the Haqqani Network.
So who are they? Well, according to the U.S. government, the Haqqani Network is a foreign terrorist organization. The United Nations agrees with that. This network has been on the United Nations Security Council sanction list since 2012, and in fact Siraj Haqqani and many members of his family are among the most wanted terrorists in the world.
The F.B.I. has been looking for him for some time. They want him so badly they put a $10 million bounty on his head and a $5 million bounty on his uncle's head. Well, you know, we've got news for the F.B.I. tonight if they're still looking for Siraj Haqqani and his uncle, they can look up the address of the Interior Ministry in Kabul because Siraj Haqqani has been rewarded for his murderous efforts by being made the country's new Interior Minister and he is in charge of all of the borders and the security.
So, if you -- you know, if you're looking to claim that reward perhaps you'd want to donate it to the Taliban's humanitarian crisis because that's the excuse that the U.S. is using to send yes, you guessed it, more of your tax dollars to terrorists.
These people aren't on these lists for no reason. They've killed people.
They've killed a lot of people. Many of them U.S. soldiers, hundreds by some conservative estimates, also hundreds of NATO forces. They've killed thousands of Afghan civilians and according to most estimates, more than
10,000 Afghan soldiers and policemen.
So it might surprise you to learn that these are the very same people the Biden administration turned to for help in the last desperate days of the evacuation that they handled so poorly. The Biden administration actually asked the terrorists of the Haqqani Network to secure a safe passage to the airport for U.S. citizens and green card holders.
One source told us, there is no way that the commercial flights with American citizens that just left Kabul Airport could have done so without the coordination and approval from the Haqqani Network, which is also illegal under U.S. law, negotiating with and speaking to and supporting terrorists, but is it any wonder that 13 Americans and so many Afghan civilians were killed at that airport when that's your security partner?
It doesn't seem to bode well for the future of counterterrorism operations in Afghanistan because as you all remember, the very same people are the ones the Biden administration says are going to help the U.S. as a counterterrorism partner.
General McKenzie has so much confidence in these people who have been killing Americans for the last two decades that he said, we're sharing information with them now, too.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GEN. KENNETH MCKENZIE, JR., COMMANDER, CENTCOM: The other thing we do is, we share versions of this information with the Taliban so that they can actually do some searching out there for us and we believe that some attacks have been thwarted by them.
And then we also use the Taliban as a tool to protect us as much as possible.
We share a common purpose. As long as we kept that common purpose aligned, they've been useful to work with. They've cut some of our security concerns down.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LOGAN: A common purpose with terrorists. It's just hard to believe that we even got to this point.
And now tonight, we can confirm that there is one type of Intelligence the U.S. has left behind in the hands of the Taliban. This is the biometric database and the scanners that come with that capability that are called Interagency Identity Detection Equipment.
There are multiple reports of these devices being used not by the U.S. in Kabul when people were boarding those planes, but by the Taliban and the Islamic terrorists that they work with at the checkpoints that we were sending our American citizens and vulnerable Afghan allies through to get to the airport to try to leave the country.
Sensitive biometric data like iris scans and fingerprints of every single person who worked with American and NATO forces. These are people the Taliban consider collaborators and those devices enable the Taliban and al- Qaeda to hunt them down anywhere. They can find anyone who worked with and for the U.S. or the Afghan government or anyone who believes in the idea of freedom, they can find them anywhere they are.
These individuals are the ones who are relying on us, who turn to us to help after we turned and relied on them. We don't have to imagine what their fates will be.
Keith Rose is a former member of the Intelligence Community and he joins us now with a lot more information on these devices and what it means for them to be in the hands of terrorists.
Keith, what do you make of all of this?
KEITH ROSE, FORMER MEMBER OF THE INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY: Lara, it's really unfortunate because Taj Mir Jawad who is running a large suicide network is reportedly working with Siraj Haqqani using the information off these devices to track down our Intelligence assets and informants.
They have, by report, the names of all the folks that helped us from 2002 to 2021 and they're using that information from these biometric devices to hunt them down, find their houses, and locate them.
LOGAN: So, Keith, you're somebody who actually knows Siraj Haqqani. There aren't many Americans who can say that. He once called you, if I recall correctly, you said to me that he referred to you as a very bad man. Tell us about him and the Haqqani Network.
ROSE: Siraj Haqqani is the terrorist version of Tony Soprano. With Siraj, it's always about the money. In fact Siraj just today or actually earlier today, like you mentioned was in the northeast corner of Kaya Airport on the second floor of the Ministry Interior building having a meeting and he told all the press, the friendly press that they couldn't take his picture because he's done so many bad deeds, he is still concerned that the Americans will come after him.
But as you mentioned, he is going to be there tomorrow, so maybe you and I could split the reward because I know the Department of State has a $10 million reward for information on where he is, and my understanding is he is going to be on the second floor.
LOGAN: Well, and there's certainly a lot of Afghans who could use that money, right, because although American citizens are, you know, slowly being able to leave the country and we're praising Haqqani, where does that leave green card holders and Afghans who have worked with the U.S. or Afghan Special Operations Forces who are fighting right up to the last moment?
ROSE: Well, that information on those scanners give their addresses, it gives all their information because that's how they were paid. So, these folks are hiding, and the fact that the State Department and the military are working with the Haqqanis to quote, "screen or vet" the manifest is ludicrous.
I mean anyone that Siraj Haqqani would pass through, we know doesn't need to leave the country because they're safe and anyone he wouldn't pass through, he is going to be hunting and we've given him the information.
LOGAN: How -- you know, you've spent a lot of time in Afghanistan. How insane is it to you and many other members of the Special Operations Community and the Armed Forces that the U.S. is actually saying things with a straight face like we're going to work with Haqqani and the Taliban to hunt out terrorists in Afghanistan?
ROSE: It's like they're living in an alternate universe. As you and I both know, there is a lot of good people trying to help folks get out of Afghanistan while our military leaders and our Intelligence Community leaders and our political leaders are saying we're going to work with these terrorists that we have been working against our entire time in Afghanistan to help the people that helped us find them leave. It doesn't make any sense.
LOGAN: Keith, thank you so much for that. I know that you are as concerned as many others about the Afghans still fighting in the Panjshir Valley, and thank you so much for being with us tonight.
Rick Santorum just spoke to Tucker about the biggest challenges he has faced in his life, and how he got through it. It's a story you haven't heard anywhere else. That must watch interview is straight ahead on this Special Edition of TUCKER CARLSON TONIGHT.
And right now on tuckercarlson.com, you can still order a signed copy of "The Long Slide."
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LOGAN: Rick Santorum served as a senator from the State of Pennsylvania for more than a decade. He then became a political commentator. Tucker, recently spoke to Rick Santorum for a brand new episode of "Tucker Carlson Today," but the conversation wasn't just about politics.
Rick Santorum shared a deeply personal story about the most challenging moment in his life. Here's part of the conversation.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RICK SANTORUM, FORMER U.S. SENATOR: Couples find out that their child is disabled and they don't want their child anymore, and it was stunning to me that she would make that admission that we would call the ranks of the disabled.
And so, that was a central part of my debate and so I got up and I said, I have many stories, but one was, I said my wife at the time, Karen was 19 weeks pregnant. I said, you know, I have a sonogram scheduled. We have a sonogram scheduled next week at 20 weeks and you know, I don't know whether my child is going to be healthy or not.
But if my child is somehow not healthy, I am not going to kill it. Why would I kill my child just because my child has a medical problem? I mean, you love the gift that God gives you for however long God gives it to you and that happens with all of our children. We don't know how long we're going to have our children, how long we're going to be alive.
TUCKER CARLSON, FOX NEWS HOST, TUCKER CARLSON TONIGHT: Right, that's --
SANTORUM: And so, I say that and a week later, we have the sonogram and we are sitting there in this sonographer going over this one spot in the sonogram and drops the wand and says, "I have to get the doctor." The doctor comes in and does it, he looks at me. This is cold as I can ever remember, he looks at me and says, "Your son has a fatal defect and is going to die."
And so, this was during my time where I'm sort of growing in my faith and having this experience that I talked to you about finding the Lord, taking on this this great -- what I thought was an important moral cause for the country and then boom.
You know, I remember having this conversation with God and said, you know, here I am trying to follow your path and you take my son? And so it was devastating.
We did everything we could to try to save his life. We had -- we went up to Children's Hospital in Philadelphia and had intrauterine surgery to try to fix the problem and end up -- Karen got an infection and delivered our little boy. He lived for two hours.
And I thought, you know, what are you doing? Why are you doing this? And you know, it's just -- you know God why? Why? Why? You know all the greatest question everybody who goes through tragedy is why? Why did this happen to me? And what happened, my wife -- it wasn't me, it was my wife who made it all come together.
Every time we got pregnant, Karen would keep a diary to describe the pregnancy so she could share it with the kids and say oh, this is what it was like and share these notes. That was, you know, she was a neonatal intensive care nurse so she always -- pregnancies were just a really joyful time and she would keep notes.
And she was keeping notes about our son, so she kept writing these letters to him, hoping someday, he'd read them, so she wrote these letters and at the end, when he died, she kept writing because it was her way to just get this stuff out.
So she wrote this and her mother read it who had lost a child 50 years ago, and -- from the SIDS death -- and it just broke her up and she said, "You have to publish this. You have to publish these letters."
And so anyway, eventually, a little Catholic publisher published it, sold out 25,000 copies and it's still around, but it's called "Letters to Gabriel."
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LOGAN: What an unbelievable story, and you can watch Tucker's full interview with Rick Santorum on "Tucker Carlson Today" by going to foxnation.com. What an amazing show that Tucker has there.
Vaccines aren't mandatory at the southern border, illegal immigrants are still streaming into this country and we're now learning that the situation at the border has just deteriorated substantially. That's straight ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LOGAN: Welcome back to a Special Edition of TUCKER CARLSON TONIGHT.
Apprehensions along the U.S.-Mexico border are now at a 21-year high.
Jaeson Jones is a retired captain with the Texas Department of Public Safety who spent the last few years doing nothing but working on this problem and he joins us to assess the deterioration of the situation at the southern border.
So Jaeson, we all know that the southern border is bad right now, but how bad is it really? Because for the most part, we're not even paying attention anymore.
JAESON JONES, RETIRED CAPTAIN, TEXAS DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC SAFETY: Yes, it's good to be with you, thanks for having me.
You're absolutely right, Lara. Look, here is what we're really seeing when you look at this border surge and what's breaking down. The thing that we really have to think about is, we can't look at the border the way we used to. It's not a U.S.-Mexico issue.
The world is coming and the data from the United States Customs and Border Protection proves that. I mean, they have apprehended people from over 148 countries in the first 10 months of this fiscal year.
Now, in addition, we're also seeing more fentanyl from the cartels specifically Sinaloa and Cartel Jalisco New Generation that we have ever seen, which is perpetuating this overdose crisis at unbelievable levels.
And then the third and final thing that we're really seeing that's very concerning is this adjustment from the cartels from human smuggling into human trafficking, and to just make everyone aware of just how this is really playing out across that southern border, especially within the Gulf Cartel area at South Texas, what you're seeing is wristbands.
Now these bands we've collected along the southwest border and this is what they're putting on men, women, and children and when you see these where they're tight like this, they haven't been broken off, this is because they are placed on a child. And it goes to show how the cartels and the alien smuggling groups treat people as a commodity.
And what the bands really represent is a process, just like law enforcement is having a difficult time keeping up with the amount of people crossing at the southwest border, so are the cartels.
So, they're literally tagging people like a commodity. Some of the latest things that we're seeing -- we've seen this since February, some of the latest tactics that we're seeing because they're always changing is even single males and single females who are always runners because look, if they're apprehended, they go back to Mexico, so they're running.
Now, what agents are seeing in just the last few weeks is they're wearing two wristbands and that's breaking news right here on the show. First is that the peso has been paid, which is what one represents; the second is the city in the State of Texas or around the country where they're going.
So we've never been here before.
LOGAN: So basically, business is booming for the cartels and people are paying the ultimate price for that, and I wonder, Jaeson, you said the world is coming to the southern border. So how does what is happening in Afghanistan factor into that? Because you've just now taken a terrorist group and given them an entire country.
JONES: Yes, absolutely. So there's already been historically smuggling rounds that go from Afghanistan over to Brazil and then up -- and I'll let me explain a little bit.
They use what we refer to as long-haul smugglers, where Afghans will pay usually historically about $15,000.00 to $20,000.00 per person. They'll receive fake passports, they'll fly usually into the Gulf states of Qatar or Saudi Arabia, then they'll take an additional flight over to South America to Brazil.
And then from there, the smuggling groups just basically daisy chain just like they do everyone else, all the way up through the Darien Gap into Mexico, and then from there, that's where the cartels start charging these incredible fees to get them in, and we've seen that for some time.
Now where I'm concerned right now with what has been happening is that we're seeing mass groups of people surging into all the -istan countries surrounding Afghanistan. You're going to see very soon, we've got about a six to eight-week window before we're starting to see people hit the southern part of South America.
And the reason that's important, Lara, is because the Homeland Security enterprise and programs that we have downrange have already been derailed because of the amount of people crossing through the Darien and other areas and I won't go into much detail there except to say, now we're adding this crisis in Afghanistan to an already crisis going on at the southern border and the world knows that if you come to the southern border, you're going to make it into the country.
LOGAN: Which means every terrorist that wants to try to enter the United States through the southern border knows that they can do so.
Thank you so much, Jaeson Jones, so much for that last line of defense, right?
JONES: Thanks, Lara.
LOGAN: On the 20th anniversary of 9/11, the Biden administration has just handed al-Qaeda a major victory, everything they wanted, actually. That's straight ahead on this Special Edition of TUCKER CARLSON TONIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LOGAN: Welcome back to a Special Edition of TUCKER CARLSON TONIGHT.
Tomorrow is the 20th anniversary of the September 11th terrorist attacks on this country.
The United States invaded Afghanistan to hold the Taliban accountable for their role in aiding and protecting al-Qaeda in those attacks. Now, the Taliban is back in power and with billions of dollars in U.S. military equipment.
Tom Joscelyn is a senior fellow and senior editor of "FDD's Long War Journal" who is one of the few people who's been on this subject from the very start. He joins us now to assess the last two decades in Afghanistan.
Tom, one of the things I've been wanting to ask you to explain for a very long time is this complete and utter farce that the administration is perpetuating that the Taliban and al-Qaeda and ISIS-K and all of these groups are entirely distinct entities and there is no relationship between them. Nobody knows more about this than you. Please, break it down for us.
TOM JOSCELYN, SENIOR FELLOW AND SENIOR EDITOR OF "FDD'S LONG WAR JOURNAL":
Well you know, Lara, you know in an earlier segment you were focusing on Sirajuddin Haqqani, and rightfully so. So Sirajuddin Haqqani has been the Deputy Emir of the Taliban since 2015. He is going to be the Interior Minister in the new regime.
And I want to put this in context for your viewers tonight a little bit, so Sirajuddin Haqqani's father, Jalaluddin, was Osama bin Laden's first benefactor. He was the first guy who actually protected and sponsored Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan and in fact al-Qaeda was incubated in Jalaluddin Haqqani's camps in Eastern Afghanistan.
So his son, Sirajuddin Haqqani has carried on the jihad for him, and for the last 20 years, really, Siraj has worked closely with al-Qaeda, so closely that when we went through the files we recovered in Osama bin Laden's compound, those files show that al-Qaeda was working with him on the battlefields in Afghanistan, working with him politically, working with him and his family members for a ransom exchange for an Afghan ambassador that al-Qaeda had taken hostage.
Really working with him all the time, and this is something that Siraj has even admitted, and in fact, al-Qaeda has worked so closely with him that when Hamza bin Laden, Osama's son had to be protected from the U.S., it was actually Sirajuddin Haqqani's right hand man, a guy named Qari Zakir who was responsible for protecting Hamza bin Laden.
So when we look at the Haqqani's and their senior leadership roles in the Taliban, the question we have to ask ourselves here is, is this really the Taliban or the Haqqani's or are they just part of al-Qaeda?
I think there's plenty of evidence showing that they're so intertwined with al-Qaeda that doesn't really make any sense to play disconnect the dots between the two.
LOGAN: Well, Tom, the only time it makes sense right is when you're trying to get Americans not to pay attention to the fact that on the 20th anniversary of 9/11, right at that very moment, the United States is trying to sneak in recognition of the Taliban's Islamic Emirate and as far as I know, the Islamic Emirate, according to Osama bin Laden is the Caliphate that he wanted to establish, isn't it?
JOSCELYN: It is the cornerstone of the caliphate that al-Qaeda wants to establish. Ayman al-Zawahri, Osama bin Laden's successor has called the nucleus of the Caliphate that they imagined that they want to resurrect.
You know, Lara, you brought up something that's very important here.
Washington's policy here is really morally intellectually, just disgraceful. The idea they're going to try -- that some people -- we don't know if this is the policy yet, but some people want to recognize the Taliban's Islamic Emirate as legitimate, is unbelievably disgraceful.
You know just days after they took power in mid-August, okay, and took over most of Afghanistan in mid-August, just days afterwards, they took control of Afghan National Television and they ran a documentary called "Victorious Force 3." In that documentary, they glorified 9/11 on Afghan National TV, so all Afghans who could turn into TV that night saw a documentary not from the perspective of Americans remembering this solemn day and sort of in in a remorseful type of manner, no, it was a glorification of 9/11 and actually blaming America for the attack.
They wouldn't blame al-Qaeda or Osama bin Laden, they said, no, America deserved it and so the idea that the Taliban is our counterterrorism partner, that the Taliban is something that's separate from al-Qaeda or that we can trust to basically keep the terrorists at bay is really ludicrous.
LOGAN: And it's also dishonest, right?
JOSCELYN: Totally dishonest.
LOGAN: Yes, it doesn't have even a shred of truth to it.
JOSCELYN: No.
LOGAN: So, I mean a lot of people feel like they're in sort of some kind of, you know fantasy universe here because it's so ridiculous that we're buying into this and nobody understands it.
And I just want to say thank you to you, Tom, because nobody has done more on this through all the years with all the lying about al-Qaeda, you have never wavered it from telling the truth. It's greatly appreciated.
That's about it for us tonight. Tune in every weeknight at 8:00 p.m.
Eastern, to the show that is the sworn enemy of lying, pomposity, smugness, and groupthink. You can watch my show on FOX Nation right now, it's called "Lara Logan has No Agenda," and while you're on FOX Nation, don't forget to watch the best show on there, Tucker's interview with Rick Santorum on a brand new episode of "Tucker Carlson Today."
Tucker will be back hosting the show on Monday. Have a great evening.
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