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Joe Lieberman criticizes Biden's approach to Afghanistan withdrawal

Former Democratic vice presidential nominee tells 'Your World' that pulling US troops from Afghanistan 'was just not worth it.'

This is a rush transcript of "Your World with Neil Cavuto" on August 19, 2021. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

NEIL CAVUTO, FOX NEWS ANCHOR:  Thank you, Martha, very, very much. 

We are focusing on just who is getting through those checkpoints in Kabul right now, as we get reports of protesters outside the airport and Taliban forces firing on them.

So much we don't know. This much we're just getting to know, a story in The Wall Street Journal that Vladimir Putin had rejected a role for U.S. forces near Afghanistan at that recent summit with President Biden. The argument at the time and the pitch for the president at the time was to see if he could establish a base of operations outside landlocked Afghanistan. It never happened. 

And now we're beginning to understand why it was such an important issue. 

Could that have been a sign of the angst the administration had ahead of this pullout from Afghanistan and the collapse that has followed?

Welcome, everybody. I'm Neil Cavuto. And this is "Your World."

We're still keeping on top of the exodus that is now picking up some steam in Kabul. That is the good news. The bad news is, we're not quite sure who is picking and choosing who gets through that perimeter, if anyone, for the time being. 

Let's go to Jennifer Griffin with the very latest on what's happening -- Jennifer.

JENNIFER GRIFFIN, FOX NEWS NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT:  Neil, the U.S. 

provided weapons to the mujahideen in the '80s, who became Al Qaeda and eventually attacked the U.S. 

Now U.S. taxpayer money has an essence armed the new Taliban, billions of dollars of U.S. military hardware now in the hands of the Taliban after the Afghan National Army fell apart. But it's not just the Taliban the U.S. 

military has to worry about as the clock to evacuate winds down, all eyes still on an August 31 withdrawal deadline. 

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN KIRBY, PENTAGON PRESS SECRETARY:   ISIS and Al Qaeda is absolutely a 

planning factor. You wouldn't expect it to be otherwise. 

And I'm not going to talk about specific force protection measures against terrorist threats. I think -- but, clearly, we're mindful that that threat could persist. 

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRIFFIN:  Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin made the following frank admission about the limits of rescuing Americans stuck behind Taliban lines in downtown Kabul. 

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LLOYD AUSTIN, U.S. SECRETARY OF DEFENSE:  We don't have the capability to go out and collect up large numbers of people. 

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRIFFIN:  At the Pentagon today, we pressed the point further. 

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GRIFFIN:  British paratroopers are leaving the airport going into Kabul to rescue and evacuate some of their citizens who are trapped, can't get to the airport because of the Taliban. Why isn't the U.S. doing that? 

MAJ. GEN. HANK TAYLOR, VICE DIRECTOR FOR LOGISTICS, THE JOINT STAFF:  At this time, as I said, our main mission continues to be to secure HKIA, to allow those American citizens and other SIVs to come in and be processed at the airfield. 

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRIFFIN:  The Pentagon says the U.S. military evacuated 2,000 people in the past 24 hours, far less than the capacity it has to fly out between 5,000 and 8,000 people each day.

Each C-17 took off today with about 180 people per flight, far fewer than the heroic Air Force loadmaster and pilot who packed 640 onto one C-17. A key bottleneck, we're told, is the State Department only has had on the ground a handful of consular officers. That is changing. 

The military always knew after it pulled out that they would get the 9/11 call from the State Department to help evacuate Americans and Special Immigrant Visa holders, who the Pentagon warned for weeks needed faster processing by the State Department. 

They just weren't sure that the call would come this soon -- Neil. 

CAVUTO:  Jennifer, thank you very, very much.

Rich Edson at the State Department. 

So, Rich, the big question is, who is being processed through here and who's calling the shots on who gets through that perimeter? I guess it's still too early to tell. 

RICH EDSON, FOX NEWS CORRESPONDENT:  Well, the Taliban is calling the shots on who actually gets to the airport.

As for the number of Americans who are there or not, the administration says that many of the people who are being processed right now are Americans, but they don't really give specific numbers. The administration says it has evacuated 7,000 people since Saturday. 

We know from officials that about 1, 800 of those were American citizens or residents. And officials have also said they have processed about an additional 6,000 who were expected to leave soon scheduled on about 20 flights that are going to go out tonight. 

We have yet to hear directly from the secretary of state, Antony Blinken, on this. The State Department says they expect that will change.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NED PRICE, STATE DEPARTMENT SPOKESMAN:  He's been meeting regularly with the president. He's been regularly meeting with the broader national security team. He's been deeply engaged on this. And I expect you will have an opportunity to hear from him again soon. 

(END VIDEO CLIP)

EDSON:  Though the department is giving no timeline on when that will be.

The State Department says it cannot ensure safe passage to the airport in Kabul. There are Taliban checkpoints, gunfire, massive crowds, forcing the government to temporarily shut one of the airport gates today. 

To address this, officials say former U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan John Bass will try to negotiate with the Taliban to allow Americans safe passage out of the country. 

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. TOM COTTON (R-AR): My office has been in touch with dozens of people on the ground outside the airport, where the Taliban are beating people indiscriminately, taking their passports, taking their visa papers. 

All of this is happening just a few yards away from the gates. 

(END VIDEO CLIP) 

EDSON:  Now, the State Department says, by tomorrow, it will have doubled the amount of staff who are working on processing all these people who are evacuating.

The department refuses to give a number, though we know, as of this morning, that was about 20 consular officers who were dealing with these thousands of people leaving the country -- Neil. 

CAVUTO:  All right, thank you very much for that, Rich Edson, at the State Department. 

We should separately note here that Nancy Pelosi wants to go ahead and kick off a hearing into all of this and who made what decision and how and when and why. 

A person who is going to play a very instrumental role in that joins us right now. Republican Michael McCaul of the beautiful state of Texas serves on the Foreign Affairs Committee that would be kicking off this hearing.

I understand, Congressman, as soon as next week?

REP. MICHAEL MCCAUL (R-TX):  We will have a classified briefing going into next week and a public hearing probably when we return in September. 

We obviously have a lot of questions to ask from this administration. It's been, in my view, Neil, a real dereliction of duty by the commander in chief. He has a stain on this presidency with this ill-conceived evacuation, which is utter chaos at the airport. 

My numbers are that they're 10,000 to 15,000 Americans, and only 20 percent of those have actually escaped out of the Kabul airport. Meanwhile, the Taliban has circled the perimeter and are beating people with chains as they try to get into the perimeter to get on one of these flights. 

You already Kirby, the spokesman for the Pentagon, had no idea who were even on these flights. And I'm getting also reports that some of these flights are only half-full. They're half-empty. 

How does this happen? There was no planning.

CAVUTO:  Who decides -- who decides, then? 

Congressman, do you know who's getting through that perimeter that the Taliban has set up around the airport? Who gets through? Who decides that? 

It seems to me that it's the Taliban deciding that and that we're leery of going to that perimeter to force the issue, at least for now.

MCCAUL:  Well, they're flexing their muscle. It's embarrassing and pathetic that the United States of America has an unconditional surrender to a terrorist organization, and then begging them to please back off of our evacuation. 

That is the situation the ground that we're in right now. I have had thousands of veterans contact the Foreign Affairs Committee trying to get their interpreters out, trying to get their loved ones out, trying to get American citizens out. And we can't process all this. 

And they got caught flat-footed. We warned them last summer to start preparing. If you're going to do this, do it right. Have the SIV applicants, have the American citizens, have the planes ready to go. And you had that story about Putin now flexing his muscle against Biden.

We're projecting weakness when Putin tells the commander in chief, the United States president that he cannot put a base of operations for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance. 

CAVUTO:  Yes, and that was before all of this hit the proverbial fan, to your point, Congressman.

And what Putin said was that was not an option. And for the U.S. to establish any base in Afghanistan wasn't an option. But how did he finally have veto power on the issue? Why couldn't we force the issue with other countries in the area? Or did we try? 

MCCAUL:  Well, because we're projecting weakness, not strength.

And the international community sees this, Neil. They view us as a weak country now. It's impacting our status around the world, a failed leadership. Why would we allow Putin to dictate to our commander in chief what he can and cannot do? 

So what we're talking about here is intelligence, right? We have no intelligence anymore. Bagram shut down, our ISR capability dark, the embassy dark. We use that to not only see Afghanistan threats from within like ISIS and Al Qaeda, but also China, Russia and Iran. 

Neil, we cannot see the threats coming out of the region now. And when I talked to the commanders and the veterans, this is really putting us in a very compromising situation. 

CAVUTO:  Do you think -- when the president said there was no intelligence and even his top military brass were saying, including the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff that there was no way to have for seen or anyone have a discussion of the country falling within days, let alone weeks or months?

MCCAUL:  Neil, and I hate to be so strong, but it's a lie. If I'm getting these briefings, I'd sure as heck hope the president of the United States is.

And the fact is, the I.C. assessment, Neil, all summer long has been very, very grim, that the Taliban was going to overrun the country, the Afghan army would fall without our air cover. And, somehow, the president blames the intelligence community. 

This is absolutely a lie. The I.C. was correct in their assessment, and it was very grim. And they had a six-month and 90-day assessment. And the fact is, they chose to ignore the intelligence community. And he ignored his top generals, by the way, in my judgment.

And Milley is a -- I have known him for a long time. I'm a little disappointed that he would say something like that, that they had no warning in advance about this. 

I certainly did just in my position in Congress. And I think you will find

that--

CAVUTO:  When you say you had warning, that the country could fall in a matter of days, that you got that kind of intelligence or access to that?

MCCAUL:  Well, I think it did happen faster -- even faster than the I.C., but they always said, during the fighting season. Then they said 90 days.

But the point is, it was a very grim assessment. The State Department kept going back to this rosy picture of, oh, we're negotiating with the Taliban in Doha. Everything's going to be fine. We're -- you can't negotiate with the Taliban. 

I talked to Mike Pompeo this morning, former secretary of state. And the idea that somehow this is Trump's fault and that President Trump -- that his February agreement had something to do this, what Pompeo told me was, they were in constant contact. And when they violated the agreement, like not cutting ties with Al Qaeda or hitting provincial capitals, there was an immediate, swift response with air support.

CAVUTO:  Yes. 

MCCAUL:  They were bombed.

And the problem is, we have a weak president now who has unleashed the Taliban on this country. And what I fear for the most are the women left behind and the state that they're going to be put in when they're enslaved and treated like property.

CAVUTO:  Yes, it does make you wonder.

Whatever you think of Donald Trump, but for the administration to argue that it inherited this policy, and then they kind of stick with that, when it, in fact, overturned by executive order or other fiats almost everything else Donald Trump did, it does -- it just does bend credulity here. 

But, Congressman, thank you very, very much for joining us on this. 

MCCAUL:  Thanks, Neil. 

CAVUTO:  By the way, it's not just Republicans who are bashing the president here. 

We have been talking about foreign leaders who are concerned about where all of this is going. And a top Democrat who also was saying this was a mistake, not in June of this year. Try June of last year. 

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CAVUTO:  Outside of the president's interview with George Stephanopoulos on ABC, it's largely been operation ignore from the commander in chief on this implosion going on in Afghanistan.

Jacqui Heinrich on the strategy behind that. Jacqui is at the White House.

Hey, Jacqui. 

JACQUI HEINRICH, FOX NEWS CORRESPONDENT:  Hey there, Neil. 

The president was asked in July if a Taliban takeover was inevitable. And he said no, calling it highly unlikely. But now he's admitting the intelligence community did not fully agree. 

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES:  I think there was no consensus. 

If you go back and look at the intelligence reports, they said that it's more likely to be sometime by the end of the year. 

(END VIDEO CLIP) 

HEINRICH:  And top military brass defended the president yesterday amid reports that he ignored warnings against a hasty withdrawal.

Defense officials saying that no such intelligence predicted this swift of a collapse. And the president doubled down, defiant. 

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS, ABC NEWS:  But your top military advisers warned against withdrawing on this timeline. They wanted you to keep about 2, 500 troops. 

BIDEN:  No, they didn't. It was split. That wasn't true. That wasn't true. 

STEPHANOPOULOS: They didn't tell you that they wanted troops to stay? 

BIDEN:  No, not at -- not in terms of whether we were going to get out in a time frame all troops. They didn't argue against that. 

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HEINRICH:  Despite admitting some in the intelligence community believed, contrary to his claim, a Taliban takeover would happen, the president also maintained that nobody knew it would play out like this. 

But, at the same time, he tried to argue that they expected this chaos. 

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BIDEN:  The idea that somehow there's a way to have gotten out without chaos ensuing, I don't know how that happens. 

I don't know how that happened. 

STEPHANOPOULOS: So, for you, that was always priced into the decision?

BIDEN:  Yes. 

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HEINRICH: Meantime, some 7,000 people have been evacuated through an ongoing agreement with the Taliban, who, by the way, the president also said in July he does not trust.

Now, despite calls from Congress, there are no plans for the military to go outside of the airport into Kabul and other regions to help evacuate some of those stranded Americans and our allies, as, by the way, the British are doing, although in a much narrower capacity. 

A credible source, though, tells me the State Department is now looking into non-military ways to stage and move Americans and others who are stranded around Kabul. I asked the State Department about this, and the information that this is an alternative to sending military forces into Kabul for the rescues. They did not dispute that information, Neil. 

CAVUTO:  Jacqui, Jacqui Heinrich at the White House, thank you very, very much.

To my next guest, who was warning back in June of last year, under another president, be careful what you wish for, you could get a lot more than you planned for. 

I'm talking about Joe Lieberman, who co-wrote an intriguing opinion piece in The Washington Post, along with Jack Keane, warning about an abrupt departure from Afghanistan, saying at the time: "The U.S. military is in Afghanistan today fighting deadly enemies who continue to plan and prepare to kill Americans at home. The troops withdrawn prematurely, Americans, not just Afghans, will suffer the consequences."

The senator and former vice presidential candidate joins me right now, Joseph Lieberman. 

That was a different president, a different plan. This is the present president with a different plan from that one. But, in both cases, you were concerned about how we leave. 

Does that still -- does that still bug you today, with what you're seeing playing out? 

FMR. SEN. JOE LIEBERMAN (I-CT):  Oh, absolutely, Neil. 

I mean, look, we are living through the nightmare that General Jack Keane and I worried about, that we always -- we had it at a balance. That's why I think this thought that President Trump had and the policy that President Biden has now implemented to move us out of Afghanistan altogether together militarily was just not worth it. 

We had it in a balance, 2, 500, 3,000 troops mostly involved not in counterinsurgency, not in nation-building, but in focusing on keeping the Taliban, who are terrorists, out of power and keeping Al Qaeda and ISIS out of Afghanistan and the region, to the extent that we could.

And as General Keane I said in that op-ed last year, if we pulled out, we would surrender to an enemy, the Taliban, we have largely defeated. And that's, of course, exactly what's happened. 

I'm not surprised that President Biden asked to discuss with President Putin establishing another base outside of Afghanistan to do a lot of the things our troops were doing in Afghanistan, because it's absolutely necessary to regional security and the protection of Americans from terrorists.

But what I am surprised that is that President Biden would somehow give President Putin a veto over that decision. If we had a friendly country in that region that wanted to take a base of operations for us and locate it within the country, we should have done it, which is just what Putin would have done if the roles were reversed. 

CAVUTO:  Or he would have just sort of seen how far President Biden would go with that and just do it on his own anyway, that is, President Biden. 

But I do want to go back to the message you were sending President Trump at the time, because he has since said that his strategy was very different than Joe Biden's, and that, even though he was calling for a May departure vs. one that is now the end of August, as things stand now for President Biden, that the Taliban would have never been doing some of the adventuresome it's doing, and they would have never even tried, because he would have obviously sent a very different signal than this that president had to them. 

What did you think of that? That's kind of what--

(CROSSTALK)

CAVUTO:  -- President Trump has been arguing lately.

LIEBERMAN:  Yes, I don't think that, in my opinion, there's a strong basis for that conclusion by President Trump.

If you begin to -- I mean, that, possibly, would have better prepared for an evacuation. Let's hope he would have.

(CROSSTALK)

CAVUTO:  But are you saying the Taliban would have been aggressive, no matter who was president, whether it was Donald Trump or Joe Biden?

LIEBERMAN:  Oh sure. Oh, no, no.

CAVUTO:  Are you saying that the Taliban took advantage of it regardless? 

LIEBERMAN:  Yes.

No, I think the main point is that we -- as I said, before, we had it at a balance, 3,000 troops. We hadn't lost an American soldier in Afghanistan in more than a year. They weren't in the fight. They were they were giving moral support to the Afghan army. And mostly they were performing counterterrorism to protect the security of the American people. 

And once you pull out of that, you're inviting the whirlwind, which President Trump would have done if he implemented his policy, and President Biden has now invited the whirlwind to occur now and to endanger--

CAVUTO:  But did you expect, when you and General Keane wrote that, sir, that it would fall so fast? 

It was pretty clear from the thinking of the Trump people at that time and certainly the Biden people right up until this time that they envisioned the government would be under great stress, but it certainly wouldn't fall in a matter of days. What do you think? 

LIEBERMAN:  Well, I think General Keane and I -- he's really got such experience. I respect him so. he's a dear friend. Really, he should answer for himself. 

But I would say that, certainly, I felt that a collapse -- I didn't know whether it would be days or weeks of the Afghan army and the government if we pulled out what would happen. And if you relied on something else, you were relying on something that was a wish, not based on a fact, because it was clear that we were providing moral support by just being there to the government, certainly, of Afghanistan, and to the military. 

Incidentally, all my years in the Senate, going to Afghanistan, talking to the American military, they felt that the Afghan soldiers were really courageous fighters. And they liked fighting alongside them.

And now I think when we left, and we pulled back airpower, which they really relied on in holding the Taliban back, they thought it was over. And so, naturally, they gave in. And I think the government in Kabul felt that it's -- as President Ghani apparently said, he would or ended up being hung. And he wasn't going to hang around for that to happen. 

So, over a period of time, over the last months, I think it was very clear, and, frankly, going back to the Trump administration, what a bad deal that was being negotiated with the Taliban in Qatar.

But, certainly, the last several months, the Biden administration was sending signals to the Afghan government and military, we're getting out of here, if at all possible. And that made them very nervous, and I think hastened the collapse that has occurred.

CAVUTO:  Got it.

Joe Lieberman, as you pointed out near the end of your piece, talking about those who made their sacrifices in Afghanistan and what could happen if we did this too quickly, they will not be grateful to have their sacrifices squandered. 

(CROSSTALK)

LIEBERMAN:  I agree. It's heartbreaking, because we had such a great generation of American soldiers over there committed to the fight, believing as -- and they were right -- that they were protecting the security of the American people from terrorism, such as occurred on 9/11, by the fight that they were waging, or even by their very presence toward the end, after we knocked out the Taliban, just by being there.

And this has sacrificed all they gained for us. It's heartbreaking. 

Frankly, it's infuriating. It didn't have to happen. It was totally unnecessary. 

CAVUTO:  Joe Lieberman, thank you very, very much. 

And there's a point that the senator and former vice presidential candidate likes to emphasize then, as he did today, that nothing can be taken away from those men and women and the better than 2, 400 who sacrificed their lives than to know that there was no follow-up attack on the continental United States since that time we first arrived. We avoided that, even though we are far from avoiding other crises. 

Stay with us. 

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) 

CAVUTO:  All right, we are getting about 2,000 people a day out of Kabul.

But look at the crowds outside. Do you think they're all going to get out as well? Wait until you hear who controls who picks them -- after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CAVUTO:  All right, it is a mess, and it's turning violent.

Protests and then those simply just waiting outside that perimeter that the Taliban have set up outside the Kabul Airport trying to get in, tens of thousands, we're told, but only so many can get through, as we evacuate now about 2,000 a day. 

But we're learning that as many as 65,000 American and Afghan friends want out. Is there any chance at all they will be able to get out, at least that number, especially when we're finding out it's not the U.S. calling the shots on who gets through that perimeter, but the Taliban?

Danny Coulson is here, the former FBI deputy assistant director. 

You have seen these types of things about getting people out of harm's way. 

But this is tens of thousands of people who want that, Danny. But the latest intelligence we're getting is that we're not going to that perimeter the Taliban has set up. The Taliban is controlling that perimeter, and it's deciding who gets through. 

What do you think of it? 

DANNY COULSON, FORMER FBI AGENT:  Well, that's true. That's true, Neil.

Also, think about this. We have created the world's largest hostage situation. And how do we get them out? We have a nonpermissive environment. 

We even don't know who they are. We don't know where they are. 

And I can tell you, I was in the hostage rescue business. And the hardest thing about rescuing people is knowing where they are and who they are. And we don't have a clue. We're in a nonpermissive situation, where we have chaos created by our own lack of planning.

And now we're using that same chaos as an excuse for failure. And I don't know -- I don't how we get out of this. I'm not so sure it's tactically possible. I would look to buying them out, paying whatever it takes to get them out of there. But this is an impossible situation for our counterterrorism teams to deal with. 

CAVUTO:  And you don't know who you're getting out of there, right? Bad guys could slip through.

COULSON:  No.

CAVUTO:  And that's a big concern of yours.

COULSON:  We don't know who they're -- exactly. 

Well, the easiest thing about rescuing hostages is what you do at the objective. The hardest thing is, where are they? How do you get there? Can we operate there? And, more importantly, once we get in, how do we get them out? 

And the answer is, we don't know. And this is a terrible situation, lack of planning, artificial deadlines on when we're going to do it, which is probably the biggest mistake. And now we have all these people that need rescuing. And I'm not sure how we're going to do it. 

We have a great military. We have great military planners. We have a lot of really capable teams that can do rescues. But where do we start? 

CAVUTO:  Yes. 

And then you have to wonder, Danny, I mean, the defense secretary has made clear that his job is to concentrate those forces inside the airport, not at that perimeter. So, we -- it doesn't sound to me -- and you're better at this than I am -- are going to go to the perimeter and force the issue. At least, that's not our intention right now. 

So we're relying essentially on the goodwill of the Taliban to do that for us. What do you think of that? 

COULSON:  Well, remember, Afghanistan is a tribal environment. 

We have the Taliban. We also have local tribal leaders that control their geographical area. What the Taliban says today, that tribal leader may say no tomorrow. So it's a fluid situation. We don't know what's going to happen with regard to commitments or agreements, because it's not like the monolithic United States of America or the Soviet Union.

It is a group of tribes that may or may not agree, and they may change side tomorrow. So it's the worst possible scenario. 

CAVUTO:  You know, the Taliban seems to be presenting this public image, Danny, of, we're new and different, improved, whatever you want to say. 

You know them well. You know their organization well, whatever you want to call it. Are they different? Are they -- have they changed? Are they so concerned about their image to the world and the international stature they get to get that money that's been frozen that they can't get access to now that they will behave differently? 

COULSON:  And there's a possibility that they will do that. 

But, also, it's a possibility that they will change your mind tomorrow. 

They may say, OK, we want all this money. Let's say we have Neil Cavuto here. We can hold him for a couple million dollars, or, in your case, maybe

30 bucks.

(LAUGHTER)

COULSON:  And we will get that money.

That could be their money. That could be their cash cow. Hostage-taking is a very profitable operation. And I think this--

(CROSSTALK)

CAVUTO:  So, you think this could become like -- do you think this could become around Iran with the fall of the shah and Ayatollah Khomeini, and it could be that bad?

COULSON:  I think it could be.

What I'm really concerned about is that we will try to do a tactical operation, we will have another Black Hawk Down situation. And we know that went down.

CAVUTO: Absolutely.

COULSON:  This didn't have to happen, Neil. They should have done this gradually. They should have gotten all the innocents out, and then kept Bagram operational until the very end, then pulled it down, if that's what they wanted to do, not pull out our resources, our security, and then leave everybody to their own devices. That was crazy. 

CAVUTO:  Real quickly, Danny, President Biden was talking about we will do whatever is necessary, stay as long as necessary to get those Americans out. 

That could go well past the end of August deadline to get out. Do you think that's doable? 

COULSON:  They won't get them out by then, no, absolutely not. There should not be a deadline. This should be--

CAVUTO:  So, this could drag on well -- if you just do the math, right, I mean, it would go well into late September and beyond. 

COULSON:  Absolutely.

It could beyond the end of the year, with that many--

CAVUTO:  That's true.

COULSON:  -- and who you're dealing with.

And I don't have a lot of confidence in the State Department to be able to negotiate this, not because of the State Department, because of who they're negotiating against. And it's a bad situation. It didn't have to happen. 

CAVUTO:  Yes. 

COULSON:  I'm somewhat disappointed the president didn't see anything wrong with it. 

It makes me worry about our future. 

CAVUTO:  Dan, I hope you're wrong on this. But you haven't been in the past when we have chatted, the $30 comment about me notwithstanding.

COULSON:  I'm sorry. 

CAVUTO:  You're a good read of things.

COULSON:  I'm sorry.

(LAUGHTER)

CAVUTO:  You're probably right. That would generous. Danny. That would be generous. 

Danny Coulson, the former FBI deputy assistant--

COULSON:  I--

CAVUTO:  Finish that thought. I'm sorry. 

COULSON:  No, I was going to say, I will give you 30 bucks. 

CAVUTO:  OK, good. That balances it out. 

Danny, thanks for that very, very much. 

Again, we were trying to crunch the numbers and do the math here. If you buy the rough count that we're looking at 65, 00 to 70,000 who would want to leave right now Kabul as it stands -- some are saying it's easily double that -- and you take the rate at which we're doing it now, at about 2,000 a day -- some say we're going to tick that upwards. 

But if it's much more than that, roughly, you're talking 30 days, 60 days. 

Again, the higher the count goes for those who want out, then it gets conceivable that this drags into the fall. That, again, is if the Taliban lets it.

We will have more after this. 

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) 

CAVUTO:  All right, so maybe two vaccination shots won't do it, a third one will be the charm?

The administration looking at booster shots as soon as next month for those have already been vaccinated. Is it necessary? 

Let's ask Dr. Marty Makary at Johns Hopkins. 

What do you think, Doctor, a third shot? 

DR. MARTY MAKARY, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR:  Well, Neil, the strength by which this recommendation was made so universally for every American was entirely disproportional to any supporting evidence whatsoever. 

We know breakthrough infections are a little more common as we get out. I'm not sure if they are avoidable. Breakthrough infections are going to be seasonal. COVID will become a seasonal virus that's endemic and very mild. 

But the way in which you saw such a strong recommendation, without any supporting data that a booster reduces the risk of severe illness or death, that's my concern, I will not be getting a booster myself. 

CAVUTO:  So I think the president was first looking at those who are vulnerable, the elderly, and those with compromised immune systems. Would it be good for that subset -- that's a large subset -- but that group of the population? 

MAKARY:  Look, I'd love to see the data. We don't really have the data.

A mild symptomatic case of COVID-19 may be something that is just ubiquitous, endemic and seasonal. So, it may make sense for certain populations to reduce the risk of that mild common cold symptoms. But the way in which it was universally recommended, that was the concern. 

Let's wait for the data. By the way, the whole reason we're talking about breakthrough infections is that those two doses were too close together in the Pfizer and Moderna rollout. When -- the closer vaccines are, the shorter the interval, the less powerful the immunity is.

And it's been studied. With Pfizer at three months, if the doses are three months apart, it's 3.5 times stronger immunity. And that's what I did. 

CAVUTO:  Wow. 

So, let me ask. I mean, you talk about these breakthrough cases. Now three more U.S. senators, Senators Wicker, King, and Hickenlooper, join Lindsey Graham as getting COVID even though they have been fully vaccinated.

We saw Greg Abbott, the Texas governor, same deal. What's going on with this? Should we worry about this? 

MAKARY:  Again, this is something I think we have not mentally come to accept as a society. We have been trying to achieve COVID elimination.

And eradication is just not going to be possible. We're going to see breakthrough infections. They will be mild. Hopefully, we're going to see better therapeutics in the fall to help us with that, like Molnupiravir.

That phase three trial is going to read out shortly after great phase two data.

And I think it's something we need to just keep in mind is something that we're going to have to manage. We will not be able to booster our way out of mild infections. And, right now, we have got 200 million booster doses in storage that the U.S. government has pre-purchased after Moderna convinced the government they may need it.

Those doses should be overseas where variants emerge, not right here right now. 

CAVUTO:  You know, Doctor, a lot of people especially leery of getting vaccine in the first place, looking at these breakthrough cases and saying, that that's it, not getting it, what do you tell them? 

MAKARY:  Yes, look, people confuse breakthrough cases with the vaccine not working. 

But there's really two levels of protection. And I think part of the problem is, we have messaged the idea of efficacy or protection with one term. There's really two levels. There's a protection against death and disability. That's always been our battle. And then there's the protection

-- protection against mild illness.

And that wanes. And we have always known that was going to be the case. I think people need to know the vaccines still work, despite mild breakthrough infections. 

CAVUTO:  All right, Dr. Marty Makary, great seeing you again.

MAKARY:  Thanks, Neil. 

CAVUTO:  Marty Makary, an uncanny and prescient read on a lot of this stuff. 

By the way, we're in the process of seeing the Biden administration changes its rules on the border and asylum cases and who gets through and who doesn't. It is weird timing, though -- after this. 

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) 

CAVUTO:  Ahead of what could be thousands of Afghan refugees making their way to the United States, and many of them placed at the border, along comes a proposal by the Biden administration to maybe change our asylum processing rules.

Jonathan Hunt in Mission, Texas, with more on that.

Jonathan, what's going on here? 

JONATHAN HUNT, FOX NEWS CORRESPONDENT:  Well, Neil, normally, anyone who crosses this border here seeking asylum would have to plead their case through a court and in front of a judge.

But now the Biden administration wants to change that and have agents with the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services deal with those cases and, in fact, adjudicate them. 

Attorney General Merrick Garland saying, announcing this -- quote -- "Today marks a step forward in our effort to make the asylum process fairer and more expeditious. This rule will both reduce the caseload in our immigration courts and protect the rights of those fleeing persecution and violence."

But there are plenty of critics who say that this is simply going to allow a lot more immigrants to get in. Numbers USA is an organization that advocates for less immigration. Their deputy director told us today -- quote -- "Rather than address asylum abuse at the border, this administration is throwing open the gates. This rule will further bog down the system, grant asylum to those with non-meritorious cases and actually grant parole to aliens who by law should be detained."

Now, as you take a look at the live pictures from our drone team, Neil, I think everybody would agree that this does -- and everybody does agree, in fact, that this will in fact speed up the asylum process. The question is here, Neil, in these cases, is speed actually the enemy of good decision- making -- Neil.

CAVUTO:  Jonathan, thank you for that, Jonathan Hunt at the border.

In the meantime, in Afghanistan, what if I told you, forget about what's going on in that country? Why it could be a preview of coming attractions in other countries. 

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CAVUTO:  What happens in Afghanistan doesn't stay in Afghanistan.

If my next guest is right, there could be other countries that could be on the verge of experiencing the same revolt. 

Michael Pregent is the Hudson Institute senior fellow. 

So, Michael, you think this is maybe a preview to coming attractions? 

MICHAEL PREGENT, HUDSON INSTITUTE:  Yes, I mean, thanks for having me, Neil.

What we're seeing in Afghanistan is going to have consequences everywhere. 

Friends in Iraq are already asking the question, are we next? Are we the next country to be abandoned? Our enemy saw the Biden team cave in Vienna with the Iran deal talks. And they're seeing the collapse of Afghanistan under the same team.

Our enemies couldn't be happier about what's happening. And this will have consequences throughout Southwest Asia and the Middle East as well. 

CAVUTO:  What are some countries that you think have this sort of violent underpinning there or a resurgence in terrorist activity that could be difficult? 

PREGENT:  Well, what we saw during the Arab Spring is, all the foreign fighters left Afghanistan to go kill in these other countries. So we saw the fracturing of Syria. And we saw the fracturing of Iraq with ISIS. 

There are countries on the verge of instability throughout the Middle East. 

Jordan is one of those countries. Foreign fighters will go to Afghanistan to receive training. Al Qaeda is already there. The Haqqani Network is there. ISIS is there.

All these groups will now be able to train, will be able to use U.S. 

captured equipment, and will be trained by soldiers that were trained by the Afghan -- by U.S. special operations, meaning former soldiers. There's a television special operations group walking the streets right outside of the airport that is dressed like U.S. special operators. 

They took the equipment, they took the uniforms, and they're walking around like they're U.S. special operators. And they happen to be Taliban special forces. Iran has deployed Afghans from Afghanistan to Syria, to Iraq, to Iran to put down protests inside of Iran. 

And they hope to utilize their proxies. And then you have the Sunni jihadists looking to utilize theirs to further fracture and destabilize the eastern province of Saudi Arabia, to eventually destabilize the (INAUDIBLE) further and go after our allies like Israel and the kingdom of Saudi Arabia. 

CAVUTO:  What did you make of this Wall Street Journal story that President Biden had pitched the idea with Vladimir Putin for U.S. soldiers to have a base outside of Afghanistan and was slapped down? What did you think of that? 

PREGENT:  I don't understand the collapse of leverage. 

The Biden team collapsed with Iran. And I made the argument, if you cannot handle Iran, how are you going to handle Russia and China? And to allow Putin to weigh in on where American forces go in former Soviet Republicans that want nothing to do with Putin, yet Putin still has more of a say than the United States, that is pathetic. That's not leadership. 

And that is -- that is dreadful. 

CAVUTO:  But we could still force the issue, right? 

PREGENT: Absolutely. 

Secretary of Defense Austin was my brigade commander in the 82nd Airborne Division. His answer yesterday about not being able to do things is not true. The SecDef can do things. General Milley can do things. The United States military can do things.

They need to either own up for this or tell -- and tell Biden that he needs to change his policy, or they should resign. The United States military should not be told what it can and can't do by the Taliban. And it certainly shouldn't be told what it can and can't do by Vladimir Putin. 

CAVUTO:  Michael Pregent, Hudson Institute senior fellow, thank you. 

I hope you're wrong on this, Michael. This one time, I hope you're wrong. 

We have a lot more coming up, because here comes "The Five."

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