'Your World' on the situation in Afghanistan

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Sen. Rob Portman blasts Blinken’s Afghan testimony: ‘The American people are too smart for this’

Ohio Republican discusses Antony Blinken’s testimony about the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan on ‘Your World’

This is a rush transcript of "Your World with Neil Cavuto" on September 14, 2021. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

NEIL CAVUTO, FOX NEWS ANCHOR:  Inside the Capitol today, Secretary of State Antony Blinken endures withering questions from senators over the administration's handling of the collapse and later desperate evacuation from Afghanistan. 

Outside the Capitol, police quietly preparing for a more immediate concern, Saturday's planned rally of Donald Trump supporters who will protest the treatment of hundreds of people arrested in connection with that January 6 riot.

Capitol Police expect all to go smoothly, but, today, blockbuster allegations in an explosive book from Bob Woodward called "Peril" in which he and co-author Robert Costa lay out the panic behind the scenes as the protesters moved to the Capitol and a near insurrection ensued, reports that Joint Chiefs Chairman General Mark Milley took extraordinary action to secretly prevent things from totally unraveling, not only during and after that Capitol event, but weeks before it.

At issue, the president's behavior following his loss to Joe Biden and what General Milley described as the president's increasingly erratic and manic behavior. Milley reportedly concerned the president could go rogue, and his obsession with questioning the reelection results had just hit a fever pitch.

The authors detail Milley alerting his top service chiefs to -- quote -- "Watch everything all the time." His fear was that President Trump could do something unpredictable, maybe even strike out militarily. Milley assuring his Chinese counterpart at the time before and especially after the January

6 protests that they needn't be concerned about any surprise attack, that no hostile moves were coming from the United States. 

But the worry was plainly there, both in China and here. Woodward and Costa write after January 6, Milley felt -- quote -- "no absolute certainty that the military could control or trust Trump" and believed it was his job as the senior military officer to think the unthinkable and take any and all necessary precautions. 

Such a disastrous scenario never played out. But concerns over what some fear could be a right-wing coup persisted. It never happened. The president left office angry, but he did leave office. And from there, the authors detailed the crisis that would bedevil his successor, the messy evacuation from Afghanistan that remained the center of attention inside the Capitol today.

Senators still demanding answers from the secretary of state over how the Biden administration could have missed so much, before word of another blistering Bob Woodward book that is now raising potentially so much more. 

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

And we have reached out to all parties to get some response to this Woodward book, so far, no word from the Pentagon, no word from General Milley, no word from any former from officials, including President Trump himself. 

If we get such a response, we will share that with you. 

But at issue in this book is a disturbing constitutional issue that the commander in chief might not be up to the job, and that those around him would usurp that authority, fearing that he could do something desperate. 

Tom Dupree with us right now, the former deputy assistant attorney general.

The allegations aside, Tom, for military commanders around a president, any president to take matters into their own hands, as is laid out here in this book, that is a constitutional no-no, obviously, but could it be provoked by genuine concerns? What do you make of it? 

TOM DUPREE, FORMER JUSTICE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL:  Well, I don't know where to begin with this one, Neil. It is so extraordinary. 

I mean, normally, any time you have a presidential transition, you want to make sure that you have a stable chain of command. But that typically involves ensuring that the president, the outgoing president, passes the baton to the incoming president without any slip-ups. 

Here, what we have is, in the final days of the Trump administration, senior military officials becoming sufficiently concerned about the president's stability that they really took it unto themselves to basically turn around the chain of command. I mean, the president under the Constitution is the commander in chief. 

There are also provisions in the Constitution that say what happens if a president becomes incapacitated or incapable of serving. Those provisions weren't invoked here. Instead, what we had is General Milley and others basically doing what they felt they needed to do in order to ensure that there was no last-minute attack or something awful like that. 

CAVUTO:  A lot has been raised about when this occurred, the environment in which it concerned.

You have a president who felt that the election, it didn't make sense, it was rigged. He went on to fight, continues to fight to this day over whether it was even legitimate. 

But, at the time, if we were to take the book at face value, the top commanders around him, including the CIA director, FBI director, and others, were concerned enough to say, we ought to watch this. 

What are they watching for? 

DUPREE:  I think they're watching for any decision that, in their judgment, wasn't a decision, a military decision that would have been made in the best strategic interests of the United States, but would have been done, for example, to keep the president in office or to extend his term, in other words, presidential orders that might not be done in our best military interest, but would be done for a political interest. 

I think that's what these generals were worried about. And that's why there were all of these extraordinary conversations behind the scenes. It wasn't just one person. It was a bunch of senior Trump administration officials. 

CAVUTO:  Tom, there was another issue that came up concerning Vice President Pence at the time, who was under enormous pressure to nullify the January 6 certification of the electoral vote that would have clinched Joe Biden becoming the next president of the United States, that, apparently, he reached out -- again, this according to the book -- to former Vice President Dan Quayle about whether he could do this, whether he had any power at all to stop this. 

Apparently, Quayle saying: "No, you have no flexibility on this. None zero. 

Forget it. Put it away."

He said: "But you don't know the position I'm in." This is coming from Pence. 

"I do know the position you're in," Quayle responded. "I also know what the law is. You listen to the parliamentarian. That's all you do. You have no power."

What do you make of it?

DUPREE:  Well, I think it's fascinating, in that the sitting vice president turned to a former vice president for not so much legal or constitutional advice, but I think, really, almost just for a gut check, Neil, that I can't imagine that Dan Quayle's advice was valuable in kind of a legal sense, as much as it was to just give Pence comfort that what he was doing was, in fact, the right thing to do. 

And I mean, look, Dan Quayle was right. I think Vice President Pence does have or did have extremely limited legal and constitutional authority to do what the president was asking him to do. So, I think Dan Quayle's advice was good.

But the fact that Vice President Pence needed to seek out Dan Quayle is extraordinary. 

CAVUTO:  All right, I want to thank you for that, Tom Dupree. 

Now the other part of the story that we started with, Tom, and that is of the concerns enough that General Milley had, that the Chinese should be reached out to, because fears that they add and others here had that maybe an aberrant attack could be launched by the president. 

He not only once, but twice assured the Chinese before the January 6 demonstrations on Capitol Hill and after them that they needn't worry. 

Well, they were. They were worried, particularly that second call after the 6th attacks.

Gordon Chang, "The Coming Collapse of China," on what he makes of this.

Knowing the Chinese hierarchy as you do, and this report that General Milley reached out to his Chinese counterpart to assure them, look, things look kind of crazy here, but nothing violent is going to happen, there's not going to be some wag the dog military strike, and the fact that he felt the need to do that not only once, but twice, what do you make of this? 

GORDON CHANG, AUTHOR, "THE COMING COLLAPSE OF CHINA":  I think what General Milley did was wrong on every level. 

Even if the generals assessment of Trump's mental state were correct, what he did was dangerous, because, first of all, the Chinese already believed that the U.S. is falling apart. So Milley's comments behind Trump's back would have reinforced that notion and made China even more arrogant, more bold, more dangerous. 

So I don't think that that was right. Also, I don't believe the Chinese actually felt that Trump would nuke them, because we haven't seen any unusual propaganda. We didn't see any unusual military movements on the part of the Chinese or civil movements. 

So I think that whatever the U.S. intelligence community said to General Milley was absolutely wrong. 

CAVUTO:  So, Gordon, let me ask you about what the Chinese thinking was after the election results. 

I'm not sure they thought that Donald Trump would win reelection, whether they were pleased that he didn't because they had their acrimonious battles back and forth on trade and other issues. What was their thinking right after the election? 

CHANG:  The Chinese were ecstatic. And we don't have to guess because there were comments from senior Chinese officials. 

Also, those comments from shown Di Dongsheng, the academic at Renmin University. He laid it all out. He said that, during previous administrations, both Republican and Democrat, China was able to use Wall Street and Henry Kissinger to influence outcomes at the highest levels of the American political system. 

But those levers of influence were broken during the Trump administration, because the president wouldn't actually talk to Wall Street or Kissinger. 

And they were looking forward to Biden being in the Oval Office because they knew they could influence Biden. 

So Beijing was just very happy about this. I'm not saying that Beijing was right in what they were saying. I'm saying that was their state of mind. 

CAVUTO:  But, as far as you know, your very good sources and connections there, this idea that they were seriously worried that a manic Donald Trump, as the book states would do something like that, like attack China, or do something violently out of the norm, that just doesn't add up to you?

CHANG:  No, there are no indications that they felt that way.

We would have seen something. We would have heard something. Chinese propaganda would have changed. All sorts of things would have occurred if senior political or military leaders in Beijing actually felt that Trump would do something of the type that Milley was concerned about. 

And, as I said, even if Milley thought this, there were things that he could do in the Pentagon to relieve Chinese anxieties without actually calling them up, because calling them up has consequences that I think we're going to feel going forward. 

CAVUTO:  All right, Gordon Chang, thank you very much. 

Looking back at the election and what has happened since, Charlie Gasparino got a lot of interesting comments from people around him and those in the financial community and elsewhere, about the post-election environment that led up to the January 6 attacks. 

What did you learn, Charlie? 

CHARLIE GASPARINO, FOX NEWS SENIOR CORRESPONDENT:  Well, I have been calling those contacts up right today.

And to the man -- and I usually talk to them about financial stuff or regulation. And I was asking them about this book that Woodward just put out. They weren't surprised that -- on the Pence stuff. They -- everybody knows that Pence felt enormous pressure from Donald Trump to do something to stop the election, to stay in office. We all know that.

None of them were -- are sort of supportive of Trump trying to stay in office. And these are GOP lobbyists and political advisers. They think he lost, genuinely lost. What they were most outraged about this book is the conduct of General Milley. 

And, again, I don't usually talk to them about this, but these are people that deal not just on financial matters. They deal on social issues. They are doing a lot of different things. They have never heard of a general calling up essentially an enemy. 

I mean, think about it. China is an adversary. Where was the evidence that Donald Trump was going to bomb them? Did he ever -- I mean, the book presents none, other than his -- quote, unquote -- "worry."

And going outside the chain of command and calling China like that is really problematic. And so here's what I have been told. There are a group of Biden administration people that, if the Republicans get Congress, are going to be on the hot seat. 

One of those is Gary Gensler at the Securities and Exchange Commission because of some of the policies he's pushing that are very progressive and left-wing. Another one is Anthony Fauci. They think he lied to Congress, most Republicans believe. I'm not saying he did -- on the whole China lab leak thing. I'm just saying what they believe. 

And I think on top of that list is General Milley. At least, that's what they told me today. And if he survives after the midterms, he's going to be like a person of interest on Republicans on the Hill. There's no doubt about that.

This thing, calling up an adversary, is so out there. You don't -- you just never hear that. And where's the evidence? I mean, like...

(CROSSTALK)

CAVUTO:  I do want to get into one last thing before that came in the book, if you can still hear me.

GASPARINO:  Sure.

CAVUTO:  That General Milley's concern was based on precedent at the time, when Arthur Schlesinger, who had served in the next administration, was very, very concerned about Nixon's behavior leading up to his resignation, and that he might do something at the time they call crazy. 

And, of course, that never happened. The same was in play here. What we know, when all was said and done, is that Richard Nixon did resign, there was no incident. What we know is Donald Trump, unhappy with the election results though he was, did leave office. 

So none of this and the greatest fears ever panned out. What do you think of that? 

GASPARINO:  Well, did Kissinger call up Brezhnev? 

I mean, did the Joint Chiefs of Staff come in and start calling the Russians and saying, watch out, Nixon might have his finger on the button?

I mean, this is pretty drastic stuff that he -- that General Milley did. 

And if he really, really, really thought that Trump was going to start a nuclear war, which, by the way, this is the least expansionist president we have had in a long time. He was thinking about pulling our troops out of all these places. 

CAVUTO:  Right. 

GASPARINO:  So he's going to turn around and start sending the nukes out sounds a little irrational.

CAVUTO:  So, you don't give it much credence.

I think the book lays out that it wasn't about a nuclear war, as much as it was that could the president do like a wag the dog thing and attacks someone. Of course, that never happened. There was no such incident here.

GASPARINO:  But why call them?

CAVUTO:  But it raises questions.

GASPARINO:  Why call our...

(CROSSTALK)

CAVUTO:  But you're thinking that General Milley set the stage for that or the fear for that, and it might have actually produced more harm than his fears about what the president might do. 

GASPARINO:  Just think about it, Neil.

He's calling up the Chinese that are covering up probably the source and cause of COVID. 

CAVUTO:  Right. 

GASPARINO:  This is this is dangerous, dangerous stuff. 

Listen, I know General Milley is a patriot. He's fought in -- he's a general. He's fought in many battles. But what he did here was pretty reckless, if you talk to the people I talk to, and just common sense tells you.

CAVUTO:  All right, Charlie Gasparino, thank you very much. 

Again, these are charges and allegations in this blockbuster Bob Woodward book. And, again, I must stress, we have reached out to all the principal players. We have yet to hear back even a statement from the Pentagon. 

General Milley is still very much in power, as you know. 

So, if we get anything, we will pass it along to you. But the upshot from all of this, of course, is that the president did leave office. He wasn't happy with the results, but he did leave, and no incidents occurred. 

That was the January 6 riot and uprising. That can't be minimized. And a lot of this was provoked afterwards by these concerns that come up in this book. 

We will probably never know for sure, but the questions are out there. 

What we do know is, his successor was bedeviled with a crisis in Afghanistan that some say he created, not Donald Trump, Joe Biden. And his secretary of state was getting an earful over how it was handled today -- after this. 

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. ROBERT MENENDEZ (D-NJ):  The execution of the U.S. withdrawal which clearly and fatally flawed.

SEN. JAMES RISCH (R-ID): There is not enough lipstick in the world to put on this pig to make it look any different than what it actually is. 

SEN. MARCO RUBIO (R-FL): This wasn't a failure of intelligence. This was a failure of policy and planning. We have the wrong people analyzing this. 

Someone didn't see this. 

SEN. JEANNE SHAHEEN (D-NH):  Let's stop with the hypocrisy about who's to blame. There are a lot of people to blame, and we all share in it. 

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAVUTO:  All right, this time, Antony Blinken there in person, but he still got the same treatment, a bipartisan ripping, if you will, over the administration's handling of the collapse and later evacuation from Afghanistan. 

Aishah Hasnie, witnessing it all, joins us from Capitol Hill. 

Hey, Aishah. 

AISHAH HASNIE, FOX NEWS CORRESPONDENT:  Hey there, Neil. 

Yes, for three long hours, the secretary of state was faced with very tough questioning from Republicans and some pretty brutal scoldings. Watch this. 

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. RON JOHNSON (R-WI): We realize this was a complete debacle. 

RUBIO:  What did we think was going to happen as that support began to be removed? 

SEN. TED CRUZ (R-TX): It's all Trump's fault. Mr. Secretary, Joe Biden is the president of the United States.

RISCH:  The American people want to know who's responsible for this. 

BLINKEN: Ultimately, the president makes the decisions. 

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HASNIE:  Now, Democrats largely stuck to asking for help in getting those

100 U.S. citizens and thousands of Afghan allies out, while letting the secretary explain just how we got here over the past 20 years, and also pointing fingers at the Trump administration, while Republicans largely handled the interrogating.

Senator Rand Paul blasted the State Department over the U.S. drone strike that reportedly killed an aid worker carrying water, not explosives. And, at one point, Senator Hagerty asked for accountability and for Blinken to step down.

Listen to Blinken's response to that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BLINKEN:  I am responsible for the decisions I make. I'm responsible for the actions of my department. I'm responsible for learning any lessons that flow from those decisions or those actions. And I'm also responsible to holding myself accountable to you and through you to the American people, which is exactly what I'm doing here today. 

(END VIDEO CLIP) 

HASNIE:  And an interesting note here, Neil.

Chairman Menendez wants to see the secretary of defense testify next. And he says that he is willing to use his subpoena powers to make sure that he gets answers -- Neil.

CAVUTO:  Aishah Hasnie, thank you very, very much.

Before we go to my next guest, one of the questioners today, thoughts from Leon Panetta, who was Barack Obama's defense secretary, a former CIA director, chief of staff under Bill Clinton, who said that, already, for this administration, it's quickly become their Bay of Pigs. Take a look. 

All right, I apologize. We do not have that. 

But we do have Rob Portman, the Ohio Republican senator, his thoughts on this.

Their Bay of Pigs, Senator. What Leon Panetta is saying is that this will lead to a series of events and tests from others to see the administration's resolve, whether the timing of North Korea missile strikes and cruise missile tests, I should say, and China sort of champing at the bit. 

What do you make of that? 

SEN. ROB PORTMAN (R-OH): Well, Neil, it might be a pretty good analogy, because it's about competence, isn't it? And it's about commitment to our allies. 

And this was a disastrous withdrawal. And there's no other way to put it. 

The evacuation was rushed. It was chaotic. It resulted in not only us not getting Americans out entirely, and a lot of green card holders and a lot of what they call SIVs, Afghans who helped us in the effort. 

But, also, it resulted in us bringing a lot of people to America who weren't properly vetted, because it was so chaotic. So there was a lot of reasons why this is an example where the United States has lost prestige around the world. Our adversaries are emboldened. Terrorists are emboldened. And our allies are wondering about our commitment. 

CAVUTO:  Do you wonder, when Secretary Blinken was talking about it wouldn't have made a difference whether we pushed this back some weeks, months, it would have been chaotic, what did you think of that? 

PORTMAN:  Well, in my questioning, I focused on that, because I thought that both the Democrat questioners and the secretary were using a false choice. 

They were saying either it was going to be a great expansion of the military effort and a war that the Taliban would engage us on maybe another

20 years, one choice. Choice two was this kind of a rushed and chaotic and precipitous withdrawal with the evacuation being such a disappointment. 

So that's not the choice. The choice was to keep Bagram Air Base open, to keep our airpower there, to provide close air support for a period of time, while we did an orderly transition. That obviously is the way it should have gone. I don't think there's anybody who looks at it now that doesn't agree with that. 

So they set up a false choice. And I think the American people are too smart for that. I mean, they know that this didn't have to be this way. 

American power is unrivaled in the world still. We have the ability to tell the Taliban, we're going to take your time, do this right. And if you attack us or attack American citizens, there will be severe consequences. 

That's what we should have done. And in talking to military planners, who know a lot more about this than I do, there is a way to do it, by keeping Bagram open, by keeping our forces there to be able to respond, particularly our air support, and to do this in an orderly way that would have permitted us to leave with a lot more dignity and respect around the world. 

CAVUTO:  Senator, I'd be remiss if I didn't bring up this Bob Woodward book that's getting a great deal of buzz, in the final weeks of the Trump administration, where there was internal concern that he was obsessing on the election results, was getting increasingly depressed, erratic, manic, whatever you want to say, and that General Milley was so concerned that he was looking at ways to prevent a possible wag the dog moment on the part of Donald Trump to attack someone or to do something unsettling. 

What do you make of that? 

PORTMAN:  I don't know. 

I mean, I have only heard the rumors about the book. I haven't -- I haven't read it yet, Neil. And I assume it's based on anonymous sources, which you have to wonder about. If people are willing to go on the record, it's one thing, but I assume it's anonymous sources. So I would take that into account. 

And we will see what the actual book says. But my understanding is that it says that the chairman of the Joint Chiefs did and said some things that would be inappropriate. Only the president has the power, as an example, to make a decision about whether to go to war or not. 

And so, anyway, I haven't read the book yet. And we will see. We will see what it says. 

CAVUTO:  Is there any point at which you would say -- and this happened with Secretary Schlesinger during the Nixon administration -- where you get to be so worried about the commander in chief that you do entertain something like this, and that that was the concern here?

At any point in -- post the election, Senator, did you have any of these concerns yourself for Donald Trump? 

PORTMAN:  No, because he was surrounded by a lot of people who were, like the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, respected individuals. 

And the president did not do the things that you suggested that he would -- people were concerned about. So, no, I was not concerned.

CAVUTO:  But, Senator, how would you feel if the general did this, or that these charges prove accurate? Do you think he -- that that's a punishable offense, that he should be relieved of his duties, if he were trying to usurp or check the commander in chief? 

PORTMAN:  Well, as I said earlier, Neil, it sounds like, from some of the rumors, if they are true, that he may have overstepped his bounds. 

And, if so, there ought to be consequences. But we don't know that any of this is true. Again, I suspect it will be all based on anonymous sources, as his books typically are. And we have to see, see what it says. 

But, no, I wasn't concerned. And I would hope that the reports that we are hearing are not accurate. 

CAVUTO:  All right. Thank you, Senator, very, very much. 

PORTMAN:  Thanks, Neil.

CAVUTO:  Very good catching up with you, Senator Rob Portman of Ohio. 

Meanwhile, a look at inflation. We were apparently relieved it wasn't as awful as we thought. As if.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) 

CAVUTO:  Never mind inflation's at its highest level in 13 years. It's not going up as much as it earlier was. 

Take comfort, Americans. Food for thought, when it comes to food prices, they're still going through the roof -- after this. 

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CAVUTO:  All right, relax, America. Retail inflation was only up 5.3 percent year over year. Many thought it would be higher, but it is still the highest it's been in 13 years. 

Lydia Hu is seeing it firsthand at an Eastchester, New York, grocery store. 

Hey, Lydia. 

LYDIA HU, FOX NEWS CORRESPONDENT:  Hi, Neil. 

Yes, the prices still coming in hot, although they slowed slightly month over month, up three-tenths of a percent for August. And we know, over the past year, a lot of what's been driving the price increases are foods. 

Right now, meat is up over 8 percent year over year, seafood and fish up more than 10 percent.

We have got some other really stark examples. Like, if you check out this rack of lamb right here, last year, the owner of the grocery store tells me it would have cost $24 a pound, now $39 a pound. Watch this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Even though we have only seen six months of historical highs, we're going to probably see another 16 months at least. So it's really the perfect storm for prices to go up.

And they're going to continue to go up until we can fix the supply chain.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HU:  And steaks are also up 17 percent.

Taking a look at a few other categories quickly, Neil, gasoline up 43 percent, used cars 32 percent, hotels up 17 percent. As to what's driving these price increases, a lot of it has to do with the supply chain. 

The grocery store owner here tells me that, on his bottom line, what he's seeing go up, labor costs and transportation -- back to you. 

CAVUTO:  Thank you, Lydia. 

I want to go to Steve Moore right now, famed economist, bestselling author, Trump confidant, much, much more. 

Steve Moore, none of this sounds transitory to me. 

(LAUGHTER)

STEPHEN MOORE, FORMER DONALD TRUMP CAMPAIGN ADVISER:  Well, first thing I was thinking, Neil, is you're going to have to be buying me that steak dinner you owe me pretty soon before the price of steak goes up to $30 a pound.

CAVUTO:  Can't afford it. I can't afford it anymore, yes.

(LAUGHTER) 

MOORE:  Look, these numbers were a little bit of an improvement. Year over year, we're still at 5 to 5.5 to, in some cases, 6 percent inflation.

CAVUTO:  Right. 

MOORE:  That's still something to worry about. 

Over the last 20 years, we have been in that 2 to 3 percent range. So this is clearly a hike. I'm not buying the temporary -- the idea that this is transitory. I think that the Fed is a little bit behind the curve. 

And it's really interesting, which, if you look at this number that came out, things that really spiked a couple of months ago -- remember, rental cars? You couldn't even rent a car, the prices were so.

CAVUTO:  Right. 

MOORE:  The used car markets way, way up in price. Those came down. 

Actually, they came negative after the huge increase. 

But when you look at the staple things that people buy every day, gasoline, when you look at things like the groceries and things of those nature, they're still rising at a pretty heavy, heavy pace. And we saw that production price index number that came out, what was it, about a week ago showing about an 8 percent increase in prices.

That's always a lead indicator that consumer prices are going to continue to rise. 

CAVUTO:  Now, so have American wages, but they can't keep up with these price increases. Eventually, there's sort of a no mas moment for consumers, right, where they say, no, I'm not going to do this, or I'm going to rearrange my priorities or whatever, or buy cheaper cuts of meat, that sort of thing. 

They have been doing a lot of that already. But the next step would be what? 

MOORE:  Well, I was actually traveling this week. 

And I saw -- I continue to see everywhere I go help wanted signs. It hasn't abated, Neil. I was at one place. A hotel had a $1,000 signing bonus for somebody who could work behind the counter, $1,000 system just to sign. 

CAVUTO:  Wow.

MOORE:  So there's still a big labor shortage in this country. And it's really hampering these small businesses. 

Now, if these employers start to raise the wages of workers to get them back, they're going to have to raise their prices, right, to accommodate that. 

The other thing that is going on that I think is a real threat that will accelerate inflation -- I think the Biden people have this completely wrong

-- is, if we were to pass a $3 trillion or $4 trillion debt bill, which the Congress is negotiating right now, and it would pay -- be paid for mostly by printing money, I got to tell you, that's going to cause prices to rise. 

CAVUTO:  While I have you, as a confidant of Donald Trump, and you know him very well, does any of this in the Woodward book and his state of mind, and he was manic and angry after the election, does that jibe with the Donald Trump you knew and worked with? 

MOORE:  No, it doesn't.

I was with Donald Trump several times, many times in the Oval Office. The guy was always in charge, in command. He is a force of nature in terms of his workday schedule. He was indefatigable. 

I just am not buying that story that somehow our national defense was in jeopardy. My goodness, the president who has put our national defense in jeopardy is this one. I think that those questions really need to be asked about Joe Biden and his mental capacity right now. 

But, no, I never saw that from Donald Trump. I do think, in the few days after the election, he had a hard time coming to grips with the results. 

And I think he obviously still doesn't believe that he lost. 

But, no, I do not believe he was ever in a state of incapacitation where the country was ever in danger. 

CAVUTO:  Do you believe he lost the election? 

MOORE:  I believe there's a lot -- I believe we will never know the real answer to that. 

I do believe there was a lot of voter fraud. But I also believed you wouldn't -- you couldn't unscramble that egg, and once those votes were counted, there was no way they were going to be overturned. 

And we will see whether -- look, I do believe there's a high likelihood right now that Donald Trump will run for president in 2024. If he does, I will support him, do everything I can.

I think every day that goes by and we see the mishaps of this administration, I think people realize what a, I think, great president he was.

CAVUTO:  Steve Moore, want to thank you very much for joining us. 

MOORE:  Thanks, Neil. 

CAVUTO:  More after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) 

CAVUTO:  Next Monday, they could have the third booster shot ready for you, if you're so inclined, to deal with COVID. 

Dr. Amesh Adalja on whether that's even necessary. 

What do you think, Doctor? 

DR. AMESH ADALJA, INFECTIOUS DISEASES SOCIETY OF AMERICA:  I think we want to see more data to show that healthy people need to get this third dose at the six-month, eight-month interval. 

And I think that this is a question that needs to be debated openly among scientists, among physicians, because we haven't really seen the data. And I think that, for immunocompromised people, for elderly people, for nursing home residents, the answer might be yes. 

But for healthy people, I haven't seen any erosion and the ability of the vaccine to prevent what matters, serious disease, hospitalization or death. 

CAVUTO:  Do you think that this creates more panic than it's worth, that there's been a division among the medical advisers to the president whether this push for such a booster shot is actually making people go a little crazy?

ADALJA:  It's definitely confusing for someone who's not in the field, because they're -- you're hearing one thing from certain physicians, another thing from other physicians.

And this is, I think, the error of this being announced at the White House before the data had actually been adjudicated and looked at by the scientists and follow the normal process of going through FDA and the CDC and the ACIP, and then make a decision or announcement at the White House, rather than do it in the reverse fashion, where this was announced at the White House. 

And now you have got FDA individuals writing in medical journals against this. They're retiring early. Just a lot of confusion, especially at a time when we're trying to increase confidence in the vaccine, because that is the way that we put this pandemic behind us. 

CAVUTO:  What do you make of this so-called ICU bed panic we're having right now, where they're so filled dealing with COVID patients that they can't take other patients?

ADALJA:  And this is something that's completely -- that should have been completely preventable by getting people vaccinated, especially those at high risk for hospitalizations. 

This is a real problem, because, if you're in one of those places that are inundated with COVID-19 patients, primarily unvaccinated patients taking up ICU beds, and you get -- you have a heart attack, you have a stroke, a traumatic injury, you may not get an ICU bed, and you may have to be transferred out of state to a place where they have room for you. 

And this is something that was self-inflicted. This was something that occurred because not enough high-risk people got vaccinated and hospitals got crushed again. And I think it's really inexcusable that people are continuing to do this to their local hospitals.

Doctors and nurses have to take care of these patients and hospitals have to find rooms to be able to take care of all of our health needs. 

CAVUTO:  All right, Dr. Adalja, thank you for that. Wanted to pick your brain on this, because I had a feeling you would think that way. 

Thank you very much, Doctor. 

All right, in the meantime here, the push to make sure restaurants are doing what to should check their -- well, their own customers for vaccination. 

Meet the restaurant owner and the lawyer who are saying no.

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CAVUTO:  You know, in New York City, they actually have inspectors going restaurant to restaurant, small business and the like, making sure that they're checking the vaccination status of their customers. 

Alison Marchese is the owner of Max's ES-CA in New York City, her lawyer, Ron Berutti, here.

And you're probably thinking, why would Ron Berutti be with Alison? Well, they're suing the city over this matter.

Good to have both of you. 

Alison, you just said enough is enough, right? 

ALISON MARCHESE, OWNER, MAX'S ES-CA:  We have been saying enough is enough for a long time. 

We started the group trying to fight back in the beginning of COVID with the governor, with the mayor. We were trying to get a seat at the table with everyone to try and talk to them to go over all -- everything they were asking us to do. 

We were following rules. We followed mandates. We listened. Again, we tried to work with everybody. And we just keep getting pummeled. So, now Mayor de Blasio comes out saying that we have to be his Gestapo to the customers, asking for I.D.s, vaccines. 

Well, we don't want to do this. We own restaurants. We want to serve you. 

We want you to come in, have a good time here. We want to take care of our customers, not segregate them, tell them they can't come in because they're vaxxed, not vaxxed, their kids can't walk in. 

We're over it. We're trying here, but no one's working with us. So we're not criminals. We don't want to fight and burn down buildings. We want to try to do things the right way. But no one listened to us. 

So we took it to court, the state court, and we lost. 

CAVUTO:  Right. 

MARCHESE:  I'm not surprised because we are in New York City. So now we're bring it up to a federal level. And that's why Ron is sitting with me. 

CAVUTO:  All right, so, Ron, is this focused on New York City, the mayor, both? 

RON BERUTTI, ATTORNEY: Yes, thanks, Neil. 

So, what the focus of this lawsuit is, is, we're seeking a temporary restraining order and an injunction against the mayor of New York City and the city, precluding him from taking any action to enforce the EEOs. 

We claim that they're unconstitutional in a number of different ways. What we do is, we have a mayor who treats heroes like criminals and criminals like heroes. Meanwhile, he knew when he promulgated this EEO that 59 percent of African-Americans in the city, based upon the city's own statistics, are not vaccinated. 

So he knew this was going to have a massive impact on African-Americans and other minorities. And with respect to that, he's literally telling African- Americans on September 13, 2021, that they cannot come into a restaurant to sit at the lunch counter. 

We're turning the clock back 60 years with this EEO. There are also numerous -- there's no exemption for medical reasons. We have two plaintiffs who literally been told they can die if they get the vaccination. And they cannot go into a restaurant. They cannot work in the restaurants that they own. 

We have -- there's no religious exemption. There's no exemption for people with natural immunity.

CAVUTO:  No, you raise -- you both raise a lot of good points. I'd be very interested in following its legal progress. 

Guys, thank you very much. With so much breaking news, we are following other developments here. 

Also, I want to take you to Kabul after this. You have probably been wondering, how are things going on there? If only there was someone in there. 

Well, Trey Yingst is. And he's next. 

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CAVUTO:  Ever wonder how things look at Afghanistan right now? 

Well, let's go to Trey Yingst, because he's live in Kabul -- Trey.

TREY YINGST, FOX NEWS FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT:  Neil, good afternoon.

There's an estimated 100 American citizens still trapped in Afghanistan, thousands of U.S. green card holders, and tens of thousands of Special Immigrant Visa recipients. Now, Secretary Blinken did talk about this today when he was testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. 

But there's still no safe and consistent way to get out of Afghanistan and get these people to safety. We were at the Kabul Airport earlier today. And right now, only charter flights have permission to land. One flight this week from Pakistan and two flights from Qatar have arrived in Kabul. 

As for land options, over the weekend, a group of foreigners did flee to neighboring Pakistan, but the route remains extremely dangerous, this as international focus shifts to humanitarian assistance. 

More than half of the population here requires international aid simply to survive. And the U.S. yesterday announced an additional $64 million in aid money to the Afghan people. 

U.N. human rights chief Michelle Bachelet won the Human Rights Council this week of a new and perilous phase for Afghanistan. She said her office received multiple credible reports of Afghans being illegally detained and then turning up dead. 

You really can see the difference in the Taliban rule here. The streets in many cases are quiet. There's no music allowed under Taliban rule. In other cases, they're bustling with people, because there are so many checkpoints, it's creating a traffic jam. 

The Taliban says they are going to continue to engage with the international community, even promising to stop attacks against the West that could be staged from Afghanistan. We will have to wait and see if that's the case -- Neil. 

CAVUTO:  Trey, real quickly, is it your sense that those who want out of Afghanistan will get out of Afghanistan? 

YINGST:  American passport holders will be able to get out of Afghanistan, according to the Taliban. Those who have dual citizenship may not be as lucky. And those who have family members who are not U.S. citizens are going to be in a lot of trouble. 

It's going to be a major roadblock for the United States as they try to get U.S. citizens out and their family -- Neil. 

CAVUTO:  So, where do people congregate now? 

YINGST:  Right now, no one is heading to the airport. 

CAVUTO:  Right. 

YINGST:  Those scenes that we saw last month, Neil, not happening anymore. 

The Taliban has locked down this area outside of the airport. People are simply staying home, too afraid to leave, due to those Taliban checkpoints. 

CAVUTO:  Trey Yingst, be safe yourself.

Trey Yingst in Kabul, Afghanistan. 

Again, to remind you, earlier today, the secretary of state had said he is very hopeful that those who want out will get out, particularly the 100 or so Americans -- that's a number that really has never changed -- will be among the first to get the chance. We shall see. 

That will do it for us. 

Here comes "The Five." 

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