Latest / The 47 Morning Update with Ben Ferguson / STUNNING Testimony - 13 Service Men & Women Murdered in Afghanistan COULD HAVE BEEN SAVED & Biden Admin Refused to Act

Transcript

STUNNING Testimony - 13 Service Men & Women Murdered in Afghanistan COULD HAVE BEEN SAVED & Biden Admin Refused to Act · The 47 Morning Update with Ben Ferguson

0:00
Speaker 1: Welcome at his verdict was Senator Ted Cruz ben Ferguson
0:03
Speaker 1: with you as well, and Senator you and I have
0:06
Speaker 1: been preparing for this show today. It is, in my opinion,
0:11
Speaker 1: maybe one of the most important podcasts that we've done together.
0:15
Speaker 1: And it is under the premise of a headline that
0:18
Speaker 1: the military could have stopped Afghanistan bomber who killed thirteen
0:22
Speaker 1: American service members, but they, the military men on the ground,
0:27
Speaker 1: the women on the ground, could not get authorization to
0:30
Speaker 1: take out this bomber because the Biden administration basically turned
0:37
Speaker 1: this into a massive quagmire. That is some shocking testimony
0:42
Speaker 1: that came out from a man that is lucky to
0:44
Speaker 1: still be alive who told his story to Congress this week. Well,
0:49
Speaker 1: that's right. Sergeant Tyler Vargas Andrews testified on Wednesday this
0:53
Speaker 1: week before the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and I got
0:57
Speaker 1: to say his testimony was incredibly power It is moving,
1:02
Speaker 1: it is personal. This man as an American hero, and
1:07
Speaker 1: what he testified about that the failure of the chain
1:12
Speaker 1: of command above him, that these thirteen servicemen and women
1:15
Speaker 1: who were murdered could have been saved, is enormously consequential,
1:20
Speaker 1: and I gotta tell you right now then, I am
1:23
Speaker 1: pissed off that after this testimony, there's been virtually zero
1:29
Speaker 1: coverage of this in the corporate media. They've just completely
1:34
Speaker 1: ignored it. What you're going to hear right now, you
1:39
Speaker 1: haven't heard on the six o'clock news, you haven't heard
1:42
Speaker 1: on cable news. And this testimony is important. One of
1:46
Speaker 1: the things about this podcast. We cover issues of foreign
1:49
Speaker 1: policy and national security that much of the corporate media ignores.
1:54
Speaker 1: And this matters because people's lives were lost because of
1:58
Speaker 1: the incompetence of the Biden administration. There's no doubt about it.
2:03
Speaker 1: And this is also emotional testimony. We're going to play
2:06
Speaker 1: large chunks of this. I will say this on the
2:09
Speaker 1: front end. Please make sure that you share this podcast
2:12
Speaker 1: because every American needs to hear this testimony so that
2:17
Speaker 1: you understand what happened in Afghanistan at that airport when
2:23
Speaker 1: we were pulling out of Afghanistan, and the lack of
2:27
Speaker 1: command and leadership from the Biden administration. Now, before we
2:30
Speaker 1: get into this, I want to clear the deck quickly
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Speaker 1: Metals dot com. Senator, this man, as you mentioned a
3:31
Speaker 1: moment ago as a hero, and you're gonna hear him
3:34
Speaker 1: talk fast at some points to try to get through
3:36
Speaker 1: information and then have very long pauses. There were many
3:40
Speaker 1: times in his testimony that he was crying. If you
3:43
Speaker 1: hear those long pauses, I just wanted you to know
3:45
Speaker 1: in context what was going on, and I want you
3:48
Speaker 1: to hear him tell his story about what it was
3:50
Speaker 1: like to be at that airport. As they were trying
3:52
Speaker 1: to find Americans and American allies who had helped us
3:55
Speaker 1: in that war against terrorists, tens of thousands of people
3:59
Speaker 1: to send it upon Abbygate. We were looking for anyone
4:03
Speaker 1: with a blue passport first and foremost people were suffering
4:06
Speaker 1: from extreme malnutrition, dehydration, heat, casualties and infants were dying.
4:11
Speaker 1: Afghans were brutalized and tortured by the Taliban, flocked to
4:14
Speaker 1: us pleading for help. Some Afghans turned away from h
4:17
Speaker 1: KaiA tried to kill themselves on the razor wire in
4:19
Speaker 1: front of us that we used as a deterrent. They
4:22
Speaker 1: thought this was merciful compared to the Taliban torture that
4:24
Speaker 1: they faced with only shipping. They thought. Countless Afghans were
4:32
Speaker 1: murdered by the Taliban one hundred and fifty five yards
4:34
Speaker 1: in front of our position day and night, with only
4:37
Speaker 1: shipping containers between us. The Taliban would routinely murder people
4:40
Speaker 1: on our observation at their checkpoint. We communicated the atrocities
4:44
Speaker 1: to our chain of command and intel assets, but nothing
4:46
Speaker 1: came of it. The troops on the ground had to
4:47
Speaker 1: tirelessly work to control the crowds day and night. Department
4:50
Speaker 1: of State staff and each Kai would completely shut down
4:52
Speaker 1: processing Afghans every evening and into the morning, leaving ground
4:56
Speaker 1: forces with a nightmare. They did not work in reasonable
4:59
Speaker 1: rotations and very much presented an unwillingness to work in
5:01
Speaker 1: other situations as well. No matter our health or condition,
5:04
Speaker 1: the marine stood watch and engaged in disorderly, endangerous crowds.
5:07
Speaker 1: State was not prepared to be in h KaiA. In fact,
5:11
Speaker 1: State would not want to deal with the Afghans unable
5:13
Speaker 1: to be processed, weakening the security of the perimeter. State
5:15
Speaker 1: would take us away from our mission to walk Afghans
5:17
Speaker 1: out to meet the fate of the Taliban, condemning them
5:19
Speaker 1: to death. The Taliban grew in numbers and strengthen their
5:22
Speaker 1: position around ash Kai with gun trucks, while having occasional
5:25
Speaker 1: visits by Taliban leadership. On August twenty second, an improvised
5:29
Speaker 1: explosive device IED probe took place down in the canal
5:32
Speaker 1: running along the perimeter of ah KaiA. This was ISIS
5:35
Speaker 1: or the Taliban performing an id test run. We reported
5:39
Speaker 1: this to our chain of command. Days later, we received
5:41
Speaker 1: word to be on the lookout for two vehicle born
5:44
Speaker 1: IDs described as a gold or white Corolla and a
5:46
Speaker 1: green Mazda convertible. Around two am in August twenty sixth,
5:50
Speaker 1: Intel guys confirmed the suicide bomber in the vicinity of
5:53
Speaker 1: and nearing Abbey Gate, described as clean shaven, brown dressed,
5:57
Speaker 1: black vest and traveling with an older companion. I asked
6:00
Speaker 1: Intel guys why he wasn't apprehended sooner, since we had
6:03
Speaker 1: a full description. I was told the asset could not
6:06
Speaker 1: be compromised throughout the entirety of the day. On August twenty,
6:09
Speaker 1: twenty twenty one, we disseminated the suicide bomber information to
6:13
Speaker 1: ground Forces Abbeygate. He was spotted somewhere from noon to
6:17
Speaker 1: one pm by myself, then Sergeant Charles Schilling, and another
6:21
Speaker 1: the anomaly in the crowd, who was clean shaven and
6:24
Speaker 1: fit the description exactly, traveling with an older gentleman. The
6:27
Speaker 1: individuals consistently and nervously looking up at our position through
6:30
Speaker 1: the crowd. The older of the two wore a black,
6:32
Speaker 1: silky hit job that was covering his face most of
6:35
Speaker 1: the time. They both had obvious mannerisms that go along
6:38
Speaker 1: with who we believed him to be. They handed out
6:40
Speaker 1: small cards to the crowd periodically, and the older man
6:42
Speaker 1: sat calmly and seemingly coached the bomber. Over the communication network.
6:46
Speaker 1: We passed that there was a potential threat and an
6:48
Speaker 1: idea attack imminent. This was as serious as it could get.
6:52
Speaker 1: I requested engagement authority. While my team leader was ready
6:54
Speaker 1: on the M one ten semi automatic sniper system. The
6:57
Speaker 1: response leadership did not have the engage him an authority
7:00
Speaker 1: for us do not engage. I requested for the battalion commander,
7:04
Speaker 1: Lieutenant Colonel Brad Wided to come to the tower to
7:07
Speaker 1: see what we did. While we waited for him, psychological
7:10
Speaker 1: operations individuals came to our tower immediately and confirmed the
7:13
Speaker 1: suspect met the suicide bomber description. He eventually arrived and
7:16
Speaker 1: we showed him our evidence, the photos we had of
7:18
Speaker 1: the two men. We reassured him of the ease of
7:20
Speaker 1: fire on the suicide bomber. Pointedly, we asked him for
7:23
Speaker 1: engagement authority and permission. We asked him if we could
7:25
Speaker 1: shoot our battalion commander said, and I quote, I don't
7:29
Speaker 1: know end quote. Myself and my team later asked, very harshly,
7:32
Speaker 1: well who does, because this is your responsibility, sir. He
7:36
Speaker 1: again replied he did not know, but would find out.
7:38
Speaker 1: We received no update and never got our answer. Eventually,
7:42
Speaker 1: the individual disappeared. To this day, we believe he was
7:44
Speaker 1: a suicide bomber. We made everyone on the ground of
7:46
Speaker 1: where operations had briefly halted but then started again. Plain
7:50
Speaker 1: and simple, we were ignored. Plain and simple, we were ignored. Senator,
7:57
Speaker 1: you're an initial reaction to what you just heard. There
8:01
Speaker 1: are so much about that that is infuriating. Let's start
8:06
Speaker 1: with the fact that every bit of that was unnecessary.
8:11
Speaker 1: One of the very first things the Biden administration did
8:14
Speaker 1: that was utterly incompetent is they abandoned Bagram Airfield. Bagram
8:20
Speaker 1: Airfield was a secure military base with two world class
8:24
Speaker 1: runways that had a secure perimeter that was safe that
8:28
Speaker 1: you could fly people out, that you could do the
8:30
Speaker 1: vetting with. They abandoned it. They just handed it over
8:34
Speaker 1: to the Taliban, and so instead they performed the evacuation
8:40
Speaker 1: through h Kaya. Now, what is h Kai h kayas
8:43
Speaker 1: is the Hamid Karzai International Airport. It's a commercial airport.
8:48
Speaker 1: It's it's an ordinary airport right in the middle of Kabul,
8:53
Speaker 1: right in the middle of a big populated city, surrounded,
8:57
Speaker 1: not secure, not a military base. The decision to conduct
9:03
Speaker 1: the evacuation from an unsecure commercial airport rather than a
9:08
Speaker 1: secure military base was colossally incompetent. It was unjustifiable. The
9:16
Speaker 1: reason that happened is because the Biden White House put
9:22
Speaker 1: politics above everyone else and everything else, and so they
9:26
Speaker 1: ordered the troop draw down before the evacuation was complete.
9:31
Speaker 1: And so the military told the White House, well, at
9:34
Speaker 1: the level of troop draw down, you're ordering us to
9:37
Speaker 1: hit we can't keep Bogram airfield. And the White House
9:42
Speaker 1: essentially said, we don't care. We picked a number out
9:46
Speaker 1: of our rear end and we're sticking to that number.
9:49
Speaker 1: It doesn't matter if that's sufficient manpower to do the
9:53
Speaker 1: job or not. We got a political endeavor. So you've
9:56
Speaker 1: got a bunch of incompetent political operatives in the w
10:00
Speaker 1: White House setting arbitrary political tasks. The result. Look at
10:04
Speaker 1: the beginning of his testimony, he talks about how as
10:07
Speaker 1: they were turning away Afghans, and many of these Afghans
10:10
Speaker 1: may have been interpreters, they may have been people who
10:13
Speaker 1: gave assistance to our soldiers. And he was talking about
10:16
Speaker 1: that the Afghans would throw themselves on the razor wire
10:22
Speaker 1: and try to kill themselves on the razor wire rather
10:26
Speaker 1: than face torture and murder from the Taliban. That's the
10:31
Speaker 1: consequence of the utter incomplete incompetence. But then you go forward. Look,
10:36
Speaker 1: they had the intel that a suicide bomber was coming in.
10:40
Speaker 1: They had the intel about what the suicide bomber looked like,
10:43
Speaker 1: They had the intel about what he was wearing, They
10:46
Speaker 1: had the intel about what his companion was, and they
10:49
Speaker 1: spotted him. They said, there he is. He's right there.
10:52
Speaker 1: It exactly fit the intel. And this testimony says that
10:58
Speaker 1: the Marines said, we can take him out right now.
11:02
Speaker 1: This is a sniper who is sitting there saying we
11:05
Speaker 1: can take him out. We know that a suicide bomber
11:08
Speaker 1: is coming, we know what he looks like. He is
11:10
Speaker 1: behaving exactly like a suicide bomber. And the utter incompetence
11:15
Speaker 1: of the Biden administration is that as as you just heard,
11:21
Speaker 1: we were ignored. They didn't do anything, and and it's
11:29
Speaker 1: difficult to overstate how much that makes my blood boil.
11:32
Speaker 1: One of the things that he said was he said
11:34
Speaker 1: it was the ease of fire. Yes, this was not
11:37
Speaker 1: a hard shot. They were saying, this is easy. It
11:41
Speaker 1: is as safe as it can get. It's as clear
11:43
Speaker 1: of a shot as we can get. If you talk
11:46
Speaker 1: to people in the military. We're describing it that way.
11:48
Speaker 1: They were saying, this was a no brainer scenario, and
11:52
Speaker 1: they just couldn't get somebody to tell them to go
11:57
Speaker 1: ahead and shoot based on the intel agents, not based
12:00
Speaker 1: on a hunt hunch this individual. And that I got
12:05
Speaker 1: to ask you sooner. Going back in his testimony to
12:08
Speaker 1: another point he made, he said that the Taliban had
12:11
Speaker 1: done a dry runner. Ices had done a dry run, right.
12:14
Speaker 1: He also mentioned that they were killing people and they
12:17
Speaker 1: were doing it almost like they for sport, seeing if
12:21
Speaker 1: the Americans would respond in or right right in front
12:23
Speaker 1: of them, right in front of him, and they knew
12:26
Speaker 1: I think clearly they were trying to figure out how
12:28
Speaker 1: weak America was at that moment, and they're like, all right, well,
12:31
Speaker 1: if we kill this guy right here in front of him,
12:33
Speaker 1: they don't do anything. We really are in control of
12:36
Speaker 1: this airfield. We really are in control of this other
12:39
Speaker 1: roadways to this airfield because the Americans are not given
12:42
Speaker 1: the power to engage. That's exactly right. And look, I
12:50
Speaker 1: want to convey a story to illustrate because there is
12:54
Speaker 1: a reason why this happened. And early on in the
13:00
Speaker 1: Trump administration, I bumped into General Mark Milly. General Milly
13:05
Speaker 1: now the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. I've
13:07
Speaker 1: known General Milly since he was a three star general
13:10
Speaker 1: when he was the commanding general general at Fort Hood
13:12
Speaker 1: in Texas. And I was talking with General Milly, and
13:18
Speaker 1: it was the very beginning of the Trump administration, and
13:21
Speaker 1: he told me, he said, I was asking about the
13:28
Speaker 1: Islamic State, and the Islamic State, you recall, had seized
13:33
Speaker 1: land their self declared caliphate, about the size of the
13:38
Speaker 1: state of Indiana that they had control over. And you'll
13:43
Speaker 1: recall under Obama we'd been fighting there for a long
13:46
Speaker 1: time and fighting there and making very little progress, and
13:49
Speaker 1: fighting there and making little, very little progress. And I
13:52
Speaker 1: asked General Milly at the beginning of the Trump administration
13:56
Speaker 1: how things looked, what his assessment was of our prospects
14:01
Speaker 1: for success for taking out the Islamic State, and his
14:05
Speaker 1: answer shocked me. He said, we will retake every square inch,
14:14
Speaker 1: or virtually every square inch of the Islamic State caliphate
14:22
Speaker 1: in just a few months. And I asked him, I said,
14:25
Speaker 1: what why? What changed? And he said one thing, And
14:32
Speaker 1: I wondered. He said one thing. He said, they've delegated
14:40
Speaker 1: decisions down to the battlefield of when and how to engage.
14:45
Speaker 1: During the Obama administration, the White House made tactical battlefield decisions.
14:54
Speaker 1: Susan Rice, who was the National Security Advisor. Soldiers in
14:58
Speaker 1: the field would joke and they'd call her General Rice
15:01
Speaker 1: because they were literally determining, you can engage here, you
15:06
Speaker 1: can engage here, you can engage in this instance, you
15:08
Speaker 1: can engage in that instance. And it was run out
15:11
Speaker 1: of the White House by the political operatives in the
15:13
Speaker 1: White House. What Trump did at the outset as he said,
15:17
Speaker 1: what does it take to defeat these guys? All right,
15:21
Speaker 1: you have the authority on the battlefield to engage and
15:25
Speaker 1: take out the enemy. And simply giving that operational control
15:29
Speaker 1: down to the battlefield transformed the battlefield. And it turned
15:33
Speaker 1: out what General Militoby was right that within just a
15:36
Speaker 1: couple of months from then, every single square inch or
15:40
Speaker 1: virtually every square inch that the Islamic State had taken
15:45
Speaker 1: had fallen and they were utterly defeated. And this testimony
15:50
Speaker 1: shows the consequences. What does it tell us. It tells
15:53
Speaker 1: us that Biden came in with these same knitwits who
15:57
Speaker 1: were running the Obama disastrous National Security Council and they
16:02
Speaker 1: did the same thing. So in this instance, the sergeant testifies,
16:08
Speaker 1: they say, we've got the suicide bomber. He's in front
16:10
Speaker 1: of us, he's in our rifle sights. We can take
16:14
Speaker 1: him out. And his commander says, I don't even know
16:18
Speaker 1: who'd ask. It's got to be up in the chain.
16:21
Speaker 1: I don't know if that had to go all the
16:22
Speaker 1: way to the National Security Council or not. What I
16:25
Speaker 1: do know is the result was it had gone back
16:29
Speaker 1: to the same utterly ineffective ability for the war fighters
16:36
Speaker 1: to engage with the enemy. And in this instance the
16:39
Speaker 1: consequences were devastating. Not only were they devastating, but you
16:44
Speaker 1: also mentioned it earlier. This was all decisions made on politics,
16:49
Speaker 1: and I want to remind people this was about having
16:53
Speaker 1: a victory lap for the Biden administration. They wanted to
16:57
Speaker 1: say we got out of nine to eleven, a war
17:01
Speaker 1: that started because of nine to eleven before the date,
17:03
Speaker 1: on the anniversary of nine to eleven, that was why
17:07
Speaker 1: they rushed everybody out of Afghanistan as they wanted a
17:09
Speaker 1: victory Lapp saying on this anniversary nine eleven, we are
17:12
Speaker 1: out of America as long as war. And that was
17:15
Speaker 1: the obsession with that date and not caring about American
17:20
Speaker 1: carnage or anybody else that helped Americans or innocent and
17:23
Speaker 1: people in Afghanistan, because that was ultimately the goal they
17:27
Speaker 1: wanted that press conference. Look, that's exactly right. And and
17:32
Speaker 1: we've seen if you go back to the Vietnam War,
17:34
Speaker 1: when when you have war fighting dictated by political operatives
17:39
Speaker 1: and politicians in Washington, when their mate, when they're micro
17:43
Speaker 1: managing the engagement with the enemy, the result is that
17:48
Speaker 1: that servicemen and women die, young men and young women,
17:53
Speaker 1: young Americans die, And on that tragic day that that
17:57
Speaker 1: that that's exactly what happened. It's truly sad. I want
18:02
Speaker 1: to play this second part. It's very emotional and I'll
18:06
Speaker 1: say it again everybody, this should have been covered by
18:09
Speaker 1: the media. It is not. Make sure you share this
18:13
Speaker 1: with everybody you know. Share the podcast on your social media,
18:17
Speaker 1: whether whether you're on Facebook or Instagram. Share it so
18:20
Speaker 1: other people hear this. Because this testimony deserves to be heard.
18:24
Speaker 1: I would argue by all Americans. Before I play the
18:27
Speaker 1: second part, I do need to tell you a better
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19:35
Speaker 1: The second part that we're gonna play and you're gonna
19:37
Speaker 1: hear some pauses, you're gonna hear some tears. This is
19:41
Speaker 1: a man that is telling his story to the world
19:44
Speaker 1: for the first time of what happened at that airport
19:47
Speaker 1: as we were rushing to pull out of Afghanistan, all
19:50
Speaker 1: because we're trying to hit an arbitrary date for political gain.
19:53
Speaker 1: Here's the second part of this story. Our expertise was disregarded.
19:59
Speaker 1: No one was held to count for our safety. About
20:02
Speaker 1: seventeen thirty, staff Sergeant Darren Hoover, friend and mentor, came
20:13
Speaker 1: to get me from the tower to go help find
20:14
Speaker 1: an Afghan interpreter. In the crowd y. We found the
20:42
Speaker 1: interpreter and his brother born with American passports. They told
20:47
Speaker 1: us five told us of five family members still in
20:49
Speaker 1: the canal. I stayed there waiting for the family members,
20:53
Speaker 1: standing against a two foot canal wall. Ten minutes passed,
20:59
Speaker 1: then a flash in a massive wave of pressure, I'm
21:02
Speaker 1: throwing twelve feet onto the ground, but instantly knew what
21:05
Speaker 1: had happened. I opened my eyes to marines dead or
21:08
Speaker 1: unconscious lying around me. A crowd of hundreds immediately vanished
21:36
Speaker 1: in front of me, and my body was catastrophically wounded,
21:38
Speaker 1: with a one hundred, two hundred and fifty ball bearings
21:41
Speaker 1: now in it. Almost immediately we started taking fire from
21:44
Speaker 1: the neighborhood, and I saw how injured I was, with
21:46
Speaker 1: my right arm completely shredded and unusable. I saw my
21:51
Speaker 1: lower abdomen soaked in blood. I crawled backwards roughly seven
22:03
Speaker 1: feet because I thought I was still in harm's away.
22:06
Speaker 1: My body was overwhelmed from the trauma of the blast.
22:09
Speaker 1: My abdomen had been ripped open. Every inch of my
22:11
Speaker 1: exposed body except from my face to ball banks and strapnel.
22:18
Speaker 1: I tried to get up but could not. Laying there
22:20
Speaker 1: for a few minutes, I started to lose consciousness when
22:24
Speaker 1: I heard Chaz, my team leader, screaming my name. As
22:27
Speaker 1: he ran to me. His voice, his voice calling to
22:32
Speaker 1: me kept me awake. Thank you. When he got to me,
22:57
Speaker 1: he dragged me to safety and immediately started triaging me,
23:00
Speaker 1: tying turnikis on my limbs and doing anything he couldn't
23:02
Speaker 1: stop the bleeding and start plucking wounds with the help
23:04
Speaker 1: of the other Marines. I was awake through most of it, screaming,
23:07
Speaker 1: moaning and cursing. Please ask I ask you to please
23:11
Speaker 1: ask me about getting shot at the tower and Abby Gate,
23:14
Speaker 1: and how no one wanted my report post blast, even
23:17
Speaker 1: NCIS and the FBI failed to interview me. Asked me
23:19
Speaker 1: to elaborate on my ordeal post blast, and asked me
23:23
Speaker 1: about the one little girl and her family that I reunited.
23:26
Speaker 1: Our military members and veterans deserve our best because that
23:29
Speaker 1: is what we give to America. The withdrawal. The withdrawal
23:34
Speaker 1: was a catastrophe in my opinion, and there was an
23:37
Speaker 1: inexcusable lack of accountability and negligence. The eleven Marines, one
23:43
Speaker 1: sailor and one soldier that were murdered that day have
23:48
Speaker 1: not been answered for. Thank you for giving me this
23:51
Speaker 1: opportunity to speak. Sinner. My heart goes out to him
23:57
Speaker 1: because you can hear the pain, the suffering in the
24:00
Speaker 1: fact that he says no one wanted to hear my story.
24:05
Speaker 1: Let me say this, thank you to Sergeant Vargas Andrews. Tyler.
24:13
Speaker 1: Vargus Andrews is an American hero, and he is a
24:22
Speaker 1: marine who was horribly failed by his commander in chief.
24:32
Speaker 1: He's a marine who was horribly failed by the command
24:39
Speaker 1: shain above him that was ordered to follow political dictates
24:47
Speaker 1: and to elevate political priorities above protecting the Marines and
24:55
Speaker 1: the soldiers and sailors and airmen who were there on
24:59
Speaker 1: the ground risking their I listened to that testimony, you know,
25:10
Speaker 1: and I got to ask, if you're a producer at
25:14
Speaker 1: ABC News or NBC News or CBS or CNN or MSNBC,
25:24
Speaker 1: why didn't you air that testimony? What possibly was happening
25:30
Speaker 1: on Wednesday that was more important than what Sergeant Vargus
25:39
Speaker 1: Andrews had to say, What was more important than his
25:43
Speaker 1: testimony That they knew about the suicide bomber, that they
25:47
Speaker 1: had him in his sight, that they could have taken
25:50
Speaker 1: him out, that they could have saved the lives of
25:53
Speaker 1: those thirteen servicemen and women, and their commanding officers wouldn't
26:02
Speaker 1: let him do it. I can't imagine a news story
26:10
Speaker 1: more important than that. And this young man, this American hero,
26:19
Speaker 1: a hundred to one hundred and fifty ball bearings in
26:23
Speaker 1: his body, and it all could have been prevented. Number one,
26:29
Speaker 1: if they'd stayed in Bogram Airfield and dune the evacuation
26:33
Speaker 1: from a secure military base, it could have been prevented there.
26:37
Speaker 1: Or number two if they simply allowed warfighters to defend
26:44
Speaker 1: themselves and to take out the enemy when they're engaging
26:47
Speaker 1: with him, if they didn't play like they're engaging in
26:51
Speaker 1: a game of risk, a board game by a bunch
26:57
Speaker 1: of political neo fights who never put on a uniform
27:04
Speaker 1: in their lives, but are more than happy to say, well, look,
27:10
Speaker 1: the headline is what we care about, not how do
27:15
Speaker 1: you prevent these young men and young women from being
27:17
Speaker 1: murdered by the terrorists to whom they were in the
27:22
Speaker 1: process of surrendering too. There's also another question, I say another,
27:28
Speaker 1: there's quite a few, but the fact that he wasn't
27:31
Speaker 1: interviewed Senator Yep. The only reason why I can get
27:36
Speaker 1: get to a process of saying why wouldn't you interview
27:39
Speaker 1: him because you knew what he was gonna say, and
27:41
Speaker 1: you didn't want to hear it because you knew how
27:44
Speaker 1: damning it was. And so therefore he said, no one
27:48
Speaker 1: interviewed him from the FBI. CI asked, no, No, nobody
27:51
Speaker 1: interviewed him at all. He was there, he knew who
27:57
Speaker 1: he knew, He knew who the bomber was. He was
27:59
Speaker 1: there for the dr run. All of this happens, no
28:02
Speaker 1: one interviews him. That to me screams cover up. The
28:05
Speaker 1: administration knew this was a problem, that the Pentagon, the
28:09
Speaker 1: OJ knew this was a problem, and they said, we
28:11
Speaker 1: don't want to hear from the people that were there
28:13
Speaker 1: because we're too afraid of what they're gonna say. Look,
28:17
Speaker 1: he says, when he asked his superior officer, where do
28:21
Speaker 1: you get authorization? The answer was, I don't know. What
28:26
Speaker 1: in the hell are these people doing. If we are
28:31
Speaker 1: sending marines into combat where they don't even know where
28:35
Speaker 1: they get authorization to take out a suicide bomber before
28:39
Speaker 1: that suicide bomber murders them, that's incompetent. But it is
28:48
Speaker 1: also it's not just that they're bad at it. It's
28:51
Speaker 1: ideology that is causing that incompetence. You're right, they wanted
28:55
Speaker 1: to hit the nine to eleven anniversary because you know what,
28:58
Speaker 1: they're friends in the media. I would say, isn't that great? Look,
29:01
Speaker 1: Joe Biden had a great political victory, and you know,
29:04
Speaker 1: from their end, doing it so that people didn't die,
29:13
Speaker 1: doing it, so that our servicemen and women were protected,
29:17
Speaker 1: doing it so you didn't have Afghans killing themselves by
29:20
Speaker 1: throwing themselves on razor wire. None of that rose even
29:29
Speaker 1: remotely to the level of their political objective of getting
29:32
Speaker 1: a partisan win. And you know what's also infuriating Ben.
29:37
Speaker 1: To the best of my knowledge, nobody was fired. There
29:40
Speaker 1: was no accountability. All of the top brass are still there.
29:44
Speaker 1: The Secretary of Defense is still there. No one lost
29:48
Speaker 1: their job. You know. One of the things that that
29:51
Speaker 1: that that that sergeant, the sergeant testifies too, is that
29:56
Speaker 1: the State Department wasn't prepared at all handle things at
30:02
Speaker 1: h Kaya. You know what, the Secretary of State, he
30:06
Speaker 1: didn't lose his job. Nobody up and down the chain
30:08
Speaker 1: of command. The only people who paid a price were
30:11
Speaker 1: the people who were murdered, the people who were horribly injured,
30:14
Speaker 1: the people who were tortured by the Taliban, They're the
30:18
Speaker 1: ones that paid the price. But the political operatives all
30:21
Speaker 1: up and down are still just doing fine and facing
30:24
Speaker 1: zero accountability. And they know that the corporate media has
30:29
Speaker 1: no interest in accountability. They have no interest in what
30:32
Speaker 1: happened that took the lives of those heroic Americans. Final
30:38
Speaker 1: question for you, Senator, knowing that the Taliban was testing
30:44
Speaker 1: us in that moment, seeing what they could get away with,
30:47
Speaker 1: seeing how weak America's foreign policy in real time was becoming,
30:51
Speaker 1: when they were killing people in essence for sport, just
30:54
Speaker 1: to basically torture the American soldiers because they realized, wow,
30:58
Speaker 1: they're really not going to engage age. It wasn't just
31:02
Speaker 1: a catastrophe that came out of this in Afghanistan. Many
31:05
Speaker 1: of the world conflicts and problems we're having right now,
31:08
Speaker 1: I think came out of this man's story because the
31:12
Speaker 1: rest of the world realized in that moment they can
31:16
Speaker 1: do whatever the hell they want to do in America
31:19
Speaker 1: will not stop them. And now that we have this
31:22
Speaker 1: ball rolling down the hill of a weak America and
31:25
Speaker 1: others can do what they want, how concerned are you
31:28
Speaker 1: from a national security standpoint? Enormously concerned. Every enemy of
31:33
Speaker 1: America saw that disaster. Putin saw it. She saw it,
31:40
Speaker 1: Iran saw it. North Korea saw it. Venezuela saw it.
31:44
Speaker 1: Every terrorist cell across the globe, they all saw it,
31:48
Speaker 1: and all of them came to the same conclusion, which is,
31:51
Speaker 1: this is a commander in chief, chief who is weak
31:55
Speaker 1: and incompetent. This is a commander in chief who is
31:59
Speaker 1: a friend to fight. This is a commander in chief
32:02
Speaker 1: unwilling to do what it takes even to defend his
32:05
Speaker 1: own servicemen and women, never mind anyone else. And we're
32:10
Speaker 1: seeing the consequences of it right now with the war
32:13
Speaker 1: in Ukraine, the first major land war in Europe since
32:16
Speaker 1: World War Two. And we're seeing the consequences of it
32:20
Speaker 1: in the Pacific, with China more and more aggressive and
32:24
Speaker 1: Taiwan in greater and greater peril. And I'll tell you
32:27
Speaker 1: I met today with Taiwan's ambassador and I told the ambassador,
32:33
Speaker 1: I said, look, I think the danger that Taiwan is
32:38
Speaker 1: in for the next two years of the Biden presidency
32:43
Speaker 1: is enormous. Because she looked at what happened here and
32:49
Speaker 1: concluded this president is not strong enough to deter us
32:54
Speaker 1: from doing anything. Yeah, it is amazing how something like
32:58
Speaker 1: this can turn into such a big your conflict around
33:01
Speaker 1: the world. And this is again one of those moments.
33:05
Speaker 1: I'll say it. I'll ask you make sure people hear
33:08
Speaker 1: this man's story. He's a hero, and make sure you
33:11
Speaker 1: share this podcast with your family and friends. Finally, I
33:14
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Speaker 1: promo code, Ben Senator. Its pleasure is always a chat
34:14
Speaker 1: with you. This is one of those shows. As we said,
34:16
Speaker 1: the beginning so important. I hope people will remember this
34:20
Speaker 1: man's story and let everybody hear it. We'll see you
34:22
Speaker 1: back here in a couple of days.