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Speaker 1: Hey, guys, thanks for listening to Breaking Points with Crystal

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Speaker 1: and Sager. We're gonna be totally upfront with you. We

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Speaker 1: took a big risk going independent to make this work.

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Speaker 1: We need your support to beat the corporate media CNN, Fox, MSNBC.

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Speaker 1: They are ripping this country apart. They are making millions

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Speaker 1: of dollars doing it to help support our mission of

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Speaker 1: making all of us hate each other, less hate the

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Speaker 1: corrupt ruling class more support the show. Become a Breaking

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Speaker 1: listen to the entire show ad free and uncut, an

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Speaker 1: hour early before everyone else. You get to hear our

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Speaker 1: reactions to each other's monologues. You get to participate and

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Speaker 1: weekly ask me any things, and you don't need to

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Speaker 1: hear our annoying voices pitching you like I am right now?

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Speaker 1: So what are you waiting for? Go to Breakingpoints dot

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Speaker 1: com become a Premium member today, which is available in

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Speaker 1: the show notes. Enjoy the show, guys, Good morning, everybody,

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Speaker 1: Happy Monday. We have an amazing show for everybody today.

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Speaker 1: What do we have Bristol? Indeed we do. Show looks

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Speaker 1: a little bit different today. We're going to explain why

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Speaker 1: in just a moment, we have some big updates out

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Speaker 1: of Afghanistan. Will bring you up to speed there what

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Speaker 1: the polling says about how Americans feel about all of this,

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Speaker 1: some of it going against the media narrative. We also

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Speaker 1: have some of the most cringe reactions to bring you,

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Speaker 1: especially from the Republican Party on Afghanistan. An update on

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Speaker 1: January sixth and what exactly happened there, and some new

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Speaker 1: research on masking kids in schools that I think you're

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Speaker 1: definitely going to want to pay attention to. Lucas Koms

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Speaker 1: is also going to be on to break down his

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Speaker 1: experience in Afghanistan. He's a veteran of both the Iraq

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Speaker 1: and Afghan wars. We had him on rising to talk

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Speaker 1: actually about China. Really super smart guy. Works with Matt

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Speaker 1: Stoller on anti trust stuff running for Senate in Misser,

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Speaker 1: So excited to talk to him. What soccer? Why don't

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Speaker 1: you explain to the good people first why we are

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Speaker 1: doing the show from home today? Yeah? I got some

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Speaker 1: got some personal news. As they say, I've got the

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Speaker 1: big one nine, the COVID nineteen breakthrough case. I am

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Speaker 1: officially one of the statistics so that is me. So

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Speaker 1: I thought I would just explain what it's like. People

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Speaker 1: out there are possibly curious. So I took my test

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Speaker 1: on Thursday evening. I wasn't feeling particularly well on Thursday,

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Speaker 1: and I thought, you know, I was supposed to go

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Speaker 1: to a wedding and there was all this other stuff.

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Speaker 1: So I said, okay, you know, I got to be responsible,

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Speaker 1: make sure that I'm good. Test came back positive. Honestly, Crystal,

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Speaker 1: I could not distinguish it from a bad cold, and

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Speaker 1: I think that that's mostly what it was like. I

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Speaker 1: think I'm mostly on the tail end. I still feel

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Speaker 1: a little bit fatigued to be one transparent. Had two

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Speaker 1: doses of Maderna, but I was still I would say

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Speaker 1: I was pretty sick. I had like flu like symptoms,

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Speaker 1: a lot of congestion, had a fever for a couple

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Speaker 1: of days, lots of fatigue. My taste was like forty

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Speaker 1: percent of what it normally was, so it wasn't like

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Speaker 1: a total loss. As I texted you, I ate a

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Speaker 1: bunch of hobb and narrow sauce in order to test.

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Speaker 1: With the side effect of that is it really clears

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Speaker 1: the sinuses. So if you if you suspect you have

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Speaker 1: one to nine. I encourage you to try that little

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Speaker 1: test for yourself. But that's it. I am officially one

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Speaker 1: of the statistics, and I got to say it does

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Speaker 1: have me asking some questions about overall national policy, because

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Speaker 1: you know, you and I have been discussing this around. Obviously,

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Speaker 1: you know, getting vaccinated. This probably may have been much worse,

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Speaker 1: you know, given my reaction if I hadn't been vaccinated.

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Speaker 1: So thank god for that, and I encourage everybody, if

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Speaker 1: you're not in order to go do so to protect yourself.

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Speaker 1: But I do think that the breakthrough case numbers might

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Speaker 1: be more than they are letting on, and I think

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Speaker 1: the public health authorities should probably be transparent about that.

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Speaker 1: There's probably a lot of breakthrough cases that aren't showing

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Speaker 1: up at you know, hospitals or clinics. Like you didn't

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Speaker 1: you felt well enough, you weren't worried about, you know,

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Speaker 1: having to go to the hospital, or you tell me

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Speaker 1: you never had a moment. I don't think where you

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Speaker 1: were thinking I might have to go to the hospital.

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Speaker 1: So data like yours just may not be captured. I

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Speaker 1: think the most important thing to say with all of

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Speaker 1: this is because you were vaccinated. You had confidence when

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Speaker 1: you got it that it was going to be a

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Speaker 1: pain in the butt, that you were going to be

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Speaker 1: feeling bad for a while, but that ultimately you were

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Speaker 1: likely to be fine. So that I think is really

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Speaker 1: important for people to take away. But how do you

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Speaker 1: feel now? And also do you have any like speculation

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Speaker 1: about where or how you contracted it? Yeah, you know,

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Speaker 1: I have no idea. So there are two really only

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Speaker 1: options here, which is that I know that I was

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Speaker 1: negative whenever I stepped back on a plane back to

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Speaker 1: the United States, because I had to get tested in

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Speaker 1: order to come back to the US. Now I either

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Speaker 1: got it on the plane but apparently air travel transmission

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Speaker 1: is pretty low, or it's possible that I picked it

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Speaker 1: up at the gym. But honestly, the more I've been

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Speaker 1: doing reading Cristol, this delta variant is just so much

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Speaker 1: more infectious, at like a thousand times more than normal COVID,

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Speaker 1: I've been joking that it's as infectious as they tried

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Speaker 1: to make us think. That original COVID was that it

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Speaker 1: could honestly just be anywhere, Like it it could be the

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Speaker 1: grocery store, it could be it could be the immigration line,

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Speaker 1: when I was at the airport, I was around now

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Speaker 1: you know, hundreds and hundreds of people, and in terms

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Speaker 1: of mask efficacy and all that, it's really up in

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Speaker 1: the air whenever it comes to delta. So I know,

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Speaker 1: I want to be clear too that this doesn't change

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Speaker 1: anything about how about my public health commentary and you know,

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Speaker 1: we'll get to that. I think whenever we talk about

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Speaker 1: school masking and more, I think it is important that

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Speaker 1: we might have to have a little bit of a

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Speaker 1: mindset shift to say, yeah, you know, like this could

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Speaker 1: be an endemic disease. It could be one of those

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Speaker 1: things where as long as you're vaccinated, you will not

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Speaker 1: have to worry about that. I did not seek any

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Speaker 1: doctor intervention because specifically I didn't want to draw resources

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Speaker 1: away from somebody else. I was like, you know, I

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Speaker 1: don't need these antibodies or ivermectin or you know whatever,

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Speaker 1: because like, I'm fine. I took some tile and all. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I didn't feel too good for a couple of days,

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Speaker 1: but you know, that's life. And I think that that

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Speaker 1: that really is kind of the mindset that we're going

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Speaker 1: to have to transition to, especially when we're going into

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Speaker 1: the winter. In order to avoid some of the more

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Speaker 1: more onerous restrictions that I fear they're going to try

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Speaker 1: to justify given some of the rising case numbers that

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Speaker 1: we have across the country. Yeah, another public health note here,

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Speaker 1: there are reports of people seeking the like veterinarian horse

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Speaker 1: version of ivermectin. Don't do that. Don't do that, guys

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Speaker 1: that I did not, ever, I did not ever stoop

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Speaker 1: to the stoop to the levels of double masking, taking

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Speaker 1: getting in the car, going down to the stables and

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Speaker 1: being like, can I take horse drugs? You're you're gonna

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Speaker 1: be okay. Please don't do that. If you do it.

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Speaker 1: If you do get COVID, go to your doctor, find

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Speaker 1: out from them what course of treatment that they recommend.

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Speaker 1: Get vaccinated. So that if you do end up with

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Speaker 1: a breakthrough case like Soger has, that you know you

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Speaker 1: have confidence that, yeah, you're going to have a rough

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Speaker 1: few days. And I would say, you were fairly sick,

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Speaker 1: and you're not the type, uh, You're not a complainer.

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Speaker 1: You're a push through kind of a guy. So when

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Speaker 1: you said you felt really shitty, I knew it was

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Speaker 1: you know, you were, you were going through it. And

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Speaker 1: so I'm glad you're kind of on the other side

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Speaker 1: of it. One other thing we should say is, you know,

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Speaker 1: just in terms of the national statistics and what we know,

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Speaker 1: uh breakthrough cases, there is some protection from the vaccines,

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Speaker 1: but that does seem to wane somewhat over time. The

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Speaker 1: big thing that they definitely still protect against at a

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Speaker 1: very high rate is hospitalization and especially death. Those are

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Speaker 1: the things obviously we are most concerned about. So anyway, Sager,

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Speaker 1: I'm glad you're feeling a little bit better, although I

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Speaker 1: know you're still still a little tired, still a little

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Speaker 1: rundown from this whole thing. We'll get there. I just

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Speaker 1: want my taste bugs back so I can eat really

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Speaker 1: spicy food. But yes, programming rope, please everybody, thank you

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Speaker 1: for bearing with us. It'll be a week. I fully

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Speaker 1: expect to test negative within the next couple of days

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Speaker 1: and then just for as a precautionary measure, and then

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Speaker 1: we should be back up and running all next week.

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Speaker 1: So bear with this and thank you very much. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and I guess that is the last thing to say.

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Speaker 1: I decided to do the show also, not in the studio,

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Speaker 1: because obviously I was around Saga quite a bit on

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Speaker 1: Thursday when he started to feel bad. So I feel

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Speaker 1: totally one hundred percent. Bye. I've been giving myself the

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Speaker 1: home test every single day. I continue to test negative,

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Speaker 1: but just out of an abundance of caution, I decided

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Speaker 1: to also not be in the studios and Sager is

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Speaker 1: going to be on. It doesn't make that much of

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Speaker 1: a difference anyway, So that is what you can expect

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Speaker 1: for the week. Yeah, thank you. Oh can I just

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Speaker 1: say a note on that those home tests, they are

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Speaker 1: a lifesaver. I really encourage people to go in. We

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Speaker 1: should have had these months and months ago, but you

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Speaker 1: can buy them at CVS. It's like twenty five dollars

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Speaker 1: for two tests and they're very very accurate. I think

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Speaker 1: it's like ninety nine percent. So that's something where you

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Speaker 1: know you can save a trip to the doctor, an

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Speaker 1: expensive PCR and all of that, and you can just

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Speaker 1: do it yourself. We're talking twelve dollars a test, and

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Speaker 1: it is really worth knowing if you're somebody who's suspecting.

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Speaker 1: Like I said, I did it out of an abundance

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Speaker 1: of caution. I had no idea or I did not

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Speaker 1: expect to get it, but I did, and I you know,

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Speaker 1: it's better that we have that information. So I hope

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Speaker 1: everybody goes and tries to utilize that technology because it

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Speaker 1: is important. All right. So all of that being said, Hager,

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Speaker 1: if there's some interesting polls out this morning about how

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Speaker 1: people are feeling about Afghanistan. So this is a very

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Speaker 1: important development here, which a lot of people are trying

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Speaker 1: to spin. Now, let's go ahead and put this NBC

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Speaker 1: News tear sheet up there on the screen, which shows

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Speaker 1: that the drop in job rating decline for Biden is precipitous.

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Speaker 1: Now they put in the headline mid COVID urge afghan

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Speaker 1: withdrawal in the NBC News. This is important because even

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Speaker 1: NBC is calling this quote the summer of discontent when

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Speaker 1: Biden's approval rating is following through fifty percent of the

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Speaker 1: first time. And remember the Crystal and Saga rule, which

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Speaker 1: is that any public poll you should just add plus

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Speaker 1: four to plus six of Republican support. Given the fact

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Speaker 1: that we basically didn't see we didn't see a lot

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Speaker 1: of that show up in the twenty twenty election. But

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Speaker 1: what I want to point people towards is the actual

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Speaker 1: declines for Biden on COVID and that Afghanistan, Crystal really

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Speaker 1: doesn't have a lot to do with this job approval ratings.

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Speaker 1: Let's go ahead and put this up there on the screen,

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Speaker 1: Mark Murray. So what he shows there is that Biden's

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Speaker 1: job approval ran all adults forty nine percent, and it

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Speaker 1: was fifty three in April. Disapproval forty eight was thirty nine.

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Speaker 1: So that's in a nine point increase in the explicit

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Speaker 1: disapproval rating and registered voters relatively stable from fifty to

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Speaker 1: fifty one. But the overall disapprove number, I think is

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Speaker 1: really getting at something which is important. But you know,

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Speaker 1: friend of the show, Batya, let's go ahead and put

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Speaker 1: her tweet up there on the screen because I think

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Speaker 1: she captured us which I want to get across to everybody,

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Speaker 1: which is that the drop for Biden. Yes, people don't

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Speaker 1: necessarily approve of Afghanistan, but the sixteen point drop in

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Speaker 1: his handling of COVID is what has really led to

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Speaker 1: his drop in approval. As she says, showing once more

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Speaker 1: how the national media's views pro COVID restrictions and furious

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Speaker 1: about Afghanistan are the opposite of most Americans. And I

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Speaker 1: think that that absolutely captures the dynamic. We're about to

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Speaker 1: get to school masking and pandemic restriction and more. But

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Speaker 1: I really do believe Crystal that the discontent in this country,

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Speaker 1: I think really amongst people like us as well as

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Speaker 1: many diehards, people who went out, got vaccinated, did what

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Speaker 1: they were supposed to do, but are still living with

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Speaker 1: a lot of hysteria, a lot of talking about you know,

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Speaker 1: different restrictions and more. Are not grappling with the fact

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Speaker 1: that this could be a real uprising against Biden, and

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Speaker 1: that Biden, by really, in my opinion, you know, kind

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Speaker 1: of caving to the public health establishment, is doing himself

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Speaker 1: in the Democrats no favors come election time in twenty

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Speaker 1: twenty two. My interpretation is quite a bit different because

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Speaker 1: if you look at it, the numbers are still very

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Speaker 1: much in favor of you know, things like masking, even

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Speaker 1: vaccine mandates are more popular than honestly I would have expected.

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Speaker 1: But I think some of this is Biden's fault, and

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Speaker 1: I think some of it is out of his control.

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Speaker 1: There is a segment of the population that doesn't want

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Speaker 1: to get vaccinated, and it really doesn't matter what Joe

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Speaker 1: Biden says or does outside of a vaccine mandate, which

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Speaker 1: would be incredibly controversial to get those people vaccinated. And

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Speaker 1: that means that we are having a search in coronavirus

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Speaker 1: cases as we are personally experiencing, although your vaccination status

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Speaker 1: doesn't have anything to do with that. So some of

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Speaker 1: that is kind of out of his hands. The part

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Speaker 1: that is in his hands that I fully blame him

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Speaker 1: for is that if you look into some of these numbers,

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Speaker 1: there's a large number of the American people who think

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Speaker 1: that he is not getting much done. And I think

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Speaker 1: that criticism at this point is fair because he took

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Speaker 1: so long and was so obsessed with getting this bipartisan

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Speaker 1: deal done that it is really hamstrung the rest of

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Speaker 1: his agenda. Not to mention that he's decided to defer

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Speaker 1: to the parliamentarian, he's decided to keep the existing Senate

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Speaker 1: rules with regards to the filibuster at a place, he's

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Speaker 1: decided not to put pressure on Mansion, and so there

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Speaker 1: is a sense of like he's stuck. And the other

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Speaker 1: pieces that were promised to the American people to help

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Speaker 1: them and to continue to move the economy forward, you know,

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Speaker 1: not just to get on of COVID, but beyond those

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Speaker 1: have not come to fruition that is completely on him,

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Speaker 1: and I think that's part of why you see this

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Speaker 1: backsliding in both his handling up the coronavirus and also

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Speaker 1: backsliding in terms of his handling of the economy. What

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Speaker 1: I will say to your point is the people who

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Speaker 1: do oppose the COVID restrictions are extremely motivated a lot

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Speaker 1: in the midterms, right, which side is really amped up

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Speaker 1: and really motivated, And I do think that's an issue

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Speaker 1: for him. Part of why I thought it was really important,

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Speaker 1: and I believe you feel the same. For us to

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Speaker 1: do this analysis of the polls, which you should always

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Speaker 1: take with a real grain of salt, is because we

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Speaker 1: know the way the media is going to spin this look.

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Speaker 1: I think Democrats are probably kind of screwed for the midterms,

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Speaker 1: partly because of history, right, the party in power typically

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Speaker 1: does poorly in midterms, partly because of COVID, partly because

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Speaker 1: they didn't take more aggressive action to take control of

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Speaker 1: things like redistricting so that they had a more level

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Speaker 1: playing field by which they could perform in the midterms.

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Speaker 1: So I do think that they're in big trouble in

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Speaker 1: terms of maintaining control of the House certainly, and the

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Speaker 1: Senate quite possibly as well. The media is going to

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Speaker 1: say that's because of Afghanistan, and that's just not the case.

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Speaker 1: If you ask voters in this NBC News poll, one

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Speaker 1: of the things that they found is that Afghanistan is

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Speaker 1: nowhere on people's list of the issues that are most

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Speaker 1: important to them, for better or worse, because we care

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Speaker 1: a lot about foreign policy here, but for better or worse,

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Speaker 1: most Americans are more focused on domestic policy. That is

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Speaker 1: likely to be what they vote based on and whether

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Speaker 1: they decide to show up the polls or not in

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Speaker 1: the midterm elections. So if Democrats ultimately lose the House

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Speaker 1: and lose the Senate and the media goes all in on, oh,

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Speaker 1: it's because he actually withdrew from Afghanistan, something that two

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Speaker 1: thirds of the American people support, and they try to

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Speaker 1: pin the blame on that decision, you will have the

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Speaker 1: data to know why that is complete. BS absolutely, and

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Speaker 1: Friend of the Show Treata Parsi highlighted, you know, brand

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Speaker 1: new poll that actually came out which admitted the worst

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Speaker 1: of the withdrawal. Let's go and put his tweet up

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Speaker 1: there on the screen. Despite implementation problems, sixty percent of

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Speaker 1: Americans continue to support withdrawal from Afghanistan, which is a

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Speaker 1: poll conducted from August seventeenth to nineteen. So think about

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Speaker 1: what exactly was going on in those days, actually only

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Speaker 1: four or five days ago, for Joe Biden's sake, but

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Speaker 1: only twenty two percent oppose Biden's decision, and sixty seven

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Speaker 1: percent want to prioritize domestic policy issues over foreign policy.

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Speaker 1: So all we can do is underscore again and again,

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Speaker 1: as you point out, and I think your interpretation makes

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Speaker 1: quite a bit of sense, because here's the counter to it,

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Speaker 1: which is that if you're going to have a bunch

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Speaker 1: of restrictions, then the only way to really make sure

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Speaker 1: that that's okay with people is to deliver a massive

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Speaker 1: domestic political agenda, right, And that's not happening. So he

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Speaker 1: has the worst of it. So then what do people choose.

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Speaker 1: They have to choose between no restrictions, or they have

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Speaker 1: to choose between you know, basically nothing from the federal government,

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Speaker 1: which is it exactly that's a terrible political sandwich. So

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Speaker 1: I think he has kind of screwed himself in either direction.

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Speaker 1: I gotta tell you, Chris, So I'm looking real close

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Speaker 1: after we did that block on the Gavin Newsome recall election,

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Speaker 1: and getting to think that Newsom is in some serious,

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Speaker 1: serious trouble because when I read this poll and I

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Speaker 1: saw that sixteen point drop in the handling of COVID,

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Speaker 1: I mean, you can't think of anybody who personifies kind

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Speaker 1: of the Biden mindset on that then somebody like Newsom's

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Speaker 1: you know, yes, Newsom sent out the checks and all that,

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Speaker 1: but has been pro restriction, kind of your you know,

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Speaker 1: prototypical mainline Democrat. So I think that he is in big,

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Speaker 1: big trouble, but you know, staying on the go ahead,

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Speaker 1: go ahead. Well, I was just going to say on

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Speaker 1: Newsom something that's interesting there and I think also has

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Speaker 1: some national implications potentially. I would say that that raised

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Speaker 1: by the polling right now looks like a jump ball.

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Speaker 1: And as you said previously, the trend in recent years

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Speaker 1: has been that the polls under state Republican support, So

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Speaker 1: that's something we should take into account. Does that apply

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Speaker 1: in California or not, we don't really know. But his

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Speaker 1: approval rating is actually quite strong last poll, fifty seven percent,

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Speaker 1: so he's significantly above water. But the question for the

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Speaker 1: recall is who is going to show up, who is motivated,

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Speaker 1: And that's why the polls in terms of asking the

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Speaker 1: question should we recall Gavin Newsom as governor? That's why

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Speaker 1: it's basically split fifty to fifty as a little bit

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Speaker 1: of an edge, but it's within the margin of air.

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Speaker 1: That's basically where things stand right now, even though overall

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Speaker 1: of you ask people whose approval writing is actually relatively good.

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Speaker 1: So it's a question that people who are most motivated,

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Speaker 1: who are most opposed to those restrictions, are the ones

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Speaker 1: who are likely to show up to the polls. That

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Speaker 1: dynamic could play out again in the midterm elections. The

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Speaker 1: last thing I wanted to say is well, I think

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Speaker 1: we have one more axios tear sheeet. We can put

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Speaker 1: up here about the fact that sixty two percent do

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Speaker 1: not think that the Afghan war was worth fighting, and

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Speaker 1: actually way more people are concerned now about domestic extremist

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Speaker 1: groups than international extremist groups, which is a whole other conversation. Again,

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Speaker 1: it's a cleaner sixty three percent think the Iraq war

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Speaker 1: was worth fighting, so basically the same as Afghanistan. And

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Speaker 1: in the NBC New New in the NBC News poll

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Speaker 1: that you cited to start with. The number who say

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Speaker 1: that the war was not worth it is the same

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Speaker 1: now as it was in twenty fourteen. So yes, people

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Speaker 1: are looking at these images, they're looking at the completely

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Speaker 1: insane media coverage, which you're going to talk more about later,

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Speaker 1: and they're not happy with how this particular withdrawal has gone.

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Speaker 1: Do they support getting on of Afghanistan? Hell, yes, they do.

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Speaker 1: So entirely possible that over time, as some of these

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Speaker 1: more heart wrenching images fade from memory, that people come

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Speaker 1: to really respect what Joe Biden has done here in

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Speaker 1: contrast to what every other commander in chief in the

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Speaker 1: past twenty years has been able to accomplish. I think

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Speaker 1: that's fundamentally going to be the dynamic. I did that

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Speaker 1: home monologue on Sigon. Everybody thought Saigon was a disaster.

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Speaker 1: The next month, Gerald Forbes's approval rating hit and all

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Speaker 1: time high, with the number one achievement being given to

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Speaker 1: Forward that he got Americans out of Vietnam. So I

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Speaker 1: think that we are very much going to be repeating

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Speaker 1: the same dynamic, and to keep when you're watching the

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Speaker 1: polling and you're watching out the media spinning it, dig

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Speaker 1: in and actually look at where exactly the drop is

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Speaker 1: coming from and think about what the real political consequences

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Speaker 1: of that are. Yeah, okay, all right, So speaking of COVID,

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Speaker 1: COVID mania and more huge debate happening, Krystal. I know

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Speaker 1: this is happening in your own life too, around masking

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Speaker 1: with children. A lot of people who I know or

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Speaker 1: are parents, are confronting this issue. School masking is actually

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Speaker 1: quite popular in some of the polls that we've seen,

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Speaker 1: so I want to be clear about that, you know,

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Speaker 1: in terms of where people seem to support and more.

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Speaker 1: Sixty six percent is the last number that I saw.

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Speaker 1: Whether that's true. And you know, given the fact that

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Speaker 1: pandemic restrictions pulled a lot more popular than they turned

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Speaker 1: out to be in the twenty twenty election, you take

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Speaker 1: that for what it will. But let's focus actually on

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Speaker 1: the science because this is ignited a massive debate in

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Speaker 1: the country around schools and children, and I think it should.

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Speaker 1: Children are a most precious asset, you know, we should

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Speaker 1: protect them at all costs. New York Magazine has a

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Speaker 1: new piece around the science of masking with children, which

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Speaker 1: is pushing back against the CDC and the American Pediatric Association.

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Speaker 1: Let's go ahead and put that tear sheet up there

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Speaker 1: on the screen. The science of masking kids at school

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Speaker 1: remains uncertain. David Sevige is the author of this new piece,

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Speaker 1: and I'm just going to read a very relevant but

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Speaker 1: I think important one, which is that in the realm

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Speaker 1: of science and public health policy outside the United States,

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Speaker 1: the implications of new CDC findings are not exactly controversial.

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Speaker 1: Many of America's pure nations around the world, the UK, Ireland, Scandinavia, France,

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Speaker 1: the Netherlands, Switzerland, and Italy have exempted kids with varying

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Speaker 1: age cutoffs from wearing masks in classrooms. Conspicuously, there's no

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Speaker 1: evidence of more outbreaks in schools in those countries relative

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Speaker 1: to schools in the United States, where the solid majority

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Speaker 1: of kids wore masks for an entire academic year and

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Speaker 1: will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. The

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Speaker 1: other thing Crystal and I think you may have done.

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Speaker 1: I think you did something on this while I was out,

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Speaker 1: is that there's been a lot of criticism of the

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Speaker 1: so called landmark study of ninety three thousand kids. In

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Speaker 1: the first place. What they are pointing out is that

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Speaker 1: both the CDC and the American Academy of Pediatrics when

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Speaker 1: they issued their student mask guidance. Actually, the study that

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Speaker 1: they point to to justify school masking did not include

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Speaker 1: a null hypothesis around alternative pandemic mitigation measures such as

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Speaker 1: a hybrid model, social distancing, and more, and many prominent

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00:22:45,080 --> 00:22:49,760
Speaker 1: epidemiologists and public health experts have been criticizing both the organizations.

432
00:22:50,040 --> 00:22:53,199
Speaker 1: The critical point here both organizations when they're asked and

433
00:22:53,240 --> 00:22:56,400
Speaker 1: pressed by New York Magazine for evidence or underlying data,

434
00:22:56,560 --> 00:22:59,840
Speaker 1: and once they base their recommendations. The American Association of

435
00:23:00,000 --> 00:23:04,199
Speaker 1: Academy of Pediatrics did not respond to multiple requests, and

436
00:23:04,280 --> 00:23:08,040
Speaker 1: the CDC replied that since children under twelve camp be vaccinated,

437
00:23:08,200 --> 00:23:11,280
Speaker 1: they recommend universal masking. So I think we should be

438
00:23:11,400 --> 00:23:14,119
Speaker 1: very very critical. I think we should be skeptical and

439
00:23:14,440 --> 00:23:18,439
Speaker 1: analytical around what exactly masking for children means and what

440
00:23:18,720 --> 00:23:21,520
Speaker 1: the science is is robust, as these people are beginning

441
00:23:21,520 --> 00:23:26,960
Speaker 1: to say, I think people have understandably really aired on

442
00:23:27,000 --> 00:23:30,080
Speaker 1: the side of extreme caution with regards to kids. I

443
00:23:30,240 --> 00:23:34,360
Speaker 1: totally get that as mom, I totally understand where that's

444
00:23:34,359 --> 00:23:37,639
Speaker 1: coming from. But I don't think that there's been enough

445
00:23:37,680 --> 00:23:42,080
Speaker 1: concern about the costs that are being imposed on children

446
00:23:42,600 --> 00:23:45,800
Speaker 1: in the name of keeping them safe. And that's the

447
00:23:46,320 --> 00:23:50,200
Speaker 1: question that this article raises, because look, my kids are thirteen,

448
00:23:50,480 --> 00:23:54,359
Speaker 1: eight and four. Okay, for my thirteen year old to

449
00:23:54,359 --> 00:23:56,360
Speaker 1: wear a mask, by the way, she's able to get vaccinated,

450
00:23:56,400 --> 00:23:57,760
Speaker 1: but for her to wear a mask all day, have

451
00:23:57,840 --> 00:24:01,320
Speaker 1: no big deal. Right, She's got those skills already. She's

452
00:24:01,359 --> 00:24:05,120
Speaker 1: not in that super early development phase. My eight year

453
00:24:05,160 --> 00:24:08,760
Speaker 1: old has a speech impediment, so for him to wear

454
00:24:09,359 --> 00:24:12,960
Speaker 1: a mask all day, and especially in his speech therapy sessions,

455
00:24:13,520 --> 00:24:15,680
Speaker 1: that's a burden for my four year old who's still

456
00:24:15,720 --> 00:24:19,320
Speaker 1: in the midst of forming those social interactions and social bonds.

457
00:24:19,720 --> 00:24:21,800
Speaker 1: I think there's a real cost when she's gone to

458
00:24:21,840 --> 00:24:25,680
Speaker 1: preschool of her face being covered, all the kids around

459
00:24:25,720 --> 00:24:28,920
Speaker 1: her face being covered. And it's actually my mom's preschool

460
00:24:28,920 --> 00:24:31,359
Speaker 1: that she goes to by her teachers, including my mom,

461
00:24:31,800 --> 00:24:34,719
Speaker 1: to have their face covered. So there is a cost

462
00:24:35,359 --> 00:24:39,439
Speaker 1: of having kids universally masked. And what this piece and

463
00:24:39,680 --> 00:24:43,480
Speaker 1: the questions that this study raises, are those costs actually

464
00:24:43,800 --> 00:24:47,199
Speaker 1: worth it. The fact of the matter is there just

465
00:24:47,320 --> 00:24:52,120
Speaker 1: hasn't been sufficient research on whether or not masking kids

466
00:24:52,160 --> 00:24:56,119
Speaker 1: at school is an effective mitigation measure. The one really

467
00:24:56,160 --> 00:24:59,400
Speaker 1: comprehensive study that they dig into in this New York

468
00:24:59,440 --> 00:25:02,679
Speaker 1: magazine piece was actually study done by the CDC of

469
00:25:03,200 --> 00:25:06,920
Speaker 1: ninety thousand kids, and it's the only one of its

470
00:25:07,040 --> 00:25:11,960
Speaker 1: kind because they tried to isolate those different mitigation measures. So,

471
00:25:12,320 --> 00:25:15,280
Speaker 1: do you have kids socially distanced, for example, how many

472
00:25:15,320 --> 00:25:18,840
Speaker 1: kids are in the classroom, do you have effective ventilation systems?

473
00:25:19,000 --> 00:25:21,919
Speaker 1: Do you have the windows open? Do you have them masked?

474
00:25:22,359 --> 00:25:26,440
Speaker 1: And this study did find a significant impact of whether

475
00:25:26,560 --> 00:25:29,440
Speaker 1: kids were masked or not. Now, I think it's also

476
00:25:29,480 --> 00:25:33,520
Speaker 1: important to say this does not mean masks don't work.

477
00:25:34,119 --> 00:25:37,280
Speaker 1: It means if you're you know, if you've been around kids,

478
00:25:37,680 --> 00:25:40,800
Speaker 1: the mass falls below their nose. They you know, the

479
00:25:40,920 --> 00:25:43,399
Speaker 1: N ninety fives aren't made to fit their faces. A

480
00:25:43,400 --> 00:25:45,840
Speaker 1: lot of mass aren't, frankly made to fit their faces.

481
00:25:46,040 --> 00:25:48,800
Speaker 1: The cloth masks are less effective than the kN ninety

482
00:25:48,840 --> 00:25:52,120
Speaker 1: fives or the N ninety fives. So there's a very

483
00:25:52,160 --> 00:25:57,920
Speaker 1: big difference between in the abstract, theoretical perfect conditions where

484
00:25:58,000 --> 00:26:01,560
Speaker 1: everyone is perfectly masked with an N ninety five mask,

485
00:26:01,840 --> 00:26:05,760
Speaker 1: there's a big difference from that and the reality of

486
00:26:05,800 --> 00:26:08,399
Speaker 1: a bunch of little kids trying to keep masks on

487
00:26:08,440 --> 00:26:12,919
Speaker 1: their face all day. So I think number one, we

488
00:26:12,960 --> 00:26:17,520
Speaker 1: should be considering the costs, especially of closing schools, but

489
00:26:17,680 --> 00:26:20,120
Speaker 1: also of some of these mitigation efforts and the burdens

490
00:26:20,160 --> 00:26:23,040
Speaker 1: they put on kids. And it's a crime that there

491
00:26:23,040 --> 00:26:28,679
Speaker 1: hasn't been more effective and thorough research on interventions like

492
00:26:28,720 --> 00:26:31,480
Speaker 1: this to this point. Yes, I know delta is different,

493
00:26:31,560 --> 00:26:33,600
Speaker 1: and I know that delta is still new and we're

494
00:26:33,600 --> 00:26:35,639
Speaker 1: still learning about it, and so some of this is

495
00:26:35,680 --> 00:26:37,800
Speaker 1: still up in the air, but we should have a

496
00:26:37,840 --> 00:26:40,920
Speaker 1: lot more research to go on on something as basic

497
00:26:41,080 --> 00:26:45,320
Speaker 1: as do masks some kids actually work? Does this actually

498
00:26:45,960 --> 00:26:48,840
Speaker 1: keep infection from spreading among kids into the adults that

499
00:26:48,840 --> 00:26:51,160
Speaker 1: are around them? At this point, we just don't even

500
00:26:51,160 --> 00:26:53,960
Speaker 1: really know the answer. No, we don't, And I think

501
00:26:54,000 --> 00:26:56,399
Speaker 1: what makes me most angry is that people aren't taking

502
00:26:56,440 --> 00:26:59,600
Speaker 1: the consideration of your children and the social development costs

503
00:26:59,640 --> 00:27:03,160
Speaker 1: at all. The public health establishment is whitewashing this completely.

504
00:27:03,480 --> 00:27:07,480
Speaker 1: Just to pull the most insane example, let me give

505
00:27:07,520 --> 00:27:10,520
Speaker 1: you guys a taste. Put this up there on the screen.

506
00:27:10,960 --> 00:27:15,560
Speaker 1: Doctor Ellie Murray, who is an epidemiology assistant professor at

507
00:27:15,680 --> 00:27:19,320
Speaker 1: Boston University of Public Health. Here's what she says, genuine

508
00:27:19,400 --> 00:27:22,399
Speaker 1: queue for people more concerned about schools being closed in COVID.

509
00:27:22,680 --> 00:27:26,399
Speaker 1: Are you aware mandatory schooling is barely a century old

510
00:27:26,440 --> 00:27:30,280
Speaker 1: in this country. Maybe you're all grandparents at high school?

511
00:27:30,440 --> 00:27:34,560
Speaker 1: What about your great grandparents? Yes, education is important, but

512
00:27:34,880 --> 00:27:39,600
Speaker 1: it's a pandemic. I mean, like I guess the unibomber

513
00:27:39,640 --> 00:27:43,440
Speaker 1: would agree there, doctor Murray. What I hate about this

514
00:27:43,600 --> 00:27:47,639
Speaker 1: is the callousness towards children and the way that we

515
00:27:47,720 --> 00:27:51,480
Speaker 1: don't seem to realize that so much of this could

516
00:27:51,600 --> 00:27:56,840
Speaker 1: backfire with social consequences which we're not even considering around. Yes,

517
00:27:57,160 --> 00:28:00,880
Speaker 1: couldn't perhaps mitigate COVID. Well, as we said, we all

518
00:28:01,200 --> 00:28:03,919
Speaker 1: really don't know the answer to that question. But what

519
00:28:04,040 --> 00:28:07,360
Speaker 1: about as you were talking about social development? I mean,

520
00:28:07,520 --> 00:28:10,640
Speaker 1: I told you this anecdotally. I was at a party

521
00:28:10,680 --> 00:28:13,119
Speaker 1: and I met a baby who was more than a

522
00:28:13,240 --> 00:28:15,879
Speaker 1: year or something old, and the baby had never been

523
00:28:15,920 --> 00:28:19,200
Speaker 1: around people before. The only people that it knew were

524
00:28:19,760 --> 00:28:24,680
Speaker 1: its parents, and I think a caretaker. That's it. I mean, look,

525
00:28:24,960 --> 00:28:28,520
Speaker 1: I don't know. I'm not a children's psychologist, but I'm

526
00:28:28,520 --> 00:28:30,359
Speaker 1: going to go out on a limb and say that

527
00:28:30,480 --> 00:28:34,440
Speaker 1: could impact that child's development. Maybe we should be honest

528
00:28:34,720 --> 00:28:37,800
Speaker 1: about what exactly that means. So that's really all we're

529
00:28:37,800 --> 00:28:39,520
Speaker 1: trying to point to here, which is that there is

530
00:28:39,560 --> 00:28:42,480
Speaker 1: a major push in order to try and shut down

531
00:28:42,560 --> 00:28:45,680
Speaker 1: schools or the very most, very least like put down

532
00:28:46,160 --> 00:28:49,400
Speaker 1: universal masking and more. I could easily see, you know,

533
00:28:49,440 --> 00:28:53,080
Speaker 1: given my own experience with Delta, I could easily see,

534
00:28:53,640 --> 00:28:55,160
Speaker 1: you know, a push in order to try and close

535
00:28:55,200 --> 00:28:58,880
Speaker 1: colleges zoom. You know, I heard stories from somebody who

536
00:28:58,920 --> 00:29:00,960
Speaker 1: had not been to college and a year and a half,

537
00:29:01,120 --> 00:29:03,600
Speaker 1: they're a junior in college and they didn't know where

538
00:29:03,640 --> 00:29:06,800
Speaker 1: their classes were. Why because they hadn't spent any time

539
00:29:06,880 --> 00:29:10,720
Speaker 1: on campus. I mean, can you imagine that a junior

540
00:29:11,200 --> 00:29:13,800
Speaker 1: in college and did not know where their classes were

541
00:29:14,000 --> 00:29:17,520
Speaker 1: because they had not spent any time on the physical campus.

542
00:29:17,720 --> 00:29:19,960
Speaker 1: You can say, Soger, you're an idiot for caring about

543
00:29:19,960 --> 00:29:21,960
Speaker 1: stuff like that. I'm just pointing to you as a

544
00:29:22,040 --> 00:29:25,360
Speaker 1: very concrete example of there's a cost to what exactly

545
00:29:25,360 --> 00:29:28,480
Speaker 1: we've been doing here. Well, and we also have to

546
00:29:28,520 --> 00:29:31,800
Speaker 1: bear in mind that look at the beginning of the pandemic,

547
00:29:32,000 --> 00:29:34,400
Speaker 1: we didn't know whether kids were going to be as

548
00:29:34,440 --> 00:29:38,440
Speaker 1: at risk as adults, and if kids were as at risk,

549
00:29:38,600 --> 00:29:43,120
Speaker 1: it would justify some extreme measures, right, So I supported

550
00:29:43,200 --> 00:29:46,680
Speaker 1: closing schools at that point because we just didn't know. Well,

551
00:29:46,680 --> 00:29:49,320
Speaker 1: now we know, and we know, thank God, that kids

552
00:29:49,440 --> 00:29:53,200
Speaker 1: are at much much lower risk. I believe the number

553
00:29:53,280 --> 00:29:56,200
Speaker 1: that I read also from a David wallis Well's piece

554
00:29:56,200 --> 00:30:00,560
Speaker 1: actually in New York magazine is that kids fatality rate

555
00:30:00,640 --> 00:30:05,960
Speaker 1: if they're infected is point one percent. Okay, Now, if

556
00:30:06,000 --> 00:30:09,280
Speaker 1: you're a parent whose kid is infected and ends up

557
00:30:09,320 --> 00:30:11,640
Speaker 1: in the hospital or god forbid, ends up dying, then

558
00:30:11,720 --> 00:30:13,640
Speaker 1: you would do anything to protect that kid. And so

559
00:30:13,680 --> 00:30:17,120
Speaker 1: I don't want to minimize that whatsoever. But you've got

560
00:30:17,120 --> 00:30:20,880
Speaker 1: a way. What are the risks and what are the costs?

561
00:30:21,280 --> 00:30:24,120
Speaker 1: And now, at this point in the pandemic, even with delta,

562
00:30:24,440 --> 00:30:26,440
Speaker 1: because we can look at the data from the UK

563
00:30:26,840 --> 00:30:28,959
Speaker 1: where there are a few months ahead of us, and

564
00:30:29,000 --> 00:30:32,000
Speaker 1: they still see that, yes, this thing is more infectious.

565
00:30:32,080 --> 00:30:36,160
Speaker 1: It spreads rapidly. It's not quite as spreadable as chicken pox,

566
00:30:36,200 --> 00:30:39,840
Speaker 1: but it's pretty dang close. It spreads rapidly, but it

567
00:30:39,920 --> 00:30:44,960
Speaker 1: does not lead to a more significant incidence of severe illness, hospitalization,

568
00:30:45,120 --> 00:30:49,440
Speaker 1: and death that the original variant did. Okay, So we

569
00:30:49,520 --> 00:30:51,760
Speaker 1: have to weigh those costs and those benefits. And we

570
00:30:51,800 --> 00:30:53,400
Speaker 1: do know at this point, we know the way that

571
00:30:53,440 --> 00:30:57,120
Speaker 1: mental health suffered. We know that a diction spiked, and

572
00:30:57,160 --> 00:31:00,840
Speaker 1: we know that there were hundreds of thousands of kids

573
00:31:01,080 --> 00:31:04,360
Speaker 1: who just never showed up for school because the schools

574
00:31:04,360 --> 00:31:06,680
Speaker 1: had been closed and because they had gone virtual, and

575
00:31:06,720 --> 00:31:10,760
Speaker 1: because things had been disrupted. So look, if you're you know,

576
00:31:10,880 --> 00:31:14,080
Speaker 1: a professional managerial class family, you got the resources to

577
00:31:14,120 --> 00:31:16,840
Speaker 1: bring in tutors, you're working from home, you can work

578
00:31:16,880 --> 00:31:18,840
Speaker 1: with your kids. It's kind of a pain in the ass,

579
00:31:18,840 --> 00:31:20,400
Speaker 1: but you can do it. You can keep them up

580
00:31:20,400 --> 00:31:22,200
Speaker 1: to speed. You know you're going to be able to

581
00:31:22,200 --> 00:31:24,920
Speaker 1: get them caught up. Then you know, for the school

582
00:31:24,960 --> 00:31:28,400
Speaker 1: to close out of an extreme abundance of caution, that

583
00:31:28,440 --> 00:31:32,760
Speaker 1: may be the right risk level for you. But what

584
00:31:32,880 --> 00:31:37,240
Speaker 1: about the kids whose parents don't have those time resources

585
00:31:37,640 --> 00:31:39,640
Speaker 1: in order to make sure that they're kept up to

586
00:31:39,680 --> 00:31:41,880
Speaker 1: speed and in order to make sure that their education

587
00:31:42,000 --> 00:31:44,840
Speaker 1: continues to progress. We know that there's already been a

588
00:31:44,880 --> 00:31:49,480
Speaker 1: tremendous cost to them. And I feel like that cost

589
00:31:49,760 --> 00:31:53,680
Speaker 1: is there's an assumption that an overabundance of caution has

590
00:31:53,720 --> 00:31:56,280
Speaker 1: no cost imposed to it, and that's just absolutely not

591
00:31:56,360 --> 00:31:59,480
Speaker 1: the case. That's really well said. Hey, so remember how

592
00:31:59,480 --> 00:32:02,640
Speaker 1: we told you how awesome premium membership was. Well, here

593
00:32:02,680 --> 00:32:05,080
Speaker 1: we are again to remind you that becoming a premium

594
00:32:05,120 --> 00:32:07,840
Speaker 1: member means you don't have to listen to our constant

595
00:32:07,840 --> 00:32:10,720
Speaker 1: please for you to subscribe. So what are you waiting for?

596
00:32:10,840 --> 00:32:14,040
Speaker 1: Become a premium member today by going to Breakingpoints dot com,

597
00:32:14,040 --> 00:32:17,479
Speaker 1: which you can click on in the show notes. All right,

598
00:32:17,520 --> 00:32:19,640
Speaker 1: so we wanted to give you the latest news coming

599
00:32:19,680 --> 00:32:22,640
Speaker 1: out of Afghanistan, especially with regards to where we stand

600
00:32:22,680 --> 00:32:27,880
Speaker 1: on getting American citizens and our Afghan allies evacuated. As

601
00:32:27,920 --> 00:32:31,920
Speaker 1: of this morning, they actually evacuated a number another several

602
00:32:32,040 --> 00:32:36,000
Speaker 1: thousand overnight. So these numbers are even improved from where

603
00:32:36,000 --> 00:32:38,960
Speaker 1: they were yesterday. But the White House as of yesterday

604
00:32:39,040 --> 00:32:42,880
Speaker 1: was saying that a few thousand Americans remain. Secretary of

605
00:32:42,920 --> 00:32:46,320
Speaker 1: State Anthony B. Lincoln was on the Sunday Shows yesterday

606
00:32:46,320 --> 00:32:49,200
Speaker 1: speaking to exactly how many people have gotten out at

607
00:32:49,200 --> 00:32:52,000
Speaker 1: this point. Let's take a listen to that, Chris, thanks

608
00:32:52,080 --> 00:32:54,800
Speaker 1: very much. Last twenty four hours, about eight thousand people

609
00:32:55,080 --> 00:32:59,480
Speaker 1: on about sixty flights evacuated from Kabal Airport since this

610
00:32:59,520 --> 00:33:03,200
Speaker 1: effort began at the end of July, about thirty thousand

611
00:33:03,200 --> 00:33:05,720
Speaker 1: people all told on our military flights and on charter

612
00:33:05,760 --> 00:33:08,600
Speaker 1: flights that we've helped to organize and get out out

613
00:33:08,640 --> 00:33:13,560
Speaker 1: of the airport. Okay, so things are preceding apiece. I

614
00:33:13,600 --> 00:33:16,280
Speaker 1: know they're still hoping to meet that end of August

615
00:33:16,320 --> 00:33:20,040
Speaker 1: deadline that they had set. And again, as of yesterday,

616
00:33:20,040 --> 00:33:22,880
Speaker 1: there were a few thousand Americans remaining. Hopefully today that

617
00:33:22,960 --> 00:33:28,000
Speaker 1: number is even lower. President Biden has been repeatedly getting

618
00:33:28,040 --> 00:33:30,120
Speaker 1: out in front of the American people. Since apparently no

619
00:33:30,160 --> 00:33:31,920
Speaker 1: one else other than us are going to make the

620
00:33:31,960 --> 00:33:35,520
Speaker 1: case for this policy on television, he's been making it himself.

621
00:33:35,800 --> 00:33:38,520
Speaker 1: He gave a speech yesterday at four pm and took

622
00:33:38,520 --> 00:33:40,800
Speaker 1: a couple questions as well. Let's take a listen to

623
00:33:40,840 --> 00:33:42,960
Speaker 1: a little bit of what he had to say. I've

624
00:33:43,000 --> 00:33:46,000
Speaker 1: continued to make progress since I've spoke to you on Friday.

625
00:33:46,760 --> 00:33:50,720
Speaker 1: We have moved thousands of people each day ya US

626
00:33:50,800 --> 00:33:55,480
Speaker 1: military aircraft and civilian charter flights a little over thirty hours.

627
00:33:55,640 --> 00:33:58,600
Speaker 1: In a little over thirty hours this weekend, we've evacuated

628
00:33:58,600 --> 00:34:01,840
Speaker 1: an extraordinary number of people, as I will detail in

629
00:34:01,880 --> 00:34:06,520
Speaker 1: a minute about eleven thousand individuals. That number will change

630
00:34:06,600 --> 00:34:08,880
Speaker 1: day to day as the air and ground operations and

631
00:34:08,960 --> 00:34:13,000
Speaker 1: couple vary. Our first priority in cup Hool is getting

632
00:34:13,080 --> 00:34:16,560
Speaker 1: American citizens out of the country as quickly and as

633
00:34:16,600 --> 00:34:20,759
Speaker 1: safely as possible. But look, that's the job. My job

634
00:34:20,800 --> 00:34:23,560
Speaker 1: is to make judgments. My job is to make judgments

635
00:34:23,600 --> 00:34:26,200
Speaker 1: no one else can or will make. I made them.

636
00:34:26,200 --> 00:34:29,839
Speaker 1: I'm convinced I'm absolutely correct in not deciding to send

637
00:34:29,880 --> 00:34:33,439
Speaker 1: more young women and men to war for a war

638
00:34:33,520 --> 00:34:36,920
Speaker 1: that in fact is no longer warned. These troops and

639
00:34:36,960 --> 00:34:40,360
Speaker 1: innocent civilians at the airport face the risk of attack

640
00:34:40,400 --> 00:34:43,240
Speaker 1: from isis K from a distance. Even though we're moving

641
00:34:43,320 --> 00:34:48,800
Speaker 1: back the perimeter significantly. We're working hard and as fast

642
00:34:48,840 --> 00:34:51,720
Speaker 1: as we can to get people out. That's our mission,

643
00:34:52,320 --> 00:34:56,400
Speaker 1: that's our goal, and our determination to get every American

644
00:34:56,440 --> 00:35:00,680
Speaker 1: citizen home and to evacuate our Afghan allies is unwavering.

645
00:35:01,560 --> 00:35:05,440
Speaker 1: At the end of the day, if we didn't leave Afghanistan, now,

646
00:35:05,440 --> 00:35:09,720
Speaker 1: when do we leave? Another ten years, another five years,

647
00:35:09,760 --> 00:35:13,560
Speaker 1: another year. I'm not about to send your son or

648
00:35:13,560 --> 00:35:18,799
Speaker 1: your daughter to fight in Afghanistan. I don't see where

649
00:35:18,840 --> 00:35:21,160
Speaker 1: that is in our overwhelming interests and the talk about

650
00:35:21,200 --> 00:35:24,840
Speaker 1: how our interests are going to be impacted. Let me

651
00:35:24,880 --> 00:35:28,720
Speaker 1: tell you, you're sitting in Beijing or you're sitting in Moscow.

652
00:35:28,880 --> 00:35:34,319
Speaker 1: Are you happy we left? They love nothing better for

653
00:35:34,400 --> 00:35:38,000
Speaker 1: us to continue to be bogged down there. It's obviously

654
00:35:38,040 --> 00:35:40,600
Speaker 1: President Byen there continuing to make the case in a

655
00:35:40,640 --> 00:35:42,680
Speaker 1: way that I think is very effective. Every time he

656
00:35:42,760 --> 00:35:44,480
Speaker 1: comes down to speak, I get a little bit nervous

657
00:35:44,520 --> 00:35:46,640
Speaker 1: that he's going to be cowed by these people on TV,

658
00:35:46,760 --> 00:35:49,920
Speaker 1: but he's really standing strong in support of the policy.

659
00:35:50,120 --> 00:35:53,440
Speaker 1: A couple of newsworthy things there. He talked about how

660
00:35:53,480 --> 00:35:56,120
Speaker 1: they've extended the perimeter that means outside of the airport,

661
00:35:56,440 --> 00:35:59,000
Speaker 1: so that a larger space is secured to help people

662
00:35:59,000 --> 00:36:01,720
Speaker 1: be able to get to the airport. And I also

663
00:36:01,760 --> 00:36:05,800
Speaker 1: think that it's important to note, yes, as we've said before,

664
00:36:05,960 --> 00:36:09,799
Speaker 1: obviously it's incredibly ugly. Obviously the scenes we've seen have

665
00:36:09,800 --> 00:36:13,960
Speaker 1: been heartbreaking, but so far not a single American has

666
00:36:14,080 --> 00:36:17,759
Speaker 1: died in this process, which is actually kind of incredible.

667
00:36:17,880 --> 00:36:21,480
Speaker 1: It's something you're not going to hear on television a lot,

668
00:36:21,520 --> 00:36:24,080
Speaker 1: but that in and of itself so far is an

669
00:36:24,080 --> 00:36:26,960
Speaker 1: amazing accomplishment. You know, BRISI We've been getting, you know,

670
00:36:27,719 --> 00:36:30,319
Speaker 1: a lot of criticism and I'm just going to push

671
00:36:30,360 --> 00:36:32,600
Speaker 1: the button and I'll say it, which is that. Look,

672
00:36:32,840 --> 00:36:36,840
Speaker 1: I understand that a situation is harrowing, Yes, I understand that,

673
00:36:37,320 --> 00:36:41,360
Speaker 1: But actually, what is the alternative? I've talked about this also,

674
00:36:41,600 --> 00:36:43,799
Speaker 1: and I'll say this also about the Americans in Afghanistan.

675
00:36:43,840 --> 00:36:46,080
Speaker 1: I don't want to sound callous, but the State Department's

676
00:36:46,080 --> 00:36:48,719
Speaker 1: been telling these people to leave four months. The United

677
00:36:48,719 --> 00:36:50,879
Speaker 1: States government can't force you to leave. If you want

678
00:36:50,920 --> 00:36:53,600
Speaker 1: to stay, then you're going to stay. And by all accounts,

679
00:36:53,640 --> 00:36:55,839
Speaker 1: what it seems like is that the several thousand who

680
00:36:55,840 --> 00:36:59,040
Speaker 1: were left in Afghanistan simply didn't expect the Taliban to

681
00:36:59,040 --> 00:37:01,759
Speaker 1: take over as quickly as they did, along with the

682
00:37:01,840 --> 00:37:04,880
Speaker 1: US government. Now, I sympathize, and it is still and

683
00:37:05,040 --> 00:37:08,240
Speaker 1: always will be the responsibility of the United States government

684
00:37:08,239 --> 00:37:11,680
Speaker 1: to ensure those people save passage. But you can't forcibly

685
00:37:11,719 --> 00:37:14,479
Speaker 1: remove people from a country if they don't want to leave,

686
00:37:14,719 --> 00:37:18,759
Speaker 1: especially people who are dual citizens. And everybody seems to

687
00:37:18,840 --> 00:37:22,040
Speaker 1: sound like I or other people making this point are crazy,

688
00:37:22,280 --> 00:37:25,200
Speaker 1: But if you think about it. Many of these people said, oh,

689
00:37:25,360 --> 00:37:26,839
Speaker 1: you know, I think I've got a couple more months.

690
00:37:26,840 --> 00:37:28,960
Speaker 1: I'm going to wrap up my affairs and more. There

691
00:37:29,040 --> 00:37:30,840
Speaker 1: was a choice that was made. I'm going to I

692
00:37:30,880 --> 00:37:34,000
Speaker 1: will fully admit that it was made with imperfect information.

693
00:37:34,360 --> 00:37:38,560
Speaker 1: I am not blaming them necessarily for staying. But as

694
00:37:38,600 --> 00:37:42,920
Speaker 1: I once said, what was the alternative? Many people have said, oh,

695
00:37:42,960 --> 00:37:46,200
Speaker 1: we should have kept Bogram Air Force Base open. Okay,

696
00:37:46,440 --> 00:37:49,600
Speaker 1: that's seventy kilometers away from the city of Kable. So

697
00:37:49,640 --> 00:37:52,040
Speaker 1: how are you going to get from Kabble to Bogram?

698
00:37:52,160 --> 00:37:54,440
Speaker 1: Are we going to ralt people back and forth? I

699
00:37:54,440 --> 00:37:56,959
Speaker 1: also want to highlight Crystal some breaking news this morning

700
00:37:57,000 --> 00:37:59,520
Speaker 1: which highlights the dangers of what I've been saying, which

701
00:37:59,560 --> 00:38:02,160
Speaker 1: is that the media is trying to push Biden to

702
00:38:02,200 --> 00:38:06,680
Speaker 1: extend the withdrawal deadline. The Taliban just this morning gave

703
00:38:06,719 --> 00:38:09,760
Speaker 1: an interview to Sky News in which they said, quote,

704
00:38:09,800 --> 00:38:13,040
Speaker 1: it is a red line. President Biden announced that thirty

705
00:38:13,040 --> 00:38:15,880
Speaker 1: first of August would withdraw all military forces. If the

706
00:38:15,960 --> 00:38:18,760
Speaker 1: US or UK were to seek additional time, the answer

707
00:38:18,960 --> 00:38:24,120
Speaker 1: is no, or there will be consequences. Consequences means war

708
00:38:24,360 --> 00:38:28,680
Speaker 1: against American forces and so look, it's not pretty. Ten

709
00:38:28,680 --> 00:38:30,920
Speaker 1: thousand people though, are being pulled out a day. I

710
00:38:30,920 --> 00:38:33,359
Speaker 1: think that's pretty good. We have some news here. Let's

711
00:38:33,360 --> 00:38:35,920
Speaker 1: put the New York Times tearsheet up there on the screen,

712
00:38:36,160 --> 00:38:39,120
Speaker 1: which is that the US has ordered six commercial airlines

713
00:38:39,160 --> 00:38:43,640
Speaker 1: to help transport Afghan evacuees. These airlines are actually going

714
00:38:43,719 --> 00:38:47,240
Speaker 1: to be transporting people from the hubs outside of Afghanistan

715
00:38:47,520 --> 00:38:51,120
Speaker 1: to other countries where these refugees are going to await screening,

716
00:38:51,200 --> 00:38:54,480
Speaker 1: background checks and more before they'll be ultimately approved for

717
00:38:54,760 --> 00:38:58,320
Speaker 1: entry into the United States. But I do not leave,

718
00:38:58,360 --> 00:39:00,000
Speaker 1: and I'm going to talk about this in my radar.

719
00:39:00,200 --> 00:39:02,200
Speaker 1: I know you are as well. I'm my monologue. Sorry

720
00:39:02,239 --> 00:39:05,759
Speaker 1: about that is that we I need to present a

721
00:39:05,920 --> 00:39:09,080
Speaker 1: very realistic realm of what the options were. And I

722
00:39:09,120 --> 00:39:11,640
Speaker 1: think that the people who are all saying I was

723
00:39:11,680 --> 00:39:14,360
Speaker 1: for withdrawal but not like this, or I you know,

724
00:39:14,400 --> 00:39:17,279
Speaker 1: I'm for withdrawal, but you know the withdrawal is going

725
00:39:17,320 --> 00:39:20,520
Speaker 1: badly many of you are falling for And I will

726
00:39:20,560 --> 00:39:23,399
Speaker 1: show you this explicitly, the talking points of the neo

727
00:39:23,480 --> 00:39:26,000
Speaker 1: cons who never wanted to never wanted to leave. In

728
00:39:26,040 --> 00:39:29,640
Speaker 1: a way, Crystal, I actually respect the people who were

729
00:39:29,719 --> 00:39:32,959
Speaker 1: for the actual forever war, then the people who are

730
00:39:33,360 --> 00:39:37,200
Speaker 1: disingenuously trying to point out you know, oh, I'm against

731
00:39:37,200 --> 00:39:41,480
Speaker 1: this because you know this particular implementation reason. Look, if

732
00:39:41,480 --> 00:39:43,960
Speaker 1: you weren't there for the last twenty years talking about

733
00:39:44,120 --> 00:39:46,680
Speaker 1: how much of a disaster this war has been, I

734
00:39:46,840 --> 00:39:48,719
Speaker 1: just really don't want to hear it. You know, the

735
00:39:48,760 --> 00:39:52,080
Speaker 1: way the media has been playing this is as if

736
00:39:52,120 --> 00:39:54,560
Speaker 1: the last twenty years in Afghanistan have been some sort

737
00:39:54,600 --> 00:39:57,520
Speaker 1: of cake walk and sunshine and daisies. Where were they

738
00:39:57,640 --> 00:40:01,440
Speaker 1: when Afghani citizens, like you always say, been being slaughtered

739
00:40:01,560 --> 00:40:04,560
Speaker 1: for the last two years by the Taliban and during

740
00:40:04,760 --> 00:40:09,120
Speaker 1: the last civil war. The major news networks, according to

741
00:40:09,160 --> 00:40:14,360
Speaker 1: one analysis, mentioned Afghanistan just five times last year. Okay,

742
00:40:14,560 --> 00:40:18,560
Speaker 1: they did five minutes of coverage over the entire year

743
00:40:19,400 --> 00:40:23,040
Speaker 1: while Afghan civilians were being slaughtered in part by our

744
00:40:23,560 --> 00:40:27,560
Speaker 1: ant up bombing campaign and because of the civil war

745
00:40:27,600 --> 00:40:30,680
Speaker 1: that continued to rage on. They didn't care about that.

746
00:40:31,080 --> 00:40:34,520
Speaker 1: They did not care about that. So save me your

747
00:40:34,600 --> 00:40:38,760
Speaker 1: crocodile tears in service of the military industrial complex. Now,

748
00:40:39,239 --> 00:40:42,880
Speaker 1: if you didn't care about it, then I also Mattagalacias

749
00:40:42,880 --> 00:40:46,080
Speaker 1: has been really great on this issue. It's sort of

750
00:40:46,080 --> 00:40:49,160
Speaker 1: funny that we end up like, and this is actually

751
00:40:49,200 --> 00:40:51,040
Speaker 1: what I'm going to talk about in my monologue, that

752
00:40:51,080 --> 00:40:55,480
Speaker 1: we end up being some of the most forceful advocates

753
00:40:55,480 --> 00:40:58,200
Speaker 1: for Joe Biden and aligning with, you know, people like

754
00:40:58,239 --> 00:41:01,320
Speaker 1: Mattaglacius who were not always on this side of anyway.

755
00:41:01,360 --> 00:41:03,799
Speaker 1: It's been strange bedfellows. But he made this point that

756
00:41:03,840 --> 00:41:07,000
Speaker 1: it was like, I can't believe, sarcastic point. I can't

757
00:41:07,040 --> 00:41:11,319
Speaker 1: believe after a twenty year flawless mission, Joe Biden just

758
00:41:11,400 --> 00:41:13,960
Speaker 1: comes down of nowhere to batch the whole thing. Who

759
00:41:13,960 --> 00:41:16,759
Speaker 1: could have seen that coming? Listen, this whole thing has

760
00:41:16,800 --> 00:41:20,080
Speaker 1: been a catastrophe from start to finish, and its apartment

761
00:41:20,080 --> 00:41:23,880
Speaker 1: of catastrophe because of military leadership who've been invested in

762
00:41:23,960 --> 00:41:27,480
Speaker 1: keeping us there year after year after year, did not

763
00:41:27,600 --> 00:41:31,600
Speaker 1: plan for this withdrawal, gave Joe Biden a horribly flawed

764
00:41:32,320 --> 00:41:35,360
Speaker 1: intelligence assessment that it was going to take months for

765
00:41:35,440 --> 00:41:39,160
Speaker 1: the Taliban to take over, if not years. That obviously

766
00:41:39,480 --> 00:41:42,960
Speaker 1: was wildly off base. And yes, I know they ran

767
00:41:43,000 --> 00:41:44,759
Speaker 1: to their friends in the press to try to lie

768
00:41:44,800 --> 00:41:47,759
Speaker 1: about that after the fact, but the truth is that

769
00:41:47,800 --> 00:41:52,040
Speaker 1: they were completely wrong and gave the president very bad

770
00:41:52,080 --> 00:41:55,359
Speaker 1: intel about what was actually going to happen after we

771
00:41:55,560 --> 00:41:59,320
Speaker 1: withdrew our forces. So that's where we are. American people

772
00:41:59,400 --> 00:42:03,080
Speaker 1: still too. It has not moved people one inch. All

773
00:42:03,120 --> 00:42:05,759
Speaker 1: of this coverage off of their position that this war

774
00:42:05,880 --> 00:42:08,080
Speaker 1: was a disaster from the start and never should have

775
00:42:08,120 --> 00:42:10,840
Speaker 1: been there and it was time to get out. Everybody

776
00:42:10,880 --> 00:42:14,200
Speaker 1: looking at these images. Of course, of course Americans are

777
00:42:14,239 --> 00:42:16,879
Speaker 1: good people. They don't want to see our people left behind,

778
00:42:16,880 --> 00:42:18,759
Speaker 1: they don't want to see our allies left behind. They

779
00:42:18,760 --> 00:42:20,759
Speaker 1: don't want to see these scenes of heartbreak that are

780
00:42:20,800 --> 00:42:24,520
Speaker 1: unfolding at the airport. Of course, But if you didn't

781
00:42:24,560 --> 00:42:27,279
Speaker 1: care about what was happening to these same people over

782
00:42:27,280 --> 00:42:31,120
Speaker 1: the past few years, and you're now suddenly you're suddenly

783
00:42:31,160 --> 00:42:34,040
Speaker 1: a humanitarian when it's in the service of keeping us

784
00:42:34,080 --> 00:42:40,799
Speaker 1: there forever, please please. So that's effectively where we are

785
00:42:41,000 --> 00:42:43,320
Speaker 1: in terms of the news. And as you said, Zaga,

786
00:42:43,360 --> 00:42:45,920
Speaker 1: the very last update is that they have required this

787
00:42:46,000 --> 00:42:48,279
Speaker 1: is actually interesting little bit of history. They're requiring some

788
00:42:48,320 --> 00:42:52,320
Speaker 1: of the commercial airliners to help support in barrying people

789
00:42:52,800 --> 00:42:55,239
Speaker 1: among bases and from bases back to the US. So

790
00:42:55,280 --> 00:42:58,960
Speaker 1: they're not like flying into cobble, so they're you know,

791
00:43:00,200 --> 00:43:03,680
Speaker 1: distance here the commercial airliners, and apparently the power for

792
00:43:03,760 --> 00:43:07,320
Speaker 1: that comes from the civil Reserve air Fleet created in

793
00:43:07,400 --> 00:43:11,160
Speaker 1: nineteen fifty two after the Berlin Airlift, where you can

794
00:43:11,200 --> 00:43:17,560
Speaker 1: basically compel these commercial airliners to help you assist, and

795
00:43:17,719 --> 00:43:22,719
Speaker 1: they've grabbed I think it's like eight yeah, eighteen airliners passengers.

796
00:43:23,200 --> 00:43:25,680
Speaker 1: So that's the very latest word where things are in

797
00:43:25,760 --> 00:43:29,359
Speaker 1: terms of the evacuation. There have been moving forward. There

798
00:43:29,400 --> 00:43:34,279
Speaker 1: have been some really quite incredible reactions to all of

799
00:43:34,320 --> 00:43:37,600
Speaker 1: this and across you know, both sides of the aisle

800
00:43:37,680 --> 00:43:40,239
Speaker 1: that we've been focus in on some of the particularly

801
00:43:40,280 --> 00:43:46,440
Speaker 1: noteworthy Republican responses to Biden's Afghan evacuation, which have been

802
00:43:46,480 --> 00:43:52,520
Speaker 1: particularly unhinged. Let's hear from Lindsey Graham, who believes that

803
00:43:52,760 --> 00:43:57,160
Speaker 1: because of this ending of a twenty year war, Biden

804
00:43:57,280 --> 00:44:02,239
Speaker 1: should be impeached one American behind. If we don't get

805
00:44:02,280 --> 00:44:05,560
Speaker 1: all those Afghanistan Afghanis who stepped up the plate to

806
00:44:05,560 --> 00:44:08,480
Speaker 1: help us out, then Joe Biden, in my view, has

807
00:44:08,520 --> 00:44:11,319
Speaker 1: committed a high crime and this demetor under the constitution

808
00:44:11,920 --> 00:44:16,399
Speaker 1: and should be impeached. So not the people who led

809
00:44:16,520 --> 00:44:20,160
Speaker 1: us into war. Not the people who lied repeatedly to

810
00:44:20,239 --> 00:44:23,239
Speaker 1: the American people to convince them that this war was

811
00:44:23,280 --> 00:44:26,640
Speaker 1: going well and we're making progress and the surge is working.

812
00:44:27,080 --> 00:44:31,080
Speaker 1: Not the commander chiefs who claimed and promised the American

813
00:44:31,120 --> 00:44:33,160
Speaker 1: people that are going to get out and never got

814
00:44:33,160 --> 00:44:36,960
Speaker 1: around to doing it. He wants to impeach Joe Biden,

815
00:44:37,040 --> 00:44:40,560
Speaker 1: who actually finally did the thing that he promised and

816
00:44:40,600 --> 00:44:43,480
Speaker 1: that everybody wanted him to do. Yeah, where's lindsay on

817
00:44:43,719 --> 00:44:46,319
Speaker 1: George W. Bush? Oh wait, he said, George W. Bush

818
00:44:46,320 --> 00:44:49,640
Speaker 1: shouldn't be impeached. Oh, you know Donald Trump. And look,

819
00:44:49,680 --> 00:44:52,080
Speaker 1: this is what drives me crazy. We were actually consistent

820
00:44:52,160 --> 00:44:55,480
Speaker 1: voices on impeachment. On the Ukraine impeachment especially, We're like, look,

821
00:44:55,520 --> 00:44:58,880
Speaker 1: this is bs okay, I'm sorry, Like, yes, nobody's going

822
00:44:58,960 --> 00:45:01,680
Speaker 1: to say that it was the perfect phone call or whatever.

823
00:45:01,960 --> 00:45:04,720
Speaker 1: As I said, The part of that call that bothered

824
00:45:04,719 --> 00:45:07,319
Speaker 1: me the most is when the Ukrainian president bragged about

825
00:45:07,320 --> 00:45:09,799
Speaker 1: staying in Trump Tower, not exactly whatever it came to,

826
00:45:10,080 --> 00:45:12,080
Speaker 1: you know, the leveraging of the so called leveraging of

827
00:45:12,120 --> 00:45:16,640
Speaker 1: military aid, etc. But the same people who argue that

828
00:45:16,760 --> 00:45:20,480
Speaker 1: impeachment should be this you know, lofty thing and I

829
00:45:21,040 --> 00:45:24,399
Speaker 1: actually defended it at the time. Are now like the

830
00:45:24,840 --> 00:45:29,520
Speaker 1: implementation of the withdrawal from Afghanistan is grounds for impeachment.

831
00:45:29,600 --> 00:45:33,360
Speaker 1: It's just totally ludicrous. And we've pulled a couple of

832
00:45:33,520 --> 00:45:38,480
Speaker 1: very good examples here from what exactly the actual interest

833
00:45:38,880 --> 00:45:42,080
Speaker 1: of some of these people are is in making sure

834
00:45:42,120 --> 00:45:45,200
Speaker 1: that this war continues, which makes me just seem, oh,

835
00:45:45,400 --> 00:45:48,600
Speaker 1: maybe this isn't just about you know how they supposedly

836
00:45:48,680 --> 00:45:52,360
Speaker 1: care for the poor Afghans. Check this example out. Le

837
00:45:52,480 --> 00:45:55,640
Speaker 1: Fong of the Interset points it out. Congressman Mike Waltz,

838
00:45:55,840 --> 00:45:59,040
Speaker 1: who wants the US military to relaunch the Afghan war,

839
00:45:59,680 --> 00:46:04,759
Speaker 1: just old an Afghan focused defense contractor for a personal

840
00:46:04,840 --> 00:46:11,000
Speaker 1: profit up to twenty six million twenty six million dollars,

841
00:46:11,280 --> 00:46:15,080
Speaker 1: and the deal was with a contractor responsible for training

842
00:46:15,280 --> 00:46:19,600
Speaker 1: he failed Afghan national security forces. Now, I'm not saying

843
00:46:19,640 --> 00:46:22,000
Speaker 1: that that is the case. Whenever it comes to Lindsay Graham,

844
00:46:22,160 --> 00:46:25,439
Speaker 1: I've actually met Lindsay Graham is a legitimate ideologue whenever

845
00:46:25,520 --> 00:46:28,160
Speaker 1: it comes to the Forever War, A true neo con

846
00:46:28,200 --> 00:46:31,000
Speaker 1: in his heart, which I guess he's principled. I don't

847
00:46:31,000 --> 00:46:34,240
Speaker 1: know exactly what to say about that, but I understand

848
00:46:34,280 --> 00:46:37,440
Speaker 1: from where he's speaking. And yet after the Trump years,

849
00:46:37,640 --> 00:46:41,759
Speaker 1: it's beclowning yourself in order to try and point out

850
00:46:42,719 --> 00:46:46,400
Speaker 1: that Joe Biden should be impeached for this, whenever clearly

851
00:46:46,560 --> 00:46:49,600
Speaker 1: you set a standard that the impeachment bar should be

852
00:46:49,640 --> 00:46:53,440
Speaker 1: so high. Now, my personal favorite example of the cringe

853
00:46:53,480 --> 00:46:56,760
Speaker 1: here goes to the President's son, Don Junior. Our friend

854
00:46:56,880 --> 00:46:59,040
Speaker 1: Richard Hanania pointed this out. Let's go ahead and put

855
00:46:59,040 --> 00:47:02,720
Speaker 1: this up there on screen. So Don Junior tweets about

856
00:47:02,719 --> 00:47:05,560
Speaker 1: how and I'll get to this in my monologue. Tony

857
00:47:05,600 --> 00:47:08,920
Speaker 1: Blair slamming Biden is an imbecellic threat. He says, quote

858
00:47:09,440 --> 00:47:13,759
Speaker 1: when America's greatest ally abroad, Great Britain, is so humiliated

859
00:47:13,760 --> 00:47:17,160
Speaker 1: and dishonored that they held Joe Biden contempt in parliament

860
00:47:17,160 --> 00:47:20,560
Speaker 1: with the lack of respect and communication, even lefties agree,

861
00:47:20,719 --> 00:47:23,799
Speaker 1: you start to see how incompetently this went down. As

862
00:47:23,880 --> 00:47:27,000
Speaker 1: Richard says, after trust our generals in the media and

863
00:47:27,160 --> 00:47:30,360
Speaker 1: think of the Afghan women, phases of conservatism, we have

864
00:47:30,560 --> 00:47:35,239
Speaker 1: moved on to think of our transatlantic alliances. And now

865
00:47:35,719 --> 00:47:39,320
Speaker 1: I added, just give us an a date has added

866
00:47:39,360 --> 00:47:42,960
Speaker 1: the globe emoji to his Twitter bio John Jamiens, I mean,

867
00:47:43,600 --> 00:47:47,680
Speaker 1: what the hell is going on here? I seem to

868
00:47:47,760 --> 00:47:51,520
Speaker 1: recall a time whenever Donald Trump went to Britain and

869
00:47:51,560 --> 00:47:54,759
Speaker 1: everybody said, screw the British, we don't care what they think,

870
00:47:54,840 --> 00:47:57,600
Speaker 1: and they had some stupid ass blimp and then remember

871
00:47:57,640 --> 00:48:01,520
Speaker 1: that idiot the London mayor sadik On or whatever his name,

872
00:48:02,000 --> 00:48:04,680
Speaker 1: Oh my god, and everybody said, who cares what the

873
00:48:04,719 --> 00:48:07,480
Speaker 1: London mayor? Well, what about now now? Or what we're

874
00:48:07,560 --> 00:48:12,760
Speaker 1: British Transatlantic bowing down before you know, America's greatest ally

875
00:48:13,080 --> 00:48:15,279
Speaker 1: and all that. Look, I like Britain, they want to

876
00:48:15,320 --> 00:48:18,279
Speaker 1: hold our president and contempt. I don't really care what

877
00:48:18,320 --> 00:48:22,520
Speaker 1: they have to say whenever it comes to this. And Tony,

878
00:48:23,239 --> 00:48:26,440
Speaker 1: they have a lot of nerve actually for doing this.

879
00:48:26,560 --> 00:48:31,640
Speaker 1: But really what it is is that absolute flip flop

880
00:48:31,840 --> 00:48:34,080
Speaker 1: that so many of these people have made. Let me

881
00:48:34,080 --> 00:48:35,840
Speaker 1: just give you one example. I'm sorry to think of

882
00:48:35,920 --> 00:48:39,240
Speaker 1: some of this time. Don Junior yesterday was tweeting about

883
00:48:39,239 --> 00:48:43,480
Speaker 1: how the White House is putting out falsified readouts are

884
00:48:43,520 --> 00:48:47,239
Speaker 1: incomplete readouts of Americans calls because we didn't include this

885
00:48:47,320 --> 00:48:49,640
Speaker 1: thing in our readout of our call. Where the French

886
00:48:49,680 --> 00:48:53,640
Speaker 1: President Emanuel Macron suggested that we should, you know, emphasize

887
00:48:53,680 --> 00:48:57,640
Speaker 1: alliances or something like that. The Trump White House literally

888
00:48:57,680 --> 00:49:02,160
Speaker 1: suspended all readouts of phone calls. Why because they didn't

889
00:49:02,200 --> 00:49:05,200
Speaker 1: want to put out the information and get into the

890
00:49:05,200 --> 00:49:08,279
Speaker 1: exact scenario of leaving some stuff out, and so they

891
00:49:08,360 --> 00:49:11,800
Speaker 1: just suspended all. Now I happen to know that because

892
00:49:11,840 --> 00:49:14,200
Speaker 1: I was a White House correspondent, But I just want

893
00:49:14,200 --> 00:49:16,880
Speaker 1: to say to these people, shut the hell up. You

894
00:49:17,000 --> 00:49:20,000
Speaker 1: have no idea what you're talking about. You're embarrassing yourself

895
00:49:20,600 --> 00:49:23,880
Speaker 1: at the altar of ranked partisanship and just showing us

896
00:49:23,920 --> 00:49:27,080
Speaker 1: all you have no principles whenever it comes to actually

897
00:49:27,200 --> 00:49:30,919
Speaker 1: ending war. Yeah, and even Lindsay Graham, who you're right,

898
00:49:31,360 --> 00:49:36,680
Speaker 1: is a true believer, neo coon, unreconstructed, never saw worried,

899
00:49:36,680 --> 00:49:40,000
Speaker 1: did love right. So I guess at least he's principled.

900
00:49:40,480 --> 00:49:45,560
Speaker 1: But I don't recall him floating impeachment for Donald Trump

901
00:49:45,880 --> 00:49:50,040
Speaker 1: meeting with the Taliban at Camp David to broker a

902
00:49:50,080 --> 00:49:52,799
Speaker 1: peace treating. Now, look, that's an action that you and

903
00:49:52,840 --> 00:49:57,359
Speaker 1: I both support because we're consist here. Okay, but if

904
00:49:57,400 --> 00:49:59,880
Speaker 1: you were going to, you know, get hysterical about some

905
00:50:00,239 --> 00:50:02,640
Speaker 1: that seems like a pretty good candidate, and he may

906
00:50:02,719 --> 00:50:04,840
Speaker 1: have been critical at the time, but he definitely was

907
00:50:04,880 --> 00:50:09,120
Speaker 1: not calling for impeachment over Brookering and peace deal with

908
00:50:09,160 --> 00:50:13,120
Speaker 1: the Taliban at Camp David. So all of these people,

909
00:50:13,440 --> 00:50:16,320
Speaker 1: it's really been quite revealing because you also had a

910
00:50:16,360 --> 00:50:18,000
Speaker 1: lot of people in the media who sort of like

911
00:50:18,080 --> 00:50:21,640
Speaker 1: feign war weariness over the years, but then the second

912
00:50:21,680 --> 00:50:24,319
Speaker 1: that they have a chance to advocate for us being

913
00:50:24,360 --> 00:50:29,640
Speaker 1: there forever, they'll take whatever opportunity that they can to

914
00:50:29,920 --> 00:50:33,120
Speaker 1: push for continuing the forever war. And as you put it,

915
00:50:33,160 --> 00:50:35,520
Speaker 1: don't be fooled by they're trying to create this middle

916
00:50:35,520 --> 00:50:38,319
Speaker 1: ground of like, oh, well, we still want to get out,

917
00:50:38,360 --> 00:50:42,279
Speaker 1: but just not like this. No, there's two positions here.

918
00:50:42,560 --> 00:50:45,279
Speaker 1: You either want to get out and you accept that

919
00:50:45,360 --> 00:50:47,640
Speaker 1: this is never going to be perfect. You're never going

920
00:50:47,719 --> 00:50:50,319
Speaker 1: to have the conditions met. It's never going to be

921
00:50:50,360 --> 00:50:53,160
Speaker 1: sunshine and rainbows. When you end a twenty year failed

922
00:50:53,160 --> 00:50:58,160
Speaker 1: impeeriless project and the state collapses. That's not on the menu. Okay,

923
00:50:58,560 --> 00:51:01,040
Speaker 1: So put that out of your mind. You either want

924
00:51:01,040 --> 00:51:04,400
Speaker 1: to get out and cope with the messingness that that entails,

925
00:51:04,719 --> 00:51:07,120
Speaker 1: or you want to stay and what we have seen

926
00:51:07,320 --> 00:51:11,560
Speaker 1: from all of these partisan hacks and again playing at

927
00:51:11,560 --> 00:51:13,480
Speaker 1: Democrats too, by the way, who are saying they want

928
00:51:13,520 --> 00:51:16,160
Speaker 1: to investigate Joe Biden over this. Give me a break.

929
00:51:16,520 --> 00:51:20,480
Speaker 1: But all of these partisan hacks and every corner of

930
00:51:20,520 --> 00:51:25,400
Speaker 1: the media that is carrying water for the military industrial complex,

931
00:51:25,800 --> 00:51:28,879
Speaker 1: you now know what their true colors really are in

932
00:51:28,920 --> 00:51:30,840
Speaker 1: all of this. Yeah, and you know, I want to

933
00:51:30,880 --> 00:51:33,760
Speaker 1: say this too. At least we're honest here. We're looking

934
00:51:33,800 --> 00:51:35,920
Speaker 1: at the scenes of the Kabo airport and saying, you

935
00:51:35,960 --> 00:51:39,319
Speaker 1: know what I said, terrible as it is, it's worth it.

936
00:51:39,640 --> 00:51:42,840
Speaker 1: Let's make these people tell us that it's okay. The

937
00:51:42,960 --> 00:51:46,720
Speaker 1: twenty two year olds get blown to bits by suicide bombs,

938
00:51:46,960 --> 00:51:49,879
Speaker 1: for a corrupt government and for an endless mission. Why

939
00:51:49,920 --> 00:51:52,120
Speaker 1: don't they defend that? Why didn't they have to sit

940
00:51:52,160 --> 00:51:55,400
Speaker 1: in the media and come and defend the twenty years

941
00:51:55,640 --> 00:51:59,080
Speaker 1: of failed war, the thousands of Americans who are dead,

942
00:51:59,400 --> 00:52:03,520
Speaker 1: tens of thousands who are wounded, Who the goddamn hell

943
00:52:03,640 --> 00:52:07,279
Speaker 1: knows how many Afghans who have been killed in this war,

944
00:52:07,440 --> 00:52:10,160
Speaker 1: how much money that we wasted over there. Why don't

945
00:52:10,200 --> 00:52:13,200
Speaker 1: they go ahead and defend that? They won't They'll point

946
00:52:13,200 --> 00:52:16,800
Speaker 1: to implementation measures. They'll point to this. I've got twenty

947
00:52:16,920 --> 00:52:21,359
Speaker 1: years of receipts, Crystal on implementation failures of the Afghan War.

948
00:52:21,640 --> 00:52:24,120
Speaker 1: How about they come, they can sit on this show.

949
00:52:24,400 --> 00:52:28,160
Speaker 1: We will go through every failed measure of the campaign,

950
00:52:28,400 --> 00:52:31,440
Speaker 1: and you can tell me which one was worse. I

951
00:52:31,480 --> 00:52:35,200
Speaker 1: know exactly which one was worse. Make them be honest

952
00:52:35,239 --> 00:52:38,160
Speaker 1: that the dishonesty in this conversation is really what is

953
00:52:38,239 --> 00:52:41,400
Speaker 1: driving me the most crazy of all. So Well said,

954
00:52:41,800 --> 00:52:46,040
Speaker 1: all right, we got another nugget here for you. Okay,

955
00:52:46,160 --> 00:52:49,560
Speaker 1: let's get to you know, speaking of dishonesty and more so.

956
00:52:49,719 --> 00:52:54,400
Speaker 1: This is from Reuter's exclusive FBI finds scant evidence that

957
00:52:54,480 --> 00:52:58,440
Speaker 1: the US capital attack was coordinated. Now, notice this is

958
00:52:58,680 --> 00:53:01,839
Speaker 1: sided to sources. They say that the FBI has found

959
00:53:01,840 --> 00:53:04,120
Speaker 1: the scant evidence of the January sixth attack was the

960
00:53:04,160 --> 00:53:07,759
Speaker 1: result of an organized plot, according to four current and

961
00:53:07,880 --> 00:53:12,600
Speaker 1: law enforcement officials. This is very important, Crystal, because this

962
00:53:12,640 --> 00:53:15,759
Speaker 1: isn't an official announcement from the FBI. There's not a

963
00:53:15,840 --> 00:53:20,640
Speaker 1: forthcoming report. No, no, no. It's a leak to Reuters

964
00:53:20,640 --> 00:53:25,080
Speaker 1: about people who are familiar with the investigation. Now, and conveniently,

965
00:53:25,680 --> 00:53:28,760
Speaker 1: this one just was completely buried by the mainstream media

966
00:53:28,840 --> 00:53:32,560
Speaker 1: while they're fear bongering for more war in Afghanistan. So

967
00:53:32,640 --> 00:53:35,480
Speaker 1: here's what they say. Though federal officials have arrested more

968
00:53:35,520 --> 00:53:38,960
Speaker 1: than five hundred and seventy alleged participants, the FBI believes

969
00:53:38,960 --> 00:53:41,839
Speaker 1: at this point the violence was not centrally coordinated by

970
00:53:41,880 --> 00:53:45,080
Speaker 1: far right groups or prominent supporters of then President Donald

971
00:53:45,120 --> 00:53:48,080
Speaker 1: Trump who have been According to the sources who are

972
00:53:48,080 --> 00:53:52,120
Speaker 1: directly involved or briefed on the wide ranging investigation, they

973
00:53:52,160 --> 00:53:55,399
Speaker 1: say this quote, ninety to ninety five percent of these

974
00:53:55,440 --> 00:53:58,799
Speaker 1: are one off cases. You have five percent maybe of

975
00:53:58,840 --> 00:54:02,239
Speaker 1: these militia groups that were more closely organized. But there

976
00:54:02,320 --> 00:54:05,680
Speaker 1: was no grand scheme with Roger Stone and Alex Jones

977
00:54:05,719 --> 00:54:08,200
Speaker 1: and all these people to storm the Capitol and to

978
00:54:08,280 --> 00:54:11,760
Speaker 1: take hostages. So why is this important? Because the media

979
00:54:11,800 --> 00:54:14,840
Speaker 1: has sold us a pack of lies and nobody here

980
00:54:14,960 --> 00:54:19,359
Speaker 1: is downplane January sixth. Even if it was spontaneous, it

981
00:54:19,400 --> 00:54:22,759
Speaker 1: was still really bad. Was it a coordinated attack on

982
00:54:22,800 --> 00:54:26,279
Speaker 1: the seat of democracy? Well, no, it was a bunch

983
00:54:26,320 --> 00:54:29,800
Speaker 1: of yahoos who somehow were able to storm the Capitol

984
00:54:29,840 --> 00:54:33,120
Speaker 1: and did actually attain the floor of the Senate. And more,

985
00:54:33,360 --> 00:54:36,200
Speaker 1: I think that symbolically is a total disaster, and they

986
00:54:36,239 --> 00:54:38,640
Speaker 1: should be punished to the full extent of the law.

987
00:54:39,040 --> 00:54:43,080
Speaker 1: But in terms of charges of domestic terrorism, the organization

988
00:54:43,239 --> 00:54:45,759
Speaker 1: that was implied here, all of the focus on what

989
00:54:45,840 --> 00:54:48,440
Speaker 1: the oathkeepers and the three percenters, none of who I'm

990
00:54:48,440 --> 00:54:52,080
Speaker 1: saying are good people. All of this was implied as

991
00:54:52,080 --> 00:54:55,200
Speaker 1: a coordinated effort crystal so that they could push a

992
00:54:55,280 --> 00:54:58,560
Speaker 1: new domestic war on terror. And the more that we

993
00:54:58,680 --> 00:55:01,160
Speaker 1: learned that the FBI at themselves, who have all the

994
00:55:01,160 --> 00:55:03,200
Speaker 1: incentives in the world in order to play at the

995
00:55:03,239 --> 00:55:07,480
Speaker 1: coordination angle, they can't even find the evidence of that. Well, okay,

996
00:55:07,560 --> 00:55:12,160
Speaker 1: so on that I disagree, because listen, I don't the

997
00:55:12,280 --> 00:55:15,839
Speaker 1: FBI in particular and law enforcement in general lies all

998
00:55:15,840 --> 00:55:17,919
Speaker 1: the time. They lie with the press all the time.

999
00:55:18,120 --> 00:55:20,640
Speaker 1: The press believes them all the time. So you have

1000
00:55:20,760 --> 00:55:24,040
Speaker 1: every reason to be skeptical of what the FBI is

1001
00:55:24,040 --> 00:55:26,600
Speaker 1: spinning here. And in fact, they do have an interest

1002
00:55:27,000 --> 00:55:31,440
Speaker 1: in downplaying the level of premeditation because it made them

1003
00:55:31,440 --> 00:55:35,160
Speaker 1: look really bad. Right, the fact that happened, the fact

1004
00:55:35,200 --> 00:55:37,960
Speaker 1: that has happened, and that they were so unprepared and

1005
00:55:38,000 --> 00:55:42,759
Speaker 1: that they hadn't apparently shared sufficient intelligence assessments for all

1006
00:55:42,800 --> 00:55:45,160
Speaker 1: of the relevant parties to have their ducks in a row.

1007
00:55:45,360 --> 00:55:48,480
Speaker 1: Like to me, this also smacks of a lot of

1008
00:55:48,480 --> 00:55:52,320
Speaker 1: cover your ass from the FBI in law enforcement. However,

1009
00:55:53,880 --> 00:55:56,759
Speaker 1: what we do know and what we should look at

1010
00:55:56,880 --> 00:56:00,000
Speaker 1: is what's actually been charged. Okay, what have they been in,

1011
00:56:00,120 --> 00:56:02,080
Speaker 1: What charges have they actually been able to gather the

1012
00:56:02,160 --> 00:56:05,680
Speaker 1: evidence for that they think there's a decent chance of conviction,

1013
00:56:06,160 --> 00:56:11,080
Speaker 1: and we haven't seen the details of those. You know, yes,

1014
00:56:11,160 --> 00:56:14,440
Speaker 1: they planned to break into the capital. That part was premeditated,

1015
00:56:14,680 --> 00:56:16,680
Speaker 1: but they didn't really have any plan once they got

1016
00:56:16,680 --> 00:56:18,600
Speaker 1: in there. That was like as far as they're planning,

1017
00:56:18,760 --> 00:56:22,080
Speaker 1: which kind of strikes me, kind of strikes me as

1018
00:56:22,239 --> 00:56:24,520
Speaker 1: accurate here that that's basically as far as they got

1019
00:56:24,520 --> 00:56:26,560
Speaker 1: we're going to storm the Capitol. Then what, I don't know,

1020
00:56:26,680 --> 00:56:28,960
Speaker 1: God'll take care of it from there, right, our hero

1021
00:56:29,120 --> 00:56:31,400
Speaker 1: Donald Trump will come and save as my things or

1022
00:56:31,440 --> 00:56:35,240
Speaker 1: whoever they were counting on do something. I would totally

1023
00:56:35,280 --> 00:56:37,799
Speaker 1: believe that they didn't really have it thought out since then,

1024
00:56:38,440 --> 00:56:40,759
Speaker 1: And again, what I think we should pay the most

1025
00:56:40,760 --> 00:56:44,719
Speaker 1: attention to is what has actually been charged and what

1026
00:56:44,840 --> 00:56:49,600
Speaker 1: are the details that prosecutors are actually able to, you know,

1027
00:56:49,640 --> 00:56:52,839
Speaker 1: to try to prove out and even that you should

1028
00:56:52,880 --> 00:56:55,400
Speaker 1: be a little bit skeptical of. It's not like government

1029
00:56:55,480 --> 00:57:00,799
Speaker 1: prosecutors are the most honest or straightforward people there. But

1030
00:57:00,880 --> 00:57:04,280
Speaker 1: if even they aren't saying these sort of like high

1031
00:57:04,360 --> 00:57:09,960
Speaker 1: level conspiracies were afoot, then you should expect that it

1032
00:57:10,160 --> 00:57:12,520
Speaker 1: is somewhat less than what the media has led you

1033
00:57:12,560 --> 00:57:14,719
Speaker 1: to believe in terms of the level of coordination and

1034
00:57:14,760 --> 00:57:18,000
Speaker 1: the actual danger in terms of you know, the election

1035
00:57:18,240 --> 00:57:21,840
Speaker 1: being overturned. Your point about how they want me want

1036
00:57:21,840 --> 00:57:24,880
Speaker 1: to downplay it to obscure their own failures is incredibly important.

1037
00:57:25,000 --> 00:57:27,320
Speaker 1: I did not even think about that, and you are

1038
00:57:27,320 --> 00:57:29,600
Speaker 1: one hundred percent right. So let's make sure that we

1039
00:57:29,880 --> 00:57:32,520
Speaker 1: put that in there, because actually it's true. If they

1040
00:57:32,600 --> 00:57:34,560
Speaker 1: do say it was coordinated, it's like, well, what the

1041
00:57:34,600 --> 00:57:38,600
Speaker 1: hell were you doing? Yeah, especially then you know you

1042
00:57:38,600 --> 00:57:41,280
Speaker 1: have plans for all these organizations, right, why didn't you

1043
00:57:41,320 --> 00:57:44,640
Speaker 1: disrupt it? Since all evidence currently indicates that you're doing

1044
00:57:44,640 --> 00:57:46,800
Speaker 1: a hell of a job organizing these fellas in the

1045
00:57:46,840 --> 00:57:49,600
Speaker 1: whole other sports of areas. Guess we're not going to

1046
00:57:49,600 --> 00:57:52,520
Speaker 1: talk about that one. I just think it's important we

1047
00:57:52,640 --> 00:57:57,160
Speaker 1: highlight this story because look, was it bad. Yeah, it

1048
00:57:57,200 --> 00:58:00,959
Speaker 1: was a bad day, and it was obviously looks spontaneous.

1049
00:58:01,200 --> 00:58:04,000
Speaker 1: That doesn't actually downplay what it means in terms of

1050
00:58:04,000 --> 00:58:06,800
Speaker 1: the systemic failure of the capital beliefe. The FBI, the

1051
00:58:06,840 --> 00:58:10,800
Speaker 1: federal government, the societal wide critique that more on like

1052
00:58:10,920 --> 00:58:14,440
Speaker 1: Donald Trump can inspire millions of people to go and

1053
00:58:14,520 --> 00:58:18,280
Speaker 1: storm the US capital. That's all can still be true,

1054
00:58:18,640 --> 00:58:21,880
Speaker 1: and it can still not justify a new war on

1055
00:58:22,040 --> 00:58:26,400
Speaker 1: terror imply some sort of wholesale plot in order to

1056
00:58:26,480 --> 00:58:30,080
Speaker 1: destroy the country. You know, I see it every day, Chrystal.

1057
00:58:30,160 --> 00:58:32,080
Speaker 1: As you pointed out in that one poll that we

1058
00:58:32,160 --> 00:58:34,640
Speaker 1: covered in our A block, which is that people are

1059
00:58:34,640 --> 00:58:38,760
Speaker 1: more concerned about domestic extremism than Islamic terror. What if

1060
00:58:38,840 --> 00:58:42,400
Speaker 1: neither are actually a big threat to your life right now?

1061
00:58:42,600 --> 00:58:45,800
Speaker 1: What if economic life actually is? What if lack of

1062
00:58:45,800 --> 00:58:48,440
Speaker 1: class mobility is What if I can go all the

1063
00:58:48,480 --> 00:58:52,080
Speaker 1: way down in terms of healthcare? But that's not what

1064
00:58:52,120 --> 00:58:54,760
Speaker 1: the people are being sold by the media and one

1065
00:58:54,760 --> 00:58:56,960
Speaker 1: of the major political parties, and then the other political

1066
00:58:57,000 --> 00:59:00,120
Speaker 1: party has to gaslight everybody into trying to think that.

1067
00:59:00,160 --> 00:59:02,320
Speaker 1: You know, these were like good Samaritans who had no

1068
00:59:02,400 --> 00:59:05,600
Speaker 1: idea what they were walking into all. Just be honest

1069
00:59:05,920 --> 00:59:10,560
Speaker 1: about what y Yeah, And I always try to remind people, like,

1070
00:59:10,640 --> 00:59:14,920
Speaker 1: if someone's trying to scare you, be very skeptical, because

1071
00:59:15,720 --> 00:59:19,960
Speaker 1: fear is an incredible motivator for people to allow things

1072
00:59:20,000 --> 00:59:23,760
Speaker 1: they wouldn't normally allow, to allow mass surveillance, to allow

1073
00:59:23,960 --> 00:59:29,080
Speaker 1: endless wars, to justify handing power over to an increasingly

1074
00:59:29,120 --> 00:59:33,240
Speaker 1: authoritarian government that you wouldn't normally do if you were

1075
00:59:33,280 --> 00:59:37,520
Speaker 1: thinking rationally. But look, people put their survival first and foremost,

1076
00:59:37,600 --> 00:59:41,480
Speaker 1: and that's a very understandable natural human instinct. Just make

1077
00:59:41,520 --> 00:59:45,440
Speaker 1: sure you're not getting manipulated by that into justifying things

1078
00:59:45,440 --> 00:59:49,600
Speaker 1: that you ordinarily would never even consider justifying. That's all

1079
00:59:49,600 --> 00:59:52,760
Speaker 1: I'm saying here. Absolutely, Wow, you guys must really like

1080
00:59:52,800 --> 00:59:54,760
Speaker 1: listening to our voices. Well, I know this is annoying.

1081
00:59:54,800 --> 00:59:57,400
Speaker 1: Instead of making you listen to a Viagri commercial. When

1082
00:59:57,440 --> 00:59:59,520
Speaker 1: you're done, check out the other podcast I do with

1083
00:59:59,560 --> 01:00:02,200
Speaker 1: Marshall CA called The Realignment. We talk a lot about

1084
01:00:02,240 --> 01:00:05,600
Speaker 1: the deeper issues that are changing realigning in American society.

1085
01:00:05,720 --> 01:00:08,040
Speaker 1: You always need more Crystal and soag in your daily lives.

1086
01:00:08,160 --> 01:00:10,640
Speaker 1: Take care, guys. Okay, Christal, what are you taking a

1087
01:00:10,680 --> 01:00:14,320
Speaker 1: look at well, I've been asking myself a big question

1088
01:00:15,320 --> 01:00:18,440
Speaker 1: over the course of the past week or so, which is,

1089
01:00:18,920 --> 01:00:21,800
Speaker 1: how is it that Joe Biden, who has been wrong

1090
01:00:22,080 --> 01:00:26,080
Speaker 1: and bad in so many ways over his long career

1091
01:00:26,120 --> 01:00:31,120
Speaker 1: in Washington, actually did something not only good but truly

1092
01:00:31,200 --> 01:00:35,600
Speaker 1: quite courageous in standing up to the establishments of both parties,

1093
01:00:35,680 --> 01:00:38,800
Speaker 1: in standing up to every corner of the media, in

1094
01:00:39,600 --> 01:00:43,600
Speaker 1: being completely unwilling to back down. And actually, The New

1095
01:00:43,680 --> 01:00:48,280
Speaker 1: York Times added some details to help us understand exactly

1096
01:00:48,360 --> 01:00:51,760
Speaker 1: that question. So they had this write up where they say,

1097
01:00:51,800 --> 01:00:56,480
Speaker 1: debating exit from Afghanistan, Biden rejected general views. General's views

1098
01:00:56,520 --> 01:00:58,800
Speaker 1: over two decades of war, the Pentagon had fended off

1099
01:00:58,840 --> 01:01:01,439
Speaker 1: the political instincts of election leaders frustrated with the grind

1100
01:01:01,440 --> 01:01:05,720
Speaker 1: of Afghanistan, but President Biden refused to be persuaded. Now,

1101
01:01:05,840 --> 01:01:08,800
Speaker 1: the funny thing about this piece is that New York

1102
01:01:08,800 --> 01:01:12,920
Speaker 1: Times means this as like a negative piece, like Biden

1103
01:01:13,000 --> 01:01:15,320
Speaker 1: was out there on his own and he didn't listen

1104
01:01:15,320 --> 01:01:18,120
Speaker 1: to the sage generals who knew better, who tried to

1105
01:01:18,160 --> 01:01:21,360
Speaker 1: warn him. But I've read this piece in a very

1106
01:01:21,480 --> 01:01:24,520
Speaker 1: positive light because it gets into some of the details

1107
01:01:24,560 --> 01:01:28,240
Speaker 1: of how Obama was persuaded to go against his initial

1108
01:01:28,240 --> 01:01:31,640
Speaker 1: instincts and what he ran on, and Trump was persuaded

1109
01:01:31,760 --> 01:01:35,120
Speaker 1: to go against what he ultimately ran on, wasn't able

1110
01:01:35,160 --> 01:01:39,280
Speaker 1: to actually get people out of Afghanistan, and Biden somehow

1111
01:01:39,360 --> 01:01:42,840
Speaker 1: was able to buck what all of these generals, in

1112
01:01:42,880 --> 01:01:47,280
Speaker 1: a coordinated fashion, tried to push on him. One of

1113
01:01:47,320 --> 01:01:49,600
Speaker 1: the details they have in this piece is that literally

1114
01:01:49,640 --> 01:01:54,400
Speaker 1: two days after inauguration, Lloyd Austin, Mark Milly and three

1115
01:01:54,560 --> 01:01:57,680
Speaker 1: other top generals all came to him and said, we

1116
01:01:57,760 --> 01:02:01,040
Speaker 1: need thirty five hundred people there to stay. We need

1117
01:02:01,040 --> 01:02:04,840
Speaker 1: the Trump's peace deal was really stupid. I'm paraphrasing these,

1118
01:02:05,040 --> 01:02:06,920
Speaker 1: you know, those weren't the exact words, but it was

1119
01:02:06,960 --> 01:02:10,400
Speaker 1: really stupid because it wasn't conditions based. They put all

1120
01:02:10,480 --> 01:02:13,480
Speaker 1: kinds of pressure on him to change the piece deal,

1121
01:02:13,560 --> 01:02:16,360
Speaker 1: to make it conditions based and to keep a force

1122
01:02:16,400 --> 01:02:19,000
Speaker 1: of somewhere around thirty five hundred to four thousand people

1123
01:02:19,040 --> 01:02:24,560
Speaker 1: there indefinitely, and Biden just flat out said no. So

1124
01:02:24,800 --> 01:02:28,200
Speaker 1: why is that? Why was he able to do what

1125
01:02:28,520 --> 01:02:32,560
Speaker 1: presidents before him for decades were unable to actually do,

1126
01:02:32,640 --> 01:02:35,560
Speaker 1: and to stand up to that kind of pressure knowing

1127
01:02:35,600 --> 01:02:37,920
Speaker 1: the way they're going to leak against you, knowing the

1128
01:02:37,920 --> 01:02:39,760
Speaker 1: way the media is going to handle all of this.

1129
01:02:40,280 --> 01:02:42,720
Speaker 1: There's a couple of key nuggets here. I think there

1130
01:02:42,720 --> 01:02:46,000
Speaker 1: are sort of three key factors. One of them, they

1131
01:02:46,040 --> 01:02:51,280
Speaker 1: have an interesting anecdote from Obama's memoir about how Biden

1132
01:02:51,360 --> 01:02:55,080
Speaker 1: really saw through the games that these generals were playing,

1133
01:02:55,600 --> 01:02:58,800
Speaker 1: especially with regards to Barack. Obama, of course, was young

1134
01:02:58,880 --> 01:03:03,040
Speaker 1: and relative new to Washington. So let's throw this quote

1135
01:03:03,160 --> 01:03:06,280
Speaker 1: up on the screen again. This is from Obama's memoir.

1136
01:03:06,760 --> 01:03:11,160
Speaker 1: So he said that mister Biden was furious at generals

1137
01:03:11,200 --> 01:03:13,320
Speaker 1: who were trying to force the decision to commit additional

1138
01:03:13,360 --> 01:03:17,280
Speaker 1: troops into Afghanistan with leaks, saying that if more were

1139
01:03:17,320 --> 01:03:20,080
Speaker 1: not sent, the result would be mission failure. He wrote

1140
01:03:20,080 --> 01:03:23,760
Speaker 1: that mister Biden used a vivid epithet and warned Obama

1141
01:03:23,880 --> 01:03:26,760
Speaker 1: about generals who quote are trying to box in a

1142
01:03:26,840 --> 01:03:29,640
Speaker 1: new president. The Vice President, lean Ford, putting his face

1143
01:03:29,680 --> 01:03:33,200
Speaker 1: a few inches from mind and stage whispered, don't let

1144
01:03:33,240 --> 01:03:37,520
Speaker 1: them jam you, mister Obama recalled. So one of the

1145
01:03:37,520 --> 01:03:41,160
Speaker 1: factors here was just planning experience. He's been around Washington,

1146
01:03:41,560 --> 01:03:43,959
Speaker 1: He's seen from the inside as chair of the Foreign

1147
01:03:44,040 --> 01:03:46,720
Speaker 1: Relations Committee, he saw what happened in Vietnam, and he

1148
01:03:46,760 --> 01:03:50,440
Speaker 1: saw up close and personal Indie Obama administration on exactly

1149
01:03:50,480 --> 01:03:54,000
Speaker 1: this issue of Afghanistan, the way that the generals were

1150
01:03:54,120 --> 01:03:59,000
Speaker 1: able to roll and ultimately jam Obama. So he saw

1151
01:03:59,040 --> 01:04:02,320
Speaker 1: through their games and his experience actually helped him be

1152
01:04:02,360 --> 01:04:05,320
Speaker 1: able to resist the pressure this time. A second factor

1153
01:04:05,520 --> 01:04:08,000
Speaker 1: I think that was important here is he just truly

1154
01:04:08,040 --> 01:04:12,280
Speaker 1: had an actual ideological commitment to getting out of Afghanistan.

1155
01:04:12,720 --> 01:04:16,240
Speaker 1: He fought with Obama, he fought with Robert Gates, he

1156
01:04:16,280 --> 01:04:20,800
Speaker 1: fought with Hillary Clinton during the Obama administration about committing

1157
01:04:20,840 --> 01:04:23,880
Speaker 1: additional troops to the surge in Afghanistan. He wanted a

1158
01:04:23,960 --> 01:04:27,440
Speaker 1: much smaller footprint and fought, you know, sort of vicious

1159
01:04:27,480 --> 01:04:31,680
Speaker 1: battles against them. He was also incredibly frustrated and disgusted

1160
01:04:32,160 --> 01:04:34,840
Speaker 1: with the Afghan government that we were propping up. One

1161
01:04:34,880 --> 01:04:37,200
Speaker 1: of the details from this piece is that he was

1162
01:04:37,240 --> 01:04:40,360
Speaker 1: so disgusted and frustrated at one point that he once

1163
01:04:40,440 --> 01:04:43,640
Speaker 1: threw down his napkin and walked out of a dinner

1164
01:04:43,960 --> 01:04:47,600
Speaker 1: with then President Hamd Karzai. So he's also seen through

1165
01:04:47,840 --> 01:04:51,600
Speaker 1: the totally corrupt and inempt Afghan leadership that we were

1166
01:04:51,720 --> 01:04:55,560
Speaker 1: propping up for many years, and actually had an ideological commitment.

1167
01:04:55,600 --> 01:04:58,120
Speaker 1: He saw through the lies, He understood the lies. He

1168
01:04:58,200 --> 01:05:01,000
Speaker 1: knew that the mission had long and accomplished or gotten

1169
01:05:01,000 --> 01:05:03,960
Speaker 1: off track and become about nothing other than military industrial

1170
01:05:04,040 --> 01:05:07,840
Speaker 1: complex profits. So he was ideologically committed to it. But

1171
01:05:07,960 --> 01:05:10,760
Speaker 1: the third piece, and this part's not really contemplated the

1172
01:05:10,800 --> 01:05:13,840
Speaker 1: New York Times piece that I mentioned earlier, is something

1173
01:05:13,880 --> 01:05:15,600
Speaker 1: that Cyber and I have talked about here, which is

1174
01:05:15,640 --> 01:05:18,520
Speaker 1: that Joe Biden really has a kind of a chip

1175
01:05:18,520 --> 01:05:23,080
Speaker 1: on his shoulder. Right Obama, Hillary Clinton, all the smarty

1176
01:05:23,200 --> 01:05:26,600
Speaker 1: pants and the Obama administration, they all really looked down

1177
01:05:26,600 --> 01:05:29,400
Speaker 1: on him. They treated him as less than they sort

1178
01:05:29,440 --> 01:05:33,680
Speaker 1: of humored him and dismissed him. And he felt that

1179
01:05:33,840 --> 01:05:37,240
Speaker 1: his way of doing politics, his sort of old school

1180
01:05:37,360 --> 01:05:41,880
Speaker 1: relationship based way of approaching politics, that that was really

1181
01:05:41,880 --> 01:05:45,040
Speaker 1: smeared at by Obama. And so as I was thinking

1182
01:05:45,120 --> 01:05:48,439
Speaker 1: through how he got to this uncharacteristic place of doing

1183
01:05:48,440 --> 01:05:52,080
Speaker 1: something so good in contrast to so much of his career,

1184
01:05:52,800 --> 01:05:57,040
Speaker 1: I really think it comes down to an intense desire

1185
01:05:57,560 --> 01:06:01,520
Speaker 1: to one up President Obama. And in fact it's not

1186
01:06:01,720 --> 01:06:04,960
Speaker 1: just on ending the war that President Obama promised to

1187
01:06:05,040 --> 01:06:07,880
Speaker 1: end but didn't actually end. It's also you can see

1188
01:06:07,880 --> 01:06:11,360
Speaker 1: those signs in other parts of his administration. So one

1189
01:06:11,400 --> 01:06:14,360
Speaker 1: of the critiques of the Obama administration was that they

1190
01:06:14,840 --> 01:06:17,120
Speaker 1: went too small on the stimulus. So Biden comes in,

1191
01:06:17,200 --> 01:06:20,360
Speaker 1: he doesn't relieve package that's much larger than what Obama

1192
01:06:20,400 --> 01:06:24,240
Speaker 1: had put on the table. Obama couldn't get a deal

1193
01:06:24,280 --> 01:06:26,840
Speaker 1: done in terms of by parsonship. He could never get

1194
01:06:26,840 --> 01:06:29,800
Speaker 1: the Republicans to do a single thing with him. So

1195
01:06:30,200 --> 01:06:33,040
Speaker 1: that helps to explain why Biden has been so weirdly

1196
01:06:33,080 --> 01:06:37,960
Speaker 1: obsessed with this stupid bipartisan infrastructure deal, burning days and

1197
01:06:38,040 --> 01:06:40,760
Speaker 1: days and months and months to try to get a

1198
01:06:40,800 --> 01:06:43,920
Speaker 1: biparson deal done because that was something that Obama could

1199
01:06:44,000 --> 01:06:48,320
Speaker 1: never ever do. And then finally Obama couldn't end the

1200
01:06:48,440 --> 01:06:51,320
Speaker 1: endless Wars. And so it makes sense to me that

1201
01:06:51,680 --> 01:06:54,400
Speaker 1: out of a desire to one up him and out

1202
01:06:54,440 --> 01:06:57,360
Speaker 1: of a sort of like ego driven sense of grievance

1203
01:06:57,360 --> 01:07:00,200
Speaker 1: and the ship on his shoulder, he was willing and

1204
01:07:00,280 --> 01:07:04,120
Speaker 1: able to do the thing that Obama didn't. So look,

1205
01:07:04,480 --> 01:07:07,760
Speaker 1: Joe Biden is still as flawed and still has made

1206
01:07:07,800 --> 01:07:11,720
Speaker 1: as many bad decisions as you know anyone has in

1207
01:07:11,760 --> 01:07:15,400
Speaker 1: this town. But I do think that that motivation of

1208
01:07:15,520 --> 01:07:19,480
Speaker 1: one upping Obama and some of the peculiar parts of

1209
01:07:19,520 --> 01:07:23,120
Speaker 1: both his history in Washington and his own personality traits

1210
01:07:23,520 --> 01:07:26,680
Speaker 1: came together in a way here where he actually truly

1211
01:07:26,720 --> 01:07:30,160
Speaker 1: did something that was special, that was different, and that

1212
01:07:30,200 --> 01:07:34,520
Speaker 1: was ultimately courageous. Sager. It was interesting reading into this piece,

1213
01:07:34,680 --> 01:07:36,680
Speaker 1: and again it's funny how the New York Times things.

1214
01:07:37,240 --> 01:07:39,720
Speaker 1: One more thing, I promise, just wanted to make sure

1215
01:07:39,760 --> 01:07:42,920
Speaker 1: you knew about my podcast with Kyle Kolinski. It's called Crystal,

1216
01:07:42,960 --> 01:07:45,440
Speaker 1: Kyle and Friends, where we do long form interviews with

1217
01:07:45,480 --> 01:07:48,960
Speaker 1: people like Noam Chomsky, Cornell West, and Glenn Greenwald. You

1218
01:07:49,000 --> 01:07:52,400
Speaker 1: can listen on any podcast platform, or you can subscribe

1219
01:07:52,440 --> 01:07:54,680
Speaker 1: over on substack to get the video a day early.

1220
01:07:54,920 --> 01:07:57,480
Speaker 1: We're gonna stop bugging you now enjoy all right, sag

1221
01:07:57,560 --> 01:08:01,360
Speaker 1: ready look at it well, I promise taking a little bit,

1222
01:08:01,800 --> 01:08:04,200
Speaker 1: a little bit of a look at the media response.

1223
01:08:04,600 --> 01:08:06,760
Speaker 1: And one of the things I've tried to underscore to

1224
01:08:06,800 --> 01:08:09,400
Speaker 1: many of my friends who've been gas lit, frankly by

1225
01:08:09,440 --> 01:08:12,560
Speaker 1: a lot of MAGA criticism is that by being one

1226
01:08:12,560 --> 01:08:15,680
Speaker 1: of these people who says I'm for the withdrawal, but

1227
01:08:15,840 --> 01:08:19,360
Speaker 1: not like this and amplifying many of the critiques, you

1228
01:08:19,520 --> 01:08:23,000
Speaker 1: find yourself on the side of the neo cons who

1229
01:08:23,160 --> 01:08:26,439
Speaker 1: screwed up this world in the first place. The media

1230
01:08:26,520 --> 01:08:31,240
Speaker 1: in particular has been not discerning whatsoever about the credibility

1231
01:08:31,479 --> 01:08:34,280
Speaker 1: of the people that they cite in their critiques of Vibe.

1232
01:08:34,560 --> 01:08:38,240
Speaker 1: So I pulled four separate pieces of criticism which I

1233
01:08:38,280 --> 01:08:42,799
Speaker 1: have seen amplified by conservative media, which are direct people

1234
01:08:43,000 --> 01:08:47,439
Speaker 1: who were responsible for getting us into the quagmires of today. Okay,

1235
01:08:47,600 --> 01:08:50,400
Speaker 1: so let's start with one my personal favorite. My friend

1236
01:08:50,439 --> 01:08:54,120
Speaker 1: Kurt Mills over the American Conservative pulled this one Wall

1237
01:08:54,200 --> 01:08:59,240
Speaker 1: Street Journal quote as Afghanistan reverts, Iraq makes steady progress.

1238
01:08:59,720 --> 01:09:04,559
Speaker 1: That's claim. The byline on that is Paul Bremer. Now,

1239
01:09:04,600 --> 01:09:06,880
Speaker 1: for those who may not know who Paul Bremmer is.

1240
01:09:07,080 --> 01:09:09,960
Speaker 1: Paul Bremer, which George W. Bush's pick. In order to

1241
01:09:10,000 --> 01:09:13,400
Speaker 1: head the Coalitional Provisional Authority in Iraq, he made the

1242
01:09:13,439 --> 01:09:17,760
Speaker 1: decision to pursue debathification in order to kick out all

1243
01:09:17,800 --> 01:09:21,240
Speaker 1: the Iraqis from their government and completely collapse that nation

1244
01:09:21,640 --> 01:09:25,120
Speaker 1: into a sectarian civil war. He is, by my estimation,

1245
01:09:25,479 --> 01:09:29,599
Speaker 1: probably the single most discredited figure of the entire Iraq War,

1246
01:09:30,000 --> 01:09:33,600
Speaker 1: saved for George W. Bush, And yet he's in the

1247
01:09:33,640 --> 01:09:36,240
Speaker 1: pages of the Wall Street Journal trying to tout his

1248
01:09:36,360 --> 01:09:40,080
Speaker 1: own faith success and making sure that he points to

1249
01:09:40,120 --> 01:09:43,880
Speaker 1: what happened in Afghanistan as a failure and not his

1250
01:09:44,040 --> 01:09:49,040
Speaker 1: own dealings in Iraq, which collapsed that nation, killed thousands

1251
01:09:49,040 --> 01:09:53,080
Speaker 1: of American soldiers, cost America a trillion dollars. In what

1252
01:09:53,240 --> 01:09:57,320
Speaker 1: world should we be elevating voices like Paul Bremer. Now,

1253
01:09:57,400 --> 01:09:59,360
Speaker 1: let's go to the next one. This is another particular

1254
01:09:59,400 --> 01:10:01,880
Speaker 1: favorite I've seen all over Fox News in the last

1255
01:10:01,920 --> 01:10:05,840
Speaker 1: couple of days. Ari Fleischer. He says Biden's problem. He

1256
01:10:05,920 --> 01:10:08,759
Speaker 1: said Americans are not having difficulties getting the second airport.

1257
01:10:08,800 --> 01:10:11,280
Speaker 1: They are. He said al Qaeda is in Afghanistan. They are.

1258
01:10:11,439 --> 01:10:14,000
Speaker 1: He said foreign leaders are not criticizing his handling withdrawal.

1259
01:10:14,040 --> 01:10:17,360
Speaker 1: They are. His judgment and explanations are deeply plowed now,

1260
01:10:17,360 --> 01:10:21,040
Speaker 1: as Daniel Depetra shows. According to the Center of Republic Integrity,

1261
01:10:21,280 --> 01:10:24,760
Speaker 1: Ari Fleischer made one hundred and nine false statements on

1262
01:10:24,960 --> 01:10:27,759
Speaker 1: the Iraq War. Ari Fleischer, for those who don't remember,

1263
01:10:28,040 --> 01:10:31,240
Speaker 1: was working for George W. Bush during the war. Drum

1264
01:10:31,280 --> 01:10:34,519
Speaker 1: period for the war in Iraq and post nine to eleven,

1265
01:10:34,800 --> 01:10:38,760
Speaker 1: he again is a demonstrable liar whenever it comes to

1266
01:10:38,800 --> 01:10:41,760
Speaker 1: the war on Terror, the war in Afghanistan, the war

1267
01:10:41,800 --> 01:10:44,720
Speaker 1: in Iraq. Are you noticing a trend here on who

1268
01:10:44,800 --> 01:10:49,240
Speaker 1: exactly the elevating who's being elevated in conservative media? You

1269
01:10:49,320 --> 01:10:52,839
Speaker 1: should be very cognizant of who you were finding yourself

1270
01:10:53,120 --> 01:10:57,080
Speaker 1: on the side of I already highlighted how Donald Trump

1271
01:10:57,160 --> 01:11:01,760
Speaker 1: Junior now is citing Tony Blair, some awesome figure of

1272
01:11:01,840 --> 01:11:04,759
Speaker 1: moral authority. Put this up there. Tony Blair has broken

1273
01:11:04,800 --> 01:11:07,920
Speaker 1: his long silence. He says the withdrawal was driven by

1274
01:11:08,080 --> 01:11:13,080
Speaker 1: imbecilic slogan of ending the forever war once again, just

1275
01:11:13,200 --> 01:11:17,680
Speaker 1: so everybody knows what's going on here. Twenty seventeen, the

1276
01:11:17,800 --> 01:11:22,719
Speaker 1: United Kingdom, in their own internal inquiry into the war

1277
01:11:22,840 --> 01:11:26,639
Speaker 1: in Iraq, said that the former Prime Minister Tony Blair

1278
01:11:26,880 --> 01:11:31,880
Speaker 1: had not been truthful, quote, not straight with the nation

1279
01:11:32,439 --> 01:11:37,400
Speaker 1: over the Iraq War. He said specifically that Tony Blair

1280
01:11:38,439 --> 01:11:43,080
Speaker 1: tried to obfuscate his own responsibility in falling for WMD

1281
01:11:43,280 --> 01:11:46,360
Speaker 1: in Iraq, in pushing the lies as to why the

1282
01:11:46,400 --> 01:11:49,720
Speaker 1: Briton stood with the United States in that invasion, and

1283
01:11:49,760 --> 01:11:52,680
Speaker 1: that he himself is a liar who lied to the

1284
01:11:52,720 --> 01:11:56,040
Speaker 1: British people. And yet he now comes forward and has

1285
01:11:56,080 --> 01:11:59,800
Speaker 1: the gall to criticize our president for doing what he

1286
01:12:00,080 --> 01:12:03,519
Speaker 1: couldn't do in terms of getting out of Afghanistan. So

1287
01:12:03,600 --> 01:12:07,160
Speaker 1: that's Tony Blair. And here's my personal and final favorite,

1288
01:12:07,439 --> 01:12:11,320
Speaker 1: Jet Bush tweeting out an article about how Afghans need

1289
01:12:11,360 --> 01:12:16,920
Speaker 1: an underground railroad by Paul Wolfowitz. Now, I said previously

1290
01:12:17,360 --> 01:12:20,479
Speaker 1: that L. Paul Bremer might be one of the most

1291
01:12:20,479 --> 01:12:23,639
Speaker 1: discredited figures of the Iraq War. Paul Wolfowitz actually might

1292
01:12:23,640 --> 01:12:26,160
Speaker 1: be one who's even more so, or very much at

1293
01:12:26,240 --> 01:12:29,360
Speaker 1: least in the running. Here. Why because what we see

1294
01:12:29,400 --> 01:12:31,840
Speaker 1: there is that Paul Wolfowitz was one of the chief

1295
01:12:32,080 --> 01:12:35,559
Speaker 1: people inside the Bush administration pushing for war in Iraq,

1296
01:12:35,800 --> 01:12:40,519
Speaker 1: permanent occupancy of Afghanistan, so called democracy, the full neo

1297
01:12:40,560 --> 01:12:44,639
Speaker 1: conservative agenda whenever he was in the White House. These

1298
01:12:44,640 --> 01:12:48,080
Speaker 1: are the people who are being elevated by elite media.

1299
01:12:48,280 --> 01:12:51,040
Speaker 1: These are the people that you find yourselves on the

1300
01:12:51,160 --> 01:12:55,680
Speaker 1: side on. They are all proven liars and crystal. We

1301
01:12:55,760 --> 01:13:00,439
Speaker 1: have now given people so much information. John Bolton is

1302
01:13:00,479 --> 01:13:05,760
Speaker 1: being interviewed on CNN. We see Condoleeza Rice writing op

1303
01:13:05,920 --> 01:13:10,400
Speaker 1: eds in the Washington Post. Not a single credible voice,

1304
01:13:10,760 --> 01:13:14,160
Speaker 1: not one have I seen on the media. I think

1305
01:13:14,200 --> 01:13:16,680
Speaker 1: that Craig Whitlock, who we had on this show of

1306
01:13:16,720 --> 01:13:20,360
Speaker 1: the Afghanistan Papers, he was interviewed once on MSNBC, as

1307
01:13:20,360 --> 01:13:22,280
Speaker 1: far as I know, he was not interviewed so far

1308
01:13:22,560 --> 01:13:26,880
Speaker 1: on CNN. Where are the people exposing the lies of

1309
01:13:26,920 --> 01:13:30,439
Speaker 1: those who I just pointed out, These people have blood

1310
01:13:30,560 --> 01:13:34,559
Speaker 1: on their hands in the toll of millions treasure that

1311
01:13:34,600 --> 01:13:37,400
Speaker 1: they have spent. And these are the people who and

1312
01:13:37,439 --> 01:13:39,360
Speaker 1: you know, I want to say, there are many people

1313
01:13:39,400 --> 01:13:42,720
Speaker 1: out there who really refer work for withdrawal and are

1314
01:13:42,760 --> 01:13:46,640
Speaker 1: being gas lit by MAGA leaders into somehow finding themselves

1315
01:13:46,920 --> 01:13:49,240
Speaker 1: on the side of the Paul Bremers, of the Poul

1316
01:13:49,280 --> 01:13:53,200
Speaker 1: Waffle with Paul Walffowitz's of the world, of the Tony Blairs,

1317
01:13:53,320 --> 01:13:56,640
Speaker 1: who are responsible for the neoliberal project that we have

1318
01:13:56,760 --> 01:14:00,439
Speaker 1: seen failed. I am just I'm a god real and

1319
01:14:00,600 --> 01:14:04,200
Speaker 1: bou the shamelessness that these people to number one rear

1320
01:14:04,280 --> 01:14:07,400
Speaker 1: their heads, but number two have the media elevate them,

1321
01:14:07,439 --> 01:14:10,800
Speaker 1: and then three have MAGA, who, if anything, is an

1322
01:14:10,800 --> 01:14:14,519
Speaker 1: indictment of these people somehow embrace them. I'm going crazy here.

1323
01:14:15,280 --> 01:14:17,519
Speaker 1: All right, guys, we have a fantastic guest for you

1324
01:14:17,560 --> 01:14:19,920
Speaker 1: this morning who's just out with a really terrific opbed

1325
01:14:20,120 --> 01:14:23,559
Speaker 1: about the Afghan withdrawal. Lucas Koontz is director of National

1326
01:14:23,600 --> 01:14:27,960
Speaker 1: security policy at the American Economic Liberties Project and also

1327
01:14:28,080 --> 01:14:32,960
Speaker 1: a marine veteran of both Iraq and Afghanistan. Lucas, thank

1328
01:14:33,000 --> 01:14:34,960
Speaker 1: you so much for being with us. Good to see Lucas.

1329
01:14:34,960 --> 01:14:38,639
Speaker 1: Thank Crystal, thanks for having men. I left off there.

1330
01:14:38,680 --> 01:14:41,479
Speaker 1: You happen to be running for Senate in Missouri, so

1331
01:14:41,560 --> 01:14:44,840
Speaker 1: we'll get to that in a moment, but just break

1332
01:14:44,880 --> 01:14:47,840
Speaker 1: down this obed that you just published. You said essentially

1333
01:14:47,920 --> 01:14:53,000
Speaker 1: you could sum up the Afghan War in two sentences. Yeah,

1334
01:14:53,040 --> 01:14:56,280
Speaker 1: and so it's basically that we have been lyed to

1335
01:14:56,640 --> 01:14:58,559
Speaker 1: for a very long time and that what you're seeing

1336
01:14:58,680 --> 01:15:01,720
Speaker 1: was inevitable. And so what I mean by that is,

1337
01:15:02,280 --> 01:15:05,960
Speaker 1: you know, it's been really kind of eye opening for

1338
01:15:06,040 --> 01:15:08,760
Speaker 1: me just to see how shocked people are by what's

1339
01:15:08,800 --> 01:15:12,599
Speaker 1: happening in Afghanistan right now. And that's not entirely fair,

1340
01:15:12,640 --> 01:15:14,800
Speaker 1: because it was kind of surprising to me too when

1341
01:15:14,800 --> 01:15:17,080
Speaker 1: I first went there, just to see what was going

1342
01:15:17,080 --> 01:15:19,120
Speaker 1: on on the ground, and I'll give you an example

1343
01:15:19,160 --> 01:15:21,719
Speaker 1: on that. And so for background, I was a Marine

1344
01:15:21,760 --> 01:15:24,559
Speaker 1: for thirteen years. I actually was a foreign Affairs officer

1345
01:15:24,680 --> 01:15:28,920
Speaker 1: for Afghanistan. I learned Pashto at Marine Special Operations Command

1346
01:15:29,000 --> 01:15:33,040
Speaker 1: and then I deployed twice to Afghanistan with Special Operations

1347
01:15:33,080 --> 01:15:36,559
Speaker 1: Task Forces. And on my first apployment in Afghanistan, it

1348
01:15:36,640 --> 01:15:39,479
Speaker 1: was the winner of twenty twelve thirteen. I went to

1349
01:15:39,520 --> 01:15:43,280
Speaker 1: the Haraz City penitentiary and my job was to talk

1350
01:15:43,320 --> 01:15:45,240
Speaker 1: to some Taliban folks who were there, which is what

1351
01:15:45,360 --> 01:15:48,639
Speaker 1: I did, and I still remember the first Taliban guy

1352
01:15:48,680 --> 01:15:51,040
Speaker 1: I talked to. I asked him the first question. I said,

1353
01:15:51,640 --> 01:15:53,479
Speaker 1: you know, sir, do you know why you're here? And

1354
01:15:53,560 --> 01:15:56,280
Speaker 1: he looks me straight in the eyes and he says yes,

1355
01:15:56,400 --> 01:15:59,559
Speaker 1: because I was trying to kill you. And I said, well, yeah,

1356
01:15:59,600 --> 01:16:02,760
Speaker 1: I mean that's pretty much it not me specifically by Americans.

1357
01:16:02,880 --> 01:16:05,639
Speaker 1: And then I said, so what do you think where

1358
01:16:05,640 --> 01:16:08,439
Speaker 1: do you think this goes from here? And he says, well,

1359
01:16:08,960 --> 01:16:10,960
Speaker 1: either you guys let me out and I keep trying

1360
01:16:10,960 --> 01:16:13,240
Speaker 1: to kill you until you're gone, or you keep me

1361
01:16:13,280 --> 01:16:15,800
Speaker 1: in here and then eventually you're gone. And then I'm

1362
01:16:15,840 --> 01:16:18,519
Speaker 1: out and it's our country, and that's what's going to happen.

1363
01:16:18,760 --> 01:16:22,040
Speaker 1: And I can tell you after interviewing the Taliban and

1364
01:16:22,120 --> 01:16:26,120
Speaker 1: then overseeing six thousand Afghan local police kind of like

1365
01:16:26,160 --> 01:16:30,599
Speaker 1: there's logistics and stuff, talking to local Afghans and their language,

1366
01:16:30,640 --> 01:16:34,400
Speaker 1: talking to Afghan security forces in their language. He was right.

1367
01:16:35,280 --> 01:16:38,719
Speaker 1: They were the most motivated and intense people I ever met.

1368
01:16:38,960 --> 01:16:41,200
Speaker 1: It's exactly what they intended to do. They were in

1369
01:16:41,240 --> 01:16:44,479
Speaker 1: it for the long haul, no matter what. And what

1370
01:16:44,520 --> 01:16:47,960
Speaker 1: you're seeing right now is the result of the Taliban

1371
01:16:48,160 --> 01:16:51,479
Speaker 1: getting to train and practice against the greatest fighting force

1372
01:16:51,479 --> 01:16:53,920
Speaker 1: in the entire world for twenty years. And if you

1373
01:16:53,960 --> 01:16:55,559
Speaker 1: want to be the best, you train against the best,

1374
01:16:55,600 --> 01:16:58,880
Speaker 1: right whether it's chess, football, running, whatever. And they trained

1375
01:16:58,880 --> 01:17:01,960
Speaker 1: against us for twenty years, and they are so much

1376
01:17:02,000 --> 01:17:04,559
Speaker 1: stronger and more powerful and put together than they were

1377
01:17:04,600 --> 01:17:07,080
Speaker 1: in two thousand and two or two thousand and three.

1378
01:17:06,600 --> 01:17:11,000
Speaker 1: And so for me, as like the real deal here

1379
01:17:11,200 --> 01:17:14,320
Speaker 1: is this was all covered up. No one knew about it.

1380
01:17:14,360 --> 01:17:17,400
Speaker 1: The media didn't pay attention to it. You know, our

1381
01:17:17,439 --> 01:17:20,280
Speaker 1: politicians were willing to just ignore that all this money

1382
01:17:20,280 --> 01:17:23,799
Speaker 1: and time we spent there was going to nothing except

1383
01:17:23,800 --> 01:17:26,719
Speaker 1: making the Taliban stronger and the inevitability that we're seeing

1384
01:17:26,760 --> 01:17:30,360
Speaker 1: right now. You know, lucas you write in here quote,

1385
01:17:30,400 --> 01:17:33,120
Speaker 1: the truth is that the Afghan National Security Forces was

1386
01:17:33,160 --> 01:17:36,000
Speaker 1: a jobs program for the Afghans, propped up by US

1387
01:17:36,040 --> 01:17:40,520
Speaker 1: taxpayer dollars, a military jobs program populated by non military

1388
01:17:40,360 --> 01:17:44,320
Speaker 1: people or paper forces that didn't exist, and a bevy

1389
01:17:44,400 --> 01:17:47,680
Speaker 1: of elites grabbing what they could when they could. I

1390
01:17:47,680 --> 01:17:50,479
Speaker 1: think your personal anecdote there is very powerful. Could you

1391
01:17:50,520 --> 01:17:53,760
Speaker 1: just tell us again more because I still even to

1392
01:17:53,760 --> 01:17:56,760
Speaker 1: this day, we know the numbers of corruption. We can

1393
01:17:56,800 --> 01:18:00,719
Speaker 1: talk about ghost soldiers all we want, but realreent people

1394
01:18:00,760 --> 01:18:03,280
Speaker 1: like yourself who saw it on the ground, is going

1395
01:18:03,320 --> 01:18:07,200
Speaker 1: to underscore for Americans just how hopeless the American mission

1396
01:18:07,200 --> 01:18:11,120
Speaker 1: in Afghanistan was. Can you just describe that for us? Sure?

1397
01:18:11,160 --> 01:18:14,519
Speaker 1: So in twenty fourteen, after you know, we'd been there

1398
01:18:14,560 --> 01:18:17,920
Speaker 1: for what thirteen years, we had an Afghan partner for

1399
01:18:18,000 --> 01:18:20,599
Speaker 1: us who was getting ready for the fighting season. And

1400
01:18:20,680 --> 01:18:23,320
Speaker 1: so there's kind of a fighting seats in Afghanistan that

1401
01:18:23,400 --> 01:18:25,200
Speaker 1: runs sort of spring through summer, and then in the

1402
01:18:25,240 --> 01:18:29,040
Speaker 1: winter everybody sort of like bunkers down again. And after

1403
01:18:29,080 --> 01:18:31,479
Speaker 1: thirteen years they weren't able to get their own food,

1404
01:18:31,520 --> 01:18:34,640
Speaker 1: their own ammunition, their own weapons systems, their own resupply,

1405
01:18:34,840 --> 01:18:37,559
Speaker 1: any of that stuff. And so at the last minute,

1406
01:18:37,640 --> 01:18:40,840
Speaker 1: it was my job to fly to Camp Moorhead, which

1407
01:18:40,880 --> 01:18:42,880
Speaker 1: was up by Kable and all around the country to

1408
01:18:42,960 --> 01:18:45,960
Speaker 1: meet with logistics people. I was out west, our unit

1409
01:18:46,040 --> 01:18:48,360
Speaker 1: was out west, and make sure that they got what

1410
01:18:48,400 --> 01:18:50,519
Speaker 1: they needed in order to get through the fighting season.

1411
01:18:50,600 --> 01:18:53,280
Speaker 1: And so if we were there for thirteen years and

1412
01:18:53,320 --> 01:18:57,000
Speaker 1: these guys couldn't get themselves ammunition, vehicles, or any of

1413
01:18:57,040 --> 01:18:59,920
Speaker 1: the resupply they needed to fight an insurgent for it

1414
01:19:00,800 --> 01:19:03,479
Speaker 1: was never going to happen. And so we did that

1415
01:19:03,520 --> 01:19:05,920
Speaker 1: for them. We did everything for them, and none of

1416
01:19:05,920 --> 01:19:08,160
Speaker 1: that stuff was in the news, and none of that

1417
01:19:08,200 --> 01:19:13,160
Speaker 1: stuff really got into the systematic dialogue. And so what

1418
01:19:13,280 --> 01:19:15,240
Speaker 1: I would say, and I think this is this is

1419
01:19:15,400 --> 01:19:19,000
Speaker 1: very important, is that we had in Afghanistan and in

1420
01:19:19,040 --> 01:19:25,679
Speaker 1: Iraq an institutional, systematic dishonesty that was designed to make

1421
01:19:25,720 --> 01:19:28,320
Speaker 1: it seem like the trillions of dollars we were spending

1422
01:19:28,400 --> 01:19:31,720
Speaker 1: over there was somehow worthwhile in that we were making progress.

1423
01:19:31,880 --> 01:19:34,439
Speaker 1: And if you're looking for great examples, like on the ground,

1424
01:19:34,760 --> 01:19:36,960
Speaker 1: I can give you one, the perfect one. Anyone who

1425
01:19:37,000 --> 01:19:40,160
Speaker 1: was in the military training security forces in Iraq or

1426
01:19:40,160 --> 01:19:43,240
Speaker 1: Afghanistan will know this. When I went to Raq, Iraq

1427
01:19:43,280 --> 01:19:46,120
Speaker 1: in two thousand and nine, I led a police training

1428
01:19:46,120 --> 01:19:48,479
Speaker 1: team and so what my job was was to get

1429
01:19:48,479 --> 01:19:53,480
Speaker 1: the local police in you know, Habaniah, Ramadi, Faluja, Sakaaluiya,

1430
01:19:53,600 --> 01:19:56,000
Speaker 1: some of these towns in western Iraq trained up and

1431
01:19:56,040 --> 01:19:58,439
Speaker 1: ready to defend themselves. It was two thousand and nine

1432
01:19:58,439 --> 01:20:00,800
Speaker 1: and we were going to be leaving soon. So when

1433
01:20:00,800 --> 01:20:03,759
Speaker 1: I got there, they gave me this twenty page power

1434
01:20:04,320 --> 01:20:07,960
Speaker 1: PowerPoint slide deck that was called stop light chart. And

1435
01:20:08,000 --> 01:20:10,200
Speaker 1: so what the stop light chart had on it was

1436
01:20:10,240 --> 01:20:13,280
Speaker 1: all the capabilities that my partner, of course, was supposed

1437
01:20:13,320 --> 01:20:15,240
Speaker 1: to be able to do. And if it was colored

1438
01:20:15,240 --> 01:20:17,400
Speaker 1: in green, it meant that they were ready to do it.

1439
01:20:17,439 --> 01:20:19,599
Speaker 1: If it was colored in yellow, it meant that we

1440
01:20:19,640 --> 01:20:21,880
Speaker 1: needed to work on that, and if it was red,

1441
01:20:21,920 --> 01:20:24,599
Speaker 1: it meant that they weren't a mission failure status. So,

1442
01:20:24,640 --> 01:20:27,320
Speaker 1: you know, I get there fresh Marine first apployment, so

1443
01:20:27,400 --> 01:20:30,200
Speaker 1: excited to leave these twelve marines in a Navy corman

1444
01:20:30,280 --> 01:20:32,680
Speaker 1: on missions around Iraq, and I started flipping through the

1445
01:20:32,720 --> 01:20:34,599
Speaker 1: stoplight chart, and I'm like, oh man, these guys are

1446
01:20:34,640 --> 01:20:36,800
Speaker 1: really good. Actually, you know, a lot of this is green.

1447
01:20:37,600 --> 01:20:39,599
Speaker 1: What isn't green is yellow, and there's maybe like one

1448
01:20:39,600 --> 01:20:41,719
Speaker 1: thing that's red that they'd never be able to do anyway.

1449
01:20:42,080 --> 01:20:45,639
Speaker 1: And so I'm pretty optimistic, just like the American people

1450
01:20:45,680 --> 01:20:49,080
Speaker 1: were optimistic. And then I started working with the Iraqi

1451
01:20:49,080 --> 01:20:51,600
Speaker 1: police and I started to see, well, they should be

1452
01:20:51,680 --> 01:20:53,519
Speaker 1: read on this, they should be read on this, they

1453
01:20:53,520 --> 01:20:55,920
Speaker 1: should be read on this. And I just work with

1454
01:20:55,960 --> 01:20:57,280
Speaker 1: them for a little while and I'm like, WHOA. So

1455
01:20:57,320 --> 01:20:58,760
Speaker 1: I go to my hire and I'm like, can we

1456
01:20:59,080 --> 01:21:00,880
Speaker 1: can we do a reassess I'd like to do is

1457
01:21:00,920 --> 01:21:03,439
Speaker 1: stand down a reassessment and re rate them so that this,

1458
01:21:04,160 --> 01:21:06,679
Speaker 1: you know, reflects what's actually I'm seeing on the grounds.

1459
01:21:06,840 --> 01:21:09,280
Speaker 1: And what came back to me was that no, we

1460
01:21:09,320 --> 01:21:11,760
Speaker 1: couldn't reassess them. And at the end of this, they're

1461
01:21:11,800 --> 01:21:13,840
Speaker 1: not allowed to go down on anything, and they're going

1462
01:21:13,920 --> 01:21:15,839
Speaker 1: to actually have to go up in a few areas,

1463
01:21:16,360 --> 01:21:19,720
Speaker 1: and so that is yeah, it's crazy, right, And so

1464
01:21:19,840 --> 01:21:22,000
Speaker 1: this is two thousand and nine, and so you know,

1465
01:21:22,040 --> 01:21:24,759
Speaker 1: we leave all these places and there's this rosy story

1466
01:21:24,800 --> 01:21:27,960
Speaker 1: that you know, Iraq is Green, their security forces are ready,

1467
01:21:28,200 --> 01:21:31,439
Speaker 1: and what happened a couple of years later, a couple

1468
01:21:31,520 --> 01:21:35,400
Speaker 1: thousand dudes and pickup trucks calling themselves Isis rolled over

1469
01:21:35,479 --> 01:21:38,120
Speaker 1: all these units and took them over. Despite what you

1470
01:21:38,160 --> 01:21:40,559
Speaker 1: saw on the stoplight charts, it was the same thing

1471
01:21:40,560 --> 01:21:45,160
Speaker 1: in Afghanistan. It's just it's just this systematic dishonesty that

1472
01:21:45,280 --> 01:21:49,040
Speaker 1: is really causing us. It's it's just undermining faith in

1473
01:21:49,080 --> 01:21:51,880
Speaker 1: all of our institutions. Well, I can go into that more,

1474
01:21:51,920 --> 01:21:54,960
Speaker 1: but i'll see if you got a question first. Well,

1475
01:21:55,320 --> 01:21:58,120
Speaker 1: I mean, that's it really is that for the first time,

1476
01:21:58,479 --> 01:22:01,160
Speaker 1: as you know, the American people are watching the way

1477
01:22:01,200 --> 01:22:05,760
Speaker 1: that the Afghan army just completely melted away and just

1478
01:22:06,120 --> 01:22:11,599
Speaker 1: how completely and utterly failed twenty years there ultimately were.

1479
01:22:12,120 --> 01:22:15,320
Speaker 1: They're finally seeing the truth that was hid from them

1480
01:22:15,360 --> 01:22:18,679
Speaker 1: for so long. So it's not surprising that there's such shock,

1481
01:22:18,800 --> 01:22:21,640
Speaker 1: that there's such horror, that there's such a reaction to

1482
01:22:21,800 --> 01:22:24,679
Speaker 1: actually for the first time seeing with their own eyes

1483
01:22:25,120 --> 01:22:29,160
Speaker 1: the reality of what this mission has been for decades now.

1484
01:22:30,560 --> 01:22:32,920
Speaker 1: I wonder, Lucas, one of the things that's really fascinating

1485
01:22:32,960 --> 01:22:35,880
Speaker 1: to me about you is that you actually spoke past

1486
01:22:36,000 --> 01:22:38,320
Speaker 1: to which means not only as you speak to members

1487
01:22:38,320 --> 01:22:40,120
Speaker 1: of the Taliban, as you were talking about before, but

1488
01:22:40,160 --> 01:22:44,320
Speaker 1: you talked to elites, you talked to regular Afghan people.

1489
01:22:45,200 --> 01:22:48,760
Speaker 1: What did they think about us? I'm sure quite a

1490
01:22:48,760 --> 01:22:50,920
Speaker 1: few saw us as sort of like foreign invaders or

1491
01:22:50,960 --> 01:22:54,160
Speaker 1: foreign occupy or something they've certainly been familiar with in

1492
01:22:54,479 --> 01:22:57,559
Speaker 1: the in the area. What do they think of us?

1493
01:22:58,040 --> 01:23:01,320
Speaker 1: And what did they think of the Taliban? Yeah, well,

1494
01:23:02,240 --> 01:23:05,559
Speaker 1: so a lot of people. You know, I wouldn't say

1495
01:23:05,600 --> 01:23:08,160
Speaker 1: that the average Afghan really actually thought of us as

1496
01:23:08,160 --> 01:23:10,280
Speaker 1: an invader. I'm not going to say they wanted us there,

1497
01:23:10,560 --> 01:23:13,360
Speaker 1: but a lot of them did just because we provided

1498
01:23:13,439 --> 01:23:16,639
Speaker 1: stability and really like the Afghan you know, the Taliban

1499
01:23:16,680 --> 01:23:18,920
Speaker 1: regime in the in the nineties was horrible. It was

1500
01:23:18,960 --> 01:23:21,880
Speaker 1: horrible for a lot of people. It may be horrible again.

1501
01:23:21,960 --> 01:23:24,840
Speaker 1: Obviously we can hope it's not, although I don't think

1502
01:23:24,880 --> 01:23:26,479
Speaker 1: hope is enough. We're going to use we need to

1503
01:23:26,520 --> 01:23:29,160
Speaker 1: use our tools of state craft, diplomacy and everything else

1504
01:23:29,640 --> 01:23:32,960
Speaker 1: to try to influence that situation. But what most people

1505
01:23:33,040 --> 01:23:36,400
Speaker 1: saw us there as was a jobs program or a

1506
01:23:36,400 --> 01:23:39,120
Speaker 1: way to make money. And so you know, there are

1507
01:23:39,200 --> 01:23:41,720
Speaker 1: reports of the Afghan president like leaving with you know,

1508
01:23:41,760 --> 01:23:44,759
Speaker 1: a helicopter and cars full of cash as he flees,

1509
01:23:44,800 --> 01:23:46,599
Speaker 1: like one hundred and sixty nine million dollars or something.

1510
01:23:46,640 --> 01:23:48,400
Speaker 1: I don't know if that's true or not, but the

1511
01:23:48,439 --> 01:23:51,840
Speaker 1: fact that that sort of story gains traction is like

1512
01:23:52,200 --> 01:23:55,200
Speaker 1: it's very emblematic of what was going on. And so

1513
01:23:55,960 --> 01:23:58,719
Speaker 1: just a lot of people, you know, I mentioned paper forces,

1514
01:23:58,800 --> 01:24:01,479
Speaker 1: or you mentioned how I wrote about paper forces, Like

1515
01:24:01,560 --> 01:24:04,360
Speaker 1: a lot of these places there were the police didn't exist,

1516
01:24:04,560 --> 01:24:07,240
Speaker 1: or the in Afghan military didn't exist. They were just

1517
01:24:07,320 --> 01:24:11,200
Speaker 1: they existed on paper, and some officer or some politician

1518
01:24:11,280 --> 01:24:14,559
Speaker 1: in Afghanistan would collect the paychecks for them and then

1519
01:24:14,680 --> 01:24:17,679
Speaker 1: just keep them. And so so what we really were

1520
01:24:17,840 --> 01:24:21,120
Speaker 1: is we were we were a stabilizing force for places

1521
01:24:21,160 --> 01:24:23,880
Speaker 1: like Kabble, where you know, it was a big city

1522
01:24:24,280 --> 01:24:26,479
Speaker 1: where there was a little bit of I wouldn't call

1523
01:24:26,479 --> 01:24:29,800
Speaker 1: it progressivism, but sort of like a Western attitude to

1524
01:24:29,880 --> 01:24:32,840
Speaker 1: some degree. But but out in the boonies, like I mean,

1525
01:24:33,360 --> 01:24:35,320
Speaker 1: I mean, we weren't anything. You know, We're just we're

1526
01:24:35,400 --> 01:24:39,680
Speaker 1: just another force that was there fighting the Taliban or

1527
01:24:39,760 --> 01:24:42,160
Speaker 1: fighting somewhere else. And the only thing that we really

1528
01:24:42,200 --> 01:24:45,439
Speaker 1: provided was the occasional jobs program. I mean, you know,

1529
01:24:45,479 --> 01:24:48,240
Speaker 1: we built buildings, we worked on roads, we did wells,

1530
01:24:48,400 --> 01:24:50,599
Speaker 1: and we tried to contract Afghans for that, and so

1531
01:24:51,000 --> 01:24:52,680
Speaker 1: it was really just a jobs and money program. And

1532
01:24:52,760 --> 01:24:54,760
Speaker 1: I think that's one of the real tragedies about this

1533
01:24:54,920 --> 01:24:58,200
Speaker 1: is that, you know, our country was willing to spend

1534
01:24:58,520 --> 01:25:02,160
Speaker 1: twenty years to point two five trillion dollars and almost

1535
01:25:02,160 --> 01:25:07,200
Speaker 1: twenty five hundred lives on a jobs program in Afghanistan,

1536
01:25:07,439 --> 01:25:09,320
Speaker 1: or if you look at a racket Afghanistan, the whole

1537
01:25:09,360 --> 01:25:12,320
Speaker 1: area six point four trillion dollars, and we weren't willing

1538
01:25:12,360 --> 01:25:15,080
Speaker 1: to invest even right now, they're not willing to invest

1539
01:25:15,160 --> 01:25:18,880
Speaker 1: just a fraction of that right here in America. And

1540
01:25:19,479 --> 01:25:22,880
Speaker 1: that's I don't know, that's terrible to me, and I

1541
01:25:22,920 --> 01:25:25,880
Speaker 1: wish we weren't doing it that way. Lucas. I first

1542
01:25:25,880 --> 01:25:28,240
Speaker 1: became familiar with your work, with some of your systemic

1543
01:25:28,280 --> 01:25:31,080
Speaker 1: critiques around Pentagon buying and more. But what I came

1544
01:25:31,520 --> 01:25:33,920
Speaker 1: were attended at briefing, meaning once gave and I was

1545
01:25:33,960 --> 01:25:37,800
Speaker 1: really impressed by our ability to break down systemically what

1546
01:25:37,920 --> 01:25:41,080
Speaker 1: happened in the US economy that crippled the Pentagon and

1547
01:25:41,120 --> 01:25:44,599
Speaker 1: its ability in order to remain competitive. I'm curious if

1548
01:25:44,600 --> 01:25:47,680
Speaker 1: you can apply that same analysis to the war itself.

1549
01:25:47,920 --> 01:25:50,400
Speaker 1: You know, you, you know, you have deep experience both

1550
01:25:50,439 --> 01:25:54,559
Speaker 1: in the country but also within the actual bureaucracy. What

1551
01:25:54,720 --> 01:25:57,879
Speaker 1: went wrong here? How did all of these generals delude

1552
01:25:57,880 --> 01:26:01,719
Speaker 1: themselves into pressuring you to change the metrics to line

1553
01:26:02,200 --> 01:26:04,960
Speaker 1: up the chain of command to the president. How did

1554
01:26:05,040 --> 01:26:08,400
Speaker 1: all the lies proliferate? Whenever you, yourself are on the

1555
01:26:08,439 --> 01:26:10,840
Speaker 1: ground with your own two eyes, could be like, this

1556
01:26:10,880 --> 01:26:14,080
Speaker 1: is never going to work. How did this happen? That's right,

1557
01:26:14,160 --> 01:26:17,320
Speaker 1: and so can you know, many many thousands of other veterans.

1558
01:26:17,360 --> 01:26:20,080
Speaker 1: And I think the reason it happened is there is

1559
01:26:20,160 --> 01:26:22,960
Speaker 1: political pressure and this comes from both parties, presidents of

1560
01:26:23,000 --> 01:26:26,240
Speaker 1: all sides, members of Congress, to make it look like

1561
01:26:26,360 --> 01:26:29,800
Speaker 1: this money that they're spending overseas is worthwhile. And so

1562
01:26:30,439 --> 01:26:32,799
Speaker 1: I have never been a general officer, but I presume

1563
01:26:32,840 --> 01:26:34,599
Speaker 1: you become a little bit political when you're up there

1564
01:26:34,640 --> 01:26:36,360
Speaker 1: and you have a career and a legacy that you

1565
01:26:36,400 --> 01:26:39,040
Speaker 1: want to protect. And so I'm not saying that people

1566
01:26:39,080 --> 01:26:43,760
Speaker 1: are evil here. That's why I call it systematic institutional dishonesty.

1567
01:26:44,080 --> 01:26:46,960
Speaker 1: It's all put together to support a system that is

1568
01:26:47,760 --> 01:26:53,960
Speaker 1: ineffective and that is really really undermines American faith and institutions.

1569
01:26:54,040 --> 01:26:56,360
Speaker 1: And actually I'd like to I'd like to go into

1570
01:26:56,360 --> 01:26:58,960
Speaker 1: that for a second. So I actually think I think

1571
01:26:58,960 --> 01:27:02,120
Speaker 1: it's much bigger than Afghanistan. I think it's much bigger

1572
01:27:02,120 --> 01:27:04,640
Speaker 1: than Iraq. I think that you know, what people are

1573
01:27:04,680 --> 01:27:08,280
Speaker 1: seeing in Afghanistan right now lays bear the fact that

1574
01:27:08,680 --> 01:27:11,200
Speaker 1: they were lied to. There was this institutional lie for

1575
01:27:11,240 --> 01:27:14,160
Speaker 1: twenty years there, and that all the lives, all the time,

1576
01:27:14,320 --> 01:27:17,280
Speaker 1: all the money was a waste. When isis rolled through Iraq,

1577
01:27:17,360 --> 01:27:19,640
Speaker 1: they saw the exact same thing in Iraq. You know,

1578
01:27:19,680 --> 01:27:23,280
Speaker 1: when people see what happens in our economy here in Missouri,

1579
01:27:23,360 --> 01:27:25,519
Speaker 1: they feel they see the exact same lives. And so

1580
01:27:26,200 --> 01:27:29,400
Speaker 1: I mean, look at what happened after the Great Recession here,

1581
01:27:29,479 --> 01:27:33,040
Speaker 1: like everybody, both parties again are saying America has recovered

1582
01:27:33,040 --> 01:27:36,360
Speaker 1: from the Great Recession in twenty ten, twenty eleven. Well,

1583
01:27:36,520 --> 01:27:39,240
Speaker 1: you know, I'm from Missouri. I came back from Iraq

1584
01:27:39,280 --> 01:27:41,880
Speaker 1: in two thousand and nine, and I go to my

1585
01:27:41,920 --> 01:27:44,360
Speaker 1: old neighborhood to visit, and I see the first house

1586
01:27:44,360 --> 01:27:46,160
Speaker 1: I ever lived in. It is bulldozed down it's an

1587
01:27:46,200 --> 01:27:49,160
Speaker 1: empty lot. Like the corner store is now boarded up.

1588
01:27:49,320 --> 01:27:52,000
Speaker 1: The two grocery stores we used to use are gone. Like,

1589
01:27:52,880 --> 01:27:55,240
Speaker 1: how are people going to trust a government that tells

1590
01:27:55,280 --> 01:27:58,040
Speaker 1: them the economy has recovered here in Missouri when they're

1591
01:27:58,040 --> 01:28:00,439
Speaker 1: seeing that, Like, that's not a unique story. Or let's

1592
01:28:00,479 --> 01:28:04,000
Speaker 1: take the housing market for example. Again, twenty twelve, everybody said, oh,

1593
01:28:04,000 --> 01:28:07,200
Speaker 1: we've saved the housing market, the housing market is recovered. Well,

1594
01:28:07,240 --> 01:28:09,200
Speaker 1: my dad tried to sell the house that I joined

1595
01:28:09,200 --> 01:28:11,559
Speaker 1: the Marine Corps out of in twenty twelve and it's

1596
01:28:11,560 --> 01:28:14,080
Speaker 1: sat on the market. This is in Jefferson City, Missouri,

1597
01:28:14,439 --> 01:28:17,400
Speaker 1: for two years, and he got forty three thousand dollars

1598
01:28:17,439 --> 01:28:21,040
Speaker 1: for a house that he owed seventy eight thousand on. Like, so,

1599
01:28:21,080 --> 01:28:23,800
Speaker 1: when he's told that the housing market is recovered, and

1600
01:28:23,840 --> 01:28:25,840
Speaker 1: all these people in Missouri are told that and that's

1601
01:28:25,840 --> 01:28:28,400
Speaker 1: what they see, they don't believe. And so we have

1602
01:28:28,439 --> 01:28:31,120
Speaker 1: a Raq, we have Afghanistan, we have the economy, we

1603
01:28:31,240 --> 01:28:33,800
Speaker 1: have the housing market. And when you get bombarded by

1604
01:28:33,880 --> 01:28:38,200
Speaker 1: systematic institutional lie after lie after lie, you lose faith

1605
01:28:38,240 --> 01:28:40,880
Speaker 1: in what's going on. And now you know what this

1606
01:28:41,000 --> 01:28:43,559
Speaker 1: really makes me mad. We have all these people talking

1607
01:28:43,600 --> 01:28:45,880
Speaker 1: down to Missourians or talking down to other people, call

1608
01:28:45,920 --> 01:28:49,400
Speaker 1: them idiots, morons, whatever else. Not forgetting a COVID vaccine,

1609
01:28:49,400 --> 01:28:51,880
Speaker 1: and not for believing in COVID. Well, here's the thing.

1610
01:28:52,160 --> 01:28:56,000
Speaker 1: Your institutional lie for lies for decades have made it

1611
01:28:56,160 --> 01:28:58,200
Speaker 1: so that people don't believe you when you say the

1612
01:28:58,240 --> 01:29:01,600
Speaker 1: truth anymore. And so absolutely people need to get vaccines.

1613
01:29:01,800 --> 01:29:05,120
Speaker 1: But we have created this massive hole in the truth

1614
01:29:05,439 --> 01:29:08,080
Speaker 1: that Charlatan's you know, we got like Josh Holly here

1615
01:29:08,320 --> 01:29:11,160
Speaker 1: and others in Missouri. These Charlatans can just drive a

1616
01:29:11,200 --> 01:29:14,320
Speaker 1: truck full of lives through and no one knows what

1617
01:29:14,400 --> 01:29:17,360
Speaker 1: to believe anymore. And to me, that's the real failing,

1618
01:29:17,479 --> 01:29:20,040
Speaker 1: that's the real problem. It's why I wrote the op ed.

1619
01:29:20,120 --> 01:29:23,200
Speaker 1: We need to start speaking the truth right now, right now,

1620
01:29:23,320 --> 01:29:25,200
Speaker 1: or we're going to be in this We're gonna be

1621
01:29:25,280 --> 01:29:28,960
Speaker 1: mired and whatever catastrophe comes next where no one believes

1622
01:29:29,000 --> 01:29:31,960
Speaker 1: what the right solution is. Okay, guys, thanks for bearing

1623
01:29:32,000 --> 01:29:34,400
Speaker 1: with us with our little home show because of my

1624
01:29:34,439 --> 01:29:36,760
Speaker 1: whole COVID situation. If you want to watch the rest

1625
01:29:36,800 --> 01:29:39,880
Speaker 1: of that interview, you can become a premium subscriber today.

1626
01:29:39,920 --> 01:29:42,800
Speaker 1: Link is down there in the description. We really appreciate

1627
01:29:43,040 --> 01:29:45,200
Speaker 1: all of the support that you give us, and we

1628
01:29:45,240 --> 01:29:47,120
Speaker 1: will see you all tomorrow. We're not going to let

1629
01:29:47,160 --> 01:29:50,960
Speaker 1: this deter us. That's right, We will be back here tomorrow. Guys.

1630
01:29:51,000 --> 01:30:07,320
Speaker 1: Have a great day. See then. Thanks for listening to

1631
01:30:07,360 --> 01:30:09,400
Speaker 1: the show. Guys, we really appreciate it. To help other

1632
01:30:09,400 --> 01:30:11,400
Speaker 1: people find the show, go ahead and leave us a

1633
01:30:11,439 --> 01:30:14,519
Speaker 1: five star rating on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get

1634
01:30:14,560 --> 01:30:18,080
Speaker 1: your podcasts. Really helps other people find the show. As

1635
01:30:18,080 --> 01:30:22,440
Speaker 1: always special, thank you to Supercast for powering our premium membership.

1636
01:30:22,560 --> 01:30:25,120
Speaker 1: If you want to find out more, go to Crystalansager

1637
01:30:25,320 --> 01:30:26,000
Speaker 1: dot com.