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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 going to be totally upfront with you.

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Speaker 1: We 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: 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: 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: It's good to be back. What do we have Christals? Indeed,

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Speaker 1: we do very nice to have you back. Kyle, did

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Speaker 1: a good job holding now a great job. Thank you, Kyle,

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Speaker 1: you were definitely missed. Listen, guys, today we're going deep

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Speaker 1: on Afghanistan from a variety of angles. We'll bring up

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Speaker 1: to speed on everything that has happened as of this morning,

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Speaker 1: how the media is handling it. I don't think you'll

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Speaker 1: be all that surprise. We've got a great guest on,

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Speaker 1: Richard Hannania to break down exactly what happened and to

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Speaker 1: sort of push back on some of the critiques I

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Speaker 1: think of the Biden administration. But there's also other news

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Speaker 1: that we want to get to as well. The census

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Speaker 1: numbers have come out. They're quite interesting, quite revealing. There's

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Speaker 1: also a horrific earthquake in Haiti, that poor nation. We'll

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Speaker 1: update you there on the absolute latest. I also have

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Speaker 1: a Fox News segment that I could not let go unnoticed.

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Speaker 1: I'll bringing the details on that. But we do want

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Speaker 1: to start this morning with the very is coming out

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Speaker 1: of Afghanistan. Yeah. I know a lot of you have

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Speaker 1: probably seen saying what the hell is going on? The

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Speaker 1: government collapsed, So let's take it all the way back

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Speaker 1: to the beginning. So what has happened is that the

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Speaker 1: Trump administration February of twenty twenty begins this peace process

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Speaker 1: with the Taliban. They decide May first, twenty twenty, all

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Speaker 1: US forces be pulled out. Biden, inherits this peace deal, says, Okay,

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Speaker 1: we're going to get out. He's revised his timelines, says

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Speaker 1: August thirty first, twenty twenty. In the midst of all

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Speaker 1: of that, the Taliban, because US forces are beginning to

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Speaker 1: pull out, because we're beginning not to give the immense

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Speaker 1: support to the Afghan national security forces which we have,

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Speaker 1: they launch in offensive. And so the Long War Journal,

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Speaker 1: which is a very well respected journal here in DC,

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Speaker 1: the tracks kind of Taliban movements, put together this little animation.

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Speaker 1: I just want to give you guys an idea of

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Speaker 1: how quickly this began. So you can see here the

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Speaker 1: red districts are the Taliban. So you're beginning to see

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Speaker 1: October of twenty twenty April twenty twenty one the encroachment

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Speaker 1: of the Taliban all across the country, holding provincial capitals.

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Speaker 1: But there as it begins to move for those who

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Speaker 1: are those who are just listening, July of twenty twenty

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Speaker 1: one is when things just absolutely speed up and you

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Speaker 1: can see right there the encirclement this date goes all

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Speaker 1: the way up just yesterday of the Taliban and how

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Speaker 1: they have captured every single major provincial capital within Afghanistan,

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Speaker 1: which has a substantial population. And there's a lot to

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Speaker 1: be said there, Crystal, which is that what we are

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Speaker 1: seeing is the overnight, essentially collapse of one hundred billion

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Speaker 1: dollars of American money, of American blood, of American military

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Speaker 1: might that we gave these people, We supported this army,

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Speaker 1: gave them every chance they possibly could in order to

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Speaker 1: fight for their own country, and they folded within three weeks.

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Speaker 1: That's the absolute truth of the matter. And there's a

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Speaker 1: lot to be said that we'll get throughout the show

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Speaker 1: about Biden and more. But I think the brass tacks

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Speaker 1: is that the Afghan army and the Afghan political you know,

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Speaker 1: apparatus you could barely cover call it a government was

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Speaker 1: so incompetent, corrupt, and inept that they folded in a

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Speaker 1: manner that me the biggest doomer on Afghanistan there probably is. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I would never have predicted that they would fold this quickly.

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Speaker 1: It was even worse than we thought, way worse. We

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Speaker 1: were lied to even more than we thought. I think

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Speaker 1: these presidents have been lied to routinely. I think the

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Speaker 1: military has been lying to themselves too. By the way,

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Speaker 1: the bottom line is the military was fake, the government

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Speaker 1: was fake, the development aid was fake. All we did

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Speaker 1: was create a massive system of kleptocracy that had zero

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Speaker 1: local support. And so yeah, when this when these Afghan fighters,

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Speaker 1: when they saw the writing on the wall, they already

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Speaker 1: had deals ready to go with the tech. It'd all

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Speaker 1: been paid off, so it was done. A lot of

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Speaker 1: these you know, takeovers were basically bloodless. They handed over

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Speaker 1: the weapons, they seated control, they left, they fled, powerwater

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Speaker 1: show people know exactly. So look, the bottom line is

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Speaker 1: this was a long time coming. The reason why president

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Speaker 1: after president kept us there is because they did not

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Speaker 1: want the American people to learn the truth about how

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Speaker 1: their money had been wasted and squandered and lives lost

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Speaker 1: on literally nothing. Just to give you a sense of

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Speaker 1: the scale that we're talking about here, we spent more

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Speaker 1: in Afghanistan over these past twenty years than we spent,

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Speaker 1: adjusted for inflation, in all of the Marshall Plan to

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Speaker 1: rebuild all of Western Europe, all of Western Europe, can

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Speaker 1: all of laugh because he makes me want to cry.

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Speaker 1: And this is what there is to show for it,

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Speaker 1: And I just want to be clear, like it's heartbreaking

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Speaker 1: the images people are at the airport, They're hanging on

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Speaker 1: to planes and losing their lives, reportedly just trying to

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Speaker 1: flee the country. It has definitely not been a well

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Speaker 1: executed process, which we're going to get you more on.

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Speaker 1: But I just want to say, out of the gates,

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Speaker 1: I give Biden so much credit for sticking to this

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Speaker 1: and this is where actually and he's been all over

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Speaker 1: the board in terms of foreign interventions and good on

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Speaker 1: foreign policy sometimes and terrible on at other times. It

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Speaker 1: appears like his long experience in Washington gave him the

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Speaker 1: courage to move forward with what he knew was likely

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Speaker 1: to be ugly. Yeah, what he knew was very potentially

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Speaker 1: likely to have political blowback and be politically unpopular, although

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Speaker 1: I would not say that that is as clear cut

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Speaker 1: as those in the media are portraying it. He came

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Speaker 1: into office the end of Vietnam. He saw the limits

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Speaker 1: of American foreign intervention. He served eight years under the

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Speaker 1: Obama administration. He opposed the surge, He saw the lies

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Speaker 1: that were being told to the American people, and he

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Speaker 1: came in determined to end this thing and had the

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Speaker 1: courage to do it when president after president Democrat and

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Speaker 1: Republican were unable to do it. So that's kind of

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Speaker 1: the bottom line. As events continue to unfold, we've got

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Speaker 1: some more elements here we can throw up. So in particular,

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Speaker 1: of course, the president President Ghani fled the nation. Taliban

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Speaker 1: is fully We've got that Washington Post hare sheet. The

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Speaker 1: Taliban is fully taken over the government in Kabble. Effectively,

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Speaker 1: there's pictures of them in the Presidential palace. Again, this

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Speaker 1: happened with a speed that none of us could have

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Speaker 1: possibly imagined. And to give you a sense of the

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Speaker 1: very aggressive and unrepentant, I would say attitude that the

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Speaker 1: Biden administration is taking. We have a piece of President

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Speaker 1: Biden's statement on what has happened here. He says, look,

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Speaker 1: and this is just a portion of what he said.

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Speaker 1: Over our countries twenty years at war in Afghanistan, America

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Speaker 1: has sent its finest young men and women, invested in

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Speaker 1: nearly one trillion dollars, trained over three hundred thousand Afghan

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Speaker 1: soldiers and police, equipped them with state of the art

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Speaker 1: military equipment and maintain their air force as part of

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Speaker 1: the longest worn US history. One more year or five

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Speaker 1: more years of US military presence would not have made

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Speaker 1: a difference if the Afghan military cannot or will not

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Speaker 1: hold its own country, and an endless American presence in

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Speaker 1: the middle of another country's civil conflict was not acceptable

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Speaker 1: to me, and in fact, Sager, some of the reporting

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Speaker 1: this morning suggest that the speed of the collapse actually

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Speaker 1: bolstered the Biden administration's case internally because it made them realize, Look,

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Speaker 1: these generals are trying to, oh, just give us six

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Speaker 1: more months. No, just give us them another year, just

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Speaker 1: give us five more years. Look, would not have mattered.

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Speaker 1: This was the outcome, no matter how long we Ultimately

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Speaker 1: I completely agree. And on the strategic level, look, Joe

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Speaker 1: Biden has got stones of steel as far as I'm concerned,

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Speaker 1: because the media onslaught, the foreign policy establishment, everybody is

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Speaker 1: going after him, trying to get out. And there's a

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Speaker 1: lot of discussion here. I see a lot of the

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Speaker 1: right trying to paint this into some humiliation abroad, this

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Speaker 1: is what ending a war looks like. There is a

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Speaker 1: lot of discussion, Oh, we should have planned better, and more.

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Speaker 1: And look, I want to be clear, what is happening

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Speaker 1: in Kable is horrible. I mean, if you're one of

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Speaker 1: those people who relied on the government and then we

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Speaker 1: weren't able to get you out, that is shameful and

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Speaker 1: we should do everything in our power in order to

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Speaker 1: make sure that could happen. But the alternative, and we're

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Speaker 1: going to talk about this with Richard Hannania, is what

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Speaker 1: we stay three more months, four more months. People need

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Speaker 1: to realize we had a peace deal with the Taliman.

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Speaker 1: If we all of a sudden change the timeline and

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Speaker 1: we say we're going to stay three more months, four months,

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Speaker 1: be honest. That means you are cool with weapons free

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Speaker 1: on American soldiers, and I'm not cool with that. I

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Speaker 1: don't think one more life, one more American life, one

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Speaker 1: more American limb, one more person coming back all screwed

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Speaker 1: up from this war is worth staying there another day

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Speaker 1: is specially given how you see this government in its

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Speaker 1: military conduct itself. But look, this truth is is that

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Speaker 1: this is a horrible situation and in terms of the

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Speaker 1: optics of it, we have to be real it's not great.

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Speaker 1: This is what it looks like whenever you're defeated in

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Speaker 1: the war. Let's put this up there. In terms of

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Speaker 1: the helicopter, this was going all around everywhere. In terms

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Speaker 1: of the photo, the photo of the helicopter that was

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Speaker 1: seen at the US embassy, the evacuation there underway a

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Speaker 1: lot of discussion and comparison there to Saigon. But you know,

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Speaker 1: I want to make a point here, which is that

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Speaker 1: you want to know the truth, Crystal. The media hasn't

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Speaker 1: cared about this. A US embassy in Afghanistan has been

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Speaker 1: so insecure for so many years that the US cannot

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Speaker 1: risk bringing people from Hamid Karzai or Bogram International Airport

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Speaker 1: by road to the embassy as they were able to.

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Speaker 1: They have had to shuttle back and forth by helicopter

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Speaker 1: for years because the streets themselves are so insecured and

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Speaker 1: so vulnerable to attack that they cannot risk it. That's

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Speaker 1: the thing. Everybody wants to focus on the helicopter. Now,

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Speaker 1: let's talk about the helicopter over the last five years,

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Speaker 1: which is that over the last five years, we have

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Speaker 1: spent so many billions of dollars in that country so

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Speaker 1: that the security situation could deteriorate, thus that we cannot

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Speaker 1: even move from the airport two miles away to the end,

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Speaker 1: except via helicopter, in order to make sure that our

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Speaker 1: people don't get killed on the ground. This is why

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Speaker 1: I ask everybody to look. I know the images are sad,

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Speaker 1: and I know it's shameful, and look, it's embarrassing, you know,

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Speaker 1: as a nation. And more, it's devastating really when you

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Speaker 1: think about how many people came back, and how many

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Speaker 1: people lost limbs and lost lives and more. And we

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Speaker 1: try to cling onto meeting and we are a great country,

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Speaker 1: but we also have to admit the truth of what

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Speaker 1: the monumental failure that has happened here we already have.

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Speaker 1: This is my favorite part. The guy that Bush put

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Speaker 1: in charge, let's put this up there, Hamid Karzai, who Dick,

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Speaker 1: Cheney and Bush, one of the most corrupt people on

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Speaker 1: the planet, is now saying that he will form a

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Speaker 1: coordination council to manage the peaceful transition of power to

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Speaker 1: the Taliban. So the guy we picked whose brother was

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Speaker 1: a drug dealer and who he himself has become a

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Speaker 1: nice multi millionaire, suspiciously, you know, just out of nowhere. Sure,

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Speaker 1: where are they want to where all that money came from?

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Speaker 1: A lot of Lockheed Martin dollars and more. But Hamid Karzai,

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Speaker 1: the guy we put in charge, is now managing the

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Speaker 1: transition of power to the Taliban. I think that those

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Speaker 1: two images show you just the monumental failure of our

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Speaker 1: general class, of our presidents. These people lied to us

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Speaker 1: for twenty years. The lives were even worse than we thought,

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Speaker 1: and we could imagined. I could not even imagine that

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Speaker 1: you spend one hundred billion dollars ostrof Ghanian Moore, who

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Speaker 1: we have propped up you despite the fact that's one

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Speaker 1: of the most useless people on the planet. I mean,

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Speaker 1: all these governments, these elections that we ran, how many

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Speaker 1: American soldiers died in order to secure the ballot boxes

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Speaker 1: so the corrupt people like Karzai and them could exist.

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Speaker 1: And this is how it all ends well, and not

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Speaker 1: to mention the over one hundred thousand Afghani people who

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Speaker 1: died and that the media did not care about until

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Speaker 1: this exact moment. We'll get to the media angle in

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Speaker 1: a moment. But you know, everybody wants to talk about

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Speaker 1: Saigon now, and I think we should actually because you

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Speaker 1: know what, we should have learned a lot more from

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Speaker 1: that experience, then apparently we did. This whole thing was

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Speaker 1: birthed in complete arrogance and hubris. If you were going

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Speaker 1: to go in to get bin Laden, fine, go get

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Speaker 1: bin Laden and get the hell out. That's what this

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Speaker 1: should have been from the beginning. The idea that you're

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Speaker 1: going to remake this society and you're gonna have the

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Speaker 1: schools and girls flourish, all of this like this was

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Speaker 1: complete arrogance, complete arrogance. And so now we see after

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Speaker 1: two decades all of it gone poof, like it was

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Speaker 1: never ever there. And so look, the bottom line for

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Speaker 1: me with Biden is was this executed perfectly wonderfully beautiful,

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Speaker 1: no incompetent mess based on terrible intelligence. Military either had

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Speaker 1: no idea or they were lying to his face or whatever.

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Speaker 1: But ultimately, yeah, the buck stops with him, and the

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Speaker 1: fact that we weren't able to in an organized fashion

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Speaker 1: get our people out is embarrassing. But would I take

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Speaker 1: Biden's policy towards Afghanistan over Trump's, over Obama's and certainly

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Speaker 1: over George W. Bush. Hell yes, every single day of

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Speaker 1: the week. And I think that is the perspective that

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Speaker 1: is wildly missing from all of the media takes here.

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Speaker 1: But look, let's talk about that wildly faulty, inaccurate intelligence.

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Speaker 1: That absolutely so let's take a listen to what he

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Speaker 1: was saying just about a month ago on July eighth.

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Speaker 1: Is a Taliban takeover of Afghanistan now inevitable? No, it

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Speaker 1: is not, because you have the Afghan troops have three

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Speaker 1: hundred thousand well equipped as well as quipped as any

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Speaker 1: army in the world, and an air force against something

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Speaker 1: like seventy five thousand Taliban. It is not. An president,

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Speaker 1: thank you very much. Your own intelligence community has assays

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Speaker 1: that the Afghan government will likely collapse. That's true. Can

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Speaker 1: you please clarify what they have told you about whether

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Speaker 1: that will happen or not? That is not true. They

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Speaker 1: they did not reach that conclusion. So look, hey, please

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Speaker 1: set himself up for that. One could not have been

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Speaker 1: more wrong because the intelligence commune was wildly overestimating how

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Speaker 1: effective the Afghan government and military would ultimately be. They

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Speaker 1: thought that the Taliban would ultimately take over, but that

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Speaker 1: it would take months, something like eighteen months for that

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Speaker 1: ultimately to happen, giving the US government time to evacuate

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Speaker 1: their personnel because they didn't want these images of having

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Speaker 1: to be forced down, rushed down. They also knew how

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Speaker 1: symbolic the evacuation of embassy personnel ultimately is, so they

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Speaker 1: were trying to hold off on that. But yeah, I

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Speaker 1: mean he should have known better. Even that three hundred

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Speaker 1: thousand troop number, that's fake, completely fake. They have tens

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Speaker 1: of thousands of fake soldiers on the rosters, where the

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Speaker 1: money for the salaries really going to some warlorder whoever.

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Speaker 1: So he should have known better. And I think it's

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Speaker 1: good to close out this portion with reminding you all

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Speaker 1: of something that we covered together long ago back on

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Speaker 1: Rise and it got very very little attention, Afghanistan papers

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Speaker 1: that revealed how much we had been lied to over

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Speaker 1: the years. We can throw this Washington Post hair sheet

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Speaker 1: up on the screen here, Craig Whitlock, who actually has

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Speaker 1: a book that is just about to drop on the

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Speaker 1: Afghanistan papers and detailing the lies and the reality of

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Speaker 1: what has really been going on in the ground in

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Speaker 1: Afghanistan now for these two decades. But I don't know

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Speaker 1: that anything sums it up better than Douglas lud who's

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Speaker 1: a three star Army general served as the White House's

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Speaker 1: Afghan Wars are during both the Bush and Obama administrations.

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Speaker 1: He said, from the beginning, we didn't have the foggiest

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Speaker 1: notion of what we were undertaking, and that has continued

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Speaker 1: clearly to be the case over all these many years.

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Speaker 1: They also said, look, it was impossible during Obama Surge,

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Speaker 1: which remember when we were being fed the lies about like, oh,

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Speaker 1: the surge is working, the surge is working. As senior

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Speaker 1: NSC official during that time says, it was impossible to

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Speaker 1: create good metrics about the surge. We tried using troop numbers, trained,

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Speaker 1: violence levels, control of territory. None of it paint an

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Speaker 1: inaccurate picture. The metrics were always manipulated for the duration

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Speaker 1: of the war. So those are just a few of

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Speaker 1: the quotes of officials when they were actually being honest

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Speaker 1: about was what was going on there. Another one said,

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Speaker 1: the only project was basically creating kleptocracy, which is also

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Speaker 1: you know what has become apparently, you know, abundantly clear.

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Speaker 1: The government was fake, It had zero local support, The

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Speaker 1: army was fake. They were ready to turn things over

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Speaker 1: to the Taliban the moment that that seemed like the

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Speaker 1: right thing to do. And the entire project from the

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Speaker 1: very beginning they had no idea what they were doing.

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Speaker 1: It was baked and bathed in hubrish, hush, hubris and arrogance,

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Speaker 1: and it was always going to end exactly as it did.

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Speaker 1: I think a lot of people have a much higher

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Speaker 1: estimation of American capability than exists. I see many of

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Speaker 1: my own friends very upset about what's happening about the

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Speaker 1: Afghan interpreters. I am too. I met many of them here.

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Speaker 1: Actually a lot of them live here in the DC area.

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Speaker 1: I feel for those people, we should do everything in

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Speaker 1: our power in order to get them out. And I

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Speaker 1: you know, if that entails striking deals with the Taliban

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Speaker 1: having to pay people off in order to get them ount,

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Speaker 1: so be it. I think they earned it, and I

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Speaker 1: think they're worth three. But these papers they detailed that.

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Speaker 1: If you're angry right now, emotions are high, think about

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Speaker 1: who to blame. The intelligence community kept us there under

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Speaker 1: false pretenses. They also fed bad information to the Biden administration,

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Speaker 1: obviously about the capability of the Afghans. The Pentagon themselves.

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Speaker 1: Where the hell have they been? They had eighteen months

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Speaker 1: to plan for withdrawal. Eighteen months now, this is forgotten history.

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Speaker 1: Back in twenty eleven, we had an expiring deal with

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Speaker 1: the Iraqi government called the Status of Forces Agreement. The

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Speaker 1: Obama administration said, no, we're not going to renew it.

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Speaker 1: We're gonna get the hell out of there. All US

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Speaker 1: forces were done with Iraq. The Pentagon did the exact

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Speaker 1: same thing then that they did now. They knew the

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Speaker 1: deadline was coming, and they basically kept all of our

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Speaker 1: supplies in Iraq in order to try and force the

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Speaker 1: Obama administration's hand in order to try and stay. Who

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Speaker 1: is to say that they didn't do the exact same

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Speaker 1: thing they've had eighteen months in order to get the

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Speaker 1: hell out of Afghanistan. Same with the State Department. Why

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Speaker 1: are you guys taking so long in order to process

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Speaker 1: special Afghan visas? It doesn't it's not rocket science in

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Speaker 1: terms of how long it takes. You knew the deadline

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Speaker 1: was coming. Here's the truth, Crystal. I believe, believe to

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Speaker 1: my bones, these people thought that Biden and everybody else

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Speaker 1: would fold. They're going to say, no president wants to

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Speaker 1: see the images that we're seeing, cobble, No president wants

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Speaker 1: to see hum v's and all this stuff fall into

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Speaker 1: the hands, and so they are going to blink they'll

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Speaker 1: go eyeby to all, eyeball to eyeball. The military wins

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Speaker 1: every single time. And the lies and all of the

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Speaker 1: money and all of the treasure, everything, the blood wasted

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Speaker 1: of the Afghan people, of the American people. It's all

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Speaker 1: detailed right here from the beginning. Since twenty twelve. Actually,

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Speaker 1: I'll point this out on my monologue, every general who

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Speaker 1: has commanded has lied to the American public about the

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Speaker 1: capability of the Afghan forces. All of them should be

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Speaker 1: dragged before Congress and say why did you lie to us?

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Speaker 1: Not one of them should be multi millionaires. You know

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Speaker 1: which they are. They're all working for the defense contractors.

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Speaker 1: John Allen is president of the freaking Brookings Institution, which

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Speaker 1: just put out a new paper saying that we should

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Speaker 1: bomb the civilian population of Afghanistan into submission so that

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Speaker 1: they fight against the top. This is in twenty twenty one.

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Speaker 1: They're proposing these types of things. Well, and it's easy

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Speaker 1: to talk about the cryptocracy of Karzai and Honey, but

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Speaker 1: how about kleptocracy that's based right here outside of inside

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Speaker 1: and outside of Washington, DC, or in northern Virginia where

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Speaker 1: all these military industrial complex grules are located. This was

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Speaker 1: the greatest grift known to man. Oh yeah, millionaires. People

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Speaker 1: got so rich off of this war, this immoral war

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Speaker 1: that got the American people and the Afghani people absolutely nothing.

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Speaker 1: And that's what fed this thing, that fed this for

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Speaker 1: years and years. And the other thing that fed it

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Speaker 1: for years and years is that commander in chief after

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Speaker 1: commander in chief did not win people to actually see

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Speaker 1: the truth. And that's what you're seeing right now. That's

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Speaker 1: what we're really learning is the actual reality on the

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Speaker 1: ground in Afghanistan and how little, how nothing over these

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Speaker 1: twenty years was gained whatsoever. And the last thing, and

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Speaker 1: I'll say here to your point about you know about

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Speaker 1: these people and their motives and their incentives, and why

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Speaker 1: they lie and why they do what they do, and

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Speaker 1: why they didn't prepare at all for this exit is

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Speaker 1: also look for them, this benefits them and their narrative

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Speaker 1: to be into a disaster, to be in total chaos.

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Speaker 1: All of that benefits the Hawks. But just think of

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Speaker 1: that mindset that what we're learning now is how unconscionable

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Speaker 1: this entire conflict was and how ludicrous from the very beginning.

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Speaker 1: And so what's their response, Their response is it's even

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Speaker 1: worse than we told you, so listen to us again.

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Speaker 1: I mean really, And that's that's the piece. Put that

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Speaker 1: to anyone who's you know, saying that this is a disaster,

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Speaker 1: we should have gotten out, et cetera, et ceter like,

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Speaker 1: what is your answer, what do you what would you do?

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Speaker 1: Would you have us go back in for a year,

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Speaker 1: for five years, for twenty years, for one hundred years,

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Speaker 1: because whenever it is you leave, this is what the

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Speaker 1: result is ultimately going to have. None of them have

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Speaker 1: any answer for that whatsoever. Imagine if these people are

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Speaker 1: everybody who's so outraged, these Republican officials and even you know,

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Speaker 1: some of these neokon democrats and the media, Imagine if

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Speaker 1: they cared that much about the twenty year olds who

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Speaker 1: were blown to bits by a suicide bomb in order

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Speaker 1: to protect a government which didn't want to govern, and

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Speaker 1: in order to protect an army that didn't want to fight.

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Speaker 1: Ask any enlisted member who has deployed to Afghanistans since

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Speaker 1: twenty twelve. All of them have a story about being

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Speaker 1: in a firefight with the Taliban where they're on the

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Speaker 1: front line and the Afghans turn and run. Every single

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Speaker 1: one of them knows. And look, I don't want to

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Speaker 1: erase the heroism. There are hundreds of thousands of Afghans

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Speaker 1: who fought bravely and more. But the vast majority of

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Speaker 1: their force, and especially their leadership and especially their presidential

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Speaker 1: apparatus and more, they were corrupt as hell and they

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Speaker 1: had no interest in fighting, and that is why they

431
00:23:40,240 --> 00:23:43,240
Speaker 1: folded in amount of weeks. If you were one of

432
00:23:43,240 --> 00:23:45,760
Speaker 1: those people who believes that we should have stayed and

433
00:23:45,840 --> 00:23:48,919
Speaker 1: had an alternative plan and all of this, really what

434
00:23:48,960 --> 00:23:51,520
Speaker 1: you're doing is you're a patsy for the forever war game.

435
00:23:51,600 --> 00:23:54,600
Speaker 1: And I know that you want to believe that America

436
00:23:54,640 --> 00:23:57,520
Speaker 1: and the military is more competent than what we're seeing,

437
00:23:57,680 --> 00:24:00,720
Speaker 1: but it's not. We have learned since nineteen seventy five.

438
00:24:00,960 --> 00:24:03,280
Speaker 1: I love you know all these comparisons of Saigon. What

439
00:24:03,320 --> 00:24:05,920
Speaker 1: are you guys saying we should have stayed in Saigon? Right? Actually,

440
00:24:05,960 --> 00:24:08,159
Speaker 1: leaving Saigon was the right movie and we should have

441
00:24:08,160 --> 00:24:11,080
Speaker 1: done it sooner too. Bally, we should never have been

442
00:24:11,119 --> 00:24:13,080
Speaker 1: there in the first place, as we should never have

443
00:24:13,200 --> 00:24:16,320
Speaker 1: been in Afghanistan for the long term in the first place. Either.

444
00:24:16,640 --> 00:24:18,720
Speaker 1: There's two other pieces of history that I just have

445
00:24:18,800 --> 00:24:22,199
Speaker 1: to mention. One is the fact that the fact that

446
00:24:22,240 --> 00:24:25,879
Speaker 1: we went into a rock that was an ultimate distraction

447
00:24:26,000 --> 00:24:28,720
Speaker 1: that kept us from getting bin laden in Afghanistans who

448
00:24:28,800 --> 00:24:32,280
Speaker 1: start with which look the mission from the jump, I mean,

449
00:24:32,320 --> 00:24:34,080
Speaker 1: what we were told is basically, Okay, we're gonna go

450
00:24:34,080 --> 00:24:35,879
Speaker 1: in and get bin laden and get the hell out. Okay.

451
00:24:36,040 --> 00:24:38,439
Speaker 1: You know, like people maybe could get on board with that,

452
00:24:38,560 --> 00:24:40,359
Speaker 1: and the fact that they were so fixated on a

453
00:24:40,440 --> 00:24:43,720
Speaker 1: rock kept them from accomplishing that mission. And that justified

454
00:24:44,040 --> 00:24:46,879
Speaker 1: staying for all these years and years and years. And

455
00:24:46,920 --> 00:24:49,760
Speaker 1: then the other thing just in terms of learning the

456
00:24:49,840 --> 00:24:54,280
Speaker 1: lessons of history and understanding the limits of American power

457
00:24:54,440 --> 00:24:57,280
Speaker 1: and the arrogance and hubris with which we have operated

458
00:24:57,320 --> 00:24:59,400
Speaker 1: in the world. I mean, we are a big part

459
00:24:59,440 --> 00:25:02,480
Speaker 1: of the reason why the Taliban emerged and came to

460
00:25:02,520 --> 00:25:05,560
Speaker 1: power in the first place, coming out of using Afghanistan

461
00:25:05,600 --> 00:25:07,960
Speaker 1: as a cold war play thing, as the Soviet Union did,

462
00:25:07,960 --> 00:25:10,560
Speaker 1: and as we did as well, backing the Mujaha Deen,

463
00:25:11,000 --> 00:25:15,359
Speaker 1: using Saudi and Pakistan as basically our proxies to pick

464
00:25:15,440 --> 00:25:17,960
Speaker 1: which groups they wanted to fund and back the most.

465
00:25:18,240 --> 00:25:22,320
Speaker 1: They backed the most radical of these extremist Islamic groups.

466
00:25:22,560 --> 00:25:25,520
Speaker 1: And that is like the seeds and the birthing of

467
00:25:25,560 --> 00:25:27,840
Speaker 1: how the Taliban came to be in Afghanistan in the

468
00:25:27,880 --> 00:25:31,240
Speaker 1: first place. So at every step of the way, what

469
00:25:31,400 --> 00:25:34,480
Speaker 1: we have done in Afghanistan has only made things worse.

470
00:25:34,520 --> 00:25:37,080
Speaker 1: We stayed for twenty years, and all we did was

471
00:25:37,160 --> 00:25:40,359
Speaker 1: make the Taliban stronger, a lot stronger than a lot

472
00:25:40,480 --> 00:25:43,160
Speaker 1: richer that is a lot. Oh, and must not even

473
00:25:43,320 --> 00:25:45,040
Speaker 1: let's not forget the fact now they've got a bunch

474
00:25:45,040 --> 00:25:47,520
Speaker 1: of our weaponry, so now they're also one of the

475
00:25:47,520 --> 00:25:51,360
Speaker 1: best equipped militaries on the freaking planet. That's what your

476
00:25:51,400 --> 00:25:53,679
Speaker 1: twenty years and your tax dollars and all of that

477
00:25:53,880 --> 00:25:58,320
Speaker 1: ultimately got us a stronger Taliban. And I hope people

478
00:25:58,320 --> 00:26:01,200
Speaker 1: talk about this. I hope they were the lessons of Saigon,

479
00:26:01,280 --> 00:26:04,560
Speaker 1: and I hope to God we do not repeat these

480
00:26:04,600 --> 00:26:07,359
Speaker 1: failures again. Do I have confidence that that will be

481
00:26:07,400 --> 00:26:10,080
Speaker 1: the case. Maybe for a couple of years, Yeah, maybe,

482
00:26:10,400 --> 00:26:12,719
Speaker 1: maybe for a minute, we'll remember those lessons, and then

483
00:26:12,720 --> 00:26:15,040
Speaker 1: it'll be forgotten to history, just like Saigon. One, How

484
00:26:15,040 --> 00:26:17,119
Speaker 1: are we supposed to remember when we have the media

485
00:26:17,119 --> 00:26:18,840
Speaker 1: that we have. And this is good, this is a

486
00:26:18,840 --> 00:26:21,400
Speaker 1: good transition. You know to the next segment exactly right,

487
00:26:21,480 --> 00:26:25,879
Speaker 1: So you won't be surprised to learn that the media

488
00:26:25,960 --> 00:26:29,440
Speaker 1: suddenly cares about the fate of that again. Oh goal, now, okay,

489
00:26:29,480 --> 00:26:32,159
Speaker 1: suddenly cares about you know, our men and women in

490
00:26:32,280 --> 00:26:35,000
Speaker 1: dayjer in Afghanistan that they've been ignoring for years and

491
00:26:35,080 --> 00:26:37,840
Speaker 1: years and years. Here's just a little taste of the

492
00:26:37,880 --> 00:26:41,080
Speaker 1: way that Jake Tapper and everybody at CNN effectively, everybody

493
00:26:41,080 --> 00:26:43,119
Speaker 1: at MSNBC, and everybody at Fox News. You got a

494
00:26:43,160 --> 00:26:46,720
Speaker 1: real bipartisan consensus going on here. Guys have approached the

495
00:26:46,920 --> 00:26:49,879
Speaker 1: end of this war. Let's take a listen. Look, you

496
00:26:50,000 --> 00:26:52,520
Speaker 1: told me a few months ago on this program that

497
00:26:52,640 --> 00:26:55,760
Speaker 1: you thought it was entirely likely that the Taliban would

498
00:26:55,800 --> 00:27:00,119
Speaker 1: be taking over the country. But President Biden just last months, Oh,

499
00:27:00,480 --> 00:27:03,240
Speaker 1: the likelihood there's going to be the Taliban overrunning everything

500
00:27:03,320 --> 00:27:08,240
Speaker 1: and owning the whole country is highly unlikely. He was wrong, Jake.

501
00:27:08,359 --> 00:27:10,720
Speaker 1: What we have done, what the president has done, is

502
00:27:10,800 --> 00:27:13,280
Speaker 1: make sure that we were able to adjust to anything

503
00:27:13,400 --> 00:27:16,440
Speaker 1: happening on the ground. And the fact that he sent

504
00:27:16,720 --> 00:27:19,240
Speaker 1: additional forces in, we had those forces at the ready,

505
00:27:19,520 --> 00:27:22,520
Speaker 1: fully prepared to go in the event that this moved

506
00:27:22,560 --> 00:27:24,679
Speaker 1: in a direction where we needed forces in place to

507
00:27:24,800 --> 00:27:27,960
Speaker 1: ensure that our personnel was safe and secure, to ensure

508
00:27:27,960 --> 00:27:30,000
Speaker 1: also that we could do everything possible to bring out

509
00:27:30,000 --> 00:27:33,000
Speaker 1: of Afghanistan those Afghan's most at risk. That's exactly what

510
00:27:33,040 --> 00:27:34,760
Speaker 1: we're doing. Why don't you have the troops in there

511
00:27:34,840 --> 00:27:38,359
Speaker 1: and then let that happen first before taking them out again.

512
00:27:38,400 --> 00:27:39,680
Speaker 1: I come back to what we were talking about a

513
00:27:39,680 --> 00:27:42,240
Speaker 1: few minutes ago, which is that that status quo I

514
00:27:42,480 --> 00:27:45,840
Speaker 1: was not sustainable. Like it or not, there was an

515
00:27:45,880 --> 00:27:48,200
Speaker 1: agreement that the forces would come out on May first.

516
00:27:48,800 --> 00:27:50,639
Speaker 1: Had we not begun that process, which is what the

517
00:27:50,640 --> 00:27:53,840
Speaker 1: President did and the Taliban saw, then we would have

518
00:27:53,840 --> 00:27:55,800
Speaker 1: been back at war with the Taliban, and we would

519
00:27:55,800 --> 00:27:58,320
Speaker 1: have been back at war with tens of thousands of

520
00:27:58,359 --> 00:28:00,160
Speaker 1: troops having to go in because the twenty five five

521
00:28:00,200 --> 00:28:02,199
Speaker 1: hundred troops we had there and the airpower would not

522
00:28:02,240 --> 00:28:04,639
Speaker 1: have sufficed to deal with the situation, especially as we

523
00:28:04,680 --> 00:28:08,679
Speaker 1: see alas the hollowness of the Afghan security forces. And

524
00:28:09,040 --> 00:28:11,360
Speaker 1: by the way, from the perspective of our strategic competitors

525
00:28:11,359 --> 00:28:13,520
Speaker 1: around the world, there's nothing they would like war than

526
00:28:13,520 --> 00:28:17,159
Speaker 1: to see us in Afghanistan for another five ten twenty years.

527
00:28:17,240 --> 00:28:20,840
Speaker 1: It's simply not in the national interest that I have

528
00:28:20,960 --> 00:28:23,520
Speaker 1: to say, great answer, He's all right, right. That was

529
00:28:23,560 --> 00:28:26,000
Speaker 1: Secretary of State Anthony Blincoln. For those who are listening,

530
00:28:26,160 --> 00:28:29,880
Speaker 1: and look, every single question, every single segment is framed

531
00:28:29,920 --> 00:28:32,879
Speaker 1: in this pro neo con weest streamed in this forever Well,

532
00:28:32,960 --> 00:28:35,159
Speaker 1: let's just stay forever. Let's put the troops back in.

533
00:28:35,720 --> 00:28:38,520
Speaker 1: Why are we leaving that? Every single segment is framed

534
00:28:38,520 --> 00:28:40,680
Speaker 1: in this exact same way. I had so many people

535
00:28:40,720 --> 00:28:43,160
Speaker 1: attacking me yesterday, Chris. I broke my rare Twitter thing

536
00:28:43,160 --> 00:28:45,000
Speaker 1: because I felt that I had to go in and

537
00:28:45,040 --> 00:28:47,480
Speaker 1: I wanted to make sure to fight in the elite consensus.

538
00:28:47,600 --> 00:28:50,000
Speaker 1: And somebody needs to back up the fact that ending

539
00:28:50,080 --> 00:28:52,880
Speaker 1: and forever war is messy. It's gross. But at the

540
00:28:53,000 --> 00:28:55,200
Speaker 1: end of the day, these people need to acknowledge what

541
00:28:55,240 --> 00:28:57,000
Speaker 1: they're saying. And I want to back up what Tony

542
00:28:57,040 --> 00:28:59,719
Speaker 1: Blinkn is, which the media is not reporting this responsibly.

543
00:29:00,000 --> 00:29:02,880
Speaker 1: Everybodys saying, oh, the Biden administration, you know they should

544
00:29:02,880 --> 00:29:05,400
Speaker 1: have done more. Maybe we could have stayed three more months.

545
00:29:05,440 --> 00:29:07,880
Speaker 1: If you stay three more months, you violate the peace

546
00:29:07,920 --> 00:29:11,120
Speaker 1: agreement with the Taliban, and that's it weapons hot on

547
00:29:11,200 --> 00:29:13,719
Speaker 1: all American soldiers. Do you want to see twenty year

548
00:29:13,760 --> 00:29:16,560
Speaker 1: olds get blown to bits by a suicide bomb for

549
00:29:16,640 --> 00:29:19,440
Speaker 1: three more months of time in Afghanistan? You go ahead

550
00:29:19,480 --> 00:29:21,360
Speaker 1: and make that case to the American people. I say,

551
00:29:21,360 --> 00:29:24,360
Speaker 1: hell no, not one more life, not one more wasted

552
00:29:24,400 --> 00:29:26,840
Speaker 1: on this goddamn war. And this is what these people

553
00:29:26,880 --> 00:29:29,840
Speaker 1: are presenting it as an option when it's not. The

554
00:29:29,880 --> 00:29:33,360
Speaker 1: option is soldiers die and we stay a couple more

555
00:29:33,360 --> 00:29:36,920
Speaker 1: months to try and do some orderly transition, because of

556
00:29:36,960 --> 00:29:40,120
Speaker 1: course the entire war is always conducted very order and

557
00:29:40,200 --> 00:29:43,200
Speaker 1: it's just been a total and complete success up until

558
00:29:43,200 --> 00:29:45,120
Speaker 1: this point. We have three more months and then it

559
00:29:45,120 --> 00:29:47,600
Speaker 1: would all have gone for We have the absolute capability

560
00:29:47,600 --> 00:29:49,800
Speaker 1: in order to do this right. Apparently I've been assured

561
00:29:49,800 --> 00:29:51,920
Speaker 1: of this, even though the entire twenty years in the

562
00:29:51,960 --> 00:29:54,720
Speaker 1: country shows that it's always going to be a complete

563
00:29:54,720 --> 00:29:58,600
Speaker 1: goddamn mess. And yet how are they reporting a Axios

564
00:29:58,600 --> 00:30:01,160
Speaker 1: supposed to be the straight news. Let's put this up there.

565
00:30:01,560 --> 00:30:03,160
Speaker 1: They had the goal to put this in a story.

566
00:30:03,280 --> 00:30:05,680
Speaker 1: It's a stunning failure for the West and an embarrassment

567
00:30:05,680 --> 00:30:08,400
Speaker 1: for Biden. It's a traumatic turn for veterans who sacrificed

568
00:30:08,440 --> 00:30:10,680
Speaker 1: in Afghanistan for the past twenty years, the twenty k

569
00:30:10,760 --> 00:30:13,160
Speaker 1: plus wounded, the survivors of the more than two point

570
00:30:13,240 --> 00:30:15,920
Speaker 1: three who were killed. On the latter part, I agree,

571
00:30:16,000 --> 00:30:18,680
Speaker 1: it probably is really traumatic, you know, in order to

572
00:30:18,720 --> 00:30:21,880
Speaker 1: say my buddy died over there, or I lost my leg,

573
00:30:21,960 --> 00:30:24,120
Speaker 1: or I lost my hand, or I lost my nose

574
00:30:24,240 --> 00:30:27,360
Speaker 1: or an eyeball, something whatever piece in me left behind,

575
00:30:27,560 --> 00:30:29,440
Speaker 1: and to watch it all turned and to those people,

576
00:30:29,640 --> 00:30:31,560
Speaker 1: many of whom who are fans of this show, I

577
00:30:31,600 --> 00:30:34,240
Speaker 1: want to say, this is not on you. You fought

578
00:30:34,240 --> 00:30:37,240
Speaker 1: with heroism. Not a single part of this is on you.

579
00:30:37,480 --> 00:30:40,760
Speaker 1: It is on the generals, It is on the political leadership.

580
00:30:40,960 --> 00:30:43,720
Speaker 1: It is on the people who sent you there for nothing,

581
00:30:43,880 --> 00:30:45,960
Speaker 1: and who lied to you, and who lied to us

582
00:30:46,160 --> 00:30:48,640
Speaker 1: about what you were supposed to be doing. None of

583
00:30:48,680 --> 00:30:51,280
Speaker 1: this is on the soldiers themselves. But to say it's

584
00:30:51,280 --> 00:30:54,080
Speaker 1: a stunning failure for the West, and keep coming back

585
00:30:54,120 --> 00:30:58,120
Speaker 1: to this, imagine if they cared that much whenever our

586
00:30:58,200 --> 00:31:02,280
Speaker 1: troops were getting blown to bits for nothing, Where was

587
00:31:02,320 --> 00:31:06,520
Speaker 1: this reporting whenever in twenty fifteen or in twenty twelve,

588
00:31:06,640 --> 00:31:09,640
Speaker 1: when our special operators were getting blown out of the sky.

589
00:31:10,360 --> 00:31:13,000
Speaker 1: In order to back up the Afghan forces to try

590
00:31:13,000 --> 00:31:15,720
Speaker 1: and clear the Taliban out of cities which they now

591
00:31:15,760 --> 00:31:19,280
Speaker 1: control today. Yeah, imagine if they were that outraged I was,

592
00:31:19,760 --> 00:31:23,040
Speaker 1: I will never forget watching and I you know what

593
00:31:23,160 --> 00:31:24,960
Speaker 1: would really turn me because I had a very different

594
00:31:25,000 --> 00:31:27,240
Speaker 1: view on the Afghan war not even five years ago.

595
00:31:27,440 --> 00:31:29,719
Speaker 1: Is when I had to become a Pentagon correspondent and

596
00:31:29,760 --> 00:31:32,760
Speaker 1: I had to start riding the obituaries of guys who

597
00:31:32,800 --> 00:31:34,920
Speaker 1: are not just younger than me, but a lot younger

598
00:31:34,920 --> 00:31:38,080
Speaker 1: than me, eighteen nineteen years old, whose families are saying,

599
00:31:38,240 --> 00:31:40,240
Speaker 1: what the hell did he die for? And the Pentagon

600
00:31:40,280 --> 00:31:43,000
Speaker 1: doesn't listen to them, and their bodies come back to

601
00:31:43,120 --> 00:31:45,840
Speaker 1: Dover and everybody forgets about them. Those are the people

602
00:31:45,880 --> 00:31:47,960
Speaker 1: I think about whenever we talk about these stores. Yeah,

603
00:31:48,040 --> 00:31:51,400
Speaker 1: and you know what, if you care about the people Afghanistan,

604
00:31:51,720 --> 00:31:54,040
Speaker 1: the past few years have been the most deadly. Yes,

605
00:31:54,560 --> 00:31:57,200
Speaker 1: because of the civil war that never gets reported, that

606
00:31:57,520 --> 00:32:01,360
Speaker 1: never makes you know, Jake Tapper Sunday Show, they never cared.

607
00:32:01,720 --> 00:32:05,160
Speaker 1: They never. They only care when it comes to your

608
00:32:05,240 --> 00:32:09,200
Speaker 1: actually ending the military engagement. And on that Axios piece,

609
00:32:09,280 --> 00:32:12,520
Speaker 1: one of the bombshell quotes they have in there is

610
00:32:12,520 --> 00:32:15,480
Speaker 1: from Ryan Crocker, who is a US Ambassador to Afghanistan

611
00:32:15,560 --> 00:32:18,640
Speaker 1: under President Obama, and he said, I think this is

612
00:32:18,760 --> 00:32:21,560
Speaker 1: already an indelible stain on his presidency. That's what he

613
00:32:21,600 --> 00:32:25,200
Speaker 1: said publicly, he was one of the guys in the

614
00:32:25,240 --> 00:32:30,040
Speaker 1: Afghanistan papers that admitted what an utter and complete disaster

615
00:32:30,160 --> 00:32:34,200
Speaker 1: the whole thing has been there. Privately, he was saying,

616
00:32:34,320 --> 00:32:38,120
Speaker 1: our biggest this is a direct quote, our biggest single

617
00:32:38,360 --> 00:32:42,520
Speaker 1: project may have been the development of mass corruption. Okay,

618
00:32:42,840 --> 00:32:46,200
Speaker 1: that's what he really thinks. Okay, you don't see that

619
00:32:46,440 --> 00:32:48,520
Speaker 1: on the Sunday shows. You don't see that in the

620
00:32:48,560 --> 00:32:51,120
Speaker 1: papers today. And there's another piece of this too that

621
00:32:51,160 --> 00:32:53,280
Speaker 1: we've been warning about as well, is you know all

622
00:32:53,280 --> 00:32:56,760
Speaker 1: these resistance liberals who rehabilitated Bush. Suddenly I see a

623
00:32:56,760 --> 00:33:00,480
Speaker 1: few Democrats remembering this guy's a lying warm at all.

624
00:33:00,760 --> 00:33:04,479
Speaker 1: Who definitely maybe he's in the rankings for the worst

625
00:33:04,480 --> 00:33:07,040
Speaker 1: president in US history, judging by what he did to

626
00:33:07,120 --> 00:33:09,760
Speaker 1: our people and how he made the world a worse

627
00:33:09,960 --> 00:33:14,120
Speaker 1: and more dangerous place. Okay, but all of these people

628
00:33:14,400 --> 00:33:18,640
Speaker 1: got rehabilitated during the Trump era. All of them got primetime,

629
00:33:18,640 --> 00:33:22,360
Speaker 1: They got primetime shows, they got great speaking sluts. They

630
00:33:22,440 --> 00:33:27,600
Speaker 1: got contributorships on CNN, on MSNBC, Bill Crystal, all the rest.

631
00:33:28,120 --> 00:33:31,880
Speaker 1: And now they're in positions of esteem with the broad

632
00:33:31,920 --> 00:33:35,600
Speaker 1: swath of the country, with the democratic base of the country,

633
00:33:35,920 --> 00:33:38,760
Speaker 1: and so they're in position to go back to their

634
00:33:38,840 --> 00:33:42,680
Speaker 1: roots of making their neo con case. And that's exactly

635
00:33:43,120 --> 00:33:46,440
Speaker 1: what you see so many of them out there aggressively doing.

636
00:33:46,440 --> 00:33:49,160
Speaker 1: They've backed Biden on basically everything up to this point,

637
00:33:49,480 --> 00:33:52,479
Speaker 1: and now the bipartisan consensus emerges and their whole lot,

638
00:33:52,520 --> 00:33:54,800
Speaker 1: i mean, Democrats are not giving him much cover either.

639
00:33:54,960 --> 00:33:57,680
Speaker 1: I mean, all these people who and the Republicans are

640
00:33:57,680 --> 00:34:00,640
Speaker 1: absolutely ridiculous on this as well. They went it was Trump,

641
00:34:00,960 --> 00:34:02,880
Speaker 1: They thought it was a great idea to end the war.

642
00:34:03,120 --> 00:34:05,280
Speaker 1: They were all in favor of it. We were being told,

643
00:34:05,320 --> 00:34:07,440
Speaker 1: you know, the reason to vote for Trump over Biden

644
00:34:07,560 --> 00:34:09,360
Speaker 1: is because he's going to get us ound of the

645
00:34:09,360 --> 00:34:11,400
Speaker 1: forever wars, and Biden's going to keep us there forever.

646
00:34:11,840 --> 00:34:14,880
Speaker 1: And now that Biden has actually done it, suddenly they've

647
00:34:14,920 --> 00:34:17,239
Speaker 1: done a complete one to eighty. The thing is, the

648
00:34:17,360 --> 00:34:21,239
Speaker 1: RNC pulled down their page on their website about the

649
00:34:21,520 --> 00:34:25,480
Speaker 1: Taliban peace treaty that President Trump negotiated. So all of

650
00:34:25,520 --> 00:34:28,200
Speaker 1: these people are total shameless cowards. And the fact that

651
00:34:28,520 --> 00:34:32,840
Speaker 1: the media elevated all of these neocons who were responsible

652
00:34:32,880 --> 00:34:36,600
Speaker 1: more than anyone for the situation that our people in

653
00:34:36,640 --> 00:34:41,120
Speaker 1: Afghanistan find themselves in today, should be completely ashamed of themselves. Absolutely,

654
00:34:41,160 --> 00:34:43,279
Speaker 1: And you want to know who are the people that

655
00:34:43,360 --> 00:34:45,400
Speaker 1: millions of Americans are getting their news from. One of

656
00:34:45,440 --> 00:34:48,600
Speaker 1: them is Richard Engele. And actually I respected Richard Engele.

657
00:34:48,640 --> 00:34:51,440
Speaker 1: I remember whenever he was kidnapped in Syria or whatever,

658
00:34:51,680 --> 00:34:55,480
Speaker 1: and it was crazy. But he's revealing complete mask off

659
00:34:55,560 --> 00:34:57,560
Speaker 1: in terms of the policy that he preferred. Look at

660
00:34:57,560 --> 00:34:59,720
Speaker 1: what he tweeted out yesterday from the streets of Kabble

661
00:35:00,080 --> 00:35:02,960
Speaker 1: quote more on Intel failure. How did the US get

662
00:35:03,040 --> 00:35:05,759
Speaker 1: duped into thinking there was ever a peace process with

663
00:35:05,880 --> 00:35:08,360
Speaker 1: the Taliban? Out facts by the out fox by the

664
00:35:08,360 --> 00:35:12,160
Speaker 1: Taliban question mark. I'd say that's embarrassing, but shameful is closer.

665
00:35:13,000 --> 00:35:15,800
Speaker 1: So let's analyze that, shall we. What is Richard saying

666
00:35:15,920 --> 00:35:17,400
Speaker 1: that we should not have had a peace deal with

667
00:35:17,440 --> 00:35:20,000
Speaker 1: the Taliban? So what Richard is saying is that more

668
00:35:20,040 --> 00:35:23,080
Speaker 1: Americans should have stayed in Afghanistan forever and should have

669
00:35:23,080 --> 00:35:26,480
Speaker 1: fought and died for the Afghan national security forces and

670
00:35:26,560 --> 00:35:29,520
Speaker 1: for the government which folded in seventy two hours. That's

671
00:35:29,560 --> 00:35:32,120
Speaker 1: what Richard is saying. You know what ending a war

672
00:35:32,239 --> 00:35:35,600
Speaker 1: is like. It means shaking hands with people who killed

673
00:35:35,640 --> 00:35:38,759
Speaker 1: your soldiers, looking people in the eyes, and stomaching the

674
00:35:38,840 --> 00:35:41,239
Speaker 1: fact that you failed. So you have to look your

675
00:35:41,360 --> 00:35:43,120
Speaker 1: enemy in the face and you have to sign a

676
00:35:43,160 --> 00:35:46,280
Speaker 1: deal with the guy. Is it pretty No, it's not pretty,

677
00:35:46,520 --> 00:35:50,040
Speaker 1: Absolutely not. And yet I supported Donald Trump and Mike

678
00:35:50,080 --> 00:35:53,200
Speaker 1: Pompeo whenever they went to Doha and they signed this

679
00:35:53,280 --> 00:35:56,560
Speaker 1: agreement because it's the right thing to do. Yeah, it sucks,

680
00:35:56,719 --> 00:35:59,960
Speaker 1: pisses me off. Watching guys who take Taliban, who are

681
00:36:00,160 --> 00:36:02,759
Speaker 1: take Kabble, who were sitting in Guantanamo Bay or in

682
00:36:02,800 --> 00:36:05,879
Speaker 1: prison not even that long ago, really makes me mad.

683
00:36:06,040 --> 00:36:08,000
Speaker 1: But what makes me more mad is to think of

684
00:36:08,040 --> 00:36:09,920
Speaker 1: all the people who are going to come back in

685
00:36:09,960 --> 00:36:13,880
Speaker 1: a wooden box from Afghanistan to land here and having

686
00:36:14,200 --> 00:36:18,200
Speaker 1: want watched some of these, some of these ceremonies at

687
00:36:18,280 --> 00:36:22,040
Speaker 1: Arlington National Cemetery. It's worth it, that's what it requires.

688
00:36:22,239 --> 00:36:25,600
Speaker 1: And yet gung ho Richard out there banging his chest,

689
00:36:25,920 --> 00:36:29,360
Speaker 1: How dare we get out foxed by the Taliban. The

690
00:36:29,440 --> 00:36:31,879
Speaker 1: only people who got out foxed by the Taliban are

691
00:36:31,920 --> 00:36:35,520
Speaker 1: the Afghan government themselves. They're the ones who got themselves

692
00:36:35,600 --> 00:36:38,520
Speaker 1: beat And it's just can we just have one person

693
00:36:38,560 --> 00:36:41,759
Speaker 1: in the media representing the fact that maybe this was

694
00:36:41,800 --> 00:36:43,879
Speaker 1: as good as it was ever going to get? Well,

695
00:36:43,920 --> 00:36:47,520
Speaker 1: just one one person or channeling their rage where it

696
00:36:47,520 --> 00:36:50,360
Speaker 1: should be, yes, which is that the people who lied

697
00:36:50,680 --> 00:36:53,160
Speaker 1: for years and years and years for the people who

698
00:36:53,160 --> 00:36:56,040
Speaker 1: got us into this war in the first place, based

699
00:36:56,080 --> 00:36:59,239
Speaker 1: on what was truly a radical notion that we were

700
00:36:59,239 --> 00:37:01,080
Speaker 1: going to be able to we make the world in

701
00:37:01,120 --> 00:37:04,360
Speaker 1: our image, that we're going to spread democracy around the globe.

702
00:37:04,440 --> 00:37:09,359
Speaker 1: I mean, this was insane from the beginning and completely

703
00:37:10,160 --> 00:37:13,919
Speaker 1: completely anti historical based on what our experiences in trying

704
00:37:13,960 --> 00:37:16,719
Speaker 1: to do such things around the world have always ended

705
00:37:16,800 --> 00:37:21,080
Speaker 1: up exactly as this is ultimately ending up. So look

706
00:37:21,520 --> 00:37:24,560
Speaker 1: all these people who you know, they're upset, and look,

707
00:37:25,200 --> 00:37:27,799
Speaker 1: I do want to say, like, the images are the

708
00:37:27,840 --> 00:37:30,640
Speaker 1: reality of what's happening there, There is no doubt about it.

709
00:37:30,640 --> 00:37:34,480
Speaker 1: It's horrific, it's terrible to watch, it's heart wrenching, it's

710
00:37:34,520 --> 00:37:37,640
Speaker 1: heartbreaking to watch the Biden administration should be should have

711
00:37:37,719 --> 00:37:40,520
Speaker 1: planned better, they should be doing more. That is absolutely

712
00:37:40,560 --> 00:37:43,440
Speaker 1: the case, But there is no one that we are

713
00:37:43,480 --> 00:37:47,160
Speaker 1: seeing in mainstream media who's saying the real problem here

714
00:37:47,200 --> 00:37:50,480
Speaker 1: is that we relied to for years and years and years,

715
00:37:50,719 --> 00:37:53,960
Speaker 1: not the fact that now the American people are actually

716
00:37:54,080 --> 00:37:56,160
Speaker 1: learning and the truth. To your earlier point, I just

717
00:37:56,200 --> 00:37:58,840
Speaker 1: realized half the generals who lied to us. There are

718
00:37:58,880 --> 00:38:00,799
Speaker 1: people who've been in the media now for five years

719
00:38:00,840 --> 00:38:03,080
Speaker 1: talking about how Donald Trump is the worst person on earth.

720
00:38:03,120 --> 00:38:06,040
Speaker 1: That's John Allen, head of the Brooking Institution, who lied

721
00:38:06,080 --> 00:38:09,200
Speaker 1: to the American Congress and the American people. He endorsed

722
00:38:09,239 --> 00:38:12,160
Speaker 1: Hillary Clinton. You might remember him from the DNC twenty

723
00:38:12,200 --> 00:38:15,040
Speaker 1: sixteenth bay and he's all over cable news talking about

724
00:38:15,239 --> 00:38:17,680
Speaker 1: all of that. Half of these generals have been on

725
00:38:18,040 --> 00:38:20,720
Speaker 1: to talk about how Trump is, you know, the Antichrist

726
00:38:20,960 --> 00:38:24,040
Speaker 1: for doubting the NATO alliance, that this is who they

727
00:38:24,040 --> 00:38:28,360
Speaker 1: have elevated. The actual liars of the propaganda machine themselves

728
00:38:28,480 --> 00:38:31,920
Speaker 1: have fused together, and in a time of crisis like now,

729
00:38:32,080 --> 00:38:35,600
Speaker 1: we have not seen one honest perspective yet on the media.

730
00:38:35,640 --> 00:38:38,319
Speaker 1: All I'm asking for is a debate. Have somebody who

731
00:38:38,440 --> 00:38:41,840
Speaker 1: is articulating our view and the actual view that actually,

732
00:38:41,960 --> 00:38:44,400
Speaker 1: maybe the US government is totally inept and that this

733
00:38:44,480 --> 00:38:45,919
Speaker 1: is as good as it was ever going to get,

734
00:38:46,080 --> 00:38:49,680
Speaker 1: and that the alternative was more American dead. Go out

735
00:38:49,680 --> 00:38:53,000
Speaker 1: and find somebody who's articulating that voo on cable instead.

736
00:38:53,320 --> 00:38:56,040
Speaker 1: This is what we're getting from Andrea Mitchell, who's apparently

737
00:38:56,080 --> 00:38:58,200
Speaker 1: in tears over what's going on right now. Let's take

738
00:38:58,200 --> 00:39:02,360
Speaker 1: a listen. Just to buy their fathers. I've seen it myself.

739
00:39:02,400 --> 00:39:05,960
Speaker 1: I've been there, and I mean, I know this is

740
00:39:06,000 --> 00:39:08,200
Speaker 1: not your so own job. So, but you are the

741
00:39:08,239 --> 00:39:11,360
Speaker 1: person that is speaking for the US government right now,

742
00:39:11,800 --> 00:39:16,520
Speaker 1: and don't we have a moral responsibility to do something

743
00:39:16,560 --> 00:39:20,200
Speaker 1: for these people. Just today, the White House repeated the

744
00:39:20,200 --> 00:39:22,960
Speaker 1: President is not going to change his position. He's been

745
00:39:23,000 --> 00:39:25,279
Speaker 1: consistent on that, even when he was vice president. That

746
00:39:25,400 --> 00:39:29,120
Speaker 1: was his position. He disagreed with the surge. We all

747
00:39:29,160 --> 00:39:32,640
Speaker 1: know that. There you go, where's the Karen concern for

748
00:39:32,719 --> 00:39:35,200
Speaker 1: the women and girls in Saudi? Yeah, they don't. They

749
00:39:35,200 --> 00:39:38,160
Speaker 1: don't hear about that much. And this is where you

750
00:39:38,200 --> 00:39:40,520
Speaker 1: know Biden again, I just have to give this guy

751
00:39:40,560 --> 00:39:44,080
Speaker 1: a lot of credit because he's been really clear on this.

752
00:39:44,280 --> 00:39:46,239
Speaker 1: From the beginning. I mean, he got get asked a

753
00:39:46,320 --> 00:39:49,440
Speaker 1: while back, like, don't you bear some moral responsibility for

754
00:39:49,560 --> 00:39:52,319
Speaker 1: the women and girls of Afghanistan? And he said no.

755
00:39:52,520 --> 00:39:55,160
Speaker 1: There are places all around the world where there are

756
00:39:55,200 --> 00:40:00,760
Speaker 1: atrocities being committed, where women and girls are being subjected

757
00:40:00,800 --> 00:40:04,440
Speaker 1: to horrific violence or oppression or LGBTQ people. I mean,

758
00:40:04,680 --> 00:40:06,960
Speaker 1: there are so many places around the world that are

759
00:40:07,040 --> 00:40:11,120
Speaker 1: completely screwed up, and that is a heartbreaking, horrible state

760
00:40:11,120 --> 00:40:13,080
Speaker 1: of affairs, and I wish there was more we could

761
00:40:13,080 --> 00:40:16,200
Speaker 1: do about it. But if you learn nothing else from

762
00:40:16,239 --> 00:40:20,440
Speaker 1: these twenty wasted years in Afghanistan, it is that we

763
00:40:20,520 --> 00:40:24,359
Speaker 1: can't We can't go in and change these places and

764
00:40:24,400 --> 00:40:27,279
Speaker 1: make them into our own spread democracy. All of this

765
00:40:27,400 --> 00:40:31,200
Speaker 1: foreign adventurism only ever comes back to bite us, but

766
00:40:31,360 --> 00:40:34,719
Speaker 1: not just us, to make the world a worse and

767
00:40:35,000 --> 00:40:39,600
Speaker 1: less safe place with more violence and more oppression. That

768
00:40:39,760 --> 00:40:42,560
Speaker 1: is really the end result of these twenty years in Afghanistan.

769
00:40:42,560 --> 00:40:45,439
Speaker 1: And is that hard to look at? Hell, yes, it's

770
00:40:45,719 --> 00:40:49,200
Speaker 1: horrible to look at. But it's about damn time that

771
00:40:49,239 --> 00:40:51,520
Speaker 1: the American people actually knew the truth. Yes, stare it

772
00:40:51,560 --> 00:40:54,200
Speaker 1: in the face, have the media tell you look, if

773
00:40:54,320 --> 00:40:57,200
Speaker 1: enough Afghans care about Afghan girls and Afghan women to

774
00:40:57,239 --> 00:40:59,120
Speaker 1: fight and die for it, then they can do that,

775
00:40:59,200 --> 00:41:01,719
Speaker 1: and we found out pretty clearly that they don't care

776
00:41:01,800 --> 00:41:03,879
Speaker 1: enough in order to do any of that. In a way,

777
00:41:04,080 --> 00:41:06,520
Speaker 1: I feel terrible we gave a lot of people in

778
00:41:06,560 --> 00:41:09,080
Speaker 1: Afghanistan false hope that we were going to stay there forever,

779
00:41:09,320 --> 00:41:11,920
Speaker 1: that we were going to foster a liberal international democracy,

780
00:41:12,120 --> 00:41:13,640
Speaker 1: that we were going to you know, prop up a

781
00:41:13,719 --> 00:41:17,240
Speaker 1: society we can't do it, which it's just simply not possible.

782
00:41:17,280 --> 00:41:20,439
Speaker 1: But also, this government we're proped ve had no local support. Yes,

783
00:41:20,600 --> 00:41:23,640
Speaker 1: exactly right. We're partnered with freaking warlords. Some of them

784
00:41:23,680 --> 00:41:27,000
Speaker 1: were worse than the Taliban, child sex slaves who part

785
00:41:27,040 --> 00:41:29,160
Speaker 1: of the reason why the Taliban was ever, you know,

786
00:41:29,200 --> 00:41:31,680
Speaker 1: appealing to anyone in the populations is because the warlords

787
00:41:31,680 --> 00:41:35,120
Speaker 1: were even worse. So those were our allies. They would

788
00:41:35,200 --> 00:41:38,200
Speaker 1: kill the rapists, they would walk in and they would

789
00:41:38,239 --> 00:41:40,760
Speaker 1: hang the people who were raping children in the village,

790
00:41:40,840 --> 00:41:43,360
Speaker 1: who were allied with the government. You're in the village,

791
00:41:43,440 --> 00:41:45,120
Speaker 1: who do you think you support. That's one of the

792
00:41:45,160 --> 00:41:48,120
Speaker 1: worst stories I ever had to write. My junior and

793
00:41:48,160 --> 00:41:52,920
Speaker 1: my junior days was about how dead Afghan widows of

794
00:41:52,960 --> 00:41:57,200
Speaker 1: the Afghan national security forces were entitled to were entitled

795
00:41:57,200 --> 00:42:00,560
Speaker 1: to payouts, right like you know when you get killed. Yeah, well, uh,

796
00:42:00,880 --> 00:42:04,319
Speaker 1: the US backed government was performing these widows to make

797
00:42:04,520 --> 00:42:08,080
Speaker 1: was making them perform sexual favors on the officials in

798
00:42:08,160 --> 00:42:10,839
Speaker 1: order to get there. Can you can you in we

799
00:42:10,920 --> 00:42:13,920
Speaker 1: paid that those were our moneys, Those were that was

800
00:42:14,000 --> 00:42:16,799
Speaker 1: our ally. That was also our money that we were

801
00:42:16,840 --> 00:42:19,399
Speaker 1: paying out to these widows, and we were forcing them

802
00:42:19,600 --> 00:42:22,239
Speaker 1: in order to sexually degrade themselves in order to get

803
00:42:22,239 --> 00:42:24,600
Speaker 1: the cash that they were owed because their husbands put

804
00:42:24,600 --> 00:42:26,480
Speaker 1: their lies on it. You can go look it up.

805
00:42:26,560 --> 00:42:28,239
Speaker 1: I was one of the worst stories that I ever

806
00:42:28,239 --> 00:42:31,359
Speaker 1: had to write from John Soko, the Special Inspector General

807
00:42:31,360 --> 00:42:33,600
Speaker 1: of afghanist So I chance to say, I really blame

808
00:42:34,400 --> 00:42:38,520
Speaker 1: the you know, Afghan army for uh for giving up

809
00:42:38,560 --> 00:42:40,919
Speaker 1: as quickly as they did, because what were they really

810
00:42:40,960 --> 00:42:44,600
Speaker 1: fighting for. They were fighting for this completely kleptocratic, fake

811
00:42:44,680 --> 00:42:47,879
Speaker 1: government and a bunch of warlords. I mean, it's not

812
00:42:48,000 --> 00:42:50,880
Speaker 1: like what we were propping up here was so incredibly amazing.

813
00:42:51,160 --> 00:42:53,319
Speaker 1: So you may not have heard that on the news,

814
00:42:53,360 --> 00:42:54,960
Speaker 1: and you're probably not going to hear that on the news,

815
00:42:54,960 --> 00:42:56,839
Speaker 1: but that was the truth and the reality of what

816
00:42:56,880 --> 00:42:59,520
Speaker 1: was really happening in Afghanistan and is unconscionable all the

817
00:42:59,560 --> 00:43:02,040
Speaker 1: way around. That's right. Hey, So remember how we told

818
00:43:02,080 --> 00:43:05,000
Speaker 1: you how awesome premium membership was. Well, here we are

819
00:43:05,080 --> 00:43:07,839
Speaker 1: again to remind you that becoming a premium member means

820
00:43:07,880 --> 00:43:10,480
Speaker 1: you don't have to listen to our constant please for

821
00:43:10,560 --> 00:43:13,240
Speaker 1: you to subscribe. So what are you waiting for? Become

822
00:43:13,280 --> 00:43:16,160
Speaker 1: a premium member today by going to Breakingpoints dot com,

823
00:43:16,160 --> 00:43:19,720
Speaker 1: which you can click on in the show notes. Okay,

824
00:43:19,840 --> 00:43:22,440
Speaker 1: we're going to try and do a lighter topic here.

825
00:43:22,719 --> 00:43:28,799
Speaker 1: It's not that more domestic, less politically charged. So let's

826
00:43:28,800 --> 00:43:31,359
Speaker 1: put this up there on the screen. We finally got

827
00:43:31,400 --> 00:43:34,839
Speaker 1: the actual results of the new census data and it

828
00:43:34,880 --> 00:43:37,760
Speaker 1: is really stunning. And look, if I think you hold

829
00:43:38,120 --> 00:43:40,440
Speaker 1: the position that Crystal and I have that what's happening

830
00:43:40,520 --> 00:43:42,839
Speaker 1: right now in America it probably is not a good thing.

831
00:43:43,200 --> 00:43:48,480
Speaker 1: Then we are seeing the real partisan effects of basically

832
00:43:48,560 --> 00:43:51,000
Speaker 1: split We have a split nation. We have half the

833
00:43:51,000 --> 00:43:53,600
Speaker 1: country which is growing, we have half the country which

834
00:43:53,640 --> 00:43:56,360
Speaker 1: is getting us getting smaller. And you can see the

835
00:43:56,360 --> 00:43:58,839
Speaker 1: partisan implications of that in that graphic which is up there,

836
00:43:59,000 --> 00:44:02,240
Speaker 1: which is that the fastest growing counties have exclusively gotten

837
00:44:02,280 --> 00:44:07,040
Speaker 1: more democratic since twenty twelve, shifting towards Republicans have shrunk.

838
00:44:07,680 --> 00:44:11,520
Speaker 1: All of the counties that grew seventy percent shifted Democrat.

839
00:44:11,960 --> 00:44:15,839
Speaker 1: Ninety percent of shrinkers moved. Right now, before you pull

840
00:44:15,840 --> 00:44:18,319
Speaker 1: a Hillary Clinton and say I won all of the

841
00:44:18,360 --> 00:44:21,760
Speaker 1: places which are growing, Nate Cone actually has a pretty

842
00:44:21,760 --> 00:44:24,000
Speaker 1: good point. Let's put the next tweet up there on

843
00:44:24,040 --> 00:44:26,360
Speaker 1: the screen, which is that look for all of the

844
00:44:26,400 --> 00:44:30,560
Speaker 1: demographics or destiny takes of the last ten years, all

845
00:44:30,640 --> 00:44:34,320
Speaker 1: the favorable quote unquote demographic trends, Democrats are not stronger

846
00:44:34,320 --> 00:44:36,600
Speaker 1: than they were in the beginning of the decade. And

847
00:44:36,680 --> 00:44:39,480
Speaker 1: I think what it comes down to is that we

848
00:44:39,560 --> 00:44:42,239
Speaker 1: see here a nation which is bifurcating, which is that

849
00:44:42,400 --> 00:44:46,080
Speaker 1: the industrial Midwest and many other places across the country

850
00:44:46,239 --> 00:44:49,400
Speaker 1: are having the economic life out of them getting sucked dry,

851
00:44:49,680 --> 00:44:53,000
Speaker 1: and all of it is being concentrated in different areas

852
00:44:53,200 --> 00:44:56,640
Speaker 1: where permanent capital and more are very comfortable, and you

853
00:44:56,719 --> 00:44:59,640
Speaker 1: are seeing that the people who have connections to that

854
00:44:59,760 --> 00:45:02,960
Speaker 1: land and connections to their community, who don't maybe want

855
00:45:02,960 --> 00:45:07,800
Speaker 1: to leave where they're from, are left behind. For increasingly nothing.

856
00:45:08,520 --> 00:45:10,040
Speaker 1: One of the worst takes that I've seen on this,

857
00:45:10,440 --> 00:45:13,759
Speaker 1: Michael Moore, our old friend, was celebrating the fact that

858
00:45:13,880 --> 00:45:17,000
Speaker 1: you know, there's less white people in the Midwest. Yeah,

859
00:45:17,120 --> 00:45:20,759
Speaker 1: you know why they're dead from opioid abuse. It's like,

860
00:45:20,800 --> 00:45:23,480
Speaker 1: what is wrong with you? What I have seen, celeb

861
00:45:23,880 --> 00:45:26,200
Speaker 1: It's the worst thing I've seen. I mean, look, I

862
00:45:26,200 --> 00:45:28,719
Speaker 1: don't care necessarily about the demographic makeup more. What I'm

863
00:45:28,760 --> 00:45:32,120
Speaker 1: talking about is, let's look at this data, and we

864
00:45:32,200 --> 00:45:35,800
Speaker 1: can see the fact that we are losing a lot

865
00:45:35,840 --> 00:45:40,359
Speaker 1: of people to opioid abuse, to economic complete destruction of

866
00:45:40,440 --> 00:45:43,600
Speaker 1: their neighborhoods and livelihoods and more. And this is a

867
00:45:43,719 --> 00:45:46,399
Speaker 1: very stark picture I think of the country. I saw

868
00:45:46,400 --> 00:45:48,879
Speaker 1: a lot of triumphalism on it, but that is not

869
00:45:48,920 --> 00:45:52,480
Speaker 1: how I see the data whatsoever. Well, and so in

870
00:45:52,560 --> 00:45:54,360
Speaker 1: terms of if you want to look through this that

871
00:45:54,520 --> 00:45:57,759
Speaker 1: this through like a partisan lens, there was news in

872
00:45:57,800 --> 00:46:01,080
Speaker 1: there that Democrats considered to be good. Country is getting

873
00:46:01,120 --> 00:46:04,240
Speaker 1: more urban, it's getting more suburban, it's getting more diverse,

874
00:46:04,400 --> 00:46:09,400
Speaker 1: more black and brown. And also some of the conservative

875
00:46:09,440 --> 00:46:11,200
Speaker 1: takes about like oh, this is the end of New

876
00:46:11,280 --> 00:46:12,799
Speaker 1: York City, Well, New York City was one of the

877
00:46:12,840 --> 00:46:16,440
Speaker 1: fastest growing large cities in the country, so that was

878
00:46:16,520 --> 00:46:20,680
Speaker 1: completely absurd. But I think Nate Cone's take here, and

879
00:46:21,040 --> 00:46:22,960
Speaker 1: it's not just a take, I mean it's just a fact,

880
00:46:23,239 --> 00:46:28,000
Speaker 1: is really interesting and really important to realize everything basically

881
00:46:28,040 --> 00:46:31,800
Speaker 1: demographically went Democrats way over this past decade, and yet

882
00:46:32,040 --> 00:46:35,160
Speaker 1: they made no progress. Why. It's not hard to figure out.

883
00:46:35,239 --> 00:46:38,080
Speaker 1: It's because they've lost more of the white working class.

884
00:46:38,120 --> 00:46:40,960
Speaker 1: And maybe that's been a sort of realignment that's happening

885
00:46:41,280 --> 00:46:43,279
Speaker 1: been happening over years and years. Is a white working

886
00:46:43,280 --> 00:46:46,680
Speaker 1: class tends to be more culturally conservative, and as politics

887
00:46:46,680 --> 00:46:48,960
Speaker 1: have become more and more about the culture war and

888
00:46:49,040 --> 00:46:52,360
Speaker 1: not actually delivering for people's material well being, well, that

889
00:46:52,440 --> 00:46:54,200
Speaker 1: kind of made sense that they would sort out to

890
00:46:54,239 --> 00:46:57,759
Speaker 1: the Republican Party ultimately, with Donald Trump really driving that change.

891
00:46:58,080 --> 00:47:00,799
Speaker 1: The other part that Democrats really don't talk about very

892
00:47:00,840 --> 00:47:03,239
Speaker 1: much is that the other piece of why they haven't

893
00:47:03,239 --> 00:47:05,279
Speaker 1: been able to make up any ground and improve their

894
00:47:05,320 --> 00:47:09,400
Speaker 1: situation nationally is because Latinos have moved increasingly over the

895
00:47:09,440 --> 00:47:13,200
Speaker 1: Republican side. Now, Democrats still overwhelmingly win Latino demographic but

896
00:47:13,600 --> 00:47:17,279
Speaker 1: working class Latino men in particular have moved towards the

897
00:47:17,320 --> 00:47:21,720
Speaker 1: Republican Party. So look, I think if you're the Democratic Party,

898
00:47:21,920 --> 00:47:24,400
Speaker 1: you should feel a lot of shame at the fact

899
00:47:24,520 --> 00:47:26,719
Speaker 1: that the places that are struggling, the people who are

900
00:47:26,760 --> 00:47:30,640
Speaker 1: struggling the most, they don't see anything in your party

901
00:47:30,680 --> 00:47:33,600
Speaker 1: for themselves. I mean, those are the places The Democratic

902
00:47:33,640 --> 00:47:35,640
Speaker 1: Party is supposed to be, the party of the downtrap,

903
00:47:35,800 --> 00:47:37,680
Speaker 1: supposed to be the party of the working class, the

904
00:47:37,680 --> 00:47:40,799
Speaker 1: party of the people, and yet the places that are

905
00:47:40,840 --> 00:47:45,359
Speaker 1: struggling the most have moved the most rapidly to the right.

906
00:47:45,880 --> 00:47:48,080
Speaker 1: Now you should be doing some soul searching about that.

907
00:47:48,160 --> 00:47:50,920
Speaker 1: Of course, we haven't seen any sign that that's actually

908
00:47:51,160 --> 00:47:53,640
Speaker 1: what they're going to do here, so it's a pretty

909
00:47:54,880 --> 00:47:58,399
Speaker 1: pretty revealing moment. Now. Look, in terms of the big

910
00:47:58,440 --> 00:48:01,799
Speaker 1: reason the census matters from political terms is because redistricting

911
00:48:01,880 --> 00:48:03,920
Speaker 1: is about to happen, and so the way that the

912
00:48:03,960 --> 00:48:05,640
Speaker 1: lens are going to be drawn, the way that the

913
00:48:05,719 --> 00:48:09,920
Speaker 1: jerrymandering is ultimately going to happen, is impacted greatly by

914
00:48:09,960 --> 00:48:11,920
Speaker 1: what the census says, because you have to have the

915
00:48:11,960 --> 00:48:15,640
Speaker 1: districts be roughly equivalent in size. So the fact that

916
00:48:16,040 --> 00:48:18,239
Speaker 1: this went a little bit better for Democrats than they

917
00:48:18,239 --> 00:48:20,160
Speaker 1: were expecting. Is going to make it a bit harder

918
00:48:20,480 --> 00:48:23,719
Speaker 1: for Republicans, who control more of the you know, the

919
00:48:23,920 --> 00:48:26,719
Speaker 1: machinery of redistricting than Democrats do. It's going to make

920
00:48:26,760 --> 00:48:28,920
Speaker 1: it a little bit harder for them to jerrymander. But

921
00:48:29,280 --> 00:48:32,640
Speaker 1: Democrats are not in a great position here, even with

922
00:48:33,200 --> 00:48:35,520
Speaker 1: everything going their way over the past second. The last

923
00:48:35,520 --> 00:48:37,200
Speaker 1: thing I'll say about this though, is a hopeful thing,

924
00:48:37,200 --> 00:48:39,400
Speaker 1: which is like, you know, we sort of have this

925
00:48:39,520 --> 00:48:44,040
Speaker 1: idea that ours hardened in their political beliefs and political persuasion,

926
00:48:44,280 --> 00:48:47,200
Speaker 1: their party identity, et cetera. Well, one lesson over the

927
00:48:47,239 --> 00:48:49,080
Speaker 1: past ten years. That's not the case, not the case

928
00:48:49,080 --> 00:48:51,160
Speaker 1: at all, because if that was the case, then Democrats

929
00:48:51,160 --> 00:48:52,839
Speaker 1: will be doing a lot better than they are right now.

930
00:48:53,000 --> 00:48:55,439
Speaker 1: Hillary would be president, this would be like her second term.

931
00:48:55,600 --> 00:48:59,640
Speaker 1: People can move between parties, they can change their minds,

932
00:48:59,640 --> 00:49:02,320
Speaker 1: they can't be persuaded, So you might want to actually

933
00:49:02,360 --> 00:49:05,120
Speaker 1: try That would be a sort of a new approach

934
00:49:05,680 --> 00:49:08,800
Speaker 1: for the party is actually try and persuade people ultimately

935
00:49:08,840 --> 00:49:11,319
Speaker 1: here one last note that I thought was interesting is

936
00:49:12,560 --> 00:49:15,439
Speaker 1: a lot of the growth in the Latino population. It's

937
00:49:15,480 --> 00:49:18,719
Speaker 1: no longer from incoming immigrants. It's from people who are

938
00:49:18,760 --> 00:49:20,879
Speaker 1: you know, who's parents American citizens are from. He are

939
00:49:20,920 --> 00:49:23,280
Speaker 1: here and they are born here in the American citizens.

940
00:49:23,320 --> 00:49:26,560
Speaker 1: So when you see that Latino population growth that is

941
00:49:26,840 --> 00:49:29,600
Speaker 1: by and large coming from people who are here and

942
00:49:29,640 --> 00:49:33,200
Speaker 1: who are citizens and having babies and having families and

943
00:49:33,239 --> 00:49:36,680
Speaker 1: are as American as anyone else, it's pretty fascinating. Also

944
00:49:36,680 --> 00:49:38,520
Speaker 1: if you look at the county by county data, so

945
00:49:38,600 --> 00:49:41,760
Speaker 1: Dave Wasserman actually has this up there on the fastest

946
00:49:41,760 --> 00:49:45,400
Speaker 1: ten ground counties from twenty ten twenty twenty, every single

947
00:49:45,440 --> 00:49:48,120
Speaker 1: one of them is Texas and Florida, with the exception

948
00:49:48,200 --> 00:49:52,040
Speaker 1: of Forsyth, Georgia. I hope I said that right. So Hayes,

949
00:49:52,120 --> 00:49:56,160
Speaker 1: Texas was the top Comal Texas forty nine percent, Osella, Florida,

950
00:49:56,480 --> 00:50:01,520
Speaker 1: Williamton Texas, Saint John's Florida, Forsyth, George, Ja Kaufman Texas,

951
00:50:01,719 --> 00:50:05,640
Speaker 1: Fort Bend, Texas, Sumter Florida, and Rockwall Texas. So Texas

952
00:50:05,640 --> 00:50:10,120
Speaker 1: and Florida just seeing explosive growth in the last ten years.

953
00:50:10,280 --> 00:50:13,200
Speaker 1: But to what I was saying earlier, look at what

954
00:50:13,400 --> 00:50:16,680
Speaker 1: the you know, ten counties with the fastest shrinking counties.

955
00:50:16,800 --> 00:50:20,680
Speaker 1: Let's throw this next one up there well, Number one, Robinson,

956
00:50:20,719 --> 00:50:27,920
Speaker 1: North Carolina, Number two Hen's, Mississippi, number three, Cambria, Pennsylvania, four, Cada, Louisiana,

957
00:50:28,080 --> 00:50:34,560
Speaker 1: five San Juan, New Mexico, six Canawa, West Virginia, seven, Macon, Illinois, eight,

958
00:50:34,719 --> 00:50:40,200
Speaker 1: Fayette Pennsylvania. Nine Baltimore City, Maryland, ten Saint Louis City, Missouri.

959
00:50:40,280 --> 00:50:43,520
Speaker 1: So what do you see there? Industrial Midwest, Inner Midwest

960
00:50:43,520 --> 00:50:46,080
Speaker 1: and more. They are the fastest shrinking counties in the

961
00:50:46,160 --> 00:50:48,879
Speaker 1: United States. These are the more left behind places, and

962
00:50:49,120 --> 00:50:51,080
Speaker 1: all of them became a lot more Republican in the

963
00:50:51,160 --> 00:50:53,400
Speaker 1: last ten years. All the ones at the top became

964
00:50:53,640 --> 00:50:55,760
Speaker 1: a lot more Democrat, even though they are in Texas

965
00:50:55,760 --> 00:50:59,160
Speaker 1: and Florida. They're that new like kind of suburban type.

966
00:50:59,239 --> 00:51:04,200
Speaker 1: So the suburbanization of America continues. It is certainly going blue,

967
00:51:04,480 --> 00:51:06,880
Speaker 1: but that doesn't mean that, you know, a lot of

968
00:51:06,880 --> 00:51:09,640
Speaker 1: the left behind people are not going to vote or

969
00:51:10,080 --> 00:51:11,799
Speaker 1: are not going to change in the way that they

970
00:51:11,840 --> 00:51:15,160
Speaker 1: traditionally view the country. So really, in the data, all

971
00:51:15,200 --> 00:51:18,280
Speaker 1: I see is the country continues to split apart almost

972
00:51:18,480 --> 00:51:22,320
Speaker 1: entirely by economic lines, and where you live has become

973
00:51:22,360 --> 00:51:26,439
Speaker 1: a much more, a big, much bigger indicator than ever

974
00:51:26,480 --> 00:51:28,480
Speaker 1: before of how you vote. I think I did a

975
00:51:28,480 --> 00:51:31,200
Speaker 1: whole monologue on Rising about there was all the spatial

976
00:51:31,239 --> 00:51:35,399
Speaker 1: analysis data where if you live around people where two

977
00:51:35,440 --> 00:51:38,319
Speaker 1: thirds don't have a college degree, you're most likely going

978
00:51:38,320 --> 00:51:40,560
Speaker 1: to vote Trump, and if you live in places with

979
00:51:40,719 --> 00:51:43,600
Speaker 1: two thirds of a college degree, you're mostly likely to

980
00:51:43,680 --> 00:51:46,680
Speaker 1: vote for Biden. Same things in terms of dollars. You know,

981
00:51:47,320 --> 00:51:51,160
Speaker 1: it actually really holds regardless of race, except whenever it

982
00:51:51,160 --> 00:51:53,680
Speaker 1: comes to the black community. So all of that just

983
00:51:53,719 --> 00:51:57,160
Speaker 1: shows me that we are increasingly splitting apart. You were

984
00:51:57,200 --> 00:52:01,360
Speaker 1: seeing increasing concentration in the areas that doing well, vast shrinking,

985
00:52:01,480 --> 00:52:03,400
Speaker 1: you know, in the places that aren't doing well. But

986
00:52:03,800 --> 00:52:06,319
Speaker 1: you can't leave those people behind and just write them

987
00:52:06,360 --> 00:52:08,560
Speaker 1: off like that famous Hillary quote of I won all

988
00:52:08,600 --> 00:52:10,920
Speaker 1: the places which were growing as if it's not a

989
00:52:11,080 --> 00:52:13,799
Speaker 1: good thing. You're supposed to be the ones who are

990
00:52:13,840 --> 00:52:16,400
Speaker 1: representing the people who are left, but you're supposed to

991
00:52:16,440 --> 00:52:21,040
Speaker 1: be speaking up for the powerless. And so yeah, like

992
00:52:21,080 --> 00:52:22,680
Speaker 1: I said, you would think there would be some soul

993
00:52:22,680 --> 00:52:25,640
Speaker 1: searching going on, but there's clearly not. And it's it's

994
00:52:25,640 --> 00:52:28,480
Speaker 1: what democrats do is once they lose a place like Iowa,

995
00:52:28,560 --> 00:52:30,680
Speaker 1: or they lose a place like Ohio, they just forget

996
00:52:30,719 --> 00:52:32,640
Speaker 1: about it. They're like, yeah, let's move on to Georgia,

997
00:52:32,719 --> 00:52:35,240
Speaker 1: let's move on Arizona. Let's let's move over to greener

998
00:52:35,280 --> 00:52:38,160
Speaker 1: pastures where there is more you know, economic dynamism and

999
00:52:38,160 --> 00:52:40,160
Speaker 1: people doing a little bit better. Maybe we'll do better

1000
00:52:40,160 --> 00:52:43,000
Speaker 1: in those places. One of the results that came out

1001
00:52:43,000 --> 00:52:46,640
Speaker 1: of here is Georgia may already be majority minority. It's right,

1002
00:52:46,719 --> 00:52:49,799
Speaker 1: basically fifty to fifty right now. And so the new

1003
00:52:49,840 --> 00:52:52,399
Speaker 1: battlegrounds are what you would expect them to be. They

1004
00:52:52,400 --> 00:52:56,080
Speaker 1: are Georgia, it is Arizona, said, those sun Belt states,

1005
00:52:56,120 --> 00:52:59,520
Speaker 1: and it is also I mean eventually Texas is probably

1006
00:52:59,560 --> 00:53:02,440
Speaker 1: going to come to play. Although again, demographics aren't destiny.

1007
00:53:02,520 --> 00:53:04,920
Speaker 1: So the fact that you have increasing browning of some

1008
00:53:04,960 --> 00:53:07,760
Speaker 1: of these places does not mean the Democrats are ultimately

1009
00:53:07,760 --> 00:53:09,360
Speaker 1: going to have a lock on any of them, or

1010
00:53:09,400 --> 00:53:11,680
Speaker 1: even you know, a realistic chance at any of them.

1011
00:53:11,680 --> 00:53:13,160
Speaker 1: They got to do a lot better. I would not

1012
00:53:13,280 --> 00:53:15,879
Speaker 1: you know, I would not bet on this forever. I think.

1013
00:53:16,000 --> 00:53:18,439
Speaker 1: I really what it shows is to your point that

1014
00:53:18,760 --> 00:53:20,879
Speaker 1: people are up for grabs if you're willing to talk

1015
00:53:20,920 --> 00:53:24,120
Speaker 1: to them. Yeah, you know, if you abandon the cultural

1016
00:53:24,120 --> 00:53:27,399
Speaker 1: concerns of millions of people, they'll go elsewhere. And same

1017
00:53:27,440 --> 00:53:29,520
Speaker 1: thing whenever it comes on the Republican side, you abandon

1018
00:53:29,560 --> 00:53:32,480
Speaker 1: the economic you know, or the economic tastes and more

1019
00:53:32,480 --> 00:53:35,759
Speaker 1: of millions of people, they'll also go elsewhere. So that's

1020
00:53:35,760 --> 00:53:39,000
Speaker 1: what's happening. It's it's weird right now, you're kind of

1021
00:53:39,040 --> 00:53:41,799
Speaker 1: watching in real time the Republicans just go back to

1022
00:53:42,160 --> 00:53:44,040
Speaker 1: all the crap that they used to say. I mean,

1023
00:53:44,080 --> 00:53:47,040
Speaker 1: it's just like Theocon's and afghan Yeah, no, suddenly everybody

1024
00:53:47,040 --> 00:53:49,240
Speaker 1: on the Republican side is a total neo kon again.

1025
00:53:49,680 --> 00:53:51,719
Speaker 1: Anything different than they said in the Trump years, they

1026
00:53:51,719 --> 00:53:55,680
Speaker 1: were clearly just like pretending. I mean, obviously they did

1027
00:53:55,719 --> 00:53:58,040
Speaker 1: not actually believe the words they were saying if they

1028
00:53:58,120 --> 00:54:01,600
Speaker 1: said anything in favor of getting out of Afghanistan during

1029
00:54:01,600 --> 00:54:03,640
Speaker 1: those years. And on economics, it's the same thing. It's

1030
00:54:03,719 --> 00:54:06,600
Speaker 1: kind of what I'm tackling my monologue, like any divergence

1031
00:54:07,000 --> 00:54:13,000
Speaker 1: from traditional Republican Reaganite orthodoxy and economics is also completely

1032
00:54:13,040 --> 00:54:15,560
Speaker 1: out the window. So it is interesting to see in

1033
00:54:15,600 --> 00:54:19,160
Speaker 1: real time, and we'll watch what the political ramifications of

1034
00:54:19,160 --> 00:54:21,280
Speaker 1: that are. The last thing I'll say on your point

1035
00:54:21,560 --> 00:54:26,280
Speaker 1: regarding people being persuadable is I think that the Trump

1036
00:54:26,280 --> 00:54:29,239
Speaker 1: campaign and the Republicans prove this. They actually invested a

1037
00:54:29,280 --> 00:54:32,640
Speaker 1: lot of money in flipping Latinos and turning out more

1038
00:54:32,719 --> 00:54:35,600
Speaker 1: Latinos to vote for them, and they saw that in Florida.

1039
00:54:35,719 --> 00:54:37,600
Speaker 1: But it wasn't just in Florida. A lot of people

1040
00:54:37,640 --> 00:54:40,160
Speaker 1: want to make this just about Cubans. This wasn't across

1041
00:54:40,160 --> 00:54:44,000
Speaker 1: the Port Finocraphs well and Texas, you know, maybe even

1042
00:54:44,040 --> 00:54:46,399
Speaker 1: more so than Florida. But this was pretty consistent trend

1043
00:54:46,440 --> 00:54:49,719
Speaker 1: across the country. No mystery why they actually invested in

1044
00:54:49,760 --> 00:54:52,040
Speaker 1: talking to those communities and it had an impact. And

1045
00:54:52,120 --> 00:54:55,520
Speaker 1: I would say the Sanders campaign also proved that point

1046
00:54:55,560 --> 00:54:58,239
Speaker 1: in the Latino community, where they also spent a lot

1047
00:54:58,280 --> 00:55:00,000
Speaker 1: of money and took a lot of time and actually

1048
00:55:00,080 --> 00:55:03,120
Speaker 1: invested in talking to those communities and pitching Bernie Sanders

1049
00:55:03,200 --> 00:55:05,960
Speaker 1: platform to them. So people are movable, don't give up

1050
00:55:06,080 --> 00:55:10,160
Speaker 1: on making the case by actually delivering for the American people.

1051
00:55:11,360 --> 00:55:14,120
Speaker 1: We have one more really horrific story that we wanted

1052
00:55:14,160 --> 00:55:16,680
Speaker 1: to bring an update on because we've been tracking closely

1053
00:55:16,719 --> 00:55:20,120
Speaker 1: what's been happening in the country of Haiti, and unfortunately

1054
00:55:20,200 --> 00:55:23,480
Speaker 1: they've just been struck by another horrific crisis. This time

1055
00:55:23,520 --> 00:55:26,799
Speaker 1: it's a seven point two magnitude earthquake. We can throw

1056
00:55:26,800 --> 00:55:30,280
Speaker 1: this tear sheet up on the screen. The latest death

1057
00:55:30,360 --> 00:55:33,239
Speaker 1: count is as of this morning, I checked right before

1058
00:55:33,280 --> 00:55:36,040
Speaker 1: we came on air, was one two hundred and ninety

1059
00:55:36,080 --> 00:55:40,319
Speaker 1: seven dead. Photos you can see these we right now

1060
00:55:40,320 --> 00:55:42,320
Speaker 1: have on the screen for those who are listening, photos

1061
00:55:42,440 --> 00:55:47,560
Speaker 1: of the complete devastation in several major population centers in

1062
00:55:47,680 --> 00:55:52,720
Speaker 1: that country. Just I mean, they have another tropical storm

1063
00:55:52,800 --> 00:55:55,720
Speaker 1: apparently headed their way, tropical Storm Grace, which is supposed

1064
00:55:55,760 --> 00:55:57,960
Speaker 1: to hit today and tomorrow, which is going to of

1065
00:55:58,000 --> 00:56:01,719
Speaker 1: course complicate the rescue effort which is ongoing. I hate

1066
00:56:01,719 --> 00:56:03,240
Speaker 1: to say it, but I'm sure we're going to get

1067
00:56:04,200 --> 00:56:06,880
Speaker 1: a higher and higher death toll as the days and

1068
00:56:06,920 --> 00:56:10,560
Speaker 1: weeks go on. And of course, all of the backdrop

1069
00:56:10,600 --> 00:56:12,680
Speaker 1: and the context for this is a nation that was

1070
00:56:12,719 --> 00:56:16,719
Speaker 1: already in not just a political crisis from the assassination

1071
00:56:16,760 --> 00:56:21,160
Speaker 1: of their president, but humanitarian crisis, with so many people

1072
00:56:21,560 --> 00:56:25,520
Speaker 1: lacking enough food to eat and just the basics of shelter,

1073
00:56:25,719 --> 00:56:30,400
Speaker 1: food and ability to live. So tremendous devastation there hating

1074
00:56:30,440 --> 00:56:35,440
Speaker 1: never really recovered from the previous earthquake that happened was

1075
00:56:35,440 --> 00:56:40,720
Speaker 1: that twenty ten that caused hundreds of thousands of life's loss.

1076
00:56:40,760 --> 00:56:43,719
Speaker 1: So I mean this is like a really low bar.

1077
00:56:43,800 --> 00:56:46,560
Speaker 1: The devastation is not as bad as that earthquake, but

1078
00:56:46,640 --> 00:56:49,680
Speaker 1: you're talking about thousands of people who are dead and

1079
00:56:50,280 --> 00:56:54,239
Speaker 1: several major population centers pretty devastated. Yes, this is seven

1080
00:56:54,239 --> 00:56:58,759
Speaker 1: point two magnitude earthquake. Reading here accounts really terrible. One

1081
00:56:58,800 --> 00:57:00,680
Speaker 1: of the problems, and why the reason the death toll

1082
00:57:00,719 --> 00:57:03,520
Speaker 1: is so high, is because so much of the hospital

1083
00:57:03,560 --> 00:57:07,560
Speaker 1: infrastructure is gone, so they don't have a real healthcare infrastructure,

1084
00:57:07,600 --> 00:57:10,400
Speaker 1: which means that people have to wait hours or days

1085
00:57:10,400 --> 00:57:13,440
Speaker 1: in order to get treated. There's only one surgeon in

1086
00:57:13,560 --> 00:57:17,280
Speaker 1: like one particular region of the entire country where this

1087
00:57:17,520 --> 00:57:20,080
Speaker 1: entire thing got hit. He gave an interview where he's like,

1088
00:57:20,160 --> 00:57:23,880
Speaker 1: I'm the only surgeon. It's just me. So in that situation,

1089
00:57:24,000 --> 00:57:26,320
Speaker 1: and especially with the rest of the world distracted, not

1090
00:57:26,360 --> 00:57:28,720
Speaker 1: just distracted, there's COVID, you know, there's you know, like

1091
00:57:29,040 --> 00:57:32,160
Speaker 1: because of that, international travels basically run to a hall.

1092
00:57:32,240 --> 00:57:35,440
Speaker 1: A lot of international aid is really not working right now. Obviously,

1093
00:57:35,440 --> 00:57:37,520
Speaker 1: the US military has a lot of other stuff going

1094
00:57:37,520 --> 00:57:40,320
Speaker 1: on as opposed to what we were doing in twenty ten.

1095
00:57:40,440 --> 00:57:43,160
Speaker 1: So it's a perfect storm that just wiped you know,

1096
00:57:43,320 --> 00:57:45,680
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't know what else to say. It's terrible.

1097
00:57:46,360 --> 00:57:49,200
Speaker 1: Really does show that they just can't catch a break.

1098
00:57:49,280 --> 00:57:51,920
Speaker 1: Like they have this earthquake, then they have now the

1099
00:57:51,960 --> 00:57:55,000
Speaker 1: political crisis of the last ten years culminating the assassination

1100
00:57:55,120 --> 00:57:57,120
Speaker 1: of the president, and then you know, now some guy

1101
00:57:57,160 --> 00:57:59,360
Speaker 1: is resigning and nobody knows who the hell you know

1102
00:57:59,520 --> 00:58:02,520
Speaker 1: is support was it, you know, DA informants and all this,

1103
00:58:02,640 --> 00:58:05,520
Speaker 1: there's still a lot of questions there same now the

1104
00:58:05,640 --> 00:58:08,640
Speaker 1: earthquake hit, this is now a domestic political crisis. They

1105
00:58:08,640 --> 00:58:11,480
Speaker 1: don't even have a proper president, they don't have any

1106
00:58:11,520 --> 00:58:15,720
Speaker 1: people who are coordinating the hospital infrastructures decaying. The international

1107
00:58:15,720 --> 00:58:18,880
Speaker 1: community is basically not you know there right now. So

1108
00:58:19,040 --> 00:58:22,120
Speaker 1: it's a perfect storm. Yeah, and like now we've got

1109
00:58:22,120 --> 00:58:24,640
Speaker 1: this tropical storm descending. So it's just terrible. So yeah,

1110
00:58:24,680 --> 00:58:26,800
Speaker 1: we want to make sure to bring you that because

1111
00:58:27,600 --> 00:58:30,840
Speaker 1: you know, it's really important what's going on in Afghanistan.

1112
00:58:31,000 --> 00:58:33,960
Speaker 1: But there's a lot of suffering going on around the world,

1113
00:58:34,000 --> 00:58:36,960
Speaker 1: and Haiti, our hearts, go out to all of the

1114
00:58:37,000 --> 00:58:39,200
Speaker 1: people there and look at me as another country too

1115
00:58:39,240 --> 00:58:41,360
Speaker 1: that we had a major hand in' screwing up, both

1116
00:58:41,400 --> 00:58:45,800
Speaker 1: politically and economically, So there is some some burden to

1117
00:58:45,840 --> 00:58:48,240
Speaker 1: bear there in terms of our moral responsibility to the

1118
00:58:48,280 --> 00:58:50,960
Speaker 1: people of that nation. Wow, you guys must really like

1119
00:58:51,000 --> 00:58:52,960
Speaker 1: listening to our voices. Well, I know this is annoying

1120
00:58:53,000 --> 00:58:55,600
Speaker 1: instead of making you listen to a Viagri commercial. When

1121
00:58:55,640 --> 00:58:57,760
Speaker 1: you're done, check out the other podcast I do with

1122
00:58:57,840 --> 00:59:00,400
Speaker 1: Marshal Costoff called The Realignment. We talk a lot about

1123
00:59:00,440 --> 00:59:03,800
Speaker 1: the deeper issues that are changing realigning in American society.

1124
00:59:03,920 --> 00:59:06,240
Speaker 1: You always need more Crystal and Zag in your daily lives.

1125
00:59:06,360 --> 00:59:09,480
Speaker 1: Take care guys. All right, Tager, what are you looking

1126
00:59:09,520 --> 00:59:12,560
Speaker 1: at today? Well, everybody, I've missed you all desperately. So

1127
00:59:12,680 --> 00:59:16,840
Speaker 1: much to catch up on. From vaccine, passports, COVID hysteria, Afghanistan.

1128
00:59:17,200 --> 00:59:19,080
Speaker 1: I think I'm gonna stick with the latter because it's

1129
00:59:19,120 --> 00:59:21,200
Speaker 1: where I have the most to say and it directly

1130
00:59:21,280 --> 00:59:23,160
Speaker 1: relates to what I've been up to in the last week.

1131
00:59:23,400 --> 00:59:27,160
Speaker 1: Yesterday we got the ignominy, ignominious but inevitable news that

1132
00:59:27,200 --> 00:59:31,160
Speaker 1: the Taliban officially have taken control of Kabble in Afghanistan,

1133
00:59:31,400 --> 00:59:34,919
Speaker 1: with the US backed president literally fleeing the country only

1134
00:59:34,960 --> 00:59:37,280
Speaker 1: hours into the siege. Suddenly I see a lot of

1135
00:59:37,360 --> 00:59:40,840
Speaker 1: takes flying around. Republicans have seemingly forgotten Donald Trump is

1136
00:59:40,880 --> 00:59:43,680
Speaker 1: the one who penned this deal and actually pushed this

1137
00:59:43,840 --> 00:59:47,960
Speaker 1: same policy. No other than Trump himself says that Biden

1138
00:59:48,240 --> 00:59:51,600
Speaker 1: somehow has strayed from his deal and the plans. Of course,

1139
00:59:51,760 --> 00:59:53,840
Speaker 1: I knew this would happen, since our politics does not

1140
00:59:53,880 --> 00:59:56,920
Speaker 1: allow for admitting that the other fella has a point

1141
00:59:57,000 --> 00:59:58,960
Speaker 1: every once in a while, and I wanted to take

1142
00:59:58,960 --> 01:00:03,600
Speaker 1: the opportunity to state this absolutely, unequivocally. I'm with Joe

1143
01:00:03,640 --> 01:00:07,440
Speaker 1: Biden on his withdrawal from Afghanistan. Not enough people who

1144
01:00:07,480 --> 01:00:10,840
Speaker 1: are genuinely anti endless war are coming out and saying

1145
01:00:10,840 --> 01:00:13,800
Speaker 1: it because they disagree with him elsewhere, and I do,

1146
01:00:13,960 --> 01:00:18,080
Speaker 1: of course, But the elite consensus right now is America

1147
01:00:18,200 --> 01:00:22,240
Speaker 1: is that Biden's withdrawal is a disaster. I'll say this

1148
01:00:22,520 --> 01:00:26,200
Speaker 1: on the margins, some things absolutely could have been done differently.

1149
01:00:26,400 --> 01:00:28,440
Speaker 1: We should have done a much better job of ensuring

1150
01:00:28,440 --> 01:00:31,800
Speaker 1: our translators and more got out one percent, But in

1151
01:00:31,840 --> 01:00:34,680
Speaker 1: the end it was probably always going to be this way.

1152
01:00:35,040 --> 01:00:38,000
Speaker 1: I don't blame Joe Biden. No, I choose to focus

1153
01:00:38,000 --> 01:00:40,680
Speaker 1: my iyre on the real enemy in this discussion, the

1154
01:00:40,760 --> 01:00:45,440
Speaker 1: American general class, the Pentagon, the State Department, the military

1155
01:00:45,480 --> 01:00:49,200
Speaker 1: contractors and more, who pushed lies upon the American people

1156
01:00:49,240 --> 01:00:53,160
Speaker 1: for twenty years and whose fiction was finally revealed yesterday

1157
01:00:53,320 --> 01:00:57,120
Speaker 1: when the Taliban assumed control. Let's review, shall we The

1158
01:00:57,160 --> 01:01:00,439
Speaker 1: same intelligence community which got us into this mess had

1159
01:01:00,600 --> 01:01:04,200
Speaker 1: three predictions on Afghanistan. First, it was that the Taliban

1160
01:01:04,320 --> 01:01:06,680
Speaker 1: would take three months to take the capital of kabl

1161
01:01:07,040 --> 01:01:10,480
Speaker 1: Then they revised that date to seventy two hours. Then

1162
01:01:10,640 --> 01:01:13,400
Speaker 1: it ended up doing it in twenty four, which means

1163
01:01:13,680 --> 01:01:16,960
Speaker 1: what even after twenty years, even after the failures of

1164
01:01:16,960 --> 01:01:20,040
Speaker 1: the Afghan forces and the corruption of the Afghan government

1165
01:01:20,280 --> 01:01:23,520
Speaker 1: was evident, they still could not admit the truth that

1166
01:01:23,600 --> 01:01:26,960
Speaker 1: our mission there has been nothing but a catastrophic failure.

1167
01:01:27,680 --> 01:01:29,520
Speaker 1: I wanted to start with that just so you get

1168
01:01:29,520 --> 01:01:31,920
Speaker 1: an idea of how full of it these people still

1169
01:01:31,960 --> 01:01:34,520
Speaker 1: are to this day. But how far back should we go?

1170
01:01:34,840 --> 01:01:38,760
Speaker 1: Who is responsible for this mess? Here's the answer, everybody,

1171
01:01:38,960 --> 01:01:42,040
Speaker 1: George W. Bush, Dick Cheney for not just throwing everything

1172
01:01:42,040 --> 01:01:44,440
Speaker 1: we had at Tora Bora and killing Bin Laden so

1173
01:01:44,440 --> 01:01:46,040
Speaker 1: that we could get the hell out of that country.

1174
01:01:46,200 --> 01:01:49,480
Speaker 1: For picking Karzai, Barack Obama for falling for the general's

1175
01:01:49,480 --> 01:01:53,280
Speaker 1: tricks surging troops, withdrawing them and more keeping them forever.

1176
01:01:53,560 --> 01:01:56,040
Speaker 1: Donald Trump for following them for the same trick. But

1177
01:01:56,120 --> 01:01:59,760
Speaker 1: look deeper. Of course, they decided and the buckstocks with them.

1178
01:02:00,080 --> 01:02:04,240
Speaker 1: But beneath the surface are the generals, commanders and diplomats

1179
01:02:04,320 --> 01:02:08,120
Speaker 1: who justified these idiotic decisions and who pushed the presidents

1180
01:02:08,160 --> 01:02:10,840
Speaker 1: to make them. The people who were supposedly sworn to

1181
01:02:10,880 --> 01:02:14,320
Speaker 1: the American public, sat in front of Congress, in front

1182
01:02:14,360 --> 01:02:17,640
Speaker 1: of the microphone, lied to the American people about the

1183
01:02:17,640 --> 01:02:21,600
Speaker 1: capability of the Afghan security forces to confront the Taliban,

1184
01:02:21,840 --> 01:02:24,480
Speaker 1: and who lied about our mission there to create a

1185
01:02:24,520 --> 01:02:27,920
Speaker 1: dependable ally in the Afghan government. The story of the

1186
01:02:27,960 --> 01:02:31,120
Speaker 1: Afghan War is complicated, but basically it goes like this.

1187
01:02:32,040 --> 01:02:34,600
Speaker 1: We invaded Afghanistan in two thousand and one to kill

1188
01:02:34,640 --> 01:02:37,000
Speaker 1: Bin Laden and to punish the Taliban for giving him

1189
01:02:37,000 --> 01:02:39,640
Speaker 1: safe harbor to Plan nine to eleven. We partnered with

1190
01:02:39,680 --> 01:02:42,720
Speaker 1: the Northern Alliance. We told them to take power. We

1191
01:02:42,760 --> 01:02:45,600
Speaker 1: stayed and we backed them up. Then we invaded Iraq

1192
01:02:45,640 --> 01:02:47,280
Speaker 1: in two thousand and three, and we kind of forgot

1193
01:02:47,280 --> 01:02:49,560
Speaker 1: about the entire thing. In two thousand and nine, the

1194
01:02:49,600 --> 01:02:52,680
Speaker 1: situation was deteriorating because we had been backing the corrupt

1195
01:02:52,680 --> 01:02:55,280
Speaker 1: cars at government and the Taliban were actually starting to

1196
01:02:55,320 --> 01:02:58,479
Speaker 1: do really well. Obama said he would fight the good war.

1197
01:02:58,720 --> 01:03:01,160
Speaker 1: He sent thousands of Amya and troops, but just for

1198
01:03:01,200 --> 01:03:04,640
Speaker 1: two years it failed miserably. We transitioned to something called

1199
01:03:04,880 --> 01:03:09,160
Speaker 1: resolute support, or what the Pentagon calls train, advised and assists.

1200
01:03:09,480 --> 01:03:12,040
Speaker 1: That mission was this, we will stay with the limited

1201
01:03:12,080 --> 01:03:15,000
Speaker 1: force to train the Afghan Army, advise them, and assist

1202
01:03:15,080 --> 01:03:17,480
Speaker 1: them in their fight against the Taliban. We would do

1203
01:03:17,560 --> 01:03:20,280
Speaker 1: this for a limited period of period of time and

1204
01:03:20,360 --> 01:03:22,720
Speaker 1: give them the equipment so that they could handle the

1205
01:03:22,720 --> 01:03:26,640
Speaker 1: fight themselves. And every year since then, in twenty twelve,

1206
01:03:26,720 --> 01:03:29,800
Speaker 1: since Obama ended the surge, the Pentagon and the generals

1207
01:03:29,800 --> 01:03:32,800
Speaker 1: in command of that effort have lied to the American

1208
01:03:32,840 --> 01:03:36,560
Speaker 1: public to keep their gravy train going. Consider these lies.

1209
01:03:36,800 --> 01:03:40,520
Speaker 1: In twenty twelve, General John Allen said, quote, we're winning

1210
01:03:40,560 --> 01:03:44,000
Speaker 1: this war. In twenty thirteen, General Dunford, who later became

1211
01:03:44,080 --> 01:03:46,640
Speaker 1: the head of the Joint chiefs of Staff said our

1212
01:03:46,720 --> 01:03:50,720
Speaker 1: victory there was quote inevitable by train, advised and assists.

1213
01:03:50,840 --> 01:03:53,760
Speaker 1: In twenty fourteen, General Campbell he said he had seen

1214
01:03:54,000 --> 01:03:57,480
Speaker 1: the change in strategy and we would win. General Nicholson

1215
01:03:57,520 --> 01:04:01,920
Speaker 1: twenty seventeen says the situation has quote so fundamentally changed

1216
01:04:02,360 --> 01:04:05,040
Speaker 1: in a way. Nicholson was the most honest, just that

1217
01:04:05,080 --> 01:04:08,480
Speaker 1: the situation fundamentally changed to ensure that this would be

1218
01:04:08,520 --> 01:04:11,880
Speaker 1: the end result. Why all of these lies because the

1219
01:04:11,960 --> 01:04:15,640
Speaker 1: United States has spent to date one hundred billion dollars

1220
01:04:15,720 --> 01:04:18,600
Speaker 1: on the Afghan National Security forces billion with the b

1221
01:04:19,640 --> 01:04:22,520
Speaker 1: they collapsed within three weeks when they actually had to

1222
01:04:22,520 --> 01:04:25,520
Speaker 1: fight for themselves, not just in the outer provinces in

1223
01:04:25,560 --> 01:04:28,440
Speaker 1: their capital where they simply put down their weapons and

1224
01:04:28,600 --> 01:04:31,720
Speaker 1: let anybody who wants get to them. That is what

1225
01:04:31,760 --> 01:04:34,240
Speaker 1: these people spent our money on, sent our sons and

1226
01:04:34,360 --> 01:04:36,960
Speaker 1: daughters to die for. The only people who won the

1227
01:04:37,000 --> 01:04:41,000
Speaker 1: Afghan war are the military contractors and bankers in Dubai

1228
01:04:41,080 --> 01:04:43,720
Speaker 1: who got to cash out of our checks from the

1229
01:04:43,760 --> 01:04:47,360
Speaker 1: corrupt Afghan officials, and of course the Taliban drug dealers.

1230
01:04:47,720 --> 01:04:51,000
Speaker 1: The people who lose are the working class men and

1231
01:04:51,080 --> 01:04:54,600
Speaker 1: women who actually had to fight this war, and of

1232
01:04:54,600 --> 01:04:58,360
Speaker 1: course the Afghan people who were mostly used as ponds

1233
01:04:58,440 --> 01:05:02,920
Speaker 1: in this entire game. Yesterday was a tragedy, certainly, but

1234
01:05:03,000 --> 01:05:05,960
Speaker 1: I choose to stand up for what I believe, ending

1235
01:05:06,080 --> 01:05:09,800
Speaker 1: the endless war. It is not pretty. Being anti endless

1236
01:05:09,840 --> 01:05:12,800
Speaker 1: war requires telling the truth. It's real easy for me

1237
01:05:12,880 --> 01:05:15,680
Speaker 1: to say, yeah, I'm against the Afghan war, we should

1238
01:05:15,680 --> 01:05:17,960
Speaker 1: get out. It's harder to say this to see the

1239
01:05:18,000 --> 01:05:20,960
Speaker 1: Taliban rolling into Kabble and saying, you know what, I

1240
01:05:21,080 --> 01:05:24,000
Speaker 1: accept that. Saying you're against the US invasion of Iraq,

1241
01:05:24,160 --> 01:05:27,200
Speaker 1: that's easy. It's harder to say this. I was okay

1242
01:05:27,680 --> 01:05:31,320
Speaker 1: not taking the ultimate step by stopping Saddam Hussein from

1243
01:05:31,400 --> 01:05:35,040
Speaker 1: gassing women and children. That's the truth. The lesson of

1244
01:05:35,080 --> 01:05:37,480
Speaker 1: the Afghan war is that we just have to tell it,

1245
01:05:37,880 --> 01:05:40,320
Speaker 1: have to tell the truth. It's horrific and it's hard

1246
01:05:40,320 --> 01:05:42,720
Speaker 1: to confront, but the lies are what got us into

1247
01:05:42,720 --> 01:05:45,240
Speaker 1: this mess, and the lies are what kept us there

1248
01:05:45,360 --> 01:05:48,000
Speaker 1: for so long. Only Joe Biden was willing to stand

1249
01:05:48,080 --> 01:05:50,840
Speaker 1: up and say the truth. It is not on us

1250
01:05:51,080 --> 01:05:54,479
Speaker 1: whatever happens to that country. We did a lot and more,

1251
01:05:54,640 --> 01:05:57,080
Speaker 1: and from here on out, it's on them and they

1252
01:05:57,120 --> 01:05:59,760
Speaker 1: made their choice. I support him for saying that, even

1253
01:05:59,760 --> 01:06:02,000
Speaker 1: though I have serious doubts about him as a leader

1254
01:06:02,040 --> 01:06:04,919
Speaker 1: in many other respects. I'll end with the real consequences.

1255
01:06:05,640 --> 01:06:07,320
Speaker 1: I was in France for the last week. I had

1256
01:06:07,320 --> 01:06:09,360
Speaker 1: the chance to indulge long interest of mine. I walked

1257
01:06:09,360 --> 01:06:12,040
Speaker 1: the battlefields of the Psalm from World War One, and

1258
01:06:12,080 --> 01:06:14,160
Speaker 1: the thing that strikes you while they are there is

1259
01:06:14,240 --> 01:06:18,880
Speaker 1: driving along the road and you see cemeteries everywhere, every hill,

1260
01:06:19,240 --> 01:06:22,960
Speaker 1: every divot, every group of trees. And in those cemeteries

1261
01:06:23,120 --> 01:06:26,480
Speaker 1: there was a grave that sticks with me. Private VJ. Strugwit.

1262
01:06:26,800 --> 01:06:29,160
Speaker 1: His photo of gravestone is right there on the screen.

1263
01:06:29,360 --> 01:06:33,760
Speaker 1: He's fifteen years old. He died on January fourteenth, nineteen sixteen,

1264
01:06:34,120 --> 01:06:38,800
Speaker 1: fighting for ground which was taken, retaken, taken, retaken again

1265
01:06:39,320 --> 01:06:42,160
Speaker 1: for what fifteen years old. Those are the people who

1266
01:06:42,160 --> 01:06:45,280
Speaker 1: pay the price, not the liars here in Washington. Ending

1267
01:06:45,360 --> 01:06:48,080
Speaker 1: this war means honoring the legacy of the millions of

1268
01:06:48,120 --> 01:06:51,840
Speaker 1: young men and women who senselessly sacrificed for nothing, and

1269
01:06:51,920 --> 01:06:54,960
Speaker 1: confronting the truth of who we really are. Because to

1270
01:06:54,960 --> 01:06:58,680
Speaker 1: the State Crystal, over a million people have deployed to Afghanistan.

1271
01:06:58,880 --> 01:07:01,360
Speaker 1: One more thing I promise. Just wanted to make sure

1272
01:07:01,400 --> 01:07:04,520
Speaker 1: you knew about my podcast with Kyle Kolinski. It's called Crystal,

1273
01:07:04,600 --> 01:07:07,080
Speaker 1: Kyle and Friends, where we do long form interviews with

1274
01:07:07,120 --> 01:07:10,600
Speaker 1: people like Noam Chomsky, Cornell West, and Glenn Greenwald. You

1275
01:07:10,600 --> 01:07:14,040
Speaker 1: can listen on any podcast platform, or you can subscribe

1276
01:07:14,080 --> 01:07:16,320
Speaker 1: over on substack to get the video a day early.

1277
01:07:16,560 --> 01:07:19,960
Speaker 1: We're going to stop bugging you now enjoy. What are

1278
01:07:20,000 --> 01:07:25,080
Speaker 1: you taking a look at? Crystal Well? Fox News. On Friday,

1279
01:07:25,280 --> 01:07:28,000
Speaker 1: Laura Ingram invited on John Tafra, he is host of

1280
01:07:28,000 --> 01:07:30,840
Speaker 1: Bar Rescue, for a little chat about jobless workers. Here's

1281
01:07:30,880 --> 01:07:33,840
Speaker 1: how that went. I'm not an economic professor. If you

1282
01:07:33,920 --> 01:07:37,440
Speaker 1: get eight hundred dollars a week unemployment benefits and you

1283
01:07:37,520 --> 01:07:39,920
Speaker 1: live with a partner who also is getting eight hundred

1284
01:07:39,960 --> 01:07:43,120
Speaker 1: dollars a week on employment benefits, sixteen hundred a week

1285
01:07:43,200 --> 01:07:46,840
Speaker 1: law eighty three thousand dollars a year for that household

1286
01:07:47,080 --> 01:07:50,480
Speaker 1: and unemployment benefits. The median income in America is only

1287
01:07:50,560 --> 01:07:54,840
Speaker 1: sixty three thousand. We're incentivizing people to stay home. What

1288
01:07:54,880 --> 01:07:58,640
Speaker 1: if we gave that additional unemployment benefits to employers to

1289
01:07:58,800 --> 01:08:01,680
Speaker 1: incentivize people to go to work? Well, what if we

1290
01:08:01,800 --> 01:08:05,800
Speaker 1: just cut off the unemployment. I mean hunger is Hunger

1291
01:08:05,880 --> 01:08:08,200
Speaker 1: is a pretty powerful thing. I don't mean physical hunger,

1292
01:08:08,200 --> 01:08:10,880
Speaker 1: because people who truly are in need need help. I'm

1293
01:08:10,880 --> 01:08:14,200
Speaker 1: talking about people who can work but refuse to work.

1294
01:08:14,600 --> 01:08:19,160
Speaker 1: But the government is literally putting anvils in many ways

1295
01:08:19,160 --> 01:08:22,760
Speaker 1: on people's shoulders, either through the mandates, regulations, and now

1296
01:08:22,800 --> 01:08:25,639
Speaker 1: through free money, which obviously we're all gonna the piper

1297
01:08:25,680 --> 01:08:28,880
Speaker 1: eventually has to be paid. John, I want to ask

1298
01:08:28,960 --> 01:08:33,160
Speaker 1: you though about this idea of work life balance, because look,

1299
01:08:33,240 --> 01:08:34,960
Speaker 1: no one wants to miss their kids growing up. No

1300
01:08:34,960 --> 01:08:37,639
Speaker 1: one wants to You stay in the office your whole life,

1301
01:08:38,120 --> 01:08:42,160
Speaker 1: you never see your family, So that's really important. However,

1302
01:08:43,200 --> 01:08:46,000
Speaker 1: have we taken that a step too far when you

1303
01:08:46,040 --> 01:08:48,479
Speaker 1: think of well, a lot of the millennials talking about, well,

1304
01:08:48,479 --> 01:08:50,840
Speaker 1: I need time for self care. I don't know why

1305
01:08:50,880 --> 01:08:53,920
Speaker 1: I'm harping on that tonight, but the whole self care

1306
01:08:54,040 --> 01:08:56,920
Speaker 1: movement is a little I mean, my mother is not

1307
01:08:56,960 --> 01:08:58,720
Speaker 1: with us anymore, but she worked by the time she

1308
01:08:58,800 --> 01:09:01,240
Speaker 1: was twelve during the depression. If she heard the self

1309
01:09:01,240 --> 01:09:04,640
Speaker 1: care thing, I think her head would explode, you know,

1310
01:09:04,680 --> 01:09:06,400
Speaker 1: I think that's right. I have a friend in the

1311
01:09:06,439 --> 01:09:10,040
Speaker 1: military who trains military dogs, Laura, and they only feed

1312
01:09:10,080 --> 01:09:12,880
Speaker 1: a military dog at night because a hungry dog is

1313
01:09:12,920 --> 01:09:16,439
Speaker 1: an obedient dog. Well, if we're not causing people to

1314
01:09:16,520 --> 01:09:20,320
Speaker 1: be hungry to work, then we're providing them with all

1315
01:09:20,360 --> 01:09:23,439
Speaker 1: the meals they need sitting at home. I'm completely with you, lord,

1316
01:09:23,479 --> 01:09:26,439
Speaker 1: These benefits make absolutely no sense to us. And on

1317
01:09:26,520 --> 01:09:28,920
Speaker 1: top of the impact of not getting employees and not

1318
01:09:28,960 --> 01:09:31,639
Speaker 1: being able to run our businesses. In my industry where

1319
01:09:31,640 --> 01:09:34,599
Speaker 1: we have meat prices are up ten percent, chicken prices

1320
01:09:34,600 --> 01:09:37,439
Speaker 1: are up. Fish is killing. Is killing is going to

1321
01:09:37,560 --> 01:09:39,800
Speaker 1: kill business. I mean it's going to That's the next

1322
01:09:39,800 --> 01:09:44,639
Speaker 1: shoot to drive the Democrats. Wow. So they really kind

1323
01:09:44,640 --> 01:09:46,519
Speaker 1: of gave up the game there, didn't They Just two

1324
01:09:46,600 --> 01:09:49,640
Speaker 1: millionaires casually suggesting that the jobless be cut off and

1325
01:09:49,720 --> 01:09:53,479
Speaker 1: starfleg dogs to force them back into waiting tables, cooking meals,

1326
01:09:53,479 --> 01:09:56,200
Speaker 1: and serving drinks to the well off. Worth noting that

1327
01:09:56,280 --> 01:09:59,320
Speaker 1: in the restaurant industry, Taffer is particularly focused on the

1328
01:09:59,360 --> 01:10:02,040
Speaker 1: tipped minimum wage as a whole two dollars and thirteen

1329
01:10:02,080 --> 01:10:05,280
Speaker 1: cents per hour. Can't imagine why people might be reluctant

1330
01:10:05,360 --> 01:10:07,840
Speaker 1: to jump back in, especially with a variant surging that

1331
01:10:07,920 --> 01:10:10,880
Speaker 1: is freaking people out and keeping them home again. There

1332
01:10:10,960 --> 01:10:12,960
Speaker 1: is so much going on here it's hard to honestly

1333
01:10:13,040 --> 01:10:14,759
Speaker 1: even know where to start. I do want to dispel

1334
01:10:14,840 --> 01:10:17,000
Speaker 1: this myth that somehow Americans are getting lazy and just

1335
01:10:17,000 --> 01:10:18,840
Speaker 1: going to spas for self care all the time, or

1336
01:10:18,880 --> 01:10:22,599
Speaker 1: indulging in endless mental health days. Some reality, Americans work

1337
01:10:22,680 --> 01:10:25,519
Speaker 1: more hours each week than their peers and other developed nations,

1338
01:10:25,560 --> 01:10:27,400
Speaker 1: one hundred and thirty seven more hours per year than

1339
01:10:27,479 --> 01:10:30,160
Speaker 1: Japanese workers, two hundred and sixty more per year than

1340
01:10:30,160 --> 01:10:32,599
Speaker 1: British workers, and four hundred and ninety nine more hours

1341
01:10:32,640 --> 01:10:34,960
Speaker 1: per year than French workers, Not that I think that's

1342
01:10:35,000 --> 01:10:37,599
Speaker 1: a good thing, by the way. What's more, the typical

1343
01:10:37,600 --> 01:10:40,200
Speaker 1: American family works far more hours than their grandparents did

1344
01:10:40,240 --> 01:10:42,439
Speaker 1: in the days of your lore so fondly harkens back to,

1345
01:10:42,600 --> 01:10:46,280
Speaker 1: primarily because women have fully entered the workforce, layering full

1346
01:10:46,320 --> 01:10:49,280
Speaker 1: time employment on top of the household duties which women

1347
01:10:49,520 --> 01:10:52,760
Speaker 1: still primarily handle, and meaning that many households have two

1348
01:10:52,760 --> 01:10:55,400
Speaker 1: full time workers rather than one, as was the case

1349
01:10:55,439 --> 01:10:59,000
Speaker 1: in those glory days of yester year. But the deeper

1350
01:10:59,040 --> 01:11:01,880
Speaker 1: issue here is that this whole way of thinking about

1351
01:11:01,960 --> 01:11:06,600
Speaker 1: human beings. Business in the economy is disturbing and downright sociopathic.

1352
01:11:07,080 --> 01:11:09,639
Speaker 1: Workers are not treated as people with needs and wants

1353
01:11:09,640 --> 01:11:13,160
Speaker 1: and dreams and aspirations. Nope, they are just the inefficient,

1354
01:11:13,280 --> 01:11:16,400
Speaker 1: inefficient flesh robots used to get the wealthy either damned drinks,

1355
01:11:16,640 --> 01:11:18,599
Speaker 1: or drive them around, or clean their houses or drop

1356
01:11:18,640 --> 01:11:22,360
Speaker 1: their packages on their doorstep. Any devindation from this absolute

1357
01:11:22,400 --> 01:11:26,080
Speaker 1: obedience is completely unacceptable, according to these people. Now, you

1358
01:11:26,120 --> 01:11:28,080
Speaker 1: could make a good deal with workers, You could lift

1359
01:11:28,080 --> 01:11:30,879
Speaker 1: their wages, you could give them healthcare, reasonable working schedules,

1360
01:11:30,920 --> 01:11:33,920
Speaker 1: et cetera. But that might impose some minor costs on

1361
01:11:33,920 --> 01:11:36,080
Speaker 1: the upper class. So, in the view of Laura John

1362
01:11:36,120 --> 01:11:38,360
Speaker 1: and by the way, plotting more like them, the solution

1363
01:11:38,520 --> 01:11:41,920
Speaker 1: is obvious. Just starve them, threaten them with eviction, hunger,

1364
01:11:42,120 --> 01:11:44,960
Speaker 1: the desperate shame of poverty the America insists we heap

1365
01:11:45,040 --> 01:11:49,000
Speaker 1: upon the poor because, in this sadly dominant worldview, workers

1366
01:11:49,040 --> 01:11:51,840
Speaker 1: exist to serve the rich and the macroeconomy, rather than

1367
01:11:51,920 --> 01:11:55,760
Speaker 1: the economy existing to serve the people. This is the

1368
01:11:55,800 --> 01:11:58,800
Speaker 1: domini ethos held not just by Republicans, but quite a

1369
01:11:58,840 --> 01:12:02,320
Speaker 1: few Democrats as well. After all, it was only under

1370
01:12:02,360 --> 01:12:06,720
Speaker 1: duress that the eviction moratorium was extended, the expanded unemployment

1371
01:12:06,720 --> 01:12:09,320
Speaker 1: program will be allowed to lapse, kicking millions of gig

1372
01:12:09,320 --> 01:12:12,920
Speaker 1: workers and freelancers off of that program. Fifteen dollars minimum

1373
01:12:12,920 --> 01:12:16,519
Speaker 1: wage hike is nowhere near reality, even as Democrats control

1374
01:12:16,680 --> 01:12:20,040
Speaker 1: every single lever of power. Now, I should add, Taffer

1375
01:12:20,120 --> 01:12:23,160
Speaker 1: has apologized for his whole starved them like Dog's comments,

1376
01:12:23,200 --> 01:12:26,559
Speaker 1: saying his remarks were quote an unfortunate attempt to express

1377
01:12:26,600 --> 01:12:29,840
Speaker 1: a desire for our lives to return to normal. I

1378
01:12:29,880 --> 01:12:32,559
Speaker 1: suppose for the rich, normal does in fact mean workers

1379
01:12:32,640 --> 01:12:35,799
Speaker 1: jumping right back into wage slavery. But don't be surprised

1380
01:12:35,840 --> 01:12:38,280
Speaker 1: if we hear more of these revealing quiet part out

1381
01:12:38,280 --> 01:12:42,599
Speaker 1: loud moments elite panic about insubordinate workers accidentally being spoken

1382
01:12:42,640 --> 01:12:44,559
Speaker 1: in public rather than kept to the salons of the

1383
01:12:44,600 --> 01:12:47,440
Speaker 1: wealthy and the powerful, where such talk is normally sequestered.

1384
01:12:47,960 --> 01:12:51,280
Speaker 1: Because actually, there are some signs that workers are becoming

1385
01:12:51,400 --> 01:12:55,439
Speaker 1: somewhat less obedient and experiencing a tiny uptick in power

1386
01:12:55,720 --> 01:12:58,200
Speaker 1: for the first time in a generation. In that way,

1387
01:12:58,280 --> 01:13:01,599
Speaker 1: I suppose Laura and Taffer are not wrong. Workers are

1388
01:13:01,640 --> 01:13:05,639
Speaker 1: being choosier in their employment, They're moving industries, they're seeing

1389
01:13:05,640 --> 01:13:08,080
Speaker 1: wage gains for the first time in forty years. They're

1390
01:13:08,080 --> 01:13:11,760
Speaker 1: even striking and protesting and holding union elections. This very

1391
01:13:11,760 --> 01:13:14,879
Speaker 1: small assertion of power has been virtually unknown in America

1392
01:13:14,920 --> 01:13:17,679
Speaker 1: since the Reagan years. The star of them like dogs

1393
01:13:17,720 --> 01:13:21,840
Speaker 1: Ethos has dominated through Democratic and Republican administrations alike, as

1394
01:13:21,840 --> 01:13:23,840
Speaker 1: the social safety net has been cut and cut and

1395
01:13:23,840 --> 01:13:25,880
Speaker 1: cut at the same time that taxes for the rich

1396
01:13:25,920 --> 01:13:28,400
Speaker 1: have been cut and cut and cut. But now there

1397
01:13:28,439 --> 01:13:30,960
Speaker 1: is a tiny glimmer of something a little bit different,

1398
01:13:31,160 --> 01:13:33,920
Speaker 1: a great rethink that I believe owes to at least

1399
01:13:33,920 --> 01:13:37,000
Speaker 1: three factors. First of all, the pandemic separated workers from

1400
01:13:37,040 --> 01:13:39,639
Speaker 1: their employment, forcing them to reconsider what they were doing,

1401
01:13:39,640 --> 01:13:42,680
Speaker 1: whether they wanted to or not. Second, some small but

1402
01:13:42,760 --> 01:13:46,360
Speaker 1: significant cash benefits were administered through direct aid unemployment in

1403
01:13:46,400 --> 01:13:48,880
Speaker 1: the child Tax Credit, which has in fact given folks

1404
01:13:48,920 --> 01:13:51,120
Speaker 1: a little bit of breathing room and ability to evaluate

1405
01:13:51,120 --> 01:13:55,599
Speaker 1: their options. And finally, the pandemic effectively took some of

1406
01:13:55,640 --> 01:13:58,679
Speaker 1: the social shame out of joblessness and out of struggle.

1407
01:13:58,960 --> 01:14:02,519
Speaker 1: The government institute a society wide policy of job loss,

1408
01:14:02,560 --> 01:14:05,160
Speaker 1: and they were upfront about it. Even the most skilled

1409
01:14:05,240 --> 01:14:08,120
Speaker 1: Fox News propagandas could not turn that state of affairs

1410
01:14:08,160 --> 01:14:12,479
Speaker 1: into some personal responsibility narrative. There was no bootstrapping during

1411
01:14:12,520 --> 01:14:14,960
Speaker 1: a pandemic that was killing hundreds of thousands and shuttering

1412
01:14:15,000 --> 01:14:18,920
Speaker 1: schools and businesses and everything else. So I suppose the

1413
01:14:18,960 --> 01:14:21,040
Speaker 1: powers of beer feeling a little bit nervous that they've

1414
01:14:21,040 --> 01:14:22,920
Speaker 1: lost their iron grip on the narrative and on those

1415
01:14:22,960 --> 01:14:26,519
Speaker 1: disobedient workers, starting to feel like something must be done

1416
01:14:26,600 --> 01:14:29,400
Speaker 1: here to get these workers back in line. Well, all

1417
01:14:29,439 --> 01:14:31,400
Speaker 1: I have to say is that if your plan is

1418
01:14:31,439 --> 01:14:34,200
Speaker 1: to starve workers like dogs, don't be surprised when they

1419
01:14:34,200 --> 01:14:36,680
Speaker 1: turn around and eat the rich and Sager. We were

1420
01:14:36,720 --> 01:14:39,880
Speaker 1: talking earlier about the way that so many of these

1421
01:14:40,040 --> 01:14:43,680
Speaker 1: talking had people joining us. Now a great guest, Richard Hannania,

1422
01:14:43,680 --> 01:14:45,680
Speaker 1: old friend of the show. He's the president of the

1423
01:14:45,720 --> 01:14:50,439
Speaker 1: CSPI Center, fellow with Defense Priorities, longtime friend, and somebody

1424
01:14:50,439 --> 01:14:52,720
Speaker 1: that we turned to for insight. Richard, Thanks for joining us, man,

1425
01:14:52,760 --> 01:14:55,400
Speaker 1: appreciate it. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it. Richard.

1426
01:14:55,400 --> 01:14:57,599
Speaker 1: You've been one of the most I think clairvoyant voices

1427
01:14:57,640 --> 01:15:01,080
Speaker 1: on this. I see a lot of people out there saying, oh,

1428
01:15:01,200 --> 01:15:03,200
Speaker 1: Joe Biden could have done more if we should have

1429
01:15:03,280 --> 01:15:07,280
Speaker 1: planned more for an exit from Afghanistan. How is this

1430
01:15:07,400 --> 01:15:11,080
Speaker 1: all a complete mess? What would have that actually entailed, Richard?

1431
01:15:11,080 --> 01:15:14,760
Speaker 1: What were our actual options in Afghanistan to try and

1432
01:15:14,880 --> 01:15:18,280
Speaker 1: mitigate the disaster that we see before us right now? Yeah,

1433
01:15:18,360 --> 01:15:20,200
Speaker 1: I mean the war was such a you know, such

1434
01:15:20,200 --> 01:15:22,720
Speaker 1: a terrible disaster. And there's so many anecdotes you could

1435
01:15:22,760 --> 01:15:25,360
Speaker 1: pick from to just sort of demonstrate that point. But

1436
01:15:25,400 --> 01:15:27,200
Speaker 1: one of my favorites, and maybe the thing that stands

1437
01:15:27,200 --> 01:15:30,280
Speaker 1: out to me most is in twenty eighteen sixty minutes,

1438
01:15:30,360 --> 01:15:33,120
Speaker 1: Laura Logan went to Afghanistan and they talked to the

1439
01:15:33,120 --> 01:15:35,559
Speaker 1: top general there, and what he basically told her was

1440
01:15:35,640 --> 01:15:38,519
Speaker 1: that US had not secured the road between the US

1441
01:15:38,600 --> 01:15:41,479
Speaker 1: embassy and the airport. That's about a two mile road,

1442
01:15:41,520 --> 01:15:44,920
Speaker 1: it's a straight line, and they had to travel by helicopter.

1443
01:15:45,000 --> 01:15:46,880
Speaker 1: I mean, these are the two most important places, you know,

1444
01:15:46,880 --> 01:15:50,680
Speaker 1: the Kappl Airport and the US embassy. And so I

1445
01:15:50,720 --> 01:15:53,320
Speaker 1: think the people what they really don't understand is that

1446
01:15:53,360 --> 01:15:57,120
Speaker 1: the US is massively incompetent. We can't do anything in Afghanistan.

1447
01:15:57,200 --> 01:16:00,759
Speaker 1: We spend trillions of dollars. The entire government was a phantom.

1448
01:16:00,800 --> 01:16:03,679
Speaker 1: It didn't exist. It had control over maybe a few buildings,

1449
01:16:04,000 --> 01:16:06,360
Speaker 1: maybe a few uh you know, parts of a few

1450
01:16:06,360 --> 01:16:09,320
Speaker 1: provincial capitals and cities, but there really was no government

1451
01:16:09,360 --> 01:16:12,680
Speaker 1: to actually speak of. So the US is getting out.

1452
01:16:12,720 --> 01:16:14,800
Speaker 1: When the US gets out, a lot of people are

1453
01:16:15,080 --> 01:16:17,280
Speaker 1: gonna want to come with. Even when even during peacetime,

1454
01:16:17,320 --> 01:16:19,479
Speaker 1: a lot of people want to leave Afghanistan. A lot

1455
01:16:19,479 --> 01:16:21,280
Speaker 1: of people would take a trip to the US if

1456
01:16:21,280 --> 01:16:24,920
Speaker 1: they could. So even if you theoretically got out every uh,

1457
01:16:25,040 --> 01:16:27,439
Speaker 1: you know, every Afghan translator, everybody who worked with the

1458
01:16:27,560 --> 01:16:30,560
Speaker 1: United States, that's difficult. I mean, there's legal hurdles that

1459
01:16:30,920 --> 01:16:33,720
Speaker 1: you know, there's there's there's laws that the administration has

1460
01:16:33,760 --> 01:16:36,880
Speaker 1: to has to live under and work with. Even if

1461
01:16:36,920 --> 01:16:38,920
Speaker 1: you did that, the airport would get swamped. Now the

1462
01:16:39,040 --> 01:16:41,760
Speaker 1: US can't drive to the airport, right it has to

1463
01:16:41,760 --> 01:16:43,439
Speaker 1: go to help. It gots to go there to helicopter.

1464
01:16:43,600 --> 01:16:45,920
Speaker 1: So you you you know this, this is what people

1465
01:16:45,920 --> 01:16:48,679
Speaker 1: are seeing. They're seeing the uh they're seeing the scenes

1466
01:16:48,720 --> 01:16:51,000
Speaker 1: from the airport where the Afghans crowding there. And you

1467
01:16:51,240 --> 01:16:53,000
Speaker 1: you have to believe is that the US, who could

1468
01:16:53,000 --> 01:16:56,080
Speaker 1: not do anything in twenty years in Afghanistan, if it

1469
01:16:56,160 --> 01:16:58,800
Speaker 1: stayed for a few more months, it would have competently

1470
01:16:58,920 --> 01:17:03,440
Speaker 1: run the Kabble Airport under the most desperate conditions imaginable.

1471
01:17:03,560 --> 01:17:05,559
Speaker 1: That's what the Warhawks are saying. That's what they're saying.

1472
01:17:05,560 --> 01:17:07,559
Speaker 1: Give us a few more months and this would have happened,

1473
01:17:07,600 --> 01:17:10,400
Speaker 1: and it would have been somewhat of a clean withdrawal.

1474
01:17:10,600 --> 01:17:15,000
Speaker 1: Biden already delayed the withdrawal. Trump and Trump had a

1475
01:17:15,040 --> 01:17:16,479
Speaker 1: deal that said we were going to leave in May.

1476
01:17:16,680 --> 01:17:19,920
Speaker 1: Biden delayed it, and people were wondering why Biden was

1477
01:17:19,920 --> 01:17:22,160
Speaker 1: delaying it. Was this just a plan to stay long term?

1478
01:17:22,280 --> 01:17:25,920
Speaker 1: Or was it that what Biden actually said that there

1479
01:17:26,000 --> 01:17:29,000
Speaker 1: was logistical problems and that basically the Trump administration didn't

1480
01:17:29,000 --> 01:17:31,240
Speaker 1: cooperate and they needed more time to work it out.

1481
01:17:32,600 --> 01:17:34,599
Speaker 1: Since that time, I mean, I think we've seen pretty

1482
01:17:34,600 --> 01:17:36,720
Speaker 1: clearly that Biden actually does want to get out. So

1483
01:17:36,840 --> 01:17:40,280
Speaker 1: I think the most most reasonable assumption is that he

1484
01:17:40,360 --> 01:17:42,000
Speaker 1: was telling the truth at the time that they were

1485
01:17:42,120 --> 01:17:45,120
Speaker 1: actually trying and this was the best that they can do.

1486
01:17:45,160 --> 01:17:47,960
Speaker 1: This was probably the best any administration could do, because

1487
01:17:48,000 --> 01:17:49,880
Speaker 1: we just have to learn our limits. I think people

1488
01:17:50,080 --> 01:17:52,000
Speaker 1: haven't realized that. They just think, oh, we could have

1489
01:17:52,000 --> 01:17:54,519
Speaker 1: done a little bit better, Oh, plan the evacuation better,

1490
01:17:54,640 --> 01:17:56,680
Speaker 1: you know, fight the insurgency a little bit better, give

1491
01:17:56,680 --> 01:17:58,439
Speaker 1: it a little more time. These are the same arguments

1492
01:17:58,439 --> 01:18:02,160
Speaker 1: we've seen throughout the wars, throughout the war, and you know,

1493
01:18:02,520 --> 01:18:03,920
Speaker 1: a couple months, a couple of years. I mean, it's

1494
01:18:03,920 --> 01:18:06,200
Speaker 1: the Biden administration of saying would not have made a difference.

1495
01:18:06,240 --> 01:18:08,280
Speaker 1: There was just it was just time to get out. Yeah.

1496
01:18:08,320 --> 01:18:10,040
Speaker 1: I mean what we're seeing right now is not an

1497
01:18:10,040 --> 01:18:12,439
Speaker 1: indictment so much as the of the Biden administration, as

1498
01:18:12,479 --> 01:18:14,880
Speaker 1: it is all of the hawks, all of the neocons,

1499
01:18:14,960 --> 01:18:16,960
Speaker 1: all of the administrations that were happy to push this

1500
01:18:17,040 --> 01:18:19,120
Speaker 1: to the next president, push this to the next president.

1501
01:18:19,520 --> 01:18:22,320
Speaker 1: That's the real indictment that the hawks that you're referring to.

1502
01:18:22,360 --> 01:18:24,520
Speaker 1: I mean, the fact that they got it's so incredibly

1503
01:18:24,640 --> 01:18:27,280
Speaker 1: wrong and we're happy to lie to people time and

1504
01:18:27,280 --> 01:18:30,080
Speaker 1: time again, and now we're supposed to listen to them

1505
01:18:30,600 --> 01:18:34,080
Speaker 1: is completely absurd to me. Ultimately, what the Biden administration

1506
01:18:34,160 --> 01:18:36,960
Speaker 1: has been arguing is basically like, look, if we had

1507
01:18:37,000 --> 01:18:39,680
Speaker 1: stayed longer as you all are saying, and planned, but

1508
01:18:39,880 --> 01:18:42,040
Speaker 1: taken time to plan better or get more of our

1509
01:18:42,080 --> 01:18:44,559
Speaker 1: people out, we would have found ourselves in the middle

1510
01:18:44,600 --> 01:18:47,160
Speaker 1: of a hot civil war. Could you just unfold what

1511
01:18:47,240 --> 01:18:50,360
Speaker 1: that scenario, what that alternative that many many, many are

1512
01:18:50,400 --> 01:18:54,479
Speaker 1: advocating for now, what that would have actually looked like. Yeah,

1513
01:18:54,560 --> 01:18:57,000
Speaker 1: I mean it's incredible. I mean the arguments that are

1514
01:18:57,000 --> 01:18:59,360
Speaker 1: being made. So Adam Kinzinger was on a Twitter and

1515
01:18:59,400 --> 01:19:02,000
Speaker 1: he was saying, we had a lot more troops ten

1516
01:19:02,080 --> 01:19:04,960
Speaker 1: years ago, and we haven't taken a casualty, you know,

1517
01:19:05,120 --> 01:19:06,439
Speaker 1: in a year, in a year and a half or

1518
01:19:06,439 --> 01:19:09,200
Speaker 1: something like that. And so, you know, things were getting better,

1519
01:19:09,360 --> 01:19:11,880
Speaker 1: and everyone knows that the reason that we weren't hopefully

1520
01:19:11,880 --> 01:19:13,960
Speaker 1: everyone knows enough people know that the reason we weren't

1521
01:19:14,000 --> 01:19:17,160
Speaker 1: taking casualties was that the Taliban had reached a deal

1522
01:19:17,200 --> 01:19:19,360
Speaker 1: with the Trump administration. What was going on when the

1523
01:19:19,439 --> 01:19:22,639
Speaker 1: US wasn't taking casualties, Well, the Taliban was making games.

1524
01:19:22,680 --> 01:19:24,479
Speaker 1: You could go look at the maps, what was happening

1525
01:19:24,680 --> 01:19:28,799
Speaker 1: month by month, year by year, and so they actually

1526
01:19:29,040 --> 01:19:31,360
Speaker 1: So Kinzicker comes and now turns it around and says,

1527
01:19:31,360 --> 01:19:33,400
Speaker 1: this is this is a sign of progress. I mean,

1528
01:19:33,479 --> 01:19:35,639
Speaker 1: it's a joke. And so if you stayed, what would

1529
01:19:35,680 --> 01:19:37,720
Speaker 1: you what situation you would be in now? Is that

1530
01:19:37,760 --> 01:19:41,080
Speaker 1: basically you're under you're in worse shape than you ever were.

1531
01:19:41,360 --> 01:19:44,760
Speaker 1: I mean, the the you know, the arguments don't ever change.

1532
01:19:44,760 --> 01:19:47,360
Speaker 1: It's always given us a few more months. Pompeo says,

1533
01:19:47,400 --> 01:19:51,240
Speaker 1: make it conditions based. Conditions based is basically an argument

1534
01:19:51,280 --> 01:19:53,320
Speaker 1: of people who never want to leave. The entire point

1535
01:19:53,360 --> 01:19:56,120
Speaker 1: of this war, the entire point of why, the entire

1536
01:19:56,120 --> 01:19:58,599
Speaker 1: point of understanding how incompetent we've been, is that conditions

1537
01:19:58,600 --> 01:20:01,680
Speaker 1: are never good. That's why it's such a disaster, and

1538
01:20:01,720 --> 01:20:03,320
Speaker 1: so things weren't going to get better. The only thing

1539
01:20:03,320 --> 01:20:06,040
Speaker 1: that's actually if there's any if there's anything that's changing

1540
01:20:06,080 --> 01:20:08,400
Speaker 1: over time, is that our position is getting worse. And

1541
01:20:08,439 --> 01:20:11,800
Speaker 1: we've tried a lot. I mean, we had the Bush

1542
01:20:11,840 --> 01:20:14,080
Speaker 1: administration more of a hands off approach, went into a

1543
01:20:14,160 --> 01:20:16,200
Speaker 1: rock that was people criticize that, you know, it was

1544
01:20:16,200 --> 01:20:19,280
Speaker 1: actually more stable under the Bush administration. Obama comes in

1545
01:20:19,320 --> 01:20:22,479
Speaker 1: and he's boxed in by the generals. He sends a

1546
01:20:22,479 --> 01:20:25,000
Speaker 1: troop surge over one hundred thousand troops. Violence goes up,

1547
01:20:25,600 --> 01:20:28,680
Speaker 1: the government starts the money just you know, goes into

1548
01:20:28,720 --> 01:20:32,639
Speaker 1: the pockets of the warlords and fuels corruption. American desks

1549
01:20:32,640 --> 01:20:35,479
Speaker 1: go up, Afghan civilian dests go up, the government loses,

1550
01:20:35,880 --> 01:20:38,120
Speaker 1: the government loses territory. Trump comes in, he sends it,

1551
01:20:38,240 --> 01:20:40,679
Speaker 1: he's again, sends in more troops. He ups the bombing campaign.

1552
01:20:40,720 --> 01:20:44,280
Speaker 1: So it's a completely different strategy. It's not coin counterinsurgency

1553
01:20:44,360 --> 01:20:46,960
Speaker 1: like Obama boots it on the ground as much. It's

1554
01:20:47,000 --> 01:20:50,719
Speaker 1: just bombing from the air. The Taliban gains more territory.

1555
01:20:50,760 --> 01:20:52,559
Speaker 1: So it's like the harder you try, the worse it gets.

1556
01:20:52,560 --> 01:20:55,760
Speaker 1: The only consistency is we keep failing, and we keep

1557
01:20:55,760 --> 01:20:59,400
Speaker 1: failing consistently, and there, you know, the hawks are always

1558
01:20:59,400 --> 01:21:01,640
Speaker 1: there saying just a little bit more time. I mean,

1559
01:21:01,680 --> 01:21:04,360
Speaker 1: I'm glad we finally. I mean, this is you know,

1560
01:21:04,680 --> 01:21:07,840
Speaker 1: there's you see these things reoccurring, and I've been watching

1561
01:21:07,840 --> 01:21:10,320
Speaker 1: this for years and it's refreshing to see a president

1562
01:21:10,360 --> 01:21:12,439
Speaker 1: who just came in and said no more. I mean,

1563
01:21:12,479 --> 01:21:14,719
Speaker 1: this is political courage. And I think everyone should acknowledge

1564
01:21:14,720 --> 01:21:17,200
Speaker 1: that we've been saying the same thing all day. This

1565
01:21:17,240 --> 01:21:19,120
Speaker 1: is the most presidential thing I've ever seen. I've never

1566
01:21:19,160 --> 01:21:21,720
Speaker 1: respected Joe Maiden Moore than for standing up against the

1567
01:21:21,760 --> 01:21:24,960
Speaker 1: media and saying no, I'm absolutely not going to bow down.

1568
01:21:25,200 --> 01:21:27,080
Speaker 1: I want to drill down into that, Richard, I keep

1569
01:21:27,080 --> 01:21:29,840
Speaker 1: hearing this constantly. Oh Soger, We you didn't know, we

1570
01:21:29,880 --> 01:21:32,840
Speaker 1: haven't lost a soldier there since February of twenty twenty. Yeah,

1571
01:21:32,880 --> 01:21:35,800
Speaker 1: because we have a peace deal. So let's go through this.

1572
01:21:36,280 --> 01:21:39,720
Speaker 1: We violate the peace deal, we say we're going to

1573
01:21:39,800 --> 01:21:42,680
Speaker 1: take six more months or whatever in order to evacuate

1574
01:21:42,720 --> 01:21:46,240
Speaker 1: our people. What happens, Richard, what is the actual like,

1575
01:21:46,320 --> 01:21:48,439
Speaker 1: what what is the policy consequence of that? It is

1576
01:21:48,560 --> 01:21:53,360
Speaker 1: dead American soldiers, is it not? Uh? Yeah, I mean look, yeah,

1577
01:21:53,400 --> 01:21:55,560
Speaker 1: we had the peace deal. We didn't take any casualties,

1578
01:21:55,560 --> 01:21:57,600
Speaker 1: but we also lost more and more territory for the

1579
01:21:57,600 --> 01:21:59,559
Speaker 1: Afghan government. So I can guess you could have been

1580
01:21:59,680 --> 01:22:02,760
Speaker 1: up a situation where you could leave troops around of

1581
01:22:02,760 --> 01:22:05,120
Speaker 1: the US. You know, you just lose more and more territory,

1582
01:22:05,200 --> 01:22:06,920
Speaker 1: and then what's going to happen? You know that it's

1583
01:22:07,600 --> 01:22:10,400
Speaker 1: the conditions are even worse than they'll come back and

1584
01:22:10,439 --> 01:22:12,839
Speaker 1: say it's going to be. You know, we're for withdrawal,

1585
01:22:12,840 --> 01:22:15,000
Speaker 1: work conditions, basically for withdrawal. We can't leave under this

1586
01:22:15,120 --> 01:22:18,920
Speaker 1: humiliating circumstances. You know, it just gets you know, the

1587
01:22:18,920 --> 01:22:21,080
Speaker 1: the you know, it's on a downward slope, and it's

1588
01:22:21,120 --> 01:22:24,600
Speaker 1: always been on a downward slope. And so yeah, you

1589
01:22:24,680 --> 01:22:27,200
Speaker 1: have to. I mean the f Ken government, I mean

1590
01:22:27,200 --> 01:22:29,880
Speaker 1: did not exist on paper. We they were telling us

1591
01:22:30,120 --> 01:22:33,240
Speaker 1: twenty years ago, ten years ago, five years ago, they're

1592
01:22:33,280 --> 01:22:36,680
Speaker 1: turning the corner. We're seeing great progress. They collapsed. I

1593
01:22:36,720 --> 01:22:39,280
Speaker 1: mean Vietnam. People make the comparison to Vietnam. The South

1594
01:22:39,320 --> 01:22:42,519
Speaker 1: Vietnamese government lasted, lasted two years after the United States fell.

1595
01:22:42,600 --> 01:22:48,280
Speaker 1: The government left behind by in Afghanistan by the Soviets lasted,

1596
01:22:48,479 --> 01:22:51,280
Speaker 1: lasted for a while. This was even before we were

1597
01:22:51,360 --> 01:22:53,720
Speaker 1: out the door. And it wasn't like heavy fighting. It

1598
01:22:53,760 --> 01:22:56,400
Speaker 1: was just it was it was just a complete collapse.

1599
01:22:56,560 --> 01:22:59,000
Speaker 1: What's very interesting, when the Taliban was trying to take

1600
01:22:59,040 --> 01:23:02,600
Speaker 1: Massuri Sharief, which is a large northern city in Afghanistan,

1601
01:23:02,840 --> 01:23:06,280
Speaker 1: the government wasn't even fighting. It was actually the militias

1602
01:23:06,720 --> 01:23:09,800
Speaker 1: dust Do militia and UH and other and other militias

1603
01:23:09,800 --> 01:23:12,120
Speaker 1: that were there. If you read the history of Afghanistan,

1604
01:23:12,280 --> 01:23:14,240
Speaker 1: these are the same names that were fighting the Soviets

1605
01:23:14,280 --> 01:23:16,880
Speaker 1: in the nineteen eighties and they were there. They were there,

1606
01:23:16,920 --> 01:23:19,280
Speaker 1: they were part of the Northern Alliance when the US invaded.

1607
01:23:19,400 --> 01:23:21,720
Speaker 1: So you have this twenty years, right, and then the

1608
01:23:21,840 --> 01:23:25,559
Speaker 1: US just you know, it puts in this ungodly amount

1609
01:23:25,560 --> 01:23:28,720
Speaker 1: of money and the result is, like, you know, it's

1610
01:23:28,760 --> 01:23:30,320
Speaker 1: not just they lose to the Taliban, It's like the

1611
01:23:30,760 --> 01:23:33,040
Speaker 1: Afgan government is probably not even the second or third

1612
01:23:33,200 --> 01:23:37,120
Speaker 1: best fighting force in the country. So you know, they

1613
01:23:37,160 --> 01:23:38,920
Speaker 1: just they just melt away. These militias, you know, they

1614
01:23:38,960 --> 01:23:40,800
Speaker 1: can't take on the Taliban either. They actually they're in

1615
01:23:40,800 --> 01:23:42,679
Speaker 1: a weaker state than they were when the US invaded.

1616
01:23:42,960 --> 01:23:44,640
Speaker 1: You know, the militias held off the Taliban for a

1617
01:23:44,640 --> 01:23:46,920
Speaker 1: while in the nineteen nineties. It is just such an

1618
01:23:46,960 --> 01:23:50,040
Speaker 1: indication of what a disaster, you know, this has been.

1619
01:23:50,120 --> 01:23:51,599
Speaker 1: I don't know if you could have screwed the self

1620
01:23:51,600 --> 01:23:54,040
Speaker 1: worse if you tried to fail. I mean, these we

1621
01:23:54,160 --> 01:23:56,160
Speaker 1: just have to stop listening to these people. You know,

1622
01:23:56,200 --> 01:23:57,840
Speaker 1: there's no hope of them ever going to get right,

1623
01:23:58,000 --> 01:24:00,240
Speaker 1: and we need to deeply reflect on how how things

1624
01:24:00,240 --> 01:24:03,080
Speaker 1: got to this point. What do you make of the

1625
01:24:03,200 --> 01:24:06,360
Speaker 1: fact we played the sound here that's been passed around

1626
01:24:06,360 --> 01:24:08,080
Speaker 1: of Biden, you know, a little more than a month

1627
01:24:08,120 --> 01:24:11,080
Speaker 1: ago saying like, you know, we have three they've got

1628
01:24:11,080 --> 01:24:14,360
Speaker 1: three hundred thousand Afghan army fighters, and it's not like

1629
01:24:14,400 --> 01:24:16,400
Speaker 1: the Taliban is just going to come in and overrun

1630
01:24:16,439 --> 01:24:20,280
Speaker 1: the place immediately. Clearly that turned out to be totally wrong.

1631
01:24:21,680 --> 01:24:25,120
Speaker 1: Was he lied to? Was the military just wildly off

1632
01:24:25,160 --> 01:24:27,360
Speaker 1: in their estimates? Why do you think that they were

1633
01:24:27,439 --> 01:24:30,559
Speaker 1: so wrong about their projections of how long it would take.

1634
01:24:30,640 --> 01:24:33,280
Speaker 1: They kind of knew the Taliban was likely to take over,

1635
01:24:33,680 --> 01:24:35,720
Speaker 1: but in the length of time it would take, and

1636
01:24:35,800 --> 01:24:39,000
Speaker 1: this just utter collapse that we've witnessed. Yeah, I mean,

1637
01:24:39,040 --> 01:24:40,519
Speaker 1: I think if we're going to say there was one

1638
01:24:40,560 --> 01:24:44,040
Speaker 1: mistake Biden made, it was promising too much from the

1639
01:24:44,080 --> 01:24:46,360
Speaker 1: Afghan government. Look that these things are very, very hard

1640
01:24:46,360 --> 01:24:49,519
Speaker 1: to forecast. So the Metaculous is a sort of a

1641
01:24:49,560 --> 01:24:51,679
Speaker 1: website where people go and they predict what's going to happen.

1642
01:24:51,720 --> 01:24:53,519
Speaker 1: And they gave it about a fifty percent chance that

1643
01:24:53,560 --> 01:24:56,639
Speaker 1: the Taliban would take the presidential palace by twenty twenty six.

1644
01:24:56,680 --> 01:24:58,400
Speaker 1: I was on Twitter. I said, by twenty twenty six

1645
01:24:58,560 --> 01:25:00,719
Speaker 1: is probably seventy or eighty percent. So I was saying,

1646
01:25:00,720 --> 01:25:03,840
Speaker 1: you know, the Taliban is eventually going to win, and

1647
01:25:03,920 --> 01:25:06,439
Speaker 1: I said over fifty percent chance this year, So you know,

1648
01:25:06,560 --> 01:25:09,160
Speaker 1: but nobody can forecast these things, you know, the intelligence agencies,

1649
01:25:09,160 --> 01:25:12,200
Speaker 1: the military, they pretend to be scientific. I feel pretty

1650
01:25:12,240 --> 01:25:14,640
Speaker 1: good ab honor prediction. I was more pessimistic about the

1651
01:25:14,680 --> 01:25:17,720
Speaker 1: Afghan government than most people, but there's nowhere way to

1652
01:25:17,760 --> 01:25:20,439
Speaker 1: know for sure. The bottom line is they're incompetent. It

1653
01:25:20,560 --> 01:25:24,560
Speaker 1: was much worse than people thought. They were losing territory

1654
01:25:24,640 --> 01:25:27,680
Speaker 1: while they had the US there supporting them. You could

1655
01:25:27,720 --> 01:25:29,599
Speaker 1: imagine what it does to morale. You know, you're losing

1656
01:25:29,680 --> 01:25:32,519
Speaker 1: territory with the US, the US is leaving. It's not

1657
01:25:32,600 --> 01:25:35,320
Speaker 1: you know, hard to see like the psychological effect of that.

1658
01:25:35,560 --> 01:25:37,559
Speaker 1: So what Biden should have said was I mean, he

1659
01:25:37,560 --> 01:25:40,400
Speaker 1: should have probably lowered expectations. He probably, you know, was

1660
01:25:40,479 --> 01:25:43,880
Speaker 1: listening to his military and listening to the CIA. You know,

1661
01:25:44,080 --> 01:25:46,639
Speaker 1: I'm sure they weren't telling him, you know, they weren't

1662
01:25:46,640 --> 01:25:48,800
Speaker 1: telling him the Afghan government was going to last forever.

1663
01:25:48,840 --> 01:25:50,679
Speaker 1: But maybe they thought it would be like self Vietnam.

1664
01:25:50,760 --> 01:25:52,519
Speaker 1: Maybe they thought it would be six months to a year.

1665
01:25:52,560 --> 01:25:54,519
Speaker 1: We poured all this money, we poured all this arms

1666
01:25:54,520 --> 01:25:56,559
Speaker 1: into there, and he should have just taken a more

1667
01:25:56,600 --> 01:25:58,960
Speaker 1: agnostic position on it. I think his messaging has been good,

1668
01:25:58,960 --> 01:26:01,479
Speaker 1: but that was a major mistake. And people will of

1669
01:26:01,479 --> 01:26:04,360
Speaker 1: course hold it against him. Yeah, I think, you know,

1670
01:26:04,600 --> 01:26:07,320
Speaker 1: I think this is the most important point around the

1671
01:26:07,360 --> 01:26:10,479
Speaker 1: actual capability of the military. And this is what you know, Richard,

1672
01:26:10,479 --> 01:26:13,400
Speaker 1: You've tracked this for a long time. But something I

1673
01:26:13,439 --> 01:26:16,759
Speaker 1: can't help but notice is these people had eighteen months

1674
01:26:16,800 --> 01:26:20,200
Speaker 1: to ensure a withdrawal from Afghanistan. They know they were

1675
01:26:20,200 --> 01:26:22,679
Speaker 1: going to do this since February of twenty twenty. Why

1676
01:26:22,680 --> 01:26:24,920
Speaker 1: did they screw it up so badly? This is not

1677
01:26:25,200 --> 01:26:27,799
Speaker 1: just under Joe Biden. This is on the same military

1678
01:26:27,880 --> 01:26:32,559
Speaker 1: under Donald Trump. Yeah, exactly. I mean, yeah, that's what

1679
01:26:32,760 --> 01:26:35,760
Speaker 1: being incompetent means. I mean, you have a lot of

1680
01:26:35,840 --> 01:26:39,000
Speaker 1: a lot of resources, and you keep failing, and you

1681
01:26:39,040 --> 01:26:40,920
Speaker 1: could do another you know, eighteen months. I mean Biden,

1682
01:26:41,200 --> 01:26:42,720
Speaker 1: I think you know, I think they thought it was

1683
01:26:42,760 --> 01:26:44,400
Speaker 1: going to be a complete disaster if they just took

1684
01:26:44,400 --> 01:26:46,920
Speaker 1: to the May first date. So all the government was

1685
01:26:46,920 --> 01:26:50,839
Speaker 1: doing on Afghanistan was preparing for leaving for three four months,

1686
01:26:50,880 --> 01:26:52,720
Speaker 1: and they screwed it up. Who knows if they left

1687
01:26:52,720 --> 01:26:55,360
Speaker 1: in May, maybe it would have been ten times worse.

1688
01:26:56,280 --> 01:26:58,799
Speaker 1: But yeah, there are deep problems in the system. It's

1689
01:26:58,840 --> 01:27:02,000
Speaker 1: not the Biden administration. I think the Biden administration did

1690
01:27:02,560 --> 01:27:05,479
Speaker 1: the most you can hope for, realistically from the American

1691
01:27:05,520 --> 01:27:08,240
Speaker 1: government at this point, which is just stop investing, live,

1692
01:27:08,280 --> 01:27:11,960
Speaker 1: stop stop wasting money on this, and just moving on.

1693
01:27:12,200 --> 01:27:15,720
Speaker 1: I think that's the band aid off. Let me ask you,

1694
01:27:15,840 --> 01:27:20,400
Speaker 1: Richard finally about the politics of this, which are interesting.

1695
01:27:21,360 --> 01:27:25,360
Speaker 1: Alex Thompson retweeted a tweet from Don Junior in the

1696
01:27:25,360 --> 01:27:28,320
Speaker 1: months before the election which said a vote for Joe

1697
01:27:28,320 --> 01:27:30,799
Speaker 1: Biden is a vote for forever war in the Middle East.

1698
01:27:31,040 --> 01:27:33,799
Speaker 1: A vote for Donald Trump is a vote to finally

1699
01:27:33,840 --> 01:27:36,479
Speaker 1: bring our troops home, and he links to a Bright

1700
01:27:36,600 --> 01:27:40,400
Speaker 1: art piece with Pike Pompeo talking about being on a

1701
01:27:40,439 --> 01:27:44,040
Speaker 1: pathway to achieve zero US forces in Afghanistan by spring

1702
01:27:44,120 --> 01:27:47,599
Speaker 1: twenty twenty one. Haven't seen those folks really given Biden

1703
01:27:47,640 --> 01:27:51,120
Speaker 1: any credit here for doing what Trump promised and ultimately

1704
01:27:51,320 --> 01:27:54,920
Speaker 1: failed over his four years to do. Yeah, I mean

1705
01:27:55,240 --> 01:27:57,040
Speaker 1: I made a joke on Twitter a few days ago

1706
01:27:57,479 --> 01:27:59,839
Speaker 1: that they were going to reinvent Trump as an Afghan feminist,

1707
01:28:00,000 --> 01:28:04,000
Speaker 1: and I thought it was at the time, and they

1708
01:28:04,040 --> 01:28:07,639
Speaker 1: start doing so. You have Hugh Hewitt, I've been saying

1709
01:28:07,640 --> 01:28:09,960
Speaker 1: that this is Biden's failure, and then you have. You know,

1710
01:28:09,960 --> 01:28:12,080
Speaker 1: it's like, okay, that's neo cons. They want to stay anyway,

1711
01:28:12,120 --> 01:28:13,680
Speaker 1: so they want to claim the Trump legacy. And then

1712
01:28:13,680 --> 01:28:15,720
Speaker 1: Stephen Miller comes and does the same thing, and Don

1713
01:28:15,800 --> 01:28:18,320
Speaker 1: Junior comes in does the same thing. Uh yeah, they're

1714
01:28:18,320 --> 01:28:20,000
Speaker 1: they're they're pretty shameless, and they're going to try to

1715
01:28:20,000 --> 01:28:22,000
Speaker 1: make hay out of it. I mean, the you know,

1716
01:28:22,040 --> 01:28:26,600
Speaker 1: we'll see what happens. I always said that the politics

1717
01:28:26,600 --> 01:28:28,960
Speaker 1: of this is the only way, Like, you know, we

1718
01:28:29,000 --> 01:28:31,360
Speaker 1: have pretty short memories. I mean, who remembers Hong Kong

1719
01:28:31,400 --> 01:28:33,799
Speaker 1: and Belarus? I mean now, I mean these were big stories,

1720
01:28:33,840 --> 01:28:36,080
Speaker 1: not that long ago. People have short memories. The only

1721
01:28:36,080 --> 01:28:37,920
Speaker 1: way it would matter for the midterms or for the

1722
01:28:37,920 --> 01:28:40,040
Speaker 1: twenty twenty four election is if the US was still

1723
01:28:40,080 --> 01:28:42,639
Speaker 1: there and still taking casualties. This looks bad, and maybe

1724
01:28:42,640 --> 01:28:44,519
Speaker 1: it'll look bad for a month, maybe two months, maybe

1725
01:28:44,560 --> 01:28:46,840
Speaker 1: three months, but we're still, you know, over a year

1726
01:28:46,880 --> 01:28:49,559
Speaker 1: away from even the midterm elections, and I think long term,

1727
01:28:49,560 --> 01:28:53,120
Speaker 1: Biden probably made the right choice. I think you're absolutely right, Richard.

1728
01:28:53,120 --> 01:28:55,200
Speaker 1: Really appreciate your analysis on all of this you've been

1729
01:28:55,600 --> 01:28:57,439
Speaker 1: I think it's a very useful counter to a lot

1730
01:28:57,479 --> 01:28:59,360
Speaker 1: of what people are hearing out there in the mainstream

1731
01:28:59,400 --> 01:29:02,400
Speaker 1: media to hear the actual truth, which is right here.

1732
01:29:02,400 --> 01:29:04,519
Speaker 1: So thanks for joining us. Man appreciates Rich good to

1733
01:29:04,520 --> 01:29:07,400
Speaker 1: see you, my pleasure, Thank you, good to see you.

1734
01:29:07,960 --> 01:29:10,960
Speaker 1: Thanks everybody for watching. I missed you all so terribly,

1735
01:29:11,439 --> 01:29:14,320
Speaker 1: you too, Sager. Thank you. You guys can become a

1736
01:29:14,360 --> 01:29:16,760
Speaker 1: premium subscriber today. You can help support the work that

1737
01:29:16,800 --> 01:29:19,160
Speaker 1: we do here. The link is right down there description

1738
01:29:19,240 --> 01:29:21,439
Speaker 1: you get the show in our early listen to it.

1739
01:29:21,479 --> 01:29:24,240
Speaker 1: All of that, your support is what makes it possible

1740
01:29:24,280 --> 01:29:27,320
Speaker 1: for us to offer you the actual counter to the

1741
01:29:27,320 --> 01:29:31,080
Speaker 1: mainstream media and narrative in Afghanistan and more. I have

1742
01:29:31,200 --> 01:29:33,599
Speaker 1: never felt that our show is more important that at

1743
01:29:33,640 --> 01:29:36,960
Speaker 1: times like now, when there's a single uniform voice out

1744
01:29:36,960 --> 01:29:39,120
Speaker 1: there in the establishment about what needs to be done,

1745
01:29:39,360 --> 01:29:42,479
Speaker 1: and nobody seems to be standing up for the actual

1746
01:29:42,520 --> 01:29:47,400
Speaker 1: soldiers themselves, for the Afghans, for anybody who is just

1747
01:29:47,640 --> 01:29:52,200
Speaker 1: left behind by this like colossal war mongering or the truth. Yeah,

1748
01:29:52,200 --> 01:29:54,640
Speaker 1: I mean, just tell the truth. This is one of

1749
01:29:54,680 --> 01:29:57,840
Speaker 1: those days where you could turn on fought News or

1750
01:29:57,920 --> 01:30:02,519
Speaker 1: CNN or MSNBC and you hear sub version of the

1751
01:30:02,560 --> 01:30:05,720
Speaker 1: same damn thing. So thank you, guys for making it

1752
01:30:05,760 --> 01:30:08,240
Speaker 1: possible for us to do what we do here, which

1753
01:30:08,280 --> 01:30:11,639
Speaker 1: is just literally try to be honest about the way

1754
01:30:11,640 --> 01:30:14,400
Speaker 1: you've been lied to and about the reality that's facing

1755
01:30:14,520 --> 01:30:17,000
Speaker 1: you and people around the world. We are incredibly grateful

1756
01:30:17,040 --> 01:30:19,000
Speaker 1: for you, and you're grateful to have you back to

1757
01:30:19,160 --> 01:30:21,840
Speaker 1: Thank you, thank you, miss you terribly. All right, We

1758
01:30:21,880 --> 01:30:39,000
Speaker 1: will see you all on Tuesday, seel tomorrow. Thanks for

1759
01:30:39,040 --> 01:30:41,040
Speaker 1: listening to the show, guys, we really appreciate it. To

1760
01:30:41,040 --> 01:30:43,200
Speaker 1: help other people find the show, go ahead and leave

1761
01:30:43,240 --> 01:30:46,240
Speaker 1: us a five star rating on Apple Podcasts or wherever

1762
01:30:46,280 --> 01:30:49,320
Speaker 1: you get your podcasts really helps other people find the

1763
01:30:49,400 --> 01:30:53,320
Speaker 1: show as always special. Thank you to Supercast for powering

1764
01:30:53,360 --> 01:30:55,760
Speaker 1: our premium membership. If you want to find out more,

1765
01:30:55,880 --> 01:30:58,080
Speaker 1: go to Crystalansager dot com.