tv Cavuto Coast to Coast FOX Business August 17, 2021 12:00pm-2:00pm EDT
12:00 pm
that. now there is this, a former state department contractor tells fox news that the taliban are beating people as they head to the airport in kabul. they're going through neighborhoods looking for people that worked with the u.s. government. stay with fox business throughout the day to keep on top of this obviously developing story of great import to all of us. time's up for me. neil, sir, it is yours. neil: all right, stuart, thank you. as you've been pointing out earlier the taliban are presenting themselves as a new, improved, completely different organization. this would certainly fly in the face of that. thank you, stuart, we're down 330 points. confusion what is happening right now in afghanistan. the taliban we know has surrounded the kabul airport. we know they have quickly consolidated control but they did put out a pr statement, the best way i can explain it, where they said no one from the u.s. will be hurt and declared amnesty across the country.
12:01 pm
but then of these reports you're hearing from stuart and others. our own jennifer griffin reporting a number of u.s. contractors reheyed stories of taliban soldiers going house to house inquiring who lives in each house, whether they had anything to do with the government. if in doubt they would heave them out. so much we don't know. a lot of this is second, third stories but we are pursuing it just the same as is rich edson at the state department on the latest news we can at least ascertain thus far. what are you hearing? reporter: good afternoon, neil. we've been speaking with former contractors, afghans who were in the country. the taliban according to these folks are going through neighborhoods looking for those that have worked with the united states. one afghan in kabul who was a contract for for 10 years with the state department says this morning the taliban were in his neighborhood asking people about him and where he is. the former contractor also tried getting to the airport yesterday
12:02 pm
and the day before. he says he ran into tens of thousands trying to leave. he had to weave his way through traffic, crowds, taliban checkpoints. there were kids, babies old women, that could very walk t was a very, very bad situation. i'm telling you at the end i was thinking there were 10,000 or more than 10,000 people and they're running into the airport. the taliban were beating people and people were jumping from the fence, concertina wire around also the wall. thousands of afghans are again gathering at kabul's airport demanding to leave the country, forcing a halt yesterday to the flights. the state department says the flights have resumed. the american officials have been in discussion with the taliban about securing the area. >> the situation is evolving quickly. we will communicate information quickly to u.s. citizens as rapidly as possible. meantime we're asking u.s.
12:03 pm
citizens to shelter, not to travel to the airport until they hear otherwise from the department of state. reporter: the pentagon says when their operations are fully up and running they expect to get anywhere between five and 9,000 people out per day. they figure there is somewhere between five and 10,000 american citizens in kabul. we heard from officials countrywide that number is in fact the tens of thousands. neil? neil: incredible. rich edson, thank you my friend. before we get the read from the white house i want to pass along what the taliban spokesman is passing along in their first official press briefing i guess for wont of a better term on their takeover. folks are saying afghanistan soil will not be used against anybody we insure the international community. the taliban is saying ask if women will be allowed to work and media says let's wait for the government to be formed and laws to be prop gated. then we can observe those laws
12:04 pm
and regulations. also saying that afghanistan wants to have very good relations with everybody to revive the economy and insure prosperity to come out of this crisis. again we're monitoring all of this. see if we get any other further statements. that doesn't necessarily jive with some of unofficial reports and anecdotes we're hearing of beatings and abuse. connell mcshane at the white house with how they're taking all of this in. reporter: neil, the emphasis from the white house at least the airport in kabul is open and they're getting flights out. they're trying to get one flight per hour getting people out there the next 24 hours as quickly they can. rich edson that is reporting that is a challenging reality for u.s. officials. think about the five or 10,000 americans estimated to be just in and around the kabul area, as they have been told as state department spokesman indicate ad few moments ago, to shelter in place. that is a challenge for the u.s. military trying to get the
12:05 pm
people out of the country crier requires them getting to the airport, perhaps passing through one of the taliban checkpoints we heard aabout. then, only then, getting on a flight out of the country. >> suffice it to say that our commanders at the airport are charged with keeping airport secure and doing what is required to keep it secure and get operations pack up and running to be sustained. they will and should have whatever interactions they believe are necessary to accomplish that mission. reporter: if you're looking five to 9,000 people per day being moved out of the country you know that is between now and the 31st of this month, the end of the month, you started off one flight per hour over the next 24 hours. they hope they can keep the pace up. many are americans. far more are afghans who worked closely alongside the americans last 20 years inside their own country. by tomorrow we're looking 4,000
12:06 pm
u.s. troops on the ground. remember they're ramping it up to over 6,000 to oversee the evacuation. there are interactions between the american commanders at the airport and taliban officials trying to negotiate a safe passage for these people from the city of kabul to the airport there. next hour here at the white house we'll have a briefing. jen psaki, press secretary which brief reporters joined at the podium joined by national security advisor jake sullivan. president biden after briefly stopping back here at the white house yesterday for his address to the american people is now back at camp david at least for the time-being. neil? neil: connell, thank you for that, mire friend. i want to go to florida republican congressman brian mass. the congressman has been in touch with a lot of combat veterans and those in communication with those back in afghanistan. congressman what are they telling you? very good to have you sir, thank you. >> the message is very clear, we're getting it from former
12:07 pm
unit commanders people connected on whatsapp, other platforms you name it saying i got a message from this individual, they're in this hotel, they're in this block, this house. they can't get through this checkpoint. taliban is going door-to-door here. if they cross over the behind did you cush hindu kush and get into pakistan, how will they be received there? messages are coming in constantly, we're passing them to the state department as they come to us. that is the real time situation that literally every single bit of this carnage that we're seeing could have been avoided if they did this before pulling troops out of afghanistan. that's the truly sad part. neil: is it your understanding, congressman, the taliban has indeed circled the airport? it is a wide perimeter i understand, made it next to impossible if you're in the
12:08 pm
perimeter to get in or out. not that you want to get out. looks like it will be a very dicey task. >> what you're say something exactly my understanding of the situation. yes, the perimeter of the airport, within that is secure. now we're discuss talking about one place in the whole of afghanistan. we're not even discussing really all of the other tribal areas that former allies, assets, u.s. assets need to get in from. that is really not being reported on. we're talking about this one airport as a location, as the hub of all of this. but the understanding is, no, people are not having the ability to get in. you see that report from the white house saying shelter in place. well you read between the lines on that. what they're saying is, don't go out because if you're a u.s. asset and you try to get through there you will not get through there, you will be self-identified and probably get lined up against a wall for that. neil: i know it is a gut call but yours is pretty good congressman.
12:09 pm
if u.s. military forces are already in place here, that there are those who have been prevented to get through that perimeter is it your understanding that they will take the battle to the taliban preventing that or not? that this is all about getting those presumably in the perimeter on planes and out of the country but they're not going to risk going outside of that perimeter? >> i have zero confidence from the administration level, trying to micromanage this from washington, d.c., that they are going to give a green light to go out there and move beyond that perimeter to attack aggressors beyond maybe a foot or two away. i have zero confidence in that occurring and the reason for that is is because their top priority is what are the optics of this? that is the most dangerous thing that is putting people at risk. they're more concerned about the optics of this not being a combat mission, of them not
12:10 pm
having to fire shots then how to actually get our u.s. personnel, our allies, those that worked with us out safely. that's what makes this just miles above the dangerous situation that afghanistan was just before this. neil: congressman, thank you for taking the time. brian mast, the beautiful state of florida. to the congressman's point there is a lot we don't know. there is this much we do, we have seen the taliban form a ring around the airport, it is a fairly wide ring, but it has prevented anyone from getting through that ring. that is one of the first thing they seized when they got into kabul itself, get the ring around the airport itself. not so much kabul, that would be a herculean task. the airport itself. very telling here we were caught off-guard for that. caught off-guard for a lot of things. particularly what is happening
12:11 pm
at the airport, those throngs you see inside are only throngs in there now trying to organize but tens of thousands of more are trying to get in. their fate at best is uncertain. to sarah westwood of "the washington examiner." sarah, you would think that is one of the contingencies they would be looking at. easy to play monday morning quarterback here but they have holed off the airport that put us in a pickle here. >> that's right. what we're seeing on things on the ground in afghanistan is nothing the administration planned for. though president biden in his speech that his white house, military planned for every continuing again sy. that is manifestly not true based on what we're seeing on the frowned. the biden administration made a lot of miscalculations set offing aside obvious tactical miscalculation with the troop withdrawal politically.
12:12 pm
it is very clear the biden administration thought they had a bipartisan consensus on the idea of withdrawing troops from afghanistan which they did. it's a very popular idea among most americans. they assumed that goodwill from democrats and republicans and the public would carry them through any sort of dicey elements of the execution of the withdrawal and that is not happening. you see democrats from across the spectrum coming out and criticizing the biden white house there is really something for every kind of democrat to hate in this sort of response. you have liberal democrats criticizing the fact that afghan refugees are being left without adequate help from the biden administration. you have the more centrist, more moderate democrats concerned about the national security implication what is we're seeing, about u.s. counterterrorism efforts. really biden successfully united everyone criticizing his white house and hasn't yet had a sufficient response. neil: knowing you would be coming on i wanted to get your sense of the president's remarks yesterday. i get what he was saying he is
12:13 pm
not to blame for what has been 20 years of a government that wasn't able to, i guess he is saying get its act together and all even though that was well telegraphed by his commanders to go slow in this process but took a defensive tone. it got me to think of another democratic president nearly 60 years ago, who had nearly opposite tone, similarly into the first few months of his administration, the bay of pigs disaster. each had a different way of acknowledging how much he was responsible for what was going on. i want you to listen to this, two presidents back-to-back, very different times. >> i'm president of the united states of america. and the buck stops with me. i'm deeply saddened by the facts we now face. but i do not regret my decision to end america's war fighting in afghanistan and maintain a laser focus on our counter terrorism mission there and other parties
12:14 pm
of the world. >> there is an old saying that victory has 100 fathers and defeat is an orphan and i wouldn't be surprised with information it poured into you in regard to oh, the recent activities. i have said that as much as i feel can be use fully said by me in regard to the events of the past few days through a statement, detailed discussions, i'm not to conceal responsibility because i'm the responsible officer of the government but merely because i, that is quite obvious but merely because i do not believe that such a discussion would benefit us during the present difficult situation. neil: did you catch that from jfk? i'm the responsible one. you know, sarah westwood, to remark about this both presidents were kind of in the
12:15 pm
same point in their presidency, a few months in, having to make a tough decision. jfk could have argued this was a scheme, bay of pigs that was hatched in the prior administration, recommended by all the top generals. everyone seemed to be on board. he reluctantly agreed to go on board. we know in retrospect had certains about it he didn't blame them. joe biden, much older, more seasoned president but when he was looking at a plan hatched by trump and that it was too late for him to change it even though he changed almost everything else out of the trump administration it struck me as sort of backing away from taking the ultimate responsibility. in other words if he is saying the buck stops with him then why was he passing the buck? >> i think that is a question that a lot of lawmakers on both sides of the aisle were asking after biden's speech because he sort of falsely presented this as a binary choice. that either the u.s. could have
12:16 pm
stayed in afghanistan indefinitely. he could have passed offth conflict to a fifth president as he said or he could have ended it. that is just not really the case there is not a lot of debate left in washington whether the troops should leave afghanistan. there was a lot of bipartisan support behind that idea. really the crittism here is the execution of that plan and the fact that the administration didn't seem to have accurate intelligence or they did and they didn't care. and part of why the public perception of this is the biden administration bungled it, they have acted incompetently the result of another blunder of biden's own making if you recall i'm sure, these sound bites have been played on repeat, in july president biden took questions from reporters about the afghanistan withdrawal he express ad level of certainty he would see any ever this. he specifically denied there would be saigon moment or hurried evacuation of diplomatic personnel. he gave a lot more credit to the
12:17 pm
afghan security forces than ultimately they deserved because they left so quickly, without putting up much of a fight against the taliban. he suggested this is a very highly unlikely situation that the taliban would advance into kabul and make these territorial gains. because biden came out to express a level of certainty that was willful deception tot public or result of some massive intelligence failure that is why this is viewed as such an incompetent response. biden has not done much to defend himself against that. the talking points distributed to democrats are incoherent because things democrats are encouraged to say while the administration always knew this was a possibility but was not something shared with the public. that is the question becomes if the white house knew this was a distinct possibility why did they proceed with the plans anyway? did they not care about rescuing afghan nationals or getting all the american citizens out of afghanistan? so the white house really handling this in a baffling way,
12:18 pm
trying to hide behind the good polling numbers on the idea of withdrawal, not defending the execution though. neil: very well-put. some say it is same lesson we get to our kids, own up to a mistake. i'm not going to be happy as a parent for it but i will be lot angrier if you are hiding this from plea. sarah westwood, washington examiner. one footnote post-history with jfk. after acknowledging he was responsible for the fiasco of the bay of pigs, although you can make the argument, as i did he inherited it, it was hatched by a former world war ii top general, president eisenhower and best military minds on the planet, after acknowledging it fell on him, it was a disaster because of him he noticed that his poll numbers weren't up 10 points. his father famously said thereafter, son, you should fail more often. we'll have more after this. ♪
12:19 pm
i'm not always on my game. but lately, my uncle is, especially with his type 2 diabetes. with once-weekly trulicity most people reached an a1c under 7%. plus it could help you lose up to ten pounds. trulicity is for type 2 diabetes. it isn't for people with type 1 diabetes. it's not approved for use in children. don't take trulicity if you're allergic to it, you or your family have medullary thyroid cancer, or have multiple endocrine neoplasia syndrome type 2. stop trulicity and call your doctor right away if you have an allergic reaction, a lump or swelling in your neck, severe stomach pain, changes in vision, or diabetic retinopathy. serious side effects may include pancreatitis. taking trulicity with sulfonylurea or insulin raises low blood sugar risk. side effects include nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea, which can lead to dehydration, and may worsen kidney problems. ask your doctor about once-weekly trulicity. as someone who resembles someone else... i appreciate that liberty mutual knows everyone's unique.
12:20 pm
that's why they customize your car insurance, so you only pay for what you need. [ nautical horn blows ] i mean just because you look like someone else doesn't mean you eat off the floor, or yell at the vacuum, or need flea medication. oh, yeah. that's the spot. only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty, liberty, liberty, liberty ♪ ♪ ♪ it's a wishlist on wheels. a choice that requires no explanation. it's where safe and daring seamlessly intersect. it's understated, yet over-delivers. it is truly the mercedes-benz of sports sedans. visit your local mercedes-benz dealer today for exceptional lease and financing offers. ♪ ♪ that building you're trying to sell, - you should ten-x it. - ten-x it? ten-x is the world's largest online
12:21 pm
commercial real estate exchange. you can close with more certainty. and twice as fast. if i could, i'd ten-x everything. like a coffee run... or fedora shopping. talk to your broker. ten-x does the same thing, - but with buildings. - so no more waiting. sfx: ding! see how easy...? don't just sell it. ten-x it. derriere discomfort. we try to soothe it with this. cool it with this. and relieve it with this. but new preparation h soothing relief spray is the 21st century way to do all three. even touch free. preparation h. get comfortable with it.
12:22 pm
12:23 pm
securities backed by full faith and credit of uncle sam. we're hearing separately of huge foreign interests in our treasury notes and bonds to say nothing of our dollar. the dollar index is relatively strong over the last week. for those that say this is an american problem in afghanistan, it has not dissuaded people to invest in american instruments no matter who is responsible for afghanistan, again, remarkable show of confidence in the united states with all of this controversy. danielle shay, director of trading operations. that says something. stocks notwithstanding you could argue today a lot to do with concerns of retail sales of hiccupping and spikes in covid cases and the rest less to do with afghanistan. having said all of that, we're still that haven for investors when they get anxious, aren't
12:24 pm
we? >> that is correct, neil. today is one of the first days i've seen in a while that is a bit after risk off day where you have a lot of high growth stocks, really pullback, getting hit. you have the consumer discretionary sector pulling back. amazon broken the 200 sma. in the long term i'm looking for seasonal weakness and looking for buying opportunities. neil: where are you finding them? >> so right now, home depot, we'll talk about that in a minute, but what i'm looking at what are the corporations, what are the areas of the stock market that will continue to thrive in this online environment? i like semiconductors. i really like cybersecurity stocks, that is something that is going to be necessary even more so in the future. i also like the cloud stocks as well. that being said they're all getting hit right now. what i'm doing, looking for entries on these pullbacks. neil: home depot thing is kind
12:25 pm
of wild. it beat estimates and numbers. the guidance wasn't awful but mercilessly hit hard and accounting for a third of the dow's drop. is that justified? >> i don't think it is justified. when you're looking at this quarter in particular, this is very common. what we saw throughout the pandemic we saw companies that were just coming out and just having incredible earnings beats. then this quarter in particular it was one of those good but not great situations. i think that when stocks are selling off like that you can still look to the earnings growth. over the last nine quarters they beat seven out of nine times. they're still really strong. so for these reasons i look for buying opportunity on these types of pullbacks. neil: they look into the weeds now in these numbers far more than i do. just you meet your estimates or not, you talk about the number of customers and i guess that was in doubt with home depot,
12:26 pm
that, the number going there is down even though they're obviously spending is up but that is a concern. that maybe the consumer is dialing things back, not as many as shoppers now. it doesn't go across the board. it is not happening with walmart with same degree or target but i found that was an interesting wrinkle in the home depot numbers, the number of shoppers is ebbing? >> neil, i would point to that, when the pandemic officers started you had people going to home depot, going to lowe's, doing improvements on their homes and you know what was different last quarter? this was the first quarter we could actually travel. reopening happened. people shifted their money. neil: good point. >> they said you know what instead of remodeling the bathroom i can't wait to see my family. i believe this quarter in particular, that was the impact of home depot and i also believe that as delta variant continues
12:27 pm
to rise we'll see a shift back into that same home improvement, gardening space that home depot does so well. neil: yeah, i always think we get the family thing wrong. someone's family is another person's in-laws. so i'm not quite buying that. i don't want to start any wars here but stepping back from that, i mean if we delay in-person returns to work to the degree a number of companies already saying they will, how did that affect your forecast? >> it impacts my forecast because what i'm doing, i'm looking at companies that number one, have not only survived but thrived throughout the pandemic. i'm looking at companies who have been able to do really well shift over to the e-commerce model and additionally, any of the companies like for example, walmart, target, that have the outside of store pickup, these companies, they have been able to innovate and shift to do exactly what their clients need. the delta variant will not
12:28 pm
impact them. in fact it is probably going to only increase their e-commerce sales. so for me personally, we just have to look at the companies that have done so well throughout the last year and look for opportunities to buy them on pullbacks when they perhaps have one quarter that is a good but not great quarter. neil: danielle, great catching up with you. always words of wisdom. i appreciate that. danielle shay following these markets. as she indicated stocks taking a breather today but some of the other means by which you judge whether u.s. entities remain attack attractive, they remain undeterred. that is important to point out, undeterred. we'll have more after this. ♪
12:29 pm
12:30 pm
12:31 pm
growing up in a little red house, buick owners get $500 on the edge of a forest in norway, there were three things my family encouraged: kindness, honesty and hard work. over time, i've come to add a fourth: be curious. be curious about the world around us, and then go. go with an open heart and you will find inspiration anew. viking. exploring the world in comfort. we did it again. verizon has been named america's most reliable network by rootmetrics. and our customers rated us #1 for network quality in america according to j.d. power.
12:32 pm
12:33 pm
charm? most americans have already been vaccinated, at least one time. most of the measures out there require two shots save johnson & johnson's. there is a push to make sure vulnerable parts of the population are protected for a third booster shot. for those who maybe are compromised or elderly or both. jonathan serrie following these latest guidelines and how soon we could see them take' effect. jonathan? reporter: hi, there, neil, vast majority of severe cases, the hospitalizations are mostly in the unvaccinated there are enough break-through infections in fully vaccinated individuals the idea of administering a booster shot, a third dose is gaining support within the public health community. a source familiar with the discussions tells fox news that the booster would likely be administered eight months after you get your second dose. the third dose for healthy
12:34 pm
individuals could begin as mid-september but awaiting approval from the fda which has already authorized booster shots for persons with severely compromised immune systems. the current discussions involve giving fully vaccinated individuals a third dose of either the pfizer or moderna two-dose vaccines. >> the additional dose that booster dose wakes up the immune system, gets it revved up again, it produces a lot of antibodies and that correlates with our protection and the duration of the protection that we will have. reporter: so, neil, pfizer and moderna were the first vaccines to be approved for use in the u.s. so they would be the first to be thorpe ridessed if the f authorized if the fda chooses to do so for that third dose. the to determine benefit of boosters of those receiving the single dose johnson & johnson
12:35 pm
vaccine. in other words there could be potentially a second dose of the j&j vaccine as a booster. once the fda approves boosters for healthy individuals, public health experts say it will be likely the third doses initially phased in for high-risk groups. like we saw earlier in the year when the first covid shots were coming out, targeting highest risk individuals, elderly, nursing home residents or people working in health care settings. neil? neil: once the train is in motion though. jonathan serrie in atlanta, i appreciate that. to dr. johnson, pharma chief medical officer. doctor, very good to have you, thank you for taking the time. who needs these booster shots. >> thank you for having me on your show. neil: so who needs the booster shots? who do you think needs them? >> booster shots are very important for people, one,
12:36 pm
immunocompromised which means they may be having treatment the for other diseases like cancers. it is important for individuals have who have immune compromise due to other reasons, and also important for people who may be receiving other immunosuppressive drugs like steroids. i think in general healthy people are going to have to have a third vaccine even if they have had a second vaccine because it is unlikely the second shot will protect forever. so the delta variant is creating greater problems for us than we anticipated and there is possibility of additional mutations. so it is very important that that third shot be administered. neil: you know that delta variant, to your point, doctor, caused a devil of a time for those around the country, even those already been vaccinated getting covid again. usually those are very mild cases but it's a worry and i'm just wondering do vaccines lose
12:37 pm
their potency as time goes on especially with a variant like this that keeps morphing and changing? >> i think you're perfectly correct. yes they do lose their potency. as you know, for example, the common vaccines that we get like the flu vaccine has to be administered annually. some vaccines have to be administered more frequently than that my concern is that we're now getting into really a perfect storm of health problems due to people who are unvaccinated, rising covid cases in places like florida but also a second pandemic which is to do with the rise of people not being able to go to work because of alcohol use problems, addiction problems, moody's orders, increasing problems at home, processing disorders in kids not attended to during the pandemic, a host of plethora of really serious health problems.
12:38 pm
i think we're not heading in the right direction at the current time. neil: that is weighing on folks to put it mildly. dr. johnson, thank you very much for taking the time here. total cases and cases past 28 days shot up on both counts, we're keeping track of that for you. notice we're at session lows at the corner of wall and broad, comes to the dow jones industrials. the spike in cases are not helping matters. retail sales report for july declining 1.1% that was four times worse than thought it would be, echoed slowdown in retail activity we're seeing out of likes of china. think about that. you have the world's number one and two economies sputtering when it comes to shopping activity. how far that goes is anyone's guess but they're obviously selling first, asking questions later. home depot, a big part of this accounting for a little more than 100 points of that fall-off here even though their earnings topped estimates, sales were respectable at about 4 1/2%
12:39 pm
year-over-year increase but they had been expecting more. what was interesting in that same-store sales figure were the number of shoppers. home depot saying fewer of them. they're spending as much if not more but few irof them. people read into thank you oh. we'll see. after this. this isn't just freight. these aren't just shipments. they're promises. promises of all shapes and sizes. each with a time and a place they've been promised to be. a promise is everything to old dominion, because it means everything to you. to run a growing business, is to be on a journey. and along the ride, you'll have many questions.
12:40 pm
challenges. and a few surprises. but wherever you are on your journey. your dell technologies advisor is here for you - with the right tech solutions. so you can stop at nothing for your customers. ♪ music playing. ♪ there's an america we build ♪ ♪ and one we explore one that's been paved and one that's forever wild but freedom means you don't have to choose just one adventure ♪ ♪ you get both. introducing the all-new 3-row jeep grand cherokee l jeep. there's only one.
12:43 pm
neil: we are now at session lows and then some on the dow jones industrials right now. it is accelerating here, home depot losses, some other consumer sensitive type issues are taking it on the chin on the belief here that maybe the consumer, the shopper is beginning to retreat a little bit or in the case of home depot maybe not as many of them. be that as it may, we are looking at one of the worst performances for the dow in the better part of a month. we'll keep an eye on it for you.
12:44 pm
i'm show glad danielle shay didn't just bolt out of town. simple trading director of options. thank you so much, danielle. what do you make of the acceleration? it comes back it would seem to our vulnerability, consumer retreat might be overstating it. the reaction might be overstating it. how do you look at this, what it is say about the shopping an tight out there? >> well you know, neil, i mean definitely is a concern for the market when shoppers stop spending money, right? that is what fuels earnings and what fuels growth but overall i mean when i look at the market it has just been so incredibly strong. we haven't seen more than two days in a row of a pullback since last may. this is completely abnormal. historically in august we do see weakness. so what i'm looking at in the market right now this is really just an excuse for people to take profits at the highs, kind of protect some of that cash and
12:45 pm
look for, you know a little bit of an entry point on the next pullback. neil: you know, you're right. just yesterday of course the dow, the s&p hit records, they have been clawing out of those records. if you get out when you have thesedown drafts you will kick yourself because to your point people invariably come back in, the march continues but eventually you won't be rewarded with that strategy, right? i guess what i'm asking you, is the market, even with these downdrafts, this type of activity overvalued to you, just about right, representative of the kind of conditions we've got right now? how would you define it? >> for me, neil, all about the investment time frame. as far as trading options looking at a two to three week time frame, right? in this environment i'm not buying on a short-term basis because we are so extended. because we've seen microsoft, apple make new highs yet again. however as a long-term investor
12:46 pm
picking up stocks absolutely looking for a pullback. the industrials, those have pulled back pretty significantly. if you look at caterpillar, caterpillar is a company that has been really strong throughout the pandemic. we've finally got a good buying opportunity. for me, it is about, all right, which sectors are extended that i will avoid on a short-term basis. which sectors have already pulled back. those are ones i will be focusing on as far as adding positions on the long term. neil: got it. danielle, always great picking your brain. danielle shay, simpler trading director of options. just to talk about this point of trends. we're looking year-over-year numbers. if you're coming off an economy flat on the ground you will see exponential leaps here. something i focus on a great deal here, the month over month trend versus the year-over-year trend. obviously going from parked to the equivalent of
12:47 pm
60 miles per hour is a noticeable jump in the economy and activity associated with it. now you look at it month over month. to that end, our charlie brady keeps track of this. the guy is a genius. auto sales are up 60% year-over-year but 4.3% month over month. clothing 43% year-over-year. 2.6% month over month. restaurants and bars, 38% plus year-over-year slowing to 1.7% month over month. i relay this to get the point across that the trend is still good. it cannot be double-digit eye-popping. on retail sales in particular i, year-over-year is still strong, north of 12%, better than where we were a year ago but flat to down month over month. that is what they're focusing on right now, whether it is slowing to the point that we should be worried. right now, that is the focus. it might be premature to make that statement. that is what they're looking at and so will we, right after this
12:48 pm
♪ and mess me around and then ♪ ♪ worst of all ♪ ♪ you never call ♪ baby daydreaming again? but i love you still you know i'm driving, right? i do. ♪ buttercup baby just to let me down ♪ if you ride, you get it. geico motorcycle. 15 minutes could save you 15% or more. over the years, mercedes-benz has patented thousands of safety innovations. crash-tested so many cars we've stopped counting. and built our most punishing test facility yet, in our effort to build the world's safest cars. we've created crumple zones and autonomous braking. active lane keeping assist and blind spot assist. we've introduced airbags, side curtain airbags, and now the first-ever rear-mounted front-impact airbags. all in the hope that you never need any of it. ♪ ♪ that building you're trying to buy,
12:49 pm
- you should ten-x it. - ten-x it? ten-x is the world's largest online commercial real estate exchange. you see it. you want it. you ten-x it. it's that fast. if i could, i'd ten-x everything. like... uh... these salads. or these sandwiches... ten-x does the same thing, but with buildings. sweet. oh no, he wasn't... oh, actually... that looks pretty good. see it. want it. ten-x it. yum! in business, it's never just another day. it's the big sale, or the big presentation. the day where everything goes right. or the one where nothing does. with comcast business you get the network that can deliver gig speeds to the most businesses and advanced cybersecurity to protect every device on it— all backed by a dedicated team, 24/7.
12:50 pm
every day in business is a big day. we'll keep you ready for what's next. comcast business powering possibilities. (announcer) if you've struggled to lose weight, you might think you were born with a slow metabolism, but what you may have is insulin resistance. fat becomes trapped inside your body and it becomes very difficult to lose weight. now there's golo. golo works to reverse the effects of insulin resistance, increase metabolic efficiency, and targets stubborn belly fat. join over two million people who have found a smarter way
12:51 pm
12:52 pm
if anyone's guess but looks like the border of texas. david spunt has much more on this in washington. david. reporter: neil, pentagon officials the latest estimate there are between five and 10,000 americans that are stuck in afghanistan right now. multiply that number over and over again, and that is the number of afghan citizens who want to leave their country. many of them want to come to the united states. one month ago president biden said he would welcome them with open arms. listen. >> but our message to those women and men is clear. there is a home for you in the united states if you so choose. we will stand with you just as you stood with us. reporter: not as easy as the president just said. right now three army installations are being prepared to receive tens of thousands of afghan refugees. somewhere in the neighborhood of 30,000. majority are former translators or others who worked alongside u.s. government, fort mccoy in
12:53 pm
wisconsin, fort bliss in texas and fort lee in virginia. former president george bush, that the united states government has a authority to cut red tape for legal refugees during a humanitarian crisis around we have the responsibility to insure safe passage for them now without bureaucratic delay. i spoke to the head of national immigration forum. that red tape must be cut. that the biden administration is taking too long. >> i think the president acted far too cautiously in this incredible emergency and crisis facing these families. he really needs to act with a much greater level of urgency. reporter: another crisis is the border crisis on the southern united states. it's a little bit of a different process. i will sum it up, not get too much into it but basically the people coming across the southern border are seeking asylum. this is a different process. they are vetted when they come to the united states. a lot of special immigrant visa candidates in afghanistan have been vetted for several weeks.
12:54 pm
that is why there are so many questions why it has taken them so long to come to the united states. neil? neil: all right. david, thank you for that update. if even a plurality of those thousands of afghans make their way to texas, presumably the border, you can imagine how strained things already are with these new additions. ron vitiello, retired acting i.c.e. director, former chief of the border patrol. always good to have you, ron. i mean, boy, talk about a group that is already taxed dealing with the thousands of migrants already surging there now. and now going through these afghans, what do you think? >> i'm disappointed that we knew that we were going to pull out of afghanistan. we knew that when they changed the policies at the u.s.-mexico border we would have a surge in activity, that we would need to do things in the united states to prepare for those changes in
12:55 pm
policy. yet again, here we are, where we did not make those plans, we did not give that augmentation to the border patrol. we were, obviously we're not prepared to see what's going on on the ground, both overseas and in the united states. and so we have to be concerned, you know, the men and women of dhs, those are professionals. they will make due with the situation that they have and they're going to do everything they can to keep us safe. border patrol agents protecting that border but they're really up against it. we've seen this surge, 212,000 encounters last month. probably a little bit more as we're moving into august. it's a terrible time for the employees and familyies that support them at dhs. let's say a prayer for them. let's give them the support of the american public so they can protect us both at the border around as they bring these refugees that helped us overseas
12:56 pm
into the united states. neil: real quickly, any concerns about the numbers we are getting from afghanistan? safe to say not all of them thoroughly vetted in the mad pell-mell rush to get out of there. there could be some bad guys in that mix? >> yes. we have to be careful. we have to i have got men and women of dhs the tools and the equipment that they need to make sure that those people are formally vetted so when they come into the united states they're not a threat to us. that they're in fact people who helped us overseas that we'll give a place in the united states. neil: all right. ron, thank you for that update. to ron's point. we do not know much about the thousands of afghans making their way here eventually. and tens of thousands of more outside of this taliban cordon around kabul airport, what their status is, how we will get them. so much we don't know after this so you only pay for what you need.
12:57 pm
12:59 pm
before nexium 24hr, anna could only imagine a comfortable night's sleep without frequent heartburn waking her up. now, that dream... . ...is her reality. nexium 24hr stops acid before it starts, for all-day, all-night protection. can you imagine 24 hours without heartburn? ♪ ♪ ♪ can you imagine 24 hours without heartburn? ♪ ♪ ♪
1:00 pm
deposit, plan and pay with easy tools from chase. simplicity feels good. chase. make more of what's yours. neil: afghanistan might look like a mess right now, but far greater of a concern for the markets, is what's happening in this country, and what's happening with covid cases in this country as well. the dow down around session lows very close to a 500 point drop, even though investors are putting their money on concerns of maybe a slow down going on here, and a bit of a flight to quality from investors, the
1:01 pm
world over because of what's going on in afghanistan, so there is your tangential possibility for the buying of treasury bonds and notes but for stocks, again it's the concern that maybe the consumer is beginning to lose his or her ferver, right now, home depot causing a concern because even though the numbers beat estimates revenues were a little bit shy from what a lot of folks thought , but again it was within the allowable room but when home depot talks about fewer shoppers , forget about what they're spending but fewer of them or the possibility that begins to take a disproportion at share of the selling. we got similar news you might recall yesterday, out of china, when it reported very very low numbers for sales growth, shopping sentimental that in our country with retail sales down more than a percent in the latest month it was four times worse than most analysts thought so like a compounding effect here, the shopper goes so
1:02 pm
goes the economy so we're monitoring that very little to do with what's happening in afghanistan even though i must stress that seems to be going from bad to worse in terms of getting folks out, and mixed reads from the taliban from the pentagon jennifer griffin on where all that stands right now. hey jennifer. reporter: hi, neil. well we just received a briefing from john kirby the press secretary who informed us the 82nd airborne has landed in kabul and put in charge of securing the airport, 1,000 troops arrived and the airport resumed military and some civilian flights overnight but the situation remains tenuous and dependent on the taliban. >> throughout the night, nine c -17s arrived, delivering equipment and approximately 1,000 troops. additionally, seven c-17s depart these flights lifted
1:03 pm
approximately 700 to 800 passengers. reporter: the u.s. military is in communications with the taliban who have setup a cordon around the airport. >> there's been no hostile interactions with the taliban on either our people, or operation s. reporter: but the u.s. military is not seeing what is happening around the city, with taliban fighters going door-to-door, with lists from the previous government, for those who worked with the americans. a former senior defense official speaking with u.s. commanders on the ground in kabul tells bret baier, "the taliban have a ring outside of the airport and won't let anyone inside it. 82nd securing airport, the big issue here is that no people outside of the taliban ring will get in, no way they get 30,000 s iv's out not even close." 4,000 u.s. troops will be on the ground by tomorrow and they hope to avoid scenes like this from yesterday, which caused them to halt evacuation flights. the goal for the u.s. military is to begin one departure flight
1:04 pm
per hour in the next 24 hours. pentagon says it can get an estimated five to 9,000 passengers out per day but it all comes down to the taliban, and whether they continue to allow the u.s. to do so. back to you, neil. neil: jennifer griffin to the pentagon, now to mike emmanuel following these developments from our washington bureau. mike particularly when it comes to the politics of all of this , the presidents from even in many of his own party, right? >> neil, no question about that good afternoon. prominent lawmakers from both parties are now calling for serious congressional hear ings in what went wrong with this afghanistan withdrawal. >> get everyone out of the country including american citizens first, and then we can have a big old messy fight about where the blame goes. biden should surrender the right to have a second term in office because he has messed up u.s. foreign policy. reporter: there's also a call from lawmakers to get rid of the red tape, the bureaucracy because this life saving mission evacuating people must be fast
1:05 pm
and efficient, with a key national security democrat saying they are well-behind schedule. >> for the last few months i have been telling the administration that they need to start the evacuation immediately, and if you simply did the math, with the number of people we need to get out and the number of days that we had before u.s. troop withdrawal is complete, they should been conducting this evacuation for months. reporter: president biden criticized afghan forces for melting away in recent days, but a senator with the u.s. army background says the president undermined them by withdrawing u.s. military support. >> he pulled rug out from underneath the afghan army over the last four or five weeks. when we train them to fight one way and prevent them from fighting that way they oftentimes get overrun by the taliban. reporter: much of the focus from the congressional perspective is not why the united states is leaving afghanistan but how it's being handled. neil? neil: mike emmanuel thank you
1:06 pm
very much. you've heard all of these comparisons to our haphazardly leaving saigon, ending tragic ally the vietnam war nearly 50 years ago, so do they compare? well a lot of people are saying there is no comparison, this situation is indeed worse, far worse, we have the center for national interest director, harry good to have you. how do they compare? >> well, i think, neil there's some obvious comparisons and obvious differences. i mean the one i think that's right out there is obviously both conflicts are civil wars. i mean, obviously when it comes to afghanistan, its been a civil war that's been brewing for 30- 40 years. as long as i've been born, and vietnam, a little bit different type of civil war, but i think that the difference here is that when we left vietnam, in terms of the damage to our geo political standing in the world was essentially cauterized when we left. obviously we took a reputational
1:07 pm
blow, it was obviously tragic, but it was over at that point. i mean, let's face it. the vietnamese weren't planning to host terrorists that could attack our homeland or hads attack our allies or attack military bases. that's really, i think the big big difference here. essentially, what joe biden has done is opened a black hole in central asia that is not going to be easy to sort of fill back up and i think that's really the big danger here. neil: you know, i was in high school i remember when we were leaving vietnam but i don't remember the north vietnamese doing anything to get in the way of our departure. in fact, pr wise i'm sure they relished the images and didn't want to do anything to stall or stop them. i'm not so sure about the taliban today. i know what it's saying about being humane and everyone can come down, we're not going to harm americans but i also see how they've encircled the kabul airport, so if you question them or try to get beyond that perimeter to get
1:08 pm
more afghans out, i don't know if they'll react the same way. what do you think? >> i don't know, neil. i mean, i think the problem here is we need to look at why joe biden did this long term. what was the strategy here? i don't see one. i think what really joe biden is thinking is this be some sort of a wildly popular decision that afghanistan would hold for maybe two to five years, that he would basically score political points , and i think that's really an absolute shame. i think we need to state, neil, really what was going on here. neil: but he did ignore his generals, right? the generals were telling him that will not likely be the case and you should be aware of that, we're told of all these concerned about the timing of this , especially keeping it before 9/11 and all that. now of course there were similar generals concerned about donald trump's may 1 planned pullout, but having said that, and he was at least telegraphed potential
1:09 pm
problems, that is president biden, to getting our folks out, and doing it, in the middle of all of this , he ignored it all. now, he criticized donald trump for ignoring his top generals. it appears he did the same. reporter: he did. he absolutely did. here is the fact that i don't think a lot of people want to say outloud but i'm going to say it. the 2,500 americans that were in afghanistan were turn a contain ment mission to ensure the country did not collapse to ensure this did not happen. now, i think honestly a lot of people say well how can only just 2,500 troops do that? well i think the taliban and all of the terrorists would understand that we be able to build up forces very very quickly in the region if they started really pushing it. the other thing though we have to keep in mind is that while it is not possible to have u.s. forces in afghanistan, the country was relatively stable, and i say relatively, in
1:10 pm
a very sort of merky sense because nothing is really stable in afghanistan, but there's no way that the country was going to be overrun by the taliban. and what this does to president biden is it makes him look like president chaos. when you look at all of the other problems the united states has whether its problems on the border, all of the immigration that comes in from that, obviously problems in our cities with crime, inflation , you put this on top of that and it just compounds increasing for him that it's very hard to remove. neil: you know the wall street journal has a short editorial today in which the headline is biden to afghanistan, drop dead. is that your view? >> i mean look in some respects yes but my bigger fear here, neil, is that our allies are going to start questioning what other commitments is joe biden going to takeaway? look one of my favorite areas to
1:11 pm
study is what is the south koreans think that we're going to do if there's trouble with north korea in the future? we have 28, 500 troops there and it's the ultimate, you know, endless war. what would we do there? the reason why the united states has deployed troops all over the world is because it's a benefit to us, because it creates stability. it creates the markets, the freedoms, the things we all love as americans. that is a benefit for the united states. when we start questioning that, when we start questioning the stability that we brought to afghanistan, even though it was paid for by the blood and treasurer of this country, we can make that argument anywhere. we can make that argument in germany, korea, england and japan. i think that this is a debate this country needs to have because this is a much bigger problem than afghanistan and i think we need to have it and now is the time. neil: you're probably right about that harry thank you so much for joining us here. just to update you on a couple things, on what the taliban is
1:12 pm
saying all about this , they have pr representatives now so that is a little different than 20 years ago saying no one this is from the taliban, no one from the u.s. will be hurt. it's declared amnesty across the country and it has promised, promised women that they could continue to work. now it's making good on all of that that remains an open question, amid these reports that they have been beating and terrorizing those outside the perimeter of the airport and preventing many from getting in, and also going house to house to make sure whose in that house and if anyone, anyone, has any ties to the outgoing government, they're going to be rounded up. so words versus reality. that's the battle ensuing in the next days, weeks, and months to come. stay with us you're watching fox business. ♪ ♪ it's a wishlist on wheels.
1:13 pm
1:14 pm
we did it again. verizon has been named america's most reliable network by rootmetrics. and our customers rated us #1 for network quality in america according to j.d. power. number one in reliability, 16 times in a row. most awarded for network quality, 27 times in a row. proving once again that nobody builds networks like verizon. that's why we're building 5g right, that's why there's only one best network. discomfort back there? instead of using aloe, or baby wipes, or powders, try the cooling, soothing relief or preparation h. because your derriere deserves expert care. preparation h. get comfortable with it.
1:15 pm
and there you have it- woah. wireless on the most reliable network nationwide. wow. -big deal! ...we get unlimited for just 30 bucks. sweet, i get that too and mine has 5g included. that's cool, but ours save us serious clam-aroonies. relax people, my wireless is crushing it. that's because you all have xfinity mobile with your internet. it's wireless so good, it keeps one upping itself.
1:16 pm
neil: all right, we are so early in this afghanistan debacle it's fair to say that it is a mess, and could get a lot messier here , but that has very little to do with what's happening on the corner of wall and broad because while stocks are taking it on the chin that is largely in response to softer than expected retail sales data, for the country and out of some big names like home depot. punctuating a theme that we maybe got a hint of yesterday, when china was reporting similar
1:17 pm
consumer slowdown here so you have the world two biggest economies that could, could i stress, be sputtering here. home depot itself, given a better than 4.5% decline is a huge chunk of that dow downdraft now, this has very little to do with what's happening with afghanistan. there, you might step back and look at where a lot of foreign money is going, and what have i told you, it is going into u.s. assets, just not equity. by and large, heading to bonds, and notes, treasury securities that are protected by the full credit of uncle sam and to the dollar, again, a reflection of a haven when the world looks like it's turning upside down, so if you're going to fault the united states for botching afghanistan, it is not being reflected into pristine securities, like treasuries and the dollar itself , representing the united states. i think that's a very important distinction we should make here, because we knock ourselves a lot in this country but when push comes to shove a lot of
1:18 pm
foreigners will shove their money into u.s. assets that are backed by the u.s. government and the many times they have questions about the wisdom of the u.s. government and important distinction to make here. we've got eddie gabore joining us key advisors group co-owner. eddie, i find that sort of a remarkable early footnote. it could change i grant you, but what do you make of what's going on here? >> well look. i think this is one of the main reasons why our thesis has been interest rates on the 10 year no matter what the fed does is not going to go up because of the amount of foreign money that's coming into the fixed income space. at the end of the day when you look around the globe, all interest rates are down, but the quality of the debt here in the u.s. is looked at as best of breed. neil: so when you say interest rates coming down, and they have been coming down, four straight days now, trading days, where do you see us going?
1:19 pm
i mean, there's been fear and talk maybe we'll get a hint of that from the minutes from the federal reserve meeting that the fed is going to wind things back a little bit, to start selling some of the securities its been scooping up over the last decade or so, more than that, and that will put a damper on things lead to a back up in yields what do you think? >> yeah, i agree with that and i do expect after jackson hole for the fed to start laying out a tapering in regards to reducing the bond purchases. i believe we're well overdue for that, and look, i think the market right now, why its been jittery really since the end of june is because it's trying to dissect what's the fed 's next move going to be, what's going on with the delta variant and then we are slowing down in regards to rate of change on gdp. i don't think there's any question in my opinion that we're going to be in a slower growing environment so as an investor in the market that's going to be a much more challenging market in the next 12 months than where it was the first six months of this year and that's why we've
1:20 pm
been telling investors in our opinion to increase the quality of or portfolio. we've been saying that since the end of the second quarter, and i think that's going to hold true for the rest of this year, because next year in our opinion , it could be a very bumpy road in the first six months. neil: eddie thank you for that. i hear where you're coming from but with caution, eddie ghabour. we've got charlie gasparino, i want to talk to him about other stuff i know he's looking at crypto but what do you think about what eddie was just saying i wonder what happens, charlie, when the fed does finally get to this tapering thing? and people know it. i wonder how the market will react. no matter how it's telegraphed i don't know if it's going to be received well. charles: it wasn't received well when trump was in office. neil: no i remember quite well. charlie: it was people thought it was the end of the world the markets were selling off. i listened to what eddie just said and believe it or not, there is a stagflation
1:21 pm
hypothesis brewing here and money is flowing into bonds, usually you get stagflation it's inflation with slower growth, it generally doesn't flow into bonds so it's not a perfect sort of scenario here and i'm not saying i endorse it but rolling it out there, wages are going to be hard to bring down. once they are established it's hard coming down, cutting people 's wages. once you start paying more for food, it's sticky, unless you definitely bring the country into a recession, through much higher interest rates, and also, if you do have a slowdown, as you're talking about and then higher inflation, that is the seeds of stagflation, and, you know, it's a very difficult thing to get out of. we had it in the 70s as you know , neil you were around back then like 50 years old in the 70 s i was just a kid. neil: that's fine, that's fine. charlie: [laughter] and, you know, listen it's hard to get rid of. you have to cause more stag to get rid of the inflation because the inflation is really attacks
1:22 pm
on the middle class so there is a lot of crazy stuff out there, because we're in unchartered territory with super low interest rates, way too long even when we didn't need them and also massive fiscal spending , which you know, distorts markets and you know what. then on top of that you've got crypto, so throw this into the equation. crypto is on a terror right now. one of the reasons i know it's on a terror is some of our reporting on crypto, which says that essentially, gary gensler, the sec chief, who wants to crackdown he said it in a speech back in august 3 at the aspen institute, he wants to crackdown big time. if you notice crypto hit its low on the 3rd i think it was something like 38,000, recent low. on the 4th, on your show, and on claman's show when i started reporting his powers are limited , crypto started on a terror. now, part of it is yes, thank god there's not a lot he can do regulatory, there's some, but not a lot.
1:23 pm
sec needs more legislative approvals, more clout, you have to go to congress, elizabeth warren whose gary gensler's i guess rabbi in his regulatory efforts, can't just do that. he's going to need republicans and they aren't giving him anything but the other thing is if you take the regulatory threat out of crypto, then it becomes a decent hedge against inflation again, remember crypto , like gold, is a hedge against inflation, so that's what you're seeing right now. lots of cross currentses in this market, potential slow down , higher inflation, people are going to be confused, the fed is tapering, listen we keep saying it. it could be really bad and the markets keep going up, but you know? the fed starts raising rates because it has to, and you still have to, you have higher inflation, and you have a slow down on top of that, it's not a recipe for great corporate earnings and usually, stocks reflect corporate earnings in the long run, maybe you can have a couple meme stocks, amc is
1:24 pm
going up because people want to stick it but at some point, amc will reflect reality that it's not making a lot of money now and its got problems with stream ing and the pandemic, so these are interesting cross currents and that's i found your conversation with eddie fascinating, because it made me think, there is now growing an argument about stagflation. i'm not saying it's true, but there's some elements out there, neil. back to you. neil: yeah, the longer it drags on the more it is an issue to your point but you are going to have to breakout hads that green leisure suit if this comes to pass because the 70s show is on. the disco ball. can you imagine? charlie: [laughter] neil: you and i are the only ones here on fox business who appreciate that period, maybe. maybe the music as well. thank you very much, my friend charlie gasparino. charlie: [laughter] neil: sadly true. all right, thank you very much. charlie gasparino we got a lot
1:25 pm
more coming up the taliban is saying all the right things about wanting to keep people safe, keep americans safe, keep women continue to do the things that they are doing, but they are behaving a tad differently. we report, you see if you're in afghanistan whether you'd want to hide. when traders tell us how to make thinkorswim even better, we listen. like jack. he wanted a streamlined version he could access anywhere, no download necessary. and kim. she wanted to execute a pre-set trade strategy in seconds. so we gave 'em thinkorswim web. because platforms this innovative, aren't just made for traders - they're made by them.
1:26 pm
thinkorswim trading. from td ameritrade. that building you're trying to sell, - you should ten-x it. - ten-x it? ten-x is the world's largest online commercial real estate exchange. you can close with more certainty. and twice as fast. if i could, i'd ten-x everything. like a coffee run... or fedora shopping. talk to your broker. ten-x does the same thing, - but with buildings. - so no more waiting. sfx: ding! see how easy...? don't just sell it. ten-x it. to run a growing business, is to be on a journey. and along the ride, you'll have many questions. challenges. and a few surprises.
1:27 pm
1:29 pm
neil: all right, let me see if i got this right. twitter is okay with the taliban not donald trump because the former president is off twitter and not invited back any time soon but a taliban spokesman, well he's been using twitter like crazy to get the word out. ashley webster has been following that oddity. that's a little weird, what do you think?
1:30 pm
ashley: yeah, a lot of people say wait a minute, is that right well, guess what? neil, we reached out to twitter, asked why the former president of the united states is permanently banned from its platform, but not the leadership of the taliban. a group, by the way, known for carrying out attacks that have killed thousands of civilians, so here is twitter' response. "the situation in afghanistan is rapidly evolving. we're also witnessing people in the country using twitter to seek help and assistance. twitter's top priority is keeping people safe and we remain vigilant. we will continue to proactively enforce our rules and review content that may violate twitter rules specifically policies against glorification of violence and platform manipulation and spam." okay that's twitter. twitter says it does not allow groups that promote terrorism or violence against civilians, even though there have been reports of revenge killings in areas of the country, the
1:31 pm
taliban have seized in just recent days. facebook, on the other hand, does designate the taliban as a terrorist group, and bans it from its platforms, but here is where it gets just a little tricky. the taliban does not appear on the state department's list of foreign terrorist organizations. a list that social media companies have relied on to justify taking down their accounts. alphabet's youtube has declined to comment on its taliban policy , but says it does rely on governments to guide its enforcement but the lines, well they are often blurry and social media companies are struggling to interpret the rules. sometimes even their own. in november of 2019, twitter removed accounts linked to hamas and hezbollah but so far, not the taliban. confused? join the club. neil: you know, i didn't know that, ashley thank you very very much appreciate that. ashley webster, speaking of those in official power right
1:32 pm
now, the white house we're going to be getting a briefing very very soon, connell mcshane at the white house with more on what we might expect maybe on this very issue, connell? connell: any minute now the press secretary jen psaki will brief reporters, neil, in the briefing room and the headline of the day ahead of that afghanistan related would probably be the airport in kabul has reopened yet again today, but certainly we've seen a whole new set of challenges emerge as that happens with the american military try to evacuate people from that country. i mean, we've seen the chaotic scenes at that airport yesterday but there's new video into us today showing what allegedly has been happening to some people as they through to get to the airport and a warning as we bring this up there is violence in this video and you can see it's kind of far away but you can see a man thought to be a member of the taliban kicking another man, kicked him in the face, and another man whipping people as they walk by this was obtained by fox from an afghan contact and again, clearly shot there on someone's phone as people are trying to
1:33 pm
get to the airport in kabul, shows how difficult it is to get that process in place, so keep that in mind as you look at the numbers we're about to show you in terms of where we stand right now. the pentagon says 4,000 american troops will be on the ground by tomorrow. late tonight, tomorrow morning as they wrap it up eventually to 6,000 troops. the goal is to fly out between five and 9,000 people per day, between now and the end of the month, so five to 9,000 per day, at this point u.s. official s estimate somewhere between 5,000 and 10,000 americans are still in and around the kabul area that number could be by the way much higher if you include other parts of the country and of course, there's far more than just americans that are looking to get out of there and as we wait for this briefing to begin today at the white house, president biden is now facing criticism for his handling of the evacuation, former obama national security official brett brew in has been among the vocal the last couple days blaming the president but also his national security team he called on biden to shake things up and fire his national security advisor jake sullivan.
1:34 pm
in usa today writing that yes, biden wanted out of afghanistan, it was on sullivan to figure out how to achieve the president's goal while ensuring we voted potential pitfalls and problems and that's clearly not what happened. i point that out partly because neil it'll be sullivan who joins the press secretary jen psaki in a few minutes in the briefing room with an update on where things stand and where we might be headed next. back to you. neil: all right, we do want to go to that but i'd be remiss if i bring in our replies to the former white house press secretary he was president bush 's first press secretary as you'll recall through the whole 9/11 and what have you and i always wonder, looking back at that time, and thinking 20 years that all of this be unfolding, eventually are pulling out and everything that's transpired, what do you think? >> neil i went back this morning to reread my briefings from october of 2001 when we went into afghanistan, and two things jump out at me.
1:35 pm
one, never in my wildest dreams, and i think it's fair to say president bush or anybody else, did we think we'd be there 20 years later, and second, even when you can make a valid case which can be made to withdraw all of the troops, the manner in which it was done is inexcusable and is horrific and i just don't think there's anyway president biden can get around that fact. he maybe right about the need to come home. he is wrong about how we got home and we're not even home yet neil: so, you know, a lot has been made of the fact that republicans have been piling on the administration and a lot of democrats, to your point, but would it have been different under donald trump who called for may 1 pullout, he says absolutely not it would have been very very different of course we don't know but your thoughts? >> we'll never know. look, it's the same military, it's the same military advisors largely. the only big issue that remains is when donald trump is conditions-based what did he mean but that and would he have pulled out the troops in large
1:36 pm
number prior to pulling out the civilians? and that's the biden approach. i can't speak to what the trump approach ultimately would have been because it didn't happen, but the math here is clear. you leave a sufficient body of military in place to get everybody else out and then you bring the military out last. president biden bugged out. he brought the military out first, and then hoped to bring the civilians out later and that's why we have the calamity that we do. neil: you mentioned 20 years ago , and the taliban is seeming ly saying it's a different taliban. that's me, characterizing some of the comments they've been making like no one from the u.s. will be hurt, it's declared amnesty across the country. it is at the same time, setting up a perimeter around the airport, to make sure any more can't get in or more that fatter, u.s. troops come out to get them in so is it all that different from the taliban, you and president bush, remember
1:37 pm
>> it's just the children of the taliban that president bush went to get out in 2001. nothings changed. they are still radical islamic group that is fit for the middle ages and that's what we're going to see in the treatment of women and they say they lie. they say that there's going to be an amnesty for afghans who cooperate with the united states government. i've already seen one account where they took the united states id papers from one of the people we worked with, burnt them into his chest, hung him and severed his limbs and left him hanging. this is the taliban. this is the brutality and didn't we learn enough when we left iraq improperly and that created isis return. we need to learn these lessons about how to do things right. you can't just bug out because we're done, we're tired of it, you have to execute it properly and that's what we thought joe biden could do, clearly, he didn't. neil: all right, ari, i hate to cut you short i want to go to jake sullivan talking to the press we're monitoring a couple
1:38 pm
things before i dip back into this guys saying that president biden an vice president harris have spoken to officials right now on this ongoing evacuation. he didn't delineate exactly which officials but we are engaging with diplomats in other nations as well as the united nations and we're in contact with taliban on a safe passage for our citizens let's go to mr. sullivan and get an idea where things stand right now. >> these are reasonable questions. we did dramatically accelerate the sib process and move out a sub tan shall number of applicants and their families, but the afghan government and its supporters, including many of the people now seeking to leave, made a passionate case that we should not conduct a mass evacuation unless we trigger a loss of confidence in the government. now, our signaling support for government obviously did not save the government but this was a considered judgment. when you conclude 20 years of military action in a civil war in another country, with the impacts of 20 years of
1:39 pm
decisions that have piled up, you have to make a lot of hard calls. none with clean outcomes. what you can do is plan for all contingencies. we did that. the american forces now on the ground are there because of contingency planning and drill ing, we did over the course of months. preparing for a range of scenarios including dire scenarios. president biden ordered multiple battalions to be pre-positioned in theatre and he activated them for deployment before the fall of kabul. he also put additional battalion s on a short string here in the united states. those have now flowed in as well yes, there were chaotic scenes yesterday but assad mir all kirby said even well-drawn plans don't survive first contact with reality. and they require adjustments and we've made those adjustments. we will stay in close touch with our allies & partners in the days ahead as we contend with the immediate need to complete the evacuation mission
1:40 pm
and as we deal with the broader challenges posed by the new reality in afghanistan and we will remain persistently vigilant against the terrorism threat in afghanistan and in multiple other theaters across multiple continents. we have proven in other places that we can suppress terrorism without a permanent military presence on the ground and we intend to do exactly that in afghanistan and with that, i would be happy to take your questions. reporter: i wanted to ask the president yesterday said that the buck stops with him. i want to get an understanding of what did he mean by, what is he taking ownership of, not just the decision to leave afghanistan, but is he taking responsibility for the chaos that happened during the evacuation for the decisions not to do evacuations sooner. is he taking responsibility for that, and for any blood shed that maybe happening right now? is he taking responsibility for
1:41 pm
that? >> he's taking responsibility for every decision the united states government took with respect to afghanistan because as he said, the buck stops with him. i am also taking responsibility and so are my colleague, the secretary of state, the secretary of defense, the chairman and the joint chief s of staff. the directors of our intelligence agencies, we as a national security team collectively take responsibility for every decision good decision, every decision that doesn't produce perfect outcomes that is what responsibility is. now, at the same time, that doesn't change the fact that there are other parties here responsible as well, who have taken actions and decisions that helped lead us to where we are, so from our perspective, what we have to do now is focus on the task at hand, the mission at hand. you mentioned chaos at the airport yesterday. at the end of the day, the question is, can we effectively evacuate those people who we intend to evacuate and that is what we are planning for and executing
1:42 pm
against beginning today where the airport is secure, the flights are going, the people are coming, and we will continue to do that in the days ahead. yes? reporter: what is president biden's response to the people of afghanistan who are now in the hands of the taliban terrorists and feel abandoned by the united states, or those elsewhere that are fearful that the u.s. will ban them to china and follow-up to that is what is president biden' response to people in israel and other countries who might also believe that u.s. is abandoning them to terrorists? >> so to the first question, president biden and all of us, as i said in my opening comments , are heartbroken by the human consequences that have unfolded and could continue to unfold in afghanistan. we believe passionately in human rights and human dignity, and we want to work with the international community to advance that wherever we can but president biden was not prepared to have american men and women continue to fight and die in the civil war of another country
1:43 pm
in order to achieve that. we will use every other tool at our disposal to achieve that and we will do so day after day, month after month in the period ahead, on behalf of the people of afghanistan. to your question about allies. we gave 20 years of american blood, treasure, sweat and tears in afghanistan. we gave them every capacity in terms of training and equipment to stand up and fight for themselves and at some point , it was the time for the united states to say that the afghan people had to stand up for themselves. we believe that our commitments to our allies & partners have always have been and we believe our commitment to taiwan and to israel remains as strong as its ever been. keep in mind that with respect to afghanistan, we said back in 2011 that we be out in 2014. we stayed another seven years. far and above and beyond the commitment that we made more
1:44 pm
than a decade ago, and the last thing that i would say is that president biden is laser focused on accomplishing the core national security objectives of the united states, and when it comes to afghanistan, that was, getting bin laden and degrading al qaeda we accomplished that and he believes it was time for our troops to come home. reporter: so just now you described a kind of choice that the president was in front of the president. either save the folks the allies in afghanistan, the folks that helped the united states through the last two decades or sacrifice more americans, young men. i think the question out there on capitol hill and around washington and elsewhere is wasn't there another choice? wasn't there a way you could have ended, president biden could have ended the war, in the way that he wanted to end the war so that americans don't sacrifice further lives for this war, but at the same
1:45 pm
time, do a better job of either ignoring ghani's request to not start evacuations or , you know , figuring some way that we wouldn't end up in a situation where there's masses of people crushing through the airport and the execution of the last four or five, six days that has seemed to just about everybody, as not the way a competent administration, you know, not the result that a competent administration has in the end. isn't that a false choice and why couldn't you do both? >> so first what i would say is that we were clear-eyed going in when we made this decision that it was possible that the taliban would end up in control of afghanistan. we were clear-eyed about that. now as the president said in his remarks yesterday we did not
1:46 pm
anticipate that it would happen at this speed, though we were planning for these potential contingencies. the reason i say that at the outset that we knew it was possible they could take over and that had to be built into our calculus in making the determination as the president did to drawdown our forces, is because once the taliban came into kabul, we were going to be faced with a situation, no matter if there was still u.s. troops on the ground or no u.s. troops on the ground of dealing with a significant number of people wanting to come to an airport to try to get evacuated. i'll give you an example. we communicated with american citizens for weeks telling them to get out of the country. we offered financial assistance for those who wouldn't be able to afford to get on flights themselves. many chose to stay right until the end, and that was their choice. we now are faced with the circumstance where we have to help evacuate those. that's our responsibility as the u.s. government, but the point i'm making is that when a civil war comes to an end
1:47 pm
with an opposing force marching on the capitol there are going to be scenes of chaos. there are going to be lots of people leaving the country. that is not something that can be fundamentally avoided and so while it is a point for reasonable debate in my view , as to how to think about the right moment to signal a complete loss of confidence in a government or not, and which is going to lead to more suffering and death or not, the fact is that we made the judgments we made based on the information we had at the time, while preparing for the alternative contingency, which was having to flow in these troops to be able to get out folks in a mass evacuation. yes? reporter: do you believe that the mission could be completed by august 31? as a national security advisor, what is the scenario on the september front? do you think the taliban of 202?
1:48 pm
do you see another where a new terrorist organization will be born like isis? >> so just on the last point. it's fairly well-documented that the taliban and isis fight one another, struggle against one another, so i do not foresee a s ymbiotic relationship there although these are dynamic scenarios so we'll see how it plays. we are working day by day to get as many people out so i'm not going to speculate on the timetable question that you just laid out and then finally, on what we expect from the taliban going forward. that is something that will have to be watched and observed over time. whether, in fact, they are prepared to meet their obligations to the basic human rights and human dignity of the people, to the safe passage of people to the airports, to
1:49 pm
the fair and just treatment of civilians, that is something they are going to have to show. i come at this with no expectations but only a sense that they will have to prove to the international community who they ultimately are going to end up being. yes? reporter: thank you. can you tell us what is it exact lt. the commitment that you secure from the taliban regarding the safe passage of americans as well as the tens of thousands of others? >> the taliban have informed us that they are prepared to provide the safe passage of civilians to the airport, and we intend to hold them to that commitment. reporter: do you believe them? reporter: just for clarity is there a deadline that's been set , for the taliban assures this will go until august 31, is the deadline before that or after that for clarity on what you just said? we believe that this can go until the 31st. we are talking to them about what the exact timetable is for how this will all play out, and i don't want to negotiate in
1:50 pm
public on working out the best modality to get the most people out in the most efficient way possible. >> [overlapping speakers] reporter: yesterday, president biden said that the united states military cannot hide where there is no interest and is to say, withdraw troops from its allies including south korea , what do you say? >> the press as he's said repeatedly has no intention of drawing down our forces from south korea or from europe, where we have sustained troop presences for a very long time, not in the middle of a civil war , but to deal with the potential of an external enemy, and to protect our allie against that external enemy, so it's a fundamentally different kind of situation from the one we're presented with. >> [overlapping speakers] reporter: the president said the
1:51 pm
situation in afghanistan is unfolding more quickly than anticipated, but numerous officials have said that there were key intelligence assessments warning the taliban could overwhelm the country and take the capitol within weeks. did the white house give regard to that intelligence and push ahead? >> i'm not actually familiar with the intelligence assess ams you're describing, but i also don't want to get into specific intelligence products and one thing i will not do from this podium or anywhere else is talk about what a different component of the inner agency did or didn't do, because from my perspective, we are one team with one mission trying to execute and do so in the best interest of our interest and values. >> [overlapping speakers] reporter: not complete by auguse americans and afghan allies who remain there. will u.s. troops stay until everyone is out or will they
1:52 pm
leave? >> so i'm not going to comment on hypotheticals. i'll stay focused on the task at hand which is getting as many people out as rapidly as possible and we'll take that day by day. reporter: you can't commit to every american? reporter: there's a large number of christian missionaries and aid workers particularly vulnerable because they are christians. is there any plan to get them to the airport and get them out? >> we are working with a variety of different types of groups, journalists, aid workers , ngo workers and so forth to help facilitate their departure from the country. yes. reporter: they have a contingency plan the president of the united states left the white house on friday. when did your administration know that another 6,000 troops were going to be needed for this >> so on wednesday evening the president convened the principles this is last wednesday evening, to discuss the deteriorating situation on the ground in afghanistan. he posed the question as to whether we had to flow more forces in from the point of view of a contingency to drawdown our embassy and to secure evacuation
1:53 pm
thursday morning, he gave the order to begin flowing those forces in and then as we watched the situation unfold over the course of the coming days, we determined that we would go from step one of that contingency plan to about 3,000 troops to step two which is about 6,000 troops. reporter: on thursday he knew, why did he leave the white house on friday? >> the president worked throughout the entire weekend. i was intimately familiar with his working habits over the course of the weekend because i was on the phone with him constantly, secretary austin was on the phone, chairman milli e, secretary blinken, the team and country, so he was monitoring developments hour-by-hour throughout that entire time and has been making a series of decisions about troop deployment s giving us direction and guidance about how to take the shape of the mission and make sure we're executing it and at every turn asking our military who is leading this mission and executing this mission with bravery and va
1:54 pm
lor, what do you need i'll get you anything you need. he asked that question multiple times every single day so president biden has been deeply engaged in this. reporter: there's a lot of anger in australia this morning. we've got citizens and then of course so many afghans who have helped the forces and helping the u.s. mission over the past 20 years. does the administration expect to do, what be your response to those people who are trapped and some are fearing execution because of the exit strategy or perhaps lack of confidence of exit strategy? >> we do take some responsibility for our allies and partners in afghanistan. as i said in my opening comments we're working to facilitate flights that we have already done so for countries that have lined them up and gotten their citizens to the airport we'll be eager to work with australia to
1:55 pm
help australian citizens and other individuals we would like to see get out. reporter: jake what do you say to the next generation of afghan women and children, young girls who fundamentally different human rights moving forward? >> i say that truly deeply, my heart goes out to afghan women and girls in the country today, under the taliban. we've seen what they've done before, and that's a very hard thing for any of us to face, but this wasn't a choice just between saving those women and girls and not saving those women and girls. the alternative choice had its own set of human costs and consequences as i said, and those human costs and consequences would have involved a substantial ramp-up of american participation in a civil war with more loss of life , more blood shed, families here in the united states who be asking a different form of the question you just asked. these are the choices the president has to make, and
1:56 pm
it doesn't mean because we don't have forces in that country, that we're not going to fight on behalf of women and girls and human rights and human dignity. we are. we do. in many other countries, where we don't have active military participation, and we'll do it in afghanistan too and we will attempt to use every measure of tool and influence we have along with our international allies & partners to alleviate the burden that those women and girls will face in the days ahead. we are absolutely committed to that. reporter: do you recognize the taliban as a legitimate governing power in afghanistan right now? >> right now there is a chaotic situation in kabul where we don't even have the establishment of a governing authority, so it be really premature to address that question. ultimately it's going to be up to the taliban to show the rest of the world who they are, and how they intend to proceed. the track record has not been good but it's premature to address that question
1:57 pm
>> reporter: taliban committed to safe passage to the airport, but our reports they set up checkpoints outside the airport. people are being beaten and whipped crossing checkpoints. some of the evacuations are nearly empty as a result of what do you have assurance about checkpoints and when do you expect them to stop doing this? >> two things about that, the earliest evacuation flights tend not to have every seat filed because process of getting any evacuation underway has a through-put issue. so we believe that is being resolved with each success if i have flight. we will be putting 300 passengers on your average military cargo plane heading out of country, hot unloading and offloading. second in terms of people being turned away by and large what we have found people have been able to get to the airport. in fact very large numbers of people have been able to get to the airport to present themselves. there have been instances where we have received reports of
1:58 pm
being turned away, pushed back or even beaten. we are taking that up in a channel with the taliban to try to resolve those issues and we're concerned about whether that will continue to unfold in the coming days. as things stand right now what we are finding is that we are getting people through the gate. we are getting them lined up and getting them on planes but this is an hour by hour issue. this is something we're clear-eyed about, focused on and holding the taliban -- neil: you're listening to jake sullivan, the national security advisor. we're keeping track of this. he is saying now that the airport is now open and military civilian flights are going through. people are getting through the gate. don't know what gate he is talking about. there is a perimeter the taliban set up encircling the entire kabul airport which individuals cannot penetrate either in or out. so again not quite sure what he meant by that or what gate he is talking about but thousands are
1:59 pm
being flown out and will be as flights resume i believe he said on the hour but all of this is still destablizing here, that the taliban is putting all front pr show, women, progress they made, the fact they can work will continue. that they are reminding the people of afghanistan, this is the taliban, that they have their best interests at heart and that no one need worry. that amnesty has been declared across the country and that no americans will be hurt but of course it is acting on that is the big question here and the fact that the throngs still run anywhere exempt with the taliban to escape the country is evidence that they don't quite agree with that. meantime i want to bring you up to date on some remarks that jerome powell is making at a teacher student town hall going on. ed fed chair saying covid is still with us. likely to be the case for a
2:00 pm
while. that people and businesses learned to adapt to this ever shifting covid environment and so has the fed. it is not yet clear if the delta variant will have an important effect on the overall economy but that the federal reserve stands ready to address it and what it might do to respond to some of these crosscurrents is anyone's guess, just like it is in afghanistan. no one knows for sure. here is charles payne. charles: neil, thank you very much, my friend. good afternoon, everyone, i'm charles payne. this is making money. breaking right now resolve has been the hallmark of this market rally going back to 2009 but when happens when the teflon wears off? after 10 years, 322 new highs has the secular bull market run its course? meanwhile what happens when the stimmie checks run out? how about a massive miss in retail sales. i have a best in industry if americans will get back to their favorite
41 Views
IN COLLECTIONS
FOX Business Television Archive Television Archive News Search ServiceUploaded by TV Archive on