people will support. >> tucker: before we go, they are new questions tonight and new evidence on how ilhan omar got citizenship, she married her brother, new investigation on that. we will have the details tomorrow, and laura logan on tucker carlson today at 4:00 p.m. eastern on foxnation.com. see you tomorrow. >> sean: welcome to "hannity," we begin with what is a chilling fox news alert, and moments according to the president of the united states donald trump will join us live on camera to respond to the gut wrenching disaster that is now unfolding inside afghanistan as 10,000 plus american citizens are trapped inside the country, and we see no immediate plan to get them out as joe biden has been asleep at the wheel for days. we expect oh, he might momentarily arrive back from his vacation at the white house.

we will ask president trump about his prior negotiations, direct negotiations with the taliban and the redlines he put in place, that joe biden clearly did not enforce. president trump coming up exclusively. meanwhile tonight, joe biden finally coming back from camp david and gearing up for what it is i guess a restful night at the white house while thousands of our fellow americans are living through hell on earth and afghanistan. we cannot even report to you tonight the exact number of americans that are trapped inside afghanistan. somewhere, we are told, reports between 10000-may be as many as 40,000 of our fellow americans are trapped behind enemy lines spread out all across the country. we don't know where they are all are. the biden administration does not know exactly how many. they don't know where these americans are located. and now abide in state department is telling them, just shelter in place, and when notified, finding your way to the airport in kabul'.

please tell me you guys are not serious, according to the security adviser, the terrorists in the taliban now that they are in control provide safe passage, this as taliban fighters are now savagely beating, shooting, stabbing people all around the airport. the foreign correspondent with the "l.a. times" tweeted out these horrific images showing the taliban using gunfire, whips, sticks, sharp objects to attack those on airport road, according to one u.s. official "to the taliban have a ring to the airport that won't let anybody inside of it. and the big issue here is that no people outside of the taliban ring will get in. no way they get 30,000, not even close." over the weekend we saw these images of u.s. military plane packed with 600 plus people desperately fleeing kabul, but

now planes are taking off mostly empty, why, because the taliban is not allowing passage into the airport. one german plane capable of carrying 150 individuals coming out, they took off with seven passengers on board. and meanwhile, yeah, taliban terrorists are going door to door after numerous reports should searching for americans, allies, and american interpreters or anyone else who assisted the u.s. in any way over the last 20 years. their horrifying reports of people being tortured, dismembered, and executed in the streets across the country. according to "the washington post," wow, when would they ever agree with sean hannity? u.s. citizens are reaching out to anyone and everyone back in washington for help. the biden administration must get to moving on a plan to rescue them before it is too late. tonight we all as a country, we need to pray to god that it is

not too late with every passing hour and every passing day, we grow closer and closer to what could be a possibly mass hostage situation or worse, and the murder of americans on a colossal scale. the number one priority of the biden a administration when joe finally gets back, he has not arrived yet, must be the safe evacuation of every american. but as we speak at this hour, there is no plan to rescue our fellow citizens, let alone our allies, let alone the translators that were promised by our government that if this moment ever came, they would be protected by us and other afghans that face certain death because of their assistance to our country in the last 20 years. there is no plan whatsoever. there is nothing. and even worse, the biden administration won't even commit to securing the airport past august the 31st, even if fellow americans are trapped inside the

country. this i had to see for myself. i will let you decide. >> can you offer any guarantee to the americans and afghan allies that if they remained there past the end of the month u.s. troops will help them evacuate? past the end of the month? >> our focus right now is undoing the work at hand, and on the task at hand, and that his day by day getting as many american citizens, as many as iv applicants, as many members of vulnerable population who are eligible to be evacuated to the airport and out on planes. we are going to do that in an expeditious fashion, that is the focus of the president come of the secretary of defense, of the secretary of state, and everybody on the national security team. that is where we will keep our effort. >> sean: joe biden and jen psaki ignore this for three straight days as they have both been on vacation. the defense secretary, the secretary of state, the vice president and all of the national security advisors seem

totally clueless and oblivious to what was unfolding before the world eyes to see. to be clear, the biden administration is making zero promises tonight. if you are afraid for your life and in afghanistan and somehow seeing the show, whether you are an american or one of our allies, you have good reason to feel that way. if you are a journalist whose life is at risk tonight like every other american, joe biden has no plan for you either. and none of this is political in any way. i don't care what news organization, i don't care where you are there, who you work for, you are a fellow american. every good decent american, we want you all home safely. but for whatever reason joe biden just didn't seem to care, didn't seem to understand the magnitude as this was unfolding in record time when he told us this would not happen. if your little girl tonight and you live in afghanistan, well, the odds are higher that you will be enslaved by the taliban.

joe biden takes zero responsibility as we saw yesterday. he is either heartless or completely checked out. you decide. until a few hours ago, joe biden had not even spoken to not a single world leader about the fall of kabul and the situation unfolding in afghanistan. not a single other world leader. keep in mind, biden was warned over and over and over again. marco rubio told us last night that his strategy for withdrawal would end in this disaster. marco rubio and others, democrat and republican senators on the intel committee have been warning biden and his administration repeatedly. they have been ignored repeatedly. joe biden's top generals according to numerous reports were pleading with him to slow the drawdown to conditions that were based on the ground when they were conducive, because they are not conducive right now for what is happening. now this is the single largest

military intel debacle i have ever seen in my life, and they have seen a number of them. and as this crisis is unfolding, joe biden could only be bothered to put his vacation on pause for a short ten minute scripted speech where he blamed everybody for the disaster and then said the buck stopped with him and turned around and went right back on vacation. or as a "wall street journal" editorial board, quite eloquently put, biden to afghanistan and the americans they are drop dead. biden is literally defiant and blaming others for his afghan debacle. even one former cia analyst, i cannot believe my eyes on msdnc was outraged and rightfully so. take a look. speak of this consequence old speech by the american president did not run for it, he owned his decision and the fact that as he put it, the buck stops with him. >> i hope that he gets to own their deaths too, i feel like a

lot of different than the rest of you guys, i was appalled, and the idea that the afghan military should be blamed for this, do you know how many casualties they took enough year? more than the united states giving 20 paid when you are not getting paid on a regular basis or fuel, nobody is supplying you with ammunition and yet you are still showing up to the fight, how dare us for having to blame these people for not having the audacity to be able to survive the taliban onslaught. we promised them in their time of need that we would take care of them, how do you ever expect anyone to ever trust us again if we don't do that now while we can? >> sean: joe biden has destroyed america's credibility around the world and tonight that is the least of our worries, china and russia already looking to cut deals with the new islamic emirates as it will be called of afghanistan run by the terrorists supporting taliban. they will again have a safe having in afghanistan just two decades after 9/11 2001, and get

this, reported mastermind behind the taliban takeover, should get your blood boiling, we had them in custody, a prisoner at guantanamo bay, we had have the appointment had him and had no reason to release him. but he was released, and the squad from bowe bergdahl during the obama-biden administration, and if you recall at the time, they both assured that all of us in america that they were going to cut her and never returning to afghanistan or terrorism ever again. but according to the biden administration, americans can trust the terrorists to now give them safe passage to the airport that they have created a perimeter around and not allowing anyone to get through. the one that is currently surrounded. the one that the embassy workers were airlifted into you, joe biden, this country just days ago, none of this would happen. how could he be so wrong? that's a question we will be

asking for a long time. >> does the taliban takeover of afghanistan now inevitable? >> no, it is not. >> why? >> because you have the afghan troops that have 300,000. well-equipped, as well-equipped as any army in the world and an air force against something like 75,000 taliban. it is not inevitable. there is going to be no circumstance will you will see people lifted off the roof of an embassy of the united states from afghanistan. >> sean: now this is a disaster on a massive scale, no end in sight, president trump as i told you is moments away and we will get his take, how will we deal with this now? first with reaction, attorney colonel of the north who has been there many times and in vietnam as well, a couple of purple hearts to show for it. colonel, we don't know how many people and we don't know where they all are.

we don't -- we know they can't get to the airport in the plans are not available. and nobody seems to have any plan to get them the hell out of there as -- and did not see this coming, what do we do now? >> well, there were people who saw it coming, sean. >> sean: you are right, i meant the biden administration. >> yes, okay, here are some real numbers unlike the ones we have been hearing. the number of service members killed in afghanistan through april 2nd, 2,248. u.s. contractors, 3,346. afghan military and police, 66,273. anybody who says that the afghan army would not fight is lying to themselves and the american people, and of course the people of it can -- afghanistan. when he think of the gold star families in the united states who miss those americans here.

think about what it is like if you are in afghan nanny lost her brother brother or your father or your sons, my god, we promised them that we are going to stick it out. we promised the same thing to the terps. it turns out it's not just 10,000 interpreters, they are close to 50,000 if you count the family members. we promise to take them out with us. that's not happening. and there are a lot of other things that are coming out of this administration that just aren't true. i will give you one. the other night the president talked about -- this was yesterday, the president talked about over the horizon capability is for dealing with counterterrorism. let me tell you about over the horizon capabilities, air power but no search and rescue for downed pilots means the airpower is too useless. the unfounded unfolded faster than we expected comment, but the president actually said this, this unfolded faster than we expected. because he refused to take the advice from the cia and from his own staff, the bottom line of it

is it unfolded faster than we expected gives you a clue as to what they ultimately expected to happen in afghanistan. that we never heard that before. it was just we hope it's going to happen in 6-9 months instead of six days. the bottom line of it is this administration has been deceiving us and the rest of the world. the afghan military, 300,000, yes, there were 300,000 well-trained, but that's not true once they started losing their troops when he set the withdrawal date. if you look back at the attrition rate and the afghan military, it begins with him saying everybody is going to be out by the 31st of august. in fact, the taliban does not have an air force, in fact they do now, some of the aircraft were flown out of the country. some of them were disabled, and the taliban will find people because they have the same kind of attractiveness, sean, that isis used to have. there were people flooding to isis, radical us all over the world. the comment that it is wrong for american troops to fight if

afghan troops won't fight is absolutely an outrage. it's terrible. and lastly, make the look and let me make one point. we have 500 college students, the children of those who are killed and permanently disabled in the line of duty. 500 starting college in the next few weeks. those 500 students deserve to be remembered -- they deserve to remember their fathers and their parents and their brothers for the kind of people that they really were, and they gave their lives for the safety of this country. they did not give it to quit. they did not want to quit. many of them were volunteers who went back multiple times. i've been on the phone with several of them over the last couple of days. they are so despondent and unconcerned that the suicide rate for our veterans which drops from 22 to 20 because of the programs put under the veteran administration and organizations like freedom alliance encourage them not to take their lives is going to start to climb dramatically because this is such a depressing thing to happen. ten days ago, we had 2300 u.s.

troops on the ground. now over 70,000 and we are looking for 10,000 americans. >> sean: at least, colonel. >> exactly, we don't know how many there really are. how about that? and nobody is going to look for them because the taliban is not protecting them. god help us. >> sean: got pray for them. donald trump in a few minutes, following biden's disastrous afghanistan withdrawal, our allies are worried, rightfully so if they have u.s. support in their time of need. the white house supposed to push back on chinese propaganda attacking the u.s. in taiwan for what they call unification. here with reaction to that is arkansas senator tom cotton. chinese now have aligned with russia, they are providing arms to iran. they have threatened our military basis, japan's military basis. we know that they are talking about recognizing this new

"islamic emirates of afghanistan" as quickly as possible. on top of that talking about reunification which we know will be the takeover of taiwan. the question tonight is, senator, what we now have all of our enemies seemingly trying to take advantage of what is going on here. how do we first save the lives of americans in afghanistan? >> yes, sean, you say that chinese propaganda that will reverberate for years to come, but the immediate priority, as you say, is to get the americans trapped behind taliban lines out of afghanistan. joe biden put hope break law when we say we pray for every contingency. they obviously did not because they're a 10-15000 americans behind the taliban checkpoints, my office has been in direct contact with hundreds of these people who have not heard from the state department, who cannot get to the airport in kabul because the taliban have checkpoints all over the roads and control all access to it.

and joe biden's administration won't even permit to stay in afghanistan to secure that airport for two more weeks to get all of those americans out. and we are really now at the mercy of how long the taliban is willing to grant safe passage to american citizens. this is a fiasco. it has grave, grave threats for our future for the massive hostage crisis, and it shows joe biden's imminent incompetence to the whole world. >> sean: is there anything you can do, any words you can say? do you have any confidence we are going to get our fellow americans the hell out of there? >> sean, i wish i could say that, but based on what i have seen from the biden administration over the last two days as my office has worked to provide information to hundreds of americans in the state department has basically told us they don't want us to contact them anymore. send them to a website so they can fill out an e form and get a

text message. but what if their phones are in charge? what if the taliban cuts off cellular service? how are they supposed to get through taliban lines to begin with? joe biden and had no plan to evacuate 10000-15000 americans when he pulled out all of our troops and our commander and down the air base the last month. withing the last thing you do is turn out your lights on your air base and bring the troops home after you bring all the civilians home. but now we have thousands of our countrymen trapped behind enemy is lines at risk to being taken hostage by the taliban at any time. >> sean: unbelievable, never in my lifetime did i think this could have been paired president trump moments away, but former caa -- i saw that mike pence broke our deal, i have noticed, mark meadows, that to joe biden has tried to blame this on the president of afghanistan, the troops in

afghanistan, and he assured us where you are very capable of easily defeating the taliban and i when all else fails, he blames president trump. i have a number of sources that have told me that extraordinarily harsh and very clear language was used from the president, from president trump, i will ask about them in a moment. to the taliban if they dared step a foot, 1 foot into any other region and that was in part of the agreement, can you confirm or deny that? >> i can confirm that and tell you that president trump, you will get to hear from him in just a few minutes, but i can tell you that he was not only straightforward in his conversations with the tallow ban, but he was very clear that any u.s. citizen, any u.s. asset, any personnel was actually harmed or in harm's way because of the taliban, he would put the full force and might of

the department of defense really with them as the bull's-eye of that target. i can tell you that also for the blame to go for president trump, not only did we take the withdrawal from afghanistan into it on a more measured process, what we also put a blueprint out there for biden to actually follow so that no one was in harm's way. one key point, you don't take out and withdraw and leave 10,000 u.s. citizens they are. you get this kind of debacle that we have right now and it is nothing short of incompetent. it is not a lack of intelligence, it is a lack of actually acting on that intelligence that was so troubling. >> sean: and it was not followed at all, but it was laid out. dan hoffman, i have to believe years from now we will be studying how is it possible that the president on the united states and our intelligence agencies could have been telling us last week, even

though they have taken over 60% of the country, they are 60 or 90 days away from getting anywhere near kabul. i was hearing that last week. how could you be so wrong? how could biden tell the country that all this confidence in this afghan military when in fact, there was no confidence to be had at all. how do you mess up that badly? you have been in intelligence for decades. >> we knew all of this, and i absolutely expect that there will be a lot of hearings to follow and expect director cia burns and dni admiral haynes to be in the hot seat testifying before congress and talking about what assessment they were providing the president. but let's make it clear, it was not a secret that the government of afghanistan lacked a lid of legitimacy, only 200 people voted in their last election of

40 million people. there were significant problems with the military, but as we have noted repeatedly in the last few days was when this administration chose to withdraw our forces and the airpower in particular shut down the air force base that put our place at risk in afghanistan and what we have is a fog of war, we don't have overhead reconnaissance and intelligence assets to collect intelligence on the threats to our people and country -- >> sean: we were ready to leave. >> get them to the airport safely. >> sean: weren't ready to do this with the conditions on the ground where the main criteria for president trump's to draw down and ultimate changeover, but i have to run right now we do have the president on the line, thank you both, mark meadows, dan hoffman, joining us live is the 45th president on the united states donald j. trump. mr. president, thank you for being with us. let me go back, i want -- i have had a of people tell me that they were very specific

conditions and very specific warnings that you gave personally to the taliban. joe biden is trying to blame them, i went first to have an opportunity to respond to that, your assessment of what is going on and what was that conversation to the extent you feel you are able to share it with us? >> well, it's good to be with you, sean, but it is a terrible time for our country. i don't think in all of the years our country has ever been so humiliated. i don't know what you call the military defeat or a psychological defeat, there is never been anything like what's happened here. you can go back to jimmy carter with the hostages. we all thought that was a great embarrassment, and we were pulled out of that by ronald reagan. this is many, many times worse. and you are dealing with thousands and thousands of americans and others that are stranded and very dangerously really stranded in afghanistan. so it's something that you can't even believe that a thing like

this -- i looked at that big monster cargo plane yesterday with people grabbing the side and trying to get flown out of gath bunt afghanistan because of their incredible fear and they're blowing off of the plane from 2,000 feet up in the air, nobody has ever seen anything like that. that blows the helicopters in vietnam away. that is not even a contest. it has been the most humiliating period of time that i've ever seen. we had a great deal and worked on a very hard. mike pompeo, brilliant guy, and many others worked on it endlessly. meetings with the taliban, of course you have to meet with the taliban. they are the ones who are negotiating with. i spoke on numerous occasions to the head of the taliban and we had very strong conversation. i told him up front, i said, look at, before we start, let me just tell you right now that if anything happens to americans or any body else or if you ever come over to our land, we will hit you with a force that no

country has ever been hit with before. a force so great to that you won't even believe it and cure of village and we know where it is, and i named it will be the first one. >> sean: mr. president, i want to interrupt, you said this to who? >> to mullah bar adar who is probably the top person, nobody knows who the top person is, but i would say that that is probably the top person and it seems to be -- that's the way it is rolling right now. but i had a very strong conversation, i also had a good conversation with him, we talked after that, that was the primary point i was making, and i asked him, do you understand? and he said i do understand. and i wanted them to get a deal done with the afghan government. i never had a lot of confidence in ghanaian, i said that openly

and plainly, i thought he was a crook and got away with murder. he spent all of this time wining and dining our senators, the senators were in his pocket. that was one of the problems that we had, but i never liked him and i guess based on his escape with cash, i don't know if that is a true story, i suspect it is. all you have to do is look at his lifestyle and where he lives, he got away with murder in many different ways, but i had a very strong talk with the taliban, which i consider to be much more important in a sense, because they were the problem. and they had been there for a long time and are good fighters and they fight hard. and after i said dad, we had a pretty good conversation. now i have to tell you that if you remember when they were coming to washington to meet with me, they decided to kill an american soldier because they thought that was a good way to negotiate, and i canceled the trip. and we had a conditions-based agreement. as you remember, i said may 1st, we want to get out, because we

have to get out. i've listen to your people on your show and other shows say we should stay. we were spending $42 billion a year. 42 billion. think of it. 42 billion. i understand russia spends 50 billion a year for their entire military. we were spending 42 billion. not 1%. they were saying 1%. that's a lot of nonsense. $42 billion a year on defending this for years and years. really now it just not 20 years, but 21.5 years, and we get nothing out of any of these things that we do whether it is them or many other countries. i'm not going to insult anybody right now. but to spend that money and get people on the shows and say how inexpensive it was. and we have to say that we lost no soldiers in the last year and a half because of me and because of the understanding that we had. we lost -- think of that.

and chicago and in new york and in other cities in the united states, many people die every weekend. we lost no soldiers in afghanistan because they knew i was not going to put up with it. and that's what happened. so we had a very strong conversation. >> sean: let me ask you this, sir. it's interesting to listen to joe biden blame you. i inherited this deal, he kept saying. but he also inherited secure borders and energy independence, and also inherited three vaccines and therapeutics like regeneron, and we now see what has been unfolding and he did not have inflation at the time. i want to be very clear here, because secretary of state pompeo on this program said exactly what you did, that it would not be an exit strategy that did not include the current conditions on the ground. and i have multiple sources, and you are confirming tonight to that it sounds to me like you told the taliban that if they

validate -- violated any aspect of the agreement with territorial ambitions, we learned last week at that 60% of the country was in their control. and you told them in no uncertain terms, sounds to me like, you basically treat them like you took care of the caliphate in syria, isis. >> well, we did paired we got rid of the caliphate. everybody said it was impossible and i did it very quickly and let the generals make the decisions. the real generals, the ones that were over there doing the fighting in the ones that knew how to do it, because we have a lot of generals that shouldn't be generals right now, quite frankly. and i'm watching them all the time. but we have great ones. we have great leaders out there. some of the greatest military in the world and giving it a very bad reputation of what is happening. think of it. we took this horrible place. i mean a place that just it -- we should not have been involved in. a horrible decision going into the middle east.

and i know the bush family will not be happy, but i believe it was the worst decision in the history of our country when we decided to go into the middle east. it has turned out to be quicksand. we destroyed the middle east. if you think it is better now than it was 20, 21 years ago, it's much worse. it was a horrible decision. trillions of dollars and if you look at both sides, because i like to look at both sides. millions and millions of lives. it's no different than it was, it's much worse. because you have to rebuild it. it's been blown to pieces. the worst decision ever made was going, you can do a strike as retribution and it could be a big strike as retribution for the world trade center, et cetera, but to get stuck and there was like quicksand, so we did a terrible thing. but think of what is happening now, i have heard as many as 40,000 americans and the taliban, good fighters. i will tell you, they are good fighters. we have to give them credit for that. fighting for 1,000 years, that's

what they do, they fight. the taliban has circled the airport, and who knows if they are going to treat us right. all of a sudden they will say, well, frankly if they were smart, and they are smart, and they are smart, they should let the americans have -- we have had situations where you have two, three, four hostages and we could have 40,000 americans not to mention others like people that helped us in afghanistan. we have never had a situation where this. 40,000 potential hostages, a minimum of 11,000, but could be as many as 40. no they have no idea how many, nobody knows how many. >> sean: when joe biden told the country that he trusted that the afghan military was so far superior and over 300,000 strong and had an airport -- air force and we would not see what happened in saigon, he could not be more wrong. but let me go back to the words that you used for the taliban

leader, because we knew last week that 60% of the country had already been taken over by the taliban, and there was no sense of urgency. to me under your plan if they had taken over 5%, not 60 like they had last, but 5% that was not in your agreement, what would've happened to them? >> we would have hit them very hard. again, the words are conditions, plural, conditions based. it was an agreement where actually we wanted to get out by may 1st and they violated the agreement, so the agreement from a lot of different standpoints and frankly, biden did not even have to go with that agreement, look what he has done to the border. we have the greatest border in the history of our country, we stop drugs, we stop human trafficking, we stop people from coming in. prisoners from coming in. now you will have -- he got the worst people in the world, emptying their jails into our country. this is like the southern

border, but it is handled even worse. nobody handled the southern border worse than him. we have the most secure border we ever had, and now the worst border we have ever had. afghanistan is the exact same thing. think of this, we have a military that is holding. you get it reduced down to 2,500 soldiers and they were doing a good job. it was fine. there was a smaller force. taking it down from close to 20 over 22,500 and we were fine, but we have the military they are and we take the military out before we took our civilians out, and before we took the interpreters and other, we want to try to help with, by the way i am america-first. the americans come out first, but also we will help people that help us we have to be very careful with the vetting coming to see some rough people in there, but we will help those people. can you imagine? what we were going to do, very quickly as we were going to take the military out to last, okay,

last? the people were coming out and were going to come out, but the agreement was violated, so i held things back because we weren't going to do anything again, conditions-based. >> sean: we will be debating. >> but just to finish, the people come out first, then i was going to take all of the military equipment, we have billions and billions of dollars worth of new black hawk helicopters, brand-new that russia will now be examining and so will china and so will everybody else to figure if it is the greatest in the world. we have brand-new army tanks and all sorts of equipment, missiles, we have everything. i was going to take it out because i knew that they weren't going to fight. just one thing, and i have to say, and this is different than everyone else, i said, why are they fighting? why the afghan soldiers fighting against taliban, and i was told some very bad information by some people. they are among the highest paid

soldiers in the world. they were doing it for paycheck because once we stopped, once we left, they stopped fighting. it's all the people that talk about the bravery and everything, i say everybody is brave, but the fact is our country was paying the afghan soldiers a fortune. so we were sort of bribing them to fight, and that is not what it is all about. it is a great thing that we are getting out, but nobody has ever handled a withdrawal worse than joe biden. this is the greatest embarrassment i believe in the history of our country. >> sean: mr. president, we don't know how many americans are trapped behind enemy lines. we know that the taliban have set up a perimeter around the airport. i guess the question is, how do we get our people home now? what would you advise? what would you do if you are put into the situation right now and dropped in and you were to take over? what is the answer, because we don't know where they are.

senator tom cotton said that people are being told to go to a website. don't call anymore, go to a website, he said, like please come and tell me we have a better plan than that. joe has been on vacation, just told that apparently he landed back at the white house, nice of him to return. >> and he only returned because he was getting terrible press. not for any other reason. and i don't even believe that he is calling the shots. what you need more than anyone is a president that is respected, and you need president that got rid of isis and got 100% got rid of isis. we took a job, al-baghdadi, i want to mention all the things we did. nobody has done what we did. we were respected all over the world. china was paying us billions and billions of dollars of tariffs. countries were moving back into our country and china respected us and frankly, they respected me. but you look, russia, i had the

pipeline stopped. totally stopped. biden comes in and approves the pipeline, but he disapproves the keystone xl pipeline. we need a president that's respected. i have never realized how important, frankly, and it is a horrible thing to say, how important a president, the head of it this country is. i thought it would may be run through bureaucracy, it doesn't. you need somebody up there that they are going to respect. so when they say, oh, he talked to the taliban coming you remember they were criticizing me. they criticize me when i talked to kim jong un. well president biden told me it's the single biggest problem we have. i said have you ever called him a question mark have you ever talk to them? no, i haven't. he did try, but it was not receptive on the other side. but it was receptive with me. now we were supposed to have a war and probably a great big nuclear war, i get along with him great, and i got along with him great. he does not like biden much, i will tell you that. but i got along with them great.

and we had no problems. you remember that. you remember the big button versus the little button and the whole thing. let me just -- we get along great, we had a very good relationship. we met, got no credit for that one, no problem. by the way, south korea, got them to pay billions of dollars. we are protecting south korea, they are very wealthy. they built the ships and the televisions, they do everything. they are very rich. they were paying us nothing. i got them to pay billions and billions of dollars because we are protecting them from north korea. and i had a very good relationship with president moon and all the people of south korea. in fact, they liked me and i like to them. but i said why are we doing this for nothing? japan, the same thing. to so many, we are protecting the world. we can't do this. it's not -- we are not supposed to be doing this. if you look at russia and china, how many countries are they fighting for? one.

you ask them, they are fighting for russia, they are fighting for china. they are not fighting for a 93 countries all over the world, most of them -- i mean, nobody even heard of them. we had a very, very strong conversation with the move and frankly, it absolutely would not have done what they are doing right now. this is the greatest embarrassment, and beyond embarrassment. this is something that it will affect our relationships for years to come in decades to come. i will say when china watches this, they are so happy and they are laughing at us. they are laughing. i extracted billions and billions of dollars out of china, never happen. we never got $0.10 from china. billions and billions. they were so happy to see a rigged election, and they might have helped it along, actually. but they were so happy. but sean, i will tell you what, this is the greatest embarrassment we have ever seen. and you know it better -- you do

an incredible job in covering it and i appreciate it. the whole country appreciates it. this is the greatest embarrassment in the history of our country. and let me tell you, this is not ending. again, we have all of those thousands of americans over there, and others and you are saying, how are they going to go? they have a taliban ring around the airport and nobody else, now they are saying we will connect -- we will negotiate. but the history is that they are very brutal and they don't like to negotiate. that is the history. and biden put us in this position paired he should've gotten civilians out first. then he should have taken the military, because we have billions of dollars a brand-new beautiful equipment. take the equipment out, and then take the soldiers out, and frankly, i said take the soldiers out, but before you leave, blow up all the forts, because we built these forts that are being now used by the

enemy. >> sean: they left everything. it's interesting, because i am watching both russia and china raced in and they want to recognize the emirates of afghanistan almost immediately. i mentioned to you i have numerous sources that said apparently a lot of people are on your phone calls. i know that everyone had to release the ukraine call, they said what we really need to do is release the calls between president trump and the head of the taliban and maybe while we're at it we can release some of the calls from president trump and president xi where america might be shocked to hear how strong you were and forceful you were in a lot of these conversations which leads me to a question about what's going on with china and russia, they are both harming iran, putting that aside, but china in particular threatening our military bases, they lectured our country in front of our secretary of state, not mike pompeo, lincoln in -- about

human rights after covid. and the communist chinese, saying we need to beg for permission to land in taiwan. and the propaganda newspaper suggesting that america won't to lift a finger to help the ally of taiwan if they have reunification which we both know means they want to take over taiwan and i'm not sure, i disagree with that assessment, i don't think jill biden would lift a finger to help taiwan, your thoughts on the new aggressive nature of china? >> i had a great relationship with president xi. a really great relationship. we got along great until covid even though i tax the hell out of him through the tariffs. they weren't happy, but i had a very good relationship and we met at mar-a-lago and i told him very strongly, do not do anything having to do with taiwan.

just don't do it. and i said it much stronger than that. i'm not going to say exactly how, but it was said very strongly. this was sitting at -- in a sofa at mar-a-lago, a meeting that was supposed to last 15 minutes before we went on to various other things within our different people, but it lasted for hours. we got along great. the first half hour i said, do anything having to do with taiwan. i know you want to, do not do it. anyway, then the election gets rigged and we end up with a different president, and what happens, there are bombers now last week, 28 bombers flying over taiwan, and this happened a week after the election. they were all of a sudden -- i think bad things will happen in respect to taiwan because they don't respect our leadership and they no longer respect our country. and that's a really bad thing. china does not respect us any longer.

and they have more respect for us just seven months ago than they ever had for this country. >> sean: let me ask you about the border was one of your big issues, sir. you had place to stay in mexico policy and built over 500 miles of border wall and ended catch and release. okay, well now this mexico policy is gone. the wall construction has ended and it is no longer catch and release, it is process and release. in the middle of a pandemic, you have seen the cages that are overcrowded with all these illegal immigrants. a high rate of covid positivity. no vaccine mandates, vaccine passports, mask mandates for illegal immigrants that other states are burdening american people with. and those people are than being dispersed all over the country. wow. a big change that seven months can make, and now it's going to be millions of people. what was your reaction?

what is your reaction? >> i have never seen anything like what is happening and what is happening now at the southern border. all he had to do was nothing. we had the greatest remain in mexico. people were not even allowed into our country and we won that in the courts. it was very tough. the wall was almost completed. it would have been -- it could have been built in another month. they delayed me at two and a half years when the democrats in congress sued me. we never had a border anywhere like it, and then almost immediately they ended these policies, catch and release. you catch them and release them into our country instead of catching them and bring in the back to their country and many of these people are a stone cold and very hard convicts and prisoners. they are very tough. i mean, literally as i said, they are emptying their jails, and not just the three countries. not just honduras and guatemala and el salvador. many countries are coming in and emptying out their prisons and letting them come into our

country. and they are walking in and caravans in other ways. what is happening. so i never saw anything so stupid in my life until the last few days. with afghanistan. it blows the stupidity of the southern border away. what happened and what is happening in afghanistan is unbelievable. and we are being set up by very tough people that are very great negotiators. i will tell you one thing, automatically great negotiators. they have been fighting for 1,000 years and everything about them they negotiate. being set up, they have all those people and in a certain way i guarantee you they consider them to be hostages. we will see what happens over the coming weeks. but this is not a story that just ended today or yesterday. this is a story that will go on for a long time, and it could be a very, very bad ending. >> sean: we have americans caught behind enemy lines right now and we were told this could never happen, and it happened.

let me ask you about energy, one of the reasons i for many years have been an advocate of energy-independence, because what happens in the streets in the middle east are not that important. you accomplish something in your administration, i don't think you got a lot of credit for, but you made america energy-independent for the first time in 75 years, and i don't think of the last months of your administration you imported a single barrel of oil from saudi arabia, for example, and now we just had over the last two weeks, joe biden begging opec to increase production because it still is the lifeblood of the world's economy. my question is with gas up a dollar and $0.30 a gallon, a new tax on the american people, that means the cost of delivering every single product in every grocery store, drugstore, home t and lowe's is costing americans mor, and on top of it a 5.4%, 15-year

high, your reaction to that aspect of the economy alone? >> so energy-independence was one of my greatest achievements, i thought. i think the vaccine, energy-independence, what we did on the border, frankly afghanistan would've been great. we would've been out and we would've been out with dignity and pride and it would've worked out great, none of this stuff going, there is no -- again, it is not the concept of leaving, it is the way they withdrew. it was not even possible to believe. but gasoline as you know is $1.87 when i was leaving office, and now it's going to be up to over $5 very soon, and they are talking to opec. i know the opec people very well, you talk about negotiators, they are killing us. and what you not say is that biden failed with opec, they told him no on the cutbacks. they failed with opec.

to think that we are back to negotiating with opec, that's how we got into the middle east years ago, because we needed the energy. and we went into the middle east and we protect countries because we needed the energy. we did not have to do that anymore. we were energy-independent, and know those wells are shut down and those jobs are gone, and keystone, the number 48,000 jobs, not 8,000 jobs, the people -- and they lied in the campaign, because biden never talked about closing up keystone. he said we will look at it, we will look at it. they were lying, because it was almost the first day that they closed up keystone, and those workers are devastated. and the head of the union, they all support me, but the head of the union supported joe biden and they ought to throw him the hell out, because he was worthless, because look what happened, but they lied about so many things. they lied about energy, they lied about keystone, they lied about the military, they lied about so much. our country is in such trouble.

such trouble. >> sean: mr. president, you touched on russia and i want to go back to it, because we saw these massive cyberattacks in their energy grid and also our food line with our meats in this country, and then we also witnessed any reference to it earlier in the interview, the waiver that you prevented vladimir putin from getting which allowed him to build the pipeline that is literally the lifeblood of the economy of our allies in western europe while simultaneously cutting out the keystone exit -- xl pipeline for americans, and i have to ask because it was you or your sons, and let's see, what do they have in common? russia, hunter biden got a lot of money. china, they did not do a deal with goldman sachs or deutsche bank, they did a deal with hunter biden

$1,000,000,000.05 with the bank of china, and to joe biden has said nothing to threats against the military or reunification threats with taiwan, or he must get permission to land an airplane in taiwan, which i never thought would happen or the question of human rights, if the last name was trump and your sons were making money in russia, china, kazakhstan, ukraine, if they saw that and through that gun in a garbage basket or wastebasket, if your sons were on video with smoking crack with, with the question not logically become, do you believe that these countries have compromising materials, as you can remember adam schiff ony did not have it and he was being scammed, do you see any potential of compromise here? because it does not make sense to me to give putin a waiver? >> so the story, the new tape

that came out two days ago has not been on any mainstream media at all. it was on your show and a couple of shows, but no mainstream. it was not on nbc or cbs or abc, it was not on cnn. it is hunter biden, the worst thing i've seen. you can even imagine this, and look, i hope families live well, but what they are doing is they are doing political persecutions with their prosecutors whether they are local or federal, and our people did not do that. the republicans don't do it to anywhere. it's a different world. they used prosecutors for persecution and it is happening. and our country is angry about it and they see it. but what is going on with hunter and china and russia and all that, i mean, they go after people for tiny little things, and here's somebody that took vast amounts of money from china

and out of the ukraine and russia, $3.5 million from the mayor's wife and chris wallace would not let me talk about that during the debate. he would not let me bring it up. he said it has nothing to do -- i said it has a lot to do. it's a very sad period of time for our country. everything is going back. we have inflation in the economy is going to. we have inflation like we have not seen in a long time. i think it's much worse. if you look just at energy and when energy goes up, everything goes up, because it is all about energy. everything goes up. but you look at the price of food where it is being doubled and tripled, and some cases, we are going to have inflation -- and i remember what jimmy carter and the good thing is for jimmy is that jimmy is looking like a much better president right now as you are comparing coming always have to have a comparison. and i remember when jimmy carter was the big inflation, the crime rate went to 21 percent in the country came to a halt, worse than a halt, well, i will tell you, we have --

we have to get on -- we have to get our act together, that's all i can say. you look at what is going on with our economy and inflation, and so many other things, and warren alaska, biggest drilling site in the world, i got it open. ronald reagan cannot do it, nobody could do it, they have been trying for 60 or 70 years, i got it done. and it was just terminated. the biggest site in the world. bigger than saudi arabia in terms of oil, i got it done and they just terminated it. and the people of alaska are very upset, they are very upset, but here is the thing, and -- we had energy independence, and now we don't. ends -- >> sean: instead of begging opec, governor abbott, we are praying for them tonight, i know that he announced that he had covid today, another breakthrough case, it's not a

big -- opec, why don't we go back to doing what was working for you, instead of allowing millions of people into this country with a high rate of covert positivity in the middle of a pandemic and then dispersing them around the country, why don't we go back to the state of mexico policy, the border wall building and process and relief and protect our borders? they seem to be things that can be subtly resolved. >> nothing simple come of the things wanted on the border were run through the court, and then all of a sudden they gave them up and had to make deals with mexico. the president of mexico is a great guy, we are really friendly and did a great deal. 28,000 soldiers paid for by mexico. his soldiers on the border not letting people in and we did not pay anything. i promise not a tariff was cost and the period, whatever it takes. we do not have people coming in during the construction of the wall on the wall worked. we built almost 500 miles, they

could finish it in a month. now they are paying billions of dollars not to finish the wall. it's not even believable, and the contractors that haven't been -- they are just having a field day, but when you look at all of the stupidity, i don't think our country can take it and i don't think our people can take it either. >> sean: let me ask you, the american people watching what will be a 25-30-year record of illegal immigrants coming into the country when you had said a 20- -- 25 year low of immigrants coming into the country, the american people now, many are angry about mask mandates, vaccine passports, but none of these restrictions would be applied to people that are not respecting our laws, our borders, and our sovereignty, how do you explain that? and do you support the restrictions on americans, but not illegal immigrants? >> first of all, on the border it is not 25 years, it is the worst in history. it is not the worst in 25 years,

we have never had a situation where massive caravans of people are pouring into the country, so it is the worst ever, as far as a vaccine i am very proud of it. i push the fda like they have never been pushed. they don't like me too much, i'm not so sure i like them. very bureaucratic, but i got them to approve a great vaccine, three of them in a period of less than nine months. i was told by dr. fauci and everybody else that it would take 3-5 years, and probably five and it won't even happen, and i got it done in less than nine months. so i consider it a great achievement. i actually think that if we did not get it done, worldwide he would have another spanish flu which killed almost 100 million people according to history. 50, 100, they don't even know. but i would love people to take the vaccine. in the meantime, where your mask if you want, but again, you want to your freedoms, you have to have your freedoms. >> sean: i know the obvious question as we had with the last minute of the program available

is will you, are you considering a run again in 2024, i will let you answer it anyway you want, but go back to the original question, now that we have all of these americans behind enemy lines, you have in the 45 seconds we have left, what would you do now to help with that specific situation? >> because the campaign finance laws are extremely complicated and unbelievably stupid, i'm actually not allowed to answer that question, can you believe that? but i will put it this way, i think you will be happy and a lot of our friends will be happy. but i'm not actually allowed to answer it. it makes it very difficult if i do, so people, you're going to be happy, because i love this country and i hate to see what is happening. >> sean: would you be willing to get on the phone with the people that you gave very harsh words to and talk to them on behalf of americans that are behind enemy lines tonight?

>> well, i would, but they are not into words, they are into strength, and strength is the president because he controls -- i rebuilt the military, we on an obsolete military and jets, 45-year-old jets. we created space for it. the answer is i would like to help, but you have to do it through the strength of the president's office and biden has dissipated that strength. >> sean: we are out of time, sir, thank you for your time. laura is going to have a great show next. don't miss it straight ahead. ♪ ♪ >> laura: i am laura ingraham, and this is "the ingraham angle" from washington tonight. the debate over how many aft grant staff -- afghan refugees we should bring in is up for debate, that many don't want to have. a stephen miller is here on why it matters. restaurant owners are being driven out of business by new york city's vaccine mandate a