regarding bagram air base during senate testimony yesterday general austin said choice to abandon bagram was based on protecting the embassy. what aspect of security at hkia made it more secure than bagram and following that, you mentioned bagram had little strateic value, if you could elaborate. >> i didn't say bagram has little strategic value in my opening statement, we can certainly break it out and go through it line by line, if you would like. i would point out, i commanded bagram one moint in time, there may be other people who have done that, probably not. i know a lot about bagram and what it offers. key point here is that the embassy was in kabul and our mission at transition was to provide security additional security for the embassy. and in the event of an evacuation, we would have to start and evacuate the embassy first. kabul makes all, provides everything that you need to be able to do that, capacity, proximity, it was the right choice. >> isn't it accurate hkia has one runway and bagram has multiple, making it easier for evacuation of individuals from -- >> that is a grea

bagram, the loss of bagram, i can't emphasize how destructive this is and maria, i'm getting reports that the chinese as they met with the taliban in late july are negotiating not only for the rare earth minerals, but also they want access to that base. the idea that china is going to get access to bagram airbase and then finally to your point, reporting that putin, the president of russia, dictating to the president of the united states as to where he can build intelligence capability in the region basically threatening him that he could not build that in what's called the stands, the region around afghanistan. maria: yeah. dmichael waltz, your thoughts on this? we talked a couple weeks ago when you joined me about the importance of the bagram airbase. tell me about the ramifications long-term. what a black eye if the ccp will be moving into bagram airbase and i'm going to have oliver north coming up in a few minutes, he's going to talk about the technology at that base. he said there's more sensors there than the whole island of manhattan. your thoughts? >> colonel north is absolut

the whole idea of bagram, for example, and securing bagram and whether it's bagram or [inaudible] thatd of thing. people should go back and look at the force we had, 2500 troops. those are advisors, those weren't infantry battalion. those were advisors. in order to secure bagram, you need about a brigade, a battalion to secure the 72 towers at bagram, entrances, qrts, outer ring perimeter security to do patrols another battalion. right off the bat, that's three battalions. north of kabul 60 kilometers or so, you will need a battalion to secure that quarter. roughly speaking 5 to 6,000 additional troops on top of what it was to secure. we had a change of mission. the mission was very clear to take the force down to zero by the end of the summer and to provide military forces to protect the embassy as a bridging solution until a contract solution was in because the president's intent was to keep the embassy going and to secure the embassy, about 750 person, maybe a little less than a thousand military mission. and that was basically -- [inaudible]. so you could not with the conditions th

this is particularly true of bagram airfield. many of you have visited bagram at some point over the past 20 years, and were probably struck by two of its defining features. its sprawling size and its isolation. virtues for moe of its life span, they rendered it untenable under the circumstances. the guidance i received in april was to conduct the complete withdrawal of u.s. combat forces and plan for a diplomatic security force of absolutely no more than 650 service members. it was not feasible to preserve the u.s. embassy in kabul, hold and defend hamid karzai international airport, the embassy's key link to the outside world, and also defend bagram airfield with 650 soldiers and marines. this is important. the bagram option went away when we ordered to reduce our presence to the 650 personnel in kabul. i would like to shift briefly to the neo, which i have noted, was a completely different operation than the withdrawal. they were separate. the withdrawal began in april, following the president's direction. the decision to cond

perimeter to have safe space for any potential rocket attacks into bagram.'re talking literally thousands of troops that are needed to secure bagram and that doesn't even address the need to allow to get to bagram when many of the civilians were in kabul already. he explained the logistical reason that bagram did not make sense to keep open. >> so, the totality of what we learned certainly from yesterday and today seems to be the military leadership both civilian and active duty seems to have made it clear, look, this was on the white house. they made this decision. we carried out the order. we may have advised something else but it does feel as if they're making it clear this isn't on us. is that how you look at it? >> yes. but, i mean, also making it very clear that this was the president's decision because he's the commander in chief and there's civilian in control of the military. the one thing lost in a lot of this, it is very uncommon for us to hear from a general officer like general milley and secretary austin, very uncommon for us to hear from them

this is particularly true of bagram airfield.y of you have have visited bagram at some point in the past 20 years and were probably struck by two defining features, it's sprawling size and its isolation. virtues for most of its life span they rendered it untenable under the circumstances. the guidance i received in april was to plan for a diplomatic security force of no more than 650 service members. it was not feasible to preserve the u.s. embassy in kabul, hold and defend the international airport, embassy's key link to the outside world and defend bagram airfield with 650 soldiers and marines. this is important. the bagram option went away when we were ordered to reduce our presence to the 650 personnel in kabul. i would like to ift briefly to the neo, it was a completely different operation than a withdrawal. they were separate. the withdrawal began in april following the president's direction. the decision to conduct a neo rested with the department of state and they made that decision on 14 august. in our neo planning centr

>> ma'am, i was intimately involved in all with bagram, no way would bagram contribute to use of afghan air force, continued maintenance or bringing people out. very briefly, ki tell you once we went below 2500 peep nel afghan, we lost the ability to hold bagram air base. it was inevitable we would have to come out of bagram, late june, early july with 650 marines and soldiers in the country. it was not feasible to hold bagram under those circumstances. we were driven by the plan, which we all had an opportunity to work, to come out of bagram. no way to keep bagram and go to effective zero in >> well, thinking of what we have -- may have gained or may have lost as we leave. we think about countering adversaries, so again, general mckenzie what is your assessment of the foreign influence in afghanistan, the wake of our - hosted what we called the conference. we all adversaries from filling the we talk about that region after the fall of afghanistan. generally what they want is they want assurance.

the securityic issues are different than they are at bagram, but bagram was not a feasible option given numberoffs troop, distance, and security requirements. >> follow-up question. you mentioned, you know, having to evacuate so quickly. do you trust the information that you are receiving from our intelligence community? general austin. >> i have confidence in the information that we get from the intel community, yes. that doesn't say that they will be 100% right all the time. >> given the fact that it seems as though they did not at all plan for a complete surrender of the afghan forces upon the withdrawal of u.s. troops. >> they predicted that outcome, but a different timeline. as we have -- you have heard us say before. >> in addition to the botched over the horizon activity that killed ten afghans, still believe that your intelligence community can be trusted and is effective? >> again, i have confidence in the intel community. >> the gentlelady's time has expired. i'll now recommend ms. -- recognize ms. jacobs for five minutes. >> thank, madam chair. and thank you all for being her

i want to talk a little bit about bagram. two runways at bagram and one at hkia is that correct? >> that's correct. >> strategic value to two runways. >> it is dependent on the mission. >> stand-off versus urban environment and advantages and disadvantages of that you would agree with that? >> that's correct. >> i want to talk a little bit about the strike. on august 29, i think. who who set the rules of engagement? at what level? >> details on a classified setting. >> i want to know what the rules of engagement were. i want to know whose rules? >> u.s. military. >> president biden, secretary austin? >> it has nothing to do with the rules of engagement. >> i want to refer to a "new york times" article describing the policy change of the biden administration that placed greater restrictions on drone strikes and raids conducted outside conventional battlefield zones. previously authorized by ground commanders, these operations now require white house approval. did the strike on august 28th or 29th, the one that killed ten innocents, didn't require presidential approval? >> it did n

we needed bagram, we needed the afghan army to hold.american presence in afghanistan, to do counter terrorism and to keep the chinese out. maria: really, really disturbing story, rebecca. you know, a lot of people talk about the $85 billion in armament, the weaponry and the black hawk helicopters left on the ground. very few are talking about the $1 billion invested over the 20-year period in bagram airfield. i wanted to mention that. i'm glad you brought up the rare earth medicine l rails. of -- minerals. of course that's one of the motivations of the ccp as well. this could not be worse news, that the ccp now wants to take over bagram. we'll watch it. rebecca, thank you. >> thank you. maria: we'll take a break. when we come back, skipping the checkout lines, one grocery store chain expanding its moves to change the way you shop. we'll tell you how in the retail roundup. we'll be right back. -capsule! -capsule! -capsule! capsule saves me money on prescriptions. capsule took care of my insurance. capsule delivered my meds to my doorstep

so, choosing bagram or kabul over bagram, what you have got is blinken wanting the quote, unquote, easierte a makeshift embassy back up into bagram, et cetera. and we have completely abandoned the -- our people there, our afghan allies. and the northern alliance. i can't even believe we are not supporting them. a friend of mine, someone that i became very close with in panjshir valley, the governor, he was killed two days ago by the taliban. and it's just shameful whether a this administration is doing. >> yeah, rob, it is shameful. my question to you is about the navy seals and the special forces. they train to go and rescue people all the time around the world in very dangerous situations. we have now left it up to ngos and veterans. why -- what are you hearing? why hasn't the government -- you are u.s. government allowed our special forces to go in and rescue americans? i'm sure that you know, people that you know in the forces are probably itching to go in there and do it. >> thanks for having me today. great to see you too, general tata. yeah, i mean, a lot of veterans, special force

bagram, the loss of bag rap, i can't -- bagram, i can't emphasize how destructive this is.aria: as the biden administration promises green cars for afghan refugees, the southern border is overflowing with migrants. there are 15,000 people waiting to apprehended under one bridge in del-rio, texas. joe biden's refusal to close the border as terrorist want-to-bees join the fight, as michael waltz predicted last week. >>>> we are on a road to a futue attack. the samewe team that's around biden was around obama that yanked out of iraq and led to the rise of the isis caliphate. i think you're going to see that in the next year with al-qaida 3.0 partnered with hakani and the taliban. maria: coming up, texas senator ted cruz on the consequences of wide open borders and gibbing victories to -- giving victories to adversaries. plus john durham issuing an indictment to a hillary clinton lawyer. eric trump, the first one to take the calls from reporters about the phony narrative is here with his never before told side of thes story. then, the democrats are trying hard to change the con

the loss of bagram, i can't emphasize how destructive this is.ia: then as the biden administration promises new green car for afghan refugees the southern border is overflowing the migrants. now there are 15,000 people waiting to get apprehended under that one bridge in del rio, texas. joe biden's refusal to close the border as terrorists wanna be's join the fights, will they try to access through mexico as michael waltz predicted last week. >> we are on the road to future attacks. the same team that's around biden was around obama that yanked us out of we are ache and led to rise of isis caliphate. i think you will see that next year with al-qaeda 3.0 partnered with hakani and the taliban. maria: coming up texas senator ted cruz of consequences of wide open borders and victory to adversaries. prosecutor john durham issuing an indictment to a hillary clinton lawyer for allegedly lying to the fbi during the trump-russia hoax. eric trump the first one to take the calls from reporters on the phoney narratives is here with never before told side of t

to work, to come out of bagram. no way to keep bagram and go to effective zero in >> well, thinking of what we have -- may have gained or may have lost as we leave. we think about countering adversaries, so again, general mckenzie what is your assessment of the foreign influence in afghanistan, the wake of our - hosted what we called the conference. we all adversaries from filling the we talk about that region after the fall of afghanistan. generally what they want is they want assurance. they want to continue to have ties with the united states because they want alternatives to russia and they want alternatives to china. unfortunately because of the geographic location, they'll always have to deal with russia and china. our partners in the region want a message that the united states is not going to turn our back on them even though we left afghanistan. we had a productive conference based on those themes. >> i couldn't agree more. it makes us more vulnerable if we allow anybody else to fill that vacuum. i'd like t

the last plane should have been from bagram air force because.dn't have died if they were guarding the perimeter of a well-guarded air force base. >> i can't imagine what that is like for their families to hear that. it's a point that has been brought up a lot in terms of bagram. now we've given infrastructure of an entire air buys to china. >> even if you accept the biden administration was surprised how fast the taliban took over, if you accept that, we can kill anybody by drone and the military wherewithal to have destroyed bagram on the way out. i don't see why we shouldn't have destroyed it on the way out. they could have shade we were surprised. once they were surprised and took over the base, you say you have 20 minutes to vacate because you have incoming mess sills that would have been a way to leave with strength. instead, the sadness of the soldiers that died and the incompetence of the biden administration. i don't think will be forgotten, this will go down in history as the worth military mistake. >> martha: yeah, a lot of questions o

i would have kept bagram because bagram located right next to china, right near china and iran.ng up, my interview with several people who escaped afghanistan after the taliban takeover. stay with us as the special edition of "hannity" continues. is your family ready for an emergency? you can prepare by mapping out two ways to escape your home, creating a supply kit, and including your whole family in practice drills. for help creating an emergency plan, visit safetyactioncenter.pge.com a little preparation will make you and your family safer in an emergency. a week's worth of food and water, radio, flashlight, batteries and first aid kit are a good start to learn more, visit safetyactioncenter.pge.com ♪ ♪ >> sean: i recently spoke with several people who managed to escape afghanistan after the taliban takeover, and here are their personal stories. >> the individuals who did escape afghanistan with the help of senator cotton. a college student who was brutally attacked by the taliban while trying to get to the airport, and mohammed a, whose identity we are keeping hit income is

your thoughts on giving up bagram, you now that we know that the chinese are wanting to own bagram airbase -- right near china, russia, pakistan. why would the u.s. give up eyes an ears in such a critical part of the world, close to where china is building the nuclear facility and the xinjiang province where they have the uyghursen slaved. give us the consequences. >> i said if we move out of bagram, where's the nearest base, the nearest base is qatar, a five or six hour flight to get to bagram. that makes no sense. we just gave up all of our security in the middle east, china, pakistan, it's going to be a haven for terrorists. maria: unbelievable. >> when they gave this up, maria, when they made this decision, they said listen, if it goes bad we're going to blame it on president trump. president trump does not have to take this. he's not taking the fall. he was not going to leave bagram air force base. plus, the meme ya has come out of their shell and held them accountable. that's going to make the country stronger. if we continue to do that, we'll keep the cats in their house but if we d

when we controlled bagram we were a thorn in the china's side now bagram will be a crown of the belt road system. elizabeth: senator makes a good point. representative mike gallagher is agreeing with what the senator is saying. watch this. >> surrender didding bagram, pulling out military assets before we gotten every american citizen out of the country will go down as one of the worst foreign policy mistakes in the history of the united states foreign policy. so this president to add insult to injury has been lying to the american people for two weeks. he said al qaeda has been decimated in afghanistan. not true. he said our allies didn't have concerns with the way this has been conducted. not true. he said americans weren't having trouble getting to the airport. obviously we left hundreds if not thousands of them behind. so that was a massive lie. elizabeth: doctor, your reaction? >> these past two weeks decisions from the president and this administration has irreparably damaged the united states not just in reputation, demolished trust other countries have for us, abandoned allie

we saw thousands of hardens jihadists escape the bagram prison.ision on guantanamo, these individuals, al qaeda, isis-k, the haqqanis, they were all released because of the over run of bagram air base. >> true. >> and now they are on the loose again. >> i've been to that prison will you i about note that 5,000 were released under the doha agreement under the trump administration. we could have a longer congress. congressman andy barr, we appreciate the time you took this morning. >> thank you very much. >>> breaking news out of washington, u.s. capitol police are just arrested a man near the democratic national committee headquarters and details on the weapons he had in his car. stay with us. that's next. en you're on the la, they're right behind you. reunite with your team. go bowling. for skin that never holds you back don't settle for silver #1 for diabetic dry skin* #1 for psoriasis symptom relief* and #1 for eczema symptom relief* gold bond champion your skin your shipping manager left to “find themself.” leaving you lost. you need to hire. i

plan would have had no inclusion of bagram air base. if i understand you correctly, it did not include bagram. >> the plan focused on the airport in kabul. >> i wonder how the evacuation plan was updated, mr. secretary, as things began to change on the ground. what was the process you deployed there? >> senator, through the course of the spring and summer, we reviewed all of these plans, different contingencies, including the n.e.o. plan. of course the element that no one anticipated, as we've discussed on numerous occasions, was the rapid collapse of the afghan government and the afghan security forces in the space of about 11 days. having said that, we had plans in place to do the two critical things that we did. we were able to evacuate our embassy, all its personnel, destroy sensitive materials, get people to the airport, in 48 hours. and in many cases, much less than that. second, as i mentioned, the president ordered that there be a standby force in place to make sure that the airport in kabul was secured, planes could come in, pl

i talked about bagram. there was a lack of interagency planning. we have seen this in terms of how the chaotic withdrawal occurred. these were preventable problems and they put our military and your diplomats in this impossible situation. they did the best they could and i commend them for that. in an impossible situation, it's amazing what they were able to perform. but it was so rushed and chaotic and we did not get the right people out. many who we did get out seem not to fall into any of the categories we are concerned about. now, what do we do? let's look forward as suggested by senator kunz -- senator coon s. you don't believe it will be a platform for terrorism going forward. the taliban government has said they will fight back against terrorists. do you believe the haqqani network and the secretary of the interior who is a wanted terrorists -- wanted terrorists based on your administration's assessment. do you believe they are going to fight back against terrorists? sec. blinken: the question from our perspective and partners perspective is

not want america to have eyes and ears on china and russia, did he. >> we don't have that in the bagram of our citizens out and help their citizens over there in history will not look on that kindly. it does leave the back door wide open not only do we have the terrorist threat renewed in afghanistan but china and russia will happily tell, time is not stupid enough to do terrorist attacks and do things overtly except for on the side realm but they don't have the perfect proxy in the taliban they cannot prop them up financially in the tears activities in afghanistan and here in the united states. maria: which is leading some people to believe that the ccp, the chinese communist party will move into the bagram airbase and take over that airbase which would be an incredible blackeye on america international security professionals. while all of this is going on you just went through two crises, afghanistan of the wide open border why are your colleagues talking about money being spent on a green economy. this is the priority, why don't you talk to us out of these talks, house ways and means

not want america to have eyes and ears on china and russia, did he. >> we don't have that in the bagram and help their citizens over there in history will not look on that kindly. it does leave the back door wide open not only do we have the terrorist threat renewed in afghanistan but china and russia will happily tell, time is not stupid enough to do terrorist attacks and do things overtly except for on the side realm but they don't have the perfect proxy in the taliban they cannot prop them up financially in the tears activities in afghanistan and here in the united states. maria: which is leading some people to believe that the ccp, the chinese communist party will move into the bagram airbase and take over that airbase which would be an incredible blackeye on america international security professionals. while all of this is going on you just went through two crises, afghanistan of the wide open border why are your colleagues talking about money being spent on a green economy. this is the priority, why don't you talk to us out of these talks, house ways and means committee of the th

>> bagram. >> oh, those are from bagram? so you have id cards from bagram.ir phone, other ids, recommendation letters, employment contracts, and they're hoping that all this paperwork will be enough to get them a visa immediately so they can get out of this country. they'd come to this office simply because the internet was working and there were computers, even though the taliban were closing in, afghans here were still required to upload their documents in english to the state department website. there were no embassy officials around to help. this woman has no connection to the u.s. or to the u.s. embassy or a company or contractor, but she is just saying out of mercy, her husband died several years ago, and she is afraid the taliban are going to come, and she is afraid they're going do horrible things to women and children. so she is just here hoping that maybe there is a possibility that she can get a visa for her son. >> reporter: there was a plan for a peaceful transition, a plan for the taliban to enter kabul and then share power with the u.s.-backed

here is what florida congressman michael waltz said about bagram a couple of weeks ago when he joined this. >> just to add that, bagram air base was the only base in the world that we had sandwich between china, russia and iran and that we could also strike these terrorist groups. the only one, not a single country around afghanistan has agreed to host an additional base. it's also just a few hundred miles from the chinese province xinjiang province where the uighurs are but where they are putting nuclear missiles. the biggest win, america won't stand with you, this is evidence, the russians are telling the ukrainians the same thing. maria: general, quite extraordinary. no heads have rolled at all in the biden administration for this decision, your reaction to all of this? >> yeah, you know, maria, this didn't have to be. look, we came in the trump administration, we came in and i came in with the president. he brought me along with him after the campaign and we had to get out of afghanistan, we had to do that because we had to look at china's threat and also to russia as well but we

abandoning the bagram airfield, giving it to the taliban. a decision 100 years from now will be studied at war colleges as a colossal strategic mistake giving up two secure air fields, necessitating evacuation from a dense environment, commercial airport, which led traj cally to the suicide bombings and murders that killed 13 american servicemen and women. had we been evacuated from bagram, odds are quite high that attack wouldn't have happened or would have been far less sekeer sekeer -- severe in its consekwens. secondly, biden administration giving the taliban list of americans and of afghans we wanted out. third, the decision to leave americans behind. hundreds of americans, perhaps more, perhaps thousands. thousands of green card holders, tens of thousands of afghans who assisted the u.s. military, biden administration abandoned them and left them behind. and fourth, leaving billions of dollars of equipment that the taliban will now use to threaten our lives. earlier in the hearing, you said about the equipment, "none of it poses strate

now manning the gates of bagram air base, the u.s.'s military's main hub during the war.on center for those who were housed anden tear gated after being caught in battle. rick robertson gives us a remark bible look inside. >> reporter: behind bagram's gates, a wasteland. military hardware abandoned. it is like driving through a ghost town here. completely deserted. the odd taliban vehicle. and everything just the way that it was. but eerily different. shops, cafe. . >> this was the main route through the base. h hangars here. >> reporter: the million billion dollar afghan hub is in the taliban's hands. its dark secrets being revealed. the huffs for the prisoners. bagram once feared by the taliban that the u.s. handed over in 2014, vast, sprawling and trashed. prisoner identification. cover for his face. an i.d. photograph of a prisoner laying on the ground. the taliban's victory freed them. we're going in. the way the prisoners got out. this is the cages inside here. these are the cages, huge cages. they have just been left as they are. look at this. take a look. take a l

bagram was closed.he joe biden doctrine, the biden doctrine for the rest of history will be 90% is good enough. i think that that's shameful and the american people should not feel safer when they have a president of the united states willing to take 10% of us and leave us. >> bill: i've heard nothing but amazing things about general miller. never met him myself. do you know how many marines or soldiers he was requesting to keep bagram, to keep the embassy and the airport in kabul operating? >> i don't. but i can tell you for sure he warned not to close bagram. it was not the right thing to do. his plan, i'm sure, included the exact number that he felt he needed in order to keep the place safe. bill, look, as you know, bagram is easier to control, easier to keep safe because it is out and yet the decision was made by political people, by the political folks, to somehow close bagram and keep this going. let's be very clear. donald trump handed joe biden a stable afghanistan and a functioning state depart

why allow china by the way sees bagram is a major major asset, why did we allow that to be the first thing we let go circling ourselves into a tiny bubble letting them surround us in every way, they extort americans and threaten others coming in. >> listen to one republican congressman with very harsh words for our president. >> the president repeatedly assured the american people the television takeover was not inevitable, that we had plenty of time to safely evacuate americans. the president has misled us more than once. i fear the president is delusional. >> how is president biden so consistently ron foreign-policy? >> let's go back to secretary gates who said president biden is the only individual in the world who is 100% wrong on foreign-policy every time. president biden lied to us how many americans will find the president biden continued to live out the explosion where he said 160 and scans were killed and 13 us servicemembers, 2-year-old child, asking for american citizens after that explosion we haven't heard from persons and they lost dozens of americans, the same thing th

president biden even chose to give up bagram air force base north of kabul. it's a strategic military location that military leaders will tell you should never have been abandoned under any circumstances. probably the only facility in afghanistan big enough to get every american out quickly. we left there in the middle of the night without even telling our allies on the ground. the united states senate must investigate why the president ordered the military to abandon. and, madam president, the united states i believe has a sacred duty to finish the job of safely evacuating every american civilian in afghanistan. the president said on national television just a few weeks before the collapse that he would not leave afghanistan and would not follow the directive that he had placed on the augusy american was out, but yet on august 30, he had every american service member out and his own secretary of state said they were still -- there were still up to 200 american citizens trapped behind enemy lines. i believe we also have to evacuate the sphation who risked the

part of the reason that they had to pull out of bagram is they were down to 650 troops. they were told your primary responsibility is to protect the embassy. to protect the embassy with 650 troops, you can't protect this sprawling complex as bagram, so they decided to concentrate or hamed karzai in kabul. >> martha: that reveals what we've heard, which is that the military leadership at the pentagon felt they didn't have enough people to do both as you said. so the fact that they say well, we can give up bagram, they're dealing with the number of people they're given. so they had to make a choice. that was an administration choice, not to give them enough people to secure the embassy, secure bagram and whatever else that they needed. it's clear from most of the reporting and i wonder if you agree that the pentagon had a different notion about how this should be handled than the president of the united states? >> you know, the pentagon is a big place but there were top people including -- and i have this authoritatively -- general mark milley in april before the president

failed to keep bagram air force place, u.s. military base, two runways, that could be used to evacuate civilians. we just heard failure to prevent a vast arsenal of weapons from getting into the hands of the taliban. seems the most egregious that i hear from wyoming and across the country is abandoning american citizens, as well as abandoning our allies in afghanistan. senator portman went over the numbers. washington post called it a moral disaster. i think it's a moral disgrace. you nearly dislocated your shoulder patting yourself on the back for the great job you've done. just yesterday you stated we did the right thing by our citizens in working feverishly to get every one of them out. but you didn't get every one of them out. you've admitted again and again, talking over 100 americans. the top priority must always be getting all americans home safely. and now with no u.s. personnel in afghanistan, the americans that president biden left behind instead of going on national tv and saying we will not take the troops out until

retaining bagram would have put as many as 5,000 u.s. troops in harm's way o just to operate and defend it. and would have contributed little to the mission we assigned which is to protect and defend the embassy some 30 miles away. the distance from kabul also rendered bagram of little value in the evacuation. staying at bagram meant staying at war in afghanistan, something that the president made clear that he would not do. >> over the horizon --. outside the country. just days ago we conducted one such strike in syria, eliminating a senior al qaeda figure. over the horizon populations are difficult but absolutely possible and the intelligence that supports them comes from a variety of sources and not just u.s. boots on the ground. as for when we started evacuations, we offered input to the state department's decision. mindful of their concerns that moving too soon might actually cause the very collapse of the afghan government that we all wanted to do avoid. and that moving too late would put our people and operations at greater risk.

bagram bagram went down, the embassy went down, and we went dark.we have no eyes and ears on the ground. we've lost intelligence capability in the region and that includes russia, china, and iran, as you know. this is a national security threat as china moves in for. all i know, they may take over bagram air base. but there over the horizon capability, i believe, has been exaggerated. it's not a viable option. is too far away. did you negotiate with countries like uzbekistan and tajikistan to put an i.s. our capability in their? and my last question? , is it true that president putin present threatened the president of the united states, saying he could not build intelligence capabilities in the region? >> this isn't an important question, and one that it's detail and substance i think we need to take up in another question [inaudible] you marry very much appreciated. let me just say this very broadly. and you know this very well, given your focus and expertise on these issues. the terrorist president has [inaudible] dramatically over the past 20 ye

abandoning the bagram air field. 100 years from that you notice will teach abandoning bagram and we gaveto the taliban. moving our evacuation to the kabul international airport. a dense urban environment controlled by the taliban, that cost the lives of 13 servicemen and women. they didn't have to tie. if we were at bagram there is a good chance the secure perimeter would have kept them alive. it was incompetence. blinken had 2 admissions today that were significant. i asked him flat out, is it true that the biden administration gave the taliban a list of americans and a list of afghans we wanted out? after he hemmed and haed he said yes, we gave them a list. that's terrifying and may have functioned as a kill list. i asked him if it was true that a number of afghan men came with little girls who claimed they were wives. little girls raped by grown taliban men. again blinken said yes. the u.s. state department was trafficking child predators of children. he refused to answer the equal up question: how many names did you give the taliban? how many children are being sexually assaulted by

china may use bagram airbase as a hub for its belt and road initiative. china denies that.sia. reaction to all of that news? >> china is moving in everywhere. that is really what the problem is. even very close to our homeland here, 90 miles away in cuba. you see what they're doing in south america. afghanistan is the latest thing. that is the thing when secretary blinken says they have leverage against the taliban i don't know what leverage he is talking about quite frankly because if it is monetary leverage, china will fill in the void and so, this is something that should be very much concerning and this is paul of president biden's doing. elizabeth: congresswoman, you grilled the secretary of state. we had representative michael mccaul of your committee, house foreign affairs, he is the ranking republican, he brought up this issue, he asked secretary of state antony blinken whether russia's leader vladmir putin threatened president biden. blinken didn't answer the question. watch this. >> and my last question is is, is it true that president putin threatened the preside

now, abandoning bagram airbase wasn't your call.s the pentagon and the imwhite house ultimately. but i want to ask you flat out, did the state department give the taliban and a list or multiple lists of americans and/or afghans that we wanted out? >> those reports and the idea that we would do anything to endanger our citizens or anyone else at a time that we are trying to save their lives is flat out wrong. >> yes or no -- >> letn. me be clear if i may, please. thankor you. in limited instances where we to get a bus or a group of people through a checkpoint, we gave them to the people at the checkpoint to demonstrate -- >> how many were on the list you gave? >> doesn't matter. >> some order of magnitude. >> and a handful of situations. >> is it your testimony it wasn't hundreds. did you give them thousands? >> no we did not. >> hundreds? >> i'm not going to put a number on it. >> it's to discover how many names and how many individuals you gave the name to that had been targeted for torture or murder. >> by definition, these were i

we lost bagram air base which we need in order to have counter-terrorism in that region.s on iran or china or russia. americans lost their lives. americans are still over there. so, on every level on humanitarian level on a military level, on a counter-terrorism level there was a tremendous failure. jillian: let's talk about this for a second dhs secretary alejandro mayorkas didn't expect a delta surge at the bhrd obviously talking about coronavirus. take a listen and we will get your reaction on the last end. >> what i didn't expect is the, um, tragic rise of the delta variant and the set back in the pandemic. we are confronted with a population of people that, um, as a general matter, um, have a rate of illness of approximately 20%. jillian: so i guess i just wonder if they had expected this surge in delta variant, would they have done anything differently? do you think so? >> well, let me just say i twice visited the border. the first visit we made very early this year with minority leader mccarthy specifically asked about testing for covid-19 at the border. and i put

we put so much money, time and many structural things into bagram air base, it's a wonderful air basetired major general danny pittard we face an uncertain future on this front of we are safer, hopefully it will remain that way. thank you again for your service. >> thank you, eric. eric: of course. arthel? arthel: all right. are you ready for some football in are the players ready to get vaccinated? the nfl's vaccine scorecard up next. we will talk to a doctor who treats some of the biggest names in pro sports. ♪ ♪ age is just a number. and mine's unlisted. try boost® high protein with 20 grams of protein for muscle health. versus 16 grams in ensure high protein. boost® high protein also has key nutrients for immune support. boost® high protein. new projects means new project managers. you need to hire. i need indeed. indeed you do. when you sponsor a job, you immediately get your shortlist of quality candidates, whose resumes on indeed match your job criteria. visit indeed.com/hire and get started today. whose resumes on indeed match your job criteria. not all 5g networks are created