Morning Joe - Morning Joe 8/17/22

Episode Date: August 17, 2022

Rep. Liz Cheney loses her primary in Wyoming to Trump-backed challenger

Two years ago, I won this primary with 73% of the vote. I could easily have done the same again. The path was clear. But it would have required that I go along with President Trump's lie about the 2020 election. It would have required that I enable his ongoing efforts to unravel our democratic system and attack the foundations of our republic. That was a path I could not and would not take. No House seat, no office in this land is more important than the principles that we are all

sworn to protect. And I well understood the potential political consequences of abiding by my duty. Our republic relies upon the goodwill of all candidates for office to accept honorably the outcome of elections. And tonight, Harriet Hageman has received the most votes in this primary. She won. I called her to concede the race. This primary election is over. But now the real work begins. She put country over party. And Joe, she paid for it politically. Yeah, she did. But my gosh, again, as anybody that's watched the show more than a couple of days heard me say that in politics, sometimes when you win, you lose. And sometimes when you lose, you win. I think here was the beginning of something much larger than being one of 435

members of the House, one of 535 members of Congress. The language was remarkable, talking about in the spring of 1864, after the Union suffered more than 17,000 casualties in the Battle of the Wilderness, Cheney said, General Ulysses Grant had a choice to retreat or keep fighting. As the fires of the battle still smoldered, Grant rode to the head of the column. He rode to the intersection of Brock Road and Orange Plank Road. And there, as the men of his army watched and waited, instead of turning north back toward Washington and safety, Grant turned his horse south towards Richmond and the heart of Lee's army. Refusing to retreat, he pressed on to victory. General Grant, President Abraham Lincoln, and all who fought in our nation's tragic war saved our union.

Their courage saved freedom. And if we listen closely, they are speaking to us down through generations. We must not idly squander what so many have fought and died for. And Willie, if somebody listening to that speech and listening to those words thinks that Liz Cheney is being melodramatic, well, they aren't having the conversations I'm having with friends and family members and people who used to be in Liz Cheney's party and mine are actually people who are still in Liz Cheney's party, but used to be in my party. I spoke yesterday to two really disturbing phone calls.

If people want to understand the depths to which this anti-American sentiment is running in the Republican Party. I had two conversations yesterday, one with a family member and one with a Washington fixture since the days of Ronald Reagan. Both were talking about how the FBI was the Gestapo and they needed to be stamped out. Yeah. Spoke of revolution. And the the Washington fixture, a guy who I always considered to be a mainstream conservative, a guy who in the past had at least expressed concerns about some of Donald Trump's extremities, said to me, and I wrote it down, Joe, we can replace the U.S. government. It's not about the U.S. government. It's about individuals. So here's a guy who's saying that we can throw away Madisonian democracy. We can throw away checks and balances. We can throw away the Bill of Rights. We can throw away the Constitution. We can just get rid of a government that has fed and freed more people throughout history,

that's liberated more people throughout history, that's keeping the flames of freedom alive right now in Ukraine and in Central Europe than any other country on the planet. And we can replace the U.S. government. That is the depths to which this cancer has spread among mainstream Republicans. And Liz Cheney's right. These people are angry and they want to destroy our country, the country where we have democratic elections and the winners who get the most votes

are recognized as the winners and the losers concede to those winners. And Donald Trump has changed all of that now. Yeah, and Joe, you don't have to go to the darkest corners of the Internet anymore to find that argument. A couple of years ago, that would have been a hard, hard case to hear. You just have to turn on mainstream cable news channels to hear that even last night. And the argument is, OK, a real conservative won last night in Wyoming. This is what they're saying.

They threw out a Trump hater who is obsessed with Donald Trump. That's the argument against Liz Cheney, because she's one of the few Republicans who stood up and continues to stand up and say, no, what happened on January 6th, what happened around the 2020 election is un-American. It's not how we do things. It's not about me hating Donald Trump. It's about me trying, at least, to stand up for the Constitution. And that now is the minority view in the Republican Party. That is the extreme in the view of some of these people that Liz Cheney, who voted with Donald

Trump, by the way, as much as anybody in Congress who has the highest conservative rating as anybody in the Congress, is not a real conservative because she dared to cross Donald Trump and she paid for it last night. It wasn't a big surprise. But when you see that number up there, it really tells the story of the Republican Party. Harriet Hageman, who won by nearly 40 points last night, 40 points over Liz Cheney, who got 73 percent of the vote, Joe, last time out. When people really start to dig into who she is and what she believes, talking about Joe Biden being a human trafficker and, of course, defending the election lies around 2020, that's who she is. And the people of Wyoming decided

that's what they wanted. Yes, it's a state, Joe, that gave 70 percent of its vote last time in 2022, Donald Trump. So not a big surprise that they would back the Trump candidate. But what a flip in a state that Liz Cheney, her father, Dick Cheney, have been institutions there for a very long time, losing by nearly 40 points last night because she stood up for the Constitution, because she's standing up to Donald Trump. Well, and the hatred and the animosity spewed towards Joe Biden from these people I spoke to yesterday said to one of I said he's he's a moderate, like boring guy from Delaware. Like you used to do this to AOC and you used to do this to Bernie Sanders and you used to do this to Nancy Pelosi. And now Joe Biden

is the radical who is destroying him. It's just it's nonsense. The problem is it's dangerous nonsense when they start talking about the FBI being the Gestapo and how the FBI needs to be defunded and how the FBI needs to be wiped out and how we can replace the U.S. government. Just don't. That's that's that's treasonous talk. And you're right. Five years ago, that would be considered treasonous talk. Now it's mainstream Trump talk.

We can replace the U.S. No, no, we can't. And Mika, the thing is, if this were actually working for the Republican Party, I could I could actually it would be deeply offensive. But you'd say, well, I guess they'd rather destroy the country and win elections. But it's not working for the Republican Party. The Republican Senate candidate in Pennsylvania is losing by 10 points. The Republican Senate candidate in Ohio is losing by 10 points. The Republican Senate candidate in Ohio is losing by 10 points. The Republican Senate candidate in Arizona losing by 10 points in these swing states.

We had a poll yesterday that showed in Florida, the Republican Senate candidate in Florida losing by four points. And again, that's just one poll and this is just a snapshot. But everything's going in the wrong direction for Republicans. This extreme, the extremism of defunding the FBI, the extremism of attacking law enforcement officers, the extremism of forgiving and looking past people who beat the hell out of cops and, in fact, glorifying them as political prisoners, those people that battered and abused, battered and abused law enforcement officers, cops on January the 6th, praising them as political prisoners. This is having an impact on Republicans.

And so, again, people could say, oh, Joe, you're a rhino. No, I'm not. I'm actually, I'm a lot more conservative than you are if you support Donald Trump. But just, if you want Republicans to win elections, this is the wrong way to do it. Donald Trump, let me say it again, the first president since Herbert Hoover to lose the White House, the House of Representatives and the United States Senate all in one term. Yeah. And he did it and he's doing it again to Republicans. He's got four investigations, at least maybe five active investigations from his personal to his professional to his presidential actions. And I mean, all of them are wrong, really? OK. So while the Republicans do what they do

and say crazy things, conspiratorial things and lies about the 2020 election. You have the split screen, Joe and Willie, of President Biden signing landmark legislation, President Biden on the world stage handling the situation with Ukraine, reuniting NATO. I mean, it's the most, if you're on the Republican side looking toward the future, it's a pretty pathetic split screen for you. You're jumping around talking about, you know, conspiracy theories and trying to step up for a man who is under FBI investigation, among other things, and has proven himself to be someone who does not tell the truth. I'm only speaking facts here. I'm not getting beyond any story. This is not a man that tells the truth. And this is not a man that cares about his people. And this is not a man who is loyal. Not certainly not loyal

to anybody, certainly not loyal to his country, not loyal to the Constitution, not loyal to constitutional norms, not loyal to the rule of law. Willie, though, speaking of split screens in my first first guy that talked to me about running in a campaign, he said campaigns are all about contrasts. And so if you just look at yesterday's contrast, you have Republicans that are calling the FBI Gestapo. You have Republicans are talking about defunding the FBI, defunding law enforcement officers, talking about we can replace the U.S. government. And on the other side, you have Joe Biden signing a bill that's going to lower costs for drug prices. You're going to help Medicare recipients. It does some pretty

remarkable things on climate change, does remarkable things on a number of issues that Americans care about. Of course, a bipartisan infrastructure bill that's going to make a real difference in Americans' life. The first gun control legislation passed, gun safety legislation passed in over 20 years. You can just keep going down the list. The biggest expansion of veterans health care in well over a decade. A lot of things getting done here. And that's your split screen. So if campaigns are all about contrast, you've got one party now that is obsessed on looking backwards to a 2020 election that they know was on the up and up. And you have another party that's passing legislation

looking forward yeah you have you have one group of people who's calling for violence in some cases against the fbi because it executed a lawful search warrant at mar-a-lago and then in joe biden's case he's sitting there signing a piece of legislation that they say is going to help with inflation and other things and a lot of that legislation you mentioned, Joe, was bipartisan, by the way, when you look at CHIPS Plus and the Veterans Health Care Act. A lot of that was done with Republican help. Jonathan Lemire is with us, Katty Kay as well. We'll talk to Hugo Lowell in just a moment. But Jonathan, the White House, you know this very well, talking to them the way you do every day, has taken great pains to sort of distance itself from what's happening at the Justice Department, from this raid in Mar-a-Lago. Don't want to talk

about it. Don't want to be involved. Don't want to talk about Donald Trump and 2020 largely because they want to be seen as just having their heads down and doing work. And that was the example that's on the front page of all the papers this morning. The president signing this huge piece of legislation yesterday. Yeah, an extraordinary amount of work capping off what's been a remarkable run for the president and his party. Yes, some of this has been bipartisan. We should include the infrastructure bill from a year ago. But this this yesterday was these are Democratic priorities and have been for a very long time. It was finally this president with this Congress that got it done. Amused that we saw the clip there, the look that Biden gave Senator Manchin as he handed him the pen. It's worth looking at again. He also said, Ted, Joe, I never had a doubt,

which drew laughs in the room, as we know Manchin, of course, is a late arrival to this bill. But it got done. And it does stand a significant contrast. That's why Democrats feeling pretty good about the midterms all of a sudden. They know the House will still be an uphill climb, but they're bullish about there's the look, they're bullish about the Senate thinking they at the minimum could keep that 50-50 tie in place, which would leave them still in control. And to your point, they want nothing to do with being seen as talking about the search at Mar-a-Lago. They want the process to play out separately, a bright line between the White House and the Department of Justice. But of course, it shadows everything that's happening right now. It's not just a contrast between Republicans and Democrats. It's a contrast that they perceive

as a party that believes in the rule of law and the Constitution and one that doesn't. That more than two thirds of Wyoming Republican voters yesterday voted to support the big lies, voted to support undermining American democracy. That's dangerous stuff. And that's going to be the backdrop for this election as well. And Katie Kay, if you listen to Liz Cheney, she clearly loved serving her constituents. She loved her job. But this opens a whole load of possibilities for her in terms of the future. She's vowed to, you know, keep Donald Trump from ever coming back to the presidency. What are her options? Yeah, I mean, she's in a very interesting moment. That speech last night with the hay bales,

the Wyoming backdrop, the American flags, I mean, almost begged right there and then some kind of presidential campaign bid or some announcement about what her future was. She even referenced Lincoln saying, you know, he lost his house in the Senate races. But then he went on to win the most important race of all. It was like a cliffhanger moment. It's very hard to imagine a world in this Republican Party in which Liz Cheney could beat Donald Trump were he to run or were she to run for the nomination for the Republican Party. She just she is just not representative of where the base of the Republican movement is at the moment. But she can be a very powerful force in American politics. She could have a she as she said, you know, her main ambition now is to make sure that Joe Biden, I mean, make sure that Donald Trump does not become America's president again. And she could

have an influence in doing that. She could affect the votes and the feelings of suburban women voters, for example. She spent a lot of time during the January the 6th committee hearings talking specifically about the courage of women in Wyoming. To the extent that she has campaigned, she's spoken a lot to mothers and daughters, made a point. For somebody who has during her political career, Mika, not really spoken about gender very much. In the last few weeks and months, there's been a real uptick in the degree to which she has done so. And she could talk powerfully to suburban women voters in Philadelphia, for example, in Atlanta, for example, and persuade some of them

potentially not to vote for Donald Trump were he the Republican candidate. So I don't see her being the Republican nominee for the president, but I do see her being a powerful force in opposing Donald Trump in other ways. Yeah, there are a lot of people I know who are very, very impressed by her from both sides of the aisle and want to see what that next move is going to be. Still ahead on Morning Joe, the former president is just dying to know what the Justice Department has on him as he fights to get the affidavit in the Mar-a-Lago search unsealed, even calling for the witnesses to be identified. We're going to set the stage for a key hearing scheduled for tomorrow, plus new reporting that a top Trump White House lawyer tried to set the stage for a key hearing scheduled for tomorrow.

Plus, new reporting that a top Trump White House lawyer tried to help the government recover materials that were improperly taken to Mar-a-Lago, but that Trump resisted. And as we mentioned, President Biden signed his landmark climate and health package into law. We'll be joined by White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain as the president prepares to hit the road to sell his agenda. You're watching Morning Joe. We'll be right back. 23 past the hour, a federal judge in Florida has scheduled a hearing for tomorrow to decide whether to unseal the affidavit used to justify the search warrant for Trump's Florida home. So far, the Department of Justice has advised against it, arguing it could compromise what they are calling an ongoing criminal investigation. On top of serving what they've referred to as a roadmap for the current criminal investigation, there's also concern from DOJ lawyers regarding the witnesses involved.

Court filings on Monday read in part this. Information about witnesses is particularly sensitive, giving the high-profile nature of this matter and the risk that the revelation of witness identities could impact their willingness to cooperate with the investigation. Disclosure of the government's affidavit at this stage would also likely chill future cooperation by witnesses whose assistance may be sought as this investigation progresses, as well as in other high-profile investigations. Other high-profile investigations. Meanwhile, the former president's lawyer called for the names of witnesses to be released

through the unsealing of the affidavit and even implied those names should be leaked. The president's position, the same as what I would advise him, is to ask them to uncover everything so that we can see what is going on. I understand the witness protection issue, but at the same time, these witnesses are truly not going to be concealed for very long. That's just not the nature of the DOJ and the FBI. And unfortunately, our country, there's always leaks. You know, I've dealt with that even with, you know, local law enforcement. There's leaks when there shouldn't be. So I think it's in the

best interest so that the country can get comfortable to see what the basis was. The hearing for whether to unseal the affidavit is scheduled for 1 p.m. tomorrow. We'll be watching that, Willie. We're also getting some new reporting on who exactly the FBI interviewed before seizing those documents from Mar-a-Lago. The New York Times is reporting White House counsel Pat Cipollone and his deputy, Patrick Philbin, spoke with agents about the boxes of sensitive information inside Trump's home. They are the most senior people connected to the former president known to have been interviewed by the Justice Department. Philbin met with investigators in the spring. It's not clear when Cipollone spoke to them. Sources tell The Times Philbin tried to help the National Archives recover those materials.

But the former president repeatedly resisted, telling several advisers, quote, it's not theirs, it's mine, end quote. Let's bring in congressional reporter for The Guardian, Hugo Lowell, with the caveat, Hugo, that those, of course, are not the documents belonging to the president. They belong to the United States government and to the National Archives. What do we know about what Cipollone and about what Philbin, the White House counsel and his deputy, may have said to the FBI that prompted the FBI to say, oh, we've got to get into Mar-a-Lago and find those boxes? I mean, we don't know exactly what they told the FBI, but certainly the senses. Pat Philbin, who was the deputy White House counsel and also Trump's designated liaison with the National

Archives, certainly realized this was going to be a problem. I mean, Pat Philbin was involved from the very end of the administration trying to get all these documents back. The National Archives was very unsuccessful in doing that. But the fact that Philbin knew how records management was going on in the West Wing in those final days, I think suggests that he had intimate knowledge about how these documents were being bandied about the West Wing. And so he might have even realized he might have potential legal exposure if he wasn't forthcoming to the West Wing. And so he might have even realized he might have potential legal exposure if he wasn't forthcoming to the FBI and told them what he knew

about what Trump was keeping down at Mar-a-Lago. As we try to sort through how the FBI, how the Justice Department understood that it would be worth pursuing a warrant to get into Mar-a-Lago, some people want to see this affidavit. They'll be hearing on that later. So is your sense, for for me talking to people who work

in law enforcement and people who are U.S. attorneys, they say it's very unlikely that an affidavit would be unsealed, especially with a case this high profile, because now you're revealing witnesses and you're revealing sort of the path that they've taken to in their investigation. We've spoken to countless kind of former FBI counterintelligence officials and kind of former U.intelligence officials and kind of former U.S. attorneys, and the resounding sense is if the Justice Department is asking a judge not to unseal these documents, it's probably not going to happen. They're not going to unseal an affidavit, especially one that shows the basis to get the search warrant. I mean, it presents the

probable cause, right? It shows the evidence of a potential crime being committed. They don't want to release the names of the people who are cooperating with the FBI. They don't want to release the tactics and the strategies and the methods they're using. And so I think the likelihood that a judge in Florida is going to unseal this affidavit is very, very small. And certainly part of the investigation, as myself and some colleagues wrote today, is the idea of how chaotic those final weeks in the White House were. Trump only, of course, admitted that he wasn't going to be president again as of January 7th. That left them only two weeks to pack everything up. That may have led to some of the mistakes, one of the angles being pursued. But Hugo, I want to ask you about, we were just

watching a clip there of a Trump attorney on television. We know that from his previous impeachment trials, he has had trouble getting high profile, high talented lawyers to join his team. It's never quite been a group of legal all-stars. But he did just hire a Jim Trustee, who is formerly of the DOJ's Organized Crime Section, to join his defense team. Tell us about Trustee. And is this showing that the level of concern in Trump's orbit is growing? I think so. I mean, certainly a great name, right? I mean, very, very apt for this particular investigation. But I think the addition of Jim Trustee, who, as you said, is a former DOJ prosecutor, and also the addition of Evan Corcoran in recent days,

like Evan Corcoran is a former assistant U.S. attorney, shows the seriousness that Trump is giving these investigations. I think there is a real concern now that Trump may have real legal exposure. He may be potentially facing an indictment. And so there has been a real effort among people in Trump or people like Boris Epstein, who has been putting this legal team together to redefine good lawyers. And as you say, it's been an uphill struggle. But the fact that they added Jim Trustee, I think, is very significant. So, Hugo, it's been a very busy week in this investigation. What happens the rest of this week? We've got the hearing. What are the

big news signposts that you're looking for to show us where this is heading? investigation. What happens the rest of this week? We've got the hearing. What are the big news signposts that you're looking for to show us where this is heading? I think in terms of a timeline, you're looking at kind of two to three weeks as the FBI kind of sifts through the volume of materials that they retreat from Mar-a-Lago. They've got to get their taint teams to make sure there's no materials they inadvertently scooped up from Mar-a-Lago that's not covered by the search warrant, like, you know, the passports that got picked up. Those have to be returned. But they also then can examine whether the documents pertain to specific statutes and whether the fact that Trump had these very sensitive government secrets down at Mar-a-Lago

was a potential violation of crimes. And I think the FBI and the DOJ will be looking at that very closely in the weeks ahead, of course. Also, lawmakers expect to get a briefing from the director of national intelligence in terms of a damage assessment as to Trump's mishandling of these documents. I think the story is very much still still developing. Yep. Coming up, new details surrounding the attacks in Russian controlled Crimea. Plus, one year after the end of America's longest war, Republicans are threatening to subpoena the State Department

over Biden's withdrawal from Afghanistan. The decision to pull out also remains a controversial one among military members. What the former commander of U.S. Central Command is saying about the failure of the government's approach in the region. Also, as we go to break some other headlines quickly, an update on the news we brought you late yesterday morning. The first lady, Jill Biden, testing positive for COVID. Yesterday, her office said she is experiencing mild symptoms and is isolating at a private home in South Carolina. This follows President Biden's positive COVID tests, including a rebound case last month.

He has since tested negative. The first lady has been prescribed Paxlovid and will not return to the White House until she receives two consecutive negative tests. We'll be right back. So pretty. Welcome back to Morning Joe. A beautiful sunrise over Washington, D.C. 635 a.m. I want to bring in Richard Haas to the conversation. Oh, my goodness. Richard is sporting quite an interesting. He's going on. He's Grizzly Adams. He's not like father's. The council meets relations. Dad's world. You know, sometimes he just gets an axe and chops down trees. Yeah. New York. Exactly.

I think it's pretty good. Pretty good. All right, Grizzly. So let's get let's get serious for one minute here. Just one minute. I don't know if you're at the top of the show, but I had several disturbing conversations yesterday with people I've known my entire life. People who voted for Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, Bob Dole. You just go down the list George W. Bush etc. etc. etc. people that I always

consider to be mainstream conservatives yesterday they're talking about the Gestapo I mean there has been a rising radicalism in them over the past five years and they kept talking about the Gestapo having to stomp out the FBI tyranny.

It kept going, got to a crescendo where a conservative thought leader in Washington, D.C., who's been around since Reagan, said. We can replace the U.S. government. Wrote that actually wrote that down to me as we're going back and forth. He said, well, you know, Joe, the U.S. government's not sacrosanct. We can replace the U.S. government. He started talking about revolution. And Richard, I wanted to talk to you about this before we got to Afghanistan, because you're in a unique position to comment about where the federal government is,

where the United States of America is on the world stage. And this is just absolutely crazy. We right now and I know it's hard to believe because Washington is so dysfunctional. We are stronger as a nation by comparison to other nations than ever before. We're the strongest economically by far, the strongest militarily by far, the strongest culturally by far, the strongest diplomatically by far, the strongest comparatively to every other country. Stronger than we were in 1945 when we were counterbalanced by the Soviets. Stronger than we were in 2000 when a rising China was sure to overtake us. But as we know, Russia is now exhausted. China has lost their way over the past few years. They do have a strong economy.

They will be a balance on the world stage. But right now, nobody in China would refuse to change places with us right now on the world stage. But the United States, strong in every way except politically. Republicans saying that the U.S. government can be replaced because a moderate from Delaware won a presidential election? You're right, Joe, in the sense that we are absolutely stronger than we've ever been. And when one looks at Russia, Russia is a Potemkin country in many ways. It's got a Potemkin military. China is facing all sorts of headwinds. Indeed, I think it explains its increasingly bellicose foreign policy. It is something of a political distraction as economic growth

fades and fades. But our ability to function on the world stage begins with a prerequisite, with an assumption, with the foundation, which is the stability of American democracy. It's our ability to get things done at home. It's our ability to essentially be able to act collectively. And that's something that's necessary to deter foes. It's something that's even more necessary to reassure partners and allies. They have got to operate under the assumption that we are predictable and we are trustworthy because they put their security in our hands. And what's going on here at home now is a much bigger threat to us than anything emanating from Russia or China or North Korea or Iran or terrorists or climate change, you name it. It is ourselves. The old line about Pogo. We've met the enemy and it is us.

And I'm sorry. Go ahead. Well, democracy. I'll go and then we have a delay here. I'll go and then you finish up. No, my bad, Grizzly. So you're exactly right. I will say, though, collectively, we've done a hell of a job as a country. And Republicans have helped on Ukraine. You look at the legislation that we've passed. We've done a hell of a job in passing bipartisan legislation. This Reconciliation Act was passed with all Democrats.

But still, you look at the legislative achievements. You look at how we have come together as a country around Ukraine. You look at the fact the United States is once again leading the way in protecting democracy in Europe. By these metrics, the United States is functioning better than they have in quite some time. But there is, I'll say it, a rump of the Republican Party, which is, yes, it's the dominant force in Republican primaries, but it's about 38, 39 percent of the electorate that want to replace the U.S. government, that want to throw away American democracy. You know, here's this conversation between two former Republicans.

And what's so interesting is how democracy rests. One of its requirements or prerequisites is a loyal opposition. And your loyal oppositions have two things. One is it's good to have oppositions in a democracy. It holds those with power accountable. It forces compromise that hopefully leads to widespread public support for policy. But it's also got to be loyal. There's got to be an acceptance of the rules. And for the first time in more than a century and a half, we have an opposition now that no longer does that. And this is a qualitatively different stress for the United States. It's a qualitatively different challenge. And I think over the next couple of years, it's going to play out because you're going to see people elected this time around who fit the description you've been talking about, who don't accept the basics. And the question then is, how does the political process over the next two years play out, including selections of electors and so forth after the 2024 elections.

I don't think it's an exaggeration to say this is potentially as dangerous a moment for this country as we've seen at any time since the middle of the 19th century and the run up to the Civil War. OK, that's framing worth framing right there to really think about. And Richard, if you could stay with us for this next conversation. This week marks the one year since the U.S. withdrew from Afghanistan. NBC News national security and military correspondent Courtney Kuby joins us now. Yesterday, Courtney, you spoke with former commander of the U.S. Central Command, retired General Frank McKenzie. What did he have to say? Yeah, that's right. So General McKenzie, as the head of CENTCOM, oversaw that whole region, including Afghanistan, during the withdrawal last summer. And he says now, you know, he's had a year to reflect on this. He's now retired. He works at the University of South Florida. He runs their

Global National Security Institute. And looking back on it, he admits that the withdrawal, he calls it disastrous. And he talks about the war in Afghanistan as a failure. But he says that it's not just a failure on the part of the U.S. military or any institution, but he calls it a whole of government failure. Looking back to when the military wasn't able to take out bin Laden early on in the conflict, going all the way forward to the decision to announce when the U.S. would withdraw from that country, which he said set in motion an ultimate collapse of the Afghan government and the ability for the Taliban to take over. But I was really struck by some of the words that General McKenzie used when talking about the Afghanistan withdrawal

last summer. Here were a couple of things he had to say about it. It's a year later. Looking back, what would you have done differently? Well, I'll tell you, I wish we had begun to bring people out earlier. You always go back and you examine that. Wish we had seen that coming, I wish we had begun to bring people out earlier. You always go back and you examine that. I wish we had seen that coming. I wish we had done that different. There's all kinds of things that I would do differently. But I would tell you, I believe that what happened in August of last year occurred when

we decided to leave completely in April of that year. And once you make that basic decision, then events took on a certain trajectory. So we were completely consumed by it a year ago. Since then, I've thought about it every day. It's something that I spent a lot of time considering. The lost opportunities, you know, what it meant, the loss of human beings, American and others, that occurred over not only the last part of the evacuation, but also the course of a 20-year war. Those are big things. He also said that when the president, when the administration came to him and said, what

do you think we should do before President Biden made the announcement to withdraw all troops, he believed, and the CENTCOM assessment was that they could maintain 2,500 U.S. troops in Afghanistan with a NATO presence and with the presence of potentially thousands of additional contractors, and that that would be enough to shore up the Afghan government. Now, there's been some discussion since then, some belief, in fact, from President Biden himself, that it would take tens of thousands of U.S. troops, because if, in fact, the U.S. decided to maintain a presence there against the Doha agreement, that the Taliban would be a smaller footprint that would have been enough to shore up not only at the Afghan government, but also the Afghan military and police. He said that with that twenty five hundred troop presence, the U.S. would have maintained the presence at the base at Bagram. He also said that since the U.S. left in the time that he was there after the full withdrawal, the intelligence collection picture in Afghanistan degraded to the point where now the U.S. only has about two percent of the intelligence capabilities in Afghanistan that they had when the U.S. was there in a larger

presence, Joe. All right. NBC's Courtney Cooey, thank you so much. Greatly appreciate that important reporting. Richard Haas, remember back at the Bay of Pigs, JFK said that success has many fathers, but failure is an orphan. In this case, I know Kennedy was being wry there, but in this case, it is true. This failure is an orphan. And it's Joe Biden, who, make no mistake of it, was told by all of his military people to not do this, told by most of the people in the White House to not withdraw those troops. Twenty five hundred U.S. troops makes a difference, makes all the difference in the world from where we were a year ago and where we are now. You could say the same thing when Trump wanted to retreat from Syria. What our twenty five hundred

special ops people were doing in Syria was nothing short of remarkable. Smaller footprint, bigger impact. But we took him out. Joe Biden wanted them out. He had wanted to do this since 2009. And he got his he got his wish. And the result has been nothing but disastrous, hasn't it, Richard? Well, it's been a disaster. But let me take a step back, Joe. I actually think, as you said, in this case, lots of people responsible for failure. I think initially most people thought what we did was right in Afghanistan after 9-11, removing the Taliban who had been given sanctuary, you know, given sanctuary to the terrorists. I think then we overreached in Afghanistan in many ways by trying to transform the country. And we didn't have the ability to do that.

I think then both Trump and Biden underreached Trump by signing the 2020 agreement with the Taliban to get out completely, Biden by implementing it. And I think General McKenzie's 100 percent right. The combination of a small presence plus contractors, plus NATO was enough to maintain not to bring you military victory, not to bring you peace, but to keep an operational Afghan government that would allow us to continue to collect intelligence on terrorists and keep the bulk of the country out of not being a sanctuary for terrorists. So this was, again, this was a fiasco that was brought on ourself. And I think people are spending too much time focusing on the details of the exit rather than on the lessons of the larger policy, where we got it wrong by

trying to do too much, and then in the last few years by doing way too little. And the idea that we got Zawahiri, as good as that was the other day, no one should think that is a recipe for future safety and security in Afghanistan. We can't maintain that kind of a watch on any would-be terrorist or on new cells starting up there. So that was a bit of a one-off. He was a high-value target. We do not have a formula for long-term security there. The threat coming from Afghanistan, potentially here. The threat also coming from Afghanistan to Pakistan with all of its nuclear weapons. It's way, way too soon to say that the Biden administration's withdrawal has again provided a framework for

future security. It hasn't. And of course, the Taliban has returned to not return. It's always been what it is, but it put on that sort of PR front for a couple of weeks where the new Taliban women in the government, that's all been wiped away, as everyone predicted it would be. The argument from President Biden at the time was I'm not going to put another American man or woman after 20 years in harm's way, not another body bag coming home to Dover. I'm not going to do that. What do you make of that case? Does that hold up or would twenty five hundred troops at Bagram, which they could have kept in July of last year? Would that have been a safe and a smart way to go about this? Impossible to know for sure. But I think the most important data point is when did U.S. casualties plummet in Afghanistan? It wasn't after the 2020 agreement where we promised

to get out. It was five years sooner. Why? Because that's when we stopped participating in combat operations. So I just I respectfully disagree with the president here. I think we had a proven formula that for the last five or six years before we got out had demonstrated that we can maintain a presence that would buck up the Afghans to do what they needed to do. U.S. casualties would be really, really at a low level. So I actually think, again, the general's right here. And the president, I just disagree with. Again, people can't prove it, can't say that if we had stayed at a couple thousand, it would have succeeded. But the previous five or six years of history suggest we had finally come up with an approach that seemed to give us a pretty good return on a pretty modest investment.

This combination of U.S. forces, NATO and contractors, which provided the physical and psychological foundation that the Afghans needed. Once they knew we were leaving, then the place unraveled overnight. They all cut their own deals with the with the Taliban. But I think the president's assumption that if we stayed, the costs would have gone through the ceiling. We would have had to send back tens of thousands. I've not seen analysis that supports that. No, I haven't seen it, nor have I seen anything that supported what Donald Trump was doing with the Taliban. The deals he wanted to do, wanted to call the Taliban to to Camp David on September 11th anniversary, was desperate to get out of there. And so, Mika, you have the last two presidents that desperately wanted to get out of Afghanistan. And we see again, I think the big takeaway here is what twenty five hundred U.S. troops can do.

The protection that they did provide to young girls, to women, to to Afghans, the protection that they provided to refugees in Syria. And what happens when these people that are saying, oh, well, let's let's just get rid of the U.S. government. You know, right. The United States, whether you're talking about in Afghanistan, whether you're talking about in Europe, whether you're talking about all across the world. I mean, we we do remarkable things. We've done remarkable things. And even the impact of 2,500 people can make the difference between a young girl being able to go to school

and a young girl being beaten for trying to learn how to read. You know, yesterday we were talking about Poland and that country opening its arms to the Ukrainian people. And I failed to mention a key factor in that. While I think some of the division in this country may not prompt the same spontaneous behavior from average Americans to just open their arms to millions of people from the outside, it was the U.S. military that my brother was at the border going, my God, how's these people are pouring in? How's the, then the U.S. military showed up,

82nd Airborne Show. Oh my God. He says it was like, it was honestly like the saviors, the liberators had come setting up beds, setting up medical tents, setting up anything and everything that needs to be done. And their logistics were top, top notch. They were so solid and they were so there to represent the United States of America and what they did for these millions of Ukrainian who are crossing the border with nothing, leaving their homes behind, lost. And by the way, only women and children and elderly people and being able to process them and help them get to their next destination. My God, it was an operation that you would think would take years to prepare for.

They did it in a week. Yeah, they were difference makers. That's the United States of America. I will say, Mika, that a lot of Americans did open their arms to Afghan refugees when they came over. We should allow more Afghan refugees into this country. We should. But, Richa, really quickly before we got a break, let me just ask you about Ukraine going into Crimea with attacks. What's the impact of that?

It reinforces the likelihood this is going to be with with attacks. What's the impact of that? Reinforces the likelihood this is going to be a long war because it tells you Ukraine is not going to be interested in a quote unquote peace deal that leaves Russia occupying Ukrainian territory, whether it's in the Donbass or the south or Crimea. And, you know, and I know Vladimir Putin's not about to give that up. So I think the biggest takeaway is this is a long, long, long war. And that's it. I don't think there's going to be a military solution anytime soon. I don't think there's going to be a diplomatic solution anytime long. It shows that the goals of both sides are so far apart.

What they're willing to settle is so far apart that I just don't see I don't see this ending. This becomes the new normal for you, for this part of the world and for Europe. All right. Richard Haass, thank you so much for coming on this morning. It's great to see you. And still ahead, more on Liz Cheney's primary loss in Wyoming and what it means for her political future and the future of the Republican Party. Meanwhile, another frequent target of former President Trump survived her primary last night in Alaska. Steve Kornacki will be here to break down the ranked choice voting in that state. Also ahead, President Biden gets a ringing endorsement from his former boss after signing the Inflation Reduction Act, a landmark legislation. We'll show you that and take a look at how the legislation will

impact the U.S. economy. We'll be right back.