The Daily Signal - Biden Living in ‘Fantasyland’ on Afghanistan Pullout, Sen. Joni Ernst Says

Episode Date: August 25, 2021

President Joe Biden is moving ahead with plans to evacuate all U.S. citizens and troops from Afghanistan by Aug. 31, providing the Taliban do not interfere with the evacuation. But Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, a combat veteran, says she does not see how it’s possible to meet that deadline.  The notion that Americans and our Afghan partners can be evacuated by the end of the month “is a fantasyland that has been developed by President Biden, by the administration,” Ernst says. “I don't see how we have everyone out by Aug. 31 and honor those commitments we've made to our own citizens and our Afghan partners.” Ernst served in the military for more than 23 years. In 2003, she was a company commander in Kuwait and Iraq, and led 150 Iowa Army National Guardsmen during Operation Iraqi Freedom. Ernst was the first female combat veteran to be elected to the Senate.  The current situation in Afghanistan is an “international embarrassment” that puts both “Americans and our allies in harm's way,” the Iowa senator says. Ernst joins “The Daily Signal Podcast” to explain what the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan could mean for America, and what the Biden administration needs to do to prevent further disaster.  We also cover these stories:  Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., calls on the Biden administration to rethink its original Aug. 31 deadline for U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan. Vice President Kamala Harris rebukes China for its "coercion" and "intimidation" in the South China Sea.  The University of Notre Dame leprechaun mascot comes under fire for supposedly being "offensive.”  Enjoy the show! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the Daily Signal podcast for Wednesday, August 25th. I'm Doug Blair. And I'm Virginia Allen. The Taliban took Afghanistan just over a week ago, and still U.S. citizens are struggling to get out of the country. Americans are looking for answers as to how this happened as we approach the 20th anniversary of 9-11. Combat veteran and Iowa Senator Joni Ernst joins the show today to explain what we know about the fall of Afghanistan, efforts to get Americans. and our Afghan partners out of the country and what we can expect from the Taliban in the days and weeks ahead. And don't forget, if you enjoy this podcast, please be sure to leave a review or a five-star rating on Apple Podcasts and encourage others to subscribe.

And now on to today's top news. President Joe Biden is sticking with his plan to have all American troops and citizens out of Afghanistan by the August 31st deadline. Biden met virtually with G7 leaders. Tuesday morning. It is reported that seven nations represented at the meeting were prepared to extend the August 31st deadline against the demands of the Taliban. Biden said America would stick to the plan and be out by August 31st, providing the Taliban cooperates with the current evacuation. The Heritage Foundation's Vice President for Foreign Policy and National Security, James Carapano,

joined Fox Business Tuesday to discuss the August 31st deadline. Let's remember this date was not established by the Taliban. It was established by the U.S. government. And here's the problem with this, which is right now we don't have the throughput problem. The problem is people getting to the airport. So you're making assumptions about the ability of people to get to the airport between now and the 31st. Once you decide to withdraw, you can't really reverse that decision because you're drawing down all the assets and capabilities at the airfield. And so if it's August 31st and you find out that there's a whole bunch of

people that are still outside the wire, there's no way back. So it's a very risky decision to just say, we are definitely going to leave on the 31st because what you may wind up doing is leaving behind the largest hostage crisis in modern history. The alternative is stick it out and the Taliban won't be happy. That's, and there are a, and there are a, And there are things they can do, and including trying to shut the whole thing down, you have to choose between those. Taliban spokesman Zabid Ula Mujah-Hadid said the terrorist group will not extend the deadline of the evacuation and told Afghans not to attempt to leave the country.

During a press conference Tuesday morning, Mujahad said, The way to the airport has been closed now. Afghans are not allowed to go there now. Foreigners are allowed to go. In a Tuesday interview with Fox News, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell urged the Biden administration to rethink its original August 31st deadline for the final pullout of American troops in Afghanistan amid ongoing issues in evacuating American troops and Afghan allies. McConnell also encouraged the administration to take a far more proactive stance in securing the safety of those Americans and local allies trapped in Afghanistan. Here's McConnell's statements via Fox News. I mean, here's where we are.

The president needs to forget about the August 31st deadline. We need to send in enough American personnel, military personnel, to rescue our people. And by the way, there are more American soldiers there now than before the president made the decision to leave. Extend the deadline, get outside the perimeter, make sure that every single American who wants to leave is able to get out with our assistance. and our Afghan allies. House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, Democrat from California, expressed his doubts that the evacuation would be complete by the president's August 31st deadline. In a Monday press conference outside the U.S. Capitol, Schiff said,

quote, I think it's possible, but I think it's very unlikely, given the number of Americans who still need to be evacuated. It's hard for me to imagine that all of that can be accomplished between now, and the end of the month. On Tuesday, Vice President Kamala Harris rebuked China for its coercion and intimidation in the South China Sea. Speaking in Singapore during her week-long trip through Southeast Asia, Harris referred to America's commitment to peace, stability, and freedom in Southeast Asia and the Indo-Pacific. Harris said America will stand with our allies in the face of threats from China, per NBC News.

The livelihood of millions of people depend on the billions of dollars in trade that flow through these sea lanes each day. And yet, in the South China Sea, we know that Beijing continues to coerce, to intimidate, and to make claims to the vast majority of the South China Sea. these unlawful claims have been rejected by the 2016 arbitral tribunal decision. And Beijing's actions continue to undermine the rules-based order and threaten the sovereignty of nations. The United States stands with our allies and partners in the face of these threats. The Vice President's remarks are seen as an effort to bolster American allies in the South China Sea. The Notre Dame Lepricon is the latest school mascot to come under fire after a new poll conducted by Illinois-based logo printing company Quality Logo products listed as the fourth most offensive college mascot in the country. The leprechaon trails behind Florida State University's Osceola and Renegade, San Diego State University's Aztec Warrior,

and University of Hawaii at Manoa's Vili the Warrior. The university appeared to stand by the mascot and responded to media inquiries with a letter detailing the history and significance of the mascot. Quote, our symbols stand as celebratory representations of a genuine Irish heritage at Notre Dame, a heritage that we regard with respect, loyalty, and affection, wrote the school. The poll comes on the heels of renewed attacks on sports mascots and team names viewed by certain groups as offensive, such as the rebranding of the Washington Redskins

to the Washington football team. Conservative commentator Mark Levin had some very kind words for The Daily Signal on his Monday show, and we wanted to share those comments with you all today. The Daily Signal is a highly respected news operation coming out of the Heritage Foundation. And they just wrote a piece that I think is very, very important.

15 million votes in 2020. the election not accounted for report finds by Fred Lucas, who's a longtime reporter as well. Thank you so much, Mr. Levin. Now stay tuned for my conversation with Combat Veteran and Iowa Senator Joni Ernst as we break down the latest news on the situation in Afghanistan. Never has it been more important for us to fight for America. Each day we see the penalties of progressive policies across our nation. Our elections are under assault. Our economic freedom is on the decline, and our culture is turning its back on the founding principles that have made us the freest, most prosperous nation in history. That's why the Heritage Foundation

developed a plan to take on the left and take back our country. The Citizens Guide to Fight for America provides a series of heritage recommended action items delivered on a regular basis to your inbox. Make an impact in your community and in our country. Sign up for the Citizens Guide at heritage.org slash citizens guide and join in the fight for America today. Afghanistan fell to the Taliban just over a week ago. American troops are still working to get U.S. citizens out of the country, and President Joe Biden is standing behind the decision he made to pull troops out of Afghanistan. Here with me to break down where things currently stand is combat veteran and Iowa Senator Joni Ernst. Senator, Senator, thank you.

so much for being here. No, great to be with you. Thank you. Senator, you are a member of the Armed Services Committee and the first female combat veteran to ever be elected to the Senate. You served in the military for 23 years and led 150 Iowa Army National Guardsmen during Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003. Speaking as a veteran, what are you thinking and feeling right now about the Taliban's takeover of Afghanistan. Well, thank you, Virginia. It is so disheartening to see what is going on in Afghanistan right now. And what we are witnessing is truly an international embarrassment

that will put more Americans and our allies in harm's way. And what this is also doing at the same time is emboldening our adversaries that we have been fighting over the last year. last two decades in the global war on terror. And do we know right now how many Americans are still in Afghanistan and need to be evacuated? We don't. And this is a great concern of ours, is that the Taliban has made demands that we will be out of the country by August 31st. And President Biden, who is exhibiting weak, weak leadership on this issue is basically saying, okay, well, we'll have all of our troops out by August 31st without knowing how many more Americans are stuck in Afghanistan.

So this is, again, just a debacle and embarrassment. And certainly we should be concerned about these citizens and make sure that we are leaving no one behind. I mean, looking at the scenes of the airport and hearing the reports of people who are trapped in various places in the country trying to get to the airport. Is it possible? Is there a world where that is possible to have everyone out by August 31st? Well, in the Joe Biden fantasy world, yes, it is easy. We've heard them say over and over again, oh, Americans have safe passage to the airport. The Taliban is assisting them. Bologna. We know that this is very difficult for Americans who are in those outlying provinces to travel and make it through all of these Taliban checkpoints to the airport in Kabul.

We know it's been difficult, not just for our American citizens, but also for those Afghan partners and allies. So this is a fantasy lamb that has been developed by President Biden, by the administration. I don't see how we have everyone out by August 31st and honor those commitments we've made to our own citizens and our Afghan partners. Yeah, you mentioned our partners. Does the Biden administration have a plan to safely and efficiently evacuate our Afghan partners who have stood with us for, you know, some of them, 20 years. And like you say, made promises to. Yes. Well, obviously, they don't. And this is where both Democrats and Republicans have been pushing the administration since earlier this spring. I was a meeting at the White House where Gene Shaheen, Senator from New Hampshire Democrat, and I were

leading a group pushing the administration to get the special immigrant visa program in place, update it and make sure we were moving those partners out of Afghanistan as quickly as possible. That really did not start until July. They were months and months behind on moving out these people that assisted our men and women in uniform over the past two decades. So, no, they don't have a good process in place. It's been very hasty, very haphazard. And this is something we were pushing on them. months and months ago. I think so many Americans, they're still asking the question,

how did we get here? How did this happen? And, you know, how did we wind up in this terrible situation and the Taliban? How are they able to take over so quickly? Did American military leaders underestimate the Taliban or did President Biden simply ignore all of his military advisors? Well, this is what we have to get to the bottom of. And I'm sure that we're, will be many inquiries following this episode. The thing that we need to focus on right now is evacuating as many people as possible. First, American citizens and those special immigrant visa holders. We need to get them out. But yes, this is a question. We need to know and understand. Did President Biden simply ignore the warnings that were coming from the intelligence community?

did he heed the warnings that were coming from the Department of Defense? Did they underestimate the Taliban and the Taliban strength? I think these are all things that we need to know and understand, but that will be secondary right now. We'll have to figure that out. The first priority really needs to be focusing on Americans and making sure that they can get to safety. But in my estimation, having served in the military,

for over 23 years. We should always have those plans in place. Number one, evacuating Americans. Number two, destroying our military equipment so that it can't fall into the hands of the Taliban. Number three is getting our troops out and number four, of course, is destroying those air bases

or other bases that existed so they can't be used by the Taliban and the other violent extremist organizations. I think this, This is all very basic. And this administration, they knew better or they should have known better. But here we are today with those horrible images of a humanitarian crisis on the rise in Afghanistan. Well, and as a veteran and as someone who understands both how our military works and who

understands our enemy, do you think that the Taliban is going to allow Americans and our Afghan partners to leave the country? What are the chances that we might start seeing hostage situations? You know, I am very hopeful that the Taliban will do, as they are saying, but folks, it's the Taliban. And we should never, ever trust the Taliban and what they have said. Certainly when this withdrawal was being negotiated, we have seen that they have not honored their commitments to that withdrawal plan. So I would not trust them. I still think if we have Americans that are out in Afghanistan in those more remote locations, we should be sending our military to gather up those Americans, to bring them into the airport safely so we can get them out of the country. Because no, I'm

I don't trust the Taliban. And we're seeing that the Taliban, they're making claims that they've changed. Leaders say that they will ensure women's rights are protected under Islamic law. Do you think we're going to see anything different from the Taliban than we've seen in years past? Absolutely not. Absolutely not. I know their leaders are hungering for world recognition, but all of their fighters on the ground, have they changed? No.

We are still hearing stories about them going from door to door, knocking on homes, trying to find those that were allied with the American forces, threatening to kill them, their family members. We saw a woman that was beaten to death in the streets the other day by the Taliban. If that's allowing women additional freedom, I hate to see it across Afghanistan. We have a lot of women that we are very, very concerned about. in the country, those that are now educated, those that have risen into leadership positions and positions of authority. And we know that they will be a target of the Taliban. There is no way

the Taliban will allow strong women leaders to exist within Afghanistan. It truly is a threat to their overall organization and what they consider their religious code. Yeah, it really is heartbreaking to see some of those women put out messages and just the dire situation that they're in. It is dire. Now, you mentioned just a moment ago about the U.S. military equipment and hardware that was left in the country. I have been deeply concerned to learn that the Taliban is now in possession of literally billions of dollars of U.S. military hardware. What do we know about the American weaponry that the Taliban now has possession or access to. Yes, and it's hard to account for all of it, because again, with such a haphazard withdrawal, I don't know that we have inventories

of exactly what was left behind at locations or what was turned over to the Afghan national military system. So we don't know what is coming from Afghan security forces that maybe turned over their weapons to the Taliban as they surrendered or dissipated. We don't know what was left behind at maybe Bogram Air Base. So what we understood is that all of this military equipment was being retrograded back to the United States or into other nations. So we see an awful lot of equipment that has been left behind, which is now in the Taliban's hands. And we know now, especially if it's sensitive equipment, it can be obtained by other violent extremist organizations.

It can be obtained by our near peer competitors like China and Russia. And then they can further reverse engineer and understand. our equipment and how they can fight against this type of equipment. So it is a huge concern and a horrible, horrible misstep by this administration. And I know there are so many concerns about the ways that China and Russia are going to take advantage of this situation. Even on Tuesday morning, we saw that China's envoy to the United Nations. he said the U.S., U.S., U.S., U.K., Australia, and other countries must be held accountable for the violation of human rights committed by their military in Afghanistan.

I mean, with statements like this being made, what do you think this tells us about what we can expect to see from China on this issue moving forward? Well, first, it's laughable that China is talking about human rights violations. they are a huge, huge violator. They're variant groups within China and their human rights. I can say that our military in Afghanistan is honorable, and we are extremely careful as a nation when we're engaging in military action or any mission set, that we are safeguarding that human capital, the populations that exist in these.

countries and only going after terrorists that are confirmed or targets that are confirmed. We are very surgical in our operations so that we're protecting the population in Afghanistan. So talking about human rights violations while they're supporting an organization that literally, as we saw the other day, beat a woman to death in the streets. And we know that this is happening all over the country. I think we're going to see an explosion now of human rights violations from the Taliban and other organizations. China, they need to stay out of it. They're a contributor to violations as well.

What might the long-term implications be regarding terrorism in the U.S.? I mean, are we looking at possibly facing another 9-11 type attack because of the Taliban's takeover of Afghanistan? This should be a huge concern to all Americans right now. We even heard Admiral Kirby in one of the press briefings say, well, we don't know what's going on in Afghanistan because we don't have eyes and ears in Afghanistan anymore. That's correct. We don't because we're pulling all of our personnel out, which means that we are doing those over-the-horizon operations that the president keeps touting.

Well, over the horizon is not as good as having eyes and ears on the ground. We know that al-Qaeda still exists in Afghanistan. The president last week had stated, al-Qaeda's no longer in Afghanistan. That's baloney. We know that's not true. The Department of Defense had to correct the president 20 minutes after that statement. Al-Qaeda is still there.

And now that they have free reign, they can reconstitute with the Taliban's assistance. We also know that ISIS is in Afghanistan. There are many, many other violent extremist organizations. Since we don't have a presence there, it allows them to stage and operate bases again, just as we saw prior to the 9-11 attacks in 2001. So I am very, very concerned, and we need to remain vigilant because we do have an increasing threat coming out of Afghanistan. I also have introduced legislation. It's called the Preventing Terrorism from Hitting America's Streets Act.

And it does require a nation's military or intelligence departments and our Homeland Security branches to take a look and assess this increased risk that will be coming from Afghanistan. As we look at our southern border, we know that we have a porous border allowed by this weak administration, which could allow easy access from these various terrorist groups to enter into the United States. And tell us a little bit more, Senator, about that piece of legislation. Do you know when it's going to be introduced on the floor? We have introduced it.

I have introduced the legislation already, but it will need to be taken up on the floor of the Senate. Now, if you look up at the makeup of the Senate, it is controlled by the Democrats. It is controlled floor activities are controlled by Chuck Schumer. So the likelihood that the legislation would actually get onto the floor and get past is slam because of Chuck Schumer and the Democrats. So as we see, you know, increasing numbers crossing our southern border, as we see this debacle in Afghanistan, I think to average American out there, they would say this would be a very good thing. for us to do. But for the Democrats to take it up, one, they would have to acknowledge that we have a crisis at our southern border and are allowing access by individuals that aren't vetted and that are entering in massive numbers. And they would also have to admit that we do have an

increasing threat in Afghanistan because of President Biden's outrageous haphazard withdrawal from Afghanistan. The Democrats don't want to admit this, so the likelihood of this legislation passing is slim. I hope that they would reconsider, but we do have an increasing threat coming out of Afghanistan. Senator, if you could sit down with President Biden today and advise him on what to do next, what would you tell him? I would tell him that we need to be very strong as a nation. We should not be cowering and bowing to the demands of the Taliban. We have Americans that are at risk in Afghanistan, and we can't go back and correct what President Biden has done. But my advice to President Biden is you need to flex your military might. You need to find other avenues for us to get

American citizens out of Afghanistan. You need to tell the Taliban that if the Americans aren't out by August 31st, we're staying for as long as it takes to get every last one out. Senator, thank you so much for your time. We really appreciate your insight. Oh, it is a pleasure to be with you. God bless you. And God bless all of our Americans that are struggling to find a way out of Afghanistan. And that'll do it for today's episode. Thanks for listening to The Daily Signal podcast. You can find the Daily Signal podcast on Google Play, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and IHeartRadio. Please be sure to leave us a review

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