The Dan Bongino Show - Dan Bongino Labor Day Podcast Special

Episode Date: September 6, 2021

Select interviews from the Dan Bongino Radio Show from the past couple of weeks. Dan interviews Gen. Jerry Boykin, who was involved with the Black Hawk Down incident in Somalia. They discussed the terrible tactics in our pullout of Afghanistan. Dan talks with former Navy Seal Jocko Willink about leaving Americans behind in Afghanistan and the lack of accountability from leadership. Finally Dan talks with Pennsylvania Senate Candidate and former Infantry Captain who served in Afghanistan, about the botched withdrawal from that country and what we can expect to happen in the coming years.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

When doctors, clinicians, and government officials collaborate with our country's innovative pharmaceutical companies, the side effects include improved policies that speed up the delivery of medications to those in need and better overall health for all Canadians. Get ready to hear the truth about America on a show that's not immune to the facts with your host, Dan Bongino. Hey, thanks for tuning into the podcast on this Labor Day. We really appreciate it. We wanted to bring you some good material. These are some of the interviews from the past couple of weeks on my radio show. Some of the better ones you may have missed if you only get to catch the podcast.

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catalog and decals. That's Henry USA.com that order a free catalog and decals. And to learn more about this great American company. Okay. First up today is an interview we did with general Jerry Boykin. He's a real American hero, Vietnam veteran. He was in Somalia during the black Hawk down incident is one of the

commanders. Jerry Boykin and I talked about the catastrophe the Biden administration caused in Afghanistan. Check this out. All right. I want to welcome to the show for the first time a good friend and one of the most decent, honorable men I know. If honor is a thing, and I'm sure it is, General Jerry Boykin is swimming in it everywhere. He is a great man. General, thank you for joining the show. It's an honor to speak to you, sir. Oh, Dan, you're very, very kind.

And thank you. It's a privilege to be on your program today. Well, that's coming from you. Um, that means a lot. So general, you are one of the few, uh, truth tellers I trust out there, um, on this situation going under, you know, we're witnessing right now this tragedy in Afghanistan. Can you think, given your deep experience in the military? I'm serious. I'm not trying to be a smart guy here or in any way silly about it. Can you think of any tactical reason why we would have abandoned Bagram about a 20 minute helo lift out of Kabul, a fortified military facility.

Why we would abandon that first in order to secure an airfield in a 4 million population city in downtown Kabul. Does that make sense to you at all? From a military perspective, it's backwards. perspective it is the uh it's it's backwards there is no reason to abandon a base that you have uh you put billions of dollars into but more importantly it is a strategic location it would have made this whole thing much easier and uh i i cannot believe that the military advisors that being the secretary of defense and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs did not have enough influence over the Commander-in-Chief to get him not to do this. But he is surrounded by people that don't know what they are doing, and I think that they carried the day, to include Secretary Blinken. And this is tragic, and we're going to leave thousands of Americans in the hands of the Taliban there.

Ultimately, they're going to be scattered all over the country. If they were not being impeded, then why aren't they at the airport already? We're talking to General Jerry Boykin, a great man. Folks, look up this gentleman's resume. It's going to take a while. You may have to read for it. It's that deep and lengthy. I love I love having him on the show. General, I agree with your assessment there. I spent a little bit of time at Bagram. It's kind of nestled in the mountains there. It's a decent it's a decent lift out of out of Kabul, but not far enough that it would make it impractical.

And it just never made sense to me there were two runways there this was a secured facility but I want to highlight what you said because that's been on my mind as well you know although the executive I believe in the unitary executive obviously the president's the one man in charge there he's got people to support him but he's in charge he's a branch of government and of himself how is it that he surrounded himself with supposedly the best and brightest and you know all of these academics think tankers and candidly upper level military folks and no one was able to tell him you know sir this is a disaster do you understand you're asking us to secure an airport in the middle of

a city high ground everywhere friends and foe all around us. We have a place, just a 20 minute lift out. No one was able to talk him out of that. I mean, you've been in some of these high level meetings. I'm sure you've seen other politicians who made decisions just as bad where people were able to tell them, sir, bad idea. You better do a U-turn. Well, that comes back to the question of who's influencing

the president. Who really, they call them handlers or whatever you want to call them. The media has adopted that term, but who's really influencing the president and his decisions? Look, Lloyd Austin was a four-star. Mark Milley is a four-star. These guys have been in the army for a long time. Mark Milley is a four-star. These guys have been in the Army for a long time. They did not have the influence to be able to talk him out of doing something this stupid, this unreasonable, and now what we have wound up with is a situation that is, for the most part, irredeemable.

I mean, we're going to leave Americans behind. If he sticks to this 31 August deadline, we're going to leave Americans behind. And our national ethos, not just the military, but our national ethos is to leave no man behind. We're still looking for bodies in Korea from the Korean War and Vietnam from the Vietnam War. We're still looking to bring those bodies home. And look at what we're doing right now. I've never been so humiliated in my life as what I'm experiencing personally right now, watching what's unfolding and knowing that we're walking away from an obligation that we made not only to Americans, walking away from an obligation that we made not only to Americans,

but to those Afghanis that stood with us, fought with us, and many of which paid the ultimate price with us. You know what's sad about this, General? You and I have known each other for a decent amount of time now. And the sad thing about this interview, really, is, you know, I remember the first time you and I really started talking and uh you know speaking a lot about an issue was benghazi because you were making to me some of the exact same arguments we don't leave our people behind period we don't do it we do everything in our power to get our people out that is is what we do. That's why our people fight for. We realize

our heroes out there on the front lines realize that their government, their military is going to do everything they can to make sure that they're not left behind waving at a helicopter walking away. That's the last time you and I really had a really deep discussion about an issue was Benghazi. And now we're talking again about this. I mean, this and who was the vice president then? Joe Biden. Yep, that's exactly right. Look, first of all, I think we all recognize that we have ruined our relationships with

our allies. And I think that nobody can calculate right now what the second, third, and even fourth order effects of what we're doing right now are going to be. But I can tell you they're going to be significant, not only from our allies, but also from our enemies. And let me just say this, Dan. A lot of people don't understand, but during the events in Mogadishu in 1993, known as Black Hawk Down, we fought an 18-hour battle, but nobody really understands what we're fighting over. We were fighting over the bodies of two of our comrades that were killed in the helicopter crash, and no man was going to

leave Mogadishu. We stayed there 18 hours and took more casualties, but there was an ethos. and took more casualties, but there was an ethos. It's just like William Tecumseh Sherman said to Ulysses S. Grant when he came out of the campaign there in Atlanta. He said, I knew wherever I was that you thought of me. And then if I got in a tight spot, you would come if alive. I tell you, I keep that in my office, Dan. That is a powerful statement. That's a national ethos.

And we've got a president here that doesn't understand this. We've got tens of thousands of people streaming across our southern border. And these Afghans that really have paid a price to be part of us are being left behind along with the Americans. And I am so humiliated by what's going on here, Dan. I just, I don't know what to do. I'm praying hard for these people to be able to get out. But, you know, unless God performs a miracle, we're going to leave people behind there. General, you know, I know you're a man of faith, you and your family. I've prayed with you. And, you know, I'd be doing the audience a disservice if I didn't include this.

Can you just explain to them that you, the Black Hawk Down incident, what your role was there? Because, folks, it's not that Jerry Boykin saw the movie. Like, he was the movie. He was there. Can you just explain to them? Because one of the stories when I was an instructor in the Secret Service Academy, I used to tell my classes when they thought they were having a rough day, is the story of Gary Gordon and Randy Shugart, who demanded to be let down on the ground. Snipers knowing they would probably be killed in order to help our guys and not get them out.

Could you just tell the audience what your role in that was? in order to help our guys and not get them out. Could you just tell the audience what your role in that was? Yeah, I was a commander of the Delta Force at that time, and I was running all ground operations. So those were my guys. Those were two Delta Force snipers. And they did.

They did just what you just said, Dan, and I'll get emotional here if I'm not careful. They, three times, they saw what was on the ground. They saw the second helicopter go in. They saw what was on the ground there, and what was on the ground was a crash with aviators that were still alive that could not get out of the

aircraft because their backs were broken. And they asked three times, three times to go in. And the last time, their words, we're the only hope. They went in knowing. And we didn't have a way to reinforce them within a reasonable period of time, and they were going to be on their own. And they went in there and they sacrificed their lives for four men in a helicopter,

and one of which survived to tell us the story, which is why I then put them in for the Medals of Honor. Just think about that and then compare that to what we're doing right now. Compare that to decisions that are being made by our commander-in-chief today and the people around him that are advising him. It is a travesty. And I hope that this president recognizes what a huge mistake he has made here, what a bad judgment he has issued here. And I hope that we'll never see this kind of thing again.

We've got a lot of work to do to rebuild and repair our relationships. You know, General, you're just a really amazing guy. You know, I know you, I've never seen you get choked up for anything, but I know how much this means to you. I really do. And, you know, I don't want to ask you any more questions because I just want to let the audience do on that. And I want to just say to you what an honor it is to know you. And I only wish our government had more guys like you right now in positions of leadership to be providing the appropriate guidance to these political folks. We'd be in a far different place. You're a humble guy. But gosh, it is a real honor to know you. And thank you for spending a few minutes with the audience today. They are better people for hearing what you just said. Thanks a lot, General.

Hey, you're a great American, Dan, and God bless you for what you're doing. Thank you, sir. Folks, General Jerry Boykin, I'm telling you, one of the greatest men I have ever met. It has been my distinct honor and pleasure to know him for quite a long time now. That was General Jerry Boykin. He was on the radio show a couple weeks ago.

We've got another great interview coming up with Jocko Willink. Metrolinks and Crosslinks are reminding everyone to be careful as Eglinton Crosstown LRT train testing is in progress. Please be alert as trains can pass at any time on the tracks.

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a good man, a good man, a former Navy SEAL himself, Jocko Willink. Jocko, thanks for joining us today. I really appreciate it. Hey, Dan. Thanks for having me on, man. Yeah, you got it. Sorry about that. I thought my studio just shut down. There was like a major electrical strike here in Florida. Got to be prepared though, Jocko, all the time, man. Got to have a backup. The batteries just kicked in. But listen, I had you on the Fox show on Saturday night because people in America, they look to you, Jocko. You got a big public profile. You're a humble guy, but you were a Navy SEAL. You've've been there you've been in theater and i think one of the things that has my listeners a lot of americans really furious right now is what we discussed on saturdays this idea the whole american code we live by a code here that's

what america is it's not just a you know a flag that's just a piece of fabric it's what the flag represents and one of the codes are we don't leave our people behind, Jocko. And we're evacing in Afghanistan right now, giving them an artificial 3.29 p.m. tomorrow deadline. And yet they have no way to get out. I mean, this is unforgivable. Yeah. You know, Dan, I was going to bring this up the other night because I heard you before I came on. I heard you talking and you were talking about the fact that we were leaving people behind. And I wanted to mention this story.

When I was in Iraq, I was in the Battle of Ramadi, and there was a situation where there was a gunfight, and there were some Iraqi soldiers, some friendly Iraqi soldiers, got wounded and were laying in the street. And two of my guys, two American SEALs, put down cover fire, ran out into the middle of the street during a gunfight to grab these two guys, bring them back to safety, totally put their lives at risk. Both those guys ended up receiving a Silver Star for that action.

But this is what we did, and this was for Iraqi soldiers, guys that didn't speak English, guys that were just out there to help us. And that code that you talked about, it's a real thing. It applies to anyone that helps us. We will be there for you. And so it's very real thing. It applies to anyone that helps us. We will be there for you. And so it's very sad to see the situation unfolding the way it is. Folks, Jocko has a podcast and he has a number of books on leadership. I can't recommend enough.

You know, a lot of times you get books and stuff in the mail. And I buy Jocko's books. I don't even need some PR person to send it because they're real stories about real people in real time taking responsibility. Jocko, that's one of the things. I mean, again, your books are really incredible on this topic. Use real world examples of this stuff. And one of the components of leadership is you don't say,

I'm in charge and use all the fancy buzz terms. I'm in charge of book stops here. And then say, but everyone else screwed up but me and candidly it's not just our political leadership there's a lot of that happening at the at the military leadership now as well where we're stranding the boots on the ground our door kickers our war fighters are stranding them behind and you know these people that are working behind desks right now all due respect to their prior experience, but they're making bad decisions. We're not seeing real leadership resignations, people speaking out.

We're just not seeing it. Is this an institutional problem with our military, and how do we fix it? You know, that's one of those fine lines that people are walking is, you know, if I throw my commission on the table and say I'm not going to do this anymore. The problem with that is now I don't, now I don't have any more influence. And so unless we get some sort of a tipping point where enough people come forward and say, Hey, look, this is not, this does not work. We're not going to put up with this. We got it. We're kind of waiting to see if that tipping point comes, because sometimes when people leave the military, they throw their commission on the table. They resign. Well, guess what?

Now they don't have any influence anymore. And that can be a problem. I'm sure there's some people in the military that are saying, okay, this is what we're being told to do. In my position, I can mitigate the damage as much as I possibly can. If I speak up, well, then I can't help out on the ground. So I think some of the guys are caught in that catch 22, where it's like, do I speak up and give up any control over I have over my troops? I mean, look, Dan, we don't leave people behind. And there's nothing more sickening for me as when I was a combat leader to think I would

walk away from my guys and leave them under the control of somebody that that wasn't doing a good job or that I didn't trust. I would stay in that position. I would mitigate the risk as much as I can. But I think what we may see is in the coming weeks and months, I think we will start to see a groundswell of people that are speaking up and putting the word out about what happened, how it went down, and what changes are needed. We're talking to Jocko Willink. Please check out his podcast. It's a terrific Jocko podcast. And I'll follow him on social media. Jocko, you get very inspirational 4 a.m. in the morning talks. Listen, man,

I like to think I'm a real trooper in the morning, but 4 o'clock? I don't know how you do that, man. I watch you sometimes at 4 in the morning. You put the screenshot of your watch sometimes. You get up every day and hit it at 4 in the morning. Gosh, that must be tough. Well, you know, I'm not as gifted as you, Dan.

I got to put in the extra work. That's the way it goes. That's the way my whole life is. No, you are, man. You are. Listen, there are a lot of badasses out there, man, but you definitely walk the walk. Jocko, I'm very concerned as a number of my friends are, and a lot of my listeners have been getting tons of email on it.

Even my wife hit me up last night about this. She's like, Dan, I can't believe we left all this equipment behind, $84 billion in equipment. Some of it was intended for the Afghan army, made it into the hands of the Taliban. This stuff concerns me. I mean, it's bad enough we were embarrassed

and we left behind helos, we left behind transport planes, Jocko, but what worries me is 358,530 assault rifles, 62,000, excuse me, 64,363 heavy machine guns, 126,000 pistols, NVGs, night vision goggles. I mean, one of our tactical advantages, I mean, no one knows better than you. I don't need to tell you this,

of our special forces is our ability to operate in small units with basically, you know, light arms and to basically own the night. That's what you guys do. You operate at night to the point where I had a helicopter pilot once tell me when we were in the secret service, he was the,

the mill eight at the time. He's like, he, he, he wasn't even accustomed to flying anymore during the day. He was so used to the green at night. You know, this worries me.

Now our enemies have that opportunity to have that great equalizer. They'll never match our training, Jocko, but leaving the equipment behind, major, major mistake. You know, I made that video that was, hey, if I was president, this is what I would do right now.

And part of that was go in and get back or destroy the equipment that's there. The thing that actually pushed me over the edge to make that video was seeing these massive, massive piles of weapons. Look, to give the enemy these weapons, to think that our kids, this next generation, is going to have to go out on the battlefield and fight against an enemy that has the same weapons capability that we have,

that has the same night vision, that has the same weapons capability that we have, that has the same night vision, that has the laser sighting devices, that has armored vehicles. This is absolutely disgusting to think about. And we need to do something about it. Look, there's going to be decades. If they keep all these weapons, Americans and and freedom loving people of the world are going to be getting killed by these very weapons for the next two or three decades. That's what's about to happen. So that is that is just an absolute travesty. And something needs to be done about it. And it needs to be done right now.

Yeah, I mean, you're right, Jocko. If folks want the book, by the way, the book, Jocko has quite a few books. They're all very good. But the one I read last, which I think you'll all really enjoy is Leadership Strategy and Tactics Field Manual by Jocko Willink. Check it out. Leadership Strategy and Tactics. It is an amazing book. You'll get through it in a day or two. We need a little bit more of that right now. Leadership. But Jocko, you're right. I mean, we have Kalashnikovs, you know, AKs from the 60s still working. I mean, these things were built to last and so was a lot of our American military equipment. And the idea that, oh, you know,

we left them this stuff that it's going to somehow disappear in a few years. We'll see this stuff appearing decades later. I mean, we've had, as you well know, I mean, I've flown on C-5s on overseas missions with the president's cars, Jocko. These planes were operating in the 70s. We left them equipment.

This isn't going away. This is going to be there in theater for decades. Yeah, and you mentioned it briefly, just the fact that our utilization of night vision, when we were in the Battle of Ramadi, the Mujahideen fighters wouldn't even come out at night because they knew we owned the night. We had to go out in the daytime to kill them

because they would only come out during the daytime because they knew if they came out at night, they had no chance. Well, now we're opening up them to have an even playing field with us, and that's just a horrible thing to have happen. It's absolutely horrible. Yeah. Jocko Willink, one last question for you. You've been generous with your time.

We always appreciate it here and on the Fox show as well. Thank you very much. I know you're busy. The capability to retake Bagram. We surrendered, well, not we. Our commander in chief decided to surrender Bagram. I know our military folks probably thought it was a dumb idea, but we did. Do we have the capability to take this back right now if we needed to,

if we wanted to do this retrograde the right way? We could do it. Absolutely. There's no question about it. That's what the American military does. And there's nothing wrong with maintaining a presence in these countries. I mean, we got 40 military bases in Germany. We got 23 military bases in Japan. We have 15 military bases in South Korea. And those aren't because we're having forever wars there. Those are the prevention of war. That's what that is. It's a worldwide presence. It's a strategic presence that lets people know we're here and you can't mess around with america yeah choco thanks for your time we always appreciate i know you're a busy guy thanks so much thanks for having me dan we'll talk to you later you got it folks that was choco willing

check out his podcast his books on leadership again are spectacular it's one thing to write about leadership and write about it in kind of third person terms. Jocko tells real stories. Haven't been on the ground. It was a great book. It really opened my eyes to a lot of things. Go check them out. And again, check out the Jocko podcast.

We always appreciate his time. That was our interview with Jocko Willink from the radio show last week. Sean Parnell came on the show last week to talk about the disastrous pullout from Afghanistan. Cost 13 heroes their lives. How it affected him personally and the men he led when he was in combat, and the lack of accountability for this failed senile failure in the White House. Did I just say failure twice? I'll say it again. Failure in the White House and the Biden administration. Check this out. I love it when I take it right to the libs, they lose their minds. Here, Jim, checkim check this out feedback during the break from debbie

you are the stupidest person in america you should be banned my brother believes everything you say i hope you are banned shame on you for spreading conspiracy conspiracy theories and lying to people conspiracy theories and lying to people. You and people like you are what's wrong with our country. Yeah, you're right, Debbie. It's me, right? Right. It's not your feckless, senile, dopey commander in chief who just pulled people out of the country,

got a whole bunch of people killed. It's causing a massive inflation crisis, a border crisis. Yeah, I did that, right? Dan Bongino, commander in chief. All right, let's get to someone a whole lot smarter than Debbie. My good friend Sean Parnell running for Senate in the great state

of Pennsylvania. Sean, welcome back to the show. Hey, Dan. Thanks for having me. Yeah, I get a lot of that during the break. I'm sure you get the same. That's probably why you're there, right? You probably get the same things, right? I assume. Yes, yeah.

They're always so lovely. It's just one question. Sean also is a veteran who has seen Combat Time, a real American hero and a good friend. But Sean's running for office for U.S. Senate in Pennsylvania. And, you know, Sean, on a side note, I didn't intend to start the interview this way, but isn't it weird?

Like, have you ever had the urge to go on like a liberals page, you know, I'll go on the show and make fun of them. And I do, and I take it to them, but I've never had the urge to like send someone like that. Like you forget that or is that, that's a liberal thing, isn't it? You know, the nasty grams. I kind of think it is. I kind of think it is.

In fact, I was thinking sometimes, sometimes they're really funny and really creative um when i first got it when i first got in the senate race like somebody tweeted from pittsburgh like the personification of acts body spray just got in the race here for senate and i didn't even mention it was me and i instantly knew it was me and I'm like this is pretty amazing like it's pretty funny you know what but see because here's the thing like you and I are you know we're self-confident guys not not ego guys but self-confident guys like you can talk about that and said you're like some once in a while I respond to those kind of critiques and I'm like

dude I know you may hate me but that's's pretty funny. Like that's pretty good. I like body spray. My God. All right. Let me get to this because there's no one better to comment than you. You know, you've been there. You know what it's like having served in the military yourself, having lost friends. This is obviously a calamity of just cosmic proportions. I get an email this morning, though, Sean, from a friend of mine. He was a great source. And it also has seen some military time. And he said to me, you know, Dan, one of the things not being discussed with this failed surrender to the Taliban, with the equipment being left behind, is he said, during my time, you know, in the military, we were trained to, you know, get a good idea and memorize what the memories, what the uniforms of the enemies, excuse me, and their equipment look like. You know, not difficult if you're targeting a tank, whatever your atoll missile guy, whatever it may be,

you want to make sure you know what that enemy tank looks like. So you just make sure on visual, so it's not one of yours, right? And I thought, gosh, that's an interesting point because we left a bunch of equipment behind that is ours. Does that open up like an infiltration problem and an impersonation problem as well? I think so. I mean, it's not something that I had considered, but absolutely. They took like if they train you to go through, you know, visual aircraft recognition or ground armor recognition. I mean, they actually have flashcards and stuff that help teach you, identify the different types of equipment, you know, the from T 72 Russian tanks to different enemy aircraft. It is,

but you're right. We left billions of dollars of our own stuff behind Dan. Like, so, so there was, so get this, like one of my soldiers reached out to me after we left all that equipment there and said there was a time where his truck drove over a mine, killed three of our friends, wounded seriously two others. them to stay out there to guard the wreckage, the scraps of that Humvee. Well, they didn't know the status of the two soldiers, whether they had lived or died, not able to process the grief of the ones that they just lost. All the guard, the scrap metal.

And he said, it's unbelievable to me that we just gave away all of that stuff to basically the Taliban or this just jihadist terrorists to use our equipment. It's just unbelievable. It's just unbelievable. It is. I mean, in the technical sense of word that it's really hard to believe. You know, Pete Hegseth, our good friend, you know, you and I, that's we had some nice conversations at Pete's wedding there. Pete's a good man. And Pete brought up a story on Fox and Friends this morning. One of his units, there was a machine gun that was lost or misplaced and they got sent out into the suck to go find that thing.

I mean, one machine gun. And, you know, people took a disciplinary action against him for this. He told the story on Fox and Friends this morning. And yet we left behind, you know, 300,000 what would appear to be M4 type rifles, 126,000 pistols, 64,000 machine guns. I mean, Sean, we armed to the teeth a bunch of child bride taking medieval savages that are now running around taking pictures in our camo.

I know. And one of the things that is just so offensive quite frankly it's a slap in the face to anyone who fought against them is this normalization of the taliban like oh they're they're just like us they care about the economy and jobs and putting food on the table and climate change and climate change right somehow they're all somehow sitting in a cave, you know, talking about making the transition from a Toyota Hilux to a Toyota Prius and decreasing their carbon footprint. Give me a break. People forget that the Taliban, not only are they hanging people from helicopters and shooting them in the streets and executing people now. They helped facilitate the 9-11 attack. They attacked Americans for 20 plus years. They killed thousands of Americans during our time in Afghanistan. These are not good people. And yet from the Biden administration,

you'd think that they were just this fledgling government with nothing but benevolent intentions. Look, man, Dan, if leaving, you know, not not hundreds of Americans, I honestly think it's into the thousands of Americans, because this whole narrative, Dan, of Americans that want to come home, wait a second, no, there are a lot of Americans there who have sisters or brothers, that, you know, Americans who are citizens who have sisters or brothers who are not citizens just yet and are staying there so that they're not abandoned to the Taliban. We don't even have a sense of how many Americans are there. But I'm saying if leaving thousands of Americans behind enemy lines and leaving billions of dollars of our equipment and

surrendering to a terrorist organization and basically throwing away 20 years of blood and treasure spent in that country is not an impeachable offense or one worthy of resignation. What is? What is? Yeah, I'm with you, and I'm glad you have the guts to say that. We're talking to Sean Parnell, running for United States Senate, one of the finest, if not the finest, Senate candidate, I think, in the country, running in Pennsylvania. Just because you're not in Pennsylvania doesn't mean you can't support, you can't vote for him if you're not in Pennsylvania, but you can certainly support him because what he'll be voting for

when he wins is going to affect you. Website, parnellforsenate.com, P-A-R-N-E-L-L-F-O-R-S-E-N-N-E-T.com, parnellforsenate.com. You know, Sean, I was not in the military, was not in combat. I, you know, did make no illusions otherwise, never would. But I have a lot of friends like yourself and I listen a lot. And having spent a lot of time overseas working with military guys and taking in all their vast troves of knowledge. One of the things I'll always tell you is no amount of training on planet Earth can overcome the fog of war.

None. Now, what it can do, what I learned from some of the SEAL guys and Delta guys who had later come over to the Secret Service and became trainers in the academy I was in, is it decreases the time to which you can get your arms around what's going on. Say the untrained guy in the fog of war never gets his arms around. You know what I mean? It's just like chaos and they just panic and they flip out. You get these really, really good, maybe foreign units and they take a minute or two. You know, you get these seals, Delta Rangers, these guys, maybe in 30, 40 seconds, boom, they're ready. They get everything. They get a grasp of what's going on. They're in the fight.

He said, but you never get rid of that fog of war. The reason I bring this up is, you know, yes, we may have an idea. Let's say we have to go back, God forbid, to Afghanistan. They're using our equipment. We know, say, in whatever, Tora Bora, this line of Humvees is in fact the Taliban, right? But if we have guys on the ground, that fog of war breaks out and they're in our uniforms, all of a sudden, you know, you're five, 10 minutes into this gunfight. You know, all of a sudden this becomes really tricky. Like, you know, are those our guys? Are these our guys? Are our guys behind us? Did they flank you? You know, this is the kind of thing, again, the Biden administration never considered when we left $20 billion worth equipment behind. Oh, my gosh, it's so true. And

additionally, Dan, we left our lasers there, too. the the lasers that we use to lace targets on the ground for for bombers whether it's an a-10 or a b-1 strategic lancer they'll look at different laser shapes that we have mounted on our rifles they have them they have those lasers too and so incredible yeah they they took took a bad situation in Afghanistan. You know, withdrawal from Afghanistan was always going to be tough. You know, there's there's a say, you know, the enemy gets a vote. They always get to say or they always get a say in how things unfold. Or as Mike Tyson said, everyone has a plan to get with the first punch in the world.

Yeah. Yeah. But but this was a completely preventable tragedy. Joe Biden got it wrong literally, literally every step of the way, whether it's when we've talked about this, Dan, from closing Bagram Air Base to entrusting the Taliban with American lives. And one of the things that just infuriated me is that we had a chance to secure the city of Kabul. And here's something that really nobody's talking about. Kabul. And here's something that really nobody's talking about. Our generals were given the choice, you know, or they have cited that, hey, look, if we evacuate people out of Hamid Karzai Airport, it's just more convenient. It's easier for our citizens to get there. You know, if we keep Bagram open, they're going to have to travel 30 minutes. And that trip is a lot more dangerous. Right. So they cited that as a factor for keeping kabul airport open but then

they then they also said right in the same breath they gave they allowed the taliban to secure the city you see what i mean right so in one year you're saying hey it's just a mind-blowing decision that not only do you close down baghdad but you also allow the taliban to control the city that you're using for primary means of expo it's just just an unbelievable problem. And Sean, if I can add to that, I only got a hard minute left and I got to get Sean Parnell, by the way, running for Senate, Pennsylvania, parnellforsenate.com. Sean, one quick thing. And if I read that Washington Post piece, if this channel of communication was open with the Taliban, as the Washington Post alleges in their reporting, and the Taliban were at least hearing the Biden administration out, then why not just say to the Taliban,

hey, we're going to leave Bagram open until the last minute. We're going to exfil out of Kabul and Bagram. We're going to airlift some of our people to Bagram and hole up there. You attack us, we'll kill you guys. But they didn't do that either. It's unbelievable. And I think part of the reason, you know, our generals, they deserve a lot of blame for

this. But one of the reasons they ran into trouble was that they were left with artificial Catholic troops from Biden. And so they were like, hey, we've got to get down to this number. We've got to get down. No, that's right. That's right, Sean. I've got to run. Always a pleasure to have you on. One of the finest candidates, I think the finest Senate candidate in the country, Sean Parnell, real American hero. Parnell for Senate dot com. Pennsylvania, you don't vote for this guy. I'll be very disappointed. I don't know if that matters or not to you. But Sean, thanks for coming on.

You got it. That was Sean Parnell from last week on the radio show. By the way, another great candidate for office, Parnell. He is running for U.S. Senate in Pennsylvania. Check him out. You can hear me every weekday on the radio, by the way, across the country on over 300 radio stations. You just have to go to Bongino.com, our website. Click on Station Finder, and you can find out where we're on near you.

Thanks a lot for listening. I really appreciate it. Have a great Labor Day holiday. I'm Dan Bongino. You just heard the Dan Bongino Show.