The Glenn Beck Program - Best of The Program | Guests: Ric Grenell & Rep. Chris Stewart | 8/25/21

Episode Date: August 25, 2021

Glenn broadcasts from an undisclosed location in the Middle East as the Nazarene Fund’s rescue mission continues. Glenn gives an update on the rescue mission and has a strong message for the State Department. Former ambassador Richard Grenell calls in to argue that the Afghanistan debacle isn’t an intelligence failure. Rep. Chris Stewart joins to describe just how “historic” this failure is and a possible Havana syndrome attack near VP Kamala Harris. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to the podcast today. We have kind of an interesting one for you involving our own Glenn Beck, who has, who left the show a little early yesterday, which was kind of nice because it gave me a chance to just rant endlessly about Andrew Cuomo and his last day in office. However, he left for a reason. Glenn left for a reason. But Glenn also left for a reason yesterday because he was getting on a plane and flying to the Middle East. He is in the Middle East in an undiscipline. in an undisclosed location. Doing the show from there today,

he has kind of a behind the scenes of how everything is going and where our efforts might lead next. If you want to help with this effort, you can go to the Nazarenefund.org. I know that's a big part of this. Although, as Glenn mentioned, we've been able to pass our goal,

at least our initial goal, to rescue people in the Middle East. And obviously any additional help would be greatly appreciated though really your prayers would be really appreciated too we're talking about Christians and other

religious minorities who are in severe jeopardy because the Taliban has taken over these are people who are vetted Christians people we've worked with before and these organizations have worked with before and they are going not to the United States but to other third party nations

and other areas and they need your help. Obviously, the Americans are being evacuated by the military. We'll see how that is going to go. Some of the translators as well and those types of people who helped during the war. But there's other people on the ground here, there that are in real trouble. And everyone's trying to come together and get something done. So if you can help the Nazarenefund.org is the place to go.

And you can go to blazTV.com slash Glenn. The promo code is Glenn there to save $10 off your subscription to Blaze TV. We will have more on this as the day develops. Here's the podcast. You're listening to. I'm live from the Middle East in one of the countries that is kind of command and control of what is going on in Kabul. We have greeted. I just landed about an hour and a half ago.

So I'm a little discombobulated. I left during the show yesterday. And we've been flying throughout the night to be. be able to get here. It is now late in the afternoon and it is a mess. It's an absolute mess. The good news is people have gotten out. The U.S. citizens and those with what they say, blue passports, those who also have letters allowing them to get in, many of those people were. sitting on the tarmac and now they are are leaving the tarmac and getting into C what is it C one what are they 141s the transplant the transport planes and the

United States is saying that really if you're not at the airport now you're not really going to get to go and they're asking for people to back up from the gate because they pretty much given the gates over to the tallow Taliban and to ISIS. And people have been trying to get through the gate with their blue passport. And they can't. Now, the United States government is denying all of this. But let me give you this from a CBS reporter.

One of the more strange communications from CBS I've ever seen, CBS reporter says, I just got off a video call with a U.S. citizen. A woman housing multiple women and children in her home. Some are very young. Others are physically disabled. I saw them all on a video. She said she has tried multiple times with her blue passport and can't get to the airport. That's true.

Those things are happening right now. Citizens cannot get to the airport. Then somebody on this Twitter feed said, you should contact Glenn Beck of the Nazarene Fund. planes. And somebody said, planes are useless when people can't get to the airport. Yes, indeed, that's true. That's why we also have helicopters. They said, the next person tweeted, Dad of Queens, they have groups that are getting them to the airport as well. The Nazarene Fund is amazing. Misty said, he said today the State Department was tanking their efforts. That's when

the CBS reporter said, guys, none of this is true. As Dad of Queens responded and didn't get one from CBS News, are you talking about the State Department blocking or that the Nazarene Fund isn't doing what they're saying they're doing? Well, I am here to testify to you. In fact, be a witness. And that's one of the reasons why I'm here. To be a witness to history. Let me play the video. Here, if you can play that video that I sent you from the tarmac of Kabul, there are. the transport planes and you see the people that the United States government is taking in, lining up to get onto those planes. And lo and behold, you start to see another, a couple of other commercial jets. And this one is our air bus taking in women and children. So I don't know what part of all of this is a lie, but that was taken from my team on the ground in Kabul. We'd like to get more people out, but we're not getting any help from the State Department.

And it is obscene what the State Department is doing. Right now you have the system collapsing on the outside. Okay, you can take these people who are in the Kabul airport. We can't help you get anybody through the gate because, ooh, ooh, Taliban and ISIS. And I guess we're now afraid of them. But by the way, where are you going to fly that plane? Because they're not giving us documentation for these people. We've vetted them. We know who they are, and there's nowhere to take them. Because they are blocking the countries from taking them. They won't give them. You know, I told you a story the other day of Raul Wollenberg. Raul Wollberg is a great American hero, except he's American he's Swedish but he's an American hero we asked him to do something and then what a

surprise we abandoned him we asked him to just report on what was going on over in um i think it was Prague i can't remember exactly a little fuzzy this morning uh but it was in world war two and we wanted to know budapest we wanted to know what was going on with the germans and the jews Well, he got there and he saw what was going on. And they were loading them on trains to bring them to death camps, and they were liquidating all of these people. And so what did he do? He started issuing what's called a Schutz pass.

He against the king of Sweden. He started issuing Schutz passes, which said, this person is now under the protection of the king of Sweden, and they are Swedish citizens. Nobody in the world wanted Jews. The Nazis were in Sweden. The king called Raul Wollenberg and said, what are you doing?

You're going to get us all killed. He said, you want me to stop? You're going to have to come here and stop me myself. These are people. We can't get the State Department to issue our own Schutz passes anymore. But I have a little surprise for the for the Secretary of State and the State Department. I have the airplanes.

I have the money. I will tell you right now, all of these refugees have been spoken for by countries all over the world, except for the United States. The United States won't take people who are Christians. We'll take everybody else, but not these Christians.

Not these people who, as we told you yesterday, we had a phone call from a fantastic woman who has already saved girls from Afghanistan. And she said, I have 200 female judges and they're all marked for death because they put their life on the line by sentencing men to prison. And then the Taliban opened up all the prison. And so who do you think they want to get? that woman who dare put me in jail and tell me what I had to do, she's a woman. So 200 of these judges, including the judges of the Supreme Court. I don't know. I think they should have a country to go to.

Now, we have several countries. We have the United Kingdom. We have Australia. We have several in the Middle East. but we can't get the State Department should pass. Huh. So the State Department, I just want you to know because I know you like law and order.

I know you like to do things the right way. And so if you don't want to issue, you know, the papers so these people can go to other countries, I understand that. That's why I will fill up these planes and I will fly them to Mexico. And these 200 female judges and the Christians, the families, the moms, the children, they'll all be planes someplace in Mexico. And then I'll walk them across the border because that's the only way, apparently,

you can come in legally to America. So I'll just walk them across the border and don't you dare think I won't do it. All the State Department has to do is just allow the paperwork to go through so these people can be resettled everywhere in the world in countries that want them. America doesn't want them. That's fine. Then stop being like the Nazis. let them go someplace else. I tell you, I feel exactly like the people must have felt

when they were just, when they had the means, when they had the money, when they had the angles, when they had everything to get them out, and the Nazis wouldn't let them go. Why? Because they wanted to kill them. Well, that's exactly what the Taliban is doing to these people. The Taliban is going to kill these people. We have the airplane.

We have the countries that want to take them. We have the money to get them there. What the hell is the problem? The State Department, why? Why? These judges are, they were at the gate yesterday. They've left the gate now. Because we couldn't get them through.

Huh. They're going elsewhere. We're going to get them out or we're going to die trying. And State Department, Joe Biden administration, you have set the world on fire. On fire. You have destroyed our credibility. Now England is leaving before we get out of there.

Because we're getting out of here. We're pulling troops out now. We're starting to pull our troops. When has the United States ever pulled troops out before the job was done? When? When? When has the United States left people behind? Can you help me out on that?

Oh, it's probably Vietnam when we left people behind last time. That's right. I remember the P-O-W camps. I remember wearing the bracelets of the people who we think left behind. Yeah, that was a really proud moment. Don't think I won't do it because I will. And I know it would probably be very unpopular. with my listeners, but these are people. These are Christians. These are educated women.

And by God, I will walk them across the border. If you don't allow us to take them elsewhere, to countries that want them, there's something wrong with you people in Washington, D.C., something deeply, deeply unsettling. You're not doing the job, so the American people, are doing the job. Get the hell out of our way. You're listening to the best of the Glenn Beck program. From the Middle East, I wonder if this would have happened five years ago if I could tell you what country I was in in the Middle East, but nobody wants their name known, not to the rest of the world, but to the Middle East because they are so afraid of reprisals from the Taliban, from now a reconstituted al-Qaeda and ISIS. And I don't think anybody trusts America anymore. I know I don't recognize my country anymore.

It's embarrassing. Richard Grinnell is with us. He was the former director of National Intelligence. And I mean, I just, I love this guy. Richard, how are you, sir? Thanks for having me. I'm really a pleasure to be here. Thank you.

What can you tell us on what's going on? You know, it's very frustrating our listeners to understand right now. What is happening is good about the fact that the U.S. government, the intelligence of Taliban, was going to take advantage of the Biden administration. It's important for that was not an intelligence failure, but it ignored the warning. Let me push back on you, just to play devil's advocate. I thought I believe any of this, but Biden will say, well, that was just one of many voices. course there were there were voices that said it was you know but but everybody really said that it was

going to be fine i think uh the reality is is that that's not true there were plenty of warning from stay bogram directly and jake sullivan directly i have this uh that if you shut down bogram and you take away the 2500 troops you will quickly have 5,000 natal troops follow you in leaving this will be a disaster. The Taliban will see this as their opportunity, and you won't be able to respond. Now, look, in the Trump administration, let's remember, Glenn, that on January 20th of this year, Donald Trump handed Joe Biden a stable Afghanistan, a functioning embassy at U.S. Embassy Kabul, and a Taliban that was deathly afraid. of getting bombed if they took over a city. The problem is not talking to the Taliban.

The problem comes in in what the Taliban hears. And what the Taliban heard under Donald Trump is, we cannot reconstitute. We cannot go forward and take over a city. We will get bombed. And obviously, once Joe Biden took office, the Taliban completely had a different calculus. They did not hear that.

They started to take city by city and nothing happened that encouraged them to take over the whole country. Our troops were withdrawn before we evacuated the embassy. Look, I don't say this lightly, but for a secretary of state to sit in cabinet meetings and allow the military to leave Afghanistan before State Department employees are evacuated, that as abandoning State Department officials, foreign service officers, good Americans, we should not allow this to happen. The Secretary of State should resign in disgrace

for allowing the military troops to leave before we evacuated the embassy. The foreign service officers in these embassies, they don't carry guns. They're looking for political solutions. They're doing applications for immigrants who want to get out. These are front-line workers for the United States of America and pushing our good brand.

They don't have guns. They are not equipped in a hostile situation. They should be protected. Otherwise, if they're not going to be protected, they should be evacuated. And they weren't. This is shameful. I've spent 10 years in the State Department, and I'm outraged that this happened to the State Department employees. Richard, I don't understand what's happening at the State Department.

We have planes on the ground, the Nazarene Fund, which is a charity that I started years ago. It has become this very, very competent charity. We operate all over the world. We have now, as of today, I think we're $3,000 shy of $30 million. We have all the planes. We have very competent people working in Kabul with the generals and everybody at the airport. We have the ability to move thousands of people, but we can't get the State Department to do anything.

Everything with the State Department is like pulling teeth. And now they're not giving the, I don't remember what it is, but the permission for these other countries to take these people. have countries that want to take these people and they won't give us any of the documentation, any of the work. They're all fully vetted everything. What is happening? Well, let me tell you one thing that's happening is that the paperwork processing and a lot of the language skills for the State Department are done by what we call local employed staff. L-E-S is how they call it. And the locally employed staff are Afghans. They have now been told by the Taliban that they

cannot leave the country. They will be targeted because they worked for the American embassy. These people are in grave danger. And the State Department has not allowed them the locally employed staff who have worked with Americans for decades to not be evacuated. The Taliban is not letting them out. And the U.S. military, the Biden administration is not demanding that these locally employed folks get evacuated. So they are in hiding, Glenn, their lives are now in danger. We do not have a functioning embassy. And people are outraged by this. When the military leaves, you can't expect the State Department to stay in a hostile zone. Who's responsible for this? Who's pulling the strings at the State Department?

I blame Secretary Blinken's weakness for not standing up in a cabinet meeting. I've been in cabinet meetings, and it's a lively discussion, and decisions are being made. And if you are not at the table defending your agency, then you are doing a disservice to your employees. clearly Secretary Blinken and Wendy Sherman the Deputy Secretary of State

allowed these decisions to be made where the military would be evacuated and their State Department employees would not be taken care of. How is that possible? I have no idea.

But we do know when you talk about strings being pulled, we do know that when Susan Rice was the National Security Advisor for Barack Obama,

her two deputies, one was Tony Blankin, our current Secretary of State, and the other was A.R. Hans, our current director of national intelligence. Both the intelligence agencies and the State Department are led by Susan Rice deputies. Susan Rice is pulling the strings. She has the title of domestic policy advisor. No one in America believes she's working on Medicare policy. What is it that we can do? You know, I've talked to so many senators, and congressmen and they're all screaming bloody murder. What is it that we can do?

Because once they leave office, I mean, sorry, once they leave the airport, all these people are going to be slaughtered, Richard, just slaughtered. It is Americans are going to be held hostage if we don't get this right. and I think that what we can do, first of all, we have very poor choices right now. We are in a corner. We have a variety of really bad. But wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. If I'm president in the United States and you come into me and this is going on,

I say, I'm going to airlift, you know, 10,000 Marines, and I'm going to clear that damn area out and get our people out. Isn't that an option? That is absolutely an option. That's a dangerous option, but it is an option that I think we have to look at because all resources should be used, the U.S. government resources, to get Americans out. My point is we're in a very bad situation with terrible options, which are forcing our hand to go in and in a messy situation try to clear areas in order to get to the Americans. this is causing our American men and women who work in the military to go into an unnecessary conflict zone. They shouldn't be having to, and yet we find ourselves in this situation.

But I think what we have to be able to do is articulate very clearly as people who have access to the media and social media, everybody on this hearing our voices, need to articulate. get the Americans. Richard Grinnell. Former acting director of national intelligence. Always great to talk to you, sir. Stay safe. Thank you. This is the best of the Glenn Beck program.

Representative Chris Stewart is with us now in Washington, D.C. Hi, Chris. How are you? Good morning, Glenn. I'd say, hey, thank you. God bless you for you in the Nazarene Fund and the, you know, the hundreds of thousands of people, maybe more who have contributed. that kind of effort is what's so important right now. Yeah.

Chris, I was talking to Richard Grinnell about an hour ago about this debacle, and the White House is now saying to the press that they're demanding, you know, a little pat on the back for how well this is going now. I don't think I've ever seen anything worse than this, and it gets worse by the hour. Yeah, this is a generational failure. Glenn, I really believe that just like we see pictures of Saigon evacuation, the helicopter at the top of the embassy, and every American knows what that is, even though it took place 50 years ago.

50 years from now, our grandkids will see pictures of those 800 Afghans in that C-17, and they're going to know instantly what it is. This will be remembered, and it's not going to be remembered as a great success for President Biden. it will be remembered as the greatest failure in a generation and how they can try to twist this and try to turn the narrative that they should be congratulated. Well, it's beyond description, but American people aren't that stupid.

And they're not looking at this thinking, man, they've done a great job. And even the press, for heaven's sake, recognize it. Now, I expect, and I'll bet you do as well, the press will eventually turn on this and try to create the impression that it was handled well. no way in the world they're going to be able to pull that off. It's just such a catastrophe.

It can't be refrained as anything other than that. Do you believe that, you know, we're pulling troops out beginning today. Today, the airport is a mess. There are pictures now of people standing in, you know, knee-deep in sewage, just trying to get close to the gate to show them. their passports to show their papers that they should be let into the gates. And the White House says, we'll have everybody out. We'll have everybody out that, you know, a U.S. citizen. Do you believe that? No, of course I don't. I don't think there's a person in the world who believes that,

except for perhaps President Biden. And if he does, he is the only one. But we've already begun to wind down. We talk about the August 31st deadline, as if, you know, at 12 o'clock on that day, all U.S. forces just click their heels and they are transported back to the U.S. We have already begun the drawdown. As you know, 300 Marines who were embassy security forces, who, by the way, Glenn, or Marines, they know how to fight. I can promise you, those guys didn't want to be evacuated. They wanted to stay there with their brothers and do what they could to help this situation. But yesterday, 300 Marines brought down. And if you just look at the timeline, and this is blazingly obvious, but it's something that needs to be, I think, discussed.

We have 6,000 U.S. forces there now, six days to be able to draw them out and counting. It takes at least three days now to begin and to focus on those security forces. And by the way, withdrawing forces when they're surrounded and when they're outnumbered and when they're outgunned, by the way, now, because the Taliban has, as you know, billions of dollars the U.S. weapons, that is an incredibly delicate and a very dangerous operation. And it has to be done over time. So I think the focus over the next really six days, but particularly in the last three days, will be on just that, getting the U.S. military out. And there's no way in the world you're going to get out all the American citizens. And there's no way in the world we're going to get out

those Afghans who with great courage and commitment believed us when we said, we will not abandon you. Work with us, work as interpreters, work in whatever fashion you can to help us. We will not abandon you. And that is exactly what we're doing to them right now. Chris, you're one of the best fiction writers. I know you're a great writer. And you also write nonfiction books. But just write a little fiction with me here for a second. It's two months, I'm sorry, it's two weeks from now. are we going to be seeing and dealing with hostages? Well, I think that depends if you talk to White House spokeswoman. It depends on what the definition of a hostage is at that point, right?

Just like some of the other definitional battles they have. But if you were an American or if you were Afghani who has been promised that they will be evacuated, and you're no longer able to do that, and you're under the power and have no ability to remove yourself, that seems to me like a hostage. Now, whether the Taliban actually holds a gun to their head and says, you can't leave, or if they just shut down every method of leaving, any means of meeting, it's the same outcome.

And the great fear, and this is obvious, I think it's the one thing that everyone understands. The Taliban could in a moment, sorry, the Taliban could at a moment say, these are our hostages. They could put guns to the head, which is why, by the way, Glenn, two days ago or yesterday, the president went to the Taliban and says, hey, we need more time than August 31st. They said, no. And the president came back and said, oh, good. Well, I've announced we're going to leave on August 31st. It's because he has that great fear of these Americans and these Afghans being held hostage.

And why did we send the CIA chief over to meet with the Taliban yesterday? What was that all about? You know, that really is kind of an unusual occurrence. And working in Intel, it was puzzling to many of us. I think this is my observation on this. And I I think it's probably right. I think he's one of the few people around the president that he probably trusts right now, because that's not normally, it's CIA's purview. Normally that would be someone from state would be involved with that, perhaps with some military detail assigned to him.

But that was an interesting thing, and I honestly don't understand the explanation for it, and we haven't been provided with one. And you're on the Intelligence Committee, your oversight on that. the embassy. We left Bagram and just left it, turned off the lights. I can't, I don't even understand it. We built a billion dollar embassy. There's got to be things in there that we don't want other people to have. And I certainly don't want to have the Taliban allow them to have our billion dollar building. Are we going to blow that up? Yeah. Well, yeah, I don't know. But I mean, I can tell you this, the former president made it very, very clear on a number of occasions, and he spoke about

this publicly, and he was adamant about it in private, we will take every American citizen, we will take every Afghan ally, then we will throw U.S. troops. Second thing, we will not leave them a single stick of equipment. And as you know, we've left them billions of dollars. And Bargram was a great example of that. It's a very secure location. Now, it's difficult to evacuate people from because it's isolated and it's nearly impossible to get U.S. citizens and Afghan allies to Bagram. So there is that and that's understand why we wanted to protect Kabul and use that as a primary resource. But to your point, Glenn, about the facility, the building, the equipment that's there. And unfortunately, we know classified information that was left there. To abandon that

overnight, without any explanation to our allies, by the way, who are also relying on Bagram for much of their support. And the explanation is, well, we couldn't protect both of them. Then adapt your plan. If you can't protect a resource that you need, adapt the military operation so that you can. You can't just turn out the lights, as you said, in the middle of night, and leave it for the Taliban.

I don't know if you saw this, but Kamala Harris was in Vietnam yesterday, and her plane was delayed. I haven't heard an update on this. I've been on a plane all night. But her plane was delayed because of the Cuba syndrome, what they're calling the Cuba syndrome. Some people, they didn't say who, that was on her junket over there, were affected by something that we only identify as the Cuba syndrome, some sort of array from somebody targeting her hotel rooms and her staff's hotel rooms. I can't imagine that that would have happened just even a few weeks ago to a vice president, but do we know if she's okay, what happened, and who would be responsible for something like that?

Yeah, this is what we know and that I think I can discuss. The Savannah syndrome, the Cuba syndrome, as you talk about, we've been aware of it now for probably three years or just short of three years. There are not just a few. There are hundreds of people who have been, we believe, who have been attacked. by this. We think we understand what kind of weapon it is. It should frighten the life out of every American to think that diplomats and members of U.S. leaders of the U.S. government can't travel overseas safely any longer if this is to continue. So with the vice president was, again, as I understand, it was a couple of diplomats who were in the Hanoi embassy who

were showing symptoms of this. The symptoms are fairly consistent. They're long term. This isn't an imaginary thing. This is an actual physical manifestation, and we have no way to counter it and no way to identify when an attack is taking place. Again, it puts every one of our diplomats, every one of our military, every government person and civilian as well, Glenn, you could be a target of this potentially, anyone overseas, and you have no idea when or how it takes place. It really is a concern for us that originally the CIA didn't take it nearly as serious as they needed to. it very, very seriously now, but we've got an awful long way to go before we understand this and are able to protect U.S. persons from such an attack.

So who do we think is responsible for this? I mean, China, Russia, either? Well, take your pick. And, you know, the information on that is fairly closely held and it's understandable, but, you know, there's a number of allies that are... Can you tell me, can you tell me... how it works? I mean, can you tell me, is it a, what are the symptoms? How long does it last?

Is it deadly? Yeah, it's not deadly in the sense. It doesn't kill you. There's a number of possible explanations, a microwave, an intense microwave, a couple other possible scientific explanations. The symptoms are everything from nausea to disorientation, severe headaches, you know, dizziness, etc, etc. Long-term loss of memory.

And again, this is something you can physically demonstrate through an examination. It's not something just imaginary. It's not something where they can scan the body and the brain and say, no, we see no evidence of it. They actually do see evidence of it. It's physical. And some of the early individuals who were victims of this, it's been now years and they still experience many of these symptoms.

So it's not something that hits you in a night, and the next day you feel better. Many of these symptoms have been prolonged, and as I said, have been ongoing ever since the original attacks. Act of war kind of stuff, if we knew exactly who it was, wouldn't it? Attacking the people with our vice president? It would be, and it's not the only type of that kind of scenario where we, you know, we're in this kind of a gray zone. I mean, look, some of the cyber attacks against us, you know, certainly aggressive acts, whether they're acts of war, not. It depends on, you know, where you want to draw the line. But it's not the only indication or the only example of us being at risk.

Chris Stewart, thank you so much. God bless. Please, please keep fighting for us in Washington and with the State Department and the military to get these people out. We're there and we need your support. Thank you, Chris. Oh, we will do that. Promise you. We will do that. Thank you for everything you do, Glenn.