‘Hannity’ on Afghanistan and Biden's leadership

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Hannity: Joe Biden wants to move on from Afghanistan

'Hannity' host blasts Biden's leadership as Americans still remain trapped in Afghanistan

This is a rush transcript from "Hannity," September 2, 2021. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

SEAN HANNITY, FOX NEWS HOST: And welcome to "Hannity".

A lot of breaking news this Thursday night. Tonight, Joe Biden, he's not interested in talking about Afghanistan. Nope. He wants to move on. He wants to pretend like it never happened.

But this crisis is far from over. Hundreds and hundreds of Americans are still trapped, hopelessly abandoned by Joe behind enemy lines.

And ask yourself this question tonight, if it was you or someone you loved, cared about, if they were abandoned by a president of the United States behind enemy lines, hostage to the whims of terrorists -- would you want your president and your country to move on and pull up stakes and say, well, you're on your own? Because that's what the State Department has up on their website. We'll get to that in a minute.

Now, on this show, we're not moving on. We may cover other stories, but we'll never move on until every American is home safely. Every day that goes by, the risk gets higher and higher. The terrorists and the Taliban, they've not been keeping their word.

Well, that is ever since Joe Biden became president, and they're in fact now going door to door as we speak executing anyone and everyone that they know that work with the United States in the last 20 years.

Congressman Michael Waltz said that Afghanistan is about to make 1979 in Tehran, 52 hostages, 444 days, look like a sleepover. It's that bad.

Sadly, I agree with the congressman, and I pray to God we're both wrong. But Joe Biden, he can't seem to be bothered.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. JOHN KENNEDY (R-LA): The withdrawal was a circus parade of bad decisions. Some of my colleagues in Washington are trying to spin it otherwise, but this one's unspinnable.

JEN PSAKI, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: No one is saying, from the federal government, no one, the president, secretary of defense, no one from the intelligence community, that the Taliban are good actors.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We have another option, we're going to have to work with the Taliban. They won, we lost.

PSAKI: Of course, we will be assessing it, of course based on how they treat individuals in the country, how they treat women, whether they let people who want to leave the country leave. All of those are factors that we will be assessing.

KENNEDY: You can put perfume on a pig, but it still stinks.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ANNOUNCER: Americans Held Hostage Behind Enemy Lines, Day 19.

HANNITY: Day 19, Americans held hostage, yep, abandoned behind enemy lines by Joe Biden and his administration, but they call this an incredible success, an extraordinary success, the right decision that they made, and they stand by it.

They still don't know exactly how many of our fellow Americans are actually trapped in Afghanistan. I'm hearing estimates as high as a thousand maybe more. There's no plan whatsoever to get them out. There's no military help. There's no diplomatic help and they're even saying you're on your own, our own State Department. We'll get to that in a minute.

No extraction efforts. Latest State Department alert telling people trapped behind enemy lines: Make contingency plans to leave when it's safe to do so that do not rely on U.S. government assistance.

If that's not Americans being abandoned, I don't know what is. Do not rely on the U.S. government for assistance. Take that in.

Remember just two weeks ago, August the 19th, Biden proclaimed if there are any American citizens left, we're going to stay until we get them all out. As "The New York Post" points out, that was just one of six major lies Biden told us about Afghanistan.

The second lie? That was about our Afghan allied partners. An August 20th, Biden said, quote, we're making the same commitment to get out those Afghans who worked alongside us. Now, there are thousands of our partners with no way out, maybe as many as ten thousand plus, I'm told. In fact, a senior State Department official told "Reuters" news that the majority of Afghans who helped the United States did not make it out of Kabul.

Even Biden's own Afghan interpreter, a guy that helped save his life from Afghanistan. He's hopelessly trapped in the country. Well, Joe, you have all the great ways to say thank you. And just listen to this former Afghan interpreter on "FOX and Friends" earlier today.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

FORMER AFGHAN INTERPRETER: They're still waiting to see if they can find a light resource to get out. And I'm working my best here as well to see if I can get them out, if not the U.S., because they made a promise and they not kept it.

BRIAN KILMEADE, FOX NEWS ANCHOR: They have not kept it. It's embarrassed the whole country and has put everyone in jeopardy. You also told me, real quick, there are assassinations going on right now, correct?

FORMER AFGHAN INTERPRETER: They are going home to home. They are asking if they have been associated with the U.S. troops, armed forces or government, or they have been in Afghan national special forces, and they would execute them right away.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HANNITY: Now this brings us to Joe Biden line number three. Not only did Biden promise to get our Afghan partners out, he also promised to extend this commitment to other vulnerable Afghans, such as women leaders and journalists.

Well, according to "The Washington Post," they rarely agree with little Sean Hannity, not only did Biden leave scores of journalists behind, he also abandoned more than U.S. government-sponsored journalists and their families. He also left behind countless high-profile women, including the highest ranking Afghan female police officer who is now on the run from the Taliban.

Sadly, she's not the only person running for her life. According to the BBC tonight, many of these former Afghan police officers and soldiers are now being hunted down and they are being killed.

Lie number four by Joe Biden, he claimed there are no parallels between this withdrawal and Vietnam. I guess that was only a partial lie -- this withdrawal is demonstrably worse.

Lie number five: Biden's promise to provide close air support to the Afghan army. That's stopped after he abandoned Bagram Air Base in July and actually in truth, it stopped almost on day one that he became president. And that one thing alone emboldened the Taliban and allowed them to advance, something they never tried with Donald Trump as president.

The final lie Biden claimed that, quote, the likelihood there's going to be the Taliban overrunning everything and owning the whole country is highly unlikely. Who was it? Defense Secretary Gates, he says, yeah, Joe's been wrong on every foreign policy issue for 40 years. He's wrong again.

At the same time, he was uttering those words, our intel community -- this was not an intelligence failure, Americans need to know the truth. Our intel community was telling him something very different, with great emphasis on a daily basis. There's a reason the CIA pulled their people out seven weeks ago.

They were warning Joe Biden daily, everyone warned Biden -- the fight against the Taliban was not going well. And Joe did nothing. Instead of fighting back, no, he just expanded on the lie. The same month that he's telling we, the American people that, oh, no, this is some of the best trained soldiers on the face of the earth and they even have an air force and -- oh, they're incredible, that same month, he was encouraging the Afghan president -- you know, the guy that fled, Ghani, with millions of dollars, he was encouraging him to lie, and just well you got to change the perception -- well, it doesn't matter if it's true or not, it's making me look bad, because there's a need to project a different picture than reality.

But here's the current picture in Afghanistan, Joe. You abandoned hundreds of Americans. Those fellow Americans are trapped behind enemy lines and that's right hostage to the whims of radical extremists and terrorists. Thousands of Afghani partners, you sign their death certificates. They will be murdered.

And now, a growing and active threat from ISIS-K inside of the country and to add, I guess, the cherry on top, Joe, al Qaeda is now on the rise again. That's right, to plot, plan and scheme their next attack on our homeland. Then, to top that off, the Taliban is now in the process of fully utilizing the billions and billions and billions and billions of dollars in U.S. weaponry, Black Hawk helicopters, C-17s, 208 aircraft and drones that you left behind, made no contingency for.

Now, several families of 9/11 victims, wow, this is pretty powerful -- they have told Biden, don't bother coming, you're not welcome at the 20th anniversary memorials that'll be taking place around the country because of what you did here and your weak leadership. Don't worry, the Biden administration, they're focusing on the real threat to the United States, right-wing extremist groups inside the U.S., who are inspired by the Taliban. Can't make this up. It's that bad and worse.

Here with reaction, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

I am going -- I want to settle this once and for all. You have confirmed this for me, Donald Trump has confirmed this for me, Mark Meadows has confirmed this for me, that numerous times and before any negotiations began, Donald Trump said to the leader of the Taliban, if you don't follow every dotted I, crossed T, every comma and every period, I will obliterate you. Do you understand? And repeated that all throughout the process. Donald Trump said he would keep control of Bagram Air Force Base, it would be conditions on the ground-based, and it would be before the fighting season began.

Is all of that true, Mr. Secretary?

MIKE POMPEO, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: Sean, good evening, yes. That's certainly true. I was part of multiple conversations where the president made clear -- I made it clear too, so did the military leaders during our time. We made clear that if the Taliban didn't meet the conditions that we laid out, then the commitment was off, our agreement that we would depart fully would be off, and that we would impose enormous costs on them.

And when they did it, when they needed -- when the Afghan national forces needed a close air support, you talked about this earlier, we provided it when the Taliban moved in places they were in agreement with us, that they wouldn't do, we crushed them. We imposed real costs. We established deterrence.

When you walk away from that, when you don't provide the support, when you don't have the Taliban understanding with absolute clarity the cost that will be imposed if they move against American, create risks or threaten an American, or heaven forbid kill an American. When you don't do that, you see precisely what we've seen these last three weeks now, Sean.

HANNITY: You were secretary of state when we took out Soleimani, we took out Baghdadi and his associates, we took out the al Qaeda leader in Yemen, and we -- we beat the living Adam Schiff out of the caliphate in ISIS -- ISIS in Iraq and Syria, did we not?

Was that brought up to by the president? Did he remind the Taliban of those moments where he acted and actions speak louder than words?

POMPEO: He certainly did, Sean. We all did. But the truth of the matter is, we didn't really need to. They could see it. They knew leaders all across the world had seen that America was determined and willing to use American power when we needed to do so to protect American interests.

President Biden makes this fateful decision, a political arbitrary date to get out everything flows from that fateful decision. It wasn't what we'd agreed to with the Taliban. We told them there had to be a set of conditions met. President Biden violated that central principle and you can see the results today.

HANNITY: I wasn't top of the class at West Point like you were, sir. So I - - I defer to you.

Joe Biden claims, Jen Psaki claims that we, the United States, now have all the leverage. I would argue I don't see any leverage because every American trapped behind enemy lines I would view as a hostage to the whims of terrorists. That's a lot of leverage, Mr. Secretary.

And offering them economic assistance -- that sounds like ransom where I grew up. I don't know, but what do I know? I wasn't at the top of my class at West Point.

POMPEO: Sean, we had leverage. Our leverage was our soldiers on the ground. It was places like Bagram Air Force Base. It was messages from the administration that made clear it would impose costs on them and the capability to actually deliver that, a demonstrated capability that was leveraged.

I'm very concerned. I don't see that we have any leverage. I think that's actually when you hear the spokesperson or the president talk about leverage, I think that's code words for money, American money, going to these butchers, these men who are doing these horrific things today in Afghanistan. I think the president is signaling to the world, he's willing to buy these Americans back when it didn't have to be the case.

We didn't pay a dime to get these hostages back during our time. When we had Americans held, we got them out through American diplomacy and American power.

I think this administration's headed exactly the opposite direction. They've given up percent of the leverage that we had.

HANNITY: I assume, Mr. Secretary, that part of your plan included the extraction of our military equipments, C-17s, Black Hawk helicopters, drones, munitions, billions of dollars worth of up-armored vehicles.

I assumed the Trump plan included taking that home or destroying it, correct?

POMPEO: Sean, it absolutely did. We wanted to do several things and we were clear when we went from 15,000 to 8,600, paused and met the conditions, and when we got to 4,700 or 4,800, we paused. We observed the conditions. Each time, we made sure we had it right.

We had three missions. One was to get our young people home as quickly as we could. The second was to make sure that we weren't attacked from this place again. And finally, we wanted to get every single American out and every bit -- at least every bit of high-end equipment out of that country before we departed.

We were determined to do so. We had a pathway to do so, and we weren't about to abandon those Americans on the ground before we got our military out.

HANNITY: Let me ask you about Joe Biden's lie. He was telling us in July that this is one of the best trained armies, the Afghan -- our allies -- the Afghan army was one of the best trained militaries in the face of the earth.

That same month, he was saying, wait, look, whether it's true or not, it looks bad. You got to just change the perception, said that to Ghani. By that time, I'm going to show a map and in this map, it shows how much territory the Taliban had in March and April and May and June and July when he's telling us, oh, no, no, no, they're one of the best armies.

What's your reaction to that lie? Because it was obvious the Taliban was on the march and it was obvious that they were collapsing and his statement to Ghani is obvious that he knew when he lied to the country. He just wanted - - he just felt it was a perception problem.

POMPEO: Yeah. President Biden knew the truth he knew the truth that the Afghan army still needed continuous American support. The intelligence community, our military leaders were all very clear during our entire four years that they continued to need our support in spite of all that we had done for them.

So, President Biden would have most certainly known. It's the fact that he got on the phone with Ghani, that's true and said what it is. He said to essentially lie about what's really going on.

I remember phone calls with presidents and foreign leaders, Sean. I remember my time, I was on that phone call with President Zelensky.

That pales in comparison to what President Biden did. He wanted the American people to have a message conveyed to them through President Ghani, one of the most corrupt leaders that I encountered in my entire time as secretary of state, he asked him to lie to the American people. That's unforgivable, and we now have a massive problem with Americans held behind enemy lines.

It's that kind of deceit it's that kind of deception that was part and parcel of how we got to this place.

HANNITY: One thing I'll say for certain, with President Trump as president, you as secretary of state, there's no way in hell a single American would have been left behind enemy lines.

Thank you for being with us, Mr. Secretary. We appreciate it.

Now in April, Vice President Kamala Harris, she was bragging, she's playing a big role in Biden's plan to withdraw forces in Afghanistan. But now, she's totally MIA, missing in action, nowhere to be found. Still, in her absence, Kamala is deeply unpopular. NBC News showing the lowest poll numbers of any vice president since Al Gore. It says a lot.

Meanwhile, Biden's press secretary circle back, you know, we have all the leverage Psaki, who has been front and center during most of this Afghanistan debacle. But now, some of her old tweets are coming back to haunt her.

2019, that's right, circle back Jen was a big fan of the Ukrainian impeachment hoax, tweeting, quote, it's not just the call transcript, the whistleblower complaint, the hearsay whistleblower, not the real whistleblower, the hearsay non-whistleblower whistleblower, would likely have more details. We need both and not just the call.

This week, when asked about the phone call between Ghani and Biden leaked by a whistleblower, Psaki replied: I'm not going to get into private diplomatic conversations or leaked transcripts of phone calls. Sudden change of heart from circle back.

And always the honest and forthright press secretary, Jen circle back -- yeah, you need to own your own line.

Here with reaction, co-host of "Outnumbered", former press secretary, Kayleigh McEnany, along with FOX News contributor, Laura Trump.

I think one of the first questions that you got, Kayleigh, was -- are you going to lie to us? I would say Jen Psaki lied to us.

KAYLEIGH MCENANY. CO-HOST, "OUTNUMBERED": Yeah, there's no doubt that she did. And our own Jackie Heinrich and Peter Doocy ask hard questions but, you know, you need other reporters to ask follow-up questions to the hard- hitting questions you ask. Why did not a single reporter in the room raise that tweet to her? I can tell you with certainty that clown show named Jim Acosta would have read to me word for word if I had a tweet like that. I would have had to respond.

It's blatant hypocrisy. It's political convenience, and she can't answer and the press just simply won't ask a question about a president who literally asked the Afghan president to lie. Unlike with President Trump, that phone call was nothing President Trump had. Unlike that, this phone call ended up with dead American soldiers, stranded Afghan allies, stranded Americans and Afghans hanging from airplanes.

And not even to be asked about your own standard that you yourself said in that tweet, it's amazing.

HANNITY: You know, Laura, one thing I will say is that the world when Donald Trump said, it maybe, maybe, maybe he wasn't as diplomatic as some of the mob in the media they feigned the vapors every time a tweet went out, oh my gosh, the tweet, the tweet. But the world after beating Soleimani, the caliphate, Baghdadi and associates and taking out the al Qaeda leader in Yemen, they feared your father-in-law. They respected your father-in-law and they believed your father-in-law. That's why no American died for 18 months.

Look, how do you -- look at the comparison.

LARA TRUMP, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: I mean, how do you even compare the two? They are polar opposite, Sean, you're right. I mean, you just heard from former Secretary Pompeo there.

It was a completely different ball game when Donald Trump was in the White House. There is a reason that we could make deals with peace people like China, it's because they believed that Donald Trump meant what he said. There is a reason that people did not mess with the United States of America is because they knew if they did, we would retaliate.

Now, what do we have? We have a president who makes us look ridiculous on the world stage, is an embarrassment, can't get through a speech without a teleprompter, avoids the press much different as well -- if you compare that with Donald Trump who took on every single question he was asked at every opportunity, every time he went to Marine One, every chance he got, he was incredibly transparent.

(CROSSTALK)

L. TRUMP: The most transparent president in history.

HANNITY: People argued he talked to the press more than he should have. They didn't deserve all that time.

L. TRUMP: Yeah. That's probably right, and now we're -- now we're embarrassed. Now, our country looks weak, and now, unfortunately, because we have let a terrorist organization take over a country, not only is America less safe, but the entire world now is less safe, thanks to Joe Biden.

HANNITY: And the sad thing, 20 seconds, Kayleigh, Americans were abandoned behind enemy lines. Final 20 seconds.

MCENANY: Yeah. We used to have a very simple motto in this country, leave no man behind. That's forsaken. Now, it's leave hundred Americans behind, untold numbers of Afghan allies. It's not the American way. People won't stand for this.

HANNITY: All right. Thank you, Laura. Thank you, Kayleigh McEnany.

When we come back, the Biden administration is helping a country secure a border with Afghanistan but is fine with the southern border being wide open, even terrorists can cross. Anyway, you'll meet a Gold Star family. Also, you don't want to miss this, what they said to Biden -- whoa, it'll blow your socks away.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HANNITY: Now, Joe Biden tonight continues to leave our southern border wide open all while his administration is now reportedly taking steps to secure the border of a country next to Afghanistan after, of course, his disastrous policies -- the ones that he inflicted on the people of Afghanistan and our fellow Americans that he abandoned.

But, Joe, what about securing our own border. They've even talking about building a permanent fence around the Capitol. What about being transparent? What about the process to vet evacuees that you're now letting into the country? Some apparently that turned up on the terror watch list and everything.

And why can't you be honest about how many Americans you abandoned? Why can't we get a full accounting?

Dozens of GOP senators, they fired off a letter demanding that Biden provide the exact number of American green cards, American citizens green card holders, special immigration visa holders and applicants that he left behind in Afghanistan as well, in addition to what types of security, what type of vetting rules are in place for bringing evacuees here.

But if there's one thing the Biden administration has shown over the last several weeks, they have no urgency, they're not honest, they lie and no commitment to ensuring the safety security of this country and have no problem abandoning Americans behind enemy lines. We learned a lot.

Here with reaction, FOX News contributor, investigative reporter, Sara Carter, along with Arizona Senate candidate, state Attorney General Mark Brnovich, is with us.

I've been following you closely, Senator, your campaign and I will tell you, you have taken this issue at the border to heart, following the laws, taken on this Biden administration. Let me ask you, who do we know that's crossing the border besides people that just want a better life?

MARK BRNOVICH, ARIZONA ATTORNEY GENERAL: Well, Sean, there's a reason why people want to come to this country because America is a great country the problem and what should concern everyone is that we have a process. You can't have order, you can't have chaos.

We know that two million people are expected to cross our southern border illegally. The cartels now have operational control over our border and literally, we've seen people on the terror watch list. We know that there's been tens of thousands of gotaways that have been that -- are slipping into our communities.

So the Biden administration -- it's ironic, Sean. A sad irony that, you know, people crossing the border illegally, refugees, possible terrorists coming across the border is a crisis in Afghanistan where the Biden administration can spend taxpayer dollars. But here on the southern border, President Biden and cartel Kelly don't give a damn.

And it should offend every American taxpayer. They're going to spend millions of dollars in Afghanistan to secure their border while the cartels control our border, and terrorists and criminals are coming across.

HANNITY: Sara, you have the ability because you've covered extensively both Afghanistan and have been there many times, and the border, you've been there extensively many times. What are we seeing in terms of -- I get it that people want a better life, but I believe in legal immigration. I believe in vetting. I believe in a pandemic, you got to do a health check. I believe you need to make sure people can provide for themselves when they're here, see if there's any dangerous associations.

What are we seeing in terms of people that maybe aren't from Latin America or Mexico seeking a better life, seeing other people with other motives, aren't we?

SARA CARTER, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: We're seeing a lot of people with a lot of other motives. And just going right back to Afghanistan, Sean, if there was a serious problem, the first few days of the evacuations, people were paying off people. Who were they paying off? The Taliban, people that were with the NDS that went with the Taliban. That's the national directorate there in Afghanistan that flipped to the Taliban side and made their way onto those airplanes and a lot of people arrived in Doha without any identification, without any paperwork at all.

I had sources inside Doha that were telling me, I don't even know who half of these people are. They're not SIVs. They were never translators. They were never interpreters. If you go down to the border and Attorney General Brnovich is right, there is a serious crisis with criminals the drug cartels have seized control there.

And the Biden administration has blundered this so bad, that right now out of the 114,466 children, children, that they have taken into custody right now about roughly, which is about 45,000 roughly children they've lost. So they basically didn't even vet the people that they were turning them over to or barely vetted them.

So not only do we have criminals crossing the border, but now we have children whose lives are in danger. We have Americans overseas who can't -- who can't get rescued. We have SIVs who've been abandoned and the Biden administration is focused on Tajikistan and securing their border. How upside down is this administration? It's really frightening and the national security of the United States is at risk.

HANNITY: It's unbelievable to me. Thank you for your coverage.

Attorney General, thank you for being with us.

Also tonight, we're continuing to remember the 13 U.S. service members lost in last week's terror attack at Karzai International Airport in Kabul. That was the one that caused by Joe Biden's reckless exit from Afghanistan. Remember, he could have done it when we actually had full control of Kabul and his reckless abandonment of our fellow Americans now behind enemy lines.

Thirteen lives, they were the best America had to offer, our national treasure, young, bright, selfless -- people willing to put their lives on the line for all of us to serve their country.

Joining us now is the sister and the father of U.S. Marine Lance Corporal Rylee McCollum, Royce McCollum and Jim McCollum.

Jim -- first of all, to both of you, I -- I don't know how you recover. I really don't. I don't know how you deal with something as tragic as this. What angers me the most is it was preventable, because we saw they were on the march, he knew that they were on the march and he didn't lift a finger, and when we had control of Kabul, we could have withdrawn our troops, our allies, taken our equipment home with us or destroyed it do something but give it to them.

I don't know. I have a hard time absorbing the circumstances. Your thoughts and my deepest sympathies and prayers for you and your family?

JIM MCCOLLUM, FATHER OF LANCE CPL RYLEE MCCOLLUM: Thank you very much and you described all of them perfectly -- just selfless, the best America had to offer, and I agree with you 100 percent, and that's one of the reasons I chose not to speak with President Biden, is everything he has done was completely wrong. We had opportunities to do this the right way and we absolutely failed miserably as an administration.

I can't blame the entire thing on one administration. It goes back, you know, we're 20 years into this, but when -- when it came down to pulling -- pulling people out and pulling troops out and leaving the country --

ROYCE MCCOLLUM, SISTER OF LANCE CPL RYLEE MCCOLLUM: It's not a worse way to it.

J. MCCOLLUM: -- there was no -- you couldn't have picked a worse way to go about it.

HANNITY: You know, Royce, I'm looking at these pictures of you and your brother and your dad, and I'm like -- I mean, it's just heartbreaking.

I know there was a lot of press. I'm not going to press you to talk about politics any more than you want to. I'm not. You've suffered enough pain. But there was the meeting with one particular family, you decided not to meet with Joe Biden, your family, and he met with the marines pregnant widow and described it as a -- the widow described it as a scripted, total disregard to the service member's death.

And you told this story to "The Washington Post", and I got to be honest, I was grateful that you said it. You know, you can't F up as bad as he did, and say you're sorry. I'm sorry I applaud you for saying it. I really do and that's how I feel and I'm not going to lie about how I feel because I feel for you and your dad as you -- you sit there and having to live through this. I feel for this pregnant mother.

This child will never meet their father ever. And as a father, I could tell you -- I don't know how I'd recover. That happened to someone in my family. Tell us about your thoughts?

R. MCCOLLUM: Yeah, Gigi, my other older sister sat with her, and she ended up having to get up and leave. He didn't even mention Rylee, never said their names to any parent as far as I'm aware. It was immediately -- he came in with his story about his son who served and it's like that is not even remotely the same thing. Your son, as it's still tragic and he died of cancer and that is sad, but it is not even close to the same situation, and there was again no mention of Rylee. No "I'm sorry for your loss", it was my son died too. And, you know, you tapped her on the leg and she pulled away twice and then he got up and went and talked to another family.

A lot of the other families that he talked to, he spoke with a lot longer but only because they carried on the conversation to really share their thoughts with him. Otherwise, I'm pretty sure probably would have been a two-minute conversation to each family, mostly about his son, and he would have just walked it out. It was -- walked it -- walked out. It was it was more about him.

HANNITY: I hope -- you don't ever apologize, please? The media's going to say, oh you got to -- never, because that was real, that was raw and I get it and I applaud you for your honesty.

You know, sir, I know this is your son. I read your comments. Apparently, your son was in the middle of pulling all these people to safety. They were warned that this -- this was coming. Your son stayed there and he was saving as many people as he can.

You know, I'm -- I can quote the Bible. It says, no great -- no man had greater love than to lay down their life for someone else. That's your -- son embodied that.

J. MCCOLLUM: I don't think he would have left unless there was an order to get out of there, I don't think he would have left. It's just the way they were. They were there for a mission that whole unit. That's just who they are. They're going to do what they need to do.

The humanitarian efforts that they were they were doing, I think they all lived that and they loved it and they knew they were doing something to help other people. I don't know that you could have got him away from where he was.

HANNITY: You know, that's a special -- that's a special human being. Your son was a special human being.

Royce, your brother's a special human being, and I truly believe in all my heart that you'll meet him again in paradise one day, and that he knows your love for him.

And we appreciate you sharing your story with us and I'm so sorry this happened to you and your family and your son and your brother. Thank you for being with us.

R. MCCOLLUM: Thank you.

J. MCCOLLUM: I appreciate that.

HANNITY: Even after hearing these heartbreaking stories, seeing Biden's abandonment of our fellow Americans, some of the mob and the media, they're still playing defense for this administration and think they deserve credit for their efforts -- listen to fake news CNN's Don Lemon. He's jumped -- he's out of his mind. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DON LEMON, CNN HOST: But I think you have to give them some credit for what, number one, getting out and number two, getting as many people out as possible. And we do have to remember, there were people who went there and were told they needed to leave and they didn't leave. And so, you know, I just think that sometimes -- I think the administration is getting beaten up on this a little bit too much because there's a lot of blame to go around.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HANNITY: Just deny all truth and all reality.

Republican Senate candidate in Pennsylvania, Sean Parnell, along with Medal of Honor recipient, FOX News contributor, Dakota Meyer.

Sean, I'll start with you. Your reaction to that? They even admit they left Americans behind. Oh, we should be happy we left Americans behind? Because that's not the America that I know.

SEAN PARNELL, PENNSYLVANIA GOP SENATE CANDIDATE: Well, exactly. I would just say, hey, CNN, you know who the real victim is in all of this? You know, it's Joe Biden. It's not the 13 marines or servicemen and women who died, it's not our thousands of allies who were left behind, it's really Joe Biden.

And really the media, they covered for Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election. They're part of the reason why we have this walking foreign policy disaster as our president. You remember that Joe Biden was a young senator railing against the Vietnam War during the fall of Saigon. He was vice president for Benghazi. He's the presidents during the fall of Kabul.

He's been at ground zero for every foreign policy disaster that this country has ever experienced in the last 50 years. And, quite frankly, he's the definition of failing up.

And if the death of 13 of our servicemen and women in Afghanistan isn't enough for them to wake up and change their course and start reporting honestly so that the American people have the facts, then I don't know what is.

HANNITY: Let me ask you Dakota Meyer, your take on all this? I don't understand leaving Americans behind. Just doesn't -- it does not compute.

DAKOTA MEYER, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: Yeah. I mean, look, seeing the left here, especially Don Lemon, try to go out and justify this or say ease up or look at what they did, it's kind of like in layman's terms of the administration sinking the ship and then turning around and saying, well, let's celebrate the success of the people that we saved off the ship that we sank.

This didn't have to happen. What this shows is that they don't care about the whole term of no man left behind, unless it's Bo Bergdahl, right? Don Lemon's job is to report -- as a member of the media is to report the news and in this case, it's hold government officials accountable by reporting accurate news as it is.

I think the left thinks that we are so stupid and that the American people are so stupid that they're going to keep going on with this narrative. They want you to believe the narrative. They want you to soak it in. And then they want you to live by it. And if you don't, you're racist or anti science.

HANNITY: Yeah, anti-science.

Sean, you see any military options.

PARNELL: At this point, it's extraordinarily difficult because we don't have a foothold. I mean, we gave up Bagram Air Base. That was the surest fire way to get our people out of there. We ceded Kabul, right, and simultaneously allowed the Taliban to protect our people. But in reality, they didn't do that. All they did was attack our people as they tried to get to the airport.

This whole situation was a preventable -- was a preventable disaster. It wasn't a secret that we were leaving Afghanistan. And one of the things that offends me the most about what the media is trying to do now is they're trying to turn the page. The reality is we still have hundreds, if not thousands of Americans and our allies trapped behind enemy lines and we have a duty and obligation as Americans here at home to make sure that we bring our Americans back. Joe Biden likes to say America is back, but, Mr. President, get our Americans back.

HANNITY: All right. Thank you both. Dakota, thank you. Sean Parnell, thank you

When we come back, the left using the tragedy, Hurricane Ida as an excuse to push through their green new deal. Never let a crisis go to waste. Clay Travis, he's got reaction. Lot to say. That's next.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HANNITY: Now, amid tragic flooding in the aftermath of Hurricane Ida that we're seeing from Louisiana to the Northeast, it was devastating last night in the New York area. For example, the left is blaming climate change for the heavy rainfall severe weather, and using it as another pretext to push their Green New Deal socialist agenda.

For example, comrade Bernie Sanders, yeah, I know that, whatever, Bolshevik Bernie actually honeymooned in the former Soviet Union. He tweeted: Even after the devastation caused by hurricane Ida, my Republican colleagues will say combating climate is too expensive.

And, of course, their sycophant allies in the media mob, they're saying pretty much the same. Let's take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I just want to say, we are looking at the results of climate change.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And, of course, add to that that this is all part of this, scientists tell us, climate change.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We are going to hear a lot about climate change in the hours to come, and we should, because this I a climate change story.

LEMON: Hey, Brian --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: But in the short term it's also a story about trying to evacuate people in flood waters.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HANNITY: Never thought I would see humpty-dumpty in the rain, but there he is.

Anyway, here with reaction, the co-host of the "Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show", OutKick founder, Clay Travis. He joins us from Knoxville, Tennessee. He's on the FOX Sports college football tour.

Clay, welcome aboard. Welcome to the radio world, too, as well. Congratulations.

Let me ask you this. You hear what they're saying. We've had hurricanes, flooding, gone on for, Joe Bastardi can tell you what happened in the 1800s.

Are we to believe that Bernie Sanders, comrade Sanders is right, the new green deal socialism is the example?

CLAY TRAVIS, RADIO HOST: Well, Sean, Bernie Sanders was born in the 1800s, so maybe he actually lived through it for all the talk he does.

First of all, thanks for having me on. Positive news before talking about this ridiculousness. Just up the road a few hundred yards from where I am right now, 90,000 people watching a football game tonight, biggest crowd to watch a sporting event since March of 2020. Awesome scene. I can't wait for the normalcy in the world of sports to be back in some way.

Let's talk about this ridiculousness, right? This is a clear attempt to change the narrative. You want to talk Afghanistan if you're the Biden White House? Do you want to talk the border? Do you want to talk all of the chaos associated with COVID and their failures there? You want to talk about the murder rate that is sky rocketing all over this country? Do you want to talk about inflation?

Everything that the Biden administration touches, Sean, is turning into a disaster, and so they have to take advantage of any subtle narrative art that they can to try to make the American public forget that Joe Biden has had the most disastrous 8-month tenure as president of the United States in most of living memory out there, even for Bernie Sanders, over 100 years it seems like of living back in the 19th century and that's what's going on here. It's an attempt to shift the blame from their failures.

HANNITY: Let me ask you while I have you on. I know you cover sports heavily, and I'll rely on your expertise. I think sports, you have people of all races, all socioeconomic backgrounds coming together with a shared passion, a sport and a home team. Why do I think that adding any politics to sports is just a bad idea? I've been to sporting events, I'm high facing strangers, buying strangers a beer, hanging out talking, people use sports to get away from this. We have less than a minute.

TRAVIS: Sports is a uniter, they're not a divider, Sean. You nailed it. Every time you're in a stadium, you're in an arena, your team wins, you don't think white, black, Asian, Hispanic, you don't think gay straight, you don't think male or female, you think about the common tribe you share trying to win a game.

And we need more things to unite neurosurgeons and janitors that can sit around and talk in a common parlance about sports, and I believe ultimately, the challenge that we got with sports going woke is it's dividing us and instead of bringing us together, sports has become just another political angle. I'm hoping with fans back in the stands, Sean, that a lot of people out there are going to be able to come together again.

And, by the way, appreciate being able to be the lead for your radio show. You've been doing it phenomenally well for a long time. Thanks for having me on tonight. I really appreciate it.

HANNITY: We'll have you back. I will warn you, even though I've been turned off to sports in ways I didn't think were possible, don't mess with my son and his fantasy football. This kid's got a track record second to none. He's pretty damn good at it.

TRAVIS: I just drafted with my kids in the Travis household, too, fantastic.

HANNITY: He's driving me crazy. But, dad, you don't know what you're talking about and he's usually right.

Clay, good to have you. thank you.

More "Hannity" after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HANNITY: All right. Unfortunately, that's all the time we have left for tonight. Please set your DVR. Never miss an episode, 9:00 p.m. Eastern, 6:00 on the West Coast. Pray for our fellow Americans abandoned by enemy lines.

For that, my heart is troubled. But let not your heart be troubled.

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