The invisible president: Someone should lose their job over what's happening in Afghanistan
'The Ingraham Angle' host Laura Ingraham slams the Biden administration's handling of Afghanistan amid Taliban takeover
This is a rush transcript from "The Ingraham Angle," August 17, 2021. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
LAURA INGRAHAM, FOX NEWS HOST: I'm Laura Ingraham and this is THE INGRAHAM ANGLE from Washington tonight.
The debate over how many Afghan refugees our country should absorb is one that certain folks don't want to have, but most Americans do. Former Trump senior adviser Stephen Miller is here on why it matters.
Plus, restaurant owners are being driven out of business by New York City's vaccine mandate. And a nurse's job is in jeopardy because she refuses to get the jab. We will speak to both tonight.
But first, the invisible president. That's the focus of tonight's ANGLE.
Now we've about now 3500 troops redeployed in Afghanistan. As of tonight, hundreds of thousands of people are trying to get out. China is poised to exploit the situation. The U.S. border under siege with COVID-infected migrants. And we don't have an actual president in charge.
Yesterday, Joe Biden darted back to DC from Camp David, read for about, what, 19 minutes, then took no questions and skedaddled off the podium. Oh, and then he went back to Camp David. Now, answers were supposed to be provided today by Biden's national security adviser, a young chap who looks like he's running for student council. But I sure as hell wouldn't vote for him after this performance.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JAKE SULLIVAN, NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: When a civil war comes to an end with an opposing force marching on the Capitol, there are going to be scenes of chaos, there are going to be lots of people leaving the country. That is not something that can be fundamentally avoided.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
INGRAHAM: Translation. S*** happens. And what about getting all those Americans out of Afghanistan?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SULLIVAN: I'm not going to comment on hypotheticals, what I'm going to do is stay focused on the task at hand, which is getting as many people out as rapidly as possible. And we will take that day by day.
We have asked them all to come to the airport to get on flights and take them home. That's what we intend to do.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
INGRAHAM: They intend to do. Get to the airport. Don't worry about those Taliban people attacking everyone on the way. Well, a few hours ago, Sullivan kind of the Doogie Howser of the diplomatic national security said - he tried to clarify in a tweet, claiming that what he meant to say was that they intend and they will get all Americans who want to leave out of Afghanistan. OK. Maybe lead with that next time around.
Well, that wasn't the only shocking revelation today. Apparently, our most experienced foreign policy president ever was so busy trying out - trying to figure out how to use those TV remotes at Camp David, that he had not spoken to another world leader during the crisis that he helped create.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SULLIVAN: He has not yet spoken with any other world leaders of myself, Secretary Blinken, several other senior members of the team have been engaged on a regular basis with foreign counterparts. And we intend to do so in the coming days.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
INGRAHAM: He's in charge, in other words. Now after feeling the blowback for obvious reasons, the White House scrambled to put out word that Biden had finally picked up the phone to talk with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson. In other words, they had to do clean up for the guy who was supposed to do clean up for the President. These people are totally incompetent.
Now, remember, this is our national security team. And wasn't foreign policy kind of Biden's thing?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is a moment that requires strong, steady, stable leadership. We need someone tested and trusted around the world. This is a moment for Joe Biden, a president with the experience to lead.
JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: I've worked on these issues as long as anyone. I've been throughout Afghanistan during this war while the war was going on from Kabul to Kandahar, to the Kunar Valley. I've traveled there on four different occasions. I've met with the people. I spoken to the leaders.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
INGRAHAM: Kabul, Kandahar. Oh, nice. That's good. Now, he was still under the delusion that Afghanistan was a stable country? Joe has been sleepy a lot longer than we thought.
I thought America was back. Didn't he say that? I thought Biden and his team were foreign policy gurus who could totally get other countries to help the United States. I thought they had a plan. Experiences key, they said, Biden would calm things down after Trump and get us back to the regular order of things.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SUSAN RICE, DIRECTOR OF THE DOMESTIC POLICY COUNCIL: Joe Biden brought with him to the White House his expertise on foreign policy and national security.
REP. ADAM SCHIFF (D-CA): Joe Biden comes in with literally a world of experience.
MIKE BARNACLE, MSNBC CONTRIBUTOR: It's the entire cast of national security. People who were on that stage yesterday with the president-elect Joe Biden. It's competence, experience, insight, humility.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
INGRAHAM: They said that Trump had to be defeated because he was too green, too arrogant, a little brash, he made things more dangerous, they said. Foreign leaders didn't listen to him, they said. But all of it was a lie.
We've just suffered one of the most humiliating defeats in American history, a defeat made worse by their utter inability to predict anything with accuracy. And their response is that Biden isn't talking to anyone. Should Biden be talking to everyone and trying to assure them that he actually knows what he's doing?
Even if the Biden team doesn't think he can do the job? Shouldn't they, at least, pretend that he can do it? They could have given him some flashcards, or something to read on the phone, anything. But no, we just had radio silence.
The team of Blinken, Sullivan and Klein has plainly failed. The notion that they could run the country while Biden hid from public view has been proven false. On the Military front, General white rage Milley, Secretary CRT Austin should have already been terminated. They're being outmaneuvered everywhere in the world and it shows.
Democrats and Republicans on the Hill should all be demanding that Biden clean House and bring in much better people to get the situation under control. We can't take these three much longer. We can't take three weeks of this, much less three more years of this. And that's the ANGLE.
Tonight, as Biden and many leftists rush to blame Trump for old Joe's blunders, we're bringing you the inside story of what Trump had actually planned for Afghanistan. And you'll hear it from the man Trump appointed to take over the DoD after he fired former defense secretary Mark Esper.
Joining me now Kash Patel, former Pentagon chief of staff and advisor at President Trump. Kash, this was really a fight against the swamp entrenched Pentagon bureaucracy here, was it not?
KASH PATEL, FORMER PENTAGON CHIEF OF STAFF: Yes, Laura. Thanks for having me. Look, that's - you said it right on the head. President Trump sent me over there and he said, listen, we have conditions controlled withdrawal from Afghanistan. That is they have to surrender any affiliation and totally reject Al Qaeda. Two, they have to sit down at the table that is the Afghan government and the Taliban and negotiate an interim peace government that will last.
And three and most importantly, that if any American interests was harmed, or any American personnel was harmed, President Trump informed us to bring the full wrath of the United States Military to protect our citizens abroad. And we were prepared to do that. And lastly, we were always going to leave a special operations force in country for counterterrorism purposes. So that is a coordinated strategic plan that has conditions-based withdrawal, which is totally lacking today.
INGRAHAM: Well, it didn't take long, Kash, as you might expect for the former defense secretary, Mark Esper to slither his way onto TV to play the blame game. Watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MARK ESPER, FORMER TRUMP DEFENSE SECRETARY: President Trump by continuing to want to withdraw American forces out of Afghanistan undermine the agreement, which is why in the fall when he was calling for a return of U.S. forces by Christmas, I objected.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
INGRAHAM: Kash, what's the real story here? Is Esper the hero when it comes to the Afghan war?
PATEL: No. I mean, he had to fire two Secretaries of Defense to get what the commander-in-chief wanted. That's not how the elected democracy works.
And here's a prime example of a failure and leadership. When you're playing the blame game on national TV, and your response for the largest fighting force on God's green earth and you failed the commander-in-chief, he didn't fail you, you failed him because you failed to prepare the logistical requirements necessary to remove Americans and American citizens securely.
Look, Jake Sullivan, you said it, and this is the starkest thing I'll say tonight. He said they're basically sending out text messages to the 10,000 Americans in country and asking them to come to us. No, that's not what America does. America goes into war zones and gets our citizens. They send out armored personnel carriers, our fighting forces and rotary wing assets, and we go rescue our own. We don't text them and ask them to come to us in a foreign land. That is just an obnoxious leadership that is politicizing our country.
INGRAHAM: Kash, what was President Trump's plan to secure all of our Military vehicles and weaponry that we had American taxpayers paid for, gave to the Afghan Military, if indeed turns out the Afghan Military, as he suspected, might not be ready for the fight. What could have been done?
PATEL: Great question. And President Trump said clearly, our manning and not just our personnel, but our equipment, our machinery and our weaponry had to come back, because leaving them there would be a national security disaster. And in the Department of Defense, we have an entire logistical department that takes on these transport operations. We literally fly in thousands of airplanes, the size of four Greyhound buses for months at a time to remove those equipments. And we had a plan in place to do that. And we were not going to remove those - of that manning and equipment until the Taliban and the Afghans agreed to our terms, which they did and it was working.
And here's another example, not one American casualty occurred under President Trump's withdrawal plan from Afghanistan that we implemented. Now you have people dying at the airport at Kabul, falling from cargo planes to their death.
INGRAHAM: Another question. Now, this might be a really stupid question. But how is it that Biden's team - someone there has to have a brain, wouldn't have started withdrawing people, withdrawing Americans, contractors, they have to get out of the country before August or July, whenever they were going to start ramping up the plan for full Military withdrawal. Why would 10,000 Americans still be there? I don't get that. They knew this day was coming, in other words.
PATEL: Yes. Absolutely. And you're right on. They failed to prepare and plan like we did under President Trump. We prepared to secure interests. We prepared for the withdrawal of people and personnel. And we prepared to prop up a joint government with the Afghans and the Taliban.
But what President Biden failed to do was listen to the Intelligence from career officers. He politicized the Afghan withdrawal and instead listened to the mainstream media while taking naps at Camp David and eating ice cream.
INGRAHAM: Kash, thank you. It's good to see you tonight.
And Biden's blunders in Afghanistan aren't limited to just the withdrawal. We recently learned that Biden planned on throwing billions more into that money pit, $3 billion to be exact.
Now, were they at all worried about that cash ending up in the Taliban's hands. The White House is mum on that. Americans deserve to know where their hard-earned dollars are going. Well, luckily, the good folks from OpenTheBooks put together a fairly comprehensive list of how taxpayer dollars were spent, or I should say, misspent in Afghanistan. That includes nearly $83 billion for the Afghan security forces that surrendered within days of American troops falling out.
$174 million on drones that we lost track of, $9.4 million on the Kabul carpet center, yes, you heard that right, and $800 million on a respect women PR campaign aimed at the Taliban. That's obviously taken hold. What we see in the last 48 hours tells us that that's a joke.
Joining me now is Indiana Congressman, Jim banks, Afghan war vet, Republican Study Committee chair. Congressman, is it not time for Congress to hold comprehensive hearings on the utter catastrophe that has been this withdrawal and the lies about the Afghan security forces being up to snuff that had been happening and been going on for at least they had gone on for 10 years? Where are the congressional hearings on this?
REP. JIM BANKS (R-IN): Without a doubt, Laura, this is the greatest abdication of leadership that we've seen, certainly in my lifetime by an American President and his team at the Pentagon when it comes to our national security interest. And the least that we can do is hold congressional hearings to get to the bottom of why. I'm not holding my breath, though, with Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the House, saying that she supports President Biden's plans in Afghanistan and the undoing of everything that's happened over the last 72 hours up to the month before that.
If the Speaker of the House supports Joe Biden's efforts there, I can't imagine that she's going to allow us to have oversight hearings, perhaps those will have to wait until the Republicans went back to majority in '22.
INGRAHAM: Congressman, I read, or my producer might have mentioned this to me that the U.S. Embassy in Afghanistan cost several hundred million dollars to build. And that's just completely abandoned, right? So that's just gone. That's just money that's - bye. I mean this is a staggering amount of money.
BANKS: It's humiliating that the Taliban now controls not just the Afghanistan's Presidential Palace, which by the way, Laura, is right next door to the U.S. Embassy. That's where I served in 2014 and 2015 when I was there as a reservist. I participated in these efforts and I can - it's humiliating to me to think that the Taliban now controls one of the most expensive U.S. embassies that we built around the world. They now own it. They literally own the United States Embassy. It's humiliating, it should be humiliating to every American. It's humiliating to the projection of America's strength and posture around the world and it's all happened on Joe Biden's watch.
INGRAHAM: Even the Biden administration has to admit it, it has virtually no clue on how many Americans are actually still in Afghanistan.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOHN BERMAN, CNN HOST: If I can get some specifics here, how many Americans do you believe to be in Afghanistan right now?
JOHN KIRBY, PENTAGON PRESS SECRETARY: Well, we think there are certainly thousands of Americans. We don't have an exact count. I would say somewhere - best guess between 5,000 and 10,000 that are near Kabul.
JEN PSAKI, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: There are individuals who will self identify as American citizens that numbers around 11,000, beyond that around the country.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
INGRAHAM: Congressman, the level of incompetence is so breathtaking here. And they said the Trump team, remember, they called the Trump team JV in its first 100 days. They had some maybe missteps on the travel ban [ph] wording out. But this is - these are American lives at stake here. They don't even know how many people are there.
BANKS: I can't believe that Jake Sullivan, the National Security Adviser still has a job at this point. I mean, this is his job. It's his job to answer these questions.
INGRAHAM: I wouldn't hire Mr. Sullivan to secure an elementary school, OK, to get kids out of an elementary school, let alone get thousands of Americans unknown number of Americans out of a country like Afghanistan. I mean - but these are the most experienced people ever. Isn't that what Nancy Pelosi assured us? The most experienced team we've ever had in Washington?
BANKS: That's right. I mean, Laura, up 12,000 estimated Americans, Jake Sullivan doesn't know. But around 12,000 estimated Americans who are still in Afghanistan. And by the way, this isn't been - hasn't been widely reported. But another part of that press conference with Jake Sullivan was that they aren't prioritizing Americans in Afghanistan to get them out first.
I mean, why would Americans not be prioritized to get them out of the country. They can't even get to the airport, they don't know who to call. My office is receiving phone calls from Americans and others in Afghanistan who have no idea what to do, where to go, because our embassy has been vacated. There was no plan at all to get Americans safely out of Afghanistan, and to responsibly make this happen by the Biden administration. It is shameful and it will go down in history as a black mark on our country. And certainly will prove that this President is not up for the job.
INGRAHAM: If these facts, congressman, have unfolded under Donald Trump, they would be demanding his resignation. Forget the cabinet resignations, his resignation. Congressman, thank you.
And what if I told you that just over half of the people evacuated so far from Afghanistan were Americans, building on what the congressman just said? So he raised this. But why is this not leading every news site tonight?
Well, former Trump's senior adviser Stephen Miller is here next. He's going to pick up the baton what the congressman just dropped it.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
INGRAHAM: OK. Now that Biden has completely screwed up our withdrawal from Afghanistan, the establishment simply presumes that the American people will have to pay for it. The left and the pro war right believe that we should admit Afghan refugees in the tens, if not hundreds of thousands.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. BEN SASSE (R-NE): The 60,000 number is right. And all of their families, they're not some abstraction. We should do what is necessary to keep our word that we've given to these people.
H.R. MCMASTER, FORMER TRUMP NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: There's a sense now that we can't do anything more, right? We can just evacuate these 30,000. What about the rest of them, Jake?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
INGRAHAM: While we can all agree that some of those Afghans deserve special admission into the U.S. for helping our troops, no doubt about it. We're being kept in the dark about how any of these people will be vetted.
For starters, how many are there? What criteria is being used to determine who gets in? And more importantly, will their family members be allowed to join them? You just heard family members mentioned. Is it cousins, second cousins? Who qualifies as a vulnerable person? By looking at the news and the websites tonight, pretty much everyone in Afghanistan is vulnerable.
So there are about 30 million people in Afghanistan. So how many do they really propose we take? And on what basis? They can't all be interpreters. The lesson of this 20-year war cannot be that every time we turn a country upside down or make huge mistakes, our immigration laws, our refugee laws no longer apply.
Of course, the left believes that everyone, everyone should be able to come here. And that the 20-plus million here illegally right now should not only be allowed to stay, but to vote as well. And now they think we have nothing at all, I guess, to learn from who they usually tell us we should listen to, Europe.
What about Europe's experience recently with millions of Syrian refugees and Afghan refugees and Iraqi refugees. And drawing any such parallels is deemed, well, you guessed it, racist.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHARLES SYKES, MSNBC CONTRIBUTOR: It is xenophobia. It is fear mongering. Scaring people throughout America that they are coming to your town that they're raising the specter of the kind of refugee, chaos and crisis that we had in Europe after the Syrian war. And they're going to try to frighten people. Most of the world may see this as a moral test, a test of our decency.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
INGRAHAM: Now, we're going to take lessons on decency and morality from that guy? OK. Google him. There is nothing moral and nothing decent in jettisoning the rule of law in pursuit of short-term political goals. And while I'm sure there are many great people who helped us in Afghanistan, and they should be helped, resettling must be carried out under existing U.S. law, and with full transparency and full accountability.
And after what we just watched, I have zero faith that any of these people in charge now can do this. Remember, to the left, it's Trump supporters, not the Taliban, not Al Qaeda, who are the real enemy.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KIMBERLY STOHR, BOSTON GLOBE SENIOR OPINION WRITER: Meanwhile, over the last 20 years, what we've seen is that the actual biggest threat to America is right here, it's homegrown. It's right wing, violent, white supremacist, white nationalist groups that we saw take part in large part on January 6. This isn't new, but it's a very sad chapter.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
INGRAHAM: The faster they can neutralize all you Trump supporters with government-dependent immigrants, illegal or otherwise, the better. Joining me now, Stephen Miller, former Trump Senior Advisor, founder of America First legal.
Stephen, again, we want to help the Afghans who helped us in a meaningful way, a verifiable way, and there are many of those. But should we trust the Biden administration to carefully vet these folks?
STEPHEN MILLER, FORMER TRUMP WHITE HOUSE SENIOR ADVISER: Not only should we not trust the Biden administration to do so, the simple reality is that we no longer are in control of the central apparatus in Afghanistan to be able to vet anybody. The Taliban has all of the control of the government now. So the notion that people could just show up at a checkpoint and demand resettlement into the United States, and we can have any idea about their background, their belief system, where they come from. Now that the U.S. bad government has fallen, it's just an impossibility.
But there's one more important fundamental point that has to be made. Those who are advocating mass Afghan resettlement in this country are doing so for political, not humanitarian reasons. It is extraordinarily expensive to resettle a refugee in the United States. They get free health care, they get free education, they get free housing, they get free food, they get cash welfare. For the price that you could resettle refugees in America, you can resettle 10 times more, 15 times more in their home region. In this case, primarily in Pakistan.
Resettling in America is not about solving a humanitarian crisis, it's about accomplishing an ideological objective, to change America. And if we really want to help people in the region, we'll be working with our partners to find a safe place for people to go. But that's not America.
INGRAHAM: Well, I want everyone to understand how fluid these numbers are. And again, you hit the nail on the head, Stephen. It is extremely costly. I've been getting emails from people about saying, well, Catholic charities is putting them in this hotel in Maryland. And then Lutheran Social Services is putting them in this hotel in Virginia. And I'm thinking, well, it's not like they're getting government money to resettle the refugees.
MILLER: Correct.
INGRAHAM: And it's not just a one time deal. It's a decade-plus of money they get, which again, somebody has to pay for it. It's not coming out of Nicole Wallace's wallet. It's all of Americans' wallets.
MILLER: No. And then the local communities pick up the tab for the education as well, which is very costly. But just to get to first principles here. The United States of America never ever made a promise written or unwritten to the people of Afghanistan, that if after 20 years they were unable to secure their own country, that we would take them to ours. That is nonsense. That has never been U.S. government policy.
INGRAHAM: But why do they keep saying that? They keep saying that.
MILLER: People are trying to (inaudible) to clear that it is.
INGRAHAM: No, they keep saying it. It's been said all over cable. We made a promise. If we don't live up to our promise, it's very heart wrenching. It's - as a mom, it is heart wrenching to see any suffering that's happening in Afghanistan. We're seeing suffering on the streets of Chicago. We're seeing suffering in Africa everywhere.
MILLER: It's in Syria and in Libya and in Somalia.
INGRAHAM: Horrific.
MILLER: If the United States takes the policy that every person suffering under Sharia law has the right to live in the United States of America, we're going to need to make room for half-a-billion people. This is just not intellectually serious. And as I mentioned earlier, it's not about humanitarian relief because it is far cheaper to resettle Afghan refugees in Pakistan and other neighboring countries.
INGRAHAM: The UAE is helping with these airless, I understand, from my source tonight. They're doing biggest amounts of help to bring people out of Afghanistan. The UAE can take some of these folks as well. They should be more culturally at home in the Middle East, and I think it makes a lot of sense.
MILLER: Don't repeat the mistakes of Europe.
INGRAHAM: Well, and Europe doesn't want them. Europe doesn't want them. Everyone is like we've got to listen to Europe.
MILLER: They've learned.
INGRAHAM: They don't want them. I'm sorry, France says no, Britain doesn't want them, Germany and Sweden are trying to deport migrants and they put a temporary halt on that. They do not want all of this influx of migrants into their countries. And take a poll on Americans, from Americans. What do you think that poll would be, Stephen?
MILLER: It would be 90-10 no. Here's the bottom line, to sum it all up, there are a lot of people in Afghanistan, millions and million and millions who don't like the Taliban, and rightfully so. That doesn't necessarily mean that all those millions of people are Jacksonian Democrats who are pro-America and who will embrace our way of life. The most logical thing to do for people who don't want to live in Afghanistan anymore is to find them a home in another country in southeast Asia or the broader Middle East.
INGRAHAM: Safe home, and we do thank the people who helped us, but not hundreds of thousands of people. That ultimately is what I think the left once. Stephen, thank you.
Mayor Bill de Blasio is making life even more miserable for New Yorkers, if that is possible. Today, city vaccine passports went into effect, and some business owners are fuming. In moments, we're going to speak to two restauranteurs who are fighting back.
Plus Australia, strict lockdown, and the COVID situation there is getting worse during the lockdown. You won't believe who they are blaming. Parliament member George Christensen is back. He's here with us tonight.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
INGRAHAM: OK, starting today, people in New York City will have to show proof of vaccination in order to go to a museum, catch a movie, eat indoors at a restaurant, and de Blasio calls at the key to the wonders of the city. OK, which of course implies that the unvaccinated our being locked out.
In other words, if you are not vaccinated, doesn't matter if you have natural immunity, you are an untouchable. You need to be shunned from polite society. The left wants you to think this is progress, but it is just shameful. It's un-America.
I'm not the only one who thinks so. New York City business owners are fighting back against this disgusting attack on our civil liberties. With me now is the manager and owner of Pasticceria Rocco Mary Josephine and Rocco Generoso. It's great to see both of you. Mary Josephine, your first reaction to the news that New Yorkers would need this vaccine passports to simply live their lives, what was it?
MARY JOSEPHINE GENEROSO, PASTICCERIA ROCCO MANAGER: Honestly, Laura, I was in such despair. I was dismayed. I think I laid down in bed. I cannot believe that we came to -- we have come so far, and now we're in a place where we are actually doing this. We are actually going to start separating people based on a vaccine.
You said it in your opening there. This to me is segregation. We are trampling on civil liberties. We are discriminating against people. The mayor of New York essentially just locked out tourists, he locked out families. He's telling people who have not been vaccinated that they don't belong. They are not allowed to roam freely in society, that they don't count, essentially. I can't believe that we have created two new classes.
INGRAHAM: This is our country. I wake up every day and I'm like, I can't believe that this is our country. We have an invisible president. All hell is breaking loose all over the world, and at home.
Now Rocco, Mayor de Blasio was asked about your bakery today and how you called his mandate, basically echoing what your wife said, discriminatory. Here is his response.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MAYOR BILL DE BLASIO, (D) NEW YORK CITY: It's not discrimination. This is about protecting people. In our society, for generations we have done all sorts of things to protect people. We have drivers' licenses, we've had vaccinations of all kinds. There's so many things we do to protect people. This is a way of protecting people.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
INGRAHAM: Rocco, grocery stores, big-box stores, they don't need to require proof of vaccination, but this is the noble thing, he said, protecting people.
ROCCO GENEROSO, PASTICCERIA ROCCO MANAGER: Yes, well, it's discrimination on two ends. It's discrimination against us, the bar owners, restaurant owners, and gym owners who go against what he said, that all city employees and city officials can either be vaccinated or take a weekly COVID test. That doesn't apply to us, so that is discrimination against us on that end. And then he's just discriminating against people who freely choose not to take a vaccine. And then he wants us as business owners to segregate those people based on that new class that he has just creating, which is the vaccinated and unvaccinated. So it's definitely discrimination and segregation.
INGRAHAM: Mary Josephine, just one question. Mary Josephine, do you think that this is just another attack on small business in the United States? Because you guys have gotten hammered. It's hard enough to run a bakery, and I know some people who run bakeries. It is hard work. It is hard to make it. And now this.
MARY JOSEPHINE GENEROSO: It's more than that. It's more than that, Laura, look. It's more than that. This is an attack on Constitution. This is an attack on people just wanting to live their life freely. This is an attack on people just wanting to come to the restaurant, sitting down and have a cup of coffee with their families, with their friends. You are a father and son. You want to take your son to a ballgame? Can you do that now? If you are not vaccinated, you can't take a 12-year-old to a ball game? Where are we? What kind of country do we live in?
This is insane that people can't see that it's not just about safety. Without our civil liberties, without our Constitution, what foundation do we have? People have said to me, are you afraid that you are going to lose money? Are you afraid about the fines that might come your way? Money is a big deal, of course it is. But without the country that I grew up in, what is money without freedom?
I really implore everybody to listen to what is going on here. The message is not really meant to be political. I said this many times before -- we need to protect the Constitution. We need to protect our civil liberties. We can't start segregating people vaxxed, unvaxxed. I have natural immunity. You brought it up. It's not even discussed. If you look at other countries, like Israel for example, they allow for at least natural immunity. You've had doctors on your show that have said as much.
INGRAHAM: Rocco and Mary Josephine, your words are so important tonight. What is money without freedom? It's nothing. Stand up for your country. Thank you. We're going to be following your case, and we'll check back with you.
Now COVID tyranny isn't just a thing at home. Halfway around the world, New Zealand's Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern put her entire nation on lockdown over one case. In addition, she warned citizens not to speak to their neighbors.
Now over in Australia, the lockdown is so ineffective that seven weeks in they've just experienced their worst day of the pandemic. Of course, their response to this news totally unhinged. Newly imposed restrictions now include a ban on removing face masks to take a drink of alcohol in public.
Here to break it down, all the insanity, Australian member of parliament George Christensen. George, the lockdowns don't work, they prolong the pandemic. Does anyone see this in Australia except for a few like you?
GEORGE CHRISTENSEN, AUSTRALIAN HOUSE OF PARLIAMENT MEMBER: Well, good day, Laura. But as I said the last time we spoke, it's pandemic policy insanity. What hasn't worked before we'll do again, and we'll do harder. And when I thought that no one could beat us in this insanity stakes, along comes New Zealand who always wants to do one better than Australia, and they have, locking down their entire country over one single case. But this is a kind of mentality that is floating around amongst politicians and public policy experts in this country and in our region.
INGRAHAM: George, do you think this is really at this point about the virus? Or is there something else happening?
CHRISTENSEN: There is probably a fair bit of saving face, and there's probably also a fair bit of holding onto the power that they have taken from us. The ridiculous sort of stuff that we are seeing now, restrictions on visiting graveyards. There was one person in Victoria who reported being fined by police for visiting a graveyard. Now they have just shut down access to playgrounds so kids can't run around free in the local playground or park.
And more than that, I think that your compadre there, Tucker, pointed out our premier, it's the equivalent of a governor, the premier for Victoria Dan Andrews actually said to people you are not to remove your masks to drink alcohol outside. And I've got to tell you, Laura, that Aussie's take their beer drinking very seriously, so they'll would probably give that away.
INGRAHAM: It looks like this weekend there may be more attempts at protests, and they are already warning people in, I think in New South Wales, that they are going to be harsh criminal penalties for anyone who is not, I guess, inside their home unless a for a specific stated purpose. Do you see more of this about to happen? And how ugly could this get?
CHRISTENSEN: Well, look, it's quite a political response as well, because I remember in June last year, when actually we didn't know which way the pandemic would go, we had Black Lives Matters protests happening all around the country, and we had premiers in place that were acquiescing to these people. And the media then said afterwards, there was no spread of COVID-19 from these protests because, you know what, it doesn't spread outside. But when people go to protest against the restrictions themselves, suddenly they are evil people who must be fined and must be locked up. And so I think that the police really need to think again. They are delving far too far into a political argument here.
INGRAHAM: They are turning, George, against their own people. And that's why I'm saying, is it really just the virus here that we are dealing with?
CHRISTENSEN: Well, look, I am pro-police normally, but I have got to tell you, a lot of people have become very, very skeptical about police. It's not the army overreach. They are now policing in New South Wales and other states who you hook up with as a single. You have to register who you are seeing. And worse than that, we have had an official government website, I saw today, Laura, that actually said words to the effect of that the only safe sex is solo sex. So thankfully these --
INGRAHAM: Oh, God. All right, all right, you Aussies really have lost her mind. Mr. Christensen, it's good to see you. Come back soon.
And a Virginian nurse is risking her job now for a refusal to get the COVID vaccine. She is going to be here next. She'll tell us why. Stay there.
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INGRAHAM: Now, across the country health care workers who risk their lives during the pandemic yet don't want yet at least to get the jab, or don't like the COVID mandates, are at risk of losing their jobs, including my next guest. Joining me now is Amanda Davitt, emergency room nurse at Mary Washington Hospital in Fredericksburg, Virginia. Amanda, what is your objection?
AMANDA DAVITT, NURSE DEFENDING RIGHT TO REFUSE VAX: My objection at the moment is risking losing my job over something, a decision that I'm not ready to make yet.
INGRAHAM: What is your hesitation about the vaccine?
DAVITT: My hesitation right now is that I am a data person. We are science-minded people. Health care workers generally are. I would like to see something other than a headline in front of me in order to make this decision. And I believe that everybody should be able to make it for themselves. Autonomy is a huge thing in health care. And the fact that we've worked so hard this last year-and-a-half, and now we are being faced with losing the job that we love and the job that is a calling for us over a mandate, it doesn't sit well.
INGRAHAM: Are there any exemptions at all in your E.R.?
DAVITT: There are. They're two. You can do a religious exemption or a medical exemption. I really don't fall into either of those categories, and to me I believe that I shouldn't need to be exempt just to say no to something I'm not ready to decide for myself yet.
INGRAHAM: Now, to listen to some of the Democrats, it's, well, you're putting lives in danger.
DAVITT: Yes, that is -- I've been told that several times, that I have been putting people in danger by not. And we have spent this last year putting ourselves in danger to help everyone else when we didn't know what was happening and we didn't know what was going on from one day to the next. I feel like if I want a little more time to make this decision for myself, then it's OK for me to take that, as hard as we have worked.
INGRAHAM: How many people -- Amanda, we have to roll, but how many others feel the same?
DAVITT: I have gotten so many messages and so many emails. It's hard because people are afraid to speak out, and I believe that they are so many behind me.
INGRAHAM: Fear.
DAVITT: Yes, exactly.
INGRAHAM: Amanda, it's the fear. Thank you. And we wish you the best of luck.
Last Bite next.
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INGRAHAM: Joe Biden's views on taking in postwar refugees seems to have evolved from his early days in D.C. "During a discussion about aid to Cambodia in 1975, the then freshman senator reportedly declared "I am getting sick and tired about hearing about morality, our moral obligation. The same year he proclaimed that "the United States has no obligation to evacuate one or 100,001 South Vietnamese." The tape.
Gutfeld next.
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