Levin on Biden's Afghanistan exit, attacks on US troops in Kabul

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Rep. Crenshaw: Biden administration is 'lying about the realities on the ground' in Afghanistan

Texas Republican and former Navy Seal joins 'Life, Liberty & Levin' to discuss the chaotic withdrawal in the troubled nation

This is a rush transcript from "Life, Liberty & Levin," August 29, 2021. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

MARK LEVIN, FOX NEWS CHANNEL HOST: Hello, America. I'm Mark Levin and this is LIFE, LIBERTY & LEVIN.

We have two very important guests tonight. We have Dan Crenshaw and Brian Mast, both of whom were combat veterans from Afghanistan, two tremendous heroes, and it's very important that we have their input.

But before I go to our guests, this is the biggest disaster in modern military history for the United States of America. What exactly was our mission here? What exactly was our mission here?

Was our mission to get our troops out where we to send more troops in? Was our mission to get our American citizens out, our brothers and our sisters? Well, they are stuck behind enemy lines right now.

What was our mission? And how was this mission carried out? Can anybody think of a single Commander-in-Chief or General who would pull the military out before the citizens are pulled out? I can't think of one.

So why was that done?

Then we're told look, there will be plenty of time for recriminations. Plenty of time to review this. We need to act immediately. Really?

Well. I have a piece here from POLITICO just the other day, the headline is "White House to media: We want our props on Afghanistan." They want their props on Afghanistan, really? Why did we set August 31st as the deadline, and then tell all of our enemies all over the region, if you want to attack us, make sure your hammer as hard before August 31st?

Why did we create a situation where we basically created the Alamo? The Kabul Airport, no exterior defenses or offenses for that matter where we're kind of huddled down. We have tremendously heroic troops. I'm not talking about our troops. I'm talking about their bosses. And so now they're targets.

And then we tell our people, get to the airport as fast as you can, and then we had, don't get to the airport, huddle down. Why? Because the terrorists are unpredictable. No, the terrorists are quite predictable. They're going to attack us.

Now, we have another line out there. ISIS and the Taliban don't get along. ISIS and the Taliban don't get along? Gee, I kind of remember a week or two ago when the Taliban took over the country. They took over the Bagram Air Base, what did they do? What's one of the first things they did? They emptied their damn prison of 5,000 prisoners, and those prisoners included what? Not just al-Qaeda, but ISIS fighters.

And so now we're supposed to believe that the Taliban is the good guy and ISIS is the bad guy. They are all cockroaches that want to kill as many Americans as possible.

And now look at the situation. We have a propaganda media in this country, prior to a few days ago, but they will be back -- saying what? This is the greatest airlift in American history.

In the face of the most outrageous surrender in American history, they are regurgitating the administration's talking points, the most wonderful surrender in American history, evacuation in American history. Who are they fooling?

This is awful. The whole thing from top to bottom. And now what? Mission not accomplished. Mission not accomplished.

We have troops who have been attacked and harmed. We have American citizens behind enemy lines. We have allies, Afghan allies who can't get out. What's going to happen? What's going to happen is you're going to have the biggest hostage situation in the history of the American Republic, and you're going to have genocide. That's what you're going to have.

For all those who say, oh the 20-year war, we've got to get out of a 20- year war. How stupid.

This is the enemy. They're not playing by a calendar, a 20-year war. And for 18 months, most of our personnel in Afghanistan were backing up the Afghan Army. The country was basically neutralized from the perspective of threatening the United States of America.

So now look what's been created, and now we're told, look, look again, now's not the time for recriminations.

Don't tell me that. Don't hand me that.

The Republicans in the House of Representatives should be talking about impeachment. They should be talking about impeachment. If we had a serious Cabinet in this country, they'd be talking about the 25th Amendment.

This all started with Biden. And this line about we can go back to four Presidents -- I even hear some journalists -- four Presidents are responsible for this. No, they're not. Four presidents are not responsible for this, and this is how Washington gets away with unaccountability.

There is one man responsible for this. He did this, not the prior Presidents, he did this -- Joe Biden. He is to be held account for what he did. His Generals ought to be held to account. His Secretary of Defense, his Secretary of State, his National Security adviser.

We've never seen so many lightweights gathered in one place in the history of this country, and the consequences are devastating.

So yes, we need to figure out what we're going to do about it, but they're not consulting me, well, but we are going to wait until we decide how we're going to address what's taken place here. No, we're not waiting. We're not waiting.

There needs to be accountability and there needs to be action.

And from my perspective, and these great heroes we're about to talk to may disagree with me. The only way we can get American citizens out now is by overwhelming military action. And of course, the problem with that is, you expose many more of our military personnel to attacks, in harm's way. But how else are you going to get American citizens out? And for the rest of the world, our enemies, whether they are nation states or terrorists -- if we don't get our citizens out, they're going to say, okay, it's open season on American citizens.

I don't care if you're on a train, I don't care if you're on a plane, I don't care if you're overseas, going to school. I don't care, your government is not going to protect you and your government is not going to get you.

And this is why for the most part, when you've been watching TV or reading, you see that men who've actually fought in Afghanistan say, we need to get our citizens out because there is going to be a day of reckoning if we do not.

So at this point, I would like to turn to somebody who I have enormous respect for, Congressman Brian Mast.

Congressman Mast, in 2000, he enlisted in the U.S. Army Reserve, went on to become a combat engineer. Later, he joined the elite 28th Ordnance Company. He also served in Afghanistan as part of the Operation Enduring Freedom.

And, unfortunately, Congressman Mast lost both of his legs, had to be amputated, as well as his left index finger as a result of stepping on an IED in Afghanistan at September 19, 2010, and he served more than 12 years in the U.S. Army.

He was a tremendous hero. Congressman Mast, thank you for joining me.

REP. BRIAN MAST (R-FL): I'm glad to join you today, Mark.

LEVIN: Look, I'm going to start out this way, Congressman. As you're looking at what's taking place now, what do you have to say to the President of the United States?

MAST: This could have been avoided and I would -- I would go back to this. I think President Reagan is soft and said things in a way better than any could. And he said this about the Beirut bombings, these deeds represent the beastial nature of those who wish to assume power.

President Biden has handed the most intimidating, most effective military weaponry on the face of the Earth to those beastial animals. Those animals that if you're not a Muslim jihadist willing to go out there and kill others with a beard that would extend beyond the length of your fist, if that is not who you are, then to them you are nothing more than livestock - - and that is who you have handed the most sophisticated military weaponry. That is who you have allowed to encircle the United States of America.

That is who you want now, a participation trophy for sinking a ship and then saying, oh, you sent out lifeboats to everybody else. That's what you want a participation trophy for? That is not the fact of the situation.

If anything, you should probably be brought up on no less than 10,000 charges of reckless endangerment for all of those Americans.

HILTON: It is amazing to me, Congressman Mast how disconnected this President is from reality. And it is also amazing to me and perhaps, this is a psychological issue, I don't know -- how cold he is. His lack of compassion.

You know, he's been quoted before by others in books that they've written, where he knew that this possibility existed, and he didn't give an F. That he is -- he is not a thoughtful individual, but he is enormously stubborn. This seems to be most of his career.

And our system is set up -- as difficult it is -- to address this sort of thing. But it requires his Cabinet to take note of the fact that he is incapable leading this country. That's the 25th Amendment.

It requires the House which is now in the firm control of Nancy Pelosi. Understandably, she won't do a thing, she thought this was great a week ago. She thought that this was being handled beautifully.

But should not Republicans start to talk about the removal of this President or that the fact that the Cabinet needs to start considering the 25th Amendment. Otherwise, what is the point of impeachment and the 25th Amendment?

MAST: Even outside of everything going on in Afghanistan, this has to be the conversation. Whether it's pure incompetence or whether it's pure ego that he allowed this to happen in Afghanistan, that has to be the case.

He looked at the Intelligence reports, and then people went out there and questioned, was there an Intelligence gap? The Intelligence gap was in the Oval Office. He was told exactly what would happen. He put the lives at risk anyway.

He went from a situation where President Trump did not have chaos in Afghanistan, brought the numbers down to 2,400 troops to a situation where there couldn't be a higher level of chaos. We've seen the explosions, we've seen what's going on there, we've seen the threats, with upwards of 8,000 to 9,000 troops.

If he should not be held accountable for that reckless endangerment or by the 25th Amendment for his lack of competency, his lack of coherence in dealing with this or any other issue whether it's our southern border, domestic policy, or anything else, then there is not an example of what would meet the requirements for that, because this is the definition for that need.

LEVIN: You're quite right and people say we shouldn't be discussing this at this time. I don't know.

Abraham Lincoln was firing generals left and right, right in the middle of battles, right in the middle of the Civil War because they weren't doing what he wanted them to do. They weren't achieving victory.

I look at the generals we have now, Congressman Mast, and I think to myself, I watch you at these Pentagon briefings and so forth, and you're spinning. And you're spinning. We don't have one among them who is willing to say, I can't -- I can't accept what's taking place. I know the military mission is virtually impossible. We're putting our troops on the line because we have a Commander-in-Chief who either knows what he's doing or doesn't, either way, it's a disaster.

And I have got to -- I've got to resign over this. We've had generals resign before, but apparently nobody wants to resign here. What do you make of that?

MAST: Yes. They have to be willing to say, I can't give that order. I cannot support that. I will not do that. Not that he should be associated with the words Commander-in-Chief, but Commander-in-Chief, I cannot do that. That is not an order that should be given to any troop. You are directly putting their lives at risk to what? And this goes to what you spoke about in the beginning.

As the United States of America, if we're not achieving a strategic objective, then we are doing something strictly for the purpose of optics. We know that he wanted the optics of getting out by 9/11. That was the first date that he chose.

The generals, probably Susan Rice told him to do that, or somebody else -- the generals needed to say, absolutely not. I will not put our men and women at risk just because you want to have a 9/11 celebration and have your name across the newspapers and the right headlines. That did not meet any strategic objective of eliminating terrorists, of making America safer, of making Europe or the Middle East safer, of anything that you could say that would be a worthy accomplishment to reach.

And I think this is a good time to say something as we speak about the generals, as we speak about the President to say something directly to our troops. And I've said this to some of them already. I said it to Vietnam veterans and veterans of the war on terror, and it also goes to optics.

Vietnam was not lost because of those that that trudged selflessly through the jungles and rice paddies in Vietnam, it was lost because of Pennsylvania Avenue. And Afghanistan was not lost because of those that I stood shoulder to shoulder with that went over those mountains, that fell off of cliffs, that took incoming mortar and sniper rounds. It wasn't lost because of them. It was lost because of Pennsylvania Avenue.

LEVIN: Well said, and as I said, the other day, what was the White House concerned about? POLITICO, "White House to media: We went our props on Afghanistan."

Let me say this to the White House, you will be condemned for all time for what you did in Afghanistan.

I'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEVIN: Welcome back. Congressman Brian Mast, combat veteran, Afghanistan, who gave up a lot as he fought in Afghanistan for our country.

Congressman Mast, there's no good choices now. So just from your own perspective, what you know right now. How could we handle this? What can we do? It's a hundred times more complicated than before. We shut down our air base. We took our assets out. We don't have any Intelligence.

We are in quite a situation here, but it seems to me unless we use overwhelming military force, we're going to scatter out of there as fast as we can and we're going to leave God knows how many American citizens and allies behind. What do we do?

MAST: Mark, the choice has to be making the commitment that we will choose the right strategic objective and that has to be several things. Every American, no man left behind. No woman left behind. Every single American.

And President Biden, he is looking at several different red lines. Unfortunately, we have a President that's allowing himself to be given a red line by a terrorist organization that should not be followed whatsoever. But he has given them a red line as well.

Any interruption whatsoever of our operations will be met with a strict response, with a serious response. We haven't seen that out of them yet to this point. He needs to stand up to that red line and act like an American and even more so, an American President. That has to be one strategic objective.

The second needs to be, if we don't look at the quote, "most advanced military weaponry" and every item in that inventory from Stinger missiles to helicopters to drones to you name it, and say we are going to take every one of those items out of their hands, off of the battlespace, then we will see civilians and military alike not just from the United States, but from other countries killed with our equipment for years to come.

Those are two strategic objectives that need to be met.

LEVIN: And do you think he'll do that?

MAST: Unfortunately, no. Again, I'll go back to what I said in an earlier segment. We have a President that's begging for a participation trophy for sinking a ship and then sending out lifeboats and saying, see, look what I did for everybody.

His number one goal is the optics. His number one goal is not the American people, his number one goal isn't those that helped us. Let me give you a Joe Biden quote, following the Vietnam War, "We have zero obligation to get out one or 100,000 foreign nationals." Not a moral obligation or otherwise, that's a quote from Joe Biden about those that helped us in Vietnam. That's how he feels about those that helped Americans, zero obligation to them whatsoever.

You talk about the callousness, the coldness of him, the disingenuity that we see out of him. It's reflected in his life from the lifetime that he has been in politics, right up until this very minute, and it is putting our soldiers and our nation domestically and abroad, in the greatest risk that probably we've seen in my lifetime.

LEVIN: You know, Congressman Mast, I've seen this administration from the Secretary of State, among others, actually blaming the American citizens in Afghanistan for not getting out fast enough.

Now, Joe Biden said he didn't realize that the Taliban would take over this fast. In fact, he said some weeks ago, that it wouldn't happen. You're an American citizen sitting in Afghanistan, listening to your President, you don't have access to the Intelligence that says it could happen. And so maybe you're not going to move as fast as we should have, you know, encouraged people to move.

But the idea that we're going to blame, what are now the hostages, for the situation that's in place and the Secretary of State did that, too or for the Secretary of State to say the other day, just because we're going to be out by the 31st doesn't mean we're not going to use all of our diplomatic, you know, power and economic pressure to get our citizens out. Who the hell does he think he is kidding?

Who does he think he is kidding? Our diplomatic pressure and economic pressure? And these cockroaches are suddenly going to start releasing American citizens. This is what I reject the most, the lies. We keep hearing lies from this administration, no?

MAST: Their diplomatic power means absolutely squat. Let's go to another point that they've been making as well on that same front.

We have the leverage of billions of dollars being held in banks. That's no leverage whatsoever for a group that came to power without one of those dollars. Why our Intelligence Community is putting such an emphasis on that? Again, it's simply a talking point for them. That doesn't truly add up to getting anybody out at the moment that the last service member leaves the ground in Afghanistan.

And you look at that situation, and all of those -- and why that occurred. You had contradicting information going back and forth from the State Department from the Department of Defense to the Americans on the ground. Show up at this time. Don't show up on this time. Don't go up to the gate where you could get in, because there's a very serious threat of this.

We know that they were making one of the most dangerous checkpoints anywhere on the face of this earth where there are very real threats of vehicle-borne IEDs, suicide bombers, you name it across the board, layered on top of the advanced military weaponry that they were given.

Show up to the gate, don't show up to the gate. Show up at this one. We moved the location to here. No, we're going to send a bus out for you now.

These were the contradicting pieces of information that were being given to Americans. It's any wonder that any of them were able to make it to the gate whatsoever.

LEVIN: And speaking of that, I read a piece the other day, not a single American citizen has been evacuated from outside of Kabul, not one. So, we're just talking about Kabul, which is obviously the biggest city in the country. But all Americans aren't in Kabul.

And so I think this is going to reverberate for decades to come. I think American citizens overseas have reason to be very fearful.

I think the fact that the southern border is wide open, even while this is going on is another impeachable offense, he is not taking the steps to protect this country. He has defied a Supreme Court decision when it comes to other matters. He is acting like a dictator, as is the Speaker of the House.

I just think we were at a -- as they say, a tipping point, and either we stand up as American citizens and demand immediate accountability and yes, recriminations now, or we're going to lose this Republic.

Congressman, I want to thank you for everything including your past patriotism and your present patriotism and your guts.

Thank you very much, sir.

MAST: All the best, sir.

LEVIN: God bless.

We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ASHLEY STROHMIER, FOX NEWS CHANNEL CORRESPONDENT: This is a "FOX News Weather Alert." I'm Ashley Strohmier.

Hurricane Ida slamming into Louisiana Coast as one of the most powerful storms ever to hit the U.S. blowing off roofs and causing significant flooding. For the latest on this massive storm, let's turn to FOX News Meteorologist, Adam Klotz. Adam, what do you have for us?

ADAM KLOTZ, FOX NEWS CHANNEL METEOROLOGIST: Well, now, a Category 2 hurricane with winds at 110 miles an hour, slowly, slowly weakening, but not enough to make it weak yet. Still a powerful storm, gusts up to 90 miles an hour in New Orleans, close to 60 miles an hour in Baton Rouge.

Because of that, we've got hurricane warnings running all the way up to the state line. This is going to slowly weaken as we head to the overnight hours and I mean slowly weaken.

By 1:00 a.m., down to a Category 1 hurricane. That means this is going to linger all the way into the morning and of course we will be watching it.

STROHMIER: Okay, Adam Klotz live for us. Thanks for that.

And of course we'll be keeping an eye on this throughout the night. I'm Ashley Strohmier. Now back to LIFE, LIBERTY & LEVIN.

For all of your headlines, log on foxnews.com.

LEVIN: Welcome back, America.

We're joined with another great American hero, Dan Crenshaw, Congressman from Texas. He served in the Navy SEALs for 10 years, five tours of duty, reached the rank of Lieutenant Commander.

He lost his right eye when he was hit by an IED explosion in Afghanistan. Also, his other eye is not functioning as well as he would like, of course.

And in 2017, he received a Master's Degree in Public Administration from Harvard University and so forth. Great hero. A very, very smart man.

Congressman, thank you for joining us. I have a question for you, sir.

REP. DAN CRENSHAW (R-TX): Thanks, Mark.

LEVIN: As we see what's unraveling and we've seen what's been unraveling now for some time in the last couple of weeks here. What exactly was the Biden administration's mission here?

CRENSHAW: It's a great question. And honestly, it gets to the heart of what we've been debating for 20 years in the United States.

Since the second day that we were in Afghanistan, because we all agreed there was no debate, we all agreed that we needed to go and we needed to do something about 9/11 and take it to the people who were responsible for this. But there's been a debate ever since about what do we do now?

And it seems to me that the mission, according to Joe Biden, was simply get our troops home. That was the only mission. Now, that should never be the mission. Right? And again, this gets to the heart of the debate.

The goal was never just to keep our entire military at home. That's not national defense. It's not a bunch of Navy SEALs on the beach just looking out over the horizon waiting for the Russkis to come. That's not national defense.

National defense means being forward deployed, building alliances and helping our partners keep our country safe, because the world is an extremely small place and terrorism travels rather quickly.

This is a lesson that we learned after 9/11, but appeared to have forgotten

And so the mission can't just be bring troops home, but that was Joe Biden's mission and he was singularly focused on that. His advisers told him something different. The military consistently told him something different.

They consistently gave the same advice they gave to President Trump and to President Obama. And look, President Trump and Obama wanted the same thing, but they had to deal with the reality of the situation that there are extreme costs to just withdrawing everybody, even though that makes you feel good.

And that seems to be the only strategic objective here, it was good feelings. It feel it makes us feel better if we have zero troops in Afghanistan. Well, I don't think we feel very good about it now, do we? And the strategic objective, what it should be, is keep America safe. And then you do what it takes to keep America safe, at the lowest cost possible.

But in order to meet that objective -- and we've been struggling to find that balance for 20 years, frankly, we have that balance since about 2014, since Obama transitioned us to a security assistance mission. We've found that balance at a very low cost. We were keeping America safe and preventing a terrorist safe haven.

You know, we haven't lost a troop in 18 months and we made this horrible blunder.

Well, I don't know about we, but we, as a country did and Joe Biden is leading that country. And now, we have blood on our hands. That's the reality of what's going on right now.

LEVIN: And the implications, Congressman Crenshaw, even beyond Afghanistan are just unbelievable. We're not going to get all of our citizens out of there. We haven't gotten a single citizen out of Afghanistan outside of Kabul. So, our citizens are going to be targeted all over the world now, not -- as well as in the United States.

The border is wide open, it's more wide open than it's ever been. It's as if none of this is happening. The military's budget is flat, while everything else in the in the government is getting massive increases when it comes to domestic programs and so forth.

I am extremely troubled by this President of the United States whether he is competent, and I'm not just talking about dimension, that sort of thing, competent by personality, competent by attitude to be leading a great country, and I'm gravely concerned that we're going to have three and a half years more of this?

I mean, shouldn't, under our constitutional system, at least Republicans be talking about, the Cabinet looking at the 25th Amendment, at least make that part of the dialogue or the House Republicans talking about impeachment.

We have no other way to deal with a Commander-in-Chief who won't be a Commander-in-Chief.

CRENSHAW: Yes, look, it's worse than we thought it would be. And, look, we have to deal with reality here. And the reality is, is that second line is Kamala Harris and third in line is Nancy Pelosi. So these are existential questions for our country. Who do we actually want in charge? It seems like three pretty terrible options.

And then what are our avenues to make something happen here? These are real questions.

You know, it should be noted, whether -- he is certainly now suffering from whether it's old age or dementia, it's a very clear change in Joe Biden from even a few years ago. But let's not forget, you know a few years ago, I've heard stories of Barack Obama not trusting Joe Biden's judgment. I've heard of stories of him kicking Joe Biden out of the room during really serious discussions about, say, the Osama bin Laden raid because as he put it, Joe Biden's thought process was dangerous to the mission.

So his judgment has frankly always been in question. There's plenty of people who have stated this, but he's been on the wrong side of every major foreign policy decision. It's become worse than we thought. And all we ever wanted from Joe Biden, at least as a conservative was to just not do anything. You know, just enjoy your presidency, do nothing. Keep all of the policies in place, keep the remain-in-Mexico policy in place, keep our U.S. borders secure, just maintain the same presence we have in Afghanistan until the right -- until it's a more proper time to leave.

Leave our economic policies as they are. Stop doing things.

I can't imagine an easier way to have higher approval ratings and a successful presidency than to just do nothing. But he can't. It has become really dire for our country, and I don't say this from a partisan perspective.

I would rather Joe has the highest approval ratings possible, and our country was on a good track. That would make me happy.

I take no comfort in the fact that this might be good for Republicans politically, that's just not true. And by the way, I recall plenty of Democrats saying we need bad stuff to happen because that's the only way to get Trump out of office.

Republicans don't think that way. Republicans want good things for the country and we need Joe Biden to realize that. We needed to reverse course on this.

A lot of these issues that we're talking about are not -- are not irreversible.

LEVIN: When we come back, Congressman, my question to you is, are we going to get the rest of our citizens out of Afghanistan, once we're fully out of there? The Secretary of State says we're going to use diplomacy and economic pressure.

I would like to know from you whether you think that's effective.

We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEVIN: Welcome back. Congressman Crenshaw, we're being told that ISIS fights al-Qaeda, al-Qaeda fights ISIS. As I said to Congressman Mast, last time I checked, Taliban led ISIS and al-Qaeda out of their prison.

Maybe they normally fight each other, but I know they have one enemy, and I think that's us. And so my question to you is this. What in the world could possibly be the plan to get American citizens out of that country once every single troop has left? Diplomacy and economics? Do you think that's effective?

CRENSHAW: Yes, that's a great question. And it's -- look, it's what Democrats and Republicans have been asking this administration. A lot of people don't realize that.

In a private meeting with the House of Representatives and Secretary Defense, Secretary of State, Director of National Intelligence, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, everybody's question was actually the same. Why can't we extend the deadline?

Tell the Taliban to kick rocks. We are the United States of America. We extend the deadline. We're going to keep our people in place. In fact, my opinion is we need to retake places like Bagram and additional airfields to give our citizens and our allies more options to get out.

The Secretary of State in particular has been lying about the realities on the ground and Psaki has been lying about the realities on the ground. Joe Biden has been lying about the realities on the ground. There is no possibility of getting people out safely if we remove our leverage, which is our troop presence. That's the only language these people understand.

They do not care about diplomacy. They don't care about hurt feelings. They don't care about their international standing. This is the Taliban we're talking about.

I don't know what Dreamworld these people in administration are living in, but it's not real. The only language they understand is power and we have a lot of it, if we're willing to use it.

Every problem we've had has been self-imposed, every restriction has been self-imposed. It's unbelievably frustrating. And we're going to end up leaving people behind. And you know, your first question, what's our mission? I never heard Joe Biden say the mission was to get our allies and our citizens out of Afghanistan. It was just troops. It was just bring troops down to zero because it makes us feel good.

But it was never the mission to help these other people and it is a shame.

LEVIN: What do you say to people who say, it's a 20-year war. That's enough. Because my response has been, what are you talking about? The enemy isn't living by some calendar. There's wars and there's wars.

In other words, you can be engaged endlessly in hand to hand combat and then you can be engaged as we were with 2,400 to 2,500 non-combat troops backing up the Afghans with our Air Force. Isn't that like the perfect situation where they're doing most of the fighting, the country is mostly neutralized.

You've got a lot of these cockroaches in prison, and now look at the situation. They have more land than they've ever had and they have all of our equipment and they have our citizens.

CRENSHAW: And they have a terrorist safe haven. You know, we have direct threats. I mean, Intelligence would assume that al-Qaeda will be able to, what they call externalize their operations and you can imagine what that means, within a year.

Yes, we decimated their capabilities, but when we stop fighting them and when we say the battle is over, they don't. Look, we weren't at war on September 10, 2001, either. We weren't at war in the USS Cole bombing in the year 2000. We weren't at war in 1998 when al-Qaeda ordered attacks on our embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.

We weren't at war then, but they were at war with us.

And just because we leave and Joe Biden says, well, we ended the war. It doesn't mean the war is actually ended, it just means that we gave up a strategic stronghold in order to fight them. That's all it means. It means we've lost eyes and ears.

We're in a much more dangerous place now. And as you said, I don't think that -- when we haven't lost a soldier in 18 months, it doesn't really qualify as a war, it qualifies as a stalemate. It qualifies as we finally found the balance, the lowest possible cost to achieve the strategic objective of denying terrorist safe haven.

LEVIN: When we come back, Congressman, my question to you is this. If you're Ukraine, if you're Taiwan, if you're Israel, and you're the leaders of those countries, what is going through your mind right now?

We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEVIN: Congressman Crenshaw, not only the terrorists are empowered, but these nation state enemies of ours are empowered, too, obviously. And so they're not going to take Joe Biden terribly seriously.

I'm worried most about Communist China and Taiwan. Putin with Ukraine; and of course, Israel and Iran. What are your thoughts on that?

CRENSHAW: I think that's exactly right. Look, there's strategic blunders here and there are tactical blunders as well. From a strategic standpoint, yes, you look at these competitors like China, you look at a country like Iran, that is always looking for leverage over the United States and looking for those openings, those weaknesses. The Chinese are doing exactly the same.

I believe I heard that the Chinese are propagandizing the Taiwanese recently saying, see, America doesn't have your back, you've got no shot here, you've got no chance. And who's to say they're wrong WHEN we when we don't stand up for even what's easy.

You know, by tactical, what I mean is, I don't see how we can recruit sources anymore. I don't see how we can recruit people to work with us, interpreters, local nationals, sources in the majority of countries that we operate in.

Again, National Defense doesn't mean sitting on your shores, keeping your soldiers safe as the primary objective. That's not -- you don't need to keep me safe. That's that was not what I signed up for. I don't need your pity and I don't need -- I don't need your compassion, all right, I just want to be sent to do my job because I need to keep you safe.

That's how veterans think, that's how soldiers think. By the way, that's even how Gold Star families are looking at this. That's something a lot of people don't realize. I speak with Gold Star families all the time, I have spoken with them this week. Their main concern right now, because they know that their son or their husbands didn't die in vain. They know that they're protecting their country.

What they're concerned about now is like, will our country be protected from now on? Who is actually taking the fight to the enemy, if we just decide that we've given up? And what does that say to countries like China?

It's a strategic blunder in so many ways. But my point is, it needs to be keep getting made, it can be reversed. It's not too late. We've got to focus on the short term right now. And if we respond with overwhelming force and go on offense and reset the chessboard, reset our leverage, then I think we can come back from this, at least a little bit.

You know, these things are reversible, but we need decisive action from the White House.

LEVIN: But that's the thing, as a practical matter, do you think the man who lit the fuse to all of this is going to put the fire out?

CRENSHAW: No. No, I mean, it's -- you know, it's almost like the arsonist is bragging about how well they're putting out the fire that they started. That was the impression I got from Jen Psaki talking about the military flights coming out of this historic -- this historic operation of flights coming in and out and evacuating people. She keeps calling it historic and such a great success, what a massive success.

But again, it's like the arsonist bragging about the fire truck showing up. It's really perplexing.

And look, we need to call on Pelosi if that's what it takes to bring us back into session and at least put forth a resolution demanding this because there's bipartisan support for this. Like I said, when me and Sheila Jackson-Lee are asking the exact same questions. That's pretty -- that's pretty -- that's a pretty amazing thing.

We want to extend the deadline, we want to get our people out.

LEVIN: And the problem with that is, it seems we have all the wrong people in all the powerful positions because when this first started breaking, most people were saying, oh my god, what's going on? Speaker Pelosi thought it was going swell. She was praising the President of the United States.

Congressman Crenshaw, I want to thank you for your heroism. I want to thank you for your patriotism. And please keep up the fight.

God bless you, sir.

CRENSHAW: Thanks, Mark. Great to be with you.

LEVIN: We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEVIN: Welcome back. For 18 months, not a single American soldier died in Afghanistan. The country was largely neutralized as best as we could, and now this failed preposterous mission. Now men have died. Men have died. Citizens are going to die.

What we leave in Afghanistan is a genocidal mess, a disaster for our national security, a disaster for our military, and a disaster for the American people. No citizen traveling abroad can assume under this administration that they will be protected, or kidnapped that they will be released.

I've never seen anything like this in my life. As I go through American history, I've never seen anything like this before.

The Democratic Party nominated a man who it knew was incapable of being President of the United States on so many levels.

The corrupt media in this country, the Praetorian Guard protected him, advanced him, celebrated him. Even today, congressional Democrats, at least their leadership are pushing their agenda for power for centralization of government, to destroy the voting system, massive amnesty. They go along with their agenda despite what this country now faces -- a disaster.

Those of you who kept saying a 20-year war is long enough, well, now, we don't have a 20-year war, we have an endless war, not of our choosing, but of the enemy's choosing and that's always how it is.

Serious attention has to be given to a mechanism to remove this President. I understand who is behind him, Kamala Harris and Pelosi behind her. But if we're going to stir and shake things up where they need to be stirred and shaken, it is the only mechanisms we have under our Republic.

And we can also show the world that we, the people, through our representatives are serious.

That discussion, that debate now needs to be mainstreamed and I expect the Republicans in the House and the Senate to start talking about it immediately.

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