'Special Report' All-Star Panel on threat of another terror strike

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Trey Gowdy: August 31 deadline 'makes absolutely no sense'

'Special Report' All-Star panel weighs in on the rush to get Americans out of Afghanistan amid the Taliban takeover.

This is a rush transcript of "Special Report with Bret Baier" on August 27, 2021. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, (D) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Terrorism has metastasized around the world. We have greater threats coming out of other countries a heck of a lot closer to the United States. It was time to end a 20-year war. 

LEON PANETTA, FORMER DEFENSE SECRETARY: We can leave a battlefield, but can't leave the war on terrorism. 

JEN PSAKI, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: It's important for us as the government to be clear about what threat our U.S. forces are facing on the ground. And that threat is acute. It is ongoing. 

JENNIFER GRIFFIN, FOX NEWS NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: How many ISIS-K prisoners were left at Bagram and are believed to have been released from the prison there? And why weren't they removed before the U.S. pulled out to someplace like Gitmo? 

JOHN KIRBY, PENTAGON PRESS SECRETARY: I don't know the exact number. 

Clearly, it's in the thousands. 

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BAIER: Just some of the sound over the past day or so as the evacuations continue at the Kabul airport after that suicide attack killed 13 U.S. service members. 

Meantime, just to put a human voice, face to this as somebody trying to get out, an Afghan who worked with the U.S. as a translator on our air earlier today getting desperate really. Take a listen. 

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We're going to get you out.

CARL, AFGHAN INTERPRETER: I know that I'm going to be left behind. I know that for sure. I know that I'm going to get killed. But the good thing is that I'm not going to die for a bad thing. I'm going to die for a good thing. What I did I will never regret it because I have tried to help people. It's me. 

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BAIER: That's happening in real time. 

Let's bring in our panel, Mollie Hemingway, senior editor at "The Federalist," Charles Lane, opinion writer for "The Washington Post," and Trey Gowdy, former Congressman from South Carolina. Trey, you hear those stories, and we hear about the success of the thousands and thousands who have gotten out. But there are many more Afghans especially who won't get out, and there are some Americans who won't make that last plane either. 

TREY GOWDY, FORMER SOUTH CAROLINA REPRESENTATIVE: Right, Bret, which is why this August 31st deadline that he will not budge from makes absolutely no sense. And just in case people are not familiar with ISIS-K, that's a new name. Bret, that's the group that went to the maternity ward of a hospital and killed infants and new mothers. That's who was let out of prisoner. 

That's who is left in Afghanistan. So why we are so hellbent on leaving August 31 when we have people that helped us behind, I don't understand. 

BAIER: Chuck, how do you see the last day's attacks, what this mean for this administration and this effort going forward? 

CHARLES LANE, OPINION WRITER, "WASHINGTON POST": Boy, it's such a complex and horrific situation, I hesitate to predict. I think the main thought I have right now is it's not over. Whether we adhere to this deadline of August 31 or not, today they are saying another terrorist attack is, quote, likely. And a lot can happen between now and August 31st. And a lot with happen beyond that. 

So I think anybody who tries to draw a line on this episode and suggest that, well, once it's over and digested, we can move on with other things and the administration may be able to put it behind it, I think maybe is somewhat unrealistic. 

BAIER: Former secretary of defense, former CIA director Leon Panetta, you heard him in that montage of soundbites saying at some point, the war may be over and we may be out of Afghanistan, but really the war against the terrorist threat is not going to be over, and we're likely have to go in and play whack-a-mole with different elements of terrorist radical Islam.

One of the big things, Mollie, has been this talk about the Bagram Air Base and the decision to shut it down. And there has been this back and forth about whether it was the military advisors who told the president and he agreed with them. This is General Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, and what President Biden said about that. 

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEN. MARK MILLEY, CHAIRMAN, JOINT CHIEFS: Our ask, given to us at that time, our task was to protect the embassy in order for the embassy personnel to continue to function with their consul services and all. If we were to keep both Bagram and the embassy going, that would be a significant number of military forces that would have exceeded what we had, or stayed the same or exceeded what we had. So it had to collapse one way or the other, and the decision was made. 

JOE BIDEN, (D) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: They concluded, the military, that Bagram was not much value added, that was much wises to focus on Kabul. And so I followed that recommendation. 

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BAIER: Mollie? 

MOLLIE HEMINGWAY, SENIOR EDITOR, "THE FEDERALIST": President Biden made the decision to follow-through with President Trump's decision to end the war in Afghanistan, and those were proper decisions. He ultimately is responsible for the manner in which the departure is taking place. But it is also true that these plans needed to be developed properly by the military brass. And it is objectively, demonstrably true that they failed in that regard. And there needs to be accountability. 

One of the most alarming things that was said in recent days that there will be no accountability for these men. You saw perhaps that Lieutenant Colonel who said that he was willing to risk his career to talk about the lack of accountability for the botching of this departure. He was relieved of his duty, but nobody at the top has been relieved of their duty. That is something that is alarming and hurting the morale of so many of our service members throughout the country. 

The decision to close Bagram was obviously not the right decision. You see this by the fact that we have already dealt with this horrific attack yesterday and that we're facing the possibility of more. You pray that there aren't more. You pray that this will not end with more bloodshed. But the decision to leave was proper. President Biden likes to remind people of his decision to leave. The manner in which it was done is horrific. We need to hold people accountable. There need to be massive investigations. People need to be held to account for what they've done and how botched this has been. 

BAIER: A lot of focus has been the interaction with the Taliban. The administration saying it's just a fact that they control large swaths of the country. They are now in control of Kabul, essentially, and you need to deal with them. But how many intelligence and crosstalk and information sharing you are doing raised a lot of questions over the past couple of days. Take a listen to this exchange. 

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAJ. GEN. HANK TAYLOR, JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF REGIONAL OPS: What information is very important right now is at the ground level to ensure that as people approach checkpoints, that those Taliban checkpoints leaders have and understand who is coming, what documentation they are supposed to. 

NED PRICE, STATE DEPARTMENT SPOKESMAN: The idea that we are providing names or personally identifiable information to the Taliban in a way that exposes anyone to additional risk, that is simply wrong. 

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BAIER: That was talked about in different ways in different press briefings today, Trey. But it's important to realization that the Taliban is the Taliban. It's the same Taliban. Information, if you go on the State Department's website, the rewards for justice, there is a $5 million bounty on a guy name Siraj Haqqani, $5 million the U.S. would pay for any information leading to his arrest. Siraj Haqqani is the deputy now in charge in Kabul. He's the number two guy. So it's not like we don't know the history here. 

GOWDY: Yes, Bret. I am in the minority, I think, in our country. Any withdrawal plan that is depending on the Taliban keeping its word or joining the 21st century, I think is a flawed plan. And it doesn't matter whether it's a Republican or a Democrat president. This is the group, I think, that still stones rape victims. And we are going to rely on them to make sure that Americans get out of Afghanistan and keep the law of order? 

That's the group that is keeping the law and order? They may be better than ISIS-K, but that ain't saying much. Is-k kills newborns. That ain't saying much.

BAIER: Yes, Chuck, just this week, the Taliban said there was a ban on music. They wanted women kept inside because they were fearful that their fighters hadn't learned how to deal with women. This is going to be a bumpy ride for the Taliban and controlling Afghanistan. 

LANE: It has been head-spinning. As someone who has followed this story since the beginning, since September 11th, 2001, to see the United States necessarily perhaps embracing the Taliban as some kind of security partner in Kabul. The concern going forward is the inevitable temptation to test -- let's see if we can get along with them. Let's try to maybe supply them with some aid here and there, and so on and so forth. I think so far the administration has done a fairly good job of saying, no, we are not recognizing them in the short term. But the pressure will rise for that opening to take place, and that could be very dangerous. 

BAIER: Up next, panel, a quick lightning round with a couple of other stories. Keep it here. 

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

FU CONG, CHINESE FOREIGN MINISTRY: So it is only fair that if the U.S. 

insists that this is a valid hypothesis, they should do their turn and invite an investigation into their labs. 

DR. MICHAEL RYAN, WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION: It is a contradiction. If you are saying the lab theory is a nonstarter from the Chinese perspective, but we need to now go and look at labs in other countries.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BAIER: The Chinese trying to turn the tables on the U.S., saying that this COVID origins investigation pointing at all towards the Chinese lab in Wuhan opens the doors to China demanding inspectors going to Fort Detrick and other labs inside the U.S.

We're back with our panel. Trey, this COVID origins report, obviously like a lot of reports in the unclassified version, it just is not satisfying. It comes to no conclusions other than a number of intel agencies point to that lab now, and they didn't at the beginning. 

GOWDY: Bret, this is the way my sources in the intelligence community explained it to me. All of the circumstantial evidence points towards the lab theory. There is just no direct evidence. And in a courtroom, Bret, as you know, there's no distinction between direct evidence and circumstantial, but in the intelligence world, if it's circumstantial, they use the word "inconclusive." But make no mistake, all of the evidence, circumstantial as it may be, points to the lab theory. 

BAIER: Not only that, but what China did after the discovery of it and the travel that was initiated after that. Mollie? 

MOLLIE HEMINGWAY, SENIOR EDITOR, "THE FEDERALIST": A big reason why we don't have a more definitive conclusion here is because China has not been cooperating with the U.S. or other investigators who are really trying to get to the bottom of everything. While the same voices that kept us in Afghanistan 15 to 19 years longer than we should have without a strategy want to drag us back into redoubling our efforts there without any change in strategy.

We have a real adversary, a real powerful adversary that has just as bad of a track record on human rights, but the ability to cause us so much more serious and widespread harm. I'm alarmed by this report. I'm alarmed by the unleashing of this virus on the world, all the damage that has been caused. 

And there frankly has not been anywhere near enough pushback on China or dealing with the reality of what they have done to the world and what they have done to the United States. They have not been held accountable, and they need to be held accountable. 

BAIER: The big story, chuck, is the eviction moratorium. The U.S. Supreme Court essentially saying the Biden eviction moratorium cannot stand, and now there are some in the administration saying it's up to Congress to do something about it. But there are some landlords saying, hey, I haven't gotten rent in a long, long time. 

LANE: Well, the Supreme Court gets to play the heavy in this situation. 

Let's not forget that President Biden himself almost admitted that he didn't really have a legal leg to stand on but was trying to buy time for the reimbursement program that has been such a failure. We have 40 plus billion dollars that should have been supplied really to the landlords months ago if the state bureaucracies had made it possible. And that's a huge failure.

I feel for people who are at risk of eviction, but we have to remember as well that many landlords, nobody likes their landlord, but the landlord is often a very small business, a family that is renting out a vacation property, or an extra property or something like that, and many of them are at great financial risk. So there's a lot of losers all the way around. And I think the Supreme Court probably did the right thing on the law. And let's hope that more cash can be brought together to help everyone out of the situation. 

BAIER: It's a big story affecting a ton of people across the country, and we'll stay on it. Panel, thanks. Make it a great weekend. 

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