'Special Report' panel on Biden pulling troops from Afghanistan

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Biden announces US mission in Afghanistan will end Aug. 31

'Special Report' panel debates whether pulling out of the Afghanistan country will help or hurt the United States

This is a rush transcript of "Special Report with Bret Baier" on July 8, 2021. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you trust the Taliban, sir? 

JOE BIDEN, (D) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: You got -- is that a serious question? 

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's absolutely a serious question. Do you trust the Taliban? 

BIDEN: No, I do not. 

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is the Taliban takeover in Afghanistan now inevitable? 

JOE BIDEN, (D) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: No, it is not. 

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Why? 

BIDEN: Because you have the Afghan troops have 300,000 well-equipped, as well equipped as any army in the world, and an air force, against something like 75,000 Taliban. It is not inevitable. 

GEN. JACK KEANE (RET), FOX NEWS SENIOR STRATEGIC ANALYST: Here's what will happen, is the Taliban will begin to mass at some point to take down the major cities in Afghanistan. They are holding back quite now I think until the United States is pretty much all gone, and then we'll see that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BREAM: Let's bring in our panel to discuss that, Mollie Hemingway, senior editor at "The Federalist," Harold Ford Jr., former Tennessee Congressman, CEO of Empowerment and Inclusion Capital, and Bill McGurn, columnist for "The Wall Street Journal." Let's start right there, Mollie. The president says a couple of things. He does not trust the Taliban. He also says, listen, they are a smaller force, only 75,000 versus possibly 300,000 in the Afghan army. But they have been very effective even with their smaller numbers. 

MOLLIE HEMINGWAY, SENIOR EDITOR, "THE FEDERALIST": This is really about so much more. It's about how we fight wars and what we're thinking. It was almost 20 years ago that our friend Charles Krauthammer gave a speech in which he said that it would be good to spread democracy from north Africa to Afghanistan. He noted that many conservatives thought it wouldn't work, and he said it might not work, but he thought we should give it a try. 

We have given it a try. We have given it a very long try. It has cost trillions of dollars, thousands of people's lives have been lost. And the nation of Afghanistan might not be able to make it even after we have invested so many resources. But really what is important is that the United States understands the way that we fight wars, we have to have clear metrics of success. We have to understand why we are there. And we have to move away from nation-building into fighting wars that are solely in our national interest, or laser-focused on our national interest. 

So all these questions about how things are going to go in Afghanistan I think miss that point that we tried this experiment, and it did not work. 

BREAM: And the president was asked today about whether this was a mission accomplished moment. That's what I think people across the world and certainly here at home in America want to hear, did we accomplish something? What did we accomplish? Here's what the president said on that point. 

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Is this a mission accomplished moment? What is it? 

JOE BIDEN, (D) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: No, there is no mission accomplished. 

(CROSS TALK)

BIDEN: The mission was accomplished in that we got Usama bin Laden and terrorism is not emanating from that part of the world. 

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BREAM: But, Harold, how concerned should would be now that some of those forces could reconfigure there? Because it's not just the U.S. leaving. 

There are other good actors also leaving a very troubled area. Or Bill, I think Harold maybe having a little trouble -- OK, Harold, go ahead. 

HAROLD FORD JR., FORMER TENNESSEE REPRESENTATIVE: I'm sorry. Thanks for having me. I can hear you. 

I agree largely with the predicate that Mollie has articulated. I think it is 20 years, $4 trillion. We have made progress there. I do think we have found that culture and persistent history of tribalism has undermined our efforts to bring about the kind of unity or centralized government in Afghanistan that we want. 

But also consistent with Mollie's point, it's 20 years later. Technology has grown, satellites, drones. We'll be able to prosecute this effort, protect our interests, and ensure the one thing that we don't want to see happen, which is those grounds there in Afghanistan, the Taliban, again, becoming a haven for terrorist organizations. If that happens, I would imagine this administration would follow the lead of itself and General Keane and others who urge that we be able to get back on the ground there, because, at the end of the day, our focus has to shift. China presents itself as a geographical, economic, and military threat that we're going to have to focus on much like we focused on Russia during the cold war in the 20th century. 

BREAM: Yes, and the president today did not, as you noted, say that we would never go back, American troops would never be called back into that arena. "The Washington Examiner" writing about that said this, "The implication, should the Taliban fight their way back to running the country, Washington might conclude that it is acceptable so long as it does not harbor extremist groups such as Al Qaeda, the Islamic State group, or others that might plot attacks on the U.S., its interests abroad, or close allies." 

But Bill, it seems that throws us back into the same calculations we are always having to make about how much we let the, quote-unquote, bad guys have a say, or a hand in running the country when we have worries about things that will impact our interests, or those of our allies. 

BILL MCGURN, COLUMNIST, "THE WALL STREET JOURNAL": Yes, look, Shannon, I was in Afghanistan with the Mujahideen way back before this war in the first war in Afghanistan when they were fighting the Soviets. And I'm old enough to remember Vietnam. I'm old enough to remember the reformation of like ISIS after we left the area. So I wish I could optimistic, but I can't. The last time we thought Afghanistan didn't matter, they came and knocked down two of our buildings in Manhattan and attacked the Pentagon. 

And I just don't believe that the air capabilities are going to be sufficient. 

Look what happened in Benghazi because our flight -- it took hours for flights to get there. I just don't think you can substitute for troops on the ground. We had, I believe, three casualties this year, none of them combat related. We are still in Germany after defeating Hitler, and we are in Korea and Japan after World War II. And that's been to our benefit to help stabilize the region. I just think this is going to go down as a terrible mistake. 

BREAM: The president did talk, too, about these calculations about why to get out, how to get out, when to get out. I will play a little bit more of what he had to say on that front today. 

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, (D) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The U.S. military mission in Afghanistan continues to the end of August. Let me ask those who want us to stay. How many more -- how many thousands more Americans, daughters and sons, are you willing to risk? 

I will not send another generation of Americans to war in Afghanistan with no reasonable expectation of achieving a different outcome. The United States cannot afford to remain tethered to policies creating a response to a world as it was 20 years ago. 

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BREAM: And Mollie, that gets to your point about trying an experiment, seeing whether it works, what our role is there. Do you think the president has articulated well about the reasoning for leaving now? 

HEMINGWAY: I actually think he did a great job with it. I want to commend him for staying strong under so much pressure from the military industrial complex. Also that President Trump set that deadline which helped get this going is very good. 

More than anything, though, it's a reminder, too, about how that same military, how the brass did not do a good job of preparing for exit. One of the ways they kept us there for so long was by never really developing a strategy for how to leave, and it would trap presidents into staying. And we are seeing some of the fallout of that now. 

But President Biden is doing a right thing by not allowing that to continue and insisting that we stick with this plan, and hopefully things will go well from here on out. But it was long fought for by many people, so kudos to him. 

BREAM: Yes, and John Kirby said yesterday that the whole idea is getting towards a negotiated peaceful political solution to this whole thing. But, Harold, when a lot of people say they can't trust the Taliban as a negotiating partner at the table, how does that resolution eventually come about? 

FORD: Right. If we stayed indefinitely or stayed a longer period of time -- I don't mean to put words in Bill's mouth. But if we stayed, the Taliban is not gradually becoming a more trustworthy organization. What we are finding is that we have other priorities. We can manage the situation with new technology, and hopefully we don't have to find our way back there. 

But I think this is the right thing to do. It's a painful, it's a tough decision. And I expect the military to counter the president some on this. 

But hopefully they reach an agreement within our military and White House that if there's a problem, we can get back and get back quickly. And let's hope we don't have to go back and we are able to manage the situation and get on to dealing with China and our other foes. 

BREAM: Quick closing comment to you, Bill, on this topic?

MCGURN: Well, weren't the South Vietnamese reassured that if something happened the U.S. would be back there to do it? I'm not sure of the new technology helped much in Benghazi when those guys were out of reach of air support. I hope they're right, but, again, this looks to me like it has a lot of wishful thinking behind it. 

BREAM: All right, panel, thank you. Up next, crime in and the ATF. 

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RAYMOND LOPEZ, (D) CHICAGO CITY COUNCIL: I think what worries me is that the mayor meets with Biden, that it's just going to be used as a backdoor bailout to save the city of Chicago while not increasing safety on our streets. 

JEN PSAKI, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: What the president conveyed to Mayor Lightfoot is that he will continue to work with her in partnership and work with cities around the country to address the rise of violence, and specifically the rise of gun violence is predominantly the driver in Chicago. 

AUDREY UNVERFERTH, UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO STUDENT: Chicago had its most murderous weekend of the year over the Fourth of July. Over 90 people were shot. And I fear that that was just an opportunity for a photo op yesterday with President Biden. 

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BREAM: And we are back with our panel to talk about surging crime across the country. Bill, yesterday the focus was in Chicago. They may have discussed it privately, but the president did not talk about it publicly in his remarks. 

MCGURN: Yes, look, it's a big problem in -- it's a huge problem in Chicago, and no one is really addressing it honestly. You have the police chief complaining that the judges and so forth let people back out that they caught. And it's not just Chicago's problem. It's cities all over the country where we would rather talk about gun violence as though guns get together and decide we're going to go out and be violent, rather than bad guys shooting people. 

And when we had stop and frisk, for example, in New York, that was gun control for bad guys. It took a lot of illegal guns off the streets and saved a lot of black and Latino lives. And we just, we don't have that now. 

I'm hopeful that the vote for Eric Adams means that we are rethinking some of the policies of the last year. 

BREAM: Yes, that pro-police, anticrime candidate who has risen to the top of the Democratic mayoral primary there in New York. Harold, we do have, Bill alluded to this, we are having a lot of back and forth now between police and prosecutors. Police say we're arresting people. You guys aren't prosecuting them. We see a lot of measures in different cities that are going soft on crime by a lot of estimations about disbanding gang units and all kinds of other things that seem to be, to the critics, exacerbating the crime problem. 

FORD: Look, I want to harp on the point that Bill made there. I agree with him. I think the election -- the nomination of Eric Adams, who called today for precision policing and the use of marrying up data with good policing on the streets and the reintroduction of gang units in New York. I would also add the second place finisher in New York also wanted to be smart about policing and not -- was not for defunding the police. 

I think the most important voice in policing over the last 40 years, 50 years has been Bill Bratton. He has got a great book out. It's a good read called "The Profession," if you have got a few hours on your hands. But he talks about ways in which you not only professionalize even more the vocation of being a police officer, but you take on bad elements in police departments, and you reach out to communities and you give cops the funding and the resources and the tools they need. 

I would add, Bill McGurn, my buddy, I think bad people use these guns, and bad people are also flooding some of these communities where kids can't get fresh fruit, a good education, let alone a doctor's visit, but somehow are able to find firearms. We can figure out how to take the bad guys on all the way around. 

BREAM: Let me get Mollie in here for the quick final word. 

HEMINGWAY: Just we have for the last year experimented with defunding the police, which is something that is happening in a lot of Democratic cities. 

We have had district attorneys who are not prosecuting crimes. We have also been letting a lot of people out who have been convicted of crimes. And this is not rocket science. We know why we have an increase in crime. We also know what it takes to fix it. It does require policing, and particularly policing in those neighborhoods where crime is a particular problem. 

It seems like Democrats want to move the conversation into guns. They have some big plans to restrict Second Amendment rights, and they are trying to put in people who want to do that, that and federal law enforcement. That's not the answer. The answer is to move away from some of these really disastrous policies they put forward. 

BREAM: All right, panel, stick around, because when we come back, we are going to get your predictions for tomorrow's headlines. 

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BREAM: Finally tonight, a look at tomorrow's headlines. We will kick it off with Bill. 

MCGURN: The short headline is Joe Biden strengthens U.S. dependency on OPEC. He does this by pleading with OPEC to expand production of oil because at home he is trying to constrict it. And the reason he wants more supply from OPEC is because gas prices are rising at home and he is worried about the political backlash. 

BREAM: Mollie, your prediction? 

HEMINGWAY: Yes, Michael Avenatti is set to embark on a new career. He was known for manufacturing hoaxes such as the lies he told about Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, and now he's going to be manufacturing license plates in a federal penitentiary. 

BREAM: Ouch. Harold, you wrap us up tonight. 

FORD: Mine is a headline for tomorrow, I think. Bucks-Suns, NBA tied one- one. And the winner of the National Spelling Bee finals wins by spelling the last name of the Buck's super star who goes by the nickname the Greek Freak. Hint his first name is Giannis. 

(LAUGHTER)

BREAM: All right, panel, thank you so much. 

And thanks for watching SPECIAL REPORT. I'm Shannon Bream. Please join me for FOX NEWS AT NIGHT at midnight eastern, 9:00 Pacific. We've got brand new reporting on Hunter Biden's artwork sales and some ethics questions about that. 

But FOX NEWS PRIMETIME is first, hosted by Mark Steyn, the one and only, and he starts right now. Hey, Mark.

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