'The Ingraham Angle' on Biden's career leading up to crisis in Afghanistan

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Ingraham: Meet Joe Biden

Laura says Biden’s incompetence has never been a secret on 'The Ingraham Angle'

This is a rush transcript from "The Ingraham Angle," August 18, 2021. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

LAURA INGRAHAM, HOST: I'm Laura Ingraham. This is THE INGRAHAM ANGLE. A shocking and dangerous dynamic is at play in Washington tonight.

With the Afghanistan debacle unfolding, it's now obvious that we have no one in our government competent enough to manage the situation and answer simple questions. In fact, what I'm finding is that more Joe Biden speaks on this, the less reassured we are. And his top Pentagon brass are no better. They continue to dazzle us with ineptitude. From COVID to Kabul, we will hit all angles tonight.

But first, Meet Joe Biden. That's the focus of tonight's ANGLE.

President Biden may sit in the Oval Office today, but it's worth remembering that for most of his political career, he's been an unserious laughingstock. Up until 2020, his own party never took him seriously as a potential presidential candidate. His first failed presidential bid was in the 1988 election. But he only ended up providing fodder for Johnny Carson back then.

And when Biden tried running again in 2008, he was almost totally ignored. In fact, his most memorable moment was insulting the man who would eventually win the Democrat nomination.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: You've got the first sort of mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean looking guy. That's a storybook.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: In 2016, the Democrat Party never seriously considered giving Biden the nomination. And that's despite the fact that, of course, he had been Obama's VP for last only eight years. They knew he was not up to the task. The party and the media wanted Hillary. So they made sure everyone remembered creepy Uncle Joe.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CAROL COSTELLO, FORMER CNN HOST: When the Vice President Joe Biden squeezed the shoulders of Carter's wife Stephanie and later seemingly whispered into her ear. The hashtag Biden pickup line soon made the rounds on Twitter.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Biden's latest gaffes are stealing the spotlight away from speculation about his presidential aspirations. On late night TV, Biden has become a punch line.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: Wow. And Biden only nabbed the 2020 nom because Obama was term limited and Hillary, by that point, disgraced. Plus, the field of candidates was utterly abysmal. The fact is Biden is really a third stringer, always has been. He's the type of guy you trot out for fundraisers or speeches to the local union hall, not the person you actually put in charge at the White House.

In this week, on two occasions, when he addressed the nation, he looked like a president in retreat, literally running away from the podium. Now, see what you want about Trump, but no one ever doubted for a second that he was in charge and in control of any situation.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, FORMER PRESIDENT OF UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: I spoke on numerous occasions to the head of the Taliban. I told him up front, I said, Look, before we start, let me just tell you right now that if anything bad happens to Americans, or anybody else, or if you ever come over to our land, we will hit you with a force that no country has ever been hit with before.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: He actually had a plan for an orderly withdrawal of personnel and allies from Afghanistan, which, of course, Biden promptly tore up and threw in the trash can. But now thousands of Americans are stranded with no clear way of safely getting to the Kabul airport. And they're at the mercy of the Taliban.

Of course, old Joe though he wants you to believe this whole mess was completely unavoidable.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS, ABC NEWS HOST: You don't think this could have been handled, this actually could have been handled better in any way? No mistakes?

BIDEN: No. I don't think it could have been handled in a way that - we are going to go back in hindsight and look, but the idea that somehow there's a way to have gotten out without chaos on suing, I don't know how that happens.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: He doesn't know how that - well, isn't he supposed to know something? The most experienced foreign policy president ever. Wasn't that how they sold them to us? But the man is obviously just not in charge. He's out to lunch, or ice cream, or whatever he does.

If Biden knows nothing, he at least should have a chairman of the Joint Chiefs who can fill in the blanks. But no.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GENERAL MARK MILLEY, CHAIRMAN OF THE JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF: The timeframe of a rapid collapse that was widely estimated and ranged from weeks to months and even years following our departure. There was nothing that I or anyone else saw that indicated a collapse of this army in this government in 11 days.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: That is just total bunk. Any astute civilian following the war knew that the Afghan army was rife with corruption and weak on performance. But when you press Milley on how all of this happened, most sophisticated military thinkers, national security thinkers in the world how this happened, he just gets annoyed.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MILLEY: I'd prefer not to discuss any operations other than what we're doing right now. It'll be another time when we can discuss future operations. But I'm not going to discuss branches and sequels off of our current operation. I'll just leave it at that. There will be many postmortems on this topic. But right now is not that time.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: Oh, yes, it is. A month ago, General Milley was droning on about white rage and now he's the one who looks angry and irritated. How do men like this become generals? Or maybe the problem is this is exactly how people become generals. But at least Milley will always have Jimmy.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: This is not a mission they wanted. They're doing their best with a difficult mission handed to them by the miscalculation of civilian leaders.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: Well, and if Milley gave you the willies, Austin seemed lost in the moment.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you have the capability to go out and collect Americans?

LLOYD AUSTIN, SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: We don't have the capability to go out and collect up large numbers of people.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: Now, I know but I can't do that either. In other words, to the Americans in harm's way, no promises, better call Uber. For the first few months, I think Washington and the rest of the world, they were willing to give Biden's people a chance. But that's over now.

And now some of the media which has been team Biden's only real base of support for the last year, even the media, they're starting to turn on him.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: The execution clearly was not what even the president only a few weeks earlier had anticipated. He said exactly the opposite would occur. Does this all raise serious questions about President Biden's credibility right now? Imagine if this was all happening under a Trump presidency, just how different would the reaction from Democrats be?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: The Press may be surprised, but we are not. The incompetence on display for the world to see is exactly what we expected from Biden, who's been bumbling his way across Washington for pretty much five decades now.

The stakes here are very high. And unfortunately, the guy the democrats nominated is the one person who couldn't function as a real president. He's just an old guy who comes out from time to time and read statements that other people have to write for him.

In terms of domestic policy, the real power will flow to the Hill to Schumer, Pelosi, AOC and their donors. In terms of foreign policy, real power will simply leave the United States altogether. The major players will be the European Union and the CCP. And Biden's people will be told to go along whatever decisions the grownups make. And that's THE ANGLE.

Joining me now is retired Army Colonel Doug Macgregor, senior fellow at the American Conservative. Colonel, what's your reaction when you hear top generals like Milley say, there was no Intel that would indicate that Afghanistan would fall so fast?

DOUGLAS MACGREGOR, RETIRED ARMY COLONEL: Well, it's complete and utter nonsense. Anybody who spent any time on the ground in Afghanistan will tell you that more than half the soldiers are illiterate. As you pointed out earlier, they swim in a sea of corruption. The notion that this army was going to hold up for any length of time without a significant American military presence on the ground, and a significant American military presence in the year is ludicrous nonsense. He's not telling the truth.

INGRAHAM: Colonel Macgregor, I heard today from someone who is enroute to Doha that they're not even really sure there were really in the end 300,000 Afghan soldiers. And I'm sure you've heard the same thing that a lot of that money left the country a long time ago, and that that money was shelled out by the Americans to fund this. And we don't even have a good handle on where those billions of dollars went. Are you concerned about that?

MACGREGOR: Well, at this point, it's academic, unfortunately. We never had more than 60,000 Afghan troops on the ground on any given day in the place for the reasons that you've already cited. The tragedy here is that much of this strategic withdrawal could have gone very differently.

We actually know how to conduct strategic withdrawals, you put a covering force in with superior firepower, you have forces on the ground that are there to protect American citizens until they're out. And no one leaves on the military side until all the citizens have been evacuated. And you have mobile forces, helicopter born infantry, air mobile infantry. You also should have some armor on the ground to make approaching the airfields impossible.

We know how to do these things. We know how to pre position aircraft and logistics and medical support. None of this was done. And these are things that we teach, Laura, in the staff colleges. What are these people doing? What is Milley being doing? What's the Secretary of Defense doing? What is General McKenzie, the CENTCOM commander done?

INGRAHAM: Well, Colonel Macgregor, we do know earlier this year, a lot of their time had been spent on the stand down, the stand down of our forces to examine potential U.S. extremism within the ranks after January 6. So they were focusing on a threat to America. But their focus is on any Trump supporters or people who are a little questionable on the politics, it seems, and not - didn't have their eye on the prize of how the hell we're going to get out of Afghanistan.

MACGREGOR: Well, we have the most expensive military establishment in the world. And the American people are getting a glimpse of it right now and it's not good. I don't think this force is ready to do much of anything. And unfortunately, the corruption and the rot runs very deep.

You remove McKenzie, remove Milley, there are 20 more versions of those people standing in line waiting to take over. These are political lap dogs, who've cultivated political friends to reach four stars in order to enrich themselves in retirement. These people are a disaster. This is the tip of the iceberg. And Americans need to understand that because it's going to get worse from here.

INGRAHAM: A friend of mine who is retired military today said, Do Americans realize we haven't won a war outright for 70, what, 75 years, 77 years? And that's--

MACGREGOR: Yes. And it's not the fault of the soldiers, sailors, airmen or Marines.

INGRAHAM: No, they are amazing.

MACGREGOR: The people who lead and run the place are the problem.

INGRAHAM: A BBC journalist, Colonel, reported today that the Afghan ambassador in Tajikistan says that Afghanistan's so-called president Ashraf Ghani that he actually escaped the country with 169 million U.S. dollars in bags when Kabul was falling. My wait on a verification of this, but I mean, given what we saw with the cash leaving Iraq, the wheelbarrows full of cash just wasted in Iraq, I guess no one would be surprised.

MACGREGOR: Well, these are the wonderful people that General Petraeus and General Dempsey and General Allen and General Mattis, you know, ranks of senior officers, four stars, have been telling us are wonderful, are doing a brilliant job. Yes, they've done a brilliant job. They've taken us to the cleaners, and the American people lost trillions of dollars.

The bad news, Laura, is that I doubt seriously that anyone will be held accountable. And we need to remember where there is no accountability, there is also no performance. And what you're seeing today, no performance.

INGRAHAM: And the sad thing is when you meet these young men and women in our military academies, a friend of my son just graduated OCS at Quantico last weekend. And these are just amazing young men and women. They deserve, they deserve better than this, do they not?

MACGREGOR: Oh, absolutely. The people that are general officers right now overwhelmingly are unworthy of the soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines that they command. Let's be honest.

INGRAHAM: Colonel Macgregor, fantastic conversation with you tonight. Thank you.

And it's frightening as today's briefing with Secretary Austin and General Milley was there's only a taste of this administration's ranking confidence. In fact, Fox News can just now report that a few weeks ago, the Biden State Department dissolved its Contingency and Crisis Response Bureau.

So as the Talibans are gaining ground, Biden's team of incompetence killed the Trump era program to oversee the evacuation of Americans from crisis zones around the world. Now, it's just one more reason why my next guest is demanding Biden's entire national security team resigned. House Foreign Affairs Committee member, Andy Barr joins me now.

Congressman, you heard Colonel Macgregor. He said if you replace guys like Milley and Austin, there are lines and lines of others just like them ready to take their place. What's the solution here?

REP. ANDY BARR (R-KY): Well, look, the Biden administration's national security team is a debacle, botched withdrawal from Afghanistan, I think will go down as one of the most embarrassing, disastrous and predictable foreign policy blunders of our lifetime. And it's embarrassing, because it's a slap in the face to the brave men and women who protected our homeland, deployed overseas in Afghanistan for the last 20 years. It's telling that there are going to be more boots on the ground in Afghanistan now than when the Biden administration took office in January.

And then it's disastrous because it's made the American people less safe. What we saw and witnessed over the weekend was the largest jailbreak of hardened terrorists in the entire war on terror when Bagram was overrun by the Taliban and all those prisoners were released.

And then finally, it was predictable because of the national security team, they had the intelligence. Congress and especially members on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, we were briefed by the Biden administration itself. And early in the summer, we knew, we were told that it was not only likely but probable that this outcome--

INGRAHAM: Wait, wait, wait, congressman, ok. You just said something that is in direct contradiction to what Milley said today. He said, well, there was a wild estimates, but no one, basically no one was thinking it was going to happen that fast. That's not true.

BARR: Well, no, it's not true. And common sense suggests so. The President Biden, obviously, is blaming everyone. He's blaming President Trump, he's blaming the Afghan National Army, he's blaming the intelligence community. But the intelligence community was briefing members of Congress on a bipartisan basis of the problems that were materializing as a result of this hasty retreat and unplanned retreat.

And members of both parties in these briefings were asking not if the Taliban was going to take control of Kabul and take control of the country. But what was the administration's response when they did it? Democrats were asking and Republicans were asking about what was going to happen to the women and the girls. We were warning about vacating and evacuating Bagram before we could extricate all of the U.S. military and civilian personnel. And what were we going to do about the Special Immigrant Visas for the Afghans?

Those were the questions that members of Congress were asking because that was in reaction to the briefings we were receiving that made it very clear, well into the summer, but even early in the summer, that this was going to be a total disaster.

INGRAHAM: I mean, it's just - like it's a slow moving car crash, but it's like times a million or more. General Milley revealed, by the way, today, Congressman who's really in charge of evacuating the Americans.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MILLEY: State Department, as you know, is working with the Taliban to facilitate safe passage of American citizens, U.S. passport holders to the airport. And that's the primary means.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: Taliban is - we are relying on the good graces of the Taliban. Either they've cut some deal with the Taliban we don't know about and Lord knows what we paid for that. Or we're making a really another disastrous calculation here.

BARR: Not just incompetence, Laura, but how humiliating it is to hear our national security leaders saying that we're relying on the Taliban. You know, I think the problem is that these so-called leaders are most more focused on reengineering the military to be a woke organization dedicated to diversity quotas and climate change, and teaching critical race theory as opposed to doing what the military and the national security apparatus should be focused on. And that is a successful drawdown from Afghanistan and winning wars. And clearly this administration has forgotten that basic mission of national security.

INGRAHAM: Congressman, we need a major reform of the U.S. military. And I mean, most of the most of the top brass has to be fired. I mean, you call for their resignation on the national security side. But most of these top military - I mean, this has to be, there has to be accountability here. Number one, has to be accountability.

BARR: Absolutely.

INGRAHAM: Congressman, thank you.

Now, why is the U.S. so gung ho on mass migration from Afghanistan when Europe is saying no? Well, she was an advocate for refugees for years, but after witnessing the crime wave sparked by Afghan migrants, she has a warning for us tonight. Stay there.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

INGRAHAM: We've only just started to resettle the thousands of Afghans who are qualifying for special visas. But already Democrats want to open the floodgates to many, many more.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. BARBARA LEE (D-CA): We must lift the refugee camp. We are going to have to have a cap that allows for more refugees to come into the United States. We cannot abandon these individuals and we have to make sure that they all are transported out of Afghanistan, because it is a very dangerous situation.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: Now, these politicians know anything about what they could be actually inviting in along with good people? Well, my next guest says that Europe's experience with refugees, especially Afghans should give Americans pause here. Just a few years ago as a refugee advocate, she watched a horrible crime wave devastate Europe and now she fears the same thing could happen here.

Joining me now is Cheryl Benard, scholar, Director of the Metis Analytics and author of civil democratic Islam. Cheryl, tell us what we need to know about Europe's experience with Afghan refugees, who began to be settled some years ago. Tell us.

CHERYL BENARD, METIS ANALYTICS DIRECTOR: So this was the wave, if you remember that started in 2014, and the definition of that wave was actually that they were expecting Syrian refugees from that conflict. But then instead, what happened was that a huge wave of refugees from a number of other countries, including places in Africa, but also principally from Pakistan and a large number from Afghanistan, kind of mixed in with that collection of refugees who were moving towards Europe, and was able to cross the borders in a situation that was very chaotic.

And the consequence was, because these turned out to be, first of all, not Syrians, the Germans were kind of expecting that these were going to be Syrian families. There was this stereotype of the Syrian doctor who was going to come and establish himself, remember, in Germany, and was going to be something.

INGRAHAM: But who was in this big group of refugees? I know, and, in particular, my friends in Sweden, who are basically they're socialists. But they've become very anti refugee. Sadly, because of the crime that's - it's impossibly bad in Sweden with the crime rate.

BENARD: Yes. Well, they were young, they were, in fact, young men. Let's talk about the Afghans because they represented a large chunk of that. They were in their 20s and 30s and they came alone without any families or women accompanying them. They often came from rural areas. And the cultural shock for them of life in Europe, the freedoms, the status of women, these things just completely knocked them into a trauma that caused them to join criminal gangs to gang together.

INGRAHAM: Now, what about the vetting though, Cheryl? What about the vetting of these refugees?

BENARD: Well, there was no vetting. Because it happened so quickly.

INGRAHAM: Do you think there's going to be vetting here? I mean, there's chaos at the airport. People are showing pieces of paper and I worked for this contractor and I did. I mean, if you bring them in?

BENARD: So I think there's a different problem in Europe as there is here. And if you - there's some, there's an important difference that has somehow gotten totally lost. And that if we don't recapture it, I think we're going to have enormous trouble. And that is, when I worked in the refugee topic, it was perfectly clear legally, administratively in every way, that there were two different categories. There were refugees and there were migrants. And that is still the case legally, but somehow the two categories have gotten totally conflated. And that is what's causing a lot of this problem.

A refugee was somebody who could not stay in their place of residence, because it wasn't safe for a variety of reasons, could be war, could be drought, could be famine. What they were then relocated as close to their home as possible, temporarily, with the goal being to return them to their home as soon as that was possible.

Somehow, though, a migrant, yes, the definition of a migrant was somebody who the country of immigration wanted or needed. Like they said, we need a person - we know we need electricians, or we need workers, or we need whatever it is, and so we're going to bring in a certain demographic, we're going to have resource for them. Now, every refugee thinks that--

INGRAHAM: So you are basically saying everyone. Everyone's a - everyone qualifies.

BENARD: Now everyone is migrant. But why? It's a terrible idea. These young men, they weren't happy, either. I mean, they ended up in jail, they ended up in gangs, they ended up addicted to drugs, that wasn't a happy outcome for them either or for their families.

INGRAHAM: Well, I should remind--

BENARD: It would be far better how they stayed in their region and been repatriated after a certain amount of time.

INGRAHAM: And that's - that seems to be what you believe should be happening here that most of the refugees should be housed at least temporarily in places like the UAE or Egypt or nearby where the culturally more in tune with the local population?

BENARD: So in Europe, you had a demographic that was uneducated young males from rural areas. The demographic of Afghans that's now poised to come to the U.S. is different and it has a different set of problems. There the set of problems is that we - by creating this panic that you were describing earlier, sent evacuating the U.S. Embassy as if the sky was falling, sending in thousands of additional troops.

We sent the message that it's - the situation is about to completely collapse. There's going to be blood flowing through the streets and everybody has to get out right away. Combined with messages on TikTok that all you have to do was get to the airport. You didn't need paperwork, you didn't need anything.

INGRAHAM: It's a disaster.

BENARD: You were going to flown to the U.S. or Canada or France.

INGRAHAM: It's a complete, complete disaster. Europe's experience --

BENARD: That was a disaster. That was a disaster.

INGRAHAM: Europe's experience --

BENARD: Think about it. Our investment of 20 years. $2 trillion, is not only lost in terms of the military, because the results of that investment was. They didn't even fight for their country for one day. They collapsed and ran away as you stated earlier.

INGRAHAM: A disaster all the way around.

BENARD: But we're also now emptying out civil society. We spent 20 years educating people --

INGRAHAM: Building it and then siphoning it off. All right, Cheryl, we have to go, but fascinating. We'll have you back. This is obviously going to be an ongoing issue.

And based on Europe's troubling experience, should we demand answers now about how the vetting of these refugees, which may be migrants in some cases would be done? So the drawdown was announced. The Center for Immigration Studies since then was monitoring a number of bills that would speed up the resettlement process to the detriment of our safety. Some being considered would mean that applicants no longer have to show that they perform sensitive and trusted work to qualify, would no longer have to show that they're at risk if they stay in Afghanistan, either. The number of visas available would nearly double, and the need for applicants to have a medical screening for contagious diseases for entry would be eliminated.

Here now is Art Arthur, resident fellow of Law and Policy at the Center for Immigration Studies. Art, you feel it, right, that all of the rules are going to be thrown out the window and the floodgates are going to be open here.

ART ARTHUR, CENTER FOR IMMIGRATION STUDIES: Absolutely, Laura. There's a huge impetus for that right now. It's crucial to note that when it comes to vetting, first you have to identify the person. Then you have to have access to some records that will tell you something about that person. When President Trump put in his travel restrictions, wrongly derided as the Muslim ban, the reason for those travel restrictions was because we couldn't identify people. We couldn't get access to documents, and some of those governments were hostile.

Now we're in a situation where we have an Afghan government that is hostile to the United States, that's not going to give us information about the people who are coming here, and our ability to identify many of those people, particularly the ones who didn't work directly with the United States government, is going to be next to impossible. We're not going to know whether they have criminal records. We're not going to know whether they have terrorist ties. We're not really going to know anything about them at all. And yet there is a huge push to bring large numbers of them into the United States, and that's a big problem. That's a national security problem and a criminal problem.

INGRAHAM: I saw someone, I think it was on Facebook, making an interesting point that in 9-11 you had all of these loopholes, or gaping holes in our system that were exploited by the Saudi hijackers. They knew if they go to a school they could or they could switch their visa or overstay their visa. And there is some concern that, look, there are going to be vulnerabilities here. At the very least there is going to be an opportunity to game the system here. And who wants to game the system more but people who want to do us harm? And if people think that's not a contingency, you don't need to make a contingency plan for that either?

ARTHUR: That was the major finding of the 9-11 Commission Report, that there were loopholes, that they were identified by people who wanted to do us harm, and they were exploited. I'm concerned that the same thing is going to happen here. We remember a few years ago Ms. Merkel talked about individuals who were infiltrating the streams of migrants to Germany. The same thing could very easily happen here. In fact, quite frankly and unfortunately, I think it is probably likely to happen here. And we're not going to know about it until it's too late. That's why proper vetting of these individuals for national security risks is absolutely crucial.

INGRAHAM: Art, Belgium, Germany, Sweden, six E.U. countries have been asking to be able to resume deportation of Afghan migrants before this whole thing went down. And I think some of them still want to send these people back, but I guess the E.U. Commission on Human Rights says you can't do it. It's too dangerous, obviously, now. But they've been trying to deport as many people as they can as quickly as they can. But we are not listening.

Art, thank you. We have got to roll.

ARTHUR: Thank you.

INGRAHAM: But thank you, we'll have you back soon.

And who has a better communication strategy, the Biden administration or the Taliban? What? Raymond Arroyo has it, "Seen and Unseen" is next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

INGRAHAM: It's time for our "Seen and Unseen" segment where we expose the big cultural stories of the day. And joining us with all the details, Raymond Arroyo, FOX News contributor. Ray, the Taliban has been doing quite the media blitz.

RAYMOND ARROYO, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: You could call it the legitimization tour, Laura. And the cable networks are delighted to welcome them. When Taliban spokesman Suhail Shaheen shows up, he is treated like Henry Kissinger.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The Afghan ambassador said the Taliban is carrying out mass executions. What is your response to these allegations you're your forces are committing these atrocities?

SUHAIL SHAHEEN, TALIBAN SPOKESPERSON: These allegations are totally baseless, totally wrong. They are propaganda spread by our opponents in order to sway the opinion of the world against us. If someone goes from door to door and they posing as Taliban, they are not Taliban.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Will you allowing elections to happen in Afghanistan? Will you allow women to participate in politics? It seems that we may have lost our connection there with Suhail.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ARROYO: I think he lost the connection when he started, Laura. Again, this is reporters with blinders on. The Taliban is a mob of fighters fueled by a narrow religious ideology that simply regards women as less than men, at times less than human. It's a deeply held conviction, and under their rule, women in Afghanistan are going to be forced to wear the burqa and subjected to this authoritarianism. Welcome to Sharia law. I resent the way we cover this because the viewer has no context. And if you don't understand it's a religious, civil conflict you don't understand it.

INGRAHAM: Raymond, that same Taliban spokesman sat with a female anchor, though, in an attempt to, I guess, portray a more moderate face.

ARROYO: Yes. He claimed during that the rights of women would be respected within the framework of Islam.

INGRAHAM: That's accurate.

ARROYO: What does that mean? It means they won't be respected.

INGRAHAM: His framework.

ARROYO: And as the networks fall, Laura, for this softer, gentler Taliban, Suhail Shaheen is blasting out propaganda on Twitter. He is saying the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan is going to be protecting personal property, that it considers the protection of lives in the nation's primary responsibility, et cetera. But the problem with all of this is, while they boot Trump off of social media, they are protecting the Taliban. I thought these social media platforms were here to protect us from misinformation. Despite all of the tolerance for Taliban, our group of bad boys over at CNN, Laura, they won't abide this kind of double talk. If you don't wear a mask, they're going to bust you up.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DON LEMON, CNN HOST, "DON LEMON TONIGHT": I saw this guy, this video of this guy going after this woman on a train, saying take off your mask on the subway.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Yes, I believe in freedom.

LEMON: I believe in freedom. She is free to put on her face whatever the hell she wants.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: I know. I can't believe in a New York City subway that that guy didn't get tuned up, by the way.

(LAUGHTER)

CUOMO: I'm glad he didn't. I know that wouldn't be the best of us. But I've got to tell you --

LEMON: He might have if I had been on there. I'm not kidding.

CUOMO: I was getting ready for the Tobe Nwigwe song "Try Jesus." You ever hear that song?

LEMON: Try Jesus, don't try me.

CUOMO: Because I throw hands.

LEMON: I throw hands. But as I always say, play lotto, don't play me.

(LAUGHTER)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ARROYO: And you thought the Cuomo bros were bad, Laura. Don Lemon could not tune-up a Buick, much less a man on the subway. Give me a break.

INGRAHAM: But Chris Cuomo's dance moves, he does have some moves, so he could turn that into a little punch. It was a nice little move he had I thought was --

ARROYO: He has got some moves all right. Remember, Laura, what is worse -- a guy taking a mask off on a subway, or a guy who knows he has COVID biking all over the neighborhood, and when a biker comes up to him and says wait a minute, you can't be out here, you have COVID, he reacted this way.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: I don't want some jack -- loser, fat tire biker to be able to pull over and get in my face and in my space and talk -- to me. I don't want to hear it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ARROYO: So I guess using this math, it's OK -- I guess somebody should tune-up Chris Cuomo. He exposed people to COVID, didn't just take a mask off.

INGRAHAM: Raymond, still, my favorite performance over the last few years was when he crawled up his stairs proclaiming himself to be free, still sweaty. Am I feverish? When he recovered from COVID, remember. And it turns out he was already out and about earlier in the day.

ARROYO: I remember. Reality television comes in many forms.

INGRAHAM: Exactly. Raymond, thank you. And tomorrow Raymond is going to join us with a report from New Orleans on how those new vaccine mandates there are threatening businesses. So Raymond, we'll see you tomorrow on the road.

ARROYO: You bet.

INGRAHAM: And Dr. Fauci was schilling for vaccine booster shots today, but of course he's totally ignoring actual science. We're going to explain it in moments.

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DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, WHITE HOUSE CHIEF MEDICAL ADVISER: The current immunological data that indicate that antibodies levels decline over time, all of this support the use of a third booster MRNA immunization to increase the overall level of protection.

Not to downplay the ultimately potential importance of T cells. But if you look at the relationship between antibody titer and vaccine efficacy, it looks pretty good.

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INGRAHAM: Is that the scientific way of saying it? Not to downplay the important of T cells, is that what he said? That's exactly what he's doing, throwing it off like that. He sounds completely ignorant about natural and acquired immunity.

Joining me now, Dr. Byram Bridle. He's the associate professor of viral immunology at the University of Guelph, and he also received a grant early on in the pandemic to do research on the COVID vaccine. Dr. Bridle, you've made a lot of waves on this show in your appearances, but I need you to react to this comment by Fauci kind of dismissing or cavalierly referencing the T or B cell memory immunity. Do we need these never ending booster shots, sir.

DR. BYRAM BRIDLE, UNIVERSITY OF GUELPH PROFESSOR: Yes, the comment about the T cells. From the get-go, T cells have been downplayed with these vaccines, and the emphasis has been on antibodies. And this is frustrating as an immunologist. In fact, when we naturally respond to viruses, our T cells responses typically are actually a relatively low to moderate magnitude, not very high magnitude. In fact, our antibody response is most effective against what we call extracellular pathogens like most bacteria which live outside of our cells.

Viruses, which infect our cells where antibodies can't get at them, therefore the effector that our immune system relies on more heavily are the T cells. With that said, we do have good neutralizing antibodies can block the virus and prevent it from getting into a cell. And that certainly is ideal. But you want a balanced response that includes T cells as well.

And in terms of this waning immunity, this is very frustrating. This is a concern that I've been expressing for over a year, starting when I was asked about what is the typical timeline for development of vaccines? I'll tell you, when I teach immunology, one of the things I do with my students, and when I teach them about vaccinology in particular, I put up a table of vaccines, and I highlight for them examples of how quality vaccines and what I would call poor quality vaccines. And I'll tell you, a vaccine where the immunity wanes after six months, that is a very poor quality vaccine. This is not an ideal product.

INGRAHAM: And you made the point previously, but it's worth revisiting, and we heard it again today, that this is a pandemic, President Biden said, of the unvaccinated. It's a pandemic of the unvaccinated. He kept saying that today. Is that accurate in your estimation?

BRIDLE: No, no. Absolutely not. That's definitely not. I know that one of the messages that's going hand in hand with this is that it's the unvaccinated that are driving the emergence of potential dangerous new variants. In fact, it's the reverse. There are solid scientific principles that would suggest that. And in fact the concern is -- so notably, if we look at data emerging from Israel, because Israel is ahead of the world in the use of a lot of these vaccines, remarkably, in the context of the Delta variant, the efficacy of the Pfizer vaccine has dropped below 50 percent. And if you recall, the promise to us was that these vaccines would not receive approval for emergency use unless they were more than 50 percent effective.

So these vaccines in the context of the Delta variant have dropped below the expected level of protection. This suggests remarkably in only eight months, these vaccines are already out of date. And that's one of the questions that I have, whether it's actually due to waning immunity, which it very well could be, or another potential issue is it does seem like the Delta variant has achieved some immuno-evasive potential as well. So I suspect that maybe both of those factors are at play here, but regardless of what the exact mechanisms are, this vaccine is out of date

INGRAHAM: Dr. Bridle, only going to hear this on this show tonight. Thank you for joining us. We'll you have back soon. Obviously, this is just apparently never going to end. Masks forever as well, until we have a new president.

Justin Trudeau and the insanity of the modern left. The Last Bite is next. You don't want to miss it.

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INGRAHAM: if you thought the American left was insufferable, I give you Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau.

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JUSTIN TRUDEAU, CANADIAN PRIME MINISTER: It is exactly the example of the kinds of things you need to do to counter the she-session and turn it into a she-covery.

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INGRAHAM: Oh, my God. Has he checked his estrogen levels?

That's all the time we have tonight. Do not forget, set your DVR every weeknight, 10:00 p.m. You don't want to miss the show. Greg Gutfeld takes it all from here.

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