Trey Gowdy predicts US will 'be drawn back into conflict' in Afghanistan

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Trey Gowdy predicts US will 'be drawn back into conflict' in Afghanistan

'Special Report' panel discuss how the US should handle Afghan interpreters left behind as troops head home

This is a rush transcript from "Special Report," May 6, 2021. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LLOYD AUSTIN, DEFENSE SECRETARY: We're hopeful that the Afghan security forces will play the major role in stoppings the Taliban. And I know what we're seeing unfold is what we expected to unfold increase pressure.

ABDULLAH ABDULLAH, NATIONAL RECONCILIATION HIGH COUNCIL: They're challenges will be huge. I wouldn't call it the end of the world for our people. I would say that it will be very challenging, and that's why I am of the opinion that the whole focus has to be on achieving piece. But this doesn't only take us. It takes the other side.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BAIER: Talking about Afghanistan there, the press conference today with the defense secretary and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, the first since the inauguration, spending a lot of time about troops coming home and the concerns about that.

Let's bring in our panel, Katie Pavlich, news editor at Townhall.com, Amy Walter, national editor for the "Cook Political Report," and Trey Gowdy, former Congressman from South Carolina. Amy, the political impetus for this is now solidified. You had a Republican president pushing for this, a Democratic president doing it, and the population in the U.S. is for it. But there are concerns.

AMY WALTER, NATIONAL EDITOR, "COOK POLITICAL REPORT": Well, absolutely. It's been pretty clear in the last few days about just how challenging it's going to be for the Afghan security forces on their own to hold back the Taliban. The attacks have increased from the Taliban on Afghan forces, and we expect that that is going to continue.

The real question, though, is whether this is going to be a launching pad for terrorism, as many are afraid, or whether the threat for that is under control and that the focus instead should be looking for signs of potential terrorist threats in other parts of the world or the other threats that we are seeing to the U.S. from other parts of the world.

BAIER: Trey, Congressman Mike Waltz from Florida, a Green Beret, in Congress made a good point in Lucas's piece earlier about the Afghanistan military bases there being on the western flank of China and the southern flank of Russia and the eastern flank of Iran, and they won't be there in case those places are in need or we need to respond to something in one of those countries.

TREY GOWDY, FORMER SOUTH CAROLINA REPRESENTATIVE: Yes, Bret. I think the congressman was talking hypothetically if there is a conflict over Taiwan. Look, reasonable minds differ on this. It's a complicated issue. But Bret, it's been a long war, but, unfortunately the war is not over. I get that there are people who are tired of fighting it, but it is not over, and it won't be over in our lifetime. I can tell you having served on the Intelligence Committee, I have no doubt that the United States will be able to gather intelligence even if we withdraw. But I do have doubts on whether or not we will be able to act on it. The general referred to an over the horizon force. That's great, but it's not as good as an around the corner force. I think we are going to be drug back in to conflict. The question is, how quick can we get there?

BAIER: We did the story yesterday, Katie, Jennifer Griffin, did about Afghan interpreters who had been working with U.S. troops on the ground, almost 17,000 of them. Today following up on that, a question to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEN. MARK MILLEY, CHAIRMAN, JOINT CHIEFS: Interpreters and others that have worked closely with the U.S. government, the intent within State Department and elite is to make sure that it's really a moral imperative that we take care of those that have worked closely with us if their lives are in danger, et cetera. But I would also caution folks on some speculation here. It's a bit early what the outcome is going to be.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BAIER: Yes, and this is to bring them to the U.S. or get them out of Afghanistan, but they are going to wait and see how the Afghan forces do.

KATIE PAVLICH, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: Well, yes. And the big question for the interpreters is whether they will be able to survive in the time period between the U.S. leaving and the Afghan government taking over and beating back the Taliban, because their lives are in danger because they, essentially, worked with what the Taliban thinks is the enemy and they were disloyal to their country and their tribes in doing that.

But unfortunately, the interpreter backlog in the United States for interpreters who served in Afghanistan even 10 years ago or at the beginning of the war, 20 years ago at this point, is years long, unfortunately. So, I think that moral imperative is absolutely there, but whether the United States can follow through on that, because it's not just interpreters who worked with U.S. forces. They have to have been loyal interpreters, and, of course, there has to be vetting of all those people as well.

But in terms of the question about leaving Afghanistan, I think it's really important to point out that during the press conference today they made it very clear that although we are taking U.S. troops out of that country, we are still going to be paying, as American taxpayers, for Afghanistan. You talk to Secretary Bob Gates last night and he made that same point. He said when the Russians were propping up the Afghan government, they were successful. But as soon as the Soviet Union collapsed, the Taliban essentially gained a lot more control. So the United States taxpayer is still going to be in Afghanistan funding the Afghan government, and they are hoping that they can keep the Taliban at bay.

BAIER: Yes, that's always a big issue, too, when it gets to budget time about foreign aid and what that means and what the dollar amount should be. So this is one of those efforts.

The interesting thing, and I used to cover the Pentagon. And when the defense secretary and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs went out there, it was every day when we were back there in the middle much the Afghan and Iraq wars. But this was asked to the defense secretary, what is your top priority? Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LLOYD AUSTIN, DEFENSE SECRETARY: Our top priority is to defend this nation and to protect our interests. And today the most urgent challenge that we face is COVID-19. And so the department has stepped up to save American lives through vaccination.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BAIER: So, Amy, that's clearly a mandate that comes from the top in this White House.

WALTER: That is, yes. The priority right now is for irradicating the threat of COVID, but, obviously, in the next few months here as we get more and more people with their double vaccinations, the threat is going to lessen. That doesn't mean that other strains out there couldn't be problematic. But I think that the bottom line is the Biden administration has been very successful, at least voters see -- Americans see that he has been very successful, has high approval ratings on the issue of tackling the COVID crisis. And so keeping that front and center is certainly helpful.

BAIER: We're going to talk about that next. Stand by, panel.

Up next, the return of congressional earmarks, and we'll talk a little bit about COVID as well. Stand by.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CAITLYN JENNER, (R) CALIFORNIA GUBERNATORIAL CANDIDATE: Some states have done very well. You mentioned Florida. We have done a terrible job. Disney World opened up nine months ago. Anaheim Disneyland opened up six days ago.

GOV. RON DESANTIS, (R) FLORIDA: We have been open, our schools have been open for in-person instruction. Our unemployment rate is significantly less than the national average, and much less than lockdown states like California and New York. The economy is performing well. People are happy, and, as you know, there are people moving here because they want a whiff of freedom.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BAIER: Caitlyn Jenner running for governor in California and the governor of Florida talking about how his state is stacking up on the COVID regulations. We're back with the panel. Katie, this is not a competition, but it is when you talk about the politics of how each state is doing.

PAVLICH: It is a competition, Bret, especially when it comes to business, and you look at the number of people that have left states like New York and California for other states that have been open more quickly than blue states have. And it's a matter of companies now moving their -- making the final decision to move their businesses out of these states permanently based on the way that they have handled the COVID crisis and these special interest groups that have been able to function or not based on whether they were politically connected. We saw that, of course, in California with the movie business being open while they were still shutting down caterers and restaurants that weren't allowed to be open. So it certainly is a political, but it's also a competition in terms of business and population as well we have seen with the census.

BAIER: We talked a little bit about this earlier in the week, but the camp guidelines for kids, the CDC. I just wanted to play the full extended thing from Dr. Fauci on that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Are these CDC guidelines excessive?

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, BIDEN CHIEF MEDICAL ADVISER: I wouldn't call them excessive, Savannah, but they certainly are conservative.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: People have been pushing for a year, follow the science.

FAUCI: Right.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The science doesn't suggest those CDC guidelines are too sensible, for little kids outside in 90-degree heat running around with masks.

FAUCI: The CDC makes decisions based on science. They will continually reevaluate that. You're right, it looks a bit strict, a bit stringent, but that's the reason why they keep looking at that and trying to reevaluate literally in real time whether or not that's the practical way to go.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BAIER: Trey, that reevaluation happening?

GOWDY: Yes, Bret, I think when all is said and done, one of the greatest casualties of this pandemic will be science. We used to view it as reliable, and now it's just another political tool. What other explanation exists for saying you can dance on this side of the street if you live in Virginia or Maryland, but if you live in the district you can't dance, mask versus not mask, in school learning versus virtual learning. Science is the casualty. It is no longer something we can all rely on. It has become just another political tool. That will be one of the great casualties of this pandemic.

BAIER: Amy, they may be dancing up on Capitol Hill. They got the earmarks back, and they are saying it's a good thing that congressman and women have to make their case for their personal projects. But it does start to add up when you put it all in the mix.

WALTER: Yes. Look, there is this issue about transparency, right? This is theoretically not going to get caught up in the scandals that we saw back in the early 2000s that led to the banning of earmarks, lobbyists, et cetera, digging in on these and the influence that they had.

At the same time, Bret, one of the benefits theoretically of earmarks was supposed to be that it was going to help Congress work better, because instead of just having sticks, party leadership now has carrots, right? Help us pass this bill and in it you are going to get some great stuff that you can bring back home to your district. Everybody loves to talk about what they're bringing home to their district.

But really what it looks like is an opportunity for everybody to just kind of get what they can, not to try to use these to try to build more bipartisanship. And so, look, ultimately, members of Congress doing everything they can to prove their worth to their own constituency, but I do think it's a matter of time before these sorts of stories make their way into campaign ads.

BAIER: Yes. Katie, in these massive numbers, $6.3 trillion, the little add- ups, I say little but $400,000 for a hiking trail or $6.4 million for a Gandhi museum, or whatever, the shrimp walking on the treadmill, it does add up. What do you think about this process?

PAVLICH: Well, it's interesting, because if you looked at the 2010 ban on earmarks, that was at the height of the Tea Party movement which came about precisely because they thought that the federal government and Barack Obama was spending too much money. Here we are now, and it's almost like the amount of spending that was going on back then is nothing compared to what we are seeing now.

And in terms of this new earmark process, it really turns into politicians using pet projects to gain campaign donations. We saw a lot of that before the earmarks were banned in 2010. So instead of having to argue for legislation and work together in a caucus or with your own party or across party lines, you are simply getting things done back in your district in return for lobbying or for checks to your campaign. And that turns into corruption pretty quickly, and the price tag at this point is beyond anything that the country can afford.

BAIER: Trey, the Republicans have a little bit of a challenge in that they're fighting all of this spending after not fighting it for four years under President Trump. Is that tougher?

GOWDY: Yes, Bret, I will let you in on a little secret. Earmarks almost came back my last term there with a Republican House and Republican Senate and a Republican in the White House. And the only reason they didn't come back is because GOP leadership pulled the vote. But that vote would have passed.

When you call it earmarks, everybody hates it. When you ask them would you rather Joe Biden spend money in your district or your local Republican congressman, I promise you Andy will tell you the polling is different. So earmarks, everybody hates them. Congressionally directed spending, I think the polling would be different.

Yes, Republicans have abandoned the debt argument. How many times did you hear it in the State of the Union? I didn't hear it a single time. So, those are crocodile tears right now.

BAIER: All right, CDS, Congressional directed spending, instead of earmarks. That might make it better.

When we come back, tomorrow's headlines tonight.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BAIER: Finally, tonight, a look at tomorrow's headlines. Amy, first to you.

WALTER: Well, the cold weather here in Washington means that we are spared the cicada invasion for at least one more week. That's when they are projected now to come out, not this week but the week after.

BAIER: That's a good one, cicada delay. I like it. Katie?

PAVLICH: Cicada never, hopefully. Mine is while the World Trade Organization debates giving China a waiver on a working COVID vaccine, the United States discovers that the Chinese Communist Party has already stolen it.

BAIER: Trey, wrap it up.

GOWDY: John Kerry argues the Logan Act only applies to Republicans.

BAIER: That hearing expected next week. Thank you, all, appreciate it. Have a good one.

Tomorrow on SPECIAL REPORT, nuclear energy is part of President Biden's plan to go green, but what will progressives in his party say about all that. Nuclear making a comeback in this pitch.

Thanks for inviting us to your home tonight. That is it for this SPECIAL REPORT, fair, balanced, and still unafraid. FOX NEWS PRIMETIME hosted by Pete Hegseth starts in about 10 second. I'm giving you back that four that I stole from you yesterday.

END

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