BUCK: What is the Biden administration doing to get people out of Afghanistan — Americans out of Afghanistan? There are so many layers here, Clay. For one, the prioritization of Americans first to get out is something this administration seems to reject at this point. And also, now we have the ambassador, Linda Thomas-Greenfield. Just last night, the ambassador at the United Nations, she says that we should have a very… Well, actually, I’ll let her say it. Play 1.

THOMAS-GREENFIELD: And we have expressed in no uncertain terms here at the United Nations through a very strongly worded press statement from the Security Council that we expect the Taliban to respect human rights, including the rights of women and girls. We have also indicated that they have to be respectful of humanitarian law.

BUCK: A strongly worded letter, Clay! The Taliban is terrified.

CLAY: This is the logical extension, I think, Buck, of Twitter taking over diplomacy in the twenty-first century in many ways. Let me explain what I mean by that. We have an entire generation now of leaders, particularly Democrats who believe that all that matters is what is said on Twitter. They don’t pay attention to actions. They pay attention, by and large, to words and what trends.

It is embarrassing to the United States that we have one of the greatest violators of human rights in the history of the world, and we are bragging about the fact that we sent “a very strongly worded press statement” that expects for the Taliban to obey law. Look, you know this, Buck. People who are strong and powerful and violent do not care about your favored pronouns.

They don’t care about what you are trending on Twitter. They care about raw power. And we’ve got an entire generation of Americans — because they have been able to move this country by whining on Twitter — that thinks they could beat modern-day Nazis by sending them mean tweets, right? (laughs) And this is not how the world works.

And I think what’s gonna happen, Buck, is all of these different viral videos of what’s actually going on in Afghanistan are gonna start to get released, and people are gonna say, “Man! The things that go on in the world can be pretty awful,” right? Because what people get upset about, by and large, on a daily basis in America is not that significant.

And all these woke companies, they come back, and they apologize, and they curl up in the fetal position. And this is the logical extension of this. This is embarrassing, that we are bragging about “a very strongly worded press statement” that the Biden administration put out against the Taliban.

BUCK: I do think it’s also useful to compare and to really show some of the differences here because right now the media is desperate to find some narrative where this is not a catastrophe for the Biden administration. Some Democrats are already saying, “Wow, I…”

CLAY: And a lot of independents.

BUCK: And a lot of independents. “I really shouldn’t have voted for Biden.” Turns out Joe, old Grandpa Joe in the basement who is the sort of, you know, doddering around, doesn’t know what time it is, what’s going on, wasn’t the best choice for commander-in-chief. Not a big shock. But the basis of foreign policy should be…

I know for a lot of people say, “Oh, foreign policy! Let’s get into the domestic stuff.” Well, this is actually good to give you a sense of what the philosophies, different philosophies between left and right are in this country in a more general sense. But for foreign relations, it’s who are your friends and who are your enemies? Do they know the difference? Does it make a difference?

And you can start there, right?

That’s just a basic framework for approaching these problems. And to compare what we’re seeing now with the Biden administration, not just the disaster of the tactics here, but the lack of honesty, the lack of foresight, and the real sense that people have that the Taliban is much less scared of Biden that they were of Trump. This is a reality. To anyone who says, “oh, why is that true?” Trump had the military take out Qasem Soleimani, the head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force, the external operations arm.

CLAY: That was gonna start World War II if you remember Twitter believed that, right?

BUCK: And, you know, he was an IRGC commander, and this guy is… If you took him out, Clay, he was like a made guy in the Mafia.

CLAY: Yes.

BUCK: Like, “You could never do that!” Trump took him out, and what really happened? The Iranians fired off a kind of basic salvo at a base. But that sent a very powerful message because that guy had American blood on his hands. He was — and for all of our veterans out there when to served in Iraq, you know exactly what I’m talking about.

He was behind the creation of the EFPs, the explosively formed penetrators that were designed specifically not to go after Iraqis that were fighting alongside us so much as to go after Americans in up-armored Humvees, in MRAPs, and puncture them and kill everybody inside. That guy had straight-up American blood on his hands, and Trump said, “He’s done,” and turned him into a dust cloud.

CLAY: Yes.

BUCK: That’s what happened. The Biden administration? It’s just the reality, folks. They want to send strongly worded letters about stuff like this. They have a different approach that results in a different outcome, and that is what we are seeing right now.

CLAY: And look, it’s important for us to acknowledge what’s going on on the ground in Afghanistan right now. There are the reportedly over 10,000 American citizens who are unable right now to get to the airport — and, by the way, the American government has already told all these people, “We can’t guarantee you safe transit to the airport.”

The Taliban has taken over the ring around the airport. You’ve probably seen a lot of different videos on television and certainly on social media and also have seen interviews with American citizens who are trapped inside of their homes in Afghanistan. They can’t get out. We don’t know what kind of hostage situations might emerge, Buck.

We don’t know what kind of, unfortunately, deaths might emerge, and we don’t know how bad this is going to get. But the idea that we are close to getting all of the Americans out of Afghanistan safely? I’m not even talking about all of the people in Afghanistan who worked alongside of us.

I’m talking about American citizens. The idea we’re gonna get these people out safely is very much uncertain at this point, and this could get so much worse. It’s already a catastrophe. I don’t know what’s worse than a catastrophe, Buck. I don’t know. But we are gonna get worse before they get better.

BUCK: It’s gone beyond optics. That’s what everyone’s realizing. It’s not just, “Oh, look at the video of people swarming the tarmac,” and the recognition of the lack of Biden administration… I’m saying,” lack of planning.” It’s stunning how inept they are. And this is supposed to be Biden, you know, 40-plus years of being a steady hand in foreign policy, the Democrat-aligned corporate media says.

They pretend like this guy was the great foreign policy mind of the Obama administration, which I do think it’s worth reminding everyone. The eight years of Obama’s time, there are a lot of things right now that you could all say, “Wow Obama messed that up,” or, “Wow, I thought this was a really terrible decision.” But it’s probably more difficult for the Obama partisans out there to defend his foreign policy record than anything else.

I mean, and that’s saying a lot, as you know. We could talk about Obamacare. We could talk about a lot of things. But on foreign policy, the Obama administration was a disaster, and Joe Biden was supposed to be the steady hand behind that. This goes, Clay, to your point, beyond optics, because we have thousands of Americans — Americans — who are in harm’s way right now, and there is no real plan.

And Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary is already out there telling everybody that, “You know, look. We can’t make any guarantees here, folks. There are Americans who are stuck in Afghanistan. We pulled the plug, and we’ll see how it goes.” Play 2.

PSAKI: Our focus right now is, uh, on doing the work at hand and on the task at hand, and that is day by day getting as much American citizens, as many SIV applicants, as many members of a vulnerable population who are eligible to be evacuated to the airport and out on planes. Uh, and we’re going to do that in expeditious fashion. That is the focus of the president, of our secretary of defense, of our secretary of (sputters), uh, state, uh, and everybody on our national security team. Uh, so that — that is where we will keep our effort.

BUCK: They can’t offer any guarantee that they’re gonna get them all out of Afghanistan. They don’t know how many are there, Clay. They don’t know how they’re gonna get them out. People looking at this would say, “Well, hold on a second. Why is it that they weren’t flying people out for months?” We had my friend Matt Zeller, a clip of him yesterday, saying he has bene working to get people out for years, Clay.