The Taliban Is Running the Table on the Biden Administration

BUCK: We want to start here, if we can, because we’re working against the clock. We all know that — hour by hour, minute by minute — how many people get to Kabul airport, how many people get on a plane that are supposed to get on a plane? American citizens first and foremost but then also interpreters, SIV holders. Special Immigrant Visa. How many of them are green card holders, right?

How many of them are getting back to safe haven, whatever that may mean, getting out of the complete disaster that is unfolding in Afghanistan? The Biden team is taking a very interesting position on this right now, and I think you need to hear it. Well, before I describe it, let’s have Jen Psaki weigh in.

PSAKI: First, I would say we have a stringent vetting process which includes, uhhh, background checks before any individual comes to the United States. Uhh, so I can’t speak to one individual. But I can tell you and — and confirm for you that we take the vetting of any individual who comes to the United States and — and comes out incredibly seriously, umm, and it’s an extensive process. Uh, I would say that this is now on track, Peter, to be the largest airlift in U.S. history. Uh, so — and that is, uhhh, bringing American citizens out, it is bringing our Afghan partners out, it is bringing allies out. Uh, so, no, I would not that is anything, uh, but a success.

BUCK: “Anything but a success.”

CLAY: (laughing)

BUCK: Clay, I was just at my brother’s wedding, and if I had run up to the wedding cake and, don’t know, I did a belly flop into it and just completely annihilated it in a drunken stupor, and then I looked around at everybody and said, “Don’t be mad. Look at how well I’m cleaning it up, guys. Look at how much I’m doing to clean up the cake catastrophe that I made.” People would think that I was crazy, right? The Biden administration has done something appallingly stupid, and now they want praise for trying the minimum to fix it.

CLAY: Jen Psaki as a liar, and I say that and I think it’s significant because there’s a difference between being a spokesperson and being a liar. And let me talk about the distinction, because I do think it is significant. When you are tasked with defending someone who is making decisions… For instance, I have defended murderers before as a practicing attorney.

The difference between defending someone who may have committed murder in the best of your ability and telling a lie is pretty significant, and there is a big difference between defending to the best of your ability the administration that you are representing and regularly marshaling factually inaccurate data like yesterday when she was saying she’s terrified for her kindergartener to be in school, and now she is saying things that are demonstrably untrue.

This is not the most successful evacuation in the history of America. She is lying directly to the face of the American public, and she’s doing so on behalf of a man, Joe Biden, who claimed that he was going to restore truth and decency and honor to the White House. So not only is she complicit in lying, she is doing it in an unintelligent way where we can immediately come on this program and refute everything that she’s saying, Buck. She is effectively the Iraqi minister of disinformation back in the day.

BUCK: Baghdad Bob. Baghdad Bob. Remembered by too many as Baghdad Bob.

CLAY: What should we call Jen Psaki? We need a nickname for her like Baghdad Bob. Jen Psaki is… First of all, you can hashtag us, #ClayAndBuck, and give us the best possible nickname for her. But remember, she went on vacation during the Afghanistan crisis. When everybody knew that Afghanistan was gonna be a disaster, she disappeared.

She turned on her email forwarding because she was on vacation. And then she comes back, and she’s just been spreading one lie after another. “What is the word ‘stranded’? There’s nobody stranded in Afghanistan,” she said. Yesterday, I guess, she came out, Buck, and she said, “Hey, if you know anybody who needs help leaving, reach out to us,” which, by definition, would be evidence that people are stranded, right?

BUCK: Oh, let’s actually hear from her on that.

PSAKI: Just to remind you: The U.S. government does not track our citizens when they travel around the world. We rely on self-reporting. Not just in Afghanistan! Anywhere world. People have to decide to register or not. It’s up to them, uh, individuals whether they decide to register or not wherever they may be. Uh, and if you register, uh, when you’re in a country like Afghanistan, you aren’t required to deregister.

In recent days, uh, they have reached out to, uh, every American citizen registered in Afghanistan directly multiple times. This is a 24/7 operation. Embassies all over the world are supporting phone banking, text banking, and email efforts. If we are not in touch with this individual, give me their contact information and we will get in touch with them. If any of you are hearing from American citizens who can’t reach us, give me their contact information and we will get in contact with them.

BUCK: So despite the propaganda wall that she’s try to put up here, Clay, reality keeps cracking through. On one level, we just know that there wasn’t the proper — that’s putting it mildly — preparation for this.

CLAY: Yes.

BUCK: They had no idea this was going to happen as rapidly, the fall of Afghanistan overall and Kabul specifically as rapidly as it did. They did not have contingency planning in place. Because when you’re telling Americans, “Hey, if you have a friend or a cousin or something or a family member who’s in Afghanistan right now, get us information on how to contact them so then maybe we can actually find them.”

I think people are starting to realize, when it’s at that level of ad hoc, the chances of getting every American out of this country are vanishingly slim. And Jen Psaki’s out there trying to tell everybody and present a brave face, so to speak, for the White House while we all see this is completely collapsing front of our very eyes. Right now, Clay, as we speak, the Taliban has ignored Biden’s demand to let… Polite request. Let’s be honest right?

CLAY: Yeah, a strongly worded letter.

BUCK: Strongly worded letter. They’ve ignored the ask from Biden to let people get to the airport. Civilians. They’ve ignored the request to extend the deadline because they have…

CLAY: That’s right.

BUCK: You were just playing poker. They’ve got the straight flush or whatever the really good hand of cards is here. Joe Biden’s sitting there with, you know, a 7, a 1, and a king or something. I don’t know what would be a bad hand.

CLAY: A 7 and a 2.

BUCK: But it’s not terrible situation for him.

CLAY: And, again, he’s negotiating with terrorists from a point of weakness and deferring to them. And this, to me, is the essence of the issue that is at play here, Buck. The Democratic Party, because they so dominate Big Tech, has gotten used to the idea that people bend based on words. They really have. Twitter primarily is defined by words.

And we’ve allowed a lot of loser writers and other Blue Check Brigade members to dictate much of the direction of American life by just sitting on their phones and sending out tweets, whether it’s canceling the host of Jeopardy! or it’s going after Donald Trump and demanding that he be banned from Twitter, they focus on words.

And so it’s not a surprise to me that, when you actually need to have physical power, when there is actually a demand and a need for physicality, instead of all the optics… What does our military look like? Who do they sleep with? What do they think about when it comes to social justice? Buck, Mike Tyson had a great line, and I think Joe Biden’s finding it out. It was, “Everybody’s got a plan until they get punched in the face.”

Well, Joe Biden’s getting punched in the face, and he ain’t got a plan anymore. At some point, you gotta raise your fist and you gotta start swinging back, and I think the Democratic Party has become so impotent that they don’t understand physical power. They only understand writing letters.

They were angry about Donald Trump’s mean tweets, Buck, but I’ll be damned. How much would you love to have some mean tweets flying at the Taliban right now that they actually had to respect because they knew that Donald Trump would rain down holy hell on ’em if they went after Americans or our allies?

BUCK: It’s tough to know where the Taliban is trolling us and where they’re playing us when it comes to some of the official statements they’re making.

CLAY: Yeah.

BUCK: The Taliban is now talking about how they’re going to fight climate change.

CLAY: (laughing)

BUCK: And I sit here and I say, “I don’t know if they’re doing that and they think it’s hilarious,” because there are right now Democrats, I guarantee you, in this country who go, “Ooooh, they can’t be all that bad! They’re gonna fight climate change!”

CLAY: Yeah, they’re stoning women to death, but they’re worried about the temperature so they can’t be all bad.

BUCK: It’s only a matter of time before you start seeing think pieces I assume — unless things get really ugly and violent in Afghanistan in the near future — where you’re gonna have some leftist saying, “The Taliban’s old school ways to combat climate change,” or “the low-tech means of fighting CO2 courtesy of the Taliban,” because they understand that’s actually of a religious belief in the West the same way that there is this fundamentalist, totalitarian version of Islam that the Taliban pushes.

CLAY: Yeah. That’s true.

BUCK: So they focus on that. They obviously did that photo recreating their version of Iwo Jima, and we sit here; we say, “They understand that the Biden is impotent, doesn’t know what he’s doing, doesn’t have a plan, and is embattled,” and they’re running the table on him right now. And that’s what we’re seeing. When we come back, Mitch McConnell had some particularly strong words about this situation. But I think everybody sees this for what it is right now, Clay, plus covid stuff.

CLAY: There’s on doubt. And, by the way, the USA Today poll. Psaki said, “Oh, everybody can see that we’re doing a good job”? Only 26% of Americans agree that Joe Biden has done a good job with Afghan withdrawal, and those 26% of Americans have probably been drunk for two weeks and haven’t noticed what actually is going on.

BUCK: Oh, that’s the sophisticated 26% of America, you see.

CLAY: Yeah. Yeah. Those are the people who were at Obama’s party.

BUCK: Those are the ones who they don’t have to worry about masks because they have yachts.

CLAY: Yeah.

BUCK: That’s always a good rule to institute.

CLAY: They social distanced on their multibillion-dollar yacht.