exaggerate. it's an insurrection. you can look at that and see what it is it's positively surreal disturbing and sad: that's it for us. "special report" is up next. hey, bret. >> bret: hey, greg. thank you. good evening, welcome to washington. i'm bret baier. breaking tonight, you just heard it stunning video from the airport in kabul showing incredible desperation of of a danes willing to risk life and limb to escape the taliban's control. [gunfire] >> bret: as u.s. air force cargo jet a c-17 taxis for takeoff, people cling to the side. hoping for a way out of afghanistan. reports of some plunging to their deaths from that plane holding onto the wheel as the plane reaches altitude. thousands made their way to that airport trying to flee as hundreds of them were packed inside. a couple of those planes

leaving. speaking for the first time since the fall of kabul in the face of today's chaos, a defiant president joe biden defended his judgment but conceded he was cut off guard. >> i stand squarely behind my decision after 20 years i have learned the hard way that there was never a good time to withdraw u.s. forces. the truth is, this did unfold more quickly than we had anticipated. >> bret: he said the u.s. gave the afghan forces every tool they could need but couldn't provide them with the will to fight for their future. this comes as fox news confirms the taliban are going door to door searching for afghan special forces who fought alongside american troops further complicating the current withdrawal. we have fox team coverage tonight. jennifer griffin is at the pentagon with what comes next, how the u.s. military is trying to bolster its presence at the

kabul airport and creating an air bridge for americans and allied afghans on the ground. but we begin with white house correspondent jacqui heinrich from the north lawn. good evening, jackie. >> good evening, bret. the president took no questions after his remarks promptly returning to camp david. his address closely mirrored last month's laying out his reasons for the withdrawal which he says he stands by. but he did concede that his administration failed to gauge just how quickly the afghan government would collapse. >> the truth is, this did unfold more quickly than we had anticipated. so what's happened? afghanistan political leaders gave up and fled the country. the afghan military collapsed. some time without trying to fight. >> president acknowledged his decision will be criticized. he said he preferred that over passing the war to a fifth u.s. president. but he also passed blame,

including to afghan president ghani who fled the country and to former president trump for committing the u.s. to a withdrawal timeline and cease-fire agreement that would have expired. biden also framed the afghan government's collapse as proof that it continued military presence would not have made a difference five or 20 years from now. >> i'm left again to ask of those who argue that we should stay. how many more generations of americans daughters and sons would you have me to send to fight afghanistan's civil war? when afghan troops will not? >> how the withdrawal is carried out is meeting criticism from all sides. fox news confirmed the administration scrapped prior plans to send afghan refugee applicants to third countries for vetting now instead taking some 30,000 to u.s. military bases in texas and wisconsin. but chaos has engulfed the airport. biden tried to some of that

blame to afghan refugees themselves. critics slammed president biden for ignoring his military leader's advice that this would happen. >> i know there are concerns about why we did not begin evacuating afghans civilians sooner. part of the answer is some of the afghanis did not want to leave earlier, still hopeful for their country. >> person to blame here is the commander-in-chief who rejected sound military advice. joe biden has been incompetent most of his political life when it comes to foreign policy. >> the president said u.s. mission to degrade al-qaeda in afghanistan was a success. and now the u.s. needs to turn its focus to their threat in somalia and sierra, as well as isis effort to establish a middle east caliphate and foot holds in africa and asia. biden added if al-qaeda cropped up again in afghanistan, the united states will respond swiftly. military leaders are now warning that that could happen even

super than their last estimate which was within two years. bret? >> bret: jacqui heinrich lye on the north lawn. thank you. for more on the chaos at the kabul airport what comes next. let's bring in national security correspondent jennifer griffin joins us live from the pentagon. good evening, jen. >> good evening, bret. we are here at the pentagon and we are hearing that the first planes full of marines have just landed at the kabul airports and another plane is expected to bring the 82nd airborne into kabul, the international airport was closed for most of today. >> witnesses describe scenes of shear panic amid a growing humanitarian crisis at the kabul international airport. thousands of desperate afghans scaled the walls of the airport and flooded the tarmac forcing the u.s. military to halt all flights in and out of afghanistan. >> plans are not always perfectly predictive and as is

well known military that plans don't often survive first contact. and tough adjust in realtime. and i think when you look at the images out of kabul, that would have been difficult for anybody to predict. >> was this a failure of intelligence or planning? >> what we know that happened at the airport was that there were a lot of afghans that were trying to reportedly get out of the country. so i don't think that was a lack of planning. >> video showed afghans swarming u.s. c-17 transport planes in morning. some falling to their deaths as they held on to u.s. air force military aircraft as they took off. american forces shot and killed two armed afghans as they approached u.s. aircraft with their guns drawn. the kind of scenes reminiscent of the humiliating u.s. exit from vietnam that the administration hoped to avoid. >> remember, this is not saigon. >> foxconn firmed general mark milley, the chairman of the joint chiefs, told senators this

weekend on a phone call that a previous assessment of how soon terrorist groups will reconstitute in afghanistan will accelerate due to the fall of kabul to the taliban. defense secretary lloyd austin authorized another battalion from the 82nd airborne which had been on stand by in kuwait to go to kabul. 2500 are currently at the kabul airport. 6,000 u.s. troops will now be on the ground, twice the number of troops that were in afghanistan when biden ordered them out in april. last week, the military said kabul could fall in 90 days or as little as 30. it fell in just six. fox news exclusively obtained this photo of the u.s. embassy flag being flown out of kabul on an evacuation flight. already, we are receiving firsthand accounts from kabul describing the taliban knocking on the doors of women and those who served with the u.s. military as they prepare for retribution. bret? >> bret: jen griffin at the pentagon. jennifer, thank you. let's bring in thomas jocelyn,

senior fellow at the foundation of defense of democracies and a senior editor at fdd's long war journal and norman rule a former will expert. i want to start with you. big picture, you look at this day, the past few days and the president's speech, what does this mean? >> good evening, i think the united states faces two primary challenges. our national resolve will now be open to question. china has already announced in its press that taiwan should look at this as an example of lack of u.s. support in a dime of crisis. chinese press has spoken to hong kong activists saying this is how the united states will stand with you. russia, china and iran will tell their allies we stick with you, but america doesn't. and there will be some in the middle east and elsewhere who will wonder about that. secondly, the prisons of the taliban have emptied, have allowed militants, thousands of them to return to the afghan

battle space along with al-qaeda, isis and another of other groups we now have a significant potential of al-qaeda reforming in afghanistan it will take some time but the job of u.s. counter intelligence officials has just become much, much harder. >> bret: general jack keane made that point on our air this morning. tom, take a listen to this. >> now, radical islamists are in charge of afghanistan and the united states surrendered to them. that is the way that will be sold around the whole world jihadi movement. so their is going up. their recruiting is going up. many of them are going to want to come to afghanistan because the taliban's stab temperature is going to be preeminent among world jihadists and they will want to be a part of it. >> bret: tom, the president addressed saying you can't have troops there forever. yet, there are 2500 that were at the time of his inauguration and they seem to be stiffening the

spine, at least for the time being, fighting off the taliban for the afghan security forces. now, that's all gob away. >> well, i think a small u.s. presence was sort of holding things together. obviously, and was keeping the jihads out of provincial capitals you have to remember the taliban and al-qaeda which has a bigger presence in afghanistan than u.s. officials been acknowledging for years were slowly making gains. rapidly making gains since last year. we saw this coming. the may 1st offensive that the taliban launched was a long time in the making. it was not something that happened overnight. they hollowed out the afghan security forces over the year preceding it. they killed thousands and thousands of afghans. for every american wondering tonight whether or not the afghans would fight for their country they failed but the truth is that thousands of them failed in the process. we should remember that and we should also remember that basically what you saw here was something where the u.s. military leadership really never understood the enemy it was fighting. that's just simple fact of the matter. they never understood that this was a rural based insurgency

strategy primed for success and based on guerrilla warfare doctrine they built up over the years. basically our leaders failed and didn't understand that. >> bret: al-qaeda 3.0 the next version of al-qaeda norm just mentioned it tom, we are getting ready for 20th anniversary of 9/11. the taliban and jihadists kind of like calendars. this could increase the chatter ahead of that. >> oh, the chatter has already increased, bret, just before i came on air here i follow hundreds of jihadi social media sites several new sites from popped up they are all issuing victory statements saying al-qaeda and the taliban beat america. this is the message going out across the world. we say in 2013 and 2014 how it can be when isis declared its caliphate. now you are getting next iteration of caliphate united

emirate of afghanistan which isis said would be new number nucleus.al-qaeda has been much e invested and they are already declaring victory. >> bret: norm, for the rest of the world looking at this, you touched on that. here is the french president macron talking about this today. >> terrorist groups are present in afghanistan and seek to profit from the destabilization. the united nations security counsel will have to come up with a common and europe nighted answer. the return of stability will require political and diplomatic action that we must define together in the coming days. afghanistan must not, once again, become the sanctuary for terrorism it once was. >> bret: but how do you do that with an over the horizon force, norm? >> bret, i don't think it's possible. the united nations security council has shown little capacity to unify the world on issues ranging from iran's

aggression in the region to russia against the crimea for years. the simple matter is that after the international community spent an enormous amount of blood and treasure to prevent the establishment of an slack state in syria because it knew this would produce everything from a refugee flow to a graft sink for every in the plan met allowed afghanistan. produce refugee flow and allow a place for every militant who wishes to come to learn the trade of terrorism, a place to travel. and the world has also just shown that it will allow this to happen, unlike syria, where we marshalled an international coalition, the coalition has just collapsed in afghanistan. and i don't think there is much chance of the coalition of the willing being reformed in the future after the u.s. decision. >> bret: tom, the president's words you can't be some place forever with u.s. forces does this mean we are going to change our posture in south korea?

>> i don't know, when the president says we can't be somewhere forever, what people should understand too really for the last decade america has been saying leaving afghanistan trying to get out. it had 810 toes out for the past decade. part of the failure is america spent half of the war in afghanistan not wanting to fight it at least and maybe even more than that. so this has been a real generational failure of leadership here. is want to just say this and stress this, too. tonight, as i'm watching this and watching the scenes in the afghanistan. the number two in the taliban aqanay, i want viewers to remember his name. is he the al-qaeda man and the head of the taliban's insurgency now the military leader the newly restored islamic emirate in afghanistan. for a long time people didn't understand how important this relationship was. but, this wasn't just a victory for the taliban. it was a victory for al-qaeda. >> bret: that's important. 20 years after 9/11, it's also sad. norm, tom, thank you very much.

stocks were mixed today as the dow and the s&p finished in record territory for a fifth day in the row the dow was up 110 the s&p 500 rose 12 the nasdaq lost 29. up next as haiti recovers from a natural disaster that claimed more than 1200 lice, another one is fast approaching. we will go there live. first here is what some of our fox affiliates around the country are covering. fox 40 in. pacific gas and electric warns parts of 16 counties may be affected by a power shutoff to avoid the possibility of igniting a fire. the warning comes as the dixie wildfire continues to spread throughout california, scorching more than 570,000 acres. fox 2 in detroit as officials open a formal investigation into tesla's auto pilot. partially automated driving systems saying it has trouble spotting parked emergency vehicles. investigation covered 765,000 vehicles. almost everything that tesla has sold in the u.s. since 2014.

of the crashes identified as part of the investigation, 17 people were injured, one was killed. and this is a live look at santa monica from fox 11. big story there tonight, pop music icon madonna will relaunch her entire song catalog over the coming years under a new deal with warner music group. studio that launched her debut single nearly four decades ago. that's tonight's live look outside the beltway from "special report." we'll be right back. ♪ ♪ ♪ get into the groove ♪ you got to prove your love to me ♪ [ heavy breathing ] allergies with nasal congestion overwhelming you? breathe more freely with powerful claritin-d. claritin-d improves nasal airflow two times more than the leading allergy spray at hour one. [ deep inhale ]

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>> bret: the florida panhandle is taking a direct hit from tropical storm fred which hit the coast with maximum sustained winds of 65 miles per hour. the storm is expected to bring dangerous storm surge, flooding, possible tornadoes to the area. just an update in the past few minutes, more than hundred people are now dead, 6,000 injured. after a magnitude 7.2 earthquake hit haiti over the weekend.

correspondent bryan llenas is in the haitian capital of port-au-prince. >> it's a race against time for the u.s. coast guard as their three helicopters fly critically injured haitians from the epicenter of saturday morning's devastating 7.2 magnitude earthquake to the capital city of port-au-prince where hospitals are still standing. dozens have been transferred this way with various injuries. >> we have seen everything from crush injuries from debris falling on people. obviously compound fractures, head trauma, we have seen the entire gamut and we are trying to get to as many as we can to get higher level care. >> more than 6 hours haitians wounded 419 dead after the qualcomm devastated the smaller cities jeremy and lacet. the tremor and aftershocks leveled billing, churches and schools. more than 1200 homes are gone badly damaged.

thousands displaced force to the streets makeshift temporary hospitals or shelters. >> we are on the soccer field. many people staying there. our house is destroyed. >> u.s. aid has 65 urban search responders and four canines searching for survivors in the rubble. >> today we are using our eyes. we have tools with us for visual search devices that can get inside collapsed buildings and we also have acoustic and seismic listening devices so make sure we can hear the sounds inside collapsed structures. >> contemplating further set up for months making hardest hit areas unreachable for humanitarian aid. haiti one blow after the next. the nation has not yet recovered from the 2010 earthquake that killed tens of though sands. haiti's president was assassinated in july and now a tropical depression is bearing down on the island. tropical depression grace is expected to dump 15 inches of rain tonight. flooding, landslides, and mud slides are all expected in the

exact area disseminated by the earthquake. suffice it to say, it will also slow down search and rescue operations. bret? >> bret: bryan llenas in port-au-prince, bryan, thanks. the desperate rush to get u.s. personnel out of afghanistan as the taliban seized the capital. beyond our borders other stories evacuation alerts are in effect for villages southeast and northwest of athens, greece after two new wildfires broke out there today. strong winds expected to continue fanning flames into the evening hampering firefighter efforts. greece has been royaled by hundreds of fires this month. police and antigovernment protesters clash for a second straight day in bangkok over the handling of the coronavirus pandemic continues to boil over there. police fired a water canon and tear goose force protesters back as they approached the prime minister's office. and rafts built from cardboard, empty barrels and bicycle parts

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>> bret: breaking tonight our top story at the bottom of the hour multiple people dead at the kabul international airport afghanistan after attempting to flee the taliban as they take over afghanistan's capital. correspondent trey yingst has the latest from our middle east newsroom tonight. good evening, trey. >> bret, good evening. the taliban is now in control of afghanistan and the group says they will continue to retain power there. as you will see in this piece, many are willing to risk everything simply to escape. [gunfire] >> thousands of afghan civilians rushed the airport in kabul as gunfire rings out. they are desperate to flee the taliban after the group took control of the capital yesterday. >> we are here because we are. we left our home and have no food. >> images from the ground show civilians scaling the walls of the airport with families

helping each other up and over barbed wire. at least seven people died in the chaos. some trampled in a stampede. others falls from the fossa lodge of a plane they had been clinging. to say american forces temporarily stopped all evacuations today as u.s. officials said the area wasn't secure. across the city. taliban fighters were inside the presidential palace declaring victory sunday night. [cheers] >> just hours before, afghan president ashraf ghani fled the country along with his top aides. ghani was able to leave before the taliban set up own security checkpoints across the city. taliban officials have told civilians not to worry and everyone will receive amnesty even if they previously fought against the group. one afghan member of parliament isn't so sure about that promise. >> for me i'm afraid of these things, first of all, my life. because they are unpredictable and people knows the nature of the taliban.

>> kabul was always the final target for the taliban. the last major strong hold for afghan security forces who, when the group arrived, put down their weapons. in the streets of the city, now it's very clear who is in charge. >> my message to our country men is that they shouldn't worry as the mujahideen of islamic emirate enter the city and we warn them not to go out from 9:00 p.m. for at least one or two nights so to avoid any chaos. >> one interesting development in this story the country of uzbekistan says an afghan military plane crashed there over the weekend. reports indicate that hundreds of afghan security forces fled to the neighboring country as the taliban took over. bret? >> bret: trey yingst in our middle east newsroom. trey, thanks. now to the coronavirus pandemic here in the u.s. in a fox news exclusive, the director of a medical center in mcallen, texas, says the vast majority of her covid patients

are migrants. fox news contributor dr. marc siegel has that story tonight. >> what is overwhelming us is seeing that almost everybody coming into the hospital is unvaccinated. >> there is a humanitarian crisis at our southern border. dr. yvonne lopez medical director at the hospital sees the problem through the lens of medicine rather than politics. facilities and staff are overwhelmed and as more unvaccinated covid patients pour into our country dr. lopez and others work longer and longer hours and put their lives on the line. the problem with covid among migrants is so pervasive that sometimes dr. lopez finds that the caretaker becomes the next patient. >> severe and the wife was i was calling to update her about her husband and one day when i saw my patient, i recognized her name in my list. >> most of the staff have been

vaccinated and they support each other when they're, as dr. lopez puts it, quote, breaking down. but the influx of patients keeps increasing. >> they are coming in because they want a better opportunity and they end up in the hospital and i talk to them about their personal experience and try to cheer them up, right, because they are coming in with an idea, a dream and here they end up sick or very sick. >> it isn't only injury. people, including children, are dying of dehydration, of malnutrition, of covid. and there the american dream ends abruptly, alone, without family, unidentified in a pauper's grave. the biden administration has just sent 8.5 million vaccine doses to mexico. 1.5 million to honduras. and 1.5 million to el salvador. people say if they want to take burdens off hospitals like

dr. lopez's they need send much more aid while closing the border at the same time. bret? >> bret: dr. siegel, thank you. up next, president biden says he won't make the same mistakes of the past. today's chaos seem eerily reminiscent. we will discuss it all with the panel. >> american troops cannot and should not be fighting in a war and dying in a war that afghan forces are not willing to fight for themselves. ♪ ♪ kidney alert for type 2 diabetes! forty percent of people with type 2 diabetes will develop chronic kidney disease, or ckd. did you know ckd can lead to kidney failure and dialysis? kidney alert! ckd often has no symptoms until it's too late! help protect your kidneys. call your doctor for a uacr test. it shows one of the earliest signs for ckd. visit kidneyalert.com!

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afghanistan's own armed forces would not. >> the incompetence of the biden administration on this is really overwhelming. there needs to be resignations. there needs to be firings. >> this makes all of us angry because it was completely avoidable. >> what happens in afghanistan doesn't just stay in afghanistan. it spreads like a cancer. >> bret: president biden's speaking today and can you see the fear, obviously, in the people running away from those planes at the kabul airport. you can also see it on the face and in the voice of one of the reporters in the pentagon briefing today, a reporter, an afghan woman who has been covering the pentagon but go back to afghanistan. take a listen. >> expect overnight all the taliban' [inaudible] this is my flag. they put their flag. where is my president former president begany. he has to fight for his people.

i have lots of achievement. i left from the taliban like 20 years ago. now we go back to the first -- >> bret: afghanistan's president ashraf ghani left the country just to put a cost on what the u.s. has spent in the total cost of the war, $978 billion from 2001 to 2020. not including, obviously, the blood and treasure left there. let's bring in our panel senior political analyst brit hume, ben domenech, publisher of the federalist. harold ford jr. former tennessee congressman and coe of empowerment and encollusion capital and trey gowdy former congressman from south carolina. the president's speech on this day? >> well, the president's speech was about the one thing that he knows is still popular and that is the idea of getting out of afghanistan. but, for much of the speech i didn't figure out what war --

what so-called war he was talking about. we have been getting out of afghanistan gradually slowly for years and years. we were down now in that country to about 2500 american soldiers on the ground. no american soldier had been killed there in a year and a half. but that little modest force with the air power, the intelligence and logistical support and advice that came with it, was enough to maintain kind of an uneasy stalemate in that country. the president comes along and blows the whole thing up because he wants to get out. we were getting out. and it mattered how we got out. it always matters how you get out in a situation like this with drawls and evacuations are very militarily tricky and dangerous. and this one has been utterly and completely botched. apart from saying they didn't expect it to go down here this fast, the president did nothing to explain how that happened or why it has gone so badly. >> bret: trey gowdy?

i keep thinking of the word of robert gates not the republican congressman we just played but obama's former secretary of defense who said joe biden for four decades was wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security decision that's robert gates saying that four decades worth. i'm happy he kept a campaign promise because he seems really really interested in doing that i'm just sorry for y'all the carnage left behind because he did. >> bret: it has been interesting to watch the evolution of the week and how this transpired very quickly. take a listen. >> this is not just about the overall idea of leaving afghanistan. this is about leaving hastily and ineptly. secretary blinken, how did

president biden get this so wrong? >> so, was he mislead by his own intelligence agencies? did he not listen to them? why was he so wrong about that? >> mr. biden, who hasn't been shy about changing all sorts of other policies he inherited from iran to climate change, why was he unwilling to change this policy? >> there has been an implosion of u.s. policy, and i think someone gets fired for this. in my opinion it would be secretary blinken. this is not the military's fault. this is an intelligence failure here in washington. >> bret: harold, reaction to all of that? >> well, first off, thanks for having me. look, i think, brit and trey are about right in this sense. president biden declared to the country three out of four americans agree with him that america should not be in afghanistan any longer. there is no doubt. we accomplished a lot of what we intended to accomplish. i was in congress 9/11.

we believed that jihadists and al-qaeda were operating from afghanistan. we sent forces there to kill bin laden and we did. any time you project military -- american military into engagement with a clear objective or a desired outcome, they generally do very, very well. but, you invite trouble and you invite disappointment, you invite undesired outcomes when the defined purpose is not so defined. over the last several years, it was not. he had that right. but, without question, he, being president biden. but, without question, they have botched this exit. this national security team of his, the pressure is mounting in many, many ways for them to fix this exit plan for all of our afghan allies. i would hope those of us who wish to be critical of the president. i don't wish to be critical of him. but wish to be critical of him please do not conflate the two. the exit from afghanistan is the right thing to do. we have other priorities we need to focus on. and if by some chance afghanistan becomes a woodstock

for jihadists we will be able to coalition willing more resolute one under president bush if that is indeed the case. but they have to fix this exit plan. this will be president biden's achilles heel if he does not. >> bret: you know, we didn't hear about the rules of engagement for those troops trying to get all those people out. we didn't hear how long the air bridge really is going to run in the president's speech. and just in the past few minutes, ben, associated press, u.s. defense official confirms taliban's sudden accumulation of u.s. supplied afghan equipment is, quote: enormous. >> you know, this is a travesty in so many ways. and i do think that we have to separate the policy here from the execution. the policy is broadly popular. and i heard the president come out and defend the policy of leaving afghanistan. but it's a speech that he could have given six months ago. and it really didn't wrestle

with any of the actual questions that people have over what they have seen over the past several days. particularly as it relates to any kind of confidence that we can have in our military leadership and our intelligence community that promised that something like this was going to take months if it happened and, frankly, we look back at that press conference, that the president had, where he was doing all this happy talk about the idea that the afghan military was prepared, that taliban leadership was not a forgone conclusion. that he expected them to fight, et cetera. and the question really becomes is that what he really believed? is that what he was being told? why if he was saying that then does his attitude now seem to be well, the people, you know, who need to get out, they should have been getting out much earlier. they chose to stay there. maybe they chose to stay there because of the things they were hearing from the commander-in-chief of the free world. and that's something that i think is only on him. he cannot put that on donald trump. he cannot put that on previous administrations. it is on him that he chose to say that. and it's on him that it turned

out not to be true. >> bret: all right. some more thoughts with the panel after a quick break. ♪ ♪ like the splash they create the entrance they make, the surprises they initiate. otezla. it's a choice you can make. otezla is not a cream. it's a pill that treats plaque psoriasis differently. with otezla, 75% clearer skin is achievable. don't use if you're allergic to otezla. it may cause severe diarrhea, nausea, or vomiting. otezla is associated with an increased risk of depression. tell your doctor if you have a history of depression or suicidal thoughts or if these feelings develop. some people taking otezla reported weight loss. your doctor should monitor your weight and may stop treatment. upper respiratory tract infection and headache may occur. tell your doctor about your medicines, and if you're pregnant or planning to be. otezla. show more of you.

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♪ >> i think if you cannot trust the advisers, who americans are working with and who are the ones who will be taking over

when we leave and the entire strategy of the transfer of authority in power is in jeopardy. and i think it means they have to recalculate as to whether, how, and when the americans and the other -- and the europeans can actually leave. the taliban understand exactly what's going to happen. if the allies the west is going to leave, the war will resume and they assume they will ultimately defeat the government already in kabul. so, they have no incentive to concede anything. >> bret: our late colleague dr. charles krauthammer. we talked a lot about afghanistan over the years on this panel as can you imagine. he always said taliban operated in years not weeks and days. we're back with the panel. brit, today, the state department spokesperson said that the taliban we hope that it for an inclusive and representative government. that's pretty hopeful. >> yeah, i will say it is, bret.

you have got to feel for these people at this time. john kerry at the pentagon and that poor sap at the state department to come out and make sense of this and make it sound there is some rational policy involved there is not. this is a disaster, completely botched operation. and i don't think you can blame the guys suit it the pentagon or the suits at the state department. they are just doing the best they can to defend it. this is on biden. he overruled his general's wishes and proceeded with this. he didn't have to do it this way. he did it -- this is the way he wanted to do it. and the political consequences of this, i think, will be long lasting, you know, his base will back him and people who wanted out will support him and so on. but there are a lot of people in the middle here watched something as tragic as this and idiocy as this it will not come back. >> bret: trey, a lot of people put in a broader context what this means for the rest of the world, how they now look as a result of this at the u.s.

>> yeah. and they should. great nations like great member and women, keep their word. and when i think of the afghan translators, i think of the afghan women, i think of all the lives lost in afghanistan, and we're the best we could do are the images we are seeing people holding on to airplanes trying to escape that country when we spent a trillion dollars. look, i know biden said the buck stops with him today bret, but only after he blamed everyone else. he blamed all the presidents before him and the afghan soldiers that ain't the buck stopping with you when you blame everybody else. >> here is some of that international reaction today. >> we are receiving chilling reports of severe on human rights throughout the country. i'm particularly concerned about accounts of human rights violations against the women and girls of afghanistan who fear the return to the darkest days. >> the chaos currently in afghanistan is directly relate

to the hasty withdraw of foreign troops. relevant countries should earnestly deliver the commitment to support peace, reconciliation and reconstruction in afghanistan and play a constructive role. >> you know, harold, one of the things that the president said today is that foreign policy, a center of it is human rights for him. but, also, you couldn't be some place for a forever war. i asked this earlier but what does that mean for u.s. forces in south korea? >> well, i'm reminded of, first of all, it's always great to hear dr. krauthammer's voice and i'm not going to be lectured to by the chinese foreign minister about our military force leaving afghanistan. but, one thing my mentor and late friend richard holbrooke always said is that the military, our military's mission should never be nation-building. we are not nation building in south korea or germany or japan. we are not propping up a government in any of those nations. we are supporting policy and supporting a government that support our policy. so, i think we should be clear

about that. i have seen some of that and heard some of that criticism today. but i would be careful. the chinese foreign minister shouldn't be lecturing us about our military engagement. >> nation building in afghanistan for years. we're down to 2500 troops. that's not a nation building force. >> bret: ben, final word here? >> but -- okay. >> america's interest, america first policy would recognize that it's in america's interest to have friends who trust us when we make commitments to them, they should have faith news and not in china or in russia. turning them away, leaving them behind is not an america first policy. >> bret: harold, 10 seconds? >> bret, i would ask brit, who i respect greatly, do you think we should still be in afghanistan with a massive force because al-qaeda was already invading the taliban and already mounting an offensive? >> we haven't had a massive force in afghanistan for a long, long time and we didn't have one now. and what biden pulled out was a small force doing a very big

job. >> bret: all right. more than 10 second but when we come back, tomorrow's headlines. keep it here. ♪ ♪ because with the right pain reliever... life opens up. aleve it, and see what's possible. (judith) in this market, you'll find fisher investments is different than other money managers. (other money manager) different how? don't you just ride the wave? (judith) no - we actively manage client portfolios based on our forward-looking views of the market. (other money manager) but you still sell investments that generate high commissions, right? (judith) no, we don't sell commission products. we're a fiduciary, obligated to act in our client's best interest. (other money manager) so when do you make more money? only when your clients make more money? (judith) yep, we do better when our clients do better. at fisher investments we're clearly different.

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monitor, check and lock down you money with security from chase. control feels good. chase. make more of what's yours. >> bret: finally tonight, a look at tomorrow's headlines with the panel. harold? >> after miscalculating the taliban's capture of kabul, the biden national security team better fix this exit plan for our afghan allies. their reputation and credibility depend on it. >> bret: trey? >> afghan translators learn the american word for betrayal. >> bret: brit? >> president biden announces the withdrawal of all-american troops from germany and south korea because, after all, these foreign deployments can't go on forever. >> bret: and ben? >> intelligence expert proven wrong again promises he will be 100 percent right on next time.

>> bret: all right, panel, thank you. just want to say for all the veterans out there, hang in there if you were in afghanistan. it's a tough time. and we get it thanks for inviting us into your home tonight. that's it for this "special report," fair, balanced and still unafraid. fox news "fox news primetime" hosted this week by will cain starts right now. hey, will. >> will: hey, bret. thank you so much. good evening and welcome to "fox news primetime." ♪ i'm will kaine and technically when you talk out of both side of your mouth it means you give different parkways in different situations. but for president joe biden it means you will give a different opinion and different although back-to-back sentences of the very same speech. for the past 72 hours, during one of the most embarrassing episodes in american history, president biden was hunkered down like a threatened afghan translator, hiding from the news the taliban was taking over afghanistan. we watched on sunday worried we might see demorg