they love the ducks. >> dana: you are killing the stage manager. she can't take it anymore. >> geraldo: it's been nice to work with you all. [laughter] >> greg: "special report" is up next. you are still here, right? >> bret: hi, greg. duck, duck, mike tobin. that's a good end. good evening, welcome to washington. i'm bret baier, breaking tonight. [one fire. [gunfire] >> they don't know how to control crowds. so they do these things. >> bret: chilling new video obtained by fox news shows afghans taking cover as gunfire

rings out around the perimeter of the of the kabul airport. some protesters waived the afghanistan flag in defiance of the taliban as it retakes afghanistan. thousands of americans and afghans are waiting their turn to leave. flights at the airport have picked up, but fox news has learned that each transport plane that took off today was only at 60% capacity. and moments ago, breaking news, a "wall street journal" report that fox news has now confirmed saying state department officials, two dozen of them at the kabul embassy sent a memo to top brass last month warning of the potential collapse of kabul soon after the august 3 st troop withdrawal deadline. we will have more on that breaking story in a moment. first, correspondent trey yingst is in our middle east newsroom with the latest on the ground in afghanistan. good evening, trey. >> bret, good evening. according to nato, 12 people have died in and around the kabul airport since sunday as the situation remains extremely dangerous.

gunfire erupts outside of the airport in kabul as civilians scrowch near the ground. mothers hoist babies over walls and bashed wire handing their children to british and american soldiers. for foreigners who have the correct paperwork, leaving kabul is proving to be extremely difficult. for many afghans, it's nearly impossible. >> one of the soldiers just called me, as i said there was chaos. they had guns. they were shooting. they had no choice but to remove the crowd from there. so i understand that. tear gas was firing all around. so one of them just got me inside. and i was in tears, honestly. >> the taliban maintain as perimeter around the airport accosting people trying to enter while u.s. troops are forced to use crowd control techniques. capital carrying a massive flag. their chants echo through the city. marking the country trips

independence day. the celebration was short-lived. taliban fighters quickly intercepted the group firing into the crowd. every people were killed during a similar demonstration in the city of assad bad. after the taliban used violence to stop what they sees a an act of opposition. areas like the province are already adjusting to new life under the taliban. >> this province has been under taliban control for the last three months. at that time there was are -- and business was good. after the taliban took control all of afghanistan, we are facing difficulties in our business. >> reports indicate military opposition to the taliban is forming in the pawn share valley. no country has publicly offered support yet. bret? >> bret: yea yingst live in our middle east newsroom. thank you. about two dozen state department officials serving at the kabul

embassy served this memo to antony blinken and another top official last month with specific warnings of rapid territorial gains by the taliban and the subsequent collapse, they believed, of the afghan security forces. the report said recommendations were offered on ways to mitigate the crisis. and speed up an evacuation. state department correspondent rich edson joins us live with the very latest. good evening, rich. >> good evening, bret. a source familiar with that memo says the secretary read it, approved a response, which also coincided with the state department efforts to try to process more afghan interpreters and bring them to the united states. though despite that summer memo, and warnings from the intelligence community from that time, which we have been reporting on, there are still incredible challenges in getting americans and afghans out of kabul. >> taliban checkpoints, gunfire and massive crowds at the airport. officials say that forced them to temporarily shut one of the

gates in kabul's airport today as they raced to evacuate american citizens, residents, and afghans who have worked with the united states. >> i can tell you that they have received as of a couple hours ago a small handful of reports from american citizens who weren't able to reach the airport for whatever reason. >> contacts in kabul say the taliban is refusing to let them through to the airport. >> my office has been in touch with dozens of people on the ground outside the airport with the taliban are beating people indiscriminately, taking their passports. taking their visa papers. >> to address, this officials say former u.s. ambassador to afghanistan john bass will try to negotiate with the taliban to follow through on its agreement and allow americans safe passage out of the country. the state department says its surging staff to the kabul airport. doubling the number of diplomats who process people out of the country. the government refuses to provide numbers, though, as of this morning, officials tell fox

only 20 counselor officers were working to process thousands of evacuees. growing criticism of the state department's handling of this withdrawal. republican congressman dan crenshaw stated quote state department in charge of civilian evacuations they failed miserably and continue to fail. when the dust settles, it's hard to see how secretary blinken should still have a job. blinken's confirmation as secretary enjoyed broad bipartisan support. though late senator john mccain warned he was dangerous to america during his nomination as deputy secretary in 2014. >> tony blinken who is not only unqualified but, in fact, in my view, one of the worst selections that of a very bad lot. >> the state department says it has processed an additional 6,000 evacuees that prepare to leaf afghanistan. it will be about 20 flights out of kabul tonight. as for when we are going to see

secretary of state antony blinken who has not and or taken questions in the briefing room since this started, the state department says we expect to see him soon. bret? >> bret: rich edson at the state department. rich, thank you. concerns are growing tonight over the taliban's new arsenal of weapons and equipment left behind by fleeing afghan forces. all that provided why the u.s. tonight, new details on the size of the taliban's big haul. national security correspondent jennifer griffin has more tonight from the pentagon. good evening, jen. >> jenna: good evening, bret. billions of dollars of u.s. military hardware now in the hands of the taliban. that's not the only terrorist threat facing the u.s. military as it races against the clock to evacuate americans and their allies. >> isis and al-qaeda is absolutely a planning factor. you wouldn't expect it to be otherwise. and i'm not going to talk about specific force protection measures against terrorist threats. >> jenna: u.s. officials estimate the taliban now control at least 2,000 u.s. armored

vehicles between 30 and 40 aircraft and an untold number of small arms like these displayed by taliban fighters in reason days. night vision, 50 caliber machine guns and helicopter gun ships. >> how many u.s. taxpayer funded military aircraft have been flown out of the country and what are you doing to get those back? >> i have received reports of a number of aircraft that were flown into uzbekistan and we are going to take that issue up at a later date. >> data compiled for afghan recon destruction in quarterly reports since 2009 warned of corruption and a hollow afghan national army imemployeing soldiers for years. the gao estimates the u.s. provided the afghan army nearly 600,000 weapons and 75,000 vehicles between 2003 and 2016. like the mujahideen who fought the ilyasova cents with u.s. provided weapons. the taliban which didn't have

access to american weapons when they swept into kabul in 1996 now fully armed courtesy of the u.s. taxpayer. defense secretary lloyd austin hosted his car tarry counterpart at the taliban a key taliban ally who flew its leader back to kandahar this week. qatar is also home to a large u.s. air base the pentagon would like to use to process thousands of afghan evacuees. >> does the u.s. government recognize the taliban as the legitimate government of afghanistan now? >> that's a question for the state department. the defense department is focused on conducting this noncombatant evacuation. >> the pentagon says the u.s. military evacuated 2,000 people in the past 24 hours. far less than the capacity it has to fly out between 5,000 and 9,000 people each day. >> so many american citizens remain in afghanistan? >> i don't know. >> the military always knew after it pulled out that they would get the 911 call from the state department to help evacuate americans and vulnerable afghans hot pentagon

warned for months needed faster processing by the state department in order to leave. they just didn't know the call would come so soon, bret. >> bret: and, jen, you have just received some information about one of afghanistan's most recognizable female news anchors? >> that's right, bret. she was the face of afghanistan's state owned broadcaster but when she arrived for work on tuesday, armed taliban turned her away. they told her the hakeem had changed and told her to go home. she posted a video describing her experience and the fear afghan women now feel as their rights are already being taken away despite promises from the taliban that women would be allowed to work. bret? >> bret: all right. jen. thank you. we will follow that stocks were mixed today. the dow lost 67. the s&p 500 gained 6. the nasdaq rose 16. up next, pentagon press secretary john kirby joins us live to discuss the latest evolving situation in afghanistan and the breaking

news. first, here is what some of our fox affiliates around the country are covering tonight. fox 46 in charlotte where two people are dead and around 20 missing still after severe flooding in western north carolina from the remnants of tropical storm fred. officials say more than 200 searchers set off this morning to continue checking homes and clearing areas assessing the damage there. fox 5 in new york where a woman accusing r and b singer r. kelly of sex abuse returns to the witness stand for a seconds day. she wept while reading from a 2010 journal entry describing how he beat, choked and sexually assaulted her when she was 16. if convicted kelly could face decades in prison. this is a live look at boston from qfxt our affiliate there the big story you may have seen this on "the five" the appearance of a giant rubber duck in belfast, maine remains a mystery tonight. the 25-foot tall yellow bird emblazened with the word joy showed up in the harbor over the weekend. the harbor master says the giant

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afghanistan. >> i don't know. i think as you probably know, first of all, the state department would be a better place to go for an estimate of how many americans are in afghanistan. >> bret: well, we have seen a lot of the pentagon briefings lately. for the latest on the situation in afghanistan let's bring in pentagon press secretary john kirby. admiral kirby, thanks for joining us. >> you bet. thank you, bret. >> the president said the administration had planned for every contingency in the interview with george stephanopoulos yesterday. are you aware of any plans that involved several thousand americans left to fend for themselves out of security zones through the taliban to get to the airport in the contingency? >> well, we certainly did plan

for a noncombatant evacuation, bret. in fact, planning began for that as far back as early may. now, we didn't know exactly what the conditions were going to be like. and as you heard the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff say yesterday, there was nothing that we had seen that would indicate a total collapse of the government in 11 days. and as fast as it was. but, even two weeks ago, bret, we did a table top exercise at the pentagon to further refine what ended up us executing noncombatant out of harmid karzai airport. >> we have fluid situation. things happened faster than we anticipated they would happen. luckily we had preportioned forces in the region and closer to afghanistan to be able to get them there in just a matter of hours. >> bret: yeah. i asked you right before we went on whether you had seen this new "wall street journal" reporting which we have now confirmed two dozen state department employees at the embassy sending a memo to

secretary blinken saying that they believed the taliban would quickly take over soon after the august 31st deadline and that they were really concerned about evacuation and how that was going to go. you have no knowledge of that or that it was in intel reports? >> i certainly wouldn't talk about intel and i don't know anything about that cable. what i can tell you here at the pentagon certainly we were watching with alarm as district after district and then provincial capital after provincial capital began to fall to the taliban and we realized this was unfolding very, very quickly. i have not seen that cable though so i can't attest to the validity of it. >> bret: yeah. obviously there is a lot of critics on both sides of the aisle and there will be a lot of time as chairman of the joint chiefs said to do after action reports. your main concern is to get people out. senator tom cotton is concerned about that specifically too. here is what he said. >> if our government can't even say how many american citizens we have what's going to stop joe

biden from rolling up things and flying out on august 31st with thousands of american citizens left behind? what increasingly worries me is the scenario of tehran in 1979 when 52 hostages held by the ayatollah paralyzed american foreign policy for more than a year. imagine if the taliban had effective hostage control of thousands of americans who were stranded in afghanistan. >> bret: so react to that if you can. >> well, certainly nobody wants to see a replay of what happened in iran back in the late 1970s, bret. we know what happened. we understand that history. what i can tell you right now is that we have a safe and secure airport. it is operating and we are in charge of running the operation there. we also have communication with the taliban to allow americans through their checkpoints and on to the facility. we don't know of any major disruption to that i can't say with perfect, you know, individuality that there isn't a case here or there where an

american might be having trouble, but by and large, we are getting americans in through their checkpoints and onto the airfield for further onflow. hundreds more americans have left today. so, we are still working this very, very hard. >> we have, very closely. and as secretary austin said yesterday, our goal is to get as many people out as fast as we can. >> bret: yeah. but is there a deal with the taliban that restricts u.s. forces to the airport? >> no. there is no deal that restricts forces to the airport. but, bret, that's where the mission is. the troops are there for really two things. one, to keep that airport safe and secure for people and for flight operations and, two, to make sure that those flight operations can go as unimpeded as possible with as few delays as many aircraft. >> bret: if the british can take their paratroopers and get in vehicles and go get their people and get them to the airport, why can't the u.s. too that if there is a deal with the taliban to

provide safe passage, why is it left to the americans outside of that ring to get their on their own? why can't we send vehicles to go get them? >> we -- we have not seen any great impediment to the safe passage that the taliban have agreed to facilitate. measures are getting through those checkpoints and they are getting onto the base on the airfield and they're being flown out of kabul. i won't speak to potential future operations that may or may not be conducted. what i can tell you is the operation we are conducting now that is to keep that airfield up and running. and americans are getting through the lines and getting on to planes. >> bret: does the u.s. military consider the taliban an enemy? >> we are focused right now -- the thing we are -- we're working against right now is time and space. and we want to get as many people out of kabul as we can in as little amount of time as we can. there are no hostile

interactions right now between american forces and the taliban. and we want to keep it that way. >> bret: okay. and we hope it does stay that way. we appreciate you coming on and answering questions. we'll have you back: thanks, bret. >> bret: up next, president biden digs his heels in on his strategy to leave afghanistan despite bipartisan criticism. plus, an impassioned speech from a veteran in the united kingdom chastising the president gains international attention. >> shameful. those who have never fought for the colors they fly should be careful about criticizing those who have. >> here here. ♪ that i should get used to people staring. so i did. it's okay, you can stare. when you're a two-time gold medalist,

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brett bret the many biden administration is are depending off criticism mixed messages if the u.s. would w. drew from afghanistan. white house correspondent jacqui heinrich has that part of the story tonight. >> in july, the president was asked if the taliban takeover was inevitable, he said no, calling it highly unlikely. now he is admitting the intelligence community did not fully agree. >> i think there was no consensus if you go back and look at the intelligence reports. they said that more likely to be some time by the end of the year. >> still, after a week filled with images of desperate americans and afghans trying to flee the country, biden who earlier this week admitted surprise at how quickly the taliban took over, maintained

this outcome was inevitable and planned for. >> the idea that somehow there's a way to have gotten out without chaos ensuing, i don't know how that happen. >> back in march fox news confirmed reports the biden administration was embroiled in internal debate over the withdrawal. fox.com writing the chairman of the joint chiefs general mark milley made an impassioned plea to keep troops in the country adding, quote, in his view the lack of 2500 u.s. troops in afghanistan would make it harder to send threats from a nuclear armed pakistan. president biden denied any such warning. >> so no one told -- your military adviser did not tell you no, we should just keep 2500 troops. >> no. no one said that to me that i can recall. >> but the president also conceded there is now a chance al-qaeda could restab a foot hold in afghanistan sooner than two years from now. >> could it be sooner? >> it could be but, george, look, here's the deal, al-qaeda, isis, they metastasize. there is a significantly greater threat to the united states from

syria. there is a significant greater threat from east africa. >> bipartisan members of congress are demanding answers. speaker nancy pelosi joining with republican leaders in the house and senate calling for a gang of eight briefing where congressional leaders privy to classified information can grill the administration on the details. >> new poll from the associated press taken amid the withdrawal showed the majority of americans agree the war in afghanistan was not worth fighting, but they are divided over president biden's handling of foreign policy and national security. bret? >> bret: jacqui heinrich live on the north lawn, thank you. united kingdom member of parliament tom too longen hat is receiving recognition after delivering emotional speech in which he chastised president biden for accusing afghan forces of giving up against the taliban. here's what the chairman of the foreign affairs committee who served in afghanistan had to say.

>> like many veterans this last week has been one that happy birthday seen me struggle through anger and grief and rage. the feeling of abandonment, of not just a country but but the sacrifice my friends made. i watched good men go into the earth taking with them a part of me and a part of all of us and this week has torn open some of those wounds. this isn't just about us. the mission in afghanistan wasn't a british mission. it was a nato mission. it was a recognition that globalization has changed us all. the phone calls i'm still receiving, the text messages i have been answering as i have been waiting putting people in touch with our people in afghanistan reminds us that we are connected we are connected still today and afghanistan is

not a far country about which we know little. to say see their commander-in-chief call into question the courage of men i fought with, to claim that they ran, shameful. >> here here. >> those who have never fought for the colors they fly should be careful about criticizing those who have. now, this is a harsh lesson for all of us. and if we're not careful, it could be a very, very difficult lesson for our allies. it doesn't need to be. we can set out a vision, clearly articulated for reinvigorating our nato partners to make sure we are not dependent on a single ally, on the decision of a single leader, that we can work together with japan and australia, with france and germany, with partners large and small and make sure that we hold

the line together. it doesn't need to be defeat. but at the moment damn well feels like it. >> here here. [applause] >> bret: applause in parliament for that speech, an emotional one. up next here in the u.s., tensions flair over mask mandates in school plus an emotional tribute to a fallen police officer. first beyond our borders tonight, frustration is mounting across haiti over the slow pace of aid reaching areas by the weekend earthquake. hospitals in the worst hit areas are mostly incapacitated and there is a desperate need for medical equipment. haiti's president says the country is now on its knees as the death toll climbs over 2100. the u.n. nuclear watchdog says iran continues to produce uranium metal used in the production of a nuclear bomb. according to a new report, iran has and is accelerating its production capacity of enriched

uranium, germany, france and britain call the moves serious violations of its commitment to the 2015 nuclear deal. and the world's first robot tour guide is welcoming visitors to the cave in greece. the robot covers the first 500 feet of the cave and covers tours in 33 languages. just some of the other stories beyond our borders tonight. we'll be right back. ♪ ♪

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♪ >> bret: a man who claimed to have a bomb in a pickup truck near the capitol is in police custody tonight. he surrendered to law enforcement after an hours long standoff that prompted a massive police response in the evacuation of government buildings and businesses nearby. the 49-year-old's motive remains unknown. police have not said whether an explosive was actually found in that vehicle.

three u.s. senators are quarantining tonight after testing positive for covid-19 despite being fully vaccinated. senators hickenlooper, king and wicker each announced their break through cases today. today also oregon became the latest state requiring teachers and other school support staff to be fully vaccinated. meanwhile, texas and florida are at the center of an escalating battle over school mask mandates with president biden now directing his education secretary to use all of his oversight authority against governors who are trying to ban school mask mandates. correspondent phil keating has the story tonight. [shouting] >> the divisiveness of masking school kids or not continues triggering protests by parents. from the local level school boards all the way up to the white house, democrats are pile on against republican governors who are doing all they can to prevent mandatory mask mandates that don't provide a parent opt out for their kids. the latest coming last night at

the palm beach county school board meeting due to rising cases of kids covid positive and hundreds of boys and girls now in quarantine. in the 6-1 vote the board removed parent's ability to exempt their children. the latest school strict to dough phi republican governor ron desantis. miami-dade in tampa's hills bow row county did the same wednesday. orange county may join their mask mandate policies tuesday. broward and alatch i can't county already had for which the state board of education demanded for unspecified sanctions. while the president didn't name names, the administration clearly is aiming at republican governors like texas' greg abbott now covid positive and florida's ron desantis, both staunch opponents of mask mandates. >> i'm directing the secretary of education educator himself to take additional steps to protect our children this includes using all of his oversight's authorities and legal action if proponent against governors who are trying to block and

intimidate local school officials and educators. >> education secretary miguel cardona is looking at deploying the department's civil rights enforcement toomer investigate states banning mask mandates and whether they violate the civil rights of children. governor desantis is not backing down. >> you got to wonder where are your priorities that you are so obsessed with this issue so obsessed with taking away parents' rights letting afghanistan burn, our border burn and some other things in our country fall to pieces. >> while these renegade districts do allow a doctor to exempt a child, palm beach county doesn't even allow that only with an exemption under federal disability law. bret? >> bret: phil keating in miami, phil, thanks. you can find nearby vaccine locations by going to vaccines.gov. chicago police are grieving the loss of their colleague tonight. officer ella french was shot and killed during a traffic stop earlier this month. today her companions paid

tribute to the 29-year-old killed in the line of duty. correspondent garrett tenney has the sphror chicago. >> i have two children, ella and andrew. they are my heart. today, i am here with half my heart. [bagpipes] >> along with her family, today thousands of officers from across the country paid their final respects to their fallen colleague, officer ella french. she was 29 years old and had only been on the force for three years. but those who knew her say she left an impact. ella french was a super star, amazing person extraordinary police officer. she possessed all of the qualities that everyone wants in law enforcement today. friends say ella had a deep love for animals. one of her partners said whenever they were on patrol and saw a stray dog. she would make them stop so they could take it to a shelter. >> [inaudible] thank you for all the great memories. i miss you.

>> other partner is also speaking out first time since the august 7th shooting. carlosian necessary jr. remains in the hospital with two bulls lodged in heir brain that doctors can't remove and could be facing lifelong disability due to his injuries. in a short video from the hospital room he thanked his wife and 3-year-old son and everyone who has been supporting them. >> thank you for your support. your donations. and your prayers. [inaudible] >> officerrian necessary's family said a week before the shooting he was dancing with his wife. now he could be paralyzed. today at the funeral his father said they are just thankful he is still alive. the next court hearing for the man accused of shooting the officers is september 3rd. bret? >> bret: garrett tenney in chicago. garrett, thanks. up next the panel on afghanistan and what about vice president harris amid this crisis?

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top military advisers advised against withdrawing in this timeline they wanted to to keep 2500 troops. they they didn't. that wasn't true. >> your military advisers didn't tell you we should keep 2500

troops it's been a stable situation the last few years we can continue to do that. >> no. no one said that to me that i can recall. >> break down those numbers the 7,000 saying this is u.s., this is afghan had. >> i do not -- i do not have a break down. >> how many american citizens remain in afghanistan? >> job. john.>> we deserve answers. the house foreign affairs committee plans to conduct hearings next week. i have an awful lot of questions i know my colleagues on both sides of the aisle do as well. >> bret: democrats and republicans have concern as we are getting new images right now from the u.s. military of military members, personnel on the ground helping refugees in various different ways. and this continues. and, obviously, the military is great at doing a lot of things if they are able to do it. right now they are not able to leave the kabul airport to get other people to that tirpt get

them on planes and get them out. those planes are leaving every date. some of them are 60% full as they did today. let's bring in our panel byron york, chief political correspondent of "the washington examiner." juan williams is a fox news analyst and bill mcgurn columnist for the "wall street journal." byron, your thoughts on what have you heard from the administration and what's happening? >> well, this is just a terrible, terrible situation. we're not flying as many people out as we have the capacity to do. we don't know how many americans there are outside of kabul -- of the kabul airport throughout afghanistan. we can't go get them because we don't control anything outside of the airport. the president, the defense department, the state department and the intelligence community are all pointing fingers at one another. and the worst thing of all is that we are dependent on the good graces of the taliban.

it sounds crazy to say it we are dependent on the good graces of the taliban to do anything there. so it's a very, very bad situation. >> bret: you know, just earlier in this show, i asked john kirby about that because, in fact, the british are -- did do this and have been doing this paratroopers have been going out, collecting british citizens in shelter in place -- different places throughout kabul. here is that -- i asked kirby about it. >> left to the americans outside of that ring to get their on their own? why can't we send vehicles to go get them? >> we -- we have not seen any great impediments to the safe passage that the at that point ban have agreed to facilitate. americans are getting through those checkpoints and they are getting onto the base -- onto the airfield. and they are being flown out of kabul. i won't speak to potential future operations that may or may not be conducted.

>> bret: juan, what do you think? anecdotally we hear tough times getting through taliban checkpoints. >> well, i think if you or i were there i would be concerned. i don't think there is any question if you have a loved one there you have got to worry you can't trust the taliban in my opinion. i think that what we're talking about here is the evacuation and there is no question it could have been done better. it's been badly handled on so many levels. but i don't think that no matter how the evacuation was handled, that the big picture, which is could the afghan government have held? could the afghan military have held its own and not folded? i don't think those things would have turned out much differently. if you will recall, president trump, secretary pompeo wanted out by may 1st. biden wants out by august 15th. i think in either case, those big picture items, the brass tacks of this would have been much the same. you know, i think that's why that poll that jacqui heinrich

mentioned earlier is so true. two thirds of the american people say this war was not worth fighting. majorities of both democrats and republicans. so, when you look at it in those terms, i think we can quickly say, yes, once american troops and the americans are out, i think this is all going to be forgotten. >> bret: but, bill, the big picture is not that we wanted to get out of a war. the big picture is how we got out of the where. now we have this "wall street journal" report about two dozen kabul embassy officials sending a memo to the secretary of state saying that they are seeing the taliban on the move. and this thing is going to collapse very quickly the second that american troops leave. that seems like a warning. now, it's not before they leave. but it is a warning that the things are happening quickly. >> yeah. look, the biden administration is maintaining two contradictory things. one is joe biden says that we

would have this chaos with any retreat and that we thought. you know. and then he says no one told him about it beforehand. we're likely to find a lot more of these kind of warnings. i push back on the larger picture, you know, for some reason we have had three presidents that have concluded that they don't want to fight in afghanistan. our combat role was largely done. and it seems to me that the definition of failure we have that because in 20 years we didn't transform afghanistan into belgium, you know, a functioning democracy, you know, where rights are largely respected, means that it's a failure. i mean, afghanistan was a, a lot better for people even under this -- the corrupt afghan government, certainly better for women. certainly strategically better for us, unlikely to give safe haven al-qaeda. again, it would have required a minimal presence to do it.

this was a catastrophe. it seems to me pretty obvious willed by joe biden. he made the decision. he came in advocating that he is the smartest guy in foreign policy, knows all the stuff. and i think he overruled some of his own advisers and so forth. he wanted out. he wanted out by 9/11 to have an anniversary and that's what we have. and now, now that they have screwed up so largely they want to present this as inevitable. >> bret: but, i mean, just think about what we are seeing, the images not just at the airport. you are going to see a taliban flag flying over the u.s. embassy in kabul on the 9/11 anniversary the 20th anniversary of 9/11. you have billions and billions of dollars of u.s. military equipment. humvees, black hawk helicopters. big honorabled vehicles that are now in the hands of the taliban which, john kirby cannot say to me today whether they consider them an enemy or not.

just got word, byron, from state department that the u.s. will not charge for evacuation flights saying in these unique circumstances we have no intention of seeking any reimbursements from those fleeing afghanistan. so they have that going for them if they can get to the airport. >> yes, if they can get through the taliban checkpoints to get to the airport. now, this report in the "wall street journal" in which the state department basically predicted an instantaneous collapse of the afghan government, the thing that it seems to me that that report means is that it would require a lot of planning ahead of time to get people out, get people out, have a whole process going before -- before you finally leave -- you take the military out. now, president biden said he couldn't do that because the afghan government didn't want it because it would -- the optics would be bad and there would be

a crisis of confidence. i want to learn more about that. i think that's a real possibility if you have people on the ground, u.s. government officials on the ground saying in afghanistan saying there is going to be instantaneous collapse in this place decision makers have to take that seriously. >> bret: soundbite last with person in the room this is vice president harris. >> president biden always said that he wants you to be the last person in the room. >> yeah. >> particularly for big decisions, just as he was for president obama. he just made a really big decision, afghanistan. >> yeah. >> were you the last person in the room? >> yes. >> and you feel comfortable? >> i do. >> bret: the "new york post" where's kamala? last person in the room kamala silent six days amid pull out chaos, juan, where is she? >> i this think she is pretty invisible. i think that's way most vice

presidents are. if you recall biden was that for obama in terms of going after bin laden. he even objected to it. so, you know. >> bret: that's right. that's exactly right. panel, stand by. when we come back, tomorrow's headlines with y'all. ♪ ♪ is now a good time for a flare-up? enough, crohn's! for adults with moderate to severe crohn's or ulcerative colitis... stelara® can provide relief and is the only approved medication to reduce inflammation on and below the surface of the intestine in uc. you, getting on that flight? back off, uc! stelara® may increase your risk of infections, some serious, and cancer. before treatment, get tested for tb. tell your doctor if you have an infection... flu-like symptoms, sores, new skin growths,

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at usaa, we've been called too exclusive. because we were created for officers. but as we've evolved with the military, we've grown to serve all who've honorably served. no matter their rank, or when they were in.

a marine just out of basic, or a petty officer from '73. and even his kids. and their kids. usaa is made for all who've honorably served and their families. are we still exclusive? absolutely. and that's exactly why you should join. >> bret: finally tonight, a look at tomorrow's headlines with the panel. bill, first to you. >> joe biden plan to use the coming 9/11 anniversary to present himself to the president who ended america's forever wars. instead he is handed 9/11 to the taliban who will now use every anniversary to celebrate their victory over the united states. >> bret: juan? >> tomorrow's headline 20,000 children quarantined georgia, alabama, louisiana, kentucky, school children all being quarantined as we try to get the schools back open.

it's a crisis. >> bret: all right. quickly, byron? >> biden to congress: please overlook afghanistan and pass my $3.5 trillion spending bill. remember, infrastructure? i don't either. >> bret: all right. we'll follow that, too. thanks for inviting us into your home. that's it for "special report," fair, balanced and unafraid. "fox news primetime" hosted by will cain just a couple seconds late starts right now. hey, will. >> will: i will forgive you bret, no problem. have a good night. good evening, and welcome to "fox news primetime." ♪ ♪ >> will: i am will cain and, what an absolute display of uberous. just stunning buffoonery. president biden sat down with george stephanopoulos this morning and he said that the chaos we are seeing in afghanistan was inevitable. endangered americans? that was priced into the decision. the