Live from Music Row Thursday morning on The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. – host Leahy welcomed The Tennessee Star National Correspondent Neil McCabe to the newsmaker line to discuss military veteran’s response to Afghanistan, the White House transcript leak to Reuters, and Joe Biden’s comeuppance.
Leahy: On the newsmaker line, our good friend, the best correspondent in Washington, D.C., for The Star News Network and The Tennessee Star, Neil McCabe. Good morning Neil.
McCabe: Michael, a pleasure. Very good to be with you.
Leahy: Neil, of course, the worst foreign policy debacle in modern American history. Joe Biden failed to inform Congress as he was required to do when he told them he sent him a waiver letter in June saying, I’m not going to give you all the details of my withdrawal.
But he failed to include the national security reasons that he wasn’t going to tell that. There are calls for his resignation, for his impeachment. It’s just a disaster. And yet Mitch McConnell yesterday says, well, we’re not going to impeach this guy. What are your thoughts?
McCabe: Mitch McConnell and Biden are old friends and they’ve helped each other swing billions of dollars into each other’s states. And I think that when an honest politician is a guy who, when he’s bought, he stays bought. (Leahy chuckles)
And McConnell has been bought. You look back at foreign policy disasters. This is more catastrophic than the Bay of Pigs. We think of the fall of Saigon as a few bad days. This thing is still not over.
And the ramifications of how this went down are going to be a trauma that does not go away. It’s going to be one of those events that stays in the American consciousness. And there’s no way that Biden can turn it, flip it, spin it.
He is all boxed in and he is finished in American politics. And we’ve got this prospect of a lame-duck president for more than three years.
Leahy: Unbelievable. The word that most veterans I hear say describing the manner in which the United States left Afghanistan is shameful. Shameful. Has America ever ended a war as shamefully as this?
McCabe: I’ve served 15 months in Iraq, and I’m proud of my 20 plus years of service in the Army Reserve. And I think that a lot of veterans and military people were really stung by Benghazi because the idea with Benghazi is that no matter what kind of trouble you’re in, somebody would come to get you. And with Benghazi, they were under attack for eight to 13 hours, and nobody came to get them. And that was shameful.
Leahy: They let them die in Benghazi.
McCabe: Right. But for a lot of people, it was mostly something that I felt the servicemen and women and the veterans felt. But I don’t think Americans really felt it as deeply as the military community.
This, on the other hand, is absolutely pervasive across all platforms. This is a full spectrum embarrassment. And, you know, it’s like, where does it end? At what point would you think it was the worst?
Two weeks ago, there were people falling out of planes. You would think that would be the worst. But it wasn’t the worst. And now people are doing the accounting. And let’s say there’s $90 billion of military equipment that now belongs to the Taliban from Uncle Sugar and the American taxpayers.
And what’s Biden’s response that? They take the web pages offline. And then, of course, the Reuters leak, which is even more incredible that Reuters leaked the transcript of the call when the White House put out their readout of the call that he had with President Ghana of Afghanistan.
The White House said President Biden discussed the ongoing situation in Afghanistan, and Biden offered American support. Whatever. It turns out Biden told the guy, I need you to lie.
Leahy: That’s exactly right.
McCabe: We are losing. And I need you to lie. And so, yeah, that’s important that the President told the President of Afghanistan a lie. And I don’t know if we impeach Presidents over phone calls, Mike. (Leahy chuckles) I don’t know.
But let me say this, what’s significant about this story is that somebody in the White House had that transcript and leaked it to Reuters. Reuters is not The National Review. Reuters is not The Tennessee Star. Reuters is not Breitbart.
Reuters is like a grown-up, big-time mainstream media. They’re like legit media. And the idea that you would give it to Reuters and Reuters would run it. Reuters wouldn’t spike it. Like, if you gave it a USA Today, USA Today might spike it, but Reuters ran it.
That’s what’s significant about the transcript story is that the media is not covering for this guy. And, you know, I was just a wee boy during the presidency of James Earl Carter. But, you know, he came into office with accolades.
The media loved Carter and they turned on him with savagery. It was awful what they did to Carter. I haven’t seen the press turn on a Democrat like this since Jimmy Carter.
And basically, Carter’s handling of the Iranian hostage and the Iranian Revolution was very similar to the way Biden is handling this.
Leahy: Biden, apparently, is much worse, though, because he now obviously has been lying through his teeth about this for months to Congress and to the American people.
McCabe: Blaming the military, blaming the intel community. And then the intel community in the military is like, you know what? Actually, we’re not going to take the hit for this.
And so when Biden said it was my recommendation, somebody at the Pentagon leaked and said, actually, our recommendation was something else Joe.
Leahy: Where does this go, Neil?
McCabe: I suspect that somebody in the Democratic leadership made the decision that they have to knee cap Biden and take him out. I would be very surprised if Biden survives to give the state of the Union address in 2022.
Leahy: Does he resign? Is he impeached? What happens? We got 30 seconds for that big one.
McCabe: Biden does not get impeached, but it’s going to be really bad. And then Biden is going to be blamed for the recall of Newsom. And then Biden basically is going to be blamed for the horrific losses that the Democrats are looking at in the midterms, and they’re going to try to jettison him before the midterms, just like the Republicans jettisoned Nixon before the ’74 midterms.
Leahy: On that note, we’ll say thank you, Neil McCabe, the best Washington correspondent in the country.
McCabe: Be good Mike.
Listen to the third hour here:
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Tune in weekdays from 5:00 – 8:00 a.m. to the Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy on Talk Radio 98.3 FM WLAC 1510. Listen online at iHeart Radio.
