The Experts Got It Wrong and Biden Lacks the Humility to Admit It

This is a transcript from my radio show. You can listen live to The Erick Erickson Show here.

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Let's rewind the tape a little bit. The experts said if Donald Trump withdrew from the Iran deal, it would start a destabilizing war in the Middle East and it never happened. They said if Donald Trump moved the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, it would destabilize the Middle East and lead to war and it didn't. The experts that said since Donald Trump killed Qassim Solemani, there'd be war with Iran. The experts were wrong again. The experts said if Joe Biden withdrew from Afghanistan, there's no way the Taliban would sweep in. The experts again were wrong.

Is it any wonder no one listens to experts? The American people can't nuance here. They don't nuance. They don't see the difference between foreign policy experts, military experts, and public health experts. So the experts who were all wrong about Afghanistan, in the minds of many people, they are the ones telling you to get the vaccine. Is it any wonder people questioned the vaccine? The experts, the public elite, the American elite, they've lost the public's trust and they are wrong. It is their fault. They refuse to acknowledge it. They refuse to change. They refuse to show any level of humility at all.

The President of the United States is in hiding. He has not been seen since last week. Kamala Harris is in hiding. She hasn't been seen since last week. Jen Psaki, the White House Press Secretary as of 11:00 yesterday morning if you emailed her, you got an auto-response that she was on vacation the rest of the week.

In 2010, Steve Jobs was the CEO of Apple. Steve Jobs went on family vacation right after the release of the iPhone 4. It was the big redesign. It was the flat redesign. Glass on the front, glass on the back. There was an antenna. They incorporated the antenna into the outer shell of the phone, wrapped around the phone, and it connected in two locations. Unfortunately, if you grab the phone in your hand and you did not use a bumper or a case, it eliminated the ability of the antenna to work. As you grab the phone, you could literally see the antenna bars go down to zero on your phone to no service. It became a major scandal. Jobs was on vacation in Hawaii.

The engineers had designed an antenna that if you held the phone, as most people would, without a bumper on the phone, the little plastic band around the outer edge, the phone would not work. Steve Jobs canceled vacation, flew back to Cupertino, California, held a major press conference and it was a masterclass in damage control, pointing out other phones had the exact same issue. Everyone was focusing on Apple because of its market share. There was a very easy fix and Apple would give every single iPhone user a free bumper they could wrap around their phone. It would keep the phone safe and stop the problem from happening. It was a masterclass. He gave up vacation and came back.

In February of 2021, there was a massive ice storm in Texas. Ted and Heidi Cruz powerless, unable to do anything anyway, packed up their family, coordinated with friends, and flew off to Mexico. There was national press outrage that Ted Cruz had abandoned Texas. How dare you, Senator? So he had to pack up, turn around and go home.

Joe Biden told us this would not happen. Joe Biden said the Taliban would not take over the country. The experts told Joe Biden it'd be 90 days till they even got close to Kabul. They're already there. They've already taken over. They've already begun door-to-door searches for members of the government, for Christians and others. They're using WhatsApp, a popular text messaging app around the world owned by Facebook. They're texting people saying hand in the Christians and the governmental employees and the gays, or else. People are handing over others. Joe Biden said it wouldn't happen and he went into hiding. He hid all weekend.

Angela Merkel has now addressed the Germans. Emmanuel Macron has now addressed the French. Where's Joe Biden? Well, he announced less than an hour ago that he will now address the nation at 3:45 PM. It took ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC all this morning wanting to know where the president was before Joe Biden would come out of hiding and address the nation and own up to it. They're already spinning that it's Donald Trump's fault. Donald Trump wanted to leave. Donald Trump began negotiating with Taliban. Donald Trump never left Afghanistan. Donald Trump did not do this. Donald Trump didn't do it. Donald Trump had nothing to do with it. Donald Trump is not to blame.

You can blame Donald Trump for a lot of things. You can say, "You should have never negotiated with the Taliban." Donald Trump never abandoned the Afghanis. In Kabul, a C-17 was taking off, it was surrounded by Afghanis trying to get on. The plane was already overloaded. People clung to the bottom of the plane. You can see the video of them falling off the plane as it takes off. From hundreds of feet in the air, they tried to hang onto the plane to escape the Taliban. They died because of Joe Biden. Their deaths are on Joe Biden. You want America to succeed, you need Joe Biden to fail. Unfortunately, Joe Biden has succeeded in causing the America to fail in Afghanistan. That's the reality.

Now, listen. I want to say this to everyone here right now. You can debate whether or not we should have stayed in Afghanistan. You can debate whether or not we should have gone into Afghanistan. You can debate a lot about Afghanistan, but it is not up for debate that Joe Biden bungled the departure from Afghanistan. In fact, we now know his military advisors told him he needed more time to get refugees out of Afghanistan. Americans have been left behind in Afghanistan. Joe Biden left behind American civilians in Afghanistan. They're being told by the State Department to shelter in place. Joe Biden did this, not Donald Trump.

We now know members of Congress since June were telling the Biden administration they needed to delay this to get people out of Afghanistan before the military left and Joe Biden refused. Why? Because he wanted the symbolism of 9/11. The level of hubris to think he was going to capture the symbolism of 9/11. You know the symbolism of 9/11 he's captured, the Taliban coming back to power and putting Al-Qaeda back in charge, and now negotiating with China over the mineral rights of Afghanistan. In fact, the only two embassies in Afghanistan that are open today are the Russian and the Chinese embassies. The Taliban is standing guard protecting them.

This is inexcusable. Joe Biden should resign. I don't want Kamala Harris to be president, but Joe Biden should resign. It is inexcusable. His military advisors warned him not to do this. His diplomatic advisors warned him not to do this. His congressional allies warned him not to do this. But in the words of Robert Gates, Joe Biden has been wrong about every major foreign policy initiative in the last 40 years. Now, Joe Biden as president can be wrong about the big one and he got it wrong again. He always gets them wrong. Every single time Joe Biden wades into foreign policy, Joe Biden gets it wrong.

Joe Biden did not want Barack Obama to kill Osama bin Laden. Joe Biden gets them all wrong and has not the humility to recognize he got it wrong. For a man who campaigned on compassion and empathy, not very compassionate or empathetic to leave behind a bunch of Afghanis who have helped us for 20 years so they can be beheaded by the Taliban. Not very compassionate to tell Americans in Kabul to shelter in place. Sorry, we can't get you on the last flight out. Hang on. That's what Joe Biden did. He's caused a humanitarian disaster and he has handed the country back to the Taliban.

Again, you can debate whether or not we should be there or not, but I think a lot of us forgot our mission was not to build a nation. Our mission was to keep the Taliban and Al-Qaeda from having a launching pad from which to conduct terrorist attacks globally. For 20 years, we have successfully, with just 2,500, 2,500 troops in the last two years and no deaths of Americans since February of 2020, we've held an entire country with 2,500 troops. The Taliban have not had a haven from which to conduct or plan terrorist attacks. Al-Qaeda has not. China has not been able to come in there and get the minerals. For 2,500 troops, that's what we've done.

It took a while to get there but we got there and we gave it up the moment we had. All Biden had to do is do nothing. It's not like there was a massive public demand to get out of Afghanistan. You may not have wanted us to be there, but you have to acknowledge, people haven't really cared about the issue. They hadn't had to care because we hadn't had a bunch of soldiers dying. We've been holding a land without the Taliban there, and now we're gone and they've come back overnight, faster than Joe Biden said they could. They've come back.

How many Americans are going to die because of what Joe Biden did in the next 10 years? What are the odds in the next 10 years we're going to have to go back in there? Because the Taliban will not be tamed. It's kill or be killed and they want to kill us. I assure you, they want to kill us. How many Americans are going to die? How many American soldiers will ultimately die because of the way Joe Biden did this? They could have waited until winter. They could have waited until winter. It would have slowed the Taliban's advance naturally. It snows in Afghanistan. It gets very cold in Afghanistan. It slows everything down in Afghanistan, and it would have bought more time to get everyone out who wanted to get out.

But Joe Biden wanted the backdrop of 9/11. Well, he's got the backdrop of 9/11 now. Joe Biden's got the backdrop of 9/11 now. Not the backdrop he wanted. This is his mission accomplished. This is his Katrina. This is all Joe Biden's. Then the man went into hiding. Biden hid at Camp David all weekend and would still be there, but for even the New York Times today condemning him. When a Democratic president loses the New York Times editorial page, you know he's got problems. He can blame Donald Trump. In fact, Jake Sullivan, his National Security Advisor's out today saying, "Well, there was going to be a civil war and we would've had to send more troops."

No, the only reason there was possibly going to be a civil war is because we were signaling we're getting the hell out of the country and they were ready for us to leave so they could fight it out. As long as we were there, that civil war wasn't happening. This is revisionist history. There are Democrats in Congress, they say, "Well, Donald Trump started this." You got Liz Cheney and Ben Sasse, they're saying Donald Trump initiated conversations with the Taliban, but Joe Biden didn't have to pull the trigger. Joe Biden pulled the trigger. How many Americans are going to die because of it? A lot, I would venture to say in the next decade. He bungled this rollout and a lot of Americans will die after thousands of Afghanis are headed by the Taliban.

In June, the American Embassy in Kabul hoisted a rainbow flag and tweeted it out that they were celebrating Pride month because they were so tolerant. The actual tweet from the U.S. Embassy in Afghanistan was the month of June is recognized as LGBTI Pride Month. The United States respects the dignity and equality of the LGBTI people and celebrates their contribution to society. We remain committed to supporting civil rights of minorities, including LGBTI persons, #pride2021, #pridemonth with a picture of the rainbow flag.

I don't even know what the I stands for. They keep adding fricking letters do it. It used to be LGB and then it's LGBT then it was LGBTQ and now they've traded the Q for the I. They put more thought into that tweet than into evacuating people from Afghanistan. They can virtue signal all they want, but hashtags don't kill the Taliban. American soldiers do. Now, we're not there to kill the Taliban so the Taliban can start plotting to kill us again. Thanks, Joe Biden.