Col. Richard Kemp says what's happening in Afghanistan is 'worse' than Saigon
Retired British Army officer discusses the political ramifications of Biden's botched withdrawal of Afghanistan on 'Life, Liberty & Levin'
This is a rush transcript from "Life, Liberty & Levin" August 22, 2021. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
MARK LEVIN, FOX NEWS HOST: Hello, America. Mark Levin, and this is LIFE, LIBERTY & LEVIN, this is an incredibly important show. I have two very important guests, and my first guest is somebody you need to know. He's retired British colonel Richard Kemp.
Richard Kemp has spent most of his life fighting terrorism and insurgency, commanding British troops on the front line of some of the world's toughest hot spots, including Afghanistan, Iraq, the Balkans, and Northern Ireland.
He was sent to Kabul in 2003 to take command of British forces in Afghanistan, which is exactly what he did. Writing about Richard, the Canadian general commanding international forces at the time said, "his efforts led directly to the most successful offensive counterterrorism operations in Kabul, with several key terrorist leaders under arrest, significantly setting back the enemy campaign."
Now in more recent years, he spent several of those years on Downing Street as head of the international terrorism team at the Joint Intelligence Committee, where he was responsible for producing assessments on the growing global terrorism problem for the prime minister at the time and the cabinet. And in 2005, at the request of the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Colonel Kemp spent three months on a special intelligence assignment in Baghdad, Fallujah, and Mosul.
And among his honors include Commander of the Order of the British Empire, Military Division, and Queen's Commendation for Bravery. That sets the stage for our discussion.
Colonel Kemp, how are you, sir?
COL. RICHARD KEMP (RET.), FORMER COMMANDER OF BRITISH FORCES IN AFGHANISTAN: I'm very well, Mark, thank you very much. And it's a real pleasure to be with you.
LEVIN: Well, I wanted the American people to have a perspective from a commander on the ground who actually fought in Afghanistan about what you have seen taking place from Britain over the last week or so. You know, from my perspective, and the perspective of a lot of Americans, this is a complete humiliation and disaster and a complete surrender on the terms the Taliban have wanted.
And I am deeply concerned that this is what we call a tipping point in the decline of the United States military power, and the rise of the communist Chinese. Now I have laid a lot out there. I would just like, first of all, your take on what you have seen.
KEMP: I'd like to begin by saying, I served alongside, I fought alongside U.S. forces in different places in the world. I have the greatest admiration and respect for the American Armed Forces. And anything I might say, any criticism I might make in relation to Afghanistan is not a criticism of the U.S. forces.
I think this, what we're seeing, and what we have seen in the last few days, is -- it's the greatest foreign policy disaster that I have seen in my lifetime of any nature from any Western country. And I would go so far as to say that this is the most disastrous foreign policy event since at least the Second World War for the United States of America.
It is -- has unbelievable strategic consequences well beyond Afghanistan itself. And I think, you know, people often compare Vietnam and Saigon in 1975 to the things they are seeing on the television now. I think it is worse than that. And it's very different to that. But it did take the American armed forces 15 years to recover from Saigon. It took them until the Gulf War in 1991. That's the scale of the disaster that they faced in '75. And I think it's, as I say, worse.
And one of the reasons it's worse is because in Saigon and in Vietnam, the North Vietnamese were not trying to attack or destroy the United States of America. They were very much focused on that country, on Vietnam.
And so when the U.S. left, it left a failed strategy, a failed war in effect for a number of reasons, but it did not leave a war that it should have still been fighting. And in fact, in this -- in the situation in Kabul, the -- the reason we were there was to prevent another 9/11, prevent another serious terrorist attack against the West from Afghanistan. And we succeeded in that in 20 years.
But as we're leaving, with ignominity, I think that threat remains. And it has re-energized the threat. I think the threat is worse now than it was before 9/11, the threat to the West. And not only that, but we have done what al Qaeda wanted to us do on 9/11. They brought down the Twin Towers.
They flew a plane into the Pentagon for one reason -- so they wanted to lure the United States into Afghanistan where they would destroy the U.S. forces and humiliate the U.S. around the world. Well, it's 20 years later, but pretty much that's what they have achieved now.
The American forces have not been destroyed nor have they been defeated on the battlefield. But they have been humiliated by their president and the whole of the United States of America, and the Western world has also been humiliated. And it goes beyond that as well, the NATO alliance.
Our own defense secretary in Britain said he would -- he attempted to cobble together a coalition of NATO states led by Britain without America to remain in Afghanistan. Nobody took his call. Now that says what NATO is. NATO is actually a paper tiger. It only is America.
So when America pulls out, NATO is nowhere. And I think all of these things and many others have massive strategic implications for the world and for the U.S. prestige and for all of the good the U.S. has done in the world, that has been undermined by President Biden's catastrophic decision to withdraw unconditionally, without any regard to what's going on on the ground or politically or in security terms to unconditionally withdraw from the country of Afghanistan.
LEVIN: President Biden has trashed the Afghan soldiers. He has trashed the Afghan army. What do you say about that?
KEMP: I think I would say that I've never heard such a disgraceful speech from the president of the United States of America as I heard the other day when he -- he said the buck stops with me. But he then went on to explain how the buck actually stopped with everybody else.
It wasn't him to blame, it was everybody else, starting from President Trump. And suggesting for one moment that he was bound or was forced to carry out a policy like this because of President Trump's policy is simply laughable, a pitiful excuse for what he did and what he is now being humiliated in.
Because, you know, he spent much of his early presidency reversing so many other things Trump did. He has been president for seven months. He had a review of the situation in Afghanistan by his staff at the beginning of his presidency.
And he was presented with various different options, one of which was the withdrawal he has executed. But there were other options. He didn't have to take this option. So it's not President Trump's fault. It's not anyone else's fault. It is the fault of the president of the United States of America.
And for that man to basically accuse Afghan forces of cowardice, a man who has never fought himself, I should add, for him to accuse the Afghans of cowardice I think is a national disgrace for America. The Afghan national security forces have fought and died alongside American soldiers in Afghanistan, and British soldiers.
And 50,000 of them -- 50,000 of them have been killed in action against the Taliban in the last seven years. That is a phenomenal number. It dwarfs the casualties that we, Britain and America, took, and is about two-thirds of the size of the current British army.
So for him to accuse them of not fighting and being cowards is absolutely shameful. And what he neglected to point out was that the reason that the Afghan national security forces collapsed is because he pulled rug out from under their feet. They were doing most of the fighting in Afghanistan, not the U.S. Army, not the British army, not the German army.
It was the Afghan army that was doing most of the fighting and dying in Afghanistan. But they depended heavily on air support from the United States. They depended on technical support to keep their own aircraft flying, logistic support as well. And without that, they were far less capable of combat than they were with it.
But even worse, even more serious, I believe than that, was that the decision of the United States to leave Afghanistan, to abandon Afghanistan, was such a devastating blow to their morale. The U.S. was their final -- their final guarantor of success, of not having their country taken over by the Taliban, and by not getting, you know, defeated -- not being defeated themselves in battle by the Taliban, the Americans were their final backstop.
When they went, Afghanistan forces' morale just collapsed. And we saw the consequences of that. And the same applied really to the regional governance (ph) in the provincial capitals and Kabul who themselves, you know, they took stock, they realized the situation was different from what it was before. And they recognized that there was no chance, really, of survival on their own without the U.S. So they, many of them, went over to the other side or ran away.
So I think, you know, that's the reality of the situation. And I, as a former soldier who has fought in Afghanistan and around the world, I just was horrified by President Biden's branding of the Afghan army as cowards.
LEVIN: When we come back, Colonel Kemp, several questions, including this one, some people in the United States say it was 20-year war, 20 years is long enough. You just said, well, the brunt of the war was being fought by the Afghan army. We had 2,500 non-combatant troops there. NATO had, what, 6,000 to 7,000 troops there.
We hadn't lost an American soldier in 18 months. Is it really to be considered a 20-year war or conversely, now what has happened, a 20-year war, so-called, is it not now a 30-year war, 40-year war, 50-year war given what has taken place in Afghanistan?
I'd be curious about your answer to that and your answer about how this changes the entire structure of our national security, NATO, Britain, empowers China, the threats to Pakistan and so forth that we now have in store for the free world. We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LEVIN: Welcome back, America. We're back with retired Colonel Richard Kemp. Among his many career stop-offs was Afghanistan as commander of British forces.
Colonel Kemp, my question to you is, given what has taken place now in Afghanistan, and it's ongoing, and assuming that Joe Biden stays on the same course, what are consequences for the United States, Britain, NATO, the free world, and that area of the world now?
KEMP: I think the consequences of what has just happened and what's still happening are absolutely devastating for the whole of the Western world. I mentioned earlier that the catastrophic effect on NATO. NATO is a very important military alliance.
Many presidents have criticized it for not pulling its weight, the European member states in particular. And they're right to do so. But President Biden has just completely destroyed its credibility, totally destroyed it single-handed. And, you know, we're seeing -- what we face now is a terrorist threat coming out of Afghanistan that is greater than the terrorist threat before 9/11.
Jihadists around the world have been celebrating the events, and not least the president -- not that he's a jihadist, but the president of Pakistan, Imran Khan, who himself celebrated it. He should be celebrating because Pakistan significantly funded the Taliban throughout the campaign, while at the same time being paid vast amounts of money by America and Britain.
But they are celebrating around the world. Hamas in Gaza are celebrating what was happening here. And they will be re-energized. They will see that their recruitments have been boosted. They will be reinvigorated.
And they will launch attacks around the world against our countries as they did really when they were being inspired by the Islamic State. Al Qaeda and the Islamic State are strong in Afghanistan at the moment. Al Qaeda fought alongside the Taliban in recent battles.
They will operate freely, doesn't matter what the Taliban say to you, they will allow the al Qaeda and the Islamic State to operate freely there. And they can operate more freely than they could before 9/11, because they know there is no fear of Western intervention now.
That's finished. That's history. That is not going to happen again. They know that and so they will be even bolder than before. And jihadists from around world will flock into Afghanistan to train, prepare, and launch attacks against the West.
So the state of the terrorist threat is higher than it was at the height of the Islamic State's power when they controlled large parts of Syria and of Iraq. That's just one aspect of the situation. There is no one really who is celebrating this situation more than Russia and China.
They are the greatest cheerleaders for what has happened. They have helped to bring it about. But they now will be emboldened themselves. They have done a great deal against the West, a huge amount against the West in past. They now will look at the deterrent that the United States used to present, and they will see that they've got pretty much an open field to do almost whatever they like.
And those countries that we had hoped to entice onto our side in the -- onto the -- into the Western sphere, those countries will say, why would we do that? These people are clearly fair-weather friends. We can't rely on them. We can't trust them. And they will see Russia and China as being the more reliable ally than any country in the West.
And so that will be extremely damaging for our ability to wield power. And yet, that was one of the reasons that President Biden gave for pulling out of Afghanistan, that he would focus more effort, he would be able to focus more effort on confronting China and Russia. Well, that's got -- this is completely a reverse of what he expected to happen.
There are so many other implications that I could go through. I won't go through them all, because I think those are probably the most severe implications. We're going to see China holding the upper hand over Afghanistan now, together with Pakistan.
And they will use their influence together with Russia and Iran in Afghanistan, they will use that influence not only to enrich themselves by plundering Afghanistan, the minerals and resources, but by using what they have there to hit against the West. So the whole world just became vastly more dangerous.
The U.S. government -- the U.S. government, President Biden, humiliated the United States. He humiliated the United States Army.
In my opinion, and I don't say this lightly, and I've never said it about anybody else, any other leader in this position, people have been talking about impeaching President Biden. I don't believe President Biden should be impeached. He's the commander-in-chief of the U.S. Armed Forces, who's just essentially surrendered to the Taliban. He shouldn't be impeached; he should be court-martialed for betraying the United States of America and the United States Armed Forces.
LEVIN: Now, Colonel Kemp, I want to ask you a couple of questions here.
If you're Taiwan now, or you're Ukraine, dealing with Russia, or you're Israel dealing with Iran and a whole host of terrorists, and you've been relying on the United States as an ally, you have a lot to worry about now, don't you?
KEMP: You have a lot to worry about. And the president of Taiwan made a statement in which she said that -- that we now need to, in the light of what's been going in Afghanistan, we need now to look at strengthening our own defensive efforts.
And that's -- that's very telling in itself. Of course they should be defending themselves. But they are not capable of defending themselves against China. They do need the United States. And they're now wondering if they've got the United States.
The same applies for, as you say, for Ukraine. Ukraine is in grave danger. Israel, other Gulf -- or Gulf states in the Middle East are in grave danger because not only has President Biden surrendered to the Taliban; he's also been appeasing Iran and encouraging Iran to get back into the nuclear deal that threatens all countries in the Middle East and that has led to an arms race in the Middle East.
And those countries are not any longer relying on the U.S. They can't rely on the United States. And so I think -- I think there's a -- you know, it leads us to a very, very shaky and unstable situation. Because they recognize that Iran, as much as they're afraid, Iran is emboldened. Iran has interests in Afghanistan, anyway. But they're also emboldened by the weakness they have seen in the United States.
And that will encourage them to be even more aggressive in the region. And they will demand more on the JCPOA and the nuclear deal. They will push harder to destroy Israel by setting up bases of attack in Syria, by reinforcing their presence in Lebanon. They will be -- be doing -- working harder yet against Saudi Arabia, which they have been at war with, a proxy war via Yemen. And they will -- they will re-energize their aggression across the region. We will see great -- great danger from Iran as well as other countries that are no longer deterred by the United States.
LEVIN: We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
JON SCOTT, FOX NEWS CHANNEL ANCHOR: Welcome to "FOX News Live." I'm Jon Scott. Record setting rain in Middle Tennessee leaves at least 22 people dead, at least two children are among the victims. As many as 50 others are missing. Seventeen inches of rain fell over six hours resulting in flash floods that swept homes away.
Tropical Storm Henri continues to weaken as it moves across Central Connecticut. Henri made landfall today in Rhode Island. About 80,000 people in two states are without power. Flash floods are a major concern tonight.
President Biden addressed the nation today telling the U.S., the pace of the American led evacuation in Kabul is picking up speed, 36,000 refugees were airlifted out over the past 36 hours. The Pentagon is engaging six American commercial airlines to help move refugees outside Afghanistan.
I'm Jon Scott. Now back to LIFE, LIBERTY & LEVIN.
LEVIN: Welcome back. Colonel Richard Kemp, my question to you is -- is -- it's a very grave one. Is America in the decline? Can America come back? Is China on the rise? What do you make of all this?
KEMP: Before I answer that question, I'd -- I'd like to say also that I don't think America alone is responsible for the situation. I think European countries also share a degree of the blame.
I think -- I think President Biden took -- should take most of the responsibility for this, but there are other sovereign states who are powerful, including Britain, in Europe, who could and should have played their own role more strongly and who could have influenced perhaps, or certainly should have tried to influence President Biden in his decision.
So it's not America alone. I think America is to blame, but there's also a huge amount of responsibility on Britain's shoulders, for example.
In terms of the decline of the United States, I think, you know, that we have seen a settled world order since 1945, pretty much. OK, we've had -- we've had many conflicts since then. But, pretty much, the world order has been largely settled. Obviously, we saw shifting dynamics in relation to Communist Russia, Soviet Union. But the situation has been -- has been stable.
And we've got used to, I think, a world of increasing prosperity, a world of great stability, for pretty much every country in the West, including the U.S. And therefore we -- we can't find -- we find it, kind of, inconceivable that that's going to be shaken, that's going to be changed.
And people talk about the threat of climate change, the threats from coronavirus, and all the rest of it. But I believe that the threat from the actions of the United States in this situation has been far more consequential than either of those problems.
Because I do believe that -- that not only are we seeing a United States now -- we're seeing a United States about to go into deep decline internationally after this.
China was already clawing its way up. And we were allowing it to. We were, kind of, asleep at the wheel while it was happening, not only America but European countries as well. We were allowing it to -- to claw its way up on -- onto the top -- on the back of our technology, of our education, of our financial resources. And that's exactly what they've been doing.
But now we potentially face a situation where China actually does come out on top and America descends, and ends up under the domination of China. I don't think that's completely out of the question. I think that could happen.
But we need to regain the situation. The situation can be regained. I mentioned before that it took 15 years, from Saigon in '75 until the first Gulf War, to regain America's status in the world.
And I think this is a great deal worse than that. So it could take several decades to recover from this, but recover we must, and we must do it as quickly as possible.
And I think -- you know, America is -- in my opinion, America is the greatest country in the world. And America cannot -- the world cannot afford for that status and that position of leadership and all the good it's done around the world, decade after decade -- I don't think we can allow that to go.
So it's obviously a -- you know, the action resulting from this is obviously a decision for the United States of America, but I as a Brit would certainly encourage the people of the United States of America to turn this situation around. And you ain't going to turn it 'round with the people at the helm who are there now.
LEVIN: And that's the thing the American people need to comprehend. And half of the country does and half the country doesn't, which is Biden is president of the United States. The leadership of the Democrat Party runs the Congress. They pick the generals. They pick the national security advisers. They pick the secretary of state.
Domestically, they make the decisions on open borders, on whether they embrace capitalism or a form of Marxism. And a country that bleeds from within is going to bleed from without, too.
People who make bad decisions internally make bad decisions externally. And if you don't believe in the United States of America here at home, you sure as hell aren't going to believe in the strength and the morals of the United States of America abroad.
General -- you should have been a general -- Colonel Kemp, I want to thank you very, very much for coming on the program, for your war against terror and your war for freedom and your support, of course, of Britain and NATO and especially the United States. God bless you, my friend.
KEMP: Thank you very much.
LEVIN: We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MARK LEVIN, FOX NEWS CHANNEL HOST, LIFE, LIBERTY & LEVIN: Welcome back, America. Our next guest, a great man, retired U.S. General Keith Kellogg, former national security adviser to President Trump and Vice President Pence, former chief of staff for the U.S. National Security Council under President Trump, 1990 to 1991, Chief of Staff for the 82nd Airborne during Operation Desert Storm; later, Director of Command Control and Communications for U.S. Armed Forces, Distinguished Service Medal Silver Star, several Bronze Stars.
General Kellogg, first of all, thank you. We've heard a lot from President Biden and his surrogates in the media where President Biden is blaming everybody, but himself for what has now transpired in Afghanistan.
He is blaming Intelligence. He is blaming the military. He is blaming the Afghans, and he is blaming President Trump.
Now as for President Trump, you were there. President Trump dealt with the Taliban, but I also remember, General, he wasn't a pushover. And he wasn't an ideologue, a very practical, principled man. We saw that in Iraq. When Iran hit our forces in Iraq, what he did to Soleimani. We saw him take out the Caliphate, ISIS and take out Baghdadi,
We saw what he did in Syria as we were withdrawing when they were gassing their own people, he hit them twice. We saw what he did in Afghanistan. He didn't rush to remove every single person out of Afghanistan. In fact, I remember a few years ago, he dropped one of the biggest bombs in our conventional arsenal on top of those people, when they were organizing for another offensive against the Afghan soldiers and our soldiers.
So, what do you say to President Biden and his surrogates? We just picked up the plan that Trump put together and we had no choice.
LT. GEN. KEITH KELLOGG (RET), U.S. ARMY: Yes, Mark, thanks for having me. That's absurd. Look, I spent 1,461 days in the White House, all of it involved in national security. I was there at the start when we talked about withdrawing from Afghanistan. And the reason we wanted to withdraw from Afghanistan was to intellectually and strategically pivot to face China, which was an emerging threat, and also with Russia.
So, for two years, we thought our way through it. And in the last two years, we went into the execution mode.
Around 18 months ago, in February, we decided to come up with a plan, and we came up with a plan on how to remove ourselves from Afghanistan in a very measured and gated way. What I mean by that is we came up with certain conditions as we went down the line and when those conditions were met, we would continue to withdraw forces.
So, the final gate that we had, and we were going to meet was an intra- Afghan agreement between the Taliban and the Ghani government, and we were going to have a government of reconciliation and Ghani would have been there to make sure we had an orderly transfer of power, and with certain safeguards to make sure that government stayed as a coalition government going forward.
To ensure that was going to happen, the President was personally engaged, something that Biden has not done.
President Trump picked up the phone and called the chief negotiator for the Taliban, Mullah Baradar, who we had gotten out of a Pakistani jail for this very purpose and explained to him what we were going to do. And he was talking to him in February of a year ago, that was a month after we had killed Soleimani. He got the message.
And the President as only President Trump can do, talked to him about it and very Trumpian terms, which meant if you violate this agreement, we know where you live and we will come and find you. He said the same thing to Ghani going forward as well.
So, that plan with the gates was intended to withdraw in an orderly way in a good end state, an end state that would have a fully functioning Afghanistan with the protections of its citizens. It may have been a coalition government and it may have not been pretty, but it would have worked.
Let me say something else about how Trump works this. At one time, well over a year ago, he said, why don't I bring the Taliban and the Ghani government back into Camp David? And people kind of fell on the floor, and I said, you know, he had a good point.
I mean, this actually happened with a Camp David Accords, when you brought back Menachem Begin, and you brought in Anwar Sadat and they spent 12 days of Camp David, until they hammered out an agreement. We were kind of doing the same thing.
So, there was a process in place, there was a plan in place. There was not a precipitous retreat that you see today in place, and we were led by a very informed and hard decision maker in President Trump. That's not what you see today.
What you're seeing today is nothing less than a national debacle.
LEVIN: You know, General, the other thing is this. Did your plan include pulling out military forces before pulling out American citizens?
KELLOGG: No.
LEVIN: What kind of plan is that?
KELLOGG: Well, to start with, it's not a plan, Mark. That's not how you do it. And to start with, we had that last condition, we weren't going to pull those last horses out. We had 2,500 troops on the ground and that was an agreement between Chairman Milley and Gina Haspel because she had about 3,500 paramilitary that we were going to hold at that number, and we were going to hold with our aircraft.
We were going to maintain Bagram Air Base until those agreements were made. We weren't moving, We set 1 May as a forcing function. Could it have shifted to the right? Of course, it could, until those conditions were met. And we told Baradar that. The President was very clear with him. He understood that, we told Ghani that, very clear how we were going to go. And if you had a withdrawal like this, and we would have never done that that way. We would have protected Americans and they would have gone out. The citizens would have gone out first.
LEVIN: We don't know how many American citizens are left there now. I hear anything from 13,000 to 15,000, maybe 20,000. We have men and women who worked with us, tens of thousands. You see these horrific video of women throwing their children and babies over the fence. I just can't imagine. And then you see the Taliban has not changed at all.
If President Trump were still there, based on what you know, and the advice you gave him and so forth, and the man I know, and I know very, very well. I don't think he would have tolerated that for one second. He didn't tolerate the Syrians gassing their own people, where he could have said, that's none of our business. He said that is our business and I'm not putting up with that.
KELLOGG: Sure.
LEVIN: And he moved heaven and earth to get one American out of a kidnap situation or two Americans out of a kidnap situation. I don't think President Trump would have been afraid to pull triggers all over the place when it comes to the military in order to get American citizens out of Afghanistan. What do you say?
KELLOGG: No, I know that for a fact. I was with him in the Oval Office. As I said, I spent all four years there. I saw President Trump in crisis situations. I saw his result.
You didn't screw around with an American or we were coming after you. I saw it a lot of times. We did it with Soleimani, we did with Baghdadi, and as you mentioned there, when Syrian nerve gas we used by the Syrians against their own citizens. He said, you're violating international norms. We went after them.
He wasn't afraid to do it at all, and he did it, and I was there with him and I was proud to be with him when he did.
He was a man of force and you may not like his tweets, but you had to admire his courage. You had to admire how we made decisions, which were hard.
LEVIN: I think we'll take his tweets over what we see today.
I'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LEVIN: Welcome back. General Kellogg, your wife was a paratrooper who served in the 18th Airborne in the Grenada Invasion under President Reagan. Your son, your daughter, and your son-in-law saw combat in Afghanistan.
You have -- your family is enormously patriotic. You've all put your lives on the line, one way or another, one time or another. You see what's happening now in Afghanistan. I would just be curious about your thoughts.
KELLOGG: Yes, it's a crisis of leadership. I'm thinking we're not seeing any leadership from the Commander-in-Chief on down and what's disturbing to me, honestly, Mark is that I'm seeing that at all levels.
I'm seeing it with the National Security adviser which he is clearly over his head. I question what Tony Blinken is doing. You know, remember, President Biden is an individual that former Secretary Yates said that was wrong on nearly every foreign policy decision in the last 40 years.
This is a man who did not want to go after Osama bin Laden, in the Situation Room, told President Obama not to go after bin Laden. That's public record. This is a man who -- you know, you have to question his leadership capability and in fact, Biden did -- was questioned by Obama when he said you know, don't underestimate Joe Biden being wrong or making a mistake going forward.
But this leadership also has now permeated his entire command group or national security team. I have great questions now very candidly, Mark, about the leadership potential and going forward with his Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, with his Secretary of Defense, with his National Security adviser, with the Secretary of State.
We have President Biden her for over three years. Maybe he ought to think really hard about replacing that team. He won't, but I think that team needs to be replaced because I don't think America has confidence in it anymore. I don't have confidence in it anymore. I don't think they're going to make the right decisions.
And I think the American people expect that from his team and if he is not going to leave, then at least, put new people in place.
LEVIN: Absolute disaster. We don't see the Vice President of the United States, the President of the United States has a press event last week, he turns around and walks away, is busy talking about vaccines and how he wants to impose his will on the American people, trashes Republican governors.
He talks about Republicans and Republican governors in ways he'll never talk about the Taliban or al-Qaeda. It's amazing.
KELLOGG: Right.
LEVIN: Everything is about politics with this man. Everything is about his legacy. I think he ought to know his legacy is destroyed. His presidency is destroyed. And I think General, that makes them much more dangerous, and much more provocative, much more unpredictable and it concerns me a great deal.
And I have a last question for you, General.
You have Xi in China, Yong-un in North Korea, you are one of the leaders of so-called in Tehran, and you're Putin. They are salivating now, aren't they? They're sharpening their fangs, aren't they?
KELLOGG: Yes, the country I worry about is China because China is an expansionist nation. They're also pushing really hard, you know, the nine dash line where they're pushing what they call their territorial integrity all around Indonesia. They are a racist nation.
I mean, when you look what they've done with the Uighurs, and they're building up their military in incredible levels out there. They're the ones I really am concerned about out there. And I don't think President Biden can handle them. I just don't think he's got the wherewithal to do it. I don't think he's got the intellectual capacity.
I don't know if he has got the ability to maneuver with a foreign leader.
Look, let's give Trump credit. You know, he was willing to reach out to people. He reached out to Kim Jong-un because he established the personal basis of leadership. But he also was very, very strong when he talked to him. He was willing to walk away from a deal.
I don't think you see that. I think Putin sees that as well in Russia. Yes, they're not licking their chops, they are just saying, I can -- I've taken the measure of this guy, and he doesn't measure up. And I think we should be concerned about that as a Commander-in-Chief.
LEVIN: And you know what, General, you mentioned President Trump. We didn't lose an inch of anything.
KELLOGG: No.
LEVIN: Under President Trump -- he was attacked for his -- the way he managed his foreign policy and so forth. We never gave an inch to Iran. He was crushing Iran economically. We never gave an inch to North Korea even though, he engaged in talking with them, we surrendered nothing.
We never gave an inch to anybody on any front. He shut off the Russian pipeline that Biden gave back to the Russians. He imposed the toughest sanctions on those oligarchs than any President in my lifetime. And most importantly, with respect to domestic affairs, he secured the border because he understands among other things, terrorists can come across the border.
And today, where terrorists are more numerous, probably more vigorous than ever before, the border is wide open.
General, I want to thank you for your service, your family's service to the country, and I wish you all the best.
God bless you, sir.
KELLOGG: Thanks, Mark. Thanks for having me.
LEVIN: We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LEVIN: Welcome back, America.
When I think of the United States of America, I think of great Presidents. We've had tremendous statesmen and leaders. I think of our fantastic United States military and so much that they've been through over the course of our history.
I think of George Washington. I think of Abraham Lincoln. People wanted him to sue for peace. He said, no, we must have victory.
I think of Theodore Roosevelt. I think even of Franklin Roosevelt during World War II. I think of Dwight Eisenhower. I think of Ronald Reagan and I think of Donald Trump. These were great men, in many ways even in the case of FDR where I strongly disagree with so much of what he did.
But when it came to defending the United States of America, when it came to defending the United States of America, every single one of them faced different kinds of threats and they stepped up. They were great men.
We're now confronted with a bumbling fool in the office of the presidency, a bumbling fool for a Vice President, weak and incoherent generals, weak and incoherent Secretary of State and National Security adviser.
We're in a grave state right now, and our enemies are sharpening their fingernails and their fangs. This is a very, very dangerous time in our country and I might add this, when I say in our country, I mean domestically, too, with the borders wide open, with the push of American Marxism in our classrooms with a media that is utterly corrupt, with a Congress that is bankrupting us.
America, those of you who haven't waken up, it's about damn time that you do.
I'll see you next time on LIFE, LIBERTY & LEVIN.
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