← The 47 Morning Update with Ben Ferguson
The 47 Morning Update with Ben Ferguson
STUNNING Testimony - 13 Service Men & Women Murdered in Afghanistan COULD HAVE BEEN SAVED & Biden Admin Refused to Act
00:34:25
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- [00:00]
Ben Ferguson
Welcome. It is Verdict with Senator Ted Cruz, Ben Ferguson with you as well. And Senator, you and I have been preparing for this show today. It is, in my opinion, maybe one of the most important podcasts that we've done together. And it is under the premise of a headline that the military could have stopped Afghanistan bomber who killed 13American service members. But they, the military men on the ground, the women on the ground, could not get authorization to take out this bomber because the Biden administration basically turned this into a massive quagmire. That is some shocking testimony that came out from a man that is lucky to still be alive, who told his story to Congress this week.
- [00:49]
Senator Ted Cruz
Well, that's right. Sergeant Tyler Vargas Andrews testified on Wednesday this week before the House Foreign Affairs Committee. And I got to say, his testimony was incredibly powerful. It is moving. It is personal. This man is an American hero. And what he testified about, that the failure of the chain of command above him, that these 13 servicemen and women who were murdered could have been saved is enormously consequential. And I got to tell you right now, Ben, I am pissed off that after this testimony, there's been virtually zero coverage of this in the corporate media. They've just completely ignored it. What you're going to hear right now, you haven't heard on the 6:00 news, you haven't heard on cable news. And this testimony is important. One of the things about this podcast, we cover issues of foreign policy and national security that much of the corporate media ignores. And this matters because people's lives were lost because of the incompetence of the Biden administration.
- [02:02]
Ben Ferguson
No doubt about it. And this is also emotional testimony. We're going to play large chunks of this. I will say this on the front end. Please make sure that you share this podcast, because every American needs to hear this testimony so that you understand what happened in Afghanistan at that airport when we were pulling out of Afghanistan, and. And the lack of command and leadership from the Biden administration. Now, before we get into this, I want to clear the deck quickly and tell you about our friends at Augusta Precious Metals. If you have been saving for a long time for retirement, then you understand how important it is to protect your money. And you can do that with a gold Iraq. Augustus Precious Metals is the company that I use, and they can answer questions on if gold and silver are right for you. You've seen what's been happening on Wall Street. You've seen what's happening with the economy. And if you are close to retirement, you know there is no time to make up losses. So if you've saved $100,000 or more, take a look at their free guide or sign up for their web conference. They're both filled with economic insights that can help you and your family have the peace of mind of knowing that you're doing everything you can to preserve your wealth. Call them 8774 Gold IRA. That's 8774-the number 4 Gold IRA. Or visit them online at Augusta Precious Metals.com that's Augusta Precious Metals.com Senator, this man, as you mentioned a moment ago, is a hero. And you're going to hear him talk fast at some points to try to get through information and then have very long pauses. There were many times in his testimony that he was crying. If you hear those long pauses, I just wanted you to know in context what was going on. And I want you to hear him tell his story about what it was like to be at that airport. As they were trying to find Americans and American allies who had helped us in that war against terrorists, tens of.
- [03:59]
Sergeant Tyler Vargas Andrews
Thousands of people descended upon Abbey Gate. We were looking for anyone with a blue passport. First and foremost, people were suffering from extreme malnutrition, dehydration, heat, casualties and infants were dying. Afghans were brutalized and tortured by the Taliban, flocked to us, pleading for help. Some Afghans turned away from hka, tried to kill themselves on the razor wire in front of us that we used as a deterrent. They thought this was merciful compared to the Taliban torture that they faced with only shipping, excuse me, they sought. Countless Afghans were murdered by the Taliban 155 yards in front of our position. Day and night, with only shipping containers between us. The Taliban would routinely murder people under our observation at their checkpoint. We communicated the atrocities to our chain of command and intel assets, but nothing came of it. The troops on the ground had to tirelessly work to control the crowds day and night. Department of State Staff and HKI would completely shut down processing Afghans every evening and into the morning, leaving ground forces with a nightmare. They did not work in reasonable rotations and very much presented an unwillingness to work in other situations as well. No matter our health or condition, the Marines stood watch and engaged in disorderly and dangerous crowds. State was not prepared to be in hqaya. In fact, State would not want to deal with the Afghans unable to be processed, weakening the security of the perimeter. State would take us away from our mission to walk Afghans out to meet the fate of the Taliban, condemning them to death. The Taliban grew in numbers and strengthened their position around Ishqi with gun trucks while having occasional visits by Taliban leadership. On August 22, an improvised explosive device IED probe took place down in the canal running along the perimeter of Hkaya. This was ISIS or the Taliban performing an IED test run. We reported this to our chain of command. Days later we received word to be on the lookout for two vehicle borne IEDs described as a gold or white Corolla and a green Mazda convertible. Around 2am on Aug. 26, intel guys confirmed the suicide bomber in the vicinity of and nearing Abbey Gate. Described as clean shaven, brown dressed, black vest and traveling with an older companion. I asked intel guys why he wasn't apprehended sooner since we had a full description. I was told the asset could not be compromised throughout the entirety of the day. On August 26, 2021, we disseminated the suicide bomber information to ground forces Abbey Gate. He was spotted somewhere from noon to 1:00pm by myself, then Sergeant Charles Schilling and another, the anomaly in the crowd who was clean shaven and fit the description exactly, traveling with an older gentleman. The individual was consistently and nervously looking up at our position through the crowd. The older of the two wore a black silky hijab that was covering his face most of the time. They both had obvious mannerisms that go along with who we believed him to be. They handed out small cards to the crowd periodically and the older man sat calmly and seemingly coached the bomber over the communication network. We passed that there was a potential threat and an ID attack imminent. This was as serious as it could get. I requested engagement authority. While my team leader was ready on the M110 semiautomatic sniper system. The response leadership did not have the engagement authority for us. Do not engage. I requested for the battalion commander, Lt. Col. Brad Whited, to come to the tower to see what we did. While we waited for him, Psychological operations individuals came to our tower immediately and confirmed the suspect met the suicide bomber description. He eventually arrived and we showed him our evidence, the photos we had of the two men. We reassured him of the ease of fire on the suicide bomber. Pointedly, we asked him for engagement authority and permission. We asked him if we could shoot. Our battalion commander said, and I quote, I don't know, end quote. Myself and my team leader asked very harshly, well, who does? Because this is your responsibility, sir. He again replied he did not know but would find out. We received no update and never got our answer. Eventually the individual disappeared. To this day, we believe he was a suicide Bomber. We made everyone on the ground aware operations had briefly halted, but then started again. Plain and simple, we were ignored.
- [07:54]
Ben Ferguson
Plain and simple, we were ignored. Senator, your initial reaction to what you just heard.
- [08:01]
Senator Ted Cruz
There is so much about that that is infuriating. Let's start with the fact that every bit of that was unnecessary. One of the very first things the Biden administration did that was utterly incompetent is they abandoned Bagram Airfield. Bagram Airfield was a secure military base with two world class runways that had a secure perimeter that was safe, that you could fly people out, that you could do the vetting with. They abandoned it. They just handed it over to the Taliban. And so instead they performed the evacuation through hka. Now, what is hkaya? HKAIA is the Hamid Karzai International Airport. It's a commercial airport. It's an ordinary airport right in the middle of Kabul, right in the middle of a big populated city, surrounded, not secure, not a military base. The decision to conduct the evacuation from an unsecure commercial airport rather than a secure military base was colossally incompetent. It was unjustifiable. The reason that happened is because the Biden White House put politics above everyone else and everything else. And so they ordered the troop drawdown before the evacuation was complete. And so the military told the White House, well, at the level of troop drawdown, you're ordering us to hit, we can't keep Bagram Airfield. And the White House essentially said, we don't care. We picked a number out of our rear end and we're sticking to that number. It doesn't matter if that's sufficient manpower to do the job or not. We got a political endeavor. So you've got a bunch of incompetent political operatives in the White House setting arbitrary political tasks. The result, look, the beginning of his testimony, he talks about how, as they were turning away Afghans, and many of these Afghans may have been interpreters, they may have been people who gave assistance to our soldiers. And he was talking about that the Afghans would throw themselves on the razor wire and try to kill themselves on the razor wire rather than face torture and murder from the Taliban. That's the consequence of the utter incomplete incompetence. But then you go forward. Look, they had the intel that a suicide bomber was coming in. They had the intel about what the suicide bomber looked like. They had the intel about what he was wearing. They had the intel about what his companion was, and they spotted him. They said, there he is. He's right there. It exactly fit the intel and this testimony says that the Marines said we can take him out. Right now, this is a sniper who is sitting there saying, we can take him out. We know that a suicide bomber is coming. We know what he looks like. He is behaving exactly like a suicide bomber. And the utter incompetence of the Biden administration is that, as you just heard, we were ignored. They didn't do anything. And it's difficult to overstate how much that makes my blood boil.
- [11:33]
Ben Ferguson
One of the things that he said was, he said it was the ease of fire.
- [11:36]
Senator Ted Cruz
Yes.
- [11:37]
Ben Ferguson
This was not a hard shot. They were saying this is easy, it is as safe as it can get. It's as clear of a shot as we can get. If you talk to people in the military, we're describing it that way. They were saying this was a no brainer scenario and they just couldn't get somebody to tell them to go ahead and shoot. Based on the intelligence, not based on a hunch, this individual. And I got to ask you, Senator, going back in his testimony to another point he made, he said that the Taliban had done a dry run or ISIS had done a dry run. Right. He also mentioned that they were killing people and they were doing it almost like they. For sport, seeing if the Americans would respond in a.
- [12:23]
Senator Ted Cruz
Right, right in front of them, right.
- [12:25]
Ben Ferguson
In front of him. And they knew, I think clearly they were trying to figure out how weak America was at that moment. And they're like, all right, well if we kill this guy right here in front of him, they don't do anything. We really are in control of this airfield. We really are in control of this other roadways to this airfield because the Americans are not given the power to engage.
- [12:47]
Senator Ted Cruz
That's exactly right. And, and look, I want to convey a story to illustrate because there is a reason why this happened. And, and early on in the Trump administration, I bumped into General Mark Milley, General Milley, now the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. I've known General Milley since he was a three star general when he was the commanding general at Fort Hood in Texas. And I was talking with General Milley and it was the very beginning of the Trump administration. And he told me, he said, I was asking about the Islamic State. And the Islamic State, you recall, had seized land, their self declared caliphate about the size of the state of Indiana that they had control over. And you'll recall under Obama, we'd been fighting there for a long time. And fighting there and making very little progress. And fighting there and making very little Progress. And I asked General Milley at the beginning of the Trump administration how things looked, what. What his assessment was of our prospects for success, for taking out the Islamic State. And his answer shocked me. He said, we will retake every square inch or virtually every square inch of the Islamic State caliphate in just a few months. And I asked him, I said, what? Why? What changed? And he said one thing, and I wondered. He said one thing. He said, they've delegated decisions down to the battlefield of when and how to engage. During the Obama administration, the White House made tactical battlefield decisions. Susan Rice, who was the National Security Advisor, soldiers in the field would joke, and they'd call her General Rice because they were literally determining, you can engage here, you can't engage here, you can engage in this instance, you can't engage in that instance. And it was run out of the White House by the political operatives in the White House. What Trump did at the outset is he said, what does it take to defeat these guys? All right, you have the authority on the battlefield to engage and take out the enemy and simply giving that operational control down to the battlefield, transform the battlefield. And it turned out what General Milley told me was right, that within just a couple of months from then, every single square inch or virtually every square inch that, that. That the Islamic State had taken had fallen, and they were utterly defeated. And this testimony shows the consequences. What does it tell us? It tells us that Biden came in with these same nitwits who were running the Obama disastrous National Security Council, and they did the same thing. So. So, so in this instance, the. The sergeant testifies. They say, we've got the suicide bomber. He's in front of us, he's in our rifle sites. We can take him out. And his commander says, I don't even know who to ask. It's got to be up in the chain. I don't know if that had to go all the way to the National Security Council or not. What I do know is the result was it had gone back to the same utterly ineffective ability for the war fighters to engage with the enemy. And in this instance, the consequences were devastating.
- [16:43]
Ben Ferguson
Not only were they devastating, but you also mentioned it earlier. This was all decisions made on politics. And I want to remind people this was about having a victory lap for the Biden administration. They wanted to say, we got out of 9 11, a war that started because of 9 11, before the date on the anniversary of 9 11. That was why they rushed everybody out of Afghanistan as they wanted a victory lap, saying on this anniversary, 9 11, we are out of America's longest war. And that was the obsession with that date and not caring about American carnage or anybody else that helped Americans or innocent people in Afghanistan because that was ultimately the goal. They wanted that press conference look.
- [17:31]
Senator Ted Cruz
That's exactly right. And we've seen if you go back to the Vietnam War, when you have war fighting dictated by political operatives and politicians in Washington, when they're micromanaging the engagement with the enemy, the result is that servicemen and women die, young men and young women, young Americans die. And on that tragic day, that's exactly what happened.
- [18:01]
Ben Ferguson
It's truly sad. I want to play this second part. It's very emotional. And I will say it again, everybody, this should have been covered by the media. It is not. Make sure you share this with everybody. You know, share the podcast on your social media, whether you're, whether you're on Facebook or Instagram, share it so other people hear this because this testimony deserves to be heard, I would argue by all Americans. Before I play the second part, I do need to tell you about our friends at Patriot Mobile. If you're a conservative, if you're a Christian and you're wanting to stand up for what you believe in and you want to work with companies that believe the same way you do that, stand with your values. One way you can do it is by switching your cell phone to Patriot Mobile. Now, why would you do it? Number one, it's easy. You get to keep your same cell phone number. You get to keep your same cell phone or upgrade to a new one. You're going to have the same exact coverage that you have right now. But when you pay your bill, you're actually, they take a portion of your bill every month and they give it to organizations and causes that you help choose to support. We're talking about first and Second amendment causes. They also stand up for the rights of unborn children. They also help with adoptions. So if you want to pay a bill every month and know you're making a difference with something you're already going to buy, switch to patriot mobile. 878-patriot. Use the promo code. Verdict. You'll get the best deals of the day. 878-patriot or online@patriotmobile.com verdict. That's patriot mobile.com verdict Senator, the second part that we're going to play and you're going to hear some pauses, you're going to hear some tears. This is a man that is telling his story to the world for the first time of what happened at that airport as we were rushing to pull out of Afghanistan, all because we're trying to hit an arbitrary date for political gain. Here's the second part of his story.
- [19:57]
Sergeant Tyler Vargas Andrews
Our expertise was disregarded. No one was held accountable for our safety. About 1730, Staff Sergeant Darren Hoover, friend and mentor, came to get me from the tower to go help find an Afghan interpreter. In the crowd.
- [20:42]
We found the interpreter and his brother, born with American passports. They told us five, told us of five family members still in the canal. I stayed there waiting for the family members, standing against a two foot canal wall. Ten minutes passed, then a flash and a massive wave of pressure. I'm throwing 12ft onto the ground, but instantly knew what had happened. I opened my eyes to Marines, dead or unconscious, lying around. A crowd of hundreds immediately vanished in front of me and my body was catastrophically wounded with 100 to 150 ball bearings now in it. Almost immediately, we started taking fire from the neighborhood and I saw how injured I was with my right arm completely shredded and unusable. I saw my lower abdomen soaked in blood. I crawled backwards 7ft, roughly 7ft because I thought I was still in harm's way.
- [22:06]
Senator Ted Cruz
My.
- [22:07]
Sergeant Tyler Vargas Andrews
My body was overwhelmed from the trauma of the blast. My abdomen had been ripped open, every inch of my exposed body except for my face to ball bearings and shrapnel. I tried to get up but could not. Laying there for a few minutes. I started to lose consciousness when I heard Chaz, my team leader, screaming my name as he ran to me. His voice. His voice calling to me kept me awake. When he got to me, he dragged me to safety and immediately started triaging me, tying tourniquets on my limbs and doing anything he could to stop the bleeding and start plugging wounds with the help of the other Marines. I was awake through most of it, screaming, moaning and cursing. Please ask. I ask you to please ask me about getting shot at the tower in Abbey Gate and how no one wanted my report post blast. Even NCIS and the FBI failed to interview me, asked me to elaborate on my ordeal post blast and asked me about this one little girl and her family that I reunited. Our military members and veterans deserve our best because that is what we give to America. The withdrawal. The withdrawal was a catastrophe, in my opinion. And there was an inexcusable lack of accountability and negligence. The 11 Marines, one sailor and one soldier that were murdered that day have not been answered for. Thank you for giving me this opportunity to speak.
- [23:55]
Ben Ferguson
Senator. My heart goes out to him because you can hear the pain, the suffering and the fact that he says no one wanted to hear my story.
- [24:05]
Senator Ted Cruz
Let me say this, thank you to Sergeant Vargas Andrews. Tyler Vargas Andrews is an American hero, and he is a Marine who was horribly failed by his commander in chief. He's a Marine who was horribly failed by the command chain above him that was ordered to follow political dictates and to elevate political priorities above protecting the Marines and the soldiers and sailors and airmen who were there on the ground risking their lives. I listened to that testimony, you know, and I gotta ask, if you're a producer at ABC News or NBC News or CBS or CNN or msnbc, why didn't you air that testimony? What possibly was happening on Wednesday that was more important than what Sergeant Vargas Andrews had to say? What was more important than his testimony that they knew about the suicide bomber, that they had him in his sight, that they could have taken him out, that they could have saved the lives of those 13 servicemen and women, and their commanding officers wouldn't let him do it. I can't imagine a news story more important than that. And this young man, this American hero, 100 to 150 ball bearings in his body. And it all could have been prevented. Number one, if they'd stayed in Bagram Airfield and done the evacuation from a secure military base, it could have been prevented there. Or number two, if they simply allowed war fighters to defend themselves and to take out the enemy when they're engaging with him. If they didn't play like they're engaging in a game of Risk, a board game, by a bunch of political neophytes who never put on a uniform in their lives but are more than happy to say, well, look, the headline is what we care about, not how do you prevent these young men and young women from being murdered by the terrorists to whom they were in the process of surrendering to.
- [27:26]
Ben Ferguson
There's also another question. I say another. There's quite a few. But the fact that he wasn't interviewed, Senator?
- [27:33]
Senator Ted Cruz
Yep.
- [27:34]
Ben Ferguson
The only reason why I can get to a process of saying, why wouldn't you interview him? Is because you knew what he was going to say and you didn't want to hear it because you knew how damning it was. And so therefore he said no one interviewed him from the FBI cis, nobody interviewed him at all. He was there. He knew who the. He knew who the bomber was. He was there for the dry run. All of this happens. No one interviews him. That, to me, screams cover up. The administration knew this was a problem. The Pentagon DOJ knew this was a problem. And they said, we don't want to hear from the people that were there because we're too afraid of what they're going to say.
- [28:17]
Senator Ted Cruz
Look, he says when he asked his superior officer, where do you get authorization? The answer was, I don't know. What in the hell are these people doing if we are sending Marines into combat where they don't even know where they get authorization to take out a suicide bomber before that suicide bomber murders them? That's incompetent. But it is also. It's not just that they're bad at it. It's ideology that is causing that incompetence. You're right. They wanted to hit the 911 anniversary because you know what their friends in the media would say. Isn't that great? Look, Joe Biden had a great political victory. And you know, from their end, doing it so that people didn't die doing it so that our servicemen and women were protected, doing it so you didn't have Afghans killing themselves by throwing themselves on razor wire. None of that rose even remotely to the level of their political objective of getting a partisan win. And you know what's also infuriating, Ben? To the best of my knowledge, nobody was fired. There was no accountability. All of the top brass are still there. The Secretary of Defense is still there. No one lost their job. You know, one of the things that the sergeant testifies to is that the State Department wasn't prepared at all to handle things at H Kaya. You know what? The Secretary of State, he didn't lose his job. Nobody up and down the chain of command, the only people who paid a price were the people who were murdered, the people who were horribly injured, the people who were tortured by the Taliban. They're the ones that paid the price. But the political operatives all up and down are still just doing fine and facing zero accountability. And they know that the corporate media has no interest in accountability. They have no interest in what happened that took the lives of those heroic Americans.
- [30:38]
Ben Ferguson
Final question for you, Senator. Knowing that the Taliban was testing us in that moment, seeing what they could get away with, seeing how weak America's foreign policy in real time was becoming when they were killing people, in essence, for sport, just to basically torture the American soldiers because they realized, wow, they're really not going to engage. It wasn't just a catastrophe that came out of this in Afghanistan. Many of the world conflicts and problems we're having right now, I think, came out of this man's story because the rest of the world realized in that moment they can do whatever the hell they want to do, and America will not stop them. And now that we have this ball rolling down the hill of a weak America and others can do what they want, how concerned are you from a national security standpoint?
- [31:31]
Senator Ted Cruz
Enormously concerned. Every enemy of America saw that disaster. Putin saw it. Xi saw it. Iran saw it. North Korea saw it. Venezuela saw it. Every terrorist cell across the globe, they all saw it. And all of them came to the same conclusion, which is, this is a commander in chief. Chief who is weak and incompetent. This is a commander in chief who is afraid to fight. This is a commander in chief unwilling to do what it takes even to defend his own servicemen and women, never mind anyone else. And we're seeing the consequences of it right now with the war in Ukraine, the first major land war in Europe since World War II. And we're seeing the consequences of it in the Pacific with China more and more aggressive and Taiwan in greater and greater peril. And I'll tell you, I met today with Taiwan's ambassador, and I told the ambassador, I said, look, I think the danger that Taiwan is in for the next two years of the Biden presidency is enormous because she looked at what happened here and concluded this president is not strong enough to deter us from doing anything.
- [32:56]
Ben Ferguson
Yeah, it is amazing how something like this can turn into such a bigger conflict around the world. And this is, again, one of those moments. I'll say it, I'll ask you, make sure people hear this man's story. He's a hero. And make sure you share this podcast with your family and friends. Finally, I do want to remind you about our good friends at Chalk. If you're a guy and you feel like you've lost a little bit of your edge and you're ready to get that masculinity back, we desperately need it in America today, in our society. Then you need to check out chalk. They help real American men maximize their masculinity by boosting testosterone levels up to 20% over 90 days. Now, I've been taking chalk male vitality stack for about three and a half weeks, and I can tell you it's working. I actually talked to my friend Jesse Kelly today. He's been taking it for months. He said the same thing. So if you want to maximize your masculinity, you want to get that edge back, you need to check out chalk. Choq.com. that's choq.com. use promo code BEN for 35% off any chalk subscription for life. And you can cancel anytime. Choq. Com promo code. Ben. Senator, it's a pleasure, as always, to chat with you. This is one of those shows, as we said at the beginning, so important. I hope people remember this man's story and let everybody hear it. We'll see you back here in a couple of days.