Press Releases

Washington, D.C. — U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) joined Hannity to discuss the Biden Administration’s disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan and his call for General Mark Milley to be immediately fired following reporting that suggests he circumvented the civilian chain of command. Watch the video here and see below for highlights. 

On Secretary Blinken’s misleading testimony on the disastrous withdraw from Afghanistan: 
“They can spin that to a lot of different people. They can't spin that to me, because I spent hours every week as the Vice Chairman of the Intelligence Committee reviewing the exact same intelligence that the State Department had, that the White House had… 
“Anyone who was reading consistently the reporting and the analysis for the better part of 3 to 4 months and didn't conclude that in fact this could unravel very quickly, either A, doesn't know how to analyze this stuff and does not belong in that position or B, willfully ignored it because they wanted to reach an artificial timeline for political purposes, they wanted to have a big ceremony on September 11th and brag about getting out of the war, and now they’re lying about it.
“They can't lie to me about it. What he said today, what they continue to say, is categorically false. They either knew, or they should have known, and either one is bad. They are either incompetent or they are lying about it now. 
“What they knew by July 8th whenJoe Biden stood up and argued and had this naive optimism about the state of the Afghan military… He knew that they had had the worst fighting season since the start of the conflict 20 years ago. He knew that they were slowly and methodically isolating Kabul, cutting off all its supply lines. He knew that because the airstrikes had ended, the Taliban was now able to amass five, six thousand fighters outside of major cities. You could see the writing on the wall, you could see what direction this was going… 
“[The Administration] was warned repeatedly that this could spiral very quickly and without warning and they ignored it, because he wanted a big ceremony on September 11th to brag about how he got us out of the war on the 20th anniversary, and that’s what he did. 
“His artificial timeline and the reality of the real world did not match up, and what we have now is this catastrophe which humiliated our country - and not just left behind American citizens, but green card holders. Permanent residents of the United States are stuck in Afghanistan tonight and may die because of this incompetent Administration.” 
On Rubio’s letter to President Biden demanding the resignation of General Milley:
“First, anybody who knew Donald Trump or worked around him knows that the notion that he would start a war anywhere in the world unnecessarily is just not realistic. He was the opposite. He wanted to avoid these conflicts and talked about it openly. 
“Number two, I want everybody to understand that you don't have to like Donald Trump to be concerned about this. You have the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, a military leader, basically ignoring the Constitution, deciding he’s going to call a potential adversary and an enemy of the United States and collude with them and tell them, ‘If I am ordered to do something, I will tell you about it first’ and also break the chain of command with the nuclear codes of this country. 
“Tomorrow I honestly hope we will have a statement from General Milley saying this is an absolute lie and it never happened. The alternative is we live in a country where a general can decide ‘I don't like what a president is doing. I don’t think the president is in his right mind. I will ignore his warning and collude with our enemies to prevent our president, elected by the people, from taking action.’ By the way, in this case, there is no sign that the action he was trying to prevent was ever going to happen. 
“Imagine if tomorrow General Milley decides, ‘I think Joe Biden is senile, so I won't follow his orders. I am going to collude with Russia or China to prevent him from acting.’  It is the essence of a military coup, for lack of a better term. That's what it would equate to.”