Rep. McCaul: Afghanistan gold star families 'stonewalled' by Biden admin.

tomorrow marks the two-year two-year anniversary since the last American soldiers withdrew from Afghanistan and we're learning new information about some of the turmoil happening behind the scenes inside the White House amid that chaotic withdrawal in an excerpt of his coming book about the first two years of the Biden presidency Franklin 4 a writer at the Atlantic or counts a moment in the aftermath of that deadly attack at Abby gate that killed 13 U.S service members he writes quote after the

dignified transfer the families piled onto a bus a sister of one of the Dead screamed in Biden's Direction I hope you burn in hell of all the moments in August this was the one that caused the president to second-guess himself he asked press secretary jensaki did I do something wrong maybe I should have handled that differently meanwhile today the house Foreign Affairs committee held a Roundtable discussion with some of the gold star families of the abigate attack take a listen we need closure a

s appearance we need this Administration to apologize for the awful decisions that lead to the death of our kids admit the mistakes they made we find ourselves here in the nation's capital to fight for answers answers that you would think would come naturally to ghost our families not only those of us present but to all of those that came before US President Biden and his executive cabinet must accept responsibility publicly for the chaotic withdrawal at the end of the 20-year War and joining me

now is the chairman of the house Foreign Affairs committee Congressman Michael McCall of Texas so Congressman first tell me why did you feel that it was necessary to hold this round table today and what was your big takeaway from what you heard from these families well we want to give the the parents of you know the children the service members who were brutally killed in this massive suicide bombing attack I wanted to give them a voice and let them know that the Congress is listening to them I

think the American people are listening to them and I hope the administration will listen to them I think part of it is you know that it's gripping powerful testimony and the administration continues to Stonewall not provide them the answers uh that they I think are deservingly should have um you know we've found out through our investigation that one of the snipers had the suicide bomber in his sights and then when he talked to his commanding officer he was denied permission to engage the thre

at we also found out that they knew the intelligence Community knew that Isis K staging event at a hotel room to plan the suicide bombing attack at Abbey gate and a request was made for an airstrike that too was denied so these parents are very frustrated with the fact that their children died and yet it maybe could have been prevented we want to talk to the commanding officer who denied that permission and yet we've been stonewalled by the Department of Defense finally after pressure from the f

amilies and from myself they will make him available in early September but we need to get answers to these questions for these families and quite honestly they do deserve better than this they've not been treated well by this Administration and I think they want the administration wants to forget that this happened and sweep it under the rug but we're not going to forget about this and I think they are entitled to these answers and you wrote a statement from the chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen

eral milley at the beginning of your remarks where he essentially says that he felt as though they had communicated well with these family members that they had given them all the information that they could but if there was some breakdown in communication he wanted to rectify that do you agree with that assessment from the general and where's the disconnect between what the Department of Defense has thought about their interactions with these families and how the families feel about it well you

know as a federal prosecutor you have victims you coordinate with them I don't think the defense department did a very good job coordinating with these gold star families having said that General milley and I have talked I was encouraged he actually apologized in his email or text and I commend him for that but you know it's one thing to apologize then assist us in this investigation since I talked to General milley they are going to make the commanding officer you know available to testify um

but you know in leadership when you make a mistake and you fail you own it and and you know President Truman said the buck stops here they feel like the buck is being passed on and forgotten about and that's what really hurts them the most as they think about their children who lost their lives that actually could have been prevented had there not been so much chaos in the ground finally Ryan you know the state Department's just supposed to be in charge of this evacuation and yet they didn't see

k an evacuation plan from the defense department until two days after Kabul fell the president put them under enormous artificial deadlines it was not necessary so the whole thing was chaotic on the ground under artificial deadlines and nobody knew who was in charge and that's what led to the chaos and the suicide bomber that killed 13 servicemen and women injured 45 and killed 170 Afghans this is a massive suicide bomb attack so the Pentagon did respond to the Roundtable today and some of the t

he comments that were made I want to play that for you and give you the chance to respond sure in terms of responding to some of the comments that were made I think you know that centcom conducted a very comprehensive credible and definitive investigation into the Abbey gate bombing following the attack um our U.S military commanders on the ground made the best decisions that they could so Mr chairman she said credible and definitive account of what went wrong there I sense that you don't feel t

he same way no I I don't and and the families don't feel that way either I mean it was in their words not mine they are very upset and angry at this Administration for not dealing with them in a straightforward manner in transparent manner they can cooperate with me or they can try to you know I can do subpoenas and move to con you know to hold them in contempt I would rather have them cooperate and be honest with these these families and with the American people and you know I've been stonewall

ed I've had to subpoena documents the after Action Report you're referring to it took months to get that and I still can't get all the documents uh surrounding that so you know it's encouraging but because the we got the gold star families to speak up now they're finally listening after two years but that's two years too long yeah all right I just do want to ask you quickly while we have you sir about the situation in Ukraine uh there it does appear to be a lot of skeptic skepticism I should say

among Republican voters about continuing to Aid at Ukraine it came up on the debate stage last week with uh the Republican candidates for president how do you convince people in your own party that supporting Ukraine is still in the U.S national interest well because what happens in Ukraine uh also directly impacts Taiwan and I just got back from there you know chairman XI and Putin are joined at the hip in this Unholy Alliance having said that going back to the debate I was encouraged that rea

lly seven of the eight uh support the effort in Ukraine and I think you'll see the majority of the majorities in Congress still support this effort my criticism has been they haven't been given the weapons necessary for victory but rather to survive and I think with the counter offense of the the administration did not serve Ukraine well having said that you know we're going to take a look at this but they did not collaborate with us and I've talked to the speaker we are going to take a look at

this but this is going to be our supplemental bill with our ideas and we have the power of the purse and the executive cannot force us into this but I do think we are going to reach a a resolution to continue to support Ukraine against Russian aggression all right Congressman Mike McCall a very powerful Roundtable that you hosted today we appreciate having having you on to talk about it uh thank you so much we appreciate it thanks Lauren thanks for having me thanks for watching our YouTube chann

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