Ambassador Ric Grenell Assesses President Biden’s Foreign Policy

Former Acting Director of National Intelligence and former U.S. Ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell joins the podcast to give his assessment of President Biden’s foreign policy. We discuss the withdrawal from Afghanistan, the makeup of the new Taliban-controlled government, and what this all means for our friends and foes around the globe.

TRANSCRIPT

Beverly Hallberg:

Welcome to She Thinks, a podcast where you’re allowed to think for yourself. I’m your host, Beverly Hallberg. And on today’s episode, we’re honored to have on Ric Grenell, former acting director of national intelligence and former U.S. ambassador to Germany. He’s going to give his assessment of President Biden’s foreign policy. We’ll discuss the withdraw from Afghanistan, the make-up of the new Afghan Taliban-controlled government, and forecast what this all means for our friends and foes around the globe. Ambassador, it is a pleasure to have you on She Thinks today.

Ric Grenell:

Thank you for having me. It’s such an honor.

Beverly Hallberg:

So there’s much we can delve into on the ongoing crisis in Afghanistan, but I want to start first with where most Americans are most concerned, and that is the fact that Americans were left behind. And so what I’m wondering is, is the U.S. military motto of no man left behind a thing of the past? Does our current president not believe in rescuing every American anymore?

Ric Grenell:

You know, honestly, it’s a shocking question, but it’s such a good question because I don’t think that we can come to any other conclusion other than Joe Biden, believes that 90% is good enough. Think about that. If you’re an American traveling overseas, you just got the word that 10% of Americans trapped in a situation could get left behind. I think this is going to be the Biden doctrine. 90% is good enough. 10% will be left. And to me, it’s shocking that in America, the greatest country in the world—and make no mistake, we still are the greatest country in the world—that we’d have a leadership team that is doing rounding errors rather than going and getting every single person. I have to say that the most disturbing thing for me, someone who has spent more than 10 years at the State Department, my career at the State Department is filled with amazing memories and service with foreign service officers who truly and deeply care about America.

But to think about the current secretary of state Anthony, Blinken sitting in a cabinet meeting and sitting around the table, I’ve been in that room. I’ve been in capita meetings and every single person represents a different agency and a different point of view. And to have the secretary of state sit in a cabinet meeting and allow a decision to be made by the Biden administration to withdraw 2,500 U.S. troops and 5,000 NATO troops, all of these troops carry guns in a war-torn country, Afghanistan. And to have them removed while leaving the American embassy filled with Department of State employees and direct hires of the U.S. federal government, to leave them there. These people do not carry guns, they’re diplomat. And to remove from a hostile zone, the protective nature, and to leave the diplomats behind is unconscionable.

I can’t imagine doing that to State Department employees. I think Anthony Blinkens’ silence while this decision was made in the cabinet room means that he should walk out in disgrace. He should leave the State Department and never come back. What he has done to foreign service officers and to the Department of State’s reputation is unforgivable.

Beverly Hallberg:

And I would even say on top of that, one of the things that I think has been stunning is the blame that the Biden administration, including Biden himself has put against the Americans that were there. Saying, well, we warn people. We left people with enough notice. It’s their fault if they’re there. And even the statement that, we will get anyone who wants to leave. Everybody wants to leave. There’s nobody that wants to stay, like who are those people who want to stay? So what do you also make of the blame game, not just against the Afghan government, but against the Americans who were left behind?

Ric Grenell:

Look, all of the decisions that have been made by Jake Sullivan, the national security advisor, Susan Rice, who’s inside the White House, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, all of these decisions are political. They’re not thinking about the policy. This is a team of people who the media allow to make highly partisan political decisions, and then they get away with it. I mean, you look at Avril Haines, who is the current director of national intelligence, she is manipulating intelligence, politicizing intelligence in multiple places. I’ll give you one example. She’s repackaged the report on Saudi Arabia. There was nothing new to say, but because the Biden administration was going to negotiate with Iran, she repackaged a hit job on the Saudis and then released some of it just in time for the negotiations to start with Iran.

Now I’m somebody who believes in transparency. When I was acting director of national intelligence, I looked for every way possible to declassify information and give it to the public. And yet on the Saudi issue in particular, career foreign intelligence officials came to me multiple occasions saying, do not declassify this information. It is highly important that we keep this line and I don’t want to go into too much more on what that means, but I was convinced by career officials to not declassify certain things. And clearly the Biden team has overruled that. They have overruled career officials. They’ve overturned some of this information and declassified it.

My point is that when you politicize one way from the democratic party, the media should play fair. And they constantly attack the Trump administration for politicizing everything. Now we see the Biden team doing it and getting away with it. The decisions in Afghanistan, to close Bagram Air Base and to stick to a deadline, meant that their political calculations of trying to withdraw were more important than the facts on the ground, were more important than the reality of the situation. Politics doesn’t always deal with reality and what we’re seeing in Washington, DC, is a whole group of people who like to stick their head in the sand and make political decisions. And then have a media that pushes that narrative out, even though the rest of us outside of Washington, are watching, seeing the reality, seeing the facts and knowing that what they’re pushing politically is not based in reality.

Beverly Hallberg:

And I would say two things that the American people see through is, first of all, we don’t leave Americans behind. It doesn’t matter who you vote for, what political party you’re from. I think that’s something that’s always unified Americans, which is why it’s been so shocking that this administration has done that. And I think the other thing that unites all Americans is that we all agree that Taliban is bad. Like pretty easy. We don’t think that they’ve had a change of heart. They’re not going to respect women’s rights. We already see that. But yet there still has been this narrative by the Biden administration to tiptoe around the language and reference to the Taliban. Is part of that because there are still Americans there and they’re having to be careful? Or do you think that this is just going to be the pervasive narrative moving forward? And potentially we even heard Jen Psaki say this recently, the press secretary saying that there may be a chance we may call the Taliban-led government legitimate. Do you think that’s the direction we’re headed towards?

Ric Grenell:

Well, I certainly hope not. I mean, the idea that we would criticize the Taliban for not having women in the cabinet really is one of these political moments in Washington, DC, where the rest of the world says, wait a minute, if you want women in the Taliban cabinet, then you’re asking for female terrorist to join the government. Because the criteria is terrorism and fear. And just the idea that we would somehow subscribe Western values on this terrorist organization. I mean, what’s next, we’re going to demand that they have Kabul pride and have a parade through Kabul for gays and lesbians. I mean, this is the phoniness of the Biden administration’s political nature.

And let’s be honest, Joe Biden has been a creature of Washington for 45 years, but one of the reasons the media wanted him, the political types wanted him, the lobbyists wanted him, is because after four years of Donald Trump’s outsider mentality, where he rejected all those people and all of their ways and tried to change the system, they in Washington, the political insiders were desperate to go back to the old rules. And Joe Biden plays by those old rules, where lobbyists get a seat at the table, where special interests help create the narrative, where the American people are fed the lines, not consulted with. Nobody’s paying attention to what Americans want.

And this goes back to the inside click nature of the Biden team. We all know that it’s the third term for Obama and look no further than Susan Rice, has been given the title of domestic policy advisor inside the White House. Now, I don’t know a single person in the entire world who believes that she’s working on Medicare, Medicaid policy. She is doing foreign policy. And remember too, that her deputies, Susan Rice’s deputies, when she was Obama’s national security advisor, one was Tony Blinken, who is now the secretary of state. The other was Avril Haines, who’s now running our intelligence programs. She’s the director of national intelligence. So we really have Susan Rice and her deputies running diplomacy and intelligence. It’s a very scary concept.

Beverly Hallberg:

And I know we are short on time today. I have a couple more questions for you. One is going back to the State Department. You talk about the people who work behind the scenes. So many of them patriots. You worked at the State Department. Have you heard from any of the former colleagues of yours? I’m assuming people who work in these agencies are horrified by what they’re seeing, correct.

Ric Grenell:

For sure, not only intelligence officers, but career diplomats. I’ve been talking to too many to name and you know, one troubling area is in Germany where I was the U.S. ambassador. Many of my colleagues that I worked with there are now in charge at Ramstein of making sure that the Afghan refugees are vetted. And I am flooded with information constantly about how the vetting process is truncated and corners are cut. And when a file is incomplete, when we don’t have information about an individual, if they haven’t been able to produce documentation, because they left quickly or they don’t have access to the local city hall record. If applications are incomplete, our people, United States employees are told to rush the system to use a hunch and to move the files along. These individuals that I work with are very uncomfortable with being told to rush the system.

Usually, vetting takes a year to 18 months. They’re being told to do it in a matter of minutes and less than an hour. And they just don’t have the tools to do that. And they don’t want to be in a position later because let’s be clear, the foreign service officers and DHS officials who vet Afghan refugees, their names are on the file. We could go back, and we don’t because we don’t tend to blame people for someone who violates their visa or who turns out to be a terrorist.

We don’t go back to the original person who did the interview and who let them in. We don’t hold that person accountable for a variety of reasons. Maybe we should, maybe that’s part of the process, but the name of the U.S. employee, the foreign service officer, or the DHS official who does the interviewing, their name is on that file. And I’ve heard from many people who are uncomfortable putting their name on a file when they’re also told to rush these files through when they’re incomplete. So this is a disaster waiting to happen. And we’ve been warning the administration to stop pressuring our people to rush the vetting process, but it continues to this day. And I fear that we’re just not vetting these people properly.

Beverly Hallberg:

I think that’s a very logical fear. I think a lot of people share it. And I think that there are great fears that even our friends have across the globe. Before you go, just wanted to ask you one final question. So you’ve talked about the politics and what this means for Americans and how Americans are viewing this. How do our friends view this? What is this meant for those that we fought alongside in Afghanistan and have been fighting with after September 11th? What do you think the ripple effect is of this to our friends?

Ric Grenell:

Well, the one thing that you have to remember is that every single country around the world acts in its own behalf. It seeks to help its own people first. I spent eight years at the UN and out of the 193 countries at the UN, 192 put themselves first. Only one country gets in trouble for putting their people first and that’s America. So this concept of America first that Donald Trump pushed, it’s not a controversial concept around the world. Outside of America, everyone’s like, yes, of course, you’re supposed to do that. This is what we do. France puts France first. I can tell you, Germany puts Germany first. And so it’s only controversial here at home with the liberals who feel guilty about their great status and therefore want to tear down America to make it just like every other place.

And I really believe that. I’m horrified by the attack on America, on our ideals. I think it’s pretty clear that we’re teaching kids in America to hate America. And I’ve had foreign leaders actually say to me, “what are you guys doing? You’re teaching your children to hate your country. This is going to come back to haunt you.” And so I always say to people, remember that every great civilization has lasted roughly 250 years, and we’re coming up against that. And if we’re going to continue to teach our children to hate America and not recognize how great we are, then we are going to cease to exist as a country.

You have to ask yourself: why is it that first- and second-generation Americans love this country? They love Donald Trump. They love Republicans. They’re afraid of the woke ism. They’re afraid of the media narrative that’s constantly in support of one party, that protects the ruling party. They have seen totalitarianism and fascism. They’ve left it. And they are like the canaries in the coal mine for the rest of Americans. First- and second-generation Americans should be listened to. They have incredible perspective and they are sounding the alarms on what’s happening in our country.

Beverly Hallberg:

And that’s why I think it’s so important that these issues are raised. You talk about what it means for terrorism abroad, what this means with Afghanistan, but also what this means within our own country and the attacks from the ideology that wants to tear us apart. So we so appreciate not only the work that you’ve done for our country, but also for joining us today. Ambassador Ric Grenell, Thank you so much.

Ric Grenell:

Anytime. Thank you for having me.

Beverly Hallberg:

And thank you for joining us. Before you go, Independent Women’s Forum does want you to know that we rely on the generosity of supporters like you, and investment in IWF fuels our efforts to enhance freedom, opportunity, and wellbeing for all Americans. Please consider making a small donation to IWF by visiting iwf.org/donate. That is iwf.org/donate. And last, if you enjoyed this episode of She Thinks do leave us a rating or review on iTunes. It does help. Also, we’d love it if you shared this episode and let your friends know where they can find more She Thinks episodes. From all of us here at Independent Women’s Forum, thanks for listening.