This is the Tom Hartman program.

And greetings, my friends, patriots, lovers of democracy, truth and justice, believers

in peace, freedom, and the American way Tom Hartman here with you.

Professor Wolff will be with us, Richard Wolff, about the deficit and the debt and why

we should or should not care about these things.

I wanted to start out with Donald Trump, Joe Biden, Afghanistan.

This has just, you know, the situation continues to be a cluster as the American media rightly

continues to focus on the fact that Donald Trump cut this deal about a year ago with the

Taliban, guaranteeing them that by May 1st there would be no more Americans in Afghanistan.

And, you know, basically surrendered the entire country to the Taliban, closed 10 air

force bases, you know, basically neutered our ability to do a rational withdrawal.

And then just basically sat on it, particularly after the election, after he lost the election

in November, you know, for another two months, it refused to allow the Biden administration,

the incoming Biden administration to even get security briefings from the Pentagon

on what was going on.

So when the Biden administration came into power on the 20th or the 21st of January, really

the 21st was their full, first full day, they were just beginning the process of looking

around going, what's going on here?

Now that said, that was what seven months ago.

And they frankly should have gotten a hell of a lot more people out before the withdrawal.

You know, the Biden administration moved it back from May to August, but, you know, I think

that they're, I think it's appropriate that there be some criticism directed at them,

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