zie, I appreciate you all being here to address lingering concerns we have about the last two decades of war. Generally, and the past two months in particular, you are all men of honor and integrity who have served our country nobly and I so look forward to your candid responses to my questions, even if they require admitting that in some cases serious mistakes were made. Like all Senate offices, as the Taliban approached Kabul and eventually took over the city and the country, my team and I worked to help vulnerable individuals evacuate. These were people who, in many cases, had the State Department's approval to leave Afghanistan for the U.S. or third-party country but due to crowds, Taliban checkpoints or legitimate fear of being killed along the way, they could just not physically get to a gate to present their paperwork, no matter how many times they tried or no matter how long they waited. My office work was CENTCOM and the Afghanistan Task Force to try to coordinate opportunities just to grab these people from the crowd so they could present their paperwork and flee to safety, but unfortunately, again, these efforts were to no avail. As these individuals continued to wait for help that may never come, I remain frustrated that the U.S. did not set up a perimeter around Kabul or at the very least create a safe corridor for the S-1 visa holders to get to the airport, for their families, potential asylum seekers who were attempting to escape a near certain death. So continued support. General Milley, I appreciate the State Department now taking the lead on evacuations, but like our military, the State Department no longer has any presence on the ground in Afghanistan. So I'd like to ask you, sir, does the U.S. military's recent experience facilitating the evacuation from Kabul give you the confidence that the Taliban will be honest brokers in working with our diplomats to help vulnerable Afghan nationals leave the country? I think that what we've seen so far since the 31st is some Americans have gotten out through diplomatic means and they have reached safety through either overland routes or through aircraft. I don't know all the details, but I can't imagine that that didn't happen without Taliban facilitation. Well, we can get back to Afghan nationals helping them leave the country as well, those SIV holders and others who supported us. But Secretary Austin, the administration has said they'll utilize every tool available to hold the Taliban accountable if they fail to meet their commitments to provide safe passage for anyone who wants to leave the country. Certainly we know they're economic lovers, but can you elaborate on what the military tools are and could there be a shared interest in targeting ISIS-K? In terms of military tools, Senator, as you know, we have the ability to offer a range of options depending on what the President's objectives are. So we can do most anything that's required of us because we have substantial resources. But in terms of our cooperation with the Taliban against the counter ISIS-K, I won't venture to make any comments on that. I would just say that we have coordinated some things that are very narrow in scope with them to get our people out, as you know, and to continue to further evacuate American citizens. But I don't think it's right to make assumptions to broader and bigger things from that coordination. They are still the Taliban. Thank you. I'd just like to, in the few seconds I have left and we can take these second rounder off the record, future counter-terrorism operations, we have to reorganize our counter-terrorism capabilities and our assets in the region, of course, as we move to an over-the-horizon scenario. So Secretary Austin, General McKenzie, and we'll take these in the second round. Think about, I'd like the answer to what is the plan for an enduring counter-terrorism strategy that's going to be able to address and counter the influence of the violent extremist organizations in Afghanistan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Senator Rosen. Senator Hawley, please. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Let me just sum up where I understand that we are based on what's been a fairly extraordinary hearing. Here's what I've learned so far. Number one, President of the United States lied to the American people about the advice that you gave to him about the military judgment that you provided for him. I think you've all testified to that effect now repeatedly. Secondly, the State Department and maybe the White House appeared to have pushed back the evacuation to such a time that it became a catastrophe, apparently, against your advice, although I'd like to learn more about that. And third, for some reason that we still don't quite understand, the Pentagon failed to plan for the potential collapse of the security forces or the collapse of the Afghan government, despite there being quite a lot of warnings. Senator Cain referred to this earlier, quite a lot of warning for really, frankly, years that the Afghan security forces were ill-equipped, ill-trained, and frankly, not up to the job. I don't understand any of that. I'd like to explore those things with you in this round of the next. But first, before I do, Secretary Austin, I have to take issue with something you just said. I know this is an administration talking point. I've heard it out of the mouth of the press secretary and others. We are not leaving Americans behind. That was your quote of just a minute ago. With all due respect, sir, you have left past tense Americans behind. We have no presence any longer in Afghanistan. There were hundreds of American, and not just Americans generally, civilians you left behind against the President's explicit commitment not to leave until all American citizens were out into safety. That is not what happened. And now we have people who are desperately, frantically, trying to get out of this country, coming to me, coming to members of this committee, asking for help. They can't get that help. They're stuck behind enemy lines. So please don't tell me that we're not leaving Americans behind. You left them behind. Joe Biden left them behind. And frankly, it was a disgrace. Let me ask you this, though. Senator, thanks for your help in continuing to help American citizens and Afghans who have helped us out of the country. But as you've seen, we've continued to facilitate... Well, actually, I didn't ask you a question, but since you seem to want to address the issue. So since you do, isn't it true that you left Americans behind on August the 31st? There are Americans, there were Americans that were still in Afghanistan and still are. We continue to work to try to get those Americans out. Yeah, that's a yes. Let's not repeat, please. Frankly, false so that we didn't leave Americans behind. Let me ask you this, Secretary Austin, you've alluded to several times the fact that the military was ready. You say this in your prepared remarks. By late April, you say military planners who crafted a number of evacuation scenarios. You refer later in your remarks to the fact that you were waiting for the State Department to make a decision about evacuations. NBC News is reporting this morning that the military wanted to begin evacuations earlier, but the State Department of the White House intervened and by May the 8th said no. We're delaying the evacuations of our civilians. Can you just help us get to the truth here? Was it your judgment and opinion that the evacuations of civilians should have begun before the middle of August? We provided our input to the State Department. And again, it is a call of the State Department to... I understand that. I understand that, Mr. Secretary. I'm asking for what your judgment was. And I'm asking specifically about your testimony that in April you develop evacuation scenarios. And this is reported by multiple sources this morning in the news. So I just wonder, as of late April, was it your opinion that the evacuations of civilians should begin before, should begin earlier than they did? We provided input to try to get out as many Afghans who have helped us along the way as early as possible. But again, the State Department has made its decisions based upon the fact that even President Ghani had engaged them and said, hey, we're very concerned about the mass exodus of civilians from the country. Let me, General Milley, let me direct this to you. Did you ever advise in the interagency process that the rapid withdrawal timeline that the White House of Pentagon signed off on General Miller proposed, effectively getting us to zero by the middle of July, that that would negatively impact any effort to get out our civilians? In other words, if we'd drawn down to zero by July, if we then had a civilian evacuation ordered we'd be in a lot of trouble. Did you ever advise to that effect during the interagency process? Did you warn about that possibility of drawing down so quickly before a civilian evacuation was underway? Yeah, but it's more complicated than that. The drawdown of the forces under Miller, those guys are advisors. They're not the Neo kind of guys. The Neo troops are Marine Expeditionary Unit, Special Purpose MAGTAP, and elements of the 82nd Airborne Division. That's what you need in order to do the Neo. Those are the plans, I believe, that the Secretary's referring to that were developed early on. And there's specific triggers that are required and the State Department calls the time of the Neo. The Secretary, in fact, on the 12th of August, started pushing forward forces and orders. And on the 14th, the Ambassador, Ambassador Wilson, called the Neo. Should that have been called earlier? I think that's an open question that needs further exploration based on a series of meetings. But the April peace and the drawdown of the advisors, that's a separate and distinct task and the retrograde of those forces. Those 2,500 advisors weren't the guys bringing up the American citizens anyway. Those were the advisors to the Afghan security forces. There were concerns that we raised throughout the interagency that when those advisors, if the advisors were to stay, then there's a possibility that the Afghan security forces would hang in there. We all knew that when we pull the advisors out, when we pull the money out, that at some point in the future, most said it was in the fall, that the Afghan security forces were going to fracture and the government would collapse. The speed at which that happens in August is a different animal. The advisors are already gone by mid-July. There is still a government. There is still an Afghan army. And the assumption was that it would remain and the mission was to keep the embassy open, secure the embassy, transition that off to contractors, and then all the military would be out and there would be a diplomatic mission and there would be money in over the horizon. Now that happened because that army and that government collapsed very rapidly. As soon as those indicators came of fracture, Secretary Austin and others throughout the government executed and implemented a NEO plan for which there was contingencies that were built. There was a plan for a rapid collapse and that was the NEO plan that General McKenzie had come up with and that's what was executed. That's why those 6,000 troops could deploy as rapidly as they did. That's why all those aircraft showed up. That wasn't done without planning. That was done with planning and that was done from an operational and tactical standpoint. That was a success. Strategically, the war is lost. The enemy is in Kabul. So you have a strategic failure while you simultaneously have an operational and tactical success by the soldiers on the ground. So I think we're conflating some things that we need to separate in this after-action review process so that we clearly understand what exactly happened or if taken all that time, but I thought it was necessary. Thank you, Senator Holley. Senator Kelly, please. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Secretary, let me begin by expressing my gratitude to each of the over 800,000 Americans, many of them Arizonans who served in Afghanistan over the past 20 years and to their families. I also commend our service members' support of one of the largest air lifts in our country's history. We will never forget the achievements of the men and women who worked 24-7 in Kabul, managed impossible conditions on the ground and above all, those who made the ultimate sacrifice, protecting innocent civilians. 124,000 people are safe today because of American troops and diplomats. Still, after decades of conflict, 2,500 American soldiers killed and billions invested in security cooperation, the American people deserve to know why the Afghan government and security forces collapsed in a matter of days and how there was a failure to prepare for this scenario and ensure that our people were out of the country before it fell. And I think we've established here that the withdrawal and evacuation did not account for real-world conditions and that the intelligence was flawed. The United States wields incredible power as a global leader and our accountability must match our influence. For our own national security and for each of those who served in Afghanistan during our longest war, we must understand what happened but also look forward to ensure that our posture allows us to provide for our national security and prevent Afghanistan's use as a base for terrorist activity. So I want to transition and look forward and not ask you questions that you've already answered. General McKenzie, America's armed forces have been on the front lines fighting terrorists for the past 20 years. During this time, al-Qaeda and other terrorist organizations have been degraded. While our military presence in Afghanistan has ended, our commitment to fighting terrorism has not. With our withdrawal complete, the Afghan government collapsed and the Taliban seeking to fill the power vacuum left behind. How is Central Command postured to prevent terrorist organizations from gaining strength in the region? Senator, probably the details of this would be best left to the classified session which we'll have later this afternoon. But I would tell you that I have today headquarters that has the ability to look into Afghanistan, albeit limited and we have the ability to fuse the different disciplines of intelligence to look particularly at ISIS-K and al-Qaeda. We are still refining that, the best practices on that but we do have a way forward. I've told this committee before, it is very hard to do this, it is very difficult to do this. Well, I'm looking forward to seeing those details in the closed hearing. Are you confident that we can deny organizations like al-Qaeda and ISIS the ability to use Afghanistan as a launch pad for terrorist activity? I think that's yet to be seen. I think, you know, we're still seeing how al-Qaeda and ISIS are configuring themselves against the Taliban. We're still seeing what the Taliban is going to do. So I think it's early that I'm confident that that's going to be on the ground yet. We could get to that point but I do not yet have that level of confidence. And you might have to share this in the closed hearing but do you have the resources necessary to accomplish this even as our national security pivots towards great power or near-peer threats like China and Russia that are seeking to expand their influence and compete with our military? I'm in a constant dialogue with the secretary about requirements in CENTCOM and I'll give you some more details in the closed session. Well, thank you. And I know you can't go into much detail about the analysis that led to the August 28th drone strike in Kabul in this open setting but I would like to note my serious concerns and give you the opportunity to make any comment on how the American people can know that the military will be able to adequately assess targets before conducting future strikes and operations even as we have even fewer local intelligence and surveillance resources to leverage. Senator, again the matter is under investigation but what I can tell you broadly and to restate some things I've said earlier, I am responsible for that. It happened in my area of responsibility so I'm the responsible officer for that strike. Moreover, I was under no pressure and no one in my chain of command below me was under any pressure to take that strike. We acted based on the intelligence read that we saw on the ground. We acted several times on intelligence that we saw and we were successful in other occasions in preventing attacks. This time, tragically, we were wrong and you're right to note that as we go forward and our ability to create what we call the ecosystem that allows you to see what's going on on the ground and put all that together, it's going to get a lot harder to do that particularly in places like Afghanistan but I can share a little more with you later. Well, thank you, General. Thank you, Senator Kelly. Senator Tubber will please. Chairman, gentlemen, thanks for being here today. You're part of the most powerful military in the world. I'll ask all three of you this question. I know you're going to answer this. Is there any enemy that could defeat the strongest force in the world, the United States military? And I know all of you are going to say no. So, Secretary Austin, since your confirmation in January, have you been denied any resources with regard to Afghanistan? I think I heard you say earlier you got everything you needed. That's correct, Senator. Thank you. On August 18th you were asked why the U.S. wouldn't rescue Americans who couldn't reach the airport. You responded, quote, I don't have the capability to go out and extend operations currently in Kabul, end quote. We saw the Germans, the French, the British rescue citizens in Kabul. But from this administration, which commands the world's most lethal fighting force, we saw nothing but blame, weakness. And our American citizens were left to fend for themselves. Our fighting men have the courage, training, and discipline to defeat the enemy anytime, anywhere. And there's people all over this country wondering why in the heck would we let our allies get their people and we didn't get ours. I want to thank all the 100,000 veterans and their families who sacrificed over the past 20 years. And I truly believe our soldiers didn't fail us if a lot of our leadership did. Secretary Austin, before President Biden even took office, you thought we needed to leave Afghanistan. On January 19, you told my colleague Senator Sheehan quote, I think this conflict needs to come to an end and we need to see an agreement reached and in accordance with what the President-elect wants to see. End quote. You testify that General Miller had adequate resources to secure Afghanistan at a troop level 2500. But you told Senator Holley you wanted to, quote, assess the situation and make recommendations of the President, end quote. I know you're going to answer this. Did you give advice to the President on withdrawal from Afghanistan without conditions? Or is that the direction you got from him? Again, my recommendations were a part of a very deliberate process where we presented a range of options for the President. And if I could Senator, I'd like to go back to the first comment that you made about the question that I answered for a reporter who asked why don't you go out and establish court-ons and create safe passageways for our people just to move into the airport. At that point, early on in our deployment, we only had we had less than 4,000 or about 4,000 troops to secure and defend the airport. And our troop presence continued to grow as we flowed people in. We used a number of innovative approaches to go out and pick up and facilitate the entry of American citizens into the airport as the situation continued to develop. But just wanted to give you a little context for that answer. Well, thank you. We're all talking about did President Biden know all this? And my question about withdrawal, basically there's two options. I can answer that for either the President was given bad military advice or he gave his military the terrible decision and direction to surrender Afghanistan without condition. I'll have some more here in a few minutes. I just want to make a couple of statements. You know, the American people especially the people I represent, they're disgusted by how this U.S. surrender happened in Afghanistan. And I know you've heard that yourselves, all three of you.  Americans allies are in disbelief. But Americans enemies are delighted. The Taliban are euphoric at the job that happened with our military given the orders to retreat. President Biden abandoned our allies who fought alongside us for 20 years. This administration left American citizens behind enemy lines. We left $85 billion of equipment that the American taxpayers paid for and this administration created sanctuary for terrorists to plot against United States for years and years to come. It's just absolutely amazing that we did this. So I'll end it there. I know we've these guys need probably take a break but we'll see you after the break. Thanks Mr. Chairman. You all my time. Thank you very much. We've completed the first round and as I indicated we will break at 1 o'clock for lunch so we'll begin the second round. Secretary Washington you said in response to Senator Warren that if we stayed past August 31st we would certainly be back at war with the Taliban and that you'd have to reinforce yourself and do I interpret your testimony mean that staying at 2,500 past the 31st was not sustainable at an acceptable level of risk for the American personnel and that we would be seeing today casualties which could be accumulating at a unacceptable rate. Chairman I think the point that's left out of a lot of the conversation is that had we stayed past that date that was agreed upon early on that the Taliban would begin to attack us attack our forces here and we'd have to make some decisions on how to reinforce our forces so that we could continue to operate and that would include quite possibly increasing the force there. Now in the Doher agreement President Trump agreed to leave with certain conditions on May 1st those conditions have been testified by the panel that were really never achieved, never challenged by the Trump administration would you consider that an abrogation of or a surrender that agreement? I certainly believe that the conditions were preset that and again we lived up to all the things that we were obliged to do we didn't attack them and we drew down our forces but the Taliban the only thing that they lived up to was that they didn't attack us and we saw a great deal of difficulty in meeting the deadline which was August 31st would it appear to you that a May 1st deadline as President Trump imagined would have caused more complications in term of getting our equipment out getting our personnel out identifying Americans eligible to leave and getting on the paperwork since you would be doing it at a much shorter time frame. I don't think that would have been feasible to do that in an orderly fashion Chairman. Thank you very much. General Milley, regardless of whether the Taliban had met the conditions required on the door, weren't you already in the trajectory to go to zero forces as I said by May 1st as required by the agreement the President took over so that you actually would have accelerated the process of withdrawal and complicated it more similar to my question to the Secretary. Yes, we were actually given an order to go to zero by 15 January which was changed to go to 2,500 by 15 January and then take it down to zero by 1 May depending on the decisions of the new administration. Thank you. General Milley, your prepared testimony indicates that the Biden Administration through the National Security Council conducted a rigorous interagency review of the situation in Afghanistan in February, March, and April in which the views of senior military leadership were all given serious consideration by the Administration. You also testified that you received an order in November 2020 just referred to to withdraw all forces from Afghanistan by January 15th 2021. Was that in November order similarly informed by a rigorous interagency review? No. So that was basically I think Secretary Esper submitted his recommendations in a written format on the 9th the day that he was relieved and 48 hours later we received a written order to go to zero by 15 January. I think in General McKenzie again your advice with regard to maintaining 2,500 troops has been reiterated repeatedly but you also recommended in the fall of 2024,000 troops. Is that correct? So that is correct. I recommended that in the fall of 2020 when we were having deliberations I recommended that we hold at that level. And that was rejected by the Trump Administration. Sorry it was. And there was no recommendations against you or anyone else for the that was the President of the United States making a decision based on his view of the world. Insofar as I know that's correct sir. Thank you very much. And again adhering to the 5-minute rule I will feed back 8 seconds to Chairman Inouye. Thank you Mr. Chairman. One good way to judge any President's decision is whether it's made American people safer. Generals ask all three of you have both noted that the Taliban has not severed its relationship with al-Qaeda. President Biden stated on July the 8th that al-Qaeda is gone from Afghanistan. I would ask you is al-Qaeda gone from Afghanistan? Generals? Senator I think there are remnants of al-Qaeda still in Afghanistan. Does anyone believe that al-Qaeda is gone from Afghanistan? President Biden stayed at the United Nations recently that this nation is no longer at war. Is it your personal view that al-Qaeda is no longer at war with us? Started to do the right to al-Qaeda. I believe al-Qaeda is in Afghanistan. I believe they have aspirations to reconstitute and if they develop the capability I believe that they have aspirations to strike. It's too early in the process right now Senator to determine the capability but I do believe they believe that the personal view that was stated that al-Qaeda is no longer at war with us right now. I think al-Qaeda is at war with the United States and never has not. Does it withdraw from Afghanistan increase or decrease the likelihood of an al-Qaeda or ISIS attack on the U.S. homeland? Yes, give me Senator. My view is that it makes it much more difficult for us to conduct intelligence surveillance reconnaissance, fine fix functions and then we can strike almost from anywhere in the world and it makes it more difficult. We can still do it, it's not impossible but it will make it more difficult. General Milley and General McKenzie entrusted security to the Taliban but they failed to prevent the ISIS-K suicide bomber on August 26. We don't really even know if they want it to prevent it. Now we're in the same situation trusting the Taliban to prevent our attacks. The senator from Missouri brought up and talked again about the fact of what is the situation right now and I think we don't really after this several hours have an answer to that. I do want to bring something in the record that I don't think has been put in the record already and that is the conditions under which the previous president made after making the statement about the Taliban. Not only did the previous president have conditions and the conditions included having a presence, a military presence but they also had four other things that were stated that were those conditions. One to prevent al-Qaeda and the terrorists from threatening the United States from Afghanistan. Secondly to make statements and commandments to its members against the threatening United States against threatening the United States. Thirdly deny residents and visas and passports to those threatening the United States allies and fourthly begin negotiations with the Afghan government. Those were conditions that were made at that time and this has been stated several times. My opinion and opinion of many who have testified at this hearing that there were no conditions. I believe that is the case. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Senator Inhoff. Senator Shaheen, please. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Secretary Austin, I'm going to go back to my question earlier about the records that special immigrant visa applicants really need in order to qualify for those visas. There's not been a good process through DOD to ensure that they get those records. Is that something that the department is looking at and would you be willing to work with this committee or others to see if we could set up a process that would ensure that those folks who worked with our men and women actually have the documentation they need to show that? I know that one of the challenges is that many of those records have been destroyed but I would hope there's some way that we can ensure that those people are able to get the documentation they need to come to this country. Senator, let me first say that I absolutely agree with you that the process is onerous and that we need to do something to make it easier for those people that have helped us to prove that they have in fact worked with us before. One of my departments in defense is working to try to find ways to propose ways to truncate the process or come up with alternative means to demonstrate that they have worked with us in the past and to answer your question we would absolutely welcome working with the committee on this. Thank you. I assume we should contact your office to find who the appropriate contact person would be. We'll contact your office and let you know who he is Senator. Okay General Milley and General Mackenzie it's long been publicly reported that the Pakistani intelligence services have maintained a close and continuing relationship with the Taliban do we expect that relationship to become more complicated now that the Taliban is in power are we concerned about Pakistan's nuclear weapons and the potential that terrorist groups might be able to get access to those weapons can you talk a little bit about how you see the relationship with Pakistan and the Taliban playing out and the challenges that that presents for the United States I'll start which one of you would like to answer that Go ahead Frank I'll follow you Senator some of this we can talk a little bit more detail in the closed session but I would tell you that I believe Pakistan's relationship with the Taliban is going to become significantly more complicated as a result of the US withdrawal from Afghanistan and in fact they're going to see pressure moving into Pakistan from Afghanistan in ways that they've been able to deflect before because of the pressure that we and our allies had them so I think that's a significant problem that Pakistan is going to face I'd like to talk about their special weapons perhaps in the closed session as has been noted by several people in order to get to Afghanistan you have to fly over Pakistan unless you come from the north and that's the subject of continuing deliberation with Pakistan and I can shed a little bit more light on that going forward but you know they've actually over the last 20 years we've been able to use what we call the Air Boulevard to go in over western Pakistan and that's become something that's vital to us as well as certain landlines of communication and we'll be working with the Pakistanis in the days and weeks ahead to look at what that relationship is going to look like in the future but I can again talk a little more in the closed session I've had several conversations over the years and also recently with Pakistanis and there's no question in my mind that the relationship between Pakistan and the Taliban has become increasingly complex there's a whole series of issues there that have national security interests for the United States that are best handled in a different session okay thank you well can you and Secretary Austin can you talk about what we're doing to work with our European counterparts who based on conversations that I've had with some of the civilians from our NATO allies there was some frustration about the communication that led to the withdrawal and the evacuation are we working to rebuild those relationships do you see that frustration reflected in the military relationships that you have I don't Senator and I understand that there will be concerns but as I engage my counterparts they're all very willing to work with us and you know I don't want to sound polyannish on this but they have been very very thankful for the fact that we helped them get their people out and we helped them get thousands of evacuees out that had worked for them because of what we did so I think as I look at the major players that there is still a strong sense of being in this to work with us and relationships are things that we just have to continue to work at thank you very much thank you Mr. Chairman thank you Senator Shaheen before I recognize Senator Wicker at the conclusion of Senator Wicker's questioning we will adjourn as I said the one o'clock adjournment a little early couple minutes and then we'll promptly return at 1.30 Senator Wicker please General McKinsey let me ask you as I understand it one of our primary missions in Afghanistan was training the Afghan armed forces we also equipped them with approximately $83 billion in military equipment but we we always provided them extensive support in the form of military surveillance, air support logistics including contract aircraft maintenance and special operation advisors General McKinsey were the Afghan armed forces ever trained to fight the Taliban without U.S. support of any kind so Senator some elements of the Afghan military could fight very well without our support some of the elite commando units obviously we know from the example that we saw in August that other elements were unable to do that but as we began to withdraw our support during the withdrawal operation we began to see the effects of that we shifted to an over-the-horizon model for aviation maintenance that is difficult to do in a technologically literate population it is harder to do in Afghanistan we were having some small success and actually the Afghan Air Force continued to fly strikes up until well into August but they were nonetheless what percentage would you term as elite? less than 5% for 95% it was unrealistic for us to expect them to be able to fight alone at that point in July and August of this year the combination of the obvious withdrawal of the U.S. which had a profound psychological effect because I think in the mind of the soldier the Taliban and the Afghan military they have the same DNA so it comes down to the fighting heart of the man on the ground and I think that they drew the Taliban were heartened by what they saw happen at Doha and what followed and our eventual decision to get out by a certain date I think the Afghans were very weakened by that morally and spiritually let me rush on then to try to get another question in Secretary Austin the reports in the New York Times are that you warned the president all the way back in March there could be dire outcomes on which the Afghan military flooded folded in an aggressive advance by the Taliban and that you drew comparisons between that and our experience in Iraq where a disaster unfolded and we were required to go back in according to the same article you warned the president we've seen this movie before I know you don't want to tell us what advice you give to the president what was that you're feeling and did you make known the comparison with Iraq and did you feel we had seen this movie before thanks senator again you're right I'll keep my conversations my recommendations to the president confidential but I would say that as we worked our way through the process here we laid out all potential consequences that could result from any course of action that we took and we were clear-eyed about that and so there were inputs coming with regard to Iraq that's my question Mr. Secretary well certainly then we get back to the specific conversation that I would have had but it's clear that I had a history with Iraq it's clear that I've learned to be learned from Iraq and I would certainly- was it your feeling that we had seen this movie before well there are certainly some of the same kinds of things could transpire as we look to to transition okay speaking of things transpiring one was that we had to go back into Iraq Secretary Alson does the Department of Defense have plans in place to redeploy U.S. combat troops to Afghanistan in the event that our intelligence estimates prove true and our homeland security is in fact threatened currently the president's decision senator as you know is that you know we've left Iraq excuse me Afghanistan and so we've not been tasked to construct any plans to go back into Afghanistan so there are no such plans in place General Milley of the conditions that were required of the Taliban in the agreement only one was met is that correct that's correct the condition was the one that was met was the most important one which was don't attack us or the coalition forces and they didn't and so the President Trump made a recommendation gave an order that we leave on 15 January and the advice came back from the military strongly that that was not a good idea based on that advice the President rescinded that order is that correct correct and none of those conditions that President Trump based his decision on had been met in 2021 when President Biden made the same in fact the same decision is that correct those conditions were never met that's correct all right thank you very much thank you Mr. Chairman thank you Senator Worker at this point the committee will stand in recess until 130 thank you very much all right how y'all doing wow that was that was a little bit painful to go through but I wanted to kind of just go over a couple things about it and then you know I can chat with you guys y'all are welcome to come to my discord man so it seems like the overall strategy here for the Democrats at least is to you know push all the blame for this on Trump even though Trump's not the one in charge and to some level it seems like these three the two generals and Lloyd Austin the Secretary of Defense are all kind of going along with that strategy in some ways and it's funny because that last questioning right there he pretty much just blew that out of the water and yet you see how Miley answered to all of his questions yes yes yes Trump gave the order that we leave on January 15th originally but there was conditions attached and then Trump rescinded that order because those conditions weren't met and we don't really know what would have happened if Trump was in office we may have stopped the entire thing Taliban might have attacked and we might have been embroiled in another you know skirmish with the Taliban until they decided to make terms again you know and that might have been a good price to pay for keeping a foothold somewhat in Afghanistan so that the inevitable outcome of all this which we all knew I mean that's another thing I'm gonna get to that we all knew this was gonna happen yet these guys all you know act like they didn't know but then Biden gets in okay and then what did Biden do? Biden's whole thing was bragging about how he was getting rid of all Trump's policies and and he did he went through and like for the first you know six months or five months whatever the media is bragging about how he's getting rid of all these Trump policies but he didn't do anything about this he could have he could have pushed the date out further oh wait a second he did push the date out further to August Biden did that well Biden could have done anything he could have changed anything he could have brought new terms to the table because ultimately we're the stronger military and the Taliban doesn't want to necessarily fight us and so they they would have got along with it because it's not like the Taliban can just run us over but we're acting like we're the one scared which is a big part of the problem here uh that not only did we not only do we act scared you know we just like got out of there without making new terms or just being strong with the Taliban saying look you're not gonna do shit because we're still getting our stuff together you're gonna wait and we'll push this out further that's what they should have done uh you know and they're trying to blame Trump for all this but it's clearly Biden was the one in charge any time Republicans and it tries to blame their predecessor the media and the Democrats no no no you can't do that you're the one in charge now okay well that standard never seems to apply to us when the shoe is on the other foot but so we have that okay and then we have um um the fact that you know well Biden didn't do anything about the fact that they the Taliban weren't meeting the conditions so that's another thing that makes this his fault not to mention as was pointed out multiple times here he lied multiple times he lied and uh I'll put a little article up here we already knew that okay they're uh the Washington Post actually got a memo um a secret memo and it says here a confidential trove of government documents obtained by the Washington Post reveals that the senior uh US officials failed to tell the truth about the war in Afghanistan throughout the 18 year campaign making rosy pronouncements that they knew to be false hiding uh unmistakable evidence that the war had become unwinnable okay well I don't know about winning the war or whatever I mean we pretty much had won the war it had come to like a point where the Taliban we we went almost two years there with no casualties so I'd say that means we won the war I mean what we do after that you know we you know we pull out we don't leave everybody there but we gotta leave some kind of a footprint so that we can keep from happening what happened before or else the entire 20 year mission is for nothing which is what happened and now we're right back in the situation that we were in before except for now we have like I was saying earlier we uh we look weak because we weren't you know uh asserting ourselves there and making new deals with the Taliban so we look weak uh we pulled out uh leaving the Taliban al Qaeda and ISIS all with an amazing propaganda victory and you know they sit there and they say oh we don't know what the Taliban's relationship is gonna be it's gonna be just like it was before I mean they might fight but ultimately they have a main they have a common enemy and that's us and that's gonna probably bring them together in some some form and you can guarantee there's gonna be attacks on the American homeland there's no doubt about that and this goes back to and especially Lloyd Austin Lloyd Austin was the was the uh second highest ranking member second highest ranking commander in Iraq he was second oh my kids up I gotta get this quick but uh now jeez so um he's the second highest ranking commander in Iraq we leave Iraq under the Obama administration what happens exactly what you could have predicted happen I made a video you know back in two thousand and uh seven or two thousand eight something like that predicting exactly what happened and I was basing that prediction on what happened in Somalia because what happened in Somalia we went in there we fought al-Qaeda we left with our tail between our legs and it was a major propaganda victory that Osama used called us a paper tiger launched multiple attacks on the world trade center so it's like we know what's gonna happen and so you have Lloyd secretary of defense Lloyd uh whatever his name is Austin and he's sitting here oh well we have lessons to learn lessons to learn you should have already learned that lesson what happened in Iraq when we left well the exact same thing ISIS rolled through rolled right over the Iraqi army at first got a ton of our equipment and then rampaged across Iraq and other countries in the Syria and the entire Middle East and so then you come to leaving Afghanistan it's like they weren't prepared for that at all he admitted Miley or all of them admitted that one of the scenario they did not uh do a war games a tabletop war game scenario of the military falling immediately 17 days they didn't have that scenario I am baffled by that how can meet how can I I'm just some shlub on the internet I know I'm not alone how can we predict that that's exactly what's gonna happen but they don't know it strains credulity like that that is unbelievable this is a failure they are failures they should not be holding their positions Lloyd Austin especially because he's already through this once and then does the exact same thing again and then on top of that we have confirmation that Joe Biden lied and I don't have the senator right here Holly alluded to it as well but Joe Biden made three claims about knowing you know that this would happen and some other things and the generals all confirmed it that yes he was not correct about that of course they beat around the bush about it admitted but he lied and you know that's annoying because nobody in the media is gonna make a big issue of it it's not gonna be you know nobody be fact checking Joe Biden the fact that Republicans made this case well the media will just say all these are just right wing fanatics Josh Hallways an insurrectionist you can't listen to him so you already know that that's where that's headed and so yeah I think that's about what I wanted to say about everything another point at one point Miley was asked what you know what he thought if the claims in these books that had just come out that's the reason he one of the reasons he's there testifying because these you know these claims about him warning China and all this he says he hasn't read the book to be able to tell at this hearing that he's known about was coming he hasn't read the book to know if they were accurate claims it just like to me this seems like a guy who's a liar and he just lies about everything like I cannot believe that you're you're going to be on this you know this hearing that the whole nation's going to see and you don't read the book or like at least read the segment that's talking about what the reason you're going to be here testifying I don't believe it like he just said that so he wouldn't have to respond to it and I think his excuse for that entire thing was that there were conspiracy theories or rumors out there that Trump was going to nuke China or something and he was just letting them know that there's nothing to worry about there and that he would let them know and that Trump doesn't have the ability to do it's like I don't believe it I feel like he's just covering his own ass at this point and you know the Democrats are more than willing to help him do that because you know one of them was talking about this shouldn't be partisan they always say that and yet the whole thing is partisan you got these Democrats just trying their best to heaped us all on the Trump I mean Trump has some responsibility of course he was one of those you know four presidents that undertook the war but Biden's the one in charge and Biden's the one that executed this disastrous withdrawal he's the one that lied to the American people on multiple occasions we know that for a fact now look later I'll put out a little video about it but yeah um that's pretty much it I mean what do you guys think I hear my kid up there so I'm gonna have to go up there and get them but I will continue streaming this as soon as they come back um yeah what do you guys think I'm gonna read some of the uh comments here let me uh switch back to this oh that's alright there we go you guys talking a lot about the CCP yeah I mean there's whatever's happening here is beyond our like we don't know what's I mean look at like Game of Thrones okay and you see all the political intrigue or a show like Rome if you've ever watched these shows it's all about like the intrigue the stuff that was going on behind the scenes that led to the events that was felt by the people but the people didn't really know you know what had led to that they you know were given a story and I feel like that's what's happening here like whatever has because nothing makes sense here like for what I just laid out there's no way that these three supposed professionals did not know that this was gonna be the outcome especially Austin especially Austin because he you know was part of the disaster to Iraq withdrawal and so he it's like these people never you could just see this same problem occurring over and over and over and these guys talking about we gotta we gotta learn our lessons no they need to be they need to resign they should not be in these positions they're incompetent and whatever good that Miley has done in his 40 years of service or whatever has nothing to do with this now he failed he should resign and Austin as well the guy I don't see I could be such a failure and not learn horribly expensive lessons that we've already learned and then sit there in front of congress and say that all we just need to learn these lessons again that's how we know that they're lying to us folks because this is a lesson that has been learned okay we this is well established looks like I'm I'm like bleeding viewers here so they're probably not liking me but yeah guys I appreciate everybody watching I think I am gonna end the stream right now and I'll come back when they come back someone just sit here with the screen up so I'm gonna end the stream but uh make sure to head back here when they come back probably about an hour or 30 minutes and I will hopefully be streaming again so um if you guys had anything with her you guys are all talking about other stuff so I was gonna try and include you all in this little rant of mine but uh hey it was fun so come back here and probably about 20 30 minutes and I should have this going again thanks a lot guys see you later


Welcome to Toffy TV. It is the Everton News Daily. Welcome back. Happy New Year. The rumours have all started. Of course, it is the transfer window, whether that means anything to Evertonians, but according to Sky Sports, Everton are doing their due diligence required on new players if money does become available in the window. In other words, if Everton sell any of their players or if anyone leaves like Dan Dume, Everton have targets and have done the work already, but obviously that will be down to whether any money becomes available. Also, with the possibility of 777 taking over this month as well, maybe that could bring money in. I'm not sure. I'm not so sure, but we'll have to wait and see. Everton have been linked today with Rayle Betterswinger, a Sandiao. He's 18. It's a player that Everton liked to look at. So does a couple of other Premier teams, including Bremford, and this would probably be in the category of someone like Shamiti. Bring them in young, bring them in cheap on a favourable deal, low wages, give them some experience over time in the Premier League and then either sell them on or they will be ready in maybe a couple of years to be regular players. This is the market that Everton are going to be looking at, I imagine, going forward in the next few years. We've seen already how that can work and obviously how players value can increase once they have played in the Premier League and once they have got a little bit of experience. You can make your money back two, three times on these kind of players. So we'll have to wait and see. Money is tight and if other clubs are involved, then that will make it very, very difficult for whatever to get one over the line, but we'll have to wait and see on that one. Today, Evan, are being linked as well with a move for Jesse Lingard. This has come from numerous sources. Obviously, fireless in the category of massive speculation. He's obviously free at the moment, hasn't had a club this season and it's been spoken of that he would sign for the rest of the season. I imagine this would be low risk, low wages with the possibility of proving himself going forward to possibly sign a longer deal if he did well. Dan Dukman has been linked with a move away from Everton, just took that Leon wants him and it hasn't really worked so far. He hasn't really had any gain time on the show and dice, so maybe it would work for everyone if those two deals got done. The fact that Delhi looks like he has sustained another injury and looks like he could possibly have played his last game for Everton. Maybe if Everton could get rid of him as well this window and just draw a line under that, then that could free up the finances to bring a player in who hasn't played this year and it would all just be about the wages, but at the moment that one is purely speculation we'll find out as the month goes on. Also being reported today, Joe Thomas reporting that Everton will find out whether the Premier League has any concerns over the latest financial dealings in the next two weeks. Obviously Everton's accounts are due in and yeah it'll be the same for everyone but Joe Thomas just making sure everyone's aware that that decision will be made soon. Obviously Everton's still waiting to hear when their appeal date will happen for the 10 point deduction. Obviously looking at the Premier League table Everton could really do with those 10 points back to get them to mid table but all decent sources have been speculating that Everton shouldn't have any issues with the Premier League this year but we'll wait and see who knows what the Premier League have got up their sleeve for Everton once the finances have gone in. So there you go, obviously a slow start to the transfer window for Everton, maybe a slow one all the way through, we'll find out, we'll have all the latest news here on Toffy TV during the month so stick with us. Make sure to give this video a like, subscribe if you haven't already, if you want more great videos join us over on Toffy TV Premier, link is in the description and the QR code is coming on the screen now. See you later.


I will praise you in the storm, even if you don't part my Red Sea. Pastor Robert Morgan served as congregation in Nashville, Tennessee for over 40 years. He is a best-selling author with more than 35 books in print and over 5 million copies in circulation in multiple languages. And in the midst of pastoring his church and writing his books, he was the caregiver of his late wife of 43 years, Katrina, who battled multiple sclerosis and passed away in November of 2019. Today, he's not slowing down. God has him on a new path. This is his story. This is Today's Nashville. This is faith.  Well, I love having you here, Terry. Thank you. You and this great crew, thank you for coming. Well, you know, I just love everything that you're doing. You have been such a dear friend of ours and a pastor here in Nashville and so beloved in so many books. I have to tell you before we start, I had a friend of mine who had five bypasses and a heart valve repaired recently. And I went to visit them in the hospital and I grabbed one of your books. I always have your books on hand. The Red Sea rolls and we're going to talk about that in a bit. But let's go back.  It's amazing.   Well, and it is all the Lord. It's none of me. It's all of Him. Whatever doesn't work, I'll take the responsibility for. But whatever has been of use is of Him. I grew up in East Tennessee in the mountains. Between the Smoky Mountains and the Shenandoah, we call it the Blue Ridge, right on the Tennessee-North Carolina border. And my parents were very wonderful parents. They were both genuine hillbillies from the head of haulers in the Tennessee and North Carolina hills. But they were very bright, had gotten a great education, were both school teachers. I was only child until my sister was born about when I was six or seven.  I just lived, you know, alone with my parents who were both very busy. And I think that has, I've been thinking recently that that has served me well through life. I'm alone now, but I don't feel lonely. And I think that had something to do with it. I went through high school with both of my parents being my teachers. And then I graduated, went to Columbia International University in South Carolina. And that's when I really said to the Lord, whatever you want with me, I'm willing. Now I grew up with a Christian background and I think that I knew the Lord. In fact, I don't remember a time when I didn't feel that I knew the Lord. But there came a point, and it was September the 2nd of 1971 when I just was so convicted that the Lord can't do anything with me until he has everything of me. And so I knelt down and really made that decision. And that was the most life-changing decision in my life. I was 19 years old. I think that all of us, all there is of me, needs to belong to all there is of him can empower and occupy and possess and use all there is of me. And that's sort of been my lifelong commitment. So I was there for three years, graduated in 1974. And then after graduation, I still didn't know what the Lord wanted me to do. I knew it was in some area of vocational ministry. But I led a team of preachers and singers that spent the summer in New England going to different camps. And one night I took a canoe out onto the lake. I was alone. The moon was shining. And when I left the dock, I didn't know what God wanted me to do with my life. And when I paddled back to the dock, I knew exactly the Lord wanted me to be a pastor. He just met with me on that lake and said, now I want you to leave here and be a pastor. So that was sort of a nutshell of how the Lord called me to do what I've done. So what did you do after that? And when did you meet Katrina? I met Katrina my senior year. She was from Maine and had moved to Florida as a secretary and then had come to Columbia International University to be a student and to work on staff there. So we met during my senior year, but we didn't date. I can distinctly remember meeting her. Both of us met tens of thousands of people and we don't remember most of the people that we... but I distinctly remember meeting her the moment that I met her. But we weren't in love. And when I graduated and left, I went on to Wheaton College and she was back at Columbia and we didn't have technology back then. So we wrote letters to each other. It cost 13 cents. That was how much I paid for a date about two or three times a week. And we kind of fell in love by writing letters. And then she came to East Tennessee to meet me for a few days. And I didn't really intend to propose. I proposed... I sort of accidentally proposed. We were sitting in the front seat of a car waiting for someone. And we were just talking about this long distance thing. And I said, you know, if we don't get married, we'll never get to know each other or fall in love. And she looked at me and she said, is that a proposal? And I mean, I hadn't really planned to propose. But I said, well, I guess it is. And she laughed and said, that's the funniest proposal I've ever had. And then I wondered how many of she had. Did you ask her? No, I never did. Never, ever did I ask her that. I didn't want to know. But anyway, she said, well, you want to know? And I said, expeditiously, when I get nervous, I use big words. And she said, well, the answer is yes. And all of a sudden we were engaged. I didn't have a ring. I didn't even know I was supposed to have a ring. So then it was awkward going back and telling my parents what had just happened while we were on the errand. But we got married shortly after that and had the most wonderful marriage. She was the person that God had prepared for me. I've met her. She was beautiful. I know. She loved you and Ted, yes. Well, Rob, did she know that you were called into ministry at that time? Yes. She said that she didn't really fall in love with me. She fell in love with my preaching. So when we entered ministry, and later I think she fell in love with me, but I think it was the preaching that I did that first attracted her. I mean, she honestly said that to me a number of times. I didn't fall in love with you. I fell in love with your preaching. She was the best pastor's wife. She was just made for that. And she would tell people, they would say, well, what does a pastor's wife do? And she would say the main thing a pastor's wife does is to take care of the pastor. And she really did. So we started out in a small church in Greenville, Tennessee, a little stone church out in the country. We had a wonderful two and a half years there. Our firstborn was born there. And then we moved to Nashville, where we remained for the rest of our married life until she passed away. Pastor Rob, we're going to pick up on that because God changed your life and is leading you down a new path. And we're going to talk about it when we come back. Pastor Rob, we were talking about your beautiful wife, Katrina. And a lot has happened in the last few years. We built this house in 1990, raised our family here, and then she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. So we decided that we should go ahead and travel. We knew that we might not be able to, like some couples do when they retire. So we did as much traveling as we could and gradually her condition became weaker. Well, how old was she when she was diagnosed? Well, that's a good question. Probably about 40 years old, maybe in her late 30s. And she gradually lost her ability to do things around here. She was a wonderful housekeeper and cook and pastor's wife and Bible teacher. And she continued her Bible teaching, but she lost the ability to do other things. So I became the chief cook and bottle washer. And we just did the best we could. We never worried about the future. We just took it one day at a time. I was her caregiver, but we say that we were each other's caregiver because you give care in so many different ways, one to the other. Finally, she came to a point where I knew she was really in trouble. I took her to Vanderbilt. They said she's not going to make it. I called the daughters, all three girls. They rushed there, but it was too late. Her eyes, she was already unconscious. So I said to the doctor at Vanderbilt, do you mind if we pray if this was in the emergency room? He said, no, but do you mind if I lead you in prayer? And he led us in the most wonderful prayer.  And suddenly she opened her eyes and looked at me and smiled. And the Lord gave her to us for another month. And we brought her home. We had a great month together. The grandchildren all came. And then when we saw that she was really getting to the end, they all moved in here. It was quite a week. And the grandkids were up on her bed day and night. And she would smile at them in the stroker hand. And we would sing around her bed. And then she passed away. And it was on November 11, Veterans Day. The nurse who was with us back in the bedroom said she passed away at 11, 11 a.m. And someone said, 11, 11 on 11, 11. And my son-in-law pulled his Bible out and he said, listen to this, John 11, 11 says, our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I am going to wake him up. And he was referring to the resurrection. And the Lord gave us John 11, 11 at 11, 11 on 11, 11. And that has been such a comfort to me. You know, I think, Terry, the thing that really was hard was that there were three losses. Now, people encounter loss all the time. And some of the loss is much more tragic and difficult than anything that I experienced.  Can you add a large congregation? Well, yes, we had grown that church from 100 to 1,000 and poured our hearts into it. And I love being a pastor. That was what God called me to do. So stepping away and letting someone else take over. But that was a tremendous loss. That was the loss of my calling, you know, in a way. And that was a very difficult thing. And then losing Katrina. After she passed away, I stayed on at that church for another three or four years. But it became increasingly difficult to be the former pastor hanging around, you know, in a church with a leadership team going, what do they do with me? And so I thought it was better for me and for them if I left the church totally. And that's the church I'd been at for 42, 43 years. So I didn't realize the accumulative effect that those losses were having on me until they started showing up in my dreams. And I would just dream of those various things, you know, that I was trying to grapple with. So it does take time to adjust. But the Lord gave me some wonderful scriptures. You know, reading your Bible and praying every morning makes all the difference. I mean, all, all of the difference. And one morning as I was reading the Lord gave me Isaiah 43, which says, forget the former things, do not dwell on the past. See, I'm doing a new thing. Do you not see it? Even now it springs up and I will make for you a way in the wilderness and streams in the desert. And I just grabbed onto that verse and since then God has opened new doors for me that I wouldn't have expected. In fact, I never was successful opening doors for me. I could nudge against them. I could try to go in a particular direction. But when I look back at my life, it has been a series of doors that I could never have opened that the Lord did. And there's an old song that says, his faithful follower, I will be, for by his hand he leadeth me. And that's sort of the testimony of how I've gotten through this period. You know, and he has led you. You know, you have over 70 books in print, over 5 million books in circulation. That's amazing. You know, we're going to talk about where God is leading you after the break. Pastor Rob, in the midst of all your changes, God is leading you down an amazing path. You're still writing your books. Tell me about them. Well, the guidance of the Lord has meant everything in the world to me. He leads us. He guides us. He opens doors. He makes our ways unfold in front of us. And I never would have thought that I would have been a writer. You know, I was a pastor. I was a preacher. But then some of my sermons begin showing up and things escalated from there. And I don't know how, but for the last 30 or 35 years I've never been without book contracts and multiple contracts. Right now, we are finishing up the Rules series. So we had the Red Sea Rules. I love the Red Sea Rules. And then after Katrina died, I did the Jordan River Rules about transitions in life from the Book of Joshua when the waters of the Jordan River parted. And the Israelis went through the transition and left their past behind and went forward. And that was a book called the Jordan River Rules. And now we have in production the Mediterranean Sea Rules, which is on the voyage and shipwreck of Saint Paul the Apostle. And that will, I think, be the end of that trilogy. But I'm also working on a book called Whatever Happens on the subject of Philippians, the Book of Philippians. This is a book that says whatever happens, conduct yourselves in a way that glorifies and honors the gospel of Christ. And we're living in a world right now when we don't know what's going to happen. We live in very unpredictable times. But the Book of Philippians has about 25 little chapters, and each one of them tell us something to do in unpredictable times. And so I'm working on that. That should be out from HarperCollins Christian Publishers within the next year or so. And I've got some ideas beyond that. So we're just... But my books come out of my own Bible study. You know, that precious book that God gave us. You never get to the end of it. Every day I'll learn new things in it. And so out of the ministry and writing and preaching, and I think everything else we do is overflow. It's always got to be overflow. And so you just, you learn, what I found in the Bible. And then it just, somehow, it overflows into these resources that I hope the Lord will bless. It's all of him. But people need encouragement today. So I hope we're able to do that.  And what are those, like if somebody's listening today, how would those books encourage them? We took three stories. The Red Sea Rules was the story of the Israelites going through the Red Sea from Exodus 14. And there are lessons for us in that dramatic story. That was the major Old Testament miracle. And it showed the power of God. And that when we are at the end of ourselves, he can make a way. And so, so I did, you know, we did 10 principles from that. The Jordan River Rules is about the Lord parting the Jordan River and letting the Israelites go through. The Lord said to them, Prepare yourself today because the Lord will do wonders among you tomorrow. And there are some tremendous principles there about going forward. Now the Mediterranean Sea Rules will be based on Acts 27 and 28, the shipwreck of St. Paul the Apostle, one of the most dramatic stories in the New Testament. And the Lord said to Paul, Don't be afraid.  And they all survived. But there are lessons through that. So we just take these Bible stories and draw out lessons for people and very little, small, easy to study increments. And we can't believe how Bible studies everywhere and individuals everywhere have come away those books. And I'm very grateful for it. Are they personal to you? They are. All of my books are personal because they really come out of my own convictions. People, ministers say to me, How do I know what to preach on Sunday? And I say, Well, what has God been speaking to you about? We don't go to the Bible to find sermons. We go to the Bible to feed our own souls. And then when we find something that impacts us, then it's very natural to pass that on to other people. In fact, we almost cannot help doing it either in sermons or books or videos or programs like this or whatever it is, you know. It's the overflow of what God is doing in our own lives. And the Holy Spirit then uses that to bless others. You know, we are living in uncertain times. What would you say to somebody that is fearful and anxious about the future? Well, the future is very unpredictable and the world is very uncertain. Right now, this matrix of evil that is developing between Russia, China, Iran and North Korea is so unpredictable. The world is changing. The balance of power is changing. The secularity of the United States is making us a hollow nation. So there is a lot of reason to be worried. There are better reasons not to be worried because in the middle of all of the uncertainty we have a very certain God who has given us a very infallible book full of promises that we can claim and appropriate for our lives. Whenever I go through anxiety, which is pretty often, I go to the Bible and I have, for 70 years, I have never failed to find a promise in the Bible that meets my need. And then I just have to hang on to that promise like a rope and the power of the Lord pulls me back up to my feet because we have a glorious God who loves us. We have eternal life. We have the Holy Spirit within us if we know Jesus as our Savior. He is our rock. He is our cornerstone. We stand on Him. Those who don't know Christ as their Savior don't have any of that stability. But those of us who have received Him as our Savior and depend on the cross of Christ and His resurrection as the foundation for our lives, we have a very, what the ancient hymn writers called a firm foundation. And we can stand on that and we can be joyful in that. The world needs to see the joy that we can have by the Holy Spirit in Jesus Christ. They are desperate for that. But you know, some people will say a loving God would not cause all the evilness. You know, we've seen it this week here in Nashville. What do you say to somebody who says that? There is a mystery to why there is suffering in life. I don't fully understand it. But I do know that God is dealing with it and that He'll continue to deal with it until evil is extinguished. And we have that promise in the Bible. The Bible says, right now we do not see everything subject to Jesus, but we see Jesus. And one day all things will be subject to Him. So as we go through the sorrows and sufferings of life, the Lord has given us grace. He has given us promises. And we see Him working. And even in the midst of heartache and difficulty, sometimes that's where we see the Lord working the best. So we can either look to Him or we can go insane and live in the absurdity of a secularism that has no hope, no God, and no answers for time like this. And I think that in times like these we need a Savior. Pastor Rob, it is such a blessing to sit down here with you today. I just want to thank you. Well, you know how much I love and appreciate all that you've done. And may the Lord bless you, Terry. And thank you. And may everybody watching this be encouraged by you and your ministry. Thank you. My friend, are you facing a raging storm? Do you need your sea or the Jordan pardon? Remember, we serve a powerful God. And He is wanting to know you today. Trust Him with your life. This is Today's Nashville. This is Faith. Cornerstone Television wishes to thank all our faithful viewers, whose consistent prayers and financial support have made this program possible.


recharge apps and there's an app on the left and the right and the both of them do pretty much the same thing they have they help you recharge tell you about offers tell you about your usage if you look at it and ask yourself which one of these apps would you rather use you'll probably pick the one on the right and why is that so this app on the right tells you your balance right so you need not ask what balance you have it automatically tells you that without you without you having to do anything and if you're low on balance it has a very helpful bar over there that says you're running out of balance you should probably do a recharge and to make that experience great for you they also say you know what you we have all of these offers that are doing that are going on right now and you should do a recharge right away so what went right over here for the app on the right first fall it identified you it knew who you were and it did not expect you to you know key in your mobile number every time it you know recognize you and it got the information that you required without you asking for it right so if it is a mobile recharge app obviously you will need to know what your talk time is what your balance is and it got it from the server and it started showing it to you without you doing anything it also give you easy access to the most important action that you had to do using the app and that's the recharge so two guiding principles one is timely information the other is important actions so if you have these two things in mind you can you know build a great main activity let's look at some other apps this is one plus service app so it gives you the most important information that is relevant to you it says that your warranty is up to so-and-so date and it tells you that if you need a request if you need to request a service this is the button that you should be pressing very focused this is another app that helps you track the amount of water you're drinking and the main activity is very focused on that goal it says this is how you're doing with the whole process so this is the track this is the thing that you're tracking and you are so much so so far along in the process and it also gives you calls to drink you know more water this is an app that probably a lot of us used to come here today and instead of showing you you know any information about your previous trips or instead of you know telling you where your friends are right now it is focused on doing one thing getting you to book your next ride it so and that is timely it also tells you that there is you know the nearest cab is two minutes away and there's a big fat button in right in the middle that says set pickup location and it has all of the information all of the other filters that you could require if you want to make changes so why is this important so we spend a lot of time and effort you know marketing our app we use a whole lot of processes and we finally get a hard earned app download now what this happens after that is users open your app and the first thing that they see the first impression that you can make is through your main activity if that activity helps you get things done faster for whatever the reason the user has downloaded the app for they'll use you again and again and you can convert them into an active user and you can get the engagement or revenue metrics that you like from them so designing a good main activity is a really crucial task and we set out to do this with the app that I work on sensei we are a TV guide and remote so we help you figure out what's playing on TV right now and so there are tens of thousands of shows playing across several languages and several channels and there's a great content on TV and a lot of us miss it because we simply do not know what's happening on TV and our mission is to get you on top of this information and so that you do not wish miss a show that you should be watching so we set out to build a main activity and throughout this process we followed a set of principles these principles are also applicable if you're a site that has generated content or if you're a media app or even an e-commerce store if you simply have too much to show on your main activity and you're saying that I don't have that one thing and the one action that I can show but there's a lot more you can use these principles to sort of guide how you craft your main activity so we had to help our users figure out what is the best show to watch on TV and the first thing that we did is put a lot of images on the app so we said images are something that convey information to you a lot a lot more faster than text and we put we worked on getting you know images and icons for TV channels for shows for pretty much everything that we have in the app and we put a lot of this and we made a grid of images that said you know what these are the shows that are running on TV and you might want to check them out the next thing that we did we grouped all of these recommendations we grouped all of these TV shows based on specific anchors or pivots and this helped our users browse through this list a lot more faster so if you simply have a group of TV shows you have to do this okay do I like the show probably yes because there is America around but we went a step ahead and we grouped all of these shows based on these pivots and looking at you know these list of recommendations became a lot more easier so you look at a list that says English action movies and you would say oh you know what I'm in the mood for an English action movie right now let me check every English action movie that's on TV right now we put this out for our users to use and we got one overwhelming feedback pretty soon and they said you know what all of this is good anchored groups and all is good and we love the way they're showing it but I want to know what's happening on star movies right now I want to know what movie is playing on my favorite channel and I love what's usually on the show usually on the channel and I want to be you know figuring out what's running and this is something that we figured out which is the way that people were doing the same thing before our app was to think about TV from a set of channels these are my favorite channels and you know these are the channels that I watch and I'm interested in the shows that are running on those channels so we had to keep in mind the set ways of you know doing things and not try to drastically change it but just influence behavior so we said you know what this is your favorite channel list and this is what's happening on this but there are these shows also playing on all of these other channels and you might probably like them and to get a big boost on getting the best shows on TV we asked people to tell us about their interest so we said you have your favorite shows you have your favorite channels you have your favorite actress tell us about them and we'll you know do a great job for you and this is something that people like doing as well it gives them a sense of ownership it says it takes it from the CNC app to my CNC app because it knows about my interest knows about my favorite channels and my favorite actors and whenever something's running it'll you know show them so we had all of this information coming in and we said these are the favorite act you know attributes of all of these people but we also had information on what people were watching and we use this information to get to bring a new bar called trending and this helped us figure out events that would happen on TV so if there was some soap where you know marriage was going to happen or if there was a cricket match that is playing on TV or if there is an event like Oscars that's running on TV these would automatically figure that out and this is really wisdom of the crowd right so all of these individually all of us are contributing all of this information but what what comes out of that data and this is something that we made available to our users and it helped this is something that you know greatly you know guided what people would you know like to watch so we did all of these things and and we had great recommendations so our users knew you know exactly what to watch but there was a missing piece the missing piece was once I figured out what I wanted to watch I wanted to actually get to watching it and this process usually involved searching for the remote thinking about what channel does this actually correspond to and you know keying in those channel numbers and pressing and actually watching that channel and we found that this is something that was a disconnect in the whole process so we invested you know time and effort in building the ability for you to change TV channels right from your mobile so if your phone had IR blaster capability you could just tap on one of these images point to your TV and it would directly change it to directly tune into the channel so this really completed the process of you know you wanting to discover what's on TV or wanting to search for something on TV you you know evaluating among the great shows that are running on TV and you you know figuring out to watch it and actually to watching it and this is something that was important which is you started on this process of discovery you should actually help them complete it in the easiest way possible coming to important actions our users might not always know that they have to do specific things and small not just small pushes saying you know what you might want to do this particular action it's going to be helpful for you this goes a long way to actually getting them to do things that you want so if you figure out that your personalization might not work well with very low data you can have simple buttons or simple triggers saying if you personalize more this app will work a lot better for you and this is very unobtrusive it is in the feed and you can just scroll it right away and you can cancel it if you want but this goes a long way to getting people to do things that you want and because it's in the main activity because it's in the activity that people see every day if it gets a lot of attention the odds of people actually doing that activity is higher so this goes with having timely information you should really think about how your user is using it and the context of people using it so for us when we imagine our users using our app it's in the living room it's probably on an evening or a weekend in the living room in front of the TV and that's when they open the app and they figure out what's happening on TV now when people are doing this and when they've tuned into a particular program the app needs to respond to that and help them answer questions like how long is the program what is there an app related to the program what videos of are there on YouTube related to the program essentially things that people will obviously ask related to that program that information should be got right away so like on the first screen we see that the app on the right got the information of balance without you asking them we should proactively get information that is useful for our users we should not make them you know ask the questions that the phones already should be knowing the answer to so a lot of this is happening and we had to introduce our users to all of these features usually this we expect people to know this from a certain advertisement or from a place or descriptions or from the priming and onboarding that we do as soon as they open the app we say this is the app this are all its features and you know have fun but when people use the app and you know they might not go through all of these processes they might skip the descriptions on the play store and they are suddenly using a feature and they might not know what this feature is about so we found that the best way of making them aware of this feature was just before they used it for the first time just have a pop-up that says hey this is a new feature you've never used it before and this is how it works and this goes a long way in telling them how something works and this makes them a lot more comfortable with using some of the things that we had to you know keep in mind while doing this so we talked about how you know information helps you helps you decide you know what you should be doing and and we talked about how you should be getting this information and showing it to the users you shouldn't be overdoing it look at your main activity and say is this information very crucial for for the main activity or can it be behind a click and you should be careful not to clutter or not to overload the screen when building recommend the systems one common one common mistake is to take to take the favorites of the user too strongly and if someone tells me that I like sports everything that I show is oh you like sports and not nothing else and this is called a fatal bubble effect you take too strongly to the recommendations and thinks the user doesn't like anything else and this is not true so we use a bunch of mechanisms we also try to get the popular shows and show them any ways we also have curated recommendations that we show and we try to reduce this effect while doing all this and there was a talk on dynamic view rendering and things like that so it's important to ensure that while building ranked recommendation systems like this and you know mutating the screen to such an extent based on the user preferences you should not lose predictability so people who use our app develop a mental model of how the app is and they expect the app to work like that and if they don't they lose a sense of control and they are uncomfortable with the app so while doing all this it's also important to adhere by a mental model and say okay this is how the app works and it's going to continue to work and this is the main activity that we ended up thank you so you did say that apart from the users the selections of the favorites you add your own content yeah so how do you know whether the user is responding to the stuff which you are throwing at him apart from his favorites you can so one of the things that you can do is for something that they have subscribed to and that is the part of the thing that they can control so if I say I am following America and I like America so it is expected for you to get American movies the question is beyond that what would you show right so one of the things that we do is we move away from that we say okay what's connected to America so you have America America is usually acts in Hindi movies so you probably like Hindi movies and so we have a bunch of extra recommendations for you to show if you know he is also acted in an English movie we have a bunch of recommendations for you to show so we go around in the neighborhood the other is beyond these beyond the related recommendations we also have the trending thing which shows you if a match is popular it shows you the match anyways so what it gets you is and if there's a popular event running like the Oscars for example we show it to all of our users but it need not be a ranked very high it can be ranked lower so that when they scroll down and look at it they'll find it right but then when they find it and if they then favorite it then we have more information to walk with right and we also have the other thing of if there is not enough favorites if it's not diverse you also brought them to you know tell if they liked it so if you search for a particular channel or a particular actor we say okay do you like this actor I mean you search for it shall I favorite them you know for you automatically so we continuously build this graph of interest so that the recommendations get richer so do you use any tools for such analytics or is it like all but me do you use any tools for such analytics so we've written it ourselves hi so what is sense is monetization what so okay we have so one of the things that we can do and we've not started doing this yet is doing something called promoted shows which is if a show wants to promote itself the way that they can do it right now is only through TV so you know on other channels or on during the ad breaks you get ads for other shows they could do it right here we also have so with you know these programs we tell you what's available on your app so how do I connect mobile to your app so we send what YouTube content is relevant to this what apps are relevant to this what products are relevant to this so if you're watching Chota beam we tell you that there are Chota beam water bottles on you know Flipkart and Amazon that you can probably buy and if you're watching Superman there are these apps that you can buy and affiliate traffic is something that we can go to but we've not focused on monetization so far yes so the other thing that we have is so I told you about a way to change channels so if your phone has an IR blaster you can change channels right away but we also have hardware products for the phones that do not have this capability so we have a hardware product that that is actually the Bluetooth to infrared bridge so you tap on a channel it communicates to the product through Bluetooth and that communicates to your setup boxing switches to that channel thank you hi actually 80% of the usability issues are resolved when we do when we go with paper prototyping so do you use paper prototyping in designing screens so we do prototype the screens on paper yes we absolutely do that and while doing this we also look at analytics and see how you know things are being used so we have fast cycles for all of these things and we make a minor change and we put it out there and with every change we do we have some sort of analytics tracking related to that particular feature and we see how it's being used what is the data source for this do you have like content generators or do you use some kind of API yeah we use there is a provider that


What's up YouTube? Real is the game here and today we are back with some more scary cursed Thomas the train videos And also happy Friday by the way I hope you all have a great weekend and remember to stay safe out there So for our first video we got cursed Thomas the tank engine images with Minecraft cave sounds at low pitch. Oh That's not even a train.  Looks like he's covered in blood.  I would totally be scared to play Minecraft. Oh What's wrong with you man? No Thomas ain't looking good. Oh, this is very terrifying What is this man? Like yeah, I'll go Thomas. Oh That looks like Georgie, but it's supposed to be like Thomas. What was that? Dude that's not even Thomas anymore We're just going on. Oh That looks terrifying. Oh Don't stare into his eyes guys. It's gonna take your soul Look away Did not stare into his eyes. Oh, man. What is going on here? They look very sad Okay, it seems like a cartoon Mashed up with Thomas. I don't know what that is Okay, this was pretty freaking terrifying So what's wrong with you Thomas? We need some milk. Oh Oh, I remember this one We saw this one in our last video What is that? It's so weird And the music just makes it creepier. All right. Well, we are officially cursed for our second clip We got creepy Thomas the tank engine upgraded with sound design. Hey, well, oh, it's the mech Thomas Dude, I would want to see this thing in action. Oh Oh Sorry Thomas it wasn't me man Bro, he was about to light us up That is one masterpiece just imagine that thing in battle. Oh man, all right So for our next clip, we got the dark history of Thomas the tank engine All right. Well, that was totally something else. I don't know what Thomas he turned into like this sandy peat Look at thing man.  All right. So we got Thomas the xc That's the title and let's get right into it.  All right, this guy's scared. Showed like Thomas is following him. Oh, he is following him No, dude run Why is he not running man?  Wow the titles don't seem to change Oh It seems like we got that corrupted music in the background He's kind of lit. Okay. So is this like the video? It is man. Yo, he's looking kind of creepy Why are you so mad Thomas? All right, I don't know why Tom is so angry Man needs a chill pill and we got another Thomas xc. It's it's uh, not scary So let's see Yeah, that was totally not scary for our final clip. We got another Thomas xc video Oh, man What's that? Dude, you guys see Thomas doing donuts All right, you guys well those were some Thomas curse videos If you guys made it to the end of the video make sure to drop a comment And if you do I will be picking a comment and I will be giving you guys a shout out So make sure if you guys want a shout out make sure to drop a comment smash like and I will see you on the next one. Yay


d Thelan Jefferson and Kirk Cousins. And Wangu was stuck right to it and unfortunately it kind of fell there but luckily I think the quad will be much better though. 33 out of 49. Back to back. Viking sits. All right. We have a Randall Cove 19 out of 25 for the Green Bay Packers. John with the Packers and we got a Patrick Mahomed patch. Three colors and how about a little Travis Kelsey 19 out of 25 for the Kansas City Chiefs. Chiefs part of the R&B. That's 9. 9 would be Brian K. There you go. Nice.  That's 58 out of 90. That's the Jersey Numbers parallel there. Fly goes fly for my Eagles. That's 58 Eagles. 8. Allen. We have a James Harrison 60 out of 99 for the Pittsburgh Steelers. Brian Barrett Wow another true RPA. This time it's out of 49 though. Type 1 thorn. 32 out of 49. So we have 4 RPAs here. That's wild. And that's Patriots going to Alfred. And it looks like your last one is out of 99. Rookie first edition signatures. Another one for the Patriots. Billy Zappi 1, 2, 3, 4 color patch on the booklet. Another one for Alfred there who has the Patriots. And there you go guys. So pretty nice stuff right here coming out to a lot of teams. Got one RPA there. Got the Kenneth Walker to add a 9. The Jersey Number RPA. We got the Brian Robinson Jr. RPA. A lot of really, really nice stuff. Christian Watson a 99 RPA. Paid Manning. And then of course we got is Aidan Hutchinson with Patrick Mahomes as well. Very, very nice stuff for you guys. Thank you guys so much. Again, this was case number 3. Again, now that we got this one done we'll post up case number 4 R&B so we can get the next one going tomorrow guys with me. So I appreciate you guys. Thank you guys so much. JaspysCaseBrace.com There doesn't be any echo. There's no other mic connected. It looks like. I mean I'm pretty much done here though. See ya. Whoa, that's not what I want. I mean, sounds fine on my phone but maybe just lower down your headphones. I don't know. I don't think anybody has complained about it earlier today. Yeah, I think it's like an echo but then it says we don't have professional headphones but it sounds fine. Is there like a second microphone? No, that's not on. Nothing else is on. I just checked on my phone. Yeah, I mean, when no one's speaking you could probably hear like the background noise but that's just because the door's open but I mean other than that I mean... Sometimes I've actually had the stream open in two different windows. Oh yeah, if you have like the desktop I think that's when it really does look enough. Cause like I always mute mine. Okay, maybe you're just trying to trow it off. You do it there and then I'll just do another one. Blah, blah, blah, blah. Sorry, this break freaking sold out like literally like 11 something and I was like... Get the NT out. I was like, yes, it sold out. Get the NT sold. I was like, now we can R&B another one. Alright, so we can get another one knocked out tomorrow. I'm gonna just end the stream now. So obviously I'm done. I know Joe does some recap videos right now for all the breaks. Fanatics live stream. And then I'll be back tomorrow guys but thank you guys so much. I'll take some photos of this stuff really quickly too but yeah, we'll be back live tomorrow at 2. A little earlier, just we started the days earlier at 2 on Fridays. So look out for obviously more NT to be R&B. And yeah, let's do that. Let's do the Big Head Express. We're basically down to six spots in the last filler. Same thing with the hip parade. Down to six spots in the last filler. Another chrome at 11. Diamond icons at 7. So I think we're shape up to be a good Friday tomorrow.