Hegseth: Americans not being allowed to leave Afghanistan 'are already hostage' to the Taliban

Fox News contributor Pete Hegseth explained to “The Faulkner Focus” on Monday that the Taliban is holding thousands of Americans hostage and that the military needs to take "serious measures" if any of them are harmed.

PETE HEGSETH: The Taliban is going house by house and neighborhood by neighborhood identifying American citizens and people who worked and they are intimidating and threatening and beating, preventing their facilitation to the airport and you know what you could be looking at? A gigantic hostage situation. Every American who can’t get to the airport now--and there are thousands of them-- is effectively already a hostage of the Taliban.  … They already are because the Taliban’s unwillingness to facilitate that means they are preventing these Americans from their freedom. That’s the type of clarity we should be getting from the podium publicly to the Taliban, saying if one American can’t cross and one American’s hair on their head is harmed, you’ll pay for it. Give them 24 hours. Open it wide up. After that, the bombing commences. Serious measures are needed at this moment.