Latest / The Ben Ferguson Podcast / 99 Chinese Balloons plus NYC Invades Canada, Hunter Risks Contempt & Cuba Libre Street Signs

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99 Chinese Balloons plus NYC Invades Canada, Hunter Risks Contempt & Cuba Libre Street Signs · The Ben Ferguson Podcast

0:00
Speaker 1: Senator. Apparently there's a lot of balloon's just kind of
0:02
Speaker 1: flying all over the place in this country now in Canada.
0:05
Speaker 1: And as you and I sit down to film this,
0:08
Speaker 1: I'll read the headline, US military shoots down another high
0:12
Speaker 1: altitude object over a lake Huron. This is happening after
0:16
Speaker 1: we shut another one down over Alaska. I think we're
0:19
Speaker 1: up to what four? Five? Now? Every American's going to
0:22
Speaker 1: be asking the same question I'm going to ask you,
0:25
Speaker 1: is this something new or is this something that's happening
0:29
Speaker 1: all the time and we just didn't know about it. Well,
0:32
Speaker 1: let me say, I feel like I'm at the circus.
0:34
Speaker 1: I'm just looking up in the sky and seeing balloon
0:37
Speaker 1: after balloon after balloon, and I don't know about you.
0:40
Speaker 1: You and I are filming this Sunday afternoon. Tonight's the
0:43
Speaker 1: Super Bowl. I'm made during the Super Bowl, just sitting
0:45
Speaker 1: in my backyard with a rifle and see if I
0:47
Speaker 1: can spot any balloons coming over your house? Right? You know,
0:51
Speaker 1: Holy cow, we're up to four now. So we had
0:54
Speaker 1: starting two weeks ago, the Chinese by balloon. Number one
0:58
Speaker 1: that we know about, well, the number one that we
1:02
Speaker 1: know about because people in Montana looked in the sky
1:05
Speaker 1: and said, what in the hell is that? Yeah, and
1:08
Speaker 1: then suddenly it got on Twitter and got an NBC
1:10
Speaker 1: News and then the Biden administration is like, oh, yeah,
1:13
Speaker 1: that would be the Chinese by balloon that we were ignoring.
1:16
Speaker 1: So that was number one. That one they shot down
1:20
Speaker 1: over the Atlantic off the coast of South Carolina after
1:23
Speaker 1: it traversed the entire continent of the United States, conducting
1:27
Speaker 1: espionage most of the way. The second one was one
1:31
Speaker 1: that we shot down over Alaska a few days ago.
1:35
Speaker 1: The third one was one we just shot down over
1:37
Speaker 1: Canada a couple of days ago. And the most recent
1:41
Speaker 1: one that you just just sighted, broke within the last
1:45
Speaker 1: hour or so over Lake Huron. I don't know where
1:49
Speaker 1: precisely because they haven't given the details yet, but again,
1:52
Speaker 1: coming from the North and the Great Lakes, what's going
1:57
Speaker 1: on here? I would say several things are going on here.
2:01
Speaker 1: Number one, you asked, has this been happening for a while? Yes. Interesting.
2:08
Speaker 1: As I mentioned to you last week, I had a
2:11
Speaker 1: two hour classified briefing went into great detail. Much of
2:18
Speaker 1: that detail I can't get into. What I can discuss
2:22
Speaker 1: is what is already publicly available publicly known, and the
2:28
Speaker 1: Chinese by balloon that we shot down a week ago
2:31
Speaker 1: was not the first. Why are we seeing so many
2:37
Speaker 1: of them now? I mean, that's that's the natural question,
2:39
Speaker 1: what the heck has happened? And I think it's a
2:41
Speaker 1: combination of several things. One of it is, frankly, we're
2:43
Speaker 1: looking for so we didn't used to have our assets
2:48
Speaker 1: are radar. We weren't looking for really high balloons coming
2:55
Speaker 1: from the north. That was not our focus. We're looking
2:57
Speaker 1: for things like icbm as. We're looking for things like,
3:00
Speaker 1: you know, jet fighters, But we didn't necessarily have the
3:04
Speaker 1: radar arrays pointed in a direction to figure out what
3:08
Speaker 1: was happening. And so I think it is entirely possible
3:11
Speaker 1: that we missed a bunch of these. Wow, and these
3:16
Speaker 1: obviously are doing something for them, Otherwise they wouldn't be
3:20
Speaker 1: spending so much money in time and effort into putting
3:23
Speaker 1: them up in the air and steering them over the US.
3:25
Speaker 1: So let's be clear. The one we shot down we
3:30
Speaker 1: know was a Chinese balloon. It was a large balloon.
3:34
Speaker 1: It had a payload that that was quite large, that
3:37
Speaker 1: that was the size of several school buses. It was
3:39
Speaker 1: big explain payload. You've been and a lot of people,
3:43
Speaker 1: I think are confused on what that means. Some people
3:45
Speaker 1: here payload and they immediately think that's weaponry. What does
3:49
Speaker 1: that include. Payload does not mean in this case, bombs
3:53
Speaker 1: or missiles that you might think on a jet, the
3:56
Speaker 1: payloads of baying that this is a balloon, Think a
3:59
Speaker 1: hot air where you got the balloon up top and
4:01
Speaker 1: you got the basket down below. When I use the
4:03
Speaker 1: word payload, what I mean is the thing the balloon
4:05
Speaker 1: is dragging, got it. And in this case, the thing
4:08
Speaker 1: the balloon was dragging was was a big hunk of
4:11
Speaker 1: metal the size of several school buses, so it was large.
4:14
Speaker 1: This is the first Chinese balloon. And when it was discovered,
4:20
Speaker 1: our military engaged and went up and looked at it,
4:23
Speaker 1: I mean took a close look at it. They're saying,
4:27
Speaker 1: first of all, they wanted to make sure that that
4:29
Speaker 1: it didn't pose an immediate danger. So they wanted to
4:32
Speaker 1: look at it to say, all, right, are there bombs
4:34
Speaker 1: and missiles on it? You could have a balloon with
4:36
Speaker 1: bombs and missiles that are that are prepared to destroy homes,
4:40
Speaker 1: kill people, And the military says they looked at it,
4:44
Speaker 1: and it didn't appear to me that that's good. H
4:48
Speaker 1: that's a much more. You know, we've seen in prior
4:50
Speaker 1: wars balloons used to drop off dangerous weapons action in
4:54
Speaker 1: the Middle East, in Israel, we see the and they
5:00
Speaker 1: use balloons and they'll drop off in gasoline and fire
5:04
Speaker 1: bombs and and and it's a it's it's a in
5:07
Speaker 1: sometimes a cheaper way than a missile of causing harm.
5:12
Speaker 1: Causing harm. So by payload, I mean a bunch of
5:16
Speaker 1: stuff to conduct espionage. Now what the stuff is we
5:19
Speaker 1: don't really know yet. We don't know exactly what was there.
5:22
Speaker 1: We can make reasonable inferences. We can reasonably assume they're cameras,
5:27
Speaker 1: high powered cameras that are designed to look down on
5:29
Speaker 1: the ground. Um, the first balloon was at about sixty
5:34
Speaker 1: thousand feet. That's a lot lower than satellites. Look, the
5:38
Speaker 1: Chinese have satellites, so they're taking pictures. And that was
5:42
Speaker 1: the argument the White House made very clear. And they
5:44
Speaker 1: were trying to say, hey, this is a this is
5:46
Speaker 1: a balloon that is not that is doing basically the
5:49
Speaker 1: same thing as their spy program, their satellite there's space program.
5:53
Speaker 1: They were trying to say this is this is a
5:54
Speaker 1: redundant thing. I think clearly now that we're shooting these
5:57
Speaker 1: things over over Alaska, shooting this next one we just
6:00
Speaker 1: learned about. That was a liar missley in the American pete.
6:03
Speaker 1: It was complete nonsense. And I mentioned in the last
6:05
Speaker 1: pod we did that when they said it at the briefing,
6:08
Speaker 1: it was a stick eye and several of us basically
6:10
Speaker 1: laughed at him. It was so obviously political spin off. Well,
6:13
Speaker 1: not that big a deal. Look, satellites are much higher,
6:16
Speaker 1: so typically the resolution you can get, presumably is not
6:20
Speaker 1: as strong. If you're at a sixty thousand foot altitude
6:23
Speaker 1: or forty thousand foot altitude, you're a lot closer. A
6:26
Speaker 1: satellite is also continuously moving, which means you have a
6:30
Speaker 1: window that you can examine and then you move elsewhere. Sure,
6:34
Speaker 1: one of the things about a balloon you can hover
6:36
Speaker 1: over a military base, you can hover over where we
6:39
Speaker 1: have stealth jets, you can hover over nuclear missile silos,
6:45
Speaker 1: and you can hover for some real time and take
6:47
Speaker 1: extended pictures, extended video. And that's what people didn't understand.
6:51
Speaker 1: And I think everybody's trying to get caught up to speed.
6:54
Speaker 1: Here is a lot of people thought they launch a
6:55
Speaker 1: balloon and it just flies to the wind. Right you
6:58
Speaker 1: launch it, you know where the jet stream as you
7:00
Speaker 1: know which way. This was a balloon that had steering
7:04
Speaker 1: where you could basically hit the pause button over an
7:07
Speaker 1: area you wanted it to be, and then you once
7:10
Speaker 1: you got whatever it is you wanted, you could then
7:13
Speaker 1: redirect it to the next place you wanted to stop
7:16
Speaker 1: and take pictures or do whatever it was doing. And
7:18
Speaker 1: its path demonstrated it was clearly maneuverable. It wasn't just
7:22
Speaker 1: wandering over some it you hope it gets you close
7:26
Speaker 1: to where you wanted it to go. It wasn't just
7:27
Speaker 1: sitting over a scarecrow in the middle of a cornfield.
7:29
Speaker 1: It was just just miraculously going from one military base
7:33
Speaker 1: to the next military base to the next military base.
7:36
Speaker 1: And there were obvious national security concerns all along the way.
7:40
Speaker 1: The path it traveled was not accidental. So you have
7:45
Speaker 1: the capacity to be a lot closer than you are
7:47
Speaker 1: with a satellite. You have the capacity to be stationary
7:51
Speaker 1: and stationary for an extended period of time, so you
7:53
Speaker 1: can take pictures, presumably possibly you can take video. I'm
7:57
Speaker 1: speculating they didn't tell us in the briefing. This is
7:59
Speaker 1: me speculating. You also presumably have the capacity to try
8:04
Speaker 1: to engage in interception, to intercept phone calls, to intercept
8:08
Speaker 1: Wi Fi, to intercept countless things, radio, whatever communications are
8:14
Speaker 1: happening beneath you. You got to assume in the big
8:17
Speaker 1: spy package they got there, they've got gadgets that are
8:20
Speaker 1: designed to try to intercept whatever's going on. The Trudeau
8:24
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8:27
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Speaker 1: slash Verdict Center. There's also something that was interesting in
9:49
Speaker 1: Trudeau and I want I want you to look at
9:50
Speaker 1: this tweet that he put out and it says there
9:53
Speaker 1: I ordered the takedown of an unidentified object that violated
9:56
Speaker 1: Canadian airspace. Nor AD Command shot down the object over
10:00
Speaker 1: the Yukon. The Canadian and US aircraft were scrambled and
10:04
Speaker 1: a US F point two successfully fired at the objects.
10:07
Speaker 1: He said they didn't spoke with President Biden in the afternoon.
10:09
Speaker 1: He said, Canadian forces will now recover and analyze the
10:12
Speaker 1: wreckage of this object. Thank you to NOD for keeping
10:15
Speaker 1: watch over North America. All right, let's do it dive
10:18
Speaker 1: real quick in the NORAD. How does this agreement work?
10:21
Speaker 1: It's weird to see Canada order the shooting down of
10:24
Speaker 1: an object and then America do it on their behalf.
10:27
Speaker 1: Ye do they pay that bill? Do we pay that bill?
10:30
Speaker 1: And he says, now NORAD is going to be looking
10:32
Speaker 1: over all this. Are they basically now our brothers in
10:35
Speaker 1: this fight against these unidentified objects. So the way the
10:38
Speaker 1: military structure, you've got Northcom, which is the Northern Command
10:42
Speaker 1: that is protecting North America, and then you've got nora
10:47
Speaker 1: AD that is engaged in watching what's happened in the skies,
10:51
Speaker 1: whether from planes or missiles or other aerial attacks that
10:54
Speaker 1: could be coming in to North America. In both instances,
11:00
Speaker 1: North COMMONORAD we work very closely closely. We work seamlessly
11:04
Speaker 1: with the Canadians. We are blessed to have a very
11:07
Speaker 1: strong ally to our north. We don't always agree on
11:12
Speaker 1: economic or cultural matters, but on defending North America, we
11:16
Speaker 1: are lockstep. That is a great blessing to the United States. Why,
11:22
Speaker 1: if God forbid we ever come to World War three,
11:24
Speaker 1: if God forbid we come to a nuclear weapon, the
11:27
Speaker 1: most likely pass for missiles to travel that are going
11:31
Speaker 1: to hit the United States are going up over the
11:33
Speaker 1: North Pole and down over Canada. And so Canada has
11:38
Speaker 1: a huge chunk of the airspace right above us, which
11:41
Speaker 1: in the event of a serious war, that's where the
11:44
Speaker 1: pass get. And it's because the Earth is curved, it's
11:48
Speaker 1: actually shorter to go from China or Russia over the
11:52
Speaker 1: North poland down to US that it would be to
11:54
Speaker 1: around that. If you're looking at a flat map, that
11:57
Speaker 1: doesn't make any sense, but when you think of the
11:59
Speaker 1: curvature of a ball, it's a shorter path. And so
12:03
Speaker 1: it is very much in the United States's interest to
12:06
Speaker 1: be closely intertwined with Canada. And it's also in Canada's interest.
12:08
Speaker 1: Obviously we're much bigger country with a much stronger military,
12:12
Speaker 1: and so they are quite glad to have the US
12:15
Speaker 1: military protecting them. Now, why did Justin Trudeau give the order?
12:19
Speaker 1: Because it was over Canadian airspace and so we don't
12:22
Speaker 1: almost giving a blessing. Hey, whoever gets there first of America,
12:24
Speaker 1: you can get their first, knock this thing out of
12:26
Speaker 1: the sky. So we don't make it a practice of
12:28
Speaker 1: shooting down anything over someone else's airspace. That every country
12:33
Speaker 1: has a right to their own airspace. You think of
12:35
Speaker 1: the first Chinese balloon that we had, when Biden should
12:39
Speaker 1: have shot it down was when it entered US airspace.
12:41
Speaker 1: We don't have to ask anyone's permission. If it enters
12:43
Speaker 1: US airspace, we can shoot the damn thing down over Canada.
12:48
Speaker 1: And remember that first Chinese spy balloon entered Alaskan airspace,
12:52
Speaker 1: was there a couple of days, and then it went
12:54
Speaker 1: into Canada and it was there a couple of days,
12:56
Speaker 1: and then it came down in the United States over Idaho, Montana,
12:59
Speaker 1: and it kept working south and east across the United States.
13:03
Speaker 1: So for the first balloon, we asked the administration multiple times,
13:07
Speaker 1: why didn't you shoot it down over Alaska? They gave
13:10
Speaker 1: lots of spins about well, this and that and this
13:12
Speaker 1: and the other. One of the things they finally admitted is, yeah,
13:15
Speaker 1: Joe Biden didn't even know about it. Like the whole
13:17
Speaker 1: time it was in Alaska. We didn't bother to tell
13:19
Speaker 1: the commander in chief. He had no idea that we
13:21
Speaker 1: were just sitting there with a Chinese balloon surveilling us.
13:25
Speaker 1: So Biden finds out after it's left Alaska airspace. That's
13:29
Speaker 1: what they and that's taking politics out of it. That's
13:32
Speaker 1: good to know, because it's important that the fact they
13:34
Speaker 1: didn't even tell the president is that normal? Was that normal?
13:37
Speaker 1: How this would work under Trump when he was in office. Well,
13:40
Speaker 1: we didn't have this happen under Trump. So one of
13:42
Speaker 1: the things, and we talked about this in a prior
13:44
Speaker 1: podcastle let me be clear. What we didn't have happened
13:48
Speaker 1: is a Chinese surveillance balloon that we knew about and
13:53
Speaker 1: that the senior officials were informed about. So you'll recall
13:57
Speaker 1: we talked about this in the last pod. When the
13:59
Speaker 1: first Chinese balloon incident happened a couple of weeks ago,
14:02
Speaker 1: the Biden administration went out and tried to spend reporters
14:05
Speaker 1: and said, well, this happened three times under Trump, while
14:08
Speaker 1: deliberately not telling the reporters. Yeah, but you know, no
14:11
Speaker 1: senior officials knew about it. Trump didn't know about a
14:14
Speaker 1: Secretary of Defense didn't know about a Secretary State didn't
14:16
Speaker 1: know about it. Like it was almost after the fact
14:18
Speaker 1: they went back and look it down and said, oh wait,
14:20
Speaker 1: that's what that was. So it's very different. In this instance.
14:24
Speaker 1: The Biden administration knew the incident happened. In fact, they
14:28
Speaker 1: knew before it was happening. They were tracking it even
14:30
Speaker 1: before it crossed into the US airspace. They just didn't
14:33
Speaker 1: bother to inform the commander in chief. They informed the
14:36
Speaker 1: commander in chief. And this is all based on what
14:38
Speaker 1: they publicly disclosed after it had left Alaskan airspace. We asked,
14:43
Speaker 1: why didn't you shoot it down over Canada? And they said, well, gosh,
14:45
Speaker 1: you know, shoot it down over Canada. You know it
14:47
Speaker 1: might hit population, very dangerous. Blah blah blah blah blah blah. Finally,
14:51
Speaker 1: they let it complete all of its espionage all over
14:53
Speaker 1: the United States until it exited to the Atlantic. They
14:56
Speaker 1: shot it down over the Atlantic. What's changed, Well, we've
14:59
Speaker 1: seen now three shot shot down in a row. The
15:03
Speaker 1: biggest thing that's changed is I think they had so
15:06
Speaker 1: much egg on their face for sitting there for over
15:08
Speaker 1: a week and doing nothing that they finally grew a
15:11
Speaker 1: pair and said we have to do that, and said
15:13
Speaker 1: we're gonna shoot him down. And let me say this,
15:15
Speaker 1: even look at the president. The president units it's America
15:19
Speaker 1: is now rewriting history, flexing his muscles. He was asked
15:22
Speaker 1: at the White House about shooting this last one. It's like, oh,
15:25
Speaker 1: this is this is just what I do. Look at
15:28
Speaker 1: this the object shot down dent success. Well, let me
15:37
Speaker 1: do something I don't do very often on this podcast,
15:40
Speaker 1: which is praised Joe Biden. The reaction to the first
15:44
Speaker 1: balloon was incredibly weak and ineffective. But the second, third,
15:47
Speaker 1: and fourth one, thank god, Like, this is exactly what
15:50
Speaker 1: you should be doing. If you're flying over our airspace,
15:53
Speaker 1: We're gonna shoot you down. I'm glad of that. It
15:56
Speaker 1: took a while, they had to get embarrassed and shamed
15:59
Speaker 1: into it, but they to the right outcome and and
16:02
Speaker 1: and so that's good. I am glad of that. This
16:06
Speaker 1: is an deterrent. Now as we're sitting here today at
16:08
Speaker 1: Sunday afternoon, we don't know if the three subsequent ones,
16:12
Speaker 1: we don't know if they were Chinese, we don't know
16:15
Speaker 1: if they were spy satellites, if they were spy They
16:18
Speaker 1: weren't satellites, they were too low to be satellites, but
16:19
Speaker 1: we don't know if they were balloons. I assume next
16:22
Speaker 1: week we will have another classified briefing. If we're not,
16:24
Speaker 1: I'm going to press very hard for one. So the
16:27
Speaker 1: last classified briefing I had, we only had the first one.
16:30
Speaker 1: There have been three more since then, so I have
16:33
Speaker 1: not received a classified briefing. Yeah, at this point, surely
16:37
Speaker 1: they'd say we need to give you an update. I
16:39
Speaker 1: certainly I expect that they will. I mean we a
16:42
Speaker 1: week ago when we were doing the podcast, I said, listen,
16:45
Speaker 1: I think it's very likely we'll have a classified briefing.
16:47
Speaker 1: Everyone's going to want to know. I think it's likely
16:50
Speaker 1: next week we'll have another. One obvious question on these
16:53
Speaker 1: three that have been shot down in the past few days,
16:55
Speaker 1: were they Chinese or they balloons? Where they did they
16:59
Speaker 1: have a similar payload of spy equipment. I don't know
17:02
Speaker 1: the answer to any of that, because what I know
17:04
Speaker 1: on those three is what you can read in newspapers.
17:08
Speaker 1: What they are saying is the three that were shot
17:10
Speaker 1: down were at forty thousand feet instead of sixty thousand feet.
17:13
Speaker 1: And here's why that's relevant. The Biden administration had a
17:17
Speaker 1: couple of spins on why it didn't shoot down balloon
17:19
Speaker 1: number one. One of the spins was, well, it was
17:22
Speaker 1: up at sixty thousand feet, which means it's not a
17:25
Speaker 1: risk commercial air traffic. And in fact, as a sort
17:29
Speaker 1: of throwaway that line, they said, if it were forty
17:30
Speaker 1: thousand feet where there's commercial air traffic, we would have
17:33
Speaker 1: shot it down. That gives them a fig leaf to
17:36
Speaker 1: say these were down at forty thousand feet and so
17:38
Speaker 1: they shot them down. We had no choice because it
17:40
Speaker 1: was where commercial airlinns fly. Even the White House tried
17:44
Speaker 1: to act like and you can see they're still trying
17:45
Speaker 1: to figure out how to back pedal on the embarrassment.
17:48
Speaker 1: The last one, they had this White House briefing. The
17:50
Speaker 1: media's clearly not buying their bs on this, and they said, well,
17:54
Speaker 1: these balloons are different. Ones the size of a car,
17:57
Speaker 1: ones the size of a bus. Take a look at this.
17:59
Speaker 1: I can tell you that the President doesn't regret the
18:02
Speaker 1: way that we handled the first balloon that time. We
18:07
Speaker 1: first of all apples and oranges here in terms of size.
18:10
Speaker 1: As I said, this was size of a small car,
18:13
Speaker 1: and it was over a very sparsely populated area, but
18:17
Speaker 1: also more critically over it was over water water space.
18:21
Speaker 1: When we ordered this down as we did as we
18:24
Speaker 1: did the last one, but completely different size and the
18:29
Speaker 1: debris field for this we expect to be much much
18:33
Speaker 1: smaller than would have been for the other one. That's
18:36
Speaker 1: difference one. Difference two. We knew for a fact that
18:40
Speaker 1: the PRC balloon that we shot down last week was
18:43
Speaker 1: in fact a surveillance asset, So size matters. The lighthouse
18:47
Speaker 1: is telling you, now, that's what they're saying. If it's small,
18:49
Speaker 1: well we might shoot it down. If it's big, it
18:51
Speaker 1: may be different. And if it's over a water area.
18:54
Speaker 1: This is a very weird way of putting this. Look,
18:57
Speaker 1: I'm going to leave that alone. But but what I
19:01
Speaker 1: will say, so Kirby starts off there with a statement
19:04
Speaker 1: that is demonstrably false and laughable, which is, Oh, Biden
19:07
Speaker 1: doesn't regret regret not shooting the first one down as
19:10
Speaker 1: he sat there over a week, looking week and impotent
19:12
Speaker 1: while it engaged in espionage all over the United States.
19:15
Speaker 1: Obviously they regret it. They realize now he didn't know
19:18
Speaker 1: about it because no one told him about it. Sure,
19:20
Speaker 1: but it was a screw up. It was just when
19:22
Speaker 1: he did find out he had an opportunity shoot down
19:24
Speaker 1: earlier and he didn't. But to their credit, they learned
19:27
Speaker 1: the lesson. And remember one of their defenses as to
19:29
Speaker 1: why they didn't shoot it down before as well, it
19:31
Speaker 1: was overland, very sparsely populated land, but overland, well, these
19:35
Speaker 1: were two and there were periods where it was over
19:37
Speaker 1: water where they could have shot it down as well. Look,
19:39
Speaker 1: they learned the lesson. I'll give him credit for that.
19:42
Speaker 1: I don't know. Listen, a payload the size of several
19:45
Speaker 1: school buses is pretty different from the payload of the
19:48
Speaker 1: size of a small car. I don't know what these were.
19:50
Speaker 1: I assume they were spies, like spy equipment, but I
19:54
Speaker 1: don't know that presumably, So with all of these, we've
19:59
Speaker 1: got salvage to teams that are going to go try
20:00
Speaker 1: to find, Okay, what was this thing we just shot down,
20:03
Speaker 1: and we'll figure out what it is? A question I
20:07
Speaker 1: don't know sitting here right now. I mean, we've seen
20:10
Speaker 1: four in just a few days, where they're always this
20:16
Speaker 1: many of them. That's yes, number one or number two.
20:20
Speaker 1: Did the Biden weakness on balloon number one caused China
20:26
Speaker 1: or someone else to say, let's put a bunch up
20:30
Speaker 1: there and see what happens. I don't know. I have
20:32
Speaker 1: to admit hypotheses number two I'm a little bit skeptical of,
20:38
Speaker 1: just because I'd be surprised if they could execute it
20:41
Speaker 1: that quickly. If we saw a bunch coming a month,
20:45
Speaker 1: I would see it as a more likely hypothesis that
20:48
Speaker 1: the weakness was provocative and caused this. But I don't know.
20:52
Speaker 1: I don't have the technical knowledge to know whether these
20:57
Speaker 1: could be put in the airspace in twenty four hours.
21:00
Speaker 1: It's a very short time frame. So if and when
21:04
Speaker 1: we have the classified briefing, I expect to ask these
21:06
Speaker 1: questions because I think they're good questions, and sitting here
21:09
Speaker 1: right now, I don't know the answers to them. We've
21:11
Speaker 1: heard China last question on this, but it's one I
21:14
Speaker 1: think people want to know. And we hear this and
21:16
Speaker 1: it's China, China, China. Is there a real possibility that
21:20
Speaker 1: there are other bad actors in the world that have
21:23
Speaker 1: the same capabilities that could have been pulling this off?
21:26
Speaker 1: And I go back to what we learned after nine
21:28
Speaker 1: to eleven. We had a lot of vulnerabilities that we
21:30
Speaker 1: didn't even see. Is this one of those kind of
21:34
Speaker 1: new vulnerabilities that maybe we didn't even know we had
21:36
Speaker 1: until recently when a guy in Montana saw in the sky.
21:40
Speaker 1: Is it possible that this big of a vulnerability could
21:43
Speaker 1: happen with all the money we spend on surveillance everything
21:46
Speaker 1: else where. Now it's just like, oh, we're waking up
21:48
Speaker 1: to this. So I think that's possible. You know, our
21:53
Speaker 1: military part of the reason they say people spotted it
21:57
Speaker 1: over Montanas that we knew it was there and we
21:59
Speaker 1: were engaging with it. So they did, among other things,
22:02
Speaker 1: they halted airspace over Montana and that got a lot
22:05
Speaker 1: of attention. And so that's part of their argument. Now,
22:08
Speaker 1: as we pointed out in this podcast before, Look, I
22:12
Speaker 1: don't think Biden would have acted if it hadn't gone public,
22:16
Speaker 1: if it hadn't gotten on Twitter, if it hadn't gotten
22:18
Speaker 1: an NBC News. I think they would have let this
22:20
Speaker 1: balloon go all over the United States and never said
22:23
Speaker 1: a word, never told anybody about it, and kept it
22:24
Speaker 1: a secret. So it is only because people noticed it
22:28
Speaker 1: that they got guilted and shamed into acting. In terms
22:33
Speaker 1: of could it be other actors. My guess is it's
22:36
Speaker 1: likely China. If you look at the combination of military technology,
22:43
Speaker 1: economic resources, and hostile intent, all three of those are
22:49
Speaker 1: most heavily concentrated in China. Look, could it conceivably be Russia? Possibly?
22:55
Speaker 1: Are there other bad actors a North Korea and Iran
23:00
Speaker 1: that would want to do this? Yes, I'm less confident
23:04
Speaker 1: they have the capability. North Korea money off. North Korea
23:07
Speaker 1: has put satellites, and they put satellites that have crossed
23:10
Speaker 1: the United States multiple times. So I don't know if
23:14
Speaker 1: it's impossible that North Korea is trying this. Also, it
23:21
Speaker 1: does seem make such a securely speculating here, So I
23:24
Speaker 1: want to put that marker down that I know nothing
23:28
Speaker 1: on that question other than what I've read in the
23:30
Speaker 1: paper and then just speculating. Canada had a very interesting week.
23:34
Speaker 1: They're heavily involved in this story. Then another story pops up.
23:38
Speaker 1: It's gonna be I think now clearly a rift between
23:40
Speaker 1: Canada the US. You have illegal immigrants and are now
23:43
Speaker 1: getting one way tickets to wherever they want to go.
23:47
Speaker 1: That's how they're spinning at New York City. For all
23:50
Speaker 1: the illegals that have been many of them bust there
23:52
Speaker 1: and others have just shown up, and a lot of
23:54
Speaker 1: them have been going to Canada. Now, Canada doesn't like it.
23:58
Speaker 1: They don't like this idea that all these illegal immigrants
24:00
Speaker 1: are coming into their country. The Mayor of New York
24:03
Speaker 1: City is like, we're tired of dealing with him right
24:05
Speaker 1: there their sanctuary city. Look at what he had to
24:07
Speaker 1: say on TV. Those who are seeking to go somewhere else,
24:11
Speaker 1: not we're pushing or forcing. If they're seeking to go
24:15
Speaker 1: somewhere else. We are helping in the reticketing process of
24:18
Speaker 1: what we found that people had other destinations, but they
24:22
Speaker 1: would be compelled only to come to New York City.
24:25
Speaker 1: And we are assisting an interviewing those who seek to
24:27
Speaker 1: go somewhere else. Someone want to go to Canada, someone
24:30
Speaker 1: wants to go to warmer states, and we are there
24:34
Speaker 1: for them as they continue to move on with they
24:36
Speaker 1: pursue up this dream. I wish reticketing center was this easy.
24:39
Speaker 1: When I'm doing it with the aero lines, when I
24:41
Speaker 1: get a flight that's canceled. I love how he's like,
24:43
Speaker 1: it's like they're a travel agency in New York. Now,
24:46
Speaker 1: So I want you to be clear that is a
24:48
Speaker 1: liberal Democrat, yeah, who proudly proclaims New York City a
24:52
Speaker 1: sanctuary city, a loving, welcoming sanctuary city, who says that
24:56
Speaker 1: all the Republicans concerned about illegal immigration are mean, evil,
25:00
Speaker 1: racist bigots, that it's terrible, it's heartless. And then when
25:05
Speaker 1: Texas began sending illegal aliens to New York City, suddenly
25:11
Speaker 1: he lost his lunch. He has been freaking out, demanding
25:14
Speaker 1: federal dollars, demanding federal dollars, declaring, it's a crisis. We've
25:19
Speaker 1: had five point five million people cross illegally since Joe
25:22
Speaker 1: Biden became president, most of them in the state of Texas.
25:25
Speaker 1: A few thousand go to New York City, and he's
25:28
Speaker 1: practically reduced to a puddle of tears Martha's vineyard. Never
25:32
Speaker 1: don't forget that they brought in fifty and they actually
25:35
Speaker 1: called up more National Guardsmen to come deal with fifty
25:38
Speaker 1: than the number of illegal immigrants that were shipped there.
25:41
Speaker 1: So now the liberal Democrat mayor of New York City
25:46
Speaker 1: is buying bus tickets and plane tickets to send illegal
25:52
Speaker 1: immigrants in New York to Canada and send them by
25:56
Speaker 1: the hundreds. And by the way, he's paying New York
25:59
Speaker 1: City tax dollars to transport them out, to say, get
26:04
Speaker 1: them the heck out of our city. Cheap earth in
26:06
Speaker 1: the hotels they've been putting them in, and it is
26:08
Speaker 1: fairly amazing. You know, Mayor Adams, I think as presidential aspirations,
26:13
Speaker 1: he's not in the top tier of Democrats, but he's
26:15
Speaker 1: looking at it. He's looking at it. He's ambitious. So
26:18
Speaker 1: you can see as he's talking there to the reporters,
26:21
Speaker 1: he's trying to walk the sort of fine line of Oh,
26:24
Speaker 1: we want them all here, but here's the ticket, please leave,
26:26
Speaker 1: please leave. And what's funny is like he's he's you know,
26:29
Speaker 1: some of the people they're sending or people like from Venezuela.
26:32
Speaker 1: I gotta say, sending someone from Venezuela to Canada. The
26:36
Speaker 1: first winner they hit, Holy caw. That's a that's a
26:39
Speaker 1: wake up and I will you know, as you know,
26:42
Speaker 1: I was born in Canada and Calgary, and my parents
26:45
Speaker 1: are the oil and gas business, and I came down
26:47
Speaker 1: to Texas when I was four. My mom was American,
26:49
Speaker 1: my dad was Cuban. I was an American citizen by birth,
26:53
Speaker 1: but I came to America when I was four. And
26:56
Speaker 1: there are a lot of liberals who are still pissed
26:58
Speaker 1: at Canada and our poorous border for letting me in.
27:03
Speaker 1: And so maybe this is the revenge is the mayor
27:06
Speaker 1: of New York City circle right? You know you didn't
27:08
Speaker 1: keep cruise in Canada, so we want to send all
27:11
Speaker 1: of our illegal aliens to Canada. And what is interesting
27:15
Speaker 1: is listen, Justin Trudeau and the Canadians have all of
27:19
Speaker 1: this rhetoric about how we love illegal immigrants too, and
27:22
Speaker 1: their view is changing as knowing that they're going to
27:25
Speaker 1: change the way they did immigration with the United States
27:28
Speaker 1: of America and how they're going to secure their border
27:30
Speaker 1: if they do that, there's a high level of partners.
27:33
Speaker 1: There's an old line that a conservative is a liberal
27:38
Speaker 1: who got mugged. And what is fascinating is all of
27:42
Speaker 1: these lefties love illegal immigration until it shows up on
27:45
Speaker 1: the door of their country club, and then they lose
27:49
Speaker 1: their minds. Governor Abbott, I know you've known him for years.
27:52
Speaker 1: You guys have worked together, a close friend. He took
27:55
Speaker 1: a lot of heat when he started busting illegal immigrants
27:58
Speaker 1: to Washington. See when they into New York City, to
28:02
Speaker 1: Martha's Vineyard and I, and they said it was a
28:05
Speaker 1: stunt and it was mean spirit, and I said, it's
28:07
Speaker 1: not a stunt. It's brilliant to let the left understand
28:11
Speaker 1: what we're dealing with on a very very small scale,
28:15
Speaker 1: Like you said, five million plus crossings in Texas. You
28:18
Speaker 1: look at the numbers under this administration, they've hit every
28:22
Speaker 1: record basically you can hit on the number of legals
28:24
Speaker 1: come across, the number of legals caught, the number of
28:27
Speaker 1: legals that are apprehended, the number of illegals that have
28:30
Speaker 1: criminal records that are caught. They've blown every record out
28:33
Speaker 1: of the water. Is there a tide do you think
28:36
Speaker 1: turning in this country in general on this issue? Finally? Oh, look,
28:40
Speaker 1: I think it's an issue the American people are overwhelmingly
28:44
Speaker 1: unhappy with the chaos at the southern border South Texas.
28:47
Speaker 1: They're incredibly unhappy. It's an issue that if you look
28:50
Speaker 1: to the substance, the Democrats can't defend. Their only defense
28:55
Speaker 1: is hoping the media ignores it. And I do think
28:57
Speaker 1: there are some Democrats who realize that it's dangerous for
29:01
Speaker 1: them politically, But I think the reality is they've handed
29:05
Speaker 1: their agenda over to the extremes and the extremes on
29:07
Speaker 1: this issue want open borders. They look at every one
29:11
Speaker 1: of those people coming in as a Democrat voter and
29:15
Speaker 1: they want them all in. And so I wish I
29:19
Speaker 1: were optimistic that things are going to get better in
29:21
Speaker 1: the next two years, and I'm not. I think this
29:23
Speaker 1: administration is going to continue to do everything they can,
29:27
Speaker 1: not just to fail to secure the border, but to
29:32
Speaker 1: speed up illegal immigration, to facilitate it, to act as
29:37
Speaker 1: the last mine. I look, Joe Biden is the biggest
29:40
Speaker 1: human trafficker in the world. And I said that a
29:42
Speaker 1: couple of weeks ago on a TV show and got
29:44
Speaker 1: it made a bunch of press statements. But listen, that's
29:47
Speaker 1: not political rhetoric. That is an objective fact. There is
29:51
Speaker 1: no human being on planet Earth who has trafficked more people,
29:57
Speaker 1: more children, more women, more people who are vulnerable than
30:02
Speaker 1: Joseph Robinette, Biden Junior and the cartels who are making billions.
30:06
Speaker 1: They bring people across the Rio Grand they drop them
30:09
Speaker 1: off to the Biden administration, and the Biden administration is
30:12
Speaker 1: the last mile of their trafficking. And now apparently they
30:16
Speaker 1: get to New York City and the last last mile
30:19
Speaker 1: is the Democrat mayor sending them to Canada, so it
30:21
Speaker 1: really has gone the full loop of absurdity. Senator. Before
30:25
Speaker 1: we get to some other big news, I want to
30:27
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31:45
Speaker 1: I want to go back to another big story, and
31:47
Speaker 1: that's Hunter Biden. Hunter Biden has gone on offense. We
31:51
Speaker 1: talked about that in one of our earlier podcasts. He's
31:54
Speaker 1: setting out these letters saying I might be suing you,
31:57
Speaker 1: and you might want to keep all your records to
31:59
Speaker 1: all these Republicans, acting like he's going on offense here.
32:04
Speaker 1: The media obviously lap that up. Then you have people
32:08
Speaker 1: asking the question now about this administration, how compromised are
32:12
Speaker 1: they by China because the family's business deals. There's new
32:15
Speaker 1: polling out that says there was sixty four percent of
32:17
Speaker 1: Americans believe that Joe Biden's involved with his son's business
32:20
Speaker 1: dealings and it could put them in a negative, basically
32:24
Speaker 1: place when it comes to doing his job as a president. Now,
32:26
Speaker 1: you look at all that, and we still haven't had
32:29
Speaker 1: a present walkout telling or demanding, are calling out China directly.
32:34
Speaker 1: You better stop seeing these Dan balloons. So you now
32:38
Speaker 1: have the House looking into all this. When you see
32:41
Speaker 1: all these different areas coming together, how big of a
32:44
Speaker 1: deal do you think the story can become? Well, look,
32:47
Speaker 1: if sixty four percent of Americans believe Joe Biden was
32:50
Speaker 1: involved in his son's business dealings, then thirty six percent
32:54
Speaker 1: of Americans either aren't paying attention or are such partisans
32:58
Speaker 1: that they refuse to knowledge facts because it is screamingly
33:02
Speaker 1: obvious that Joe Biden was involved and quite possibly deeply
33:07
Speaker 1: involved in Hunter's business dealings. Hunter's business, I believe was
33:12
Speaker 1: selling access to his dad, and it was a very
33:14
Speaker 1: lucrative business. Now, I will say the whole investigation in
33:18
Speaker 1: the Hunter Biden has taken an interesting turn because we
33:22
Speaker 1: talked about the last podcast how Hunters lawyers getting very aggressive,
33:27
Speaker 1: is after Republicans, going after everyone he perceives his opponents.
33:31
Speaker 1: They also took an odd stance. So the House Oversight Committee,
33:35
Speaker 1: James Kohmer is the chairman of it, sent a request
33:37
Speaker 1: to documents to Hunter Biden for a whole series of
33:41
Speaker 1: documents that they're examining, and Hunter's lawyer wrote back and
33:45
Speaker 1: essentially said, go jump in a lake. Screw you, We're
33:49
Speaker 1: not doing it. You don't get no frigging documents for me,
33:52
Speaker 1: and it's across the board. It's just hell no. I
33:55
Speaker 1: think that was a really stupid move for Hunter Biden's
33:59
Speaker 1: legal team. It's stupid politically and it's stupid legally. Why
34:02
Speaker 1: what's going to happen next? What's going to happen next?
34:05
Speaker 1: And I think this will be in a matter of days,
34:06
Speaker 1: if not weeks. Is you're going to see the House
34:10
Speaker 1: Oversight Committee subpoena those documents. And if and when Hunter
34:15
Speaker 1: Biden defies the subpoena, which is what he said he's
34:17
Speaker 1: going to do, I think you will see the House
34:20
Speaker 1: of Representatives hold Hunter Biden in contempt. And the reason
34:24
Speaker 1: that is I think such a massive strategic mistake on
34:29
Speaker 1: their part is during the prior administration, when the House
34:34
Speaker 1: subpoenaed Steve Bannon, and Steve Bannon refused to comply and
34:39
Speaker 1: the House held him in contempt. What happened The Department
34:43
Speaker 1: of Justice prosecuted Steve Bannon for that contempt, arrested him,
34:47
Speaker 1: arrested him, prosecuted, and brought criminal charges. What Hunter Biden's
34:52
Speaker 1: legal team is setting up for is the same thing
34:54
Speaker 1: to happen to Hunter Biden. And if you're Merrick Garland,
34:58
Speaker 1: how the hell do you explain? Well, when Steve Bannon
35:01
Speaker 1: defies a congressional subpoena, it's a criminal offense that I'm
35:04
Speaker 1: trying to put him in jail for. But when Hunter
35:06
Speaker 1: Biden does it, never mind, nothing to see here. Even
35:09
Speaker 1: as political, even as double standard as the Biden DOJ
35:12
Speaker 1: has been, that's an impossible position. And so I think
35:17
Speaker 1: Hunter's team would have been better to say, we're happy
35:21
Speaker 1: to cooperate and with reasonable requests, will comply, and we
35:25
Speaker 1: may have some disagreements over scope, and we may go
35:27
Speaker 1: back and forth, like that's your fifteen documents. You may
35:31
Speaker 1: not get fifteen hundred, right, but at least look like
35:33
Speaker 1: you're trying to comply to spend. Yeah, if your opening
35:37
Speaker 1: bid is screw you, yeah, that tends to escalate pretty quickly.
35:43
Speaker 1: So I think they made a stupid decision, both legally
35:46
Speaker 1: and politically, because it is going to continue to put
35:51
Speaker 1: not only the Biden family but the Biden DOJ in
35:54
Speaker 1: an impossible double standard conundrum. We're going to tell that
35:57
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Speaker 1: know about. We should bring light to it. It's one
37:15
Speaker 1: that I think is really interesting. It goes back over years.
37:19
Speaker 1: It deals with the country. You have ties to your
37:21
Speaker 1: father leaving Cuba and an individual out of Cuba and
37:26
Speaker 1: the possible renaming of a street after his name in Washington, DC.
37:32
Speaker 1: This is pretty interesting. No one's talking about the media,
37:35
Speaker 1: so let's talk about why this matters and why you're
37:38
Speaker 1: working on this. Sure. So as wald Upaya was a
37:41
Speaker 1: democracy activists in Cuba. He is a hero. He was
37:45
Speaker 1: someone who stood up against the Castro regime. He had
37:48
Speaker 1: incredible courage. He spoke up for human rights, he spoke
37:51
Speaker 1: up for free speech, he spoke up for democracy, and
37:54
Speaker 1: he was murdered. He was murdered by the Castro communist
38:00
Speaker 1: July twenty, twenty twelve, there was a very suspicious car
38:04
Speaker 1: crash where outside observers it seems clear the Cuban police
38:09
Speaker 1: basically drove his car off the off the road and
38:12
Speaker 1: killed him. Wow. I've met multiple times with his daughter,
38:18
Speaker 1: Rosa Maria and one of the things that I've done
38:24
Speaker 1: is I've filed legislation to rename the street in Washington,
38:29
Speaker 1: d C. In front of the Cuban Embassy Oswaldo Paya Way. Now,
38:36
Speaker 1: a couple of things are interesting on this one. Oddly enough,
38:39
Speaker 1: in the last ten years, I've actually had a strange
38:43
Speaker 1: body of work, legislative work and legislative success on street namings. Now,
38:51
Speaker 1: how is that. Let me go back to the first one.
38:53
Speaker 1: The first one that happened was when you're by the
38:55
Speaker 1: way when you Reinforsted. I'm sure you never thought that
38:58
Speaker 1: was going to be something one would work on ithim
39:00
Speaker 1: to be very successful one. Well, so the first one
39:04
Speaker 1: that happened, You're right, I would not have thought. That
39:06
Speaker 1: was back about eight years ago. I think it was
39:08
Speaker 1: twenty fourteen and I was dealing with China and I
39:13
Speaker 1: introduced legislation to rename the street in front of the
39:16
Speaker 1: Chinese embassy Lujabo Plaza. Lujabo was a Nobel Peace Laureate,
39:21
Speaker 1: was a democracy activist in China. He was wrongfully imprisoned
39:26
Speaker 1: in China, and my legislation was to rename the street
39:29
Speaker 1: in front of him. I actually got the idea this
39:32
Speaker 1: was not Maybe it was a hairbrained idea, but it
39:34
Speaker 1: was hairbrained. It was not my hairbrained idea. It was
39:37
Speaker 1: actually Ronald Reagan's hairbrained idea. So during the Cold War,
39:41
Speaker 1: Reagan renamed the street in front of the Soviet embassy
39:46
Speaker 1: Sakarov Plaza, after the famed human rights and dissident Sakarov
39:50
Speaker 1: in the Soviet Union, and it was it was part
39:54
Speaker 1: of a broader strategy of winning the Cold War, of
39:57
Speaker 1: calling out the evil Empire. My strategy was the same
40:01
Speaker 1: on China. And look, on some level you might think,
40:05
Speaker 1: all right, a street name, it's not that big a deal,
40:07
Speaker 1: But then pause and think about it. If you change
40:09
Speaker 1: the street name, it means anyone who wants to write
40:11
Speaker 1: to the Chinese embassy has to write to that address,
40:14
Speaker 1: has to write lu Java Plaza. So you have to
40:17
Speaker 1: acknowledge that lu Java exists, that this dissident, this nobel
40:21
Speaker 1: laureate who's been wrongfully in prison, that he is real.
40:25
Speaker 1: You know, you've got someone who wants to go find
40:27
Speaker 1: the embassy. You got to go on Google or map
40:30
Speaker 1: quest and look for it. You get the address, or
40:33
Speaker 1: if you have a meeting there, you know the website,
40:36
Speaker 1: the Chinese website. If they want to put their damn address,
40:40
Speaker 1: they have to acknowledge the name of the dissident. It's why,
40:43
Speaker 1: It's why Reagan did it. It's powerful. So what happened
40:47
Speaker 1: with lu jabal Plaza is I introduced legislation. I went
40:51
Speaker 1: to the Senate floor and sought to pass it by
40:54
Speaker 1: unanimous consent. Diane Feinstein stood up and objected, and we
40:59
Speaker 1: had a debate on the Senate floor. And Di Fi,
41:02
Speaker 1: by the way, everyone calls her Difi's that's the nickname
41:04
Speaker 1: she has. Difi stood up. She said, you don't understand this.
41:07
Speaker 1: This will make the Chinese government angry. And I laughed.
41:12
Speaker 1: I said, no, no, I actually I do understand. That's
41:15
Speaker 1: a feature, not a bug. That is the objective is
41:18
Speaker 1: to force them to confront they're horrific evil. Well, she objected.
41:24
Speaker 1: I tried it again, tried to pass about unanimous consent.
41:28
Speaker 1: She objected again. And so what I did, and this
41:32
Speaker 1: is now twenty fifteen, is I put a hold on
41:36
Speaker 1: every state department nominee, stopped them all. The Obama administration
41:41
Speaker 1: was freaking out because they wanted their state department nominees
41:43
Speaker 1: to move forward. I had holds on all of them.
41:45
Speaker 1: They came to me. They said, how can we get
41:47
Speaker 1: you to lift the holds. I said, very easy, get
41:49
Speaker 1: Difi to lift or hold pass my bill. They said no,
41:52
Speaker 1: no, no no, no, we don't want to do that. I said, okay.
41:55
Speaker 1: They said, how about't we just pass a resolution, this
41:57
Speaker 1: non binding. I said, no, pass my bill. Finally they blinked.
42:03
Speaker 1: The Obama White House went to Diane Feinstein, leaned on her,
42:07
Speaker 1: got her to withdraw her objection. So my legislation passes
42:13
Speaker 1: the Senate one hundred to nothing, unanimously passes. I'd say,
42:16
Speaker 1: I didn't think anyone would be on the wrong side
42:19
Speaker 1: of that. So two epilogues to that story. Epilogue number one.
42:26
Speaker 1: Did it pass into law? No? Why? Maddeningly because the
42:31
Speaker 1: Republican House of Representatives wouldn't take it up and pass it. Wow.
42:35
Speaker 1: We passed it through a Democrat Senate, but the Republican
42:41
Speaker 1: House wouldn't take it up. It was infuriating, so it
42:47
Speaker 1: didn't pass. And I will say I had some harsh
42:52
Speaker 1: words for the Republicans involved in not taking it up
42:55
Speaker 1: at the House at the time that I expressed very
42:58
Speaker 1: directly to them. But the second epilog, and this is
43:02
Speaker 1: very interesting beginning of the Trump administration. Twenty seventeen. I'm
43:07
Speaker 1: having breakfast with Rex Tillers in the new Secretary of State.
43:10
Speaker 1: I'm at foggy bottom in the State Department, and we're
43:13
Speaker 1: talking about a whole host of issues, and we're talking
43:16
Speaker 1: about China. And he said that he had just had
43:18
Speaker 1: a meeting with his counterpart, the foreign minister in China.
43:22
Speaker 1: And he said they came and they said they had
43:24
Speaker 1: three top priorities at the time, foreign policy priorities. And
43:29
Speaker 1: he said, ted is the damnedest thing. One of their
43:32
Speaker 1: top three priorities is to stop you from passing your
43:36
Speaker 1: legislation to rename the street in front of their embassy.
43:38
Speaker 1: He's like, I think it's idiotic, but that's what they list.
43:43
Speaker 1: And I laughed. I thought it actually speaks volumes about
43:46
Speaker 1: the weakness of a tyrannical regime, just how vulnerable they
43:49
Speaker 1: are to sunshine, to being called out. But what I
43:52
Speaker 1: told Rex at the time, I said, I'll tell you what.
43:54
Speaker 1: So at the time, Luja Beau had passed away, he
43:55
Speaker 1: was no longer alive, but his widow, lu Shah was
44:00
Speaker 1: still in China. They wouldn't let her go. And actually,
44:04
Speaker 1: Lucia Bou was entitled to I think it's like one
44:07
Speaker 1: point four million dollars for winning the Nobel Peace Prize
44:10
Speaker 1: as a cash prize that comes with it. They'd never
44:12
Speaker 1: gotten it because they wouldn't let him out of China. Wow.
44:15
Speaker 1: So I told Rex, I said, I'll tell you what
44:19
Speaker 1: you tell China if they release Lucia, if they let
44:24
Speaker 1: her leave, I'll stop pushing this. And I said, make
44:29
Speaker 1: me the bad guy, but you tell them. If they don't,
44:33
Speaker 1: I'm going to keep pushing it, I'm going to pass
44:36
Speaker 1: it and get it done. And I said, listen, I've
44:38
Speaker 1: already passed the Senate one hundred and nothing once and
44:42
Speaker 1: so you can let them know I'll get it done
44:43
Speaker 1: this time, and they're going to see this law pass
44:46
Speaker 1: in the law and the sign changed. A couple of
44:49
Speaker 1: weeks later, they released Lucia. So the streets Sign literally
44:53
Speaker 1: resulted in freeing a prominent democracy producy. Yeah. So that's
45:01
Speaker 1: street Sign Legislative Portfolio number one. Here's Legislative Portfolio number two.
45:07
Speaker 1: Do you ever see the movie Hidden Figures? Oh? Yeah, awesome,
45:11
Speaker 1: fabulous movie. Yeah. Hidden Figures is about the African American
45:16
Speaker 1: women who worked at NASA, who if you've never seen
45:19
Speaker 1: the movie, everybody should watch. It's unbelievable, true story. It's
45:23
Speaker 1: a true story. They're mathematicians who help help NASA go
45:28
Speaker 1: to the moon. And so I took I took Heidie
45:33
Speaker 1: to see it. I took both our daughters to see it,
45:34
Speaker 1: and I took my mother to see it. So all
45:36
Speaker 1: of them we went in Houston together to the theater
45:39
Speaker 1: to see it. And afterwards I was talking with my
45:41
Speaker 1: girls and it was an interesting interesting time. Number one,
45:45
Speaker 1: so first time they'd seen a movie that showed segregation.
45:48
Speaker 1: Like there's a great scene where you know, they had
45:51
Speaker 1: tragically segregated bathrooms and Kevin Costner gets a sledgehammer and
45:56
Speaker 1: slams down and knocks down the sign that says color restrooms,
46:00
Speaker 1: knocks it down and it's and I remember my girls
46:03
Speaker 1: were like so puzzled, Why would why would we do that.
46:05
Speaker 1: We had a very good, long conversation about the tragic
46:10
Speaker 1: history of segregation, but they'd never seen it depicted the movie,
46:15
Speaker 1: But we were also talking about So my mother, she
46:20
Speaker 1: came out of Rice in nineteen fifty six and she
46:24
Speaker 1: went to work at Shell as a computer programmer. She
46:26
Speaker 1: was a mathematician, a computer programmer, but then she went
46:30
Speaker 1: to work at the Smithsonian. And the opening scene of
46:33
Speaker 1: the movie Hidden Figures, they're computing the trajectory of Sputnik,
46:38
Speaker 1: the Russian satellite launched that started the whole space race.
46:44
Speaker 1: When my mother was at the Smithsonian, one of her
46:47
Speaker 1: job responsibilities was writing the computer program or helping write
46:51
Speaker 1: the computer program to track the orbit of Sputnik. Wow.
46:55
Speaker 1: And so I told our girls, I said, Mimi, They
46:57
Speaker 1: called my mom Mimi. I said, Mimi was was one
47:00
Speaker 1: of those pioneering mathematicians and computer programmers, and she was
47:05
Speaker 1: actually doing it ten years earlier. She was doing it
47:08
Speaker 1: in the fifties, whereas the movie said in the sixties.
47:10
Speaker 1: So it's ten years later. And I asked my mom,
47:12
Speaker 1: I said, okay, how realistic was the movie like? Like?
47:15
Speaker 1: And she thought it was very realistic, just sort of
47:17
Speaker 1: the challenges women faced in that era in science and
47:22
Speaker 1: computers and math. And I told her, I said, you know, Mom,
47:26
Speaker 1: one of the things that I thought sounded weird just
47:28
Speaker 1: to the modern ear was they referred to these women
47:32
Speaker 1: as as computers. Yeah, and we think of a computer
47:35
Speaker 1: as a hunk of metal. They were actually the women.
47:37
Speaker 1: It was a job of profession, a computing of the numbers,
47:41
Speaker 1: and my mother laughed. Her very first job title at
47:44
Speaker 1: Shell was computer and she had a business card that
47:48
Speaker 1: said eleanor Dara Computer. And so it's for years. I
47:56
Speaker 1: was the chairman of the Space Subcommittee of the Senate
48:00
Speaker 1: Commerce Committee, and so I'm very active in space. I
48:03
Speaker 1: passed a lot of space legislation. So I introduced legislation
48:08
Speaker 1: to rename the street in front of NASA headquarters Hidden
48:12
Speaker 1: Figures Way. That's awesome. Now it gets even more interesting.
48:17
Speaker 1: I introduced the legislation, and oddly enough, a Democrat member
48:22
Speaker 1: of the DC City Council sees my legislation and thinks
48:27
Speaker 1: this is a really good idea, so he introduces it
48:31
Speaker 1: in the DC City Council. The City Council passes it,
48:34
Speaker 1: and so if you go today to the NASA headquarters,
48:39
Speaker 1: it is on one Hidden Figure's Way. And I have
48:41
Speaker 1: in my office the streets sign, the actual street sign,
48:45
Speaker 1: another a replica copy of it. But I went to
48:47
Speaker 1: the dedication and I spoke at the dedication. The dedication,
48:51
Speaker 1: the DC City Council members of Democrat spoke and I spoke,
48:54
Speaker 1: I talked about my mom, and I said, look, on
48:58
Speaker 1: one level, you might think of KA street sign not
49:01
Speaker 1: that big a deal. But at another level, fifty years
49:06
Speaker 1: from now, one hundred years from now, some little girls,
49:08
Speaker 1: some little boy is going to come to DC, is
49:11
Speaker 1: going to want to see the NASA headquarters and they're
49:13
Speaker 1: gonna look up and see the sign. I'm gonna say,
49:15
Speaker 1: what is that? What is hidden figures what is? And
49:17
Speaker 1: they're going to hear the story of these heroes, these
49:20
Speaker 1: African American women who never got recognized in history, who
49:24
Speaker 1: did something historic. So that is done and accomplished, which
49:28
Speaker 1: leads us back to where we started this whole thing,
49:30
Speaker 1: which is Oswaldo Payahweh. So I introduced that legislation last Congress,
49:36
Speaker 1: and much like Lujabau, it passed the Senate one hundred
49:39
Speaker 1: to nothing. So it's bipartisan legislation. Bob Menendez, Democrat from
49:45
Speaker 1: New Jersey, Cuban American, he's joined with me. So it's
49:47
Speaker 1: the Cruise Menendez legislation. It passed the Senate one hundred
49:51
Speaker 1: to nothing. In the last Congress. It was a Democrat Congress.
49:54
Speaker 1: We couldn't get the House to pass it. I've got
49:58
Speaker 1: real optimism number one, Bob, and are going to pass
50:00
Speaker 1: it again in the Senate. I believe we did it
50:02
Speaker 1: last Congress, so I think it's quite likely, and I
50:05
Speaker 1: think there's a very good chance the House will pass
50:08
Speaker 1: at this time too. I hope. I hope too. Just
50:11
Speaker 1: like I was at NASA for the dedication, I hope
50:14
Speaker 1: to be at the Cuban Embassy, which I've never been
50:15
Speaker 1: to in DC. I'm not a fan of the Cuban government,
50:18
Speaker 1: but I will happily attend the dedication of the street
50:21
Speaker 1: sign so that every day those communist bastards go into
50:25
Speaker 1: work can look at us Waldo Paya and have to
50:29
Speaker 1: confront the courage of standing up for freedom. It's such
50:33
Speaker 1: a cool story. Keep us update on it. I love
50:35
Speaker 1: the history aspect of that. Don't forget. We do the
50:38
Speaker 1: show three days a week. We do one that is
50:40
Speaker 1: video only. You can see that on YouTube if you're
50:43
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50:46
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50:53
Speaker 1: this incredible podcast that we get to do every week.
50:55
Speaker 1: And we'll see you back here in a couple of days.