Latest / The Ben Ferguson Podcast / Biden's Chinese Balloon Theatre

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Biden's Chinese Balloon Theatre · The Ben Ferguson Podcast

0:00
Speaker 1: Welcome. Its verdict was Centator Ted Cruz. Ben Ferguson with you,
0:04
Speaker 1: and much of the nation center has been focused on
0:07
Speaker 1: this balloon, This Chinese spy balloon that was spotted all
0:12
Speaker 1: the way back on January the twenty eighth over Alaskan airspace,
0:16
Speaker 1: over America's airspace, that, according to senior military officials, now
0:20
Speaker 1: one of the earliest sightings, was confirmed in Montana on
0:24
Speaker 1: February the first. That balloon then continued to fly over
0:27
Speaker 1: the country to Kansas City area, where it drifted eastward
0:30
Speaker 1: on February the third, and then finally on February the fourth,
0:34
Speaker 1: the balloon was shot down by US fighter jet off
0:37
Speaker 1: the coast of South Carolina, and that was where it ended.
0:41
Speaker 1: More of the story is and less I'm wrong. This
0:44
Speaker 1: looks like it was mission accomplished. The mission was completed
0:48
Speaker 1: by the Chinese, and then we shot it down after
0:50
Speaker 1: it gotten everything it wanted on the American landscape. Whatever
0:55
Speaker 1: they wanted, they got it well. Ben, that could very
0:59
Speaker 1: well be the case. I will say this was not
1:03
Speaker 1: a good week for the Biden administration. It was not
1:05
Speaker 1: a good week for the country. I will say, you know,
1:10
Speaker 1: I rarely am in the business of commending Joe Biden,
1:13
Speaker 1: but I do at least have to command that he
1:16
Speaker 1: had the guts to shoot the thing down, which given
1:18
Speaker 1: the last two years, there was very little to think
1:21
Speaker 1: that he would have the guts to give that order.
1:23
Speaker 1: That was the right thing to do, So I'm glad
1:25
Speaker 1: he shot the balloon down. It would have been worse
1:28
Speaker 1: if he hadn't shot it down at all. That being said,
1:31
Speaker 1: he waited a week to shut it down. January twenty
1:34
Speaker 1: eighth is when this Chinese spy balloon first entered American airspace,
1:40
Speaker 1: and from January twenty eighth to this weekend he did
1:43
Speaker 1: not a damn thing. And unfortunately, on that entire journey,
1:48
Speaker 1: this spy balloon was collecting information. It was hovering over
1:52
Speaker 1: sensitive US military bases. It was collecting information both photographs
1:58
Speaker 1: presumably infrared and also very potentially attempting to intercept communications,
2:04
Speaker 1: and the data presumably were in turn being beamed upwards
2:08
Speaker 1: to a Chinese spy satellite and set back to Beijing.
2:12
Speaker 1: So we don't know the extent of what they captured,
2:15
Speaker 1: but they had an entire week to spy on our
2:17
Speaker 1: military basis, while the Biden administration did nothing There's another
2:23
Speaker 1: even more troubling consequence, which is the Biden administration sent
2:29
Speaker 1: a very clear message of weakness to She and the
2:34
Speaker 1: Chinese government. Why is that, Well, ask the simple hypothetical, Ben,
2:40
Speaker 1: what would have happened if nobody had spotted this balloon?
2:45
Speaker 1: If nobody on Montana, If no private citizen in Montana
2:49
Speaker 1: had looked up and said, hey, what's that giant thing
2:52
Speaker 1: sixty thousand feet up there? If there hadn't been pictures
2:55
Speaker 1: on the internet, if there hadn't been pictures on the news.
2:58
Speaker 1: The answers obvious. If the public hadn't noticed the balloon,
3:04
Speaker 1: Joe Biden would have done nothing, zero, nada. That's what
3:10
Speaker 1: they did for the entire week. That's what they did
3:13
Speaker 1: before the public spotted. If they didn't tell anyone, they
3:15
Speaker 1: didn't make a public disclosure, They didn't try to shoot
3:18
Speaker 1: it down. It was only after it began driving the
3:22
Speaker 1: news that Biden made the decision to shoot it down.
3:25
Speaker 1: But shoot it down after it had gathered all the
3:29
Speaker 1: intelligence it was sent together. In other words, for this
3:33
Speaker 1: White House, it wasn't a national security question. It was
3:37
Speaker 1: a politics question. It was a pr question. And it's
3:41
Speaker 1: because in this White House it's always politics all the time,
3:46
Speaker 1: rather than putting America. First question I've got to ask
3:50
Speaker 1: you now is and it's a question I want to know.
3:52
Speaker 1: Can Congress get an answer to this? You mentioned that
3:55
Speaker 1: if it wouldn't have been spotted by average Americans, and
3:58
Speaker 1: then it wouldn't have gone viral on the internet, we
4:00
Speaker 1: probably would have never known about this. Right. That brings
4:04
Speaker 1: up the question, has this happened before? And they allowed
4:07
Speaker 1: these balloons to just completely own America's airspace, go across
4:12
Speaker 1: our country from one side to the other, and collect
4:15
Speaker 1: any data that they want to that we don't even
4:17
Speaker 1: know about. So it is entirely possible. I will say
4:21
Speaker 1: this first entered American airspace in Alaska on January twenty eighth.
4:26
Speaker 1: Congress was in session last week. I was in DC
4:29
Speaker 1: last week. They didn't brief us. We had no briefings
4:32
Speaker 1: in Congress. We had no classified briefings. I'm on the
4:35
Speaker 1: set at Foreign Relations Committee. They didn't say a word
4:38
Speaker 1: to us. Now this coming week we're going to be
4:41
Speaker 1: in session as well. They damned sure better have a
4:44
Speaker 1: classified briefing this week. I have every expectation that they will,
4:48
Speaker 1: because I think members from both sides of the aisle
4:50
Speaker 1: want to know what the heck happened, but they did
4:54
Speaker 1: zero to inform Congress, even in a classified setting. Now,
5:00
Speaker 1: I will say, once this became public, there are a
5:03
Speaker 1: series of talking points that the Biden White House began
5:06
Speaker 1: putting out. Remember they treated this as a communication and
5:10
Speaker 1: political challenge, not as a national security challenge. And one
5:14
Speaker 1: of their talking points is they said, well, this has
5:16
Speaker 1: happened before, and they also said, in particular, it happened
5:21
Speaker 1: under the Trump administration. I will tell you, sitting here today,
5:25
Speaker 1: I don't know if that's true or not. I have
5:27
Speaker 1: not received any classified briefing or unclassified briefing that confirms that.
5:32
Speaker 1: All I know is what the administration is telling the press,
5:36
Speaker 1: trying to deflect responsibility my view. Now, even as they've
5:40
Speaker 1: spun that story, they've conceded that, well, they were very
5:45
Speaker 1: different contexts in the Trump administration. So I don't know
5:49
Speaker 1: what that means exactly what it means that they're very
5:52
Speaker 1: different contexts. What we know is that this balloon was
5:55
Speaker 1: over US airspace for a week, that it repeatedly hovered
5:59
Speaker 1: over very sensitive military installations for an extended period of time.
6:05
Speaker 1: If the Chinese had done it previously, we should have
6:07
Speaker 1: shot the damn thing down previously. But right now they're
6:12
Speaker 1: doing the same sort of thing they do on the
6:16
Speaker 1: classified documents at at Joe Biden's house or compared to Trump's,
6:22
Speaker 1: which is they selectively leak and then make it impossible
6:26
Speaker 1: for you to compare the severity of what you're talking about.
6:30
Speaker 1: I am perfectly happy to say that any president, Republican
6:35
Speaker 1: or Democrat, if the Chinese send a spy balloon over
6:39
Speaker 1: America and begin committing major acts of espionage that are
6:44
Speaker 1: threatening US military secrets, we need to act to prevent it.
6:48
Speaker 1: And Joe Biden didn't do that. We don't know whether
6:52
Speaker 1: or not the prior administration did. I want to ask
6:56
Speaker 1: you about dereliction of duty because there have been some
6:58
Speaker 1: of your colleagues that are now hauling at that. And
7:00
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8:12
Speaker 1: of your colleagues again, I know a friend of yours,
8:13
Speaker 1: Marco Rubio. He said Biden's failure to address the nation
8:18
Speaker 1: on Chinese balloon is the beginning of a dereliction of duties,
8:23
Speaker 1: saying the fact he's not even addressing us. We got
8:25
Speaker 1: to say, the Union coming up on Tuesday, and it's like,
8:28
Speaker 1: who's running this country right now? If it's not him, Well,
8:32
Speaker 1: unfortunately that follows a pattern where Biden does not address
8:36
Speaker 1: the nation, he doesn't take on these challenges directly. And
8:40
Speaker 1: the consequence of that it may be that, look, I
8:45
Speaker 1: assume at the State of the Union that Biden is
8:48
Speaker 1: going to try to victory lap this. He's going to
8:50
Speaker 1: try to say, the Chinese sent a balloon and I
8:52
Speaker 1: shot it down, and he's gonna beat his chest on that.
8:55
Speaker 1: But what a responsible commander in chief would do is
8:59
Speaker 1: number one, assess what was the damage to US national security?
9:04
Speaker 1: What valuable intelligence did they gather? And you know, the
9:08
Speaker 1: Biden administration is using a series of talking points. Their
9:10
Speaker 1: surrogates are pushing out one they're saying as they're saying, well,
9:14
Speaker 1: it was actually good for the United States to have
9:16
Speaker 1: the balloon in the air longer because we blocked its
9:19
Speaker 1: intelligence gathering and instead we gathered intelligence about the Chinese.
9:24
Speaker 1: To the best of my knowledge, there is no evidence
9:26
Speaker 1: for that assertion that that strikes me as a talking
9:31
Speaker 1: point drafted by a political operative rather than anything that
9:36
Speaker 1: is in fact accurate. They tried to cover this up
9:39
Speaker 1: because Tony Blincoln was planning to travel to China. He
9:44
Speaker 1: was going to be here, be in China this week,
9:47
Speaker 1: and they wanted the trip to happen. And then once
9:50
Speaker 1: the news broke publicly, they were stuck. And so on
9:56
Speaker 1: Friday they downplayed the threat, said no big deal. Now
9:59
Speaker 1: that the has been shot down, they're acting like Biden
10:02
Speaker 1: got there with a sniper rifle himself. It took the
10:05
Speaker 1: damn thing out over the Atlantic that they can't make
10:08
Speaker 1: up their message because they're trying to treat it as
10:11
Speaker 1: politics rather than national security. There's another aspect of the
10:16
Speaker 1: politics and national security of this, and that is the
10:19
Speaker 1: response from China. I think some Americans were taken aback
10:24
Speaker 1: by China's response to US shooting down their balloon. They've
10:29
Speaker 1: said it's there as they try to claim it was
10:30
Speaker 1: some sort of weather balloon that got off course. And
10:34
Speaker 1: now they're saying they basically reserve the right to respond
10:38
Speaker 1: with military ask action. Their words after coming into and
10:43
Speaker 1: spying on our country are stronger than our own commander
10:46
Speaker 1: in chiefs words about what happened here. That is concerning
10:50
Speaker 1: to me as well. Sure that there is some real
10:54
Speaker 1: risk of Chinese retaliation. Their language is suggesting that they
11:00
Speaker 1: are going to take action in retaliation, and part of
11:04
Speaker 1: the reason why the likelihood of that is not zero
11:08
Speaker 1: is that the Biden white House's response was so weak
11:12
Speaker 1: throughout this. They shot down the balloon after its mission
11:16
Speaker 1: was complete, after it had gathered the intelligence it was
11:19
Speaker 1: sent to gather, presumably after it had already transmitted that
11:23
Speaker 1: intelligence back to Beijing. Only then did Biden shoot it down,
11:27
Speaker 1: and that lesson the Chinese Communist government took They observed it.
11:34
Speaker 1: And what this White House doesn't understand is that weakness
11:39
Speaker 1: is provocative. The weaker the president is, the more likely
11:44
Speaker 1: our enemies are to be aggressive and hostile. We saw
11:49
Speaker 1: President Biden's weakness and foreign policy in Afghanistan with the
11:54
Speaker 1: great disgraceful surrender and withdrawal of Afghanistan, surrendering to the
11:59
Speaker 1: Taliban andandening Americans behind, leaving thirteen servicemen and women to
12:04
Speaker 1: be murdered because they botched the withdrawal so badly. That
12:08
Speaker 1: weakness encouraged our enemies. It encouraged China, it encouraged Russia,
12:14
Speaker 1: it encouraged Iran, and encouraged North Korea. Biden's weakness played
12:18
Speaker 1: a major part in Putin invading Ukraine. Biden's waiving the
12:24
Speaker 1: sanctions on the nord Stream two pipeline, sanctions that I
12:27
Speaker 1: authored into law, that President Trump signed into law that
12:30
Speaker 1: had prevented a Russian invasion. Biden waived those sanctions, and
12:35
Speaker 1: the direct result of waving those sanctions is We've had
12:39
Speaker 1: the most significant land war in Europe since World War Two.
12:43
Speaker 1: Weakness is provocative, and Biden's weakness this week on the
12:48
Speaker 1: spy balloon significantly increases the chances of the Chinese military
12:54
Speaker 1: doing things like harassing American planes and ships in Asia,
12:59
Speaker 1: doing things like trying to find American assets to do
13:03
Speaker 1: damage to. I think those are real possibilities because the
13:08
Speaker 1: Chinese government will assess that the US commander in chief
13:12
Speaker 1: will not respond with any meaningful response. You'll look at
13:18
Speaker 1: Joe Biden, and I'm going to ask you from a
13:20
Speaker 1: Senate perspective, solely here has there been a single issue
13:25
Speaker 1: to date where the President has shown true leadership with China,
13:30
Speaker 1: standing up to China. I mean, we know that we've
13:33
Speaker 1: given them oil from our strategic oil reserves. That happened
13:36
Speaker 1: right before the election, that was shocking to many Americans.
13:40
Speaker 1: We know that many believe that he and certainly a
13:43
Speaker 1: center compromised by the Chinese Communist Party. They have billions
13:46
Speaker 1: of dollars and loans going to the family business and
13:48
Speaker 1: millions and millions of profits. We know what happened with
13:52
Speaker 1: this Chinese oil company CEFE, and we know that they've
13:56
Speaker 1: never really answered those questions. But there are people that
13:59
Speaker 1: believe that they're clearly compromised. Has there been a single
14:03
Speaker 1: issue yet that's been significant where this administration has stood
14:07
Speaker 1: up to China to date. Well, look, I suppose you
14:10
Speaker 1: could say they shot down a spy balloon after it
14:12
Speaker 1: had finished its espionage ignission. So that's something that's not nothing.
14:17
Speaker 1: But I will tell you more broadly, it's not just
14:21
Speaker 1: Joe Biden in this White House. There are obvious personal
14:24
Speaker 1: issues dealing with allegations of Biden family corruption, the Biden
14:29
Speaker 1: family making millions of dollars from Communist China, from Hunter
14:33
Speaker 1: selling access to his father when he was vice president.
14:36
Speaker 1: There are those issues, But there's a broader issue about
14:39
Speaker 1: the Democrat Party, which is the Democrat Party is structurally
14:44
Speaker 1: pro China. And there's a reason for that, which is
14:48
Speaker 1: the major stakeholders who support the Democrat Party, big business,
14:54
Speaker 1: big tech, big Hollywood, and big universities. All of them
14:59
Speaker 1: are fully in bed with China. As a consequence, Today's
15:04
Speaker 1: Democrat Party is fully in bed with China. In the
15:08
Speaker 1: last Congress, I forced to vote on the Senate floor
15:11
Speaker 1: to block the US government from purchasing electric vehicles or
15:16
Speaker 1: batteries that were manufactured with slave labor in concentration camps
15:23
Speaker 1: in China. They're right now, over a million weekers being
15:27
Speaker 1: held in concentration camps in China. I forced that vote.
15:31
Speaker 1: Every single Democrat except one, Every Democrat except Joe Mansion
15:36
Speaker 1: voted no. They all voted in favor of the federal
15:41
Speaker 1: government buying products from concentration camps made using slave labor.
15:46
Speaker 1: I gotta tell you, Ben, I don't think histories why
15:48
Speaker 1: would they do that? Why? I mean, people hear that
15:51
Speaker 1: the way you just described it. You also mentioned this
15:53
Speaker 1: on facinations. You had an appearance there on Sunday morning.
15:57
Speaker 1: Why is it that more people are not asking the question,
16:00
Speaker 1: what was their logic on that one to say we're
16:02
Speaker 1: going to keep buying from slave labor camps when we
16:05
Speaker 1: claim that we're in favor of protecting basic human rights
16:08
Speaker 1: around the world. Well, I think it's two things. I
16:11
Speaker 1: think it is number one, the dynamic. I just described
16:14
Speaker 1: that the Democrat Party structurally is unwilling to stand up
16:18
Speaker 1: to China because too much of their support, their financial support,
16:22
Speaker 1: their intellectual support, their manpower is dependent on China. But secondly,
16:28
Speaker 1: when it comes in particular to electric vehicles and batteries,
16:32
Speaker 1: Today's Democrat Party has handed much of his agenda over
16:36
Speaker 1: to the radical environmentalist left, and so those issues trump
16:41
Speaker 1: human rights. John Kerry, who is supposedly the climates are
16:45
Speaker 1: in the White House, when he was asked about are
16:48
Speaker 1: you troubled about buying products made with slave labor in
16:52
Speaker 1: concentration camps, he said with the haughty aloofness of a
16:58
Speaker 1: man who married his mill. He said, well, that's not
17:02
Speaker 1: my department. I don't have to worry about that. I
17:06
Speaker 1: have suggested previously that John Carey should be named the
17:10
Speaker 1: concentration camp Customer of the Year. And I want you
17:14
Speaker 1: to pause and think for a second. What is history
17:18
Speaker 1: going to think? What are historians going to think ten years,
17:21
Speaker 1: twenty years, thirty years from now. Imagine concentration camps in
17:24
Speaker 1: the back in the past, imagine concentration camps where if
17:29
Speaker 1: you have businesses purchasing products made by slave labor. Today's
17:35
Speaker 1: Democrat party is very big on seeking reparations. Does that
17:40
Speaker 1: mean the weagers can sue John Carey and Joe Biden
17:44
Speaker 1: because they are funding the concentration camps. Not one hundred
17:48
Speaker 1: years ago, not fifty years ago, not ten years ago.
17:51
Speaker 1: Today John carry and Joe Biden are funding concentration camps
17:56
Speaker 1: with over one million people enslaved. It's immoral, but yet
18:01
Speaker 1: the press by and large won't cover it. Let's talk
18:05
Speaker 1: about the spin of this. You mentioned political operatives a
18:08
Speaker 1: moment ago. You did believe that the President on the
18:10
Speaker 1: State of the Union Tuesday night is more than likely
18:13
Speaker 1: going to be like, look, I shot this down, and
18:15
Speaker 1: the Democrats will stand and applause. But they also seem
18:18
Speaker 1: to be kind of pushing out a narrative that we
18:20
Speaker 1: waited so long to shoot down also because we were
18:22
Speaker 1: just trying to keep you safe. Mayor Pete was on
18:27
Speaker 1: this morning with Jake Tapper on CNN, and he basically says,
18:31
Speaker 1: to the American people, you owe us we kept you safe.
18:34
Speaker 1: Now center, you and I have flown together several times
18:37
Speaker 1: I've taken flying lessons, and when you're in those little
18:39
Speaker 1: assessin one seventy twos, you realize there's a lot of
18:43
Speaker 1: places where there aren't a lot of people in this country.
18:46
Speaker 1: I mean, it's a very big country, and when you're flying,
18:48
Speaker 1: you see a lot of areas where there's not dense populations.
18:52
Speaker 1: The idea that from Alaska all the way to New
18:55
Speaker 1: York we couldn't shoot this thing down anywhere because we
18:58
Speaker 1: were keeping you safe, I think maybe one of the
19:00
Speaker 1: most absurd lines I've heard so far. Yet they're testing
19:03
Speaker 1: it out on TV this morning. Listen. It states infrastructure,
19:07
Speaker 1: there's moms from Air Force Base and nuclear ballistic missile
19:09
Speaker 1: fields in Montana. If you look at the map, there
19:12
Speaker 1: Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri, Scott Air Force Base
19:15
Speaker 1: in Illinois, Fort Bragg, and Camp Lejune in North Carolina.
19:19
Speaker 1: Is the assumption that the balloon was able to gather
19:22
Speaker 1: sensitive information and transmit it back to the Chinese government. Well,
19:26
Speaker 1: the US has stated that steps were taken to prevent
19:30
Speaker 1: any problems in terms of intelligence collection. Remember, we are
19:34
Speaker 1: talking about a country that has a space program, so
19:37
Speaker 1: I don't know all the ins and outs of what
19:39
Speaker 1: this balloon was doing or what its capabilities were. I
19:42
Speaker 1: do know that when the President gave the order to
19:44
Speaker 1: have this handled, the military gauge the different risks and
19:47
Speaker 1: the different benefits of different approaches, made the decisions that
19:51
Speaker 1: they did brought this thing down without incident. Right. But
19:54
Speaker 1: the presumption has got to be that the Chinese were
19:56
Speaker 1: able to gather intelligence hovering over the United States for
19:59
Speaker 1: day after days, actually over some of these sensitive sites.
20:01
Speaker 1: I'm sure there's a similar presumption about what spy satellites
20:04
Speaker 1: do that is well outside of my lane. I'm just
20:07
Speaker 1: glad that nobody was heard as this thing came down.
20:09
Speaker 1: When did the Biden administration first learn about this balloon?
20:13
Speaker 1: This spy balloon entering US airspace, so we're told it
20:18
Speaker 1: first did so. It first entered to US airspace over
20:20
Speaker 1: Alaska two saturdays ago. Is that when the Biden administration
20:24
Speaker 1: learned about it? I really can't speak to that. What
20:26
Speaker 1: I can speak to is the great cooperation we have
20:28
Speaker 1: between the FAA and the Pentagon to make sure that
20:30
Speaker 1: when you have a special military operation like what it
20:34
Speaker 1: took to bring down this balloon, that it happens without
20:36
Speaker 1: any threat to American lives or property. I mean, you
20:39
Speaker 1: hear that, and it's like we just you can apparently
20:42
Speaker 1: now fly anything you want to over America and they're
20:44
Speaker 1: gonna tell you we kept you safe and there was
20:47
Speaker 1: nowhere that we could have even thought about taking out
20:50
Speaker 1: a balloon. So let me make a couple of observations.
20:53
Speaker 1: One just something I noticed listening to that. Did you
20:57
Speaker 1: pick up on Buddha Jig's case that he is mimicking
21:02
Speaker 1: Barack Obama? There must be a similar presumption about what
21:06
Speaker 1: spy satellites do. He's doing this sort of speed up
21:09
Speaker 1: and pause, speed up and pause, and it's interesting. Hakim Jeffries,
21:12
Speaker 1: the new Democrat leader in the House, has the exact
21:16
Speaker 1: same cadence he did he did down the night when
21:19
Speaker 1: he was having to hand over the gavel to Gavin Newsman. Finally,
21:21
Speaker 1: in his long long speech he did it said it
21:23
Speaker 1: almost exactly like Barack Obama, and Buddha Jedge didn't used
21:27
Speaker 1: to speak that way. I think he think he's getting
21:31
Speaker 1: ambitions of sixteen hundred Pennsylvania Avenue. And there's there's no
21:35
Speaker 1: real mystery about that. But it is a little amazing
21:38
Speaker 1: given the train wreck he's presided over at the Department
21:41
Speaker 1: of Transportation for two years, that his ambitions have stored
21:45
Speaker 1: so high. But let's focus on the substance of what
21:48
Speaker 1: he said and not the the amusing cadence that the
21:51
Speaker 1: affectation that he's put on. UM, I do not know
21:57
Speaker 1: the military's assessment of what the realm of civilian damage
22:01
Speaker 1: would have been from shooting it down earlier. If and
22:04
Speaker 1: when we have a classified briefing this week, I intend
22:08
Speaker 1: to ask that question. And obviously, if the military briefs
22:12
Speaker 1: that there's a risk of significant civilian damage or lives lost,
22:17
Speaker 1: that's a significant factor. That being said, the point you
22:21
Speaker 1: made Listen, this thing entered US airspace in Alaska. It
22:26
Speaker 1: traveled over Alaska, it traveled over rural Canada, it traveled
22:29
Speaker 1: over Idaho, it traveled over rural Montana. If if you
22:33
Speaker 1: were to pick locations that have the sparsest population that
22:39
Speaker 1: are the most suitable to shoot down a hot air balloon,
22:43
Speaker 1: it would be hard to come up with locations better
22:46
Speaker 1: suited to that. So I will say I will await
22:49
Speaker 1: the classified briefing to get a military estimation, but I've
22:54
Speaker 1: got a great deal of skepticism that they couldn't have
22:58
Speaker 1: taken this down in the middle of the wilderness, in
23:01
Speaker 1: the middle of nowhere before it had engaged in its espionage.
23:05
Speaker 1: I think the problem wasn't the feasibility. The problem was
23:09
Speaker 1: the lack of political will to carry it out. And
23:14
Speaker 1: the only reason they got the political will was not
23:18
Speaker 1: because they said, gosh, the risk of espionage is really significant.
23:23
Speaker 1: I think they completely completely minimized the risk of espionage.
23:27
Speaker 1: And it's not even because they said, gosh, if we
23:31
Speaker 1: appear weak to the Chinese, that will be provocative and
23:34
Speaker 1: encourage them to engage in more acts of hostility. I
23:37
Speaker 1: don't think they care about that. I think they project
23:39
Speaker 1: weakness every day of the week. The reason they finally
23:43
Speaker 1: shot it down once it was over the ocean and
23:45
Speaker 1: its mission was complete was because private citizens had spotted it.
23:51
Speaker 1: It went viral on the internet, it was leading the news,
23:54
Speaker 1: and suddenly everyone was aware of it, and then it
23:57
Speaker 1: became hey, let's shoot the balloon down now that we've
24:01
Speaker 1: already exposed exposed ourselves to espionage. And it was a
24:06
Speaker 1: communication and media play rather than a military action to
24:11
Speaker 1: keep America safe. Yeah, I couldn't agree with you more
24:14
Speaker 1: on that one. I want to ask you about this
24:15
Speaker 1: important meeting. In our last Verdict episode, we talked about
24:19
Speaker 1: Anthony Lincoln and bringing up a hostage. It's been held
24:22
Speaker 1: in China for a decade now ten years in American hostage.
24:25
Speaker 1: How does that change. Sam's going to ask you about
24:27
Speaker 1: that in a moment, But first I want to tell
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25:48
Speaker 1: You and I talked about this and it made a
25:50
Speaker 1: lot of news, thank goodness, about an American it's being
25:54
Speaker 1: held hostage in China. You talked about this important meeting
25:57
Speaker 1: with Anthony B. Lincoln meeting with the Chinese. Do we
25:59
Speaker 1: know the status of that meeting now that this has
26:02
Speaker 1: happened with this balloon and what can the American people
26:05
Speaker 1: do now really to be an advocate for this American
26:08
Speaker 1: it's being held hostage. Well, unfortunately the meeting has not happened,
26:12
Speaker 1: happening and we don't know when it will happen in
26:15
Speaker 1: the future. Mark Swedan has been wrongfully imprisoned in China
26:20
Speaker 1: for over a decade now. He's a Texan. He's from Luling, Texas.
26:25
Speaker 1: I've spoken to his mother multiple times. His mother, Catherine,
26:28
Speaker 1: is a wonderful woman, who loves her son, who has
26:31
Speaker 1: been praying for her son, who's been speaking out for
26:33
Speaker 1: her son. This past week, I introduced a resolution in
26:37
Speaker 1: the Senate calling on China to release Mark Swedan, laying
26:41
Speaker 1: out the facts of his case, that he was prosecuted
26:44
Speaker 1: over a decade ago. He was sentenced to death on
26:48
Speaker 1: very flimsy charges, charges for which there are little there's
26:52
Speaker 1: little to no evidence. The State Department has concluded he's
26:55
Speaker 1: unjustly detained. The United Nations has concluded he's unjustly detained.
26:59
Speaker 1: And I'll tell you the case I made on the
27:02
Speaker 1: floor of the Senate last week, and the case I
27:05
Speaker 1: made on face the Nation yesterday, is that China aspires
27:10
Speaker 1: to be a great nation. China aspires to be a
27:12
Speaker 1: great power. China argues to the world it should be
27:15
Speaker 1: considered a great nation and a great power. Well, great
27:18
Speaker 1: nations and great powers don't hold hostages, they don't behave
27:22
Speaker 1: like tinpot dictators by targeting hostages and political prisoners from
27:28
Speaker 1: other countries. And so I have urged China very senior
27:33
Speaker 1: levels of government to release Mark Suedan. I had urged
27:37
Speaker 1: Tony Blincoln to press and use the tools we have
27:40
Speaker 1: for China to release Mark Sudan, and I'm going to
27:43
Speaker 1: continue pressing the Biden administration to move that forward. It
27:47
Speaker 1: is unfortunate that b Lincoln will not be able to
27:51
Speaker 1: make that case in person this next week. I don't
27:54
Speaker 1: know when he will next have communications with his Chinese counterparts.
27:59
Speaker 1: One last question on this. If you go back to
28:01
Speaker 1: DC this week and it's the week of the stay
28:03
Speaker 1: of the Union, obviously that sucks all the oxygen out
28:06
Speaker 1: of the room. But when will you guys find out
28:08
Speaker 1: if you are going to get a classified briefing on
28:10
Speaker 1: what happened this last week? And if they if it
28:12
Speaker 1: doesn't pop up on the schedule, can you guys request
28:16
Speaker 1: it or can you demand it? How does the protocol
28:19
Speaker 1: work with Congress from that perspective if they just decide
28:22
Speaker 1: to say, we're going to mention to stay the Union,
28:24
Speaker 1: but you guys aren't getting any intel out of us,
28:26
Speaker 1: you know, I think it is likely that we'll have
28:28
Speaker 1: a classified briefing. We can request it, we can press
28:32
Speaker 1: for it. Sometimes the administration will come to Congress and
28:36
Speaker 1: say we want to present a classified briefing. Sometimes those
28:39
Speaker 1: briefings are presented to particular committees, So you frequently have
28:43
Speaker 1: classified briefings presented to the intelligence committees. Those get the
28:48
Speaker 1: most classified, the most sensitive briefings. You frequently have classified
28:53
Speaker 1: briefings presented to the Senate Armed Services Committee or to
28:56
Speaker 1: the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. I spent six years on
28:58
Speaker 1: Armed Services. I'm currently on Foreign Relations, and so I'm
29:02
Speaker 1: often in classified briefings on matters such as this. And
29:06
Speaker 1: then periodically you'll have a classified briefing for all senators,
29:09
Speaker 1: so all hundred senators are invited, and that happens, though
29:12
Speaker 1: I don't know, probably once every two months or so
29:16
Speaker 1: is about the frequency of those briefings. I can tell
29:19
Speaker 1: you I and others have asked for briefings on the
29:22
Speaker 1: classified documents that were found at Joe Biden's multiple residences
29:27
Speaker 1: and also at Maralago and Pence's residence, to get classified
29:31
Speaker 1: briefings on all those documents. What kind of documents are
29:34
Speaker 1: we talking about and what where do things stand to date?
29:39
Speaker 1: The administration is said, go jump in the lake. They
29:42
Speaker 1: have only briefed the Intelligence Committee and the Intelligence Committee members,
29:46
Speaker 1: both Republicans and Democrats are ticked off. They've said that
29:50
Speaker 1: the briefing they got was woefully inadequate, so I and
29:55
Speaker 1: others are pressing for a full briefing on this. Typically,
29:59
Speaker 1: the way would work if Congress wants a briefing is
30:03
Speaker 1: that you would get Schumer and McConnell to press the
30:06
Speaker 1: administration and say we need a briefing on this topic.
30:09
Speaker 1: As I said, I think the odds are pretty good
30:12
Speaker 1: that they will schedule one because I think the interest
30:16
Speaker 1: on this Chinese spy balloon is widespread, and I think
30:20
Speaker 1: it's on both sides of the aisle. People have a
30:22
Speaker 1: lot of questions and are irritated that we learned about
30:25
Speaker 1: it via Twitter and noting the via the administration actually
30:30
Speaker 1: telling us what the hell was going on. Tuesday night
30:34
Speaker 1: is the State of the Union. I will be there
30:36
Speaker 1: at the State of the Union. I've been at a
30:39
Speaker 1: lot of state State of the Union addresses. You know,
30:42
Speaker 1: I'll tell you. For the State of the Union, each
30:44
Speaker 1: Senator is given the opportunity to invite a guest, and
30:47
Speaker 1: so the guest I've invited to Tuesday State of the
30:50
Speaker 1: Union is Lieutenant Levi Baird, who's a Navy surface warfare officer.
30:56
Speaker 1: He's a Texas resident, he's a top rated officer, and
30:59
Speaker 1: he's currently a signed as an instructor at the Navy's
31:01
Speaker 1: Surface Warfare School. And in March of twenty two, he
31:06
Speaker 1: faced a separation board because he declined to get the
31:11
Speaker 1: COVID vaccine, and before they could kick him out, a
31:15
Speaker 1: federal judge entered an injunction preventing them from kicking him out.
31:20
Speaker 1: But now the Navy is trying to recoup from him
31:23
Speaker 1: seventy five thousand dollars that they already paid him because
31:27
Speaker 1: he wasn't named a department head and he didn't make
31:30
Speaker 1: department head because he made the personal decision not to
31:34
Speaker 1: receive the COVID vaccine due to his sincere religious objection.
31:39
Speaker 1: And so I'm really proud to be welcoming Lieutenant Baird
31:43
Speaker 1: to the State of the Union, and I hope that
31:46
Speaker 1: his being there will cause those in the media to
31:50
Speaker 1: tell his story because it really underscores how grotesquely unfair
31:54
Speaker 1: Joe Biden's policies are that are punishing these American hero
32:00
Speaker 1: these sailors and soldiers and airmen and marines and coast
32:03
Speaker 1: guardsmen who spent their lives defending this nation, and yet
32:07
Speaker 1: this administration is doing everything they can to punish them
32:14
Speaker 1: for making their own personal medical choice, consistent with their
32:18
Speaker 1: own conscience, consistent with their own faith. Yeah, it's a
32:22
Speaker 1: perfect person invite to say of the Union and bring
32:24
Speaker 1: light to that. We will be back with you, by
32:27
Speaker 1: the way, doing a special show the night of the
32:30
Speaker 1: Stay of the Union super late. You guys will get
32:32
Speaker 1: that on Wednesday morning as well, So make sure you
32:35
Speaker 1: hit that subscribe or auto download button. It makes you
32:38
Speaker 1: tell your family and friends about this podcast. Please pray
32:42
Speaker 1: for that American hostage and reach out to your congressman center.
32:45
Speaker 1: We don't need this to lose any momentum right now.
32:50
Speaker 1: We need to keep focusing on that. We'll see you
32:52
Speaker 1: back here at Wednesday morning. Make sure you join a
32:55
Speaker 1: send center, have fun to stay the Union as always,
32:57
Speaker 1: and over under this a shorter long speech under thirty
33:01
Speaker 1: minutes or over thirty minutes your thoughts. That's an easy one.
33:04
Speaker 1: I feel like I'm gonna predict an hour and twenty
33:08
Speaker 1: one minutes. Oh, I like it all right, hour and
33:11
Speaker 1: twenty one. I'm gonna go fifty two minutes all right, Well,
33:15
Speaker 1: you know you didn't quite prices right me. You didn't
33:17
Speaker 1: say an hour and twenty minutes. So we'll see how
33:20
Speaker 1: it shakes out. Done, I love it all right, We'll
33:23
Speaker 1: see how you guys back here Wednesday morning,