Latest / The Ben Ferguson Podcast / Bad Hombres ft. DHS Secretary Chad Wolf

Transcript

Bad Hombres ft. DHS Secretary Chad Wolf · The Ben Ferguson Podcast

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: A crisis at the border, a crisis within the borders,
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: civil unrest all over the country, and we are lucky
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: enough to have taken a little bit of time out
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: of the day of the man who has to deal
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: with all of it, the Acting Secretary of the Department
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: of Homeland Security, Chad Wolf. This is Verdict with Ted Cruz.
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: Welcome back to Verdict with Ted Cruz. I am joined
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: as always by Senator Ted Cruz and mister Secretary, Thank
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: you so much for taking the time out. I know
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: you're very busy, but certainly a pleasure. Thank you for
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: having me. So is there anything to talk about? I
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: think there are a few things. The world's on fire.
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: The world is on fire, and mister Secretary, you've got
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: to deal with a lot of it. Let's begin all
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: the way on the West Coast in Portland. There has
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: been violence, civil unrest and has fallen on you to
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: deal with it. Absolutely, what we see in Portland, as
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: I've talked about probably over the last several weeks, is
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: very different than what we see anywhere else in the country.
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: We have a community that has fostered an environment of
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: violence in Portland. This goes back to twenty eighteen where
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: we had an ice facility, a DHS facility set siege
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: to for about twenty eight days, and for twenty eight days,
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: the local law enforcement didn't do anything to help our employees.
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: So there's a there's a history. If I remember right,
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: the mayor Ted wheel Wheeler, who's also the Commissioner Police,
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: he announced at the time when when the ice facility
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: was was under assault that the police wouldn't protect it.
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: Is that's correct? That's correct? And what did that? So
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: let's go back to because there's there's a history here
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: that sets the stage. So they're attacking the ice facility,
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: mayor says, police, forget it, you don't get police protection.
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: So what happened then? So it took about twenty eight
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: days and we had to send in federal law enforcement officers.
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: We had to send in a contingent of DHS officers,
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: but we also had some DOJ officers, some marshals and
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: others that went in provided egress entry and exit from
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: that facility to get our employees back and forth, make
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: sure they're that facility was protected. There there were weapons
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: in the facility just to make sure it was secure. Uh.
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: And then we had those individuals. Was there violence that
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: there wasn'tov cocktail starting out the facility. It was damaged,
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: it was vandalized. They did not get inside, luckily, but
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: the outside was vandalized all right. So fast forward to
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: now what exactly is happening in Portland? I guess there's
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: a federal courthouse and a federal building. Is that right?
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: Are there two places in particular that where the conflict is? Right?
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: So we've got about five federal facilities in Portland. There
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: is the Mark Hatfield Federal Courthouse, which is where ninety
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: five percent of the violence has taken place, and that's
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: a working courthouse, like right now, there are cases going
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: on in the courthouse today. There is a grand jury
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: in the courthouse today. And we are being told though
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: that the violent protests they're actually just peaceful demonstrations that
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: are happening at this courthouse. What's the real story, Well,
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: there's both. So what we see is we see peaceful protesting.
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: So then we got all the gook back to the
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: George Floyd death, which is really when all this started
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: in Portland. We see very peaceful protest every day. So
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: for sixty days we see peaceful protests. They usually occur
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: between six and seven o'clock at night, and they run
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: to about eleven o'clock at night, and then there's a
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: small break and about how many people are we talking?
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: Typically we see several hundred, several hundred peaceful protests, their
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: speeches being made, a clus out there. There's a variety
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: of different groups out there that does not make the
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: media that you know. I remember a period during the
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: whole Seattle Chazz schud. I couldn't come up with the
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: new chop. We've been calling it the Soviet Union, but
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: there are other names. But during that whole thing in Seattle,
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: I remember, I think I commented on Twitter that that
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: Portland was quite peaceful while Seattle was had this autonomous zone.
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: And it was like, wow, when when Portland thinks you're
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: you're doing a bad job in law enforcement, you've really
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: taken a bad turn. And it seems after the Chazz
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: Chop whatever was disbanded, that's that seems to be about
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: the time Portland got a lot worse. Yeah, what we
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: saw over the course of June was progressively got getting
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: more and more violent. We started sending Federal Protective Service
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: officers to that courthouse to provide some additional support. What
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: is the Federal Protective Service officer? What does that? So?
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: Fps Federal Protective Service is a component of the Department
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: of Homewade Security. They secure about nine thousand, almost nine
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: thousand federal facilities, mostly owned by GSA. These are federal facilities.
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: So these are not all enforcement officers that are protecting
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: federal buildings. Yeah, so it's courthouses, but it's also maybe
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: you're so security administration is there, it's where federal benefits
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: are exercised in any given city state, they are protecting
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: those buildings. They'd largely do that with a contract force,
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: but they also have federal officers. So in Portland and
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: I guess there's there's a long history of violence against
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: federal buildings. Obviously, Ted Kazinski blowing up the federal building
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: in Oklahoma was horrific, and I mean that this is
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: not a new threatening thing. It's not anything at all.
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: In fact, under the last administration and Secretary Johnson, DHS
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: secretary deployed federal resources to federal facilities because of certain
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: demonstrations in Baltimore after Freddy Gray's death. He deployed additional
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: resources there because there was violence directed at federal facilities.
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: So this is nothing new. We do this all the
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: time at the department. It's only now getting certain attention.
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: You know. We've been told also, and I think you've
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: run a good distinction here between the peaceful protesters and
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: then these violent anarchists who show up at night. We've
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: been told though, this is a grassroots movement, a sort
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: of spontaneous uprising. You think it's organized, Oh, absolutely, it's
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: absolutely organized. So again we come back. So, for sixty
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: nights in a row, we saw between midnight and five am,
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: these are violent individuals, violent criminals, violent opportunists, violent anarchists.
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: And how many are we talking anywhere from five hundred
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: at the height to about five thousand. Wow, So these
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: are five thousand individuals that are outside of a courthouse.
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: We had to put up temporary fencing. They took it down,
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: they lit it on fire, and they barricaded our folks
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: inside the courthouse. Very very dangerous. So we reinforced the fencing.
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: It did help, but you have violent individuals approaching that
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: fence line every night. They stage in a park, a
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: city park, to city parks across the street, they stage there.
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: They use city streets to come to that facility and
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: then they will stay there for several hours while the
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: city police the state police did nothing. Well. This brings
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: up an important question too, which is a lot of
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: the people who are defending these anarchists are saying that
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: the federal government has no right to go and arrest
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: them if they leave the federal property and they go
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: on to city property. So again, just inaccurate information, they
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: just don't know what they're talking about. So forty years,
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: I can't believe that no nobody in politics would ever
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: say something if they didn't know what they were talking So,
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: you know, the US Code coret you know, passed by
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: Congress statute gives us the ability not only to protect
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: our facilities, but to investigate and arrest individuals that we
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: see that are damaging our facilities off property. So this
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: idea that you can damage a federal facility and then
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: step across the road and say sorry, you can't touch me.
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: It's very similar to if someone walked up to the
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: United States Capital tried to burn the capital down and
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: step across the street and say sorry, you can't touch me.
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: It's not how long would work, It would not work. No,
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: no ideas anymore yeah, not work. And that's what really
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: we were up against for sixty days in Portland. So
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: you have to hold individuals accountable. So DHS, along with
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: the Marshall Service started making a rest because state and
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: local law enforcement refused to. So how much violence are
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: we talking about? Is this one guy taking a swing
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: at somebody? I mean, I mean, what help people understand one?
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: Actually you see kind of images online. You see some
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: fires and people pulling on fences. But what's what's really
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: going on? I say, initially, I would say the most
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: I would say lease violent that you would see would
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: be bricks being thrown at law enforcement officers. That's the
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: least violent. That's the least violent. Bricks you see, frozen
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: water bottles, anything that's hard, hard can food you see
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: being thrown at law enforcement officers as they come out
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: and try to protect the facility. It then starts to
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: ratch it up. We've seen molotov tales, officers have taken
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: sledgehammers to the head. We see IED's being thrown up there.
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: You're saying people are hitting police officers in the head
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: with sledgehaders. Correct, How many officers have been injured during
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: the core support for DHS. We've had over two hundred
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: and forty seven different injuries to law enforcement officers, about
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: over one that's just Portland. That's just Portland. Holy crap,
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: that's just Portland. Two hundred and forty seven different injuries
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: to law enforcement officers. About over a hundred officers have
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: individually been injured. And Portland, by the way, is not
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: the only site of this violence. We've been seeing it
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: in other cities as well. We see a little different
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: violence in different cities, you know, whether it's Chicago, Kansas City, Albuquerquet,
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: even Seattle. That's more street crime. There is some organized
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: violence as well, but Portland is very different than any
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: other city we've seen. As I indicated, thousands of folks
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: every night for sixty days come to a fence line
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: around a federal courthouse and want to burn it down.
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: There's their video on that. What are they doing with lasers?
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: I mean, that's that's harmless, right, That's just a pointer
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: like putting its No, not at all. They there's some
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: pretty powerful lasers they're using. So as the law enforcement
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: officers come out of the building to protect it, they
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: will shine the green lasers in their eyes and unfortunately,
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: we have about three officers that are going to have
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: some probably permanent damage. When you say permanent damage, they're
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: facing partial or total blind We're waiting for medical to
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: come back. But that's that's what we're hearing at the moment. Yes, okay,
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: so it's not I mean I can see people thinking, oh,
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: you know, I play with a pointer at home and
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: my cat chases it. That's that's That's not it aiming
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: real and powerful lasers at the eyeballs of officers and
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: you've got three who are seriously injured. We do so,
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: we've taken corrective measures. We've given them some eyewear that
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: protects against that. But this is a new tactic from
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: these individuals that we have first seen here in Portland.
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: And I guess one of the challenges is a lot
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: of these guys are dressed in all black. They're wearing goggles,
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: are wearing a mask. And so if you have someone
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: throw a brick and it hits an officer and he's bleeding,
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: you have someone right point a laser and it blinds
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: an officer, you can't always tell who did it. I mean,
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: they're all dressed the same. I mean, is that part
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: of what they're trying to do. Absolutely, it's very difficult,
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: and they do that on purpose, and they we see
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: tactics that they use that are very similar to law enforcement.
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: They try to obscure their movements. They do a number
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: of different things that make it difficult for law enforcement
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: to engage with them. Now we have our own tactics,
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: we are able to identify certain individuals that are lighting
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: fires throwing. We've seen barbecues being tossed over the fence.
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: They're on fire. A barbecue grill, yeah, like a like
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: a Weber grill, yeah, tossed over. Do they at least
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: put burgers? And something tells me they're not that courteous.
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: We see mortar style, commercial grade tofu. They wouldn't be burgers.
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: That really, I gotta say in Texas, those are fighting words.
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: If you throw a barbecue with nothing but tofu and
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: veggie burgers, it's just route. It's just that's the only
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: thing that commercial grade fireworks are being thrown in and
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: so as those explode several inches from officers, it can
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: become very very dangerous. They get burnt. This is not
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: somebody light in a black cat like a mortar style
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: firework that gets shot from across the street, inside the
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: park into the facility. Mister Secretary, the scene that you
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: are describing, and I think the scene that a lot
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: of us have seen on television is one that we
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: would expect in a foreign country in the Middle East,
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: in a war zone. This is not the sort of
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: thing we would expect within the borders of the United States. Absolutely,
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: and I've been saying that for almost over a month
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: now that the violence that we see in Portland. People
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: have to understand it's not a few protesters who are
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: getting angry and deciding to bang on offense. These are
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: violent individuals that are organized. They have supply lines. This
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: is an organized entity here that is doing this. And unfortunately,
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: despite our request, we have state and local law enforcement
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: up until recently, for sixty days, refused to engage these folks.
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: So are the cops behaving differently now? Are they politicians?
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: Let them actually do their job? They have so at
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: the middle of July, I want to say, I place
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: phone calls to the Mayor of Portland as well to
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: the government of Oregan and I basically put any any
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: resource at the department at their hands, you know, for
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: them as they addressed the violence, they had the full
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: resources of the department. Their response was no, thank you,
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: and please leave Portland, which of course we didn't do.
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: And if you'd left Portland, what would have happened that
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: the facility would have burned, the courthouse would have burned.
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: But you're saying what the mayor and governor were saying
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: is just abandoned the Federal court absolutely and let the
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: mob burn the courthouse to the ground. That's that was
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: their request of me. Well, you know, this ties into
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: the same strategy we've heard from the same people on
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: the international front, which is, don't enforce our border with Mexico,
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: allow the border to be totally open, allow people to
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: come in. And DHS has been a particular object of
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: those criticisms. What is DHS. It's a pretty new new agency.
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: What all falls within the umbrellas. So we have about
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: two hundred and forty thousand employees across the enterprise. Are
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: y'all the biggest civilian agency so other than DoD, I
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: leave the Veterans Administrations a little bit bigger. Interesting just
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: from a pure side standpoint. So within the department, we
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: do everything from aviation security, so the commercial checkpoint security
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: that you see as you get on commercial aircraft, we
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: do that TSA. TSA, so TSA reports to you TSA
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: Customs and Border Protection, so we talk about border security.
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: They're certainly along that border. You know, when they do
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: the groping at the stands, it'd be really good if
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: they could like just do the lower back a little
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: more an official request. Yeah, I mean, I'm like, look,
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: if you're got to get it, I got to sore
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: muscle down there. Well, they got to. They have to
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: continue to do their job. I say thank you to
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: them every time. I'm a diplomatic. As long as we
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: don't have any incidents in the skies, I'm happy. Customs
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: and Order Protection ICE Immigration Customs enforcement is also inside
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: the department USCIS. Which so what's the difference between Customs
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: and Border Protection and ICE. Sure, CBP A customers and
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: mainly protecting our border southwest border, northern border, m border.
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: So those are the guys in green, they're they're not
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: they're in the Rio grand They're absolutely they're not only
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: the men and women in green, but they're also in blue.
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: So as you come to a port of entry and
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: you're legally coming to the US, you're going to have
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: to go through several officers and go through a process,
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: so they do not only legal but illegal entry into
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: the US. Okay, So that's CBP and then ICE is
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: what ICE is, Immigrations and Customs Enforcements. So these are
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: the individuals. We have both ICE E r O, which
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: is our removal operations, So these are individuals that will
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: go into communities, identify criminals, identify other individuals that have
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: no legal right to be in the US, and remove them.
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: We also have homemade security MS thirteen absolute gang members. Yes,
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: you've got ICE officers going in arresting them, and some
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: of these guys can be pretty violent, very very dangerous,
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: very dangerous. The large majority of I would say targets
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: that we get are actually from individual jails and courthouses,
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: so it's in visuals that have probably have gotten picked
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: up on another criminal charge, come to find out very
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: illegally here in the US. We would then go in,
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: you know, ascertain them, and then start removing. There were
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: now widespread calls among one political party to abolish that
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: entire enforcement agency. So it's not just the removal operations.
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: We have homemade security investigations, which a transnational criminal organizations
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: drug trafficking. They do a variety of national security missions
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: that are part of ICE. So part of what they
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: want to ambolish our criminal investigators protecting communities from a
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: varide variety of threats. So I think it's an interesting
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: arc of development because a couple of years ago, the
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: Democrats seized upon abolish ICE. I mean it started with AOC,
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: It started off with a few kind of fringe characters,
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: and then it expanded and some of what you guys
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: faced in Portland with Ted Wheeler refusing to protect the
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: ICE facilities was a manifestation back then that they were
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: saying get rid of ICE. That's now transmogrified into abolish
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: all police that that that that it's not just ICE that,
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: but it's it's anyone with a badge and a gun
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: is apparently now the bad guy. Um what so Nancy
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: Pelosi has called your officers stormtroopers. Yes, it's what do
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: you what do you make of that? Well, she's not
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: only called them stormtroopers. I heard him be referred to
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: as the Gestapo or thugs as well. Uh, completely irresponsible comments.
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: I've called on each of those members of Congress that
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: have said those terms to apologize to the men and
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: women of DHS, these are civil law enforcement officers, get
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: up every day, put on a badge, put on a uniform,
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: protect their communities. So these are cops. They're federal cops,
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: but they're they're law enforcement officers protecting us. Absolutely, they do.
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: They go to training, they establish, they have procedures that
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: they follow, they have authorities that they follow, and to
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: call them stormtroopers, to invoke that kind of imagery is
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: just shameful. And for the recording, is an arrest kidnapping
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: because that's the language they're saying is apparently you're now kidnappers. Yeah,
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: So it's again, I think it's individuals that don't understand
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: what our mission is. So they're in Portland because you
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: did not have state or you didn't have local law
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: enforcement making arrest. So night after night after night, hundreds
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: of individuals are committing criminal acts with no consequence. And
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: DHS said, well, we can't have that. That's not how
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: law enforcement works. So we have the ability to go
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: out and arrest individuals, and we started doing that within
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: a two to three block radius of the courthouse. And
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: then that's when you know a number of individuals said, well,
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: how can you do that, how can you arrest individuals, Well,
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: they are committing criminal acts, that's how you arrest individuals.
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: You're making this point about Nancy Pelosi and a lot
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: of other Democrats in the House. It's an election year.
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: They're heightening up the rhetoric. They're going after abolish iz
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: abolish law enforcement. But there's another very hot political issue
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: that they're also talking about, which is immigration. Illegal immigration
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: that the border. This was a central plank when President
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: Trump was running for office. What's the situation down there
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: on the border wall, on enforcement, on making sure our
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: country security. Is there a wall? Absolutely? Absolutely. We just
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: eclipsed about two hundred and sixty five miles of the
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: new border wall system under President Trump. So so there
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: was a wall to begin with. We had we had
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: several hundred walls, several hundred miles a wall initially, and
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: we built about two hundred more, I would say initially
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: as we came in. We had different forms of fencing,
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: some of it about six feet tall, some of it
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: maybe up to eight feet tall. Maybe easily scalable, easily defeated,
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: no impedance and denial there any type of barrier. What
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: you want for our border patrol, the men and women
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: in green on the border. They want something that's going
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: to stop an individual or at least to slow them down.
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: So that's the impedance and denial aspect of coming into
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: the country illegally. The bigger the barrier, the more effective
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: the barrier, the easier it is for them to do
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: their job. What we saw with six foot high wall,
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: you could scale it, you could be over disappear, very
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: difficult for border patrol to do their job. The new
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: border wall system that we're building in many cases is
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: thirty feet high. It has ground sensors, says lighting, it
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: has radar, It has a number of things that if
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: you can, if you can defeat it, very difficult too.
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: If you can defeat it, you have border patrol waiting
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: on you as you get to the other side of
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: that of that border wall system. All right, So I
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: gotta tell a story, Michael. I spent a lot of
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: time with CBP in Texas and they're incredible men and women.
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: And several years ago I joined them down in Real
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: Grand Valley for their midnight muster and then went out
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: on midnight patrol with which is very cool. And so
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: we're going out and they arrested a number of people,
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: and so they go into this one stash house that's oh,
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: probably two hundred yards in from the river, and they
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: go in and kick the door down, and there are
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: a bunch of bunch of people there that they're apprehending,
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: and there's some pretty rough look at characters coming out
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: of the stash house, including one guy I remember who
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: was big. He was probably two sixty two eighty pounds,
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: was wearing sort of a raggedy undershirt covered with tats,
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: I mean tats everywhere, and the agents kept saying Senator, senator, Hey,
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: come over here, senator, come look at the Senator. I'll
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: be back here. Thanks now. And I'm like, xnay on
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: the editors stay, just just call me Bob. Guys like
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: that is, you know, I think that's probably typical. Though.
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: We're dealing with, to use the President's term, tough embres
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: down here, and I don't know, to hear the rhetoric
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: coming from the left right now, it's as though these
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: are the most wonderful people in the world and the
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: villains are the law enforcement officers who are trying to arrest.
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: It's it's disgraceful. Really. Again, we have. DHS is the
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: largest law enforcement agency in the country. We have over
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: one hundred thousand law enforcement officers in the department doing
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: their job every day on the border. Every day they're
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: building that wall, they're stopping individuals from crossing into the
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: country illegally, and I would say, in a pandemic environment,
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: stopping individuals crossing into the country illegally takes on a
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: more important mission, of course, not just stopping immigration by
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: a laters. We're stopping individuals that perhaps could have COVID nineteen,
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: could be coming into the US and infecting Americans. We're
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: told that we're not allowed to leave our homes in
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: many cases, but it's perfectly fine to have foreign nationals
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: who obviously are not being tested across that border illegally.
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: But actually, Center, you raised this question for me because
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: your job is to make the laws there are. Your
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: job is to enforce the laws, and there are regulations
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: that you all and my job is entirely to make
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: fun of the list. But it occurs to me if
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: we're now four years into an administration, we were told,
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: big beautiful wall. We know that people want to build
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: the wall, and yet I think a lot of people
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: listening will say, only two hundred or two hundred and
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: fifty miles of wall, what's the hold up in It
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: strikes me there are other people who make the laws
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: as well, outside of our perhaps constitutional system. Yeah, so
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: we are not only stymied by congressional inaction. You know,
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: the President has been very clear about a border wall system.
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: We've had to find that funding internally to the administration
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: over the last several years is Congress. Certain members of Congress,
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: I would say, are not supportive of that. But we
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: also have courts and we have lawsuits that we have
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: to deal with. But again, as far as building the
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: border wall system, we're going to reach three hundred miles
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: by the end of August. We'll be We're here in
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: early August. They built two hundred miles of wall. We've
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: got another hundred miles coming into August month or so, right,
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: and I think is the goal by the end of
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: the year, four hundred and fifty fifty to five hundred right, right.
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: And that's a new wall, this is or replacing previous
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: So it's a great you know, this is what the
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: other side, you know, our opponents usually say, is you're
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: not actually building any new wall. So in many cases
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: we are tearing down a five to six foot fence
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: and putting up a thirty foot wall, and in any
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: case that is a new wall. It's very much like
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: if you were to tell you another story of this,
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: just on on the five to six foot fence. Back
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: in twenty sixteen presidential race. We're down in Arizona on
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: the border and and you know, I've got a whole
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: bevy of reporters following me, and we're doing we're doing
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: something right on the border wall. And it's got this
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: this little sort of vehicle barrier, the Normandy barriers, the
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: Normandy bearrier. Yeah, that's exactly. It looks like the sort
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: of criss cross yes, metal planks. Yeah. Um. And and
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: the reporters are there, and we've got a bunch of
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: sheriffs and folks who are down there with us, and
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: a bunch of the reporters. They want to get a
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: better camera shot, so they climb over the barrier to
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: shoot north. And I'm like, okay, so you just crossed
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: in the Mexico illegally. Uh. And that's how much little
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: of the barrier is. Did you just hop over the
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: damn thing? Okay? I got a better shot here. Maybe
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: we need something more substantial, given that you're, like I think,
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: currently an illegal immigrant in the country of Mexico. They unwittingly.
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: I think of your point on the border, and it's
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: the point we're all making. And yet you're being stymied
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: left and right on building that wall. But again, we
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: have found ways to do that. We have enough funding,
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: We're in a good place, We're in a good glide pass.
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: So again, as the senator mentioned, about four and fifty
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: to five hundred miles by the end of this calendar year.
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: And that's what the operators want. They want that effective
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: border wall system. It's not everywhere on the border. We
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: can't put it everywhere, but we can put it in
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: the places that need it most so that control, so
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: officers can control other hard hit areas well, even even
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: be on the operators. I think it's what the American
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: people wanted. A made that point time and again. Let
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: me make a point also, that's that's interesting and would
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: surprise you. The guys working for Chad, the CBP guys
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: on the border, they need a lot more technology. Yes,
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: so so I've been I've been out with them on
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: their boats on the river. I've been up in their helicopters,
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: which are old. Some of the helicopters are old Hughey's
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: like like you know, out of out of like watching
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: you know, mash growing up, which by the way, they
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: keep the doors open on the side, and you know,
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: they strap you in, And I think the helicopter pilots
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: enjoy doing turns where you're going forward and you're looking
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: at this one little round disk that that is holding
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: your body and if it comes loose, you're following two
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: hundred feet down into the ground. And you're trying to like, yeah,
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: this doesn't bother me at all. I am urinating my
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: pants right now, but no, I'm not not. Yeah, they
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: do enjoy. I would say they do that with the
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: acting secretary as well. I have no doubt. But what's interesting,
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: So Texas DPS Department of Public Safety, I've been up
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: Texas has, for example, it's an eight million dollar plane.
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: It's an amazing plane that I've been up in, and
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: it flies along the border and it has heat imagery
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: where they can look like a mile or two away
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: on the other side of the border and you'll see
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: and we'd look at the screen and be like they'd
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: be like, all right, there's the coyote there. You can
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: see him hiding in the brush and you can see
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: four or five people that he's getting ready to send across.
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: And what Texas SPS will do is call CBP and say,
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: all right, there are five guys right here. They're preparing
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: to cross, and you can see the CBP vans like
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: pulling up on the other side, waiting to apprehend them
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: when they come. The amazing thing, though, is the state
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: has better technology than the FETSI, which is messed up.
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: Y'all should have adequate technology, and it's not your fault,
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: it's Congress's fault. We haven't given it, but it's kind
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: of startling. You don't expect the state equipment to be
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: better than the federal equipment. Well, some of our best
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: partners are obviously Texas DPS as well as in Arizona
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: in other places, so we rely on our partners to
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: do our job. But as you indicated, we do not
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: have an unlimited budget, so there are certain we have
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: a number of air assets as well that we send
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: up along that border to patrol that but we can
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: always use new and better equipment. Mister Secretory we want
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: to be respectful of your time. But before we go,
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: I think a lot of Americans looking around don't feel
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: great about how things are going. You know, they see
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: holdings on fire, they see this unrest, especially in Portland,
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: they see problems at the border. What's the outlook? Give
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: it to us straight, you know, we don't want false hope.
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: But but how are things looking as we now move
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: toward the end of the year. Well, I would say
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: what we've seen over the past month, and we've talked
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: a bit a little bit about here when we talk
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: about defund the police or you start attacking law enforcement,
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: I think what we are seeing around the country is
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: the result of that. What you have are criminals at
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: their very heart. They are violent opportunists, and they see
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: an opportunity to exploit their street, their corner of the
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: world because they know the police are under a microscope.
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: And so I think that's very dangerous. What the President,
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: what the administration has been very upfront about is we're
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: not going to let this continue. So whether it's through
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: Operation Legend, which is surging federal resources in to deal
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: with some of this violent crime, We're going to continue
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: to searge federal resources in We're going to continue to
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: protect federal property. We see it almost you know, we
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: get threat and intelligence every weekend. Certain federal properties around
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: the country are being targeted by these groups. We searge
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: resources into those communities to make sure that those properties
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: are protected tybally. When we talk about a courthouse, a
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: seat of justice in a city has to be protected.
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: That's what those country is about. And DHS is going
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: to be on the front lines protecting those all Right.
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: A totally different question to wrap up, how do you
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: get to be Secretary of Homeland Security? Like you're a
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: cabinet member, You're one of the top cops in the country.
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: Like what you know when you were when you were
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: a kid, is this what you dreamed of doing? How
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: how did you get here? Yeah, it's a little different.
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: Actually dreamed of joining the military, and for whatever reason,
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: it didn't happen. To grow up in Texas, went to
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: school in Dallas, had the opportunity to come to DC
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: and and shortly after nine to eleven joined DHS. Nine
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: to eleven for me, I was on Capitol Hill, rushed
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: out of the buildings. It was a significant factor in
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: my life. Basically right when DHS was four. Yeah, this
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: is back in two thousand and one, two thousand and two.
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: So it was a formidable event in my life and
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: really changed my outlook. So I jumped in, started serving
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: at DAHS, took a break during the Obama administration, and
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: then came back in and held a variety of different
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: positions here in the department. I think the thing that
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: you know, a lot of us here in the part
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: we believe in this mission. We believe in what the
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: department does and how it was created after nine to eleven.
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: It's counter terrorism mission, but it has a number of
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: other missions, some of which we talked about that I
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: think the vast majority of Americans just don't know about
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: Federal Protective Service, a lot of our immigration enforcement, and
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: a lot of other things that we are doing here.
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: So it's a big department, one hundred two hundred forty
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: thousand folks, twenty two different agencies that came in. So
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: what do you do for fun? Like when when I work,
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: but you know, when I can, I try to run
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: a little bit and bike a little bit. Well those
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: hobbies notwithstanding, I think you're probably working a lot more
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: of these days. Well, and I do need to clarify
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: it and just say, Chad, thank you for being here.
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: So as we are here, yeah, your base basement is flooding.
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: It is so there's a tropical storm. It's raining like crazy.
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: You're in DC, You're base. Smith's flooding and your wife
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: is calledge. You're saying, Hey, our basement's flooding, and you
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: said I gotta do a podcast right now. I'm just
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: gonna say I'm sorry. I know you're sleeping on the
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: couch tonight. It's my fault, blame it on me. But
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: but you're a great American and please get home quickly
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: and help your wife or or it won't be the couch,
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: it'll be the doghouse. We need to get you back
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: to the basement and more importantly, to the mission. Mister Secretary,
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: thank you so much for being here. Senator, I'll see
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: you next time. This is Verdict with Ted Cruize. This
• 30:38
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• 30:41
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• 30:45
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