WEBVTT

1
00:00:00.160 --> 00:00:04.679
All right, Hello everybody. This
is Alejandro rojac with the Rojak Report.

2
00:00:05.440 --> 00:00:09.400
Do you happen to have any headphones, Brian or maybe so? I?

3
00:00:09.640 --> 00:00:12.599
Well I do, but they're actually
kind of not working, which is why

4
00:00:12.599 --> 00:00:15.240
they or not. Okay, that's
all right, because there's just a bit

5
00:00:15.279 --> 00:00:17.960
of new here. We okay,
fine, Yeah, I can hear you.

6
00:00:18.000 --> 00:00:19.679
Fine, I can hear me.
Fine, I can put it on.

7
00:00:20.239 --> 00:00:25.280
But yeah, that'd be great,
But that would be great. Yeah,

8
00:00:25.280 --> 00:00:28.839
that would help. Thank you.
So I'm gonna meet the mike,

9
00:00:28.920 --> 00:00:32.320
but just for a sec while I
do this, so I'll explain to you

10
00:00:32.399 --> 00:00:36.399
what we're doing here. This is
Brian Bender of Politico, a senior correspondent

11
00:00:36.520 --> 00:00:44.079
also the former editor of the Space
and Defense Areas for Politico, and he's

12
00:00:44.119 --> 00:00:49.399
been the OFO topic since December twenty
seventeen. In fact, I don't know

13
00:00:49.399 --> 00:00:54.719
who came out first. We'll see
what he thinks either. Here's New York

14
00:00:54.759 --> 00:01:00.880
Times whole Pentagon UFO project. So
we're going to talk to him about Let's

15
00:01:00.920 --> 00:01:15.200
see me there. How's it going? Can you hear me? I'm unfrozen?

16
00:01:15.200 --> 00:01:19.560
Can you hear me? Yeah?
I can hear you? Hello,

17
00:01:21.079 --> 00:01:23.640
Hello, Hello, can you all
hear me. Now you look frozen.

18
00:01:26.079 --> 00:01:30.560
I'm good. Yeah, they can
hear me. Uh oh, that's what

19
00:01:30.599 --> 00:01:36.079
we get for trying to mess with
Steph. They can hear you too.

20
00:01:36.159 --> 00:01:40.879
I can hear you, so we
can all hear Brian can't hear me,

21
00:01:45.560 --> 00:01:53.439
So let's see, well he gets
this reconfigured here. So of course the

22
00:01:53.480 --> 00:02:01.200
news is at the Senate Intelligence Committee
in their appropriations bill that's asking for information

23
00:02:01.319 --> 00:02:07.599
about U A p U UFOs and
uh, Brian essentially broke the mainstream media

24
00:02:07.680 --> 00:02:16.159
story on that. Ask the second
how he caught this wave you hear I

25
00:02:16.199 --> 00:02:25.280
can hear you. Yes. If
Brian and I seem a bit familiar,

26
00:02:25.280 --> 00:02:30.800
it's because we are. Fortunately we
were able to connect a couple of years

27
00:02:30.840 --> 00:02:37.599
ago, uh to talk about UFO
stuff, and we've been kind of meeting

28
00:02:37.639 --> 00:03:00.159
and talking ever since. H Oh, he's calling, so this will be

29
00:03:00.199 --> 00:03:04.840
fun. Hey, Hey, I
don't know you're I just see you.

30
00:03:04.840 --> 00:03:09.120
You're frozen, and I don't hear
anything. I try to join again,

31
00:03:09.120 --> 00:03:13.759
because we could hear you. You
you were just finding everybody could hear me

32
00:03:13.879 --> 00:03:24.879
too, Ah, i'd see now
we can here you go? Can you

33
00:03:24.879 --> 00:03:31.360
hear me? Here we go?
Oh? Hey, thank for your patience

34
00:03:31.479 --> 00:03:38.479
and sorry, no problem. Okay, so let's get into it. That

35
00:03:38.560 --> 00:03:42.639
gave me some time to kind of
catch people up a bit. They're already

36
00:03:42.680 --> 00:03:46.840
aware. But so you were the
first, kind of pretty much in the

37
00:03:46.879 --> 00:03:51.400
mainstream media to break this story.
How did you come to this information?

38
00:03:53.599 --> 00:04:01.199
Well, you know, actually I
had been hearing sort of some rumors that

39
00:04:01.280 --> 00:04:06.639
there was going to be some sort
of reference to the UAP issue in the

40
00:04:06.680 --> 00:04:12.680
Senate Intelligence Bill, and that's something
I've been hearing actually for a couple of

41
00:04:12.680 --> 00:04:17.040
months, and so I've kind of
been checking in from time to time.

42
00:04:17.079 --> 00:04:20.240
And then, to be quite honest, I don't claim to have broken the

43
00:04:20.279 --> 00:04:28.720
story. I think it was Dan
Silva on Twitter and it listed first the

44
00:04:28.800 --> 00:04:33.920
actual report from the committee, and
so once I saw that that they had

45
00:04:33.920 --> 00:04:39.240
actually published the committee's report, and
this is a report on the bill,

46
00:04:39.360 --> 00:04:43.879
so it's not the actual bill itself, but all of these pieces of legislation

47
00:04:44.000 --> 00:04:48.839
usually have an accompanying report that kind
of goes into more detail and explains some

48
00:04:48.920 --> 00:04:54.079
of the provisions and why the committee's
voting for this or voting for that or

49
00:04:54.120 --> 00:04:57.839
not voting for something else. And
so once I was able to just make

50
00:04:57.839 --> 00:05:01.839
sure that was the real thing.
We obviously posted a story, but this

51
00:05:01.959 --> 00:05:06.360
was something that I think was in
the works really for a couple of years.

52
00:05:08.040 --> 00:05:11.519
Yeah. Interesting. Steve McDaniels,
he's the other guy who broke this

53
00:05:11.639 --> 00:05:15.160
on Twitter. He's actually I think
in the chat here too, so he

54
00:05:15.240 --> 00:05:19.319
asked some questions. But that's kind
of interesting that it came kind of from

55
00:05:19.360 --> 00:05:27.839
the UFO world then to you even
you had heard some rumors. Why do

56
00:05:27.839 --> 00:05:30.560
you think that's purposeful? Do you
think it was a bit hidden away,

57
00:05:30.839 --> 00:05:38.680
like they didn't want attention to that
particular part. No. I mean my

58
00:05:38.800 --> 00:05:44.519
sense is just those guys are on
top of things and just you know,

59
00:05:45.600 --> 00:05:49.199
got a hold of it or got
word of it before I did. And

60
00:05:49.360 --> 00:05:54.800
you know a lot of times these
things, these committee reports will get sent

61
00:05:54.839 --> 00:05:58.519
to the government printing office, and
you know, sometimes it takes a couple

62
00:05:58.560 --> 00:06:01.759
of weeks till it actually gets public
posted. I think in this case,

63
00:06:02.279 --> 00:06:08.120
the committee actually approved the bill two
or three weeks ago, so you know,

64
00:06:08.120 --> 00:06:12.040
it was just sort of the lag
time until they actually printed printed the

65
00:06:12.120 --> 00:06:15.519
report. But you know, there's
obviously a lot of people interested in this

66
00:06:15.560 --> 00:06:20.199
issue, and I've been one who's
come at it, as you know,

67
00:06:20.879 --> 00:06:25.920
Alejandra pretty late. In other words, I've covered the Pentagon, I've covered

68
00:06:25.920 --> 00:06:30.279
the military, but I haven't necessarily
covered this issue all that long. And

69
00:06:30.399 --> 00:06:36.399
so you know, those those guys
who are obviously researchers who focus on this

70
00:06:36.519 --> 00:06:41.160
a lot more, it's not surprising
that they would be on top of it.

71
00:06:43.000 --> 00:06:46.199
Now you say that you've kind of
heard rumors for the last couple of

72
00:06:46.519 --> 00:06:51.120
years. Where did these rumors?
Are these like inside rumors? Are these

73
00:06:51.279 --> 00:06:58.920
rumors you know in Washington where you're
hearing this sort of thing? Yeah,

74
00:06:58.920 --> 00:07:05.800
I mean this was from so horses
on Capitol Hill and also quite frankly to

75
00:07:05.920 --> 00:07:12.360
the Stars Academy that Chris Mellons of
the world, the Elssando's of the world,

76
00:07:12.439 --> 00:07:16.240
who you know, it's no secret, have been advocating that the government

77
00:07:16.319 --> 00:07:20.959
do more, pay more attention,
throw more resources at this issue. And

78
00:07:21.079 --> 00:07:28.360
so I think where they interest really
began in Congress was with some of these

79
00:07:28.399 --> 00:07:34.519
briefings that members of Congress were getting
on the sightings by the Navy pilots over

80
00:07:34.600 --> 00:07:41.439
recent years. And I think it's
about a year ago that we reported that

81
00:07:41.480 --> 00:07:46.519
the Senate Intelligence Committee or several members
of the committee had been briefed about some

82
00:07:46.560 --> 00:07:53.639
of those reports in a closed session, and that included Senator Mark Order of

83
00:07:53.759 --> 00:07:57.800
Virginia, who's the vice chairman of
the Senate Intelligence Committee, the leading Democrat.

84
00:07:58.800 --> 00:08:03.720
I believe Senator Jean Shaheen I had
spoken to her about some of the

85
00:08:03.800 --> 00:08:07.839
briefings that she had received. And
I'm pretty sure that Marco Rubio, who

86
00:08:07.879 --> 00:08:11.759
now chairs that committee, was also
among those who got briefed, and I

87
00:08:11.800 --> 00:08:16.879
had heard that he was among those
that was most interested in it. That

88
00:08:16.439 --> 00:08:20.439
alarmed him. I think he comes
at it more from a national security perspective.

89
00:08:22.160 --> 00:08:24.040
You know, what are these things? If they're violating military airspace,

90
00:08:24.079 --> 00:08:28.040
shouldn't we be a little more alarmed
about them? And so from what I'm

91
00:08:28.079 --> 00:08:35.519
told, it was his staff,
obviously with his direction, that really took

92
00:08:35.519 --> 00:08:41.440
the lead on putting this provision in
the bill that would require this report this

93
00:08:41.559 --> 00:08:46.320
public. Interesting now, I think
you know some of the questions I've heard

94
00:08:46.360 --> 00:08:50.679
and you'd probably get this is that
the president, of course, was asked

95
00:08:50.720 --> 00:08:54.679
by his son about UFOs recently and
he mentioned Roswell. And so some people

96
00:08:54.679 --> 00:09:01.200
are speculating that this is kind of
a new campaign ambit on the Republican side

97
00:09:01.200 --> 00:09:05.080
to get Trump, you know,
re elected, which it may be true

98
00:09:05.159 --> 00:09:11.240
as far as Trump mentioning it.
But I think people are suspecting that maybe

99
00:09:11.279 --> 00:09:15.440
Marco Rubio is trying to kind of
back them up on this and it's a

100
00:09:15.440 --> 00:09:18.639
whole campaign thing. But that doesn't
seem to be the case in that as

101
00:09:18.679 --> 00:09:24.080
you just said, Uh, Marco
Rubio seems to be actually concerned about the

102
00:09:24.279 --> 00:09:31.039
you know, the threat issues.
Threat issues. Yeah, it's hard to

103
00:09:31.080 --> 00:09:35.840
know. I mean, I don't
get a sense from my reporting that it's

104
00:09:35.879 --> 00:09:41.840
it's as coordinated or connected. I
mean, obviously, the issue itself has

105
00:09:43.440 --> 00:09:48.000
you know, I think you would
probably agree, has broken through in in

106
00:09:48.159 --> 00:09:52.600
sort of in the mainstream media in
the public conversation over the last couple of

107
00:09:52.679 --> 00:09:56.799
years in a way that it hasn't
at least in a long time. And

108
00:09:58.679 --> 00:10:03.960
you know, I think that's driven
more questions to the president, you know,

109
00:10:05.000 --> 00:10:07.720
who's been asked a couple times in
interviews about this issue. He hasn't

110
00:10:07.759 --> 00:10:11.840
said much quite frankly. I mean, there you know, there there's a

111
00:10:11.879 --> 00:10:13.279
lot of headlines when they ask Trump
about it, but when you look at

112
00:10:13.320 --> 00:10:20.360
what he actually says, doesn't usually
say anything at all. And so,

113
00:10:22.240 --> 00:10:26.679
you know, I think there's this
genuine interest and less of a stigma for

114
00:10:26.759 --> 00:10:33.159
the political leadership to talk about this
and raise questions about this. And so

115
00:10:33.840 --> 00:10:35.960
I don't know that there's you know, any coordinated plan here. I mean,

116
00:10:37.720 --> 00:10:41.960
I may be wrong, but I'm
not sure there's you know, the

117
00:10:41.960 --> 00:10:46.879
political uh sort of class thinks of
a UFO vote. Is there a UFO

118
00:10:48.000 --> 00:10:50.960
vote out there like that we could
get if we talk about this more or

119
00:10:50.960 --> 00:10:54.360
reveal more or you know, be
more transparent. I mean, I know

120
00:10:54.399 --> 00:11:01.320
it's it's an intense public interest,
but you know, I'd like to see

121
00:11:01.320 --> 00:11:07.200
a poll that would rank where UFOs
sit or you know, where this issue

122
00:11:07.200 --> 00:11:13.080
sits on you know, the economy, education, foreign policy. You know,

123
00:11:13.080 --> 00:11:16.440
I'm not sure that it's it's up
there, But maybe I'm wrong.

124
00:11:16.480 --> 00:11:20.440
I mean, maybe maybe there is, Maybe there is a you know,

125
00:11:20.759 --> 00:11:24.840
a level of support you could get
politically by by talking about this more.

126
00:11:26.600 --> 00:11:31.080
Yeah, it's interesting because I had
those same questions from John Podesta's kind of

127
00:11:31.080 --> 00:11:35.279
pushing for Hillary Clinton to address the
UFO issue way back when. If they

128
00:11:35.320 --> 00:11:39.639
had done some sort of analysis,
because they do so much number crunching on

129
00:11:39.679 --> 00:11:43.919
those campaigns, if they had found
some sort of uh, you know,

130
00:11:45.240 --> 00:11:50.200
numbers that supported the idea to push
this issue as into the campaign as far

131
00:11:50.200 --> 00:11:56.879
as openness, but who knows.
So then when it comes to Rubio and

132
00:11:56.919 --> 00:12:03.799
then asking the questions, it seems
as though they were very influenced by Chris

133
00:12:03.840 --> 00:12:09.399
Mellon. I would guess by firsthand
discussions with him, and you can I'm

134
00:12:09.480 --> 00:12:13.279
wondering if you have some insight on
that. But also because he wrote that

135
00:12:13.320 --> 00:12:18.919
op ed in the Hill where he
kind of suggested that the Senate Intelligence Committee

136
00:12:18.039 --> 00:12:24.600
do just this. Yeah, I
mean, there's no doubt that Chris Mellon

137
00:12:24.639 --> 00:12:30.200
has had a huge role in this. He's a creature of Washington. He

138
00:12:30.279 --> 00:12:33.360
worked on the Senate Intelligence Committee,
as you know, he was the Minority

139
00:12:33.399 --> 00:12:39.879
staff director a number of years ago. He obviously had his perch in the

140
00:12:39.919 --> 00:12:43.240
Pentagon. He's been writing op eds, he's been doing interviews. You mentioned

141
00:12:43.279 --> 00:12:48.360
the hill Op ed, which is
probably I bet it's maybe a year ago

142
00:12:48.440 --> 00:12:52.519
by now. Maybe it's not that
long ago, but you know, if

143
00:12:52.519 --> 00:12:54.759
you look at that hill Op ed
and you look at the language that's in

144
00:12:54.840 --> 00:13:00.600
the Senate Intelligence spill, it's,
you know, pretty similar. He's calling

145
00:13:00.679 --> 00:13:05.360
for at least as a first step, let's figure out who knows what and

146
00:13:05.480 --> 00:13:09.080
you know, what data is being
collected, not just in the military,

147
00:13:09.120 --> 00:13:13.759
but in intelligence agencies. And let's
centralize this somewhere, because I think,

148
00:13:13.840 --> 00:13:22.039
you know, the point he's always
made is that there's no real uniform process

149
00:13:22.159 --> 00:13:28.919
at least that exists today that he
knows of that pulls the common picture together.

150
00:13:28.159 --> 00:13:33.840
What do we know what reports are
coming in from, where who's collecting

151
00:13:33.879 --> 00:13:37.639
them? Are they, you know, being put into some single place.

152
00:13:37.679 --> 00:13:41.919
And I think the answer to that
is no, they're not. And so

153
00:13:41.000 --> 00:13:46.480
I think he's been pushing this as
a first step. Let's pull it together

154
00:13:46.679 --> 00:13:50.600
somewhere, make these agencies talk to
each other, share information, and put

155
00:13:50.600 --> 00:13:54.360
it in one place so Congress can
see. And I think what's most interesting

156
00:13:54.399 --> 00:14:01.559
about this language is making it public, or at least there being a public

157
00:14:01.679 --> 00:14:09.000
version of it, which I think
is not necessarily something that I expected.

158
00:14:09.039 --> 00:14:13.720
I mean, I certainly was not
that surprised that they took this step,

159
00:14:13.759 --> 00:14:18.480
but the fact that they wanted to
be public, now that is an interesting

160
00:14:18.559 --> 00:14:22.159
part because in Mellon's article he said
he suggested it would be fine if the

161
00:14:22.559 --> 00:14:28.120
report was classified at whatever level they
felt it should be. However, this

162
00:14:28.279 --> 00:14:33.240
is asking for a public part.
Do you have any suspicion or any ideas

163
00:14:33.240 --> 00:14:39.480
of why they included this? What
Adam Kehoe is called and he mentioned this

164
00:14:39.559 --> 00:14:43.799
in his article and he just mentioned
it and the chat kind of stronger language

165
00:14:43.080 --> 00:14:48.559
than Melon's in other words, that
they are calling for this public portion.

166
00:14:52.159 --> 00:14:56.399
You know, it's hard to know, I mean unless you know we could

167
00:14:56.440 --> 00:15:03.279
sit here and talk to because name
is Brian Walsh is the staff person for

168
00:15:03.519 --> 00:15:09.399
Rubio, who I'm told has sort
of taken the lead on this, I

169
00:15:09.399 --> 00:15:13.320
mean without talking to him and knowing
exactly what they're thinking is. You can

170
00:15:13.360 --> 00:15:15.440
look at it two ways. You
could look at it as, oh,

171
00:15:15.480 --> 00:15:20.039
this is stronger, it's forcing it, you know, a public report,

172
00:15:20.120 --> 00:15:24.600
where you know you can't just put
it in some secret document and bury it.

173
00:15:24.639 --> 00:15:28.960
But you can also look at it
the other way, where it's weaker

174
00:15:28.240 --> 00:15:33.000
in some ways, because if you're
an overseer in Congress, you can see

175
00:15:33.039 --> 00:15:37.519
everything, presumably if the agencies are
willing to tell you and share with you

176
00:15:37.639 --> 00:15:41.039
what they know. But a public
report, what I worry about is that

177
00:15:41.120 --> 00:15:46.559
it becomes a three page nothing burger
that you know is not much more than

178
00:15:46.559 --> 00:15:50.159
we already know. I think it's
going to be difficult to do it that

179
00:15:50.200 --> 00:15:54.600
way because of the way the language
is written. It's very specific about what

180
00:15:54.639 --> 00:16:00.320
you need to look at and the
questions you need to answer, but around

181
00:16:00.360 --> 00:16:04.120
long enough to know. Some of
these public reports end up being answering the

182
00:16:04.159 --> 00:16:08.519
mail by writing something, but the
something doesn't really give you a whole lot.

183
00:16:08.639 --> 00:16:11.919
So I think it, you know, whether this is stronger weaker,

184
00:16:11.960 --> 00:16:18.000
I think is to be determined Number
one, whether this thing gets adopted by

185
00:16:18.000 --> 00:16:22.000
the full Senate. Because it's just
in the committee's bill right now. I

186
00:16:22.000 --> 00:16:26.799
think it'll be very difficult for the
Senate to strip it out because it's you

187
00:16:26.799 --> 00:16:32.120
know, when it goes to the
floor, because it's, uh, you

188
00:16:32.159 --> 00:16:33.919
know, it's very public. Now
we know this is in there, which

189
00:16:33.960 --> 00:16:38.960
is not always the case. In
fact, it's rarely the case of the

190
00:16:40.000 --> 00:16:44.679
Intelligence bill that we know it's the
public version of it is usually you know,

191
00:16:45.159 --> 00:16:48.240
not very exciting. So if they
pull it out, people will wonder

192
00:16:48.399 --> 00:16:51.679
why are they pulling it out.
They're going to have to explain that.

193
00:16:52.120 --> 00:16:56.399
And I think, quite frankly that
you know, it's not that kind.

194
00:16:56.519 --> 00:17:00.000
I mean, the issue is controversial, but the process is not that controversial.

195
00:17:00.000 --> 00:17:03.519
All they're asking for is a report. They're not allocating money to go

196
00:17:04.119 --> 00:17:08.359
research UFOs. They're you know,
they're they're they're they're doing the bear the

197
00:17:08.359 --> 00:17:11.920
bare minimum. But in this case, the bare minimum happens to be a

198
00:17:11.920 --> 00:17:18.559
big step because of the issue.
So here are some other ideas on the

199
00:17:18.559 --> 00:17:21.359
public side that I was thinking of
it. I'd like to hear your thoughts.

200
00:17:22.039 --> 00:17:26.400
Could it be possible that A they
might be gauging the UH I guess,

201
00:17:26.400 --> 00:17:33.440
all of these agencies and how much
they're willing to share publicly or end

202
00:17:33.599 --> 00:17:41.279
or B they're also gauging the their
constituents temperature on all of this to make

203
00:17:41.319 --> 00:17:45.839
sure they're kind of hedging their bets
as far as you know, politically,

204
00:17:48.240 --> 00:17:53.079
Yeah, I think it's there's no
doubt it's a test of the agencies on

205
00:17:53.160 --> 00:18:00.720
a couple fronts. I mean,
one, are they just simply willing to

206
00:18:00.759 --> 00:18:08.599
share information even with the committee,
let alone the public, And so I

207
00:18:08.599 --> 00:18:12.960
think on that score, you know, it'll be hard to know exactly what

208
00:18:14.000 --> 00:18:18.720
goes on behind the scenes, but
I can imagine there will be pushback.

209
00:18:18.079 --> 00:18:23.640
I mean, there will be agencies
that don't want to share information, you

210
00:18:23.680 --> 00:18:30.759
know, the CIA, the Pentagon, variety of other agencies they are notorious

211
00:18:30.799 --> 00:18:36.240
for sort of you know, sitting
on their own turf and not wanting to

212
00:18:36.279 --> 00:18:40.839
share things. And so that'll be
a test just how much are they willing

213
00:18:40.880 --> 00:18:45.000
to cough up. I think the
other you know, I think the other

214
00:18:45.079 --> 00:18:49.480
tests they're doing in this process is
and this gets back to what I said

215
00:18:49.480 --> 00:18:59.279
earlier about Chris Mellon's sort of campaign
here to centralize what we know is just

216
00:18:59.319 --> 00:19:02.839
simply answer that question, what do
we know? I mean, what do

217
00:19:02.880 --> 00:19:10.880
these agencies actually have readily available,
you know, in terms of recent intelligence

218
00:19:10.960 --> 00:19:15.200
data that has to do with this
issue. And I don't think we really

219
00:19:15.240 --> 00:19:18.640
know the answer to that. I
mean, I know there's sort of deep

220
00:19:18.720 --> 00:19:23.920
suspicion and good reason to be suspicious
that the government does know a lot more

221
00:19:23.960 --> 00:19:29.359
than they're telling us. That there's
files somewhere, there's radar images, there's

222
00:19:29.519 --> 00:19:34.880
videos, there's testimony, and I'm
not saying I doubt that. I just

223
00:19:36.319 --> 00:19:41.400
we really don't know because this world
is so secretive, and you know that

224
00:19:41.799 --> 00:19:48.160
that could end up being a real
problem here because I envisioned that it's quite

225
00:19:48.200 --> 00:19:52.039
possible some of these agencies, because
of the stigma of the issue, because

226
00:19:52.359 --> 00:19:56.640
nobody wants to be the UFO guy, that at least in recent years they

227
00:19:56.680 --> 00:20:02.039
haven't collected much. Doesn't mean that
there haven't been reports. It doesn't mean

228
00:20:02.079 --> 00:20:07.720
there haven't been sightings or unexplained phenomenon
that you know, people scratch their heads

229
00:20:07.720 --> 00:20:11.119
about. But I don't know that
we have any real confidence that there's been

230
00:20:11.119 --> 00:20:17.799
a reporting process for it to actually
retain that stuff in some place, and

231
00:20:17.880 --> 00:20:22.359
so it may end up being very
haphazard, which of course will immediately lead

232
00:20:22.480 --> 00:20:26.160
a lot of people to be well, they're hiding things, they're covering up,

233
00:20:26.559 --> 00:20:30.400
they're not telling us what they know. And I think all can be

234
00:20:30.519 --> 00:20:33.920
true. In other words, they
can be resistant, the agencies can be

235
00:20:33.960 --> 00:20:37.599
resistant in coughing up what they do
have. But I also think there's a

236
00:20:37.599 --> 00:20:41.200
possibility that at least in recent years, you know, the last ten or

237
00:20:41.200 --> 00:20:45.079
twenty years, they might not have
much data at all because they simply didn't

238
00:20:45.119 --> 00:20:49.000
keep it or you know, nobody
was tasked with being the UFO person.

239
00:20:49.960 --> 00:20:53.079
Maybe I'm naive. I mean,
maybe every one of these agencies has a

240
00:20:53.200 --> 00:20:57.079
UFO person and they're sitting on piles
of stuff that they don't want to share.

241
00:20:57.160 --> 00:21:02.799
But you know this, this is
this is at least a way that

242
00:21:02.839 --> 00:21:08.839
we could start pushing that issue and
seeing what's really there or what isn't there?

243
00:21:10.279 --> 00:21:11.440
Right as it isn't there? Why
isn't it there? I mean,

244
00:21:11.480 --> 00:21:15.640
if all reports and that's the second
step here is maybe you know, in

245
00:21:15.680 --> 00:21:21.480
the bill actually touches on this is
tell us what is the process for centralizing

246
00:21:21.519 --> 00:21:25.039
this stuff? Who's in charge?
They want to know that too as part

247
00:21:25.079 --> 00:21:27.079
of this report, not just what
do you have, but how do you

248
00:21:27.119 --> 00:21:30.880
gather it? Who gathers it,
where does it go? Do you need

249
00:21:30.920 --> 00:21:34.559
more resources? I think there's a
question in there that asks, you know,

250
00:21:34.559 --> 00:21:40.960
do you need more resources or research
dollars to get at this issue?

251
00:21:41.240 --> 00:21:47.160
So somebody Adam raised a good point
here, and I guess what I'm going

252
00:21:47.240 --> 00:21:52.559
to get at is similar in that
it does seem like to your point,

253
00:21:52.720 --> 00:21:55.960
you know, not all these agencies
are on the same page with all of

254
00:21:55.960 --> 00:22:00.480
this. For instance, the Navy
has said essentially they're they've recently beefed up

255
00:22:00.519 --> 00:22:08.160
their reporting process regarding uapiece and story
that you broke actually in Politico just recently,

256
00:22:10.240 --> 00:22:12.599
I think as recent as yesterday or
the day before, John Greenwald got

257
00:22:12.599 --> 00:22:18.440
a response from a Foyer that had
indicated that the Air Force had said,

258
00:22:18.480 --> 00:22:26.640
we don't have a particular UAP reporting
process, but it is included in our

259
00:22:26.880 --> 00:22:30.759
op REP reporting, which is kind
of how you flag the importance of different

260
00:22:32.960 --> 00:22:37.279
intelligence reports that you're sending up the
wire. So there's a big difference thereon

261
00:22:37.359 --> 00:22:41.079
kind of like what you're saying is
that, you know, it seems like

262
00:22:41.119 --> 00:22:42.880
the Navy might have been a little
more coordinated about it, whereas the Air

263
00:22:42.920 --> 00:22:48.400
Force wasn't. Kind of surprisingly,
so we may see vast differences throughout these

264
00:22:48.440 --> 00:22:53.759
agencies because they are asking for all
of these agencies to report, and they

265
00:22:53.799 --> 00:23:00.000
even kind of called out the FBI, which is interesting. Yeah, I

266
00:23:00.000 --> 00:23:03.759
thought that was interesting too, the
reference to the FBI. I mean,

267
00:23:03.759 --> 00:23:11.680
I assume they're they're they're ah,
you know, they're they're trying to be

268
00:23:11.720 --> 00:23:15.680
comprehensive. In other words, if
there are reports, you know, additional

269
00:23:15.720 --> 00:23:22.599
reports that we don't know of of
UAPs. And again, and I use

270
00:23:22.640 --> 00:23:26.359
the word the term UAPs very broadly. I mean, you know, as

271
00:23:26.440 --> 00:23:30.319
the military does, it could be
something that looks like a flying saucer,

272
00:23:30.480 --> 00:23:36.079
or it could be a drone that
doesn't have permission to be flying over our

273
00:23:36.160 --> 00:23:40.240
navy base. But in a case
like that, if there was a sighting

274
00:23:40.319 --> 00:23:48.279
of some unauthorized intrusion because it's domestic
US territory or in the in the case

275
00:23:48.279 --> 00:23:53.279
of domestic military base, you would
call in the FBI potentially to come in

276
00:23:53.359 --> 00:24:00.240
and figure out who's screwing around with
their drone. And so I think that's

277
00:24:00.279 --> 00:24:03.440
why they want that's one of the
reasons why they want the FBI to be

278
00:24:03.480 --> 00:24:07.039
part of this too. How many
times have they been called in for,

279
00:24:07.119 --> 00:24:11.839
you know, investigating these things.
I also thing, I'm just looking at

280
00:24:12.519 --> 00:24:17.799
some of the questions here. I
think the reason why the Committee keys in

281
00:24:17.880 --> 00:24:23.279
on the Navy's task force is that, you know, that's been the organization

282
00:24:23.440 --> 00:24:30.279
that has been briefing the committee about
the Navy pilot sightings. It's you know,

283
00:24:30.519 --> 00:24:33.319
it's out in the public. I
mean, we know the Navy's been

284
00:24:33.359 --> 00:24:37.720
talking about the new guidelines that they've
issued for people to report these sightings.

285
00:24:37.720 --> 00:24:44.160
Clearly, you know they have at
least some formal operation that's looking into this.

286
00:24:44.279 --> 00:24:48.400
I I'm I'm one who doesn't believe
it's very formal. I think it's

287
00:24:48.480 --> 00:24:52.480
it's you know, you can put
three people in a room in the Pentagon

288
00:24:52.519 --> 00:24:56.880
and call it a task force and
have no budget and know nothing but a

289
00:24:56.880 --> 00:25:00.119
bunch of paper shuffling, and I
have a few feling that this task force

290
00:25:00.200 --> 00:25:04.759
is more that. I don't think
the Navy has opened up the budget and

291
00:25:04.799 --> 00:25:11.839
said go, you know, go
task force and find the answers. So,

292
00:25:12.000 --> 00:25:15.720
you know, the mention of the
Navy task force, I think is

293
00:25:15.720 --> 00:25:19.640
just simply because that's the real thing. They know it exists. They've interacted

294
00:25:19.680 --> 00:25:23.000
with that task force or the few
people that are that are on it,

295
00:25:23.400 --> 00:25:30.240
and you know, and even the
Air Force. You know, my sense

296
00:25:30.319 --> 00:25:33.880
is the Air Force has been deferring
to the Navy on this. You guys

297
00:25:33.920 --> 00:25:37.000
already have your task force. You
know, if we can help, let

298
00:25:37.119 --> 00:25:40.759
us know. But you know,
I don't get the sense the Air Force,

299
00:25:41.319 --> 00:25:44.000
and you know, as a lot
of people have pointed out, and

300
00:25:44.039 --> 00:25:47.400
a lot of people have wondered,
why is the Air Force, which in

301
00:25:47.400 --> 00:25:52.000
some ways has a hell of a
lot more responsibility for protecting the airspace of

302
00:25:52.039 --> 00:25:56.799
the United States and the Navy does. Why are they not more involved in

303
00:25:56.839 --> 00:26:02.359
this or more public about it,
and you know, there's this sort of

304
00:26:02.480 --> 00:26:06.400
narrative out there a little bit that
the Air Force doesn't want to touch this

305
00:26:07.240 --> 00:26:17.920
because acknowledging that there are unidentified aircraft
semi regularly interfering in American airspace and there's

306
00:26:18.000 --> 00:26:22.720
virtually nothing we can do about it. Basically is the Air Force acknowledging that

307
00:26:22.759 --> 00:26:26.599
they have failed on the primary mission
they've been given, which is to defend

308
00:26:26.640 --> 00:26:30.920
the airspace of the United States,
and so they kind of don't want to

309
00:26:30.960 --> 00:26:34.839
go there bureaucratically because it opens up
a can of worms that you know,

310
00:26:34.920 --> 00:26:40.119
they don't know how to close.
But you know, but again, this

311
00:26:40.200 --> 00:26:44.960
report is going to presumably this report
that the committee is asking for, is

312
00:26:44.960 --> 00:26:48.599
going to change that because all of
these agencies are going to have to contribute

313
00:26:48.640 --> 00:26:56.880
to this thing somehow unless they try
to kill it, which is not inconceivable

314
00:26:56.000 --> 00:27:02.480
that these agencies are not going to
want this, and but it would be

315
00:27:02.559 --> 00:27:04.680
very hard if it's in the bill
for the President of Veto, given what

316
00:27:04.759 --> 00:27:10.279
he said. So it's kind of
interesting, uh, you know, it

317
00:27:10.319 --> 00:27:12.440
makes me kind of chuckle that now
we have this, we have this Space

318
00:27:12.480 --> 00:27:18.680
Force, and now we have the
unidentified aerial phenomena task force which seems to

319
00:27:18.720 --> 00:27:25.480
be a sort of an extension from
a TIP and uh, I would like

320
00:27:25.519 --> 00:27:27.440
to hear your thoughts on that.
I think Chris mellan or not Chris Millan,

321
00:27:27.519 --> 00:27:32.160
but others have said, you know
it just and Luise Alessando has even

322
00:27:32.200 --> 00:27:37.400
said that it's become this multi agency
kind of task force. Uh. You

323
00:27:37.400 --> 00:27:41.359
know, some researchers, Roger Gassel
I think, got a response from the

324
00:27:41.440 --> 00:27:45.160
d D that said, yes,
it is a multi agency task force now

325
00:27:45.039 --> 00:27:49.160
all confirming that it still continues.
But like you said, probably a small

326
00:27:49.160 --> 00:27:52.119
group. I mean, Aleizando seemed
to be the same. He didn't have

327
00:27:52.160 --> 00:27:56.960
a budget, so you know,
he's just grabbing materials and trying to do

328
00:27:56.000 --> 00:28:00.480
analysis as he can, kind of
like a portfolio as you put it,

329
00:28:00.559 --> 00:28:06.240
which I feel seems very accurate.
So, but does this seem to be

330
00:28:06.599 --> 00:28:11.440
you know, the organization that el
Zando's been referring to that's kind of evolved,

331
00:28:15.400 --> 00:28:18.359
I believe, So, I mean, you know, I think this

332
00:28:18.480 --> 00:28:25.440
task force is kind of the outgrowth
of what was a TIP as we know,

333
00:28:25.599 --> 00:28:30.400
a TIP officially you know, hasn't
actually existed in almost a decade.

334
00:28:30.559 --> 00:28:34.759
I mean, I think it was
twenty twelve that the budget for that the

335
00:28:34.799 --> 00:28:41.920
original funding stream ran out, and
so I don't get the impression that there's

336
00:28:41.960 --> 00:28:45.519
been any dedicated funding, at least
in that case of you know, the

337
00:28:47.519 --> 00:28:51.680
what was a TIP which was originally
in the Defense Intelligence Agency but then was

338
00:28:51.759 --> 00:28:56.440
moved underneath the Undersecretary for Intelligence.
I don't get the sense that there's been

339
00:28:56.480 --> 00:29:03.799
any new budget stream for that mission
or that portfolio. I think it was

340
00:29:03.880 --> 00:29:10.480
one of Alessando's jobs, among a
lot of jobs. You know, intelligence

341
00:29:11.400 --> 00:29:15.640
officers often have a bunch of things
that they're tasked with doing, and you

342
00:29:15.680 --> 00:29:18.039
know, there's no doubt that this
was a mission that he took very seriously

343
00:29:18.119 --> 00:29:22.720
and to the point where he was
very frustrated that nobody else seemed to care

344
00:29:22.720 --> 00:29:27.240
about it. And so fast forward
to where we are now. I think

345
00:29:27.240 --> 00:29:33.759
the Navy Task Force grows out of
that in the sense that some of the

346
00:29:33.880 --> 00:29:42.079
juiciest reports that a TIP had pulled
together obviously were originally the NIMTS case in

347
00:29:42.119 --> 00:29:47.640
two thousand and four. And then
you know, the Roosevelt doesn't come until

348
00:29:47.720 --> 00:29:52.440
much later. It comes after ATIP
is gone, but it does happen when

349
00:29:52.039 --> 00:29:56.720
Aleizondo is still in the Pentagon,
still spending some of his time on this

350
00:29:56.519 --> 00:30:03.599
and so and I think when the
Congress wanted a point of contact in the

351
00:30:03.640 --> 00:30:12.359
Pentagon, it sort of logically fell
to the Navy because the most well known

352
00:30:12.400 --> 00:30:18.480
cases involved Navy pilots. And so
the Navy, I think, in some

353
00:30:18.559 --> 00:30:25.599
ways has taken this on just by
inertia. But I also think they've been

354
00:30:26.200 --> 00:30:33.000
pressured a little bit by some members
of Congress to show us that you're doing

355
00:30:33.039 --> 00:30:37.799
something. You know, we still
don't really have answers for what these reports

356
00:30:37.359 --> 00:30:42.680
going back a number of years were
all about. And so, you know,

357
00:30:42.759 --> 00:30:47.200
so again I wouldn't look at the
Navy Task Force system, you know,

358
00:30:47.960 --> 00:30:52.880
big well financed group of people that
are digging into all these reports.

359
00:30:55.000 --> 00:31:03.160
I think it's it's as much a
bureaucratic way to answer the mail and the

360
00:31:03.200 --> 00:31:07.079
public demand as it is a true
blue interest in getting to the bottom of

361
00:31:07.200 --> 00:31:11.960
this. Now, this is a
good question who would likely be the responsible

362
00:31:12.160 --> 00:31:21.079
official. It seems as though the
request from the Senate Intelligence Committee is putting

363
00:31:21.400 --> 00:31:25.759
laying this in O and I's lap. But you know, Chris Mellen had

364
00:31:25.799 --> 00:31:30.440
suggested it be the Defense the d
n I. Where do you think that

365
00:31:30.480 --> 00:31:33.599
will end up, because it does
seem like they are asking for a more

366
00:31:33.640 --> 00:31:38.759
coordinated effort of central you know,
repository. Yeah, well, I think

367
00:31:41.720 --> 00:31:45.559
I think the reference to the opposite
naval intelligence is connected to the task force.

368
00:31:45.559 --> 00:31:48.680
I think the task force sits in
O n I. You know,

369
00:31:48.200 --> 00:31:53.359
whoever's kind of been tasked with overseeing
this issue? Is it the opposite naval

370
00:31:53.359 --> 00:31:59.519
intelligence? And so that's why they're
sort of called out specifically. But to

371
00:31:59.559 --> 00:32:01.519
your point, I mean, the
language is very clear that it asks the

372
00:32:01.559 --> 00:32:07.440
Office of the Director of National Intelligence
and the Secretary of Defense to sort of

373
00:32:07.559 --> 00:32:09.960
oversee this, sort of figure out
how to best do this. And so

374
00:32:10.960 --> 00:32:16.799
I'm interested at some point, particularly
if this bill gets adopted or this language

375
00:32:16.799 --> 00:32:22.839
and the bill gets adopted, asking
John Radcliffe about this. John Radcliffe is

376
00:32:22.880 --> 00:32:27.640
the new Director of National Intelligence who
was just put in there. He's a

377
00:32:27.680 --> 00:32:30.359
former member of Congress or Republican.
I mean, I'd be curious to know

378
00:32:30.640 --> 00:32:36.400
was he ever briefed on this when
he was in the House, what does

379
00:32:36.440 --> 00:32:39.920
he think about it? Because ultimately
he's going to be the guy who either

380
00:32:40.480 --> 00:32:47.839
you know, stalls this or runs
with it. So I think that's that's

381
00:32:47.880 --> 00:32:53.119
one person who I would at some
point like to hear more from. And

382
00:32:53.160 --> 00:32:57.480
then the Secretary Defense Mark Esper,
I mean, you know, I don't

383
00:32:58.200 --> 00:33:02.480
think he's ever been asked about this
issue, at least publicly, so I

384
00:33:02.519 --> 00:33:09.720
think, and that's another benefit of
this. No matter what this bill looks

385
00:33:09.759 --> 00:33:14.759
like in the end, and no
matter what this report, if they actually

386
00:33:14.759 --> 00:33:16.720
do do this report looks like,
and what the public version looks like,

387
00:33:17.039 --> 00:33:22.039
I mean, this is another in
a pretty significant way to force the issue.

388
00:33:22.480 --> 00:33:28.920
I mean, you now have a
real requirement potentially in the law for

389
00:33:29.039 --> 00:33:34.519
these agencies to address this, and
which means we in the media can ask

390
00:33:34.559 --> 00:33:37.119
them about it, and we're not
asking some esoteric question about do you believe

391
00:33:37.119 --> 00:33:40.039
in UFOs, what do you think
about this language, what are you going

392
00:33:40.079 --> 00:33:44.200
to do about it? How are
you going to do it? And so,

393
00:33:44.319 --> 00:33:46.839
you know, I think that's exciting
in some ways because it for someone

394
00:33:46.880 --> 00:33:53.559
like me who covers Congress, who
covers the policy world, this is you

395
00:33:53.599 --> 00:34:00.039
know, a huge piece of meat
that's just been thrown into the arena on

396
00:34:00.119 --> 00:34:05.640
this issue, which has a lot
of interest, and you know, is

397
00:34:05.680 --> 00:34:12.320
obviously intriguing because anything that's got a
big question mark over it, especially when

398
00:34:12.360 --> 00:34:17.639
it comes to the intelligence agencies,
is by definition newsworthy kind of getting into

399
00:34:17.679 --> 00:34:22.760
the background of the growing momentum.
It seems as though that this has kind

400
00:34:22.760 --> 00:34:27.880
of been a Chris Mellen strategy that
you've been aware of longer than most I

401
00:34:27.920 --> 00:34:32.400
think, to make exactly what's happened
happened in that you know, he seems

402
00:34:32.400 --> 00:34:37.920
to be definitely an apolitical type of
person. His main interest is the task

403
00:34:37.000 --> 00:34:44.760
at hand in this case, to
get more visibility and interest and information out

404
00:34:44.800 --> 00:34:49.239
about this topic. And it seems
like you know, from this plan from

405
00:34:49.239 --> 00:34:52.239
the get go, you being involved
with one of their kind of targets as

406
00:34:52.239 --> 00:35:01.159
opposed meaning they wanted they put together
a package of material with the Alizondo initially

407
00:35:01.199 --> 00:35:07.360
trying to get this up the ladder
to Mattis and others. That didn't work,

408
00:35:07.679 --> 00:35:13.159
so that it became kind of a
media strategy to package together some sexy

409
00:35:13.280 --> 00:35:17.199
videos and some information to entice the
media to cover this. They hit it

410
00:35:17.239 --> 00:35:22.599
with New York Times yourself, I
think Washington Post came out with a story

411
00:35:22.599 --> 00:35:29.400
of the same day, which created
this fervor, which then made the DoD

412
00:35:29.920 --> 00:35:36.960
Navy respond and then finally kind of
the Navy perhaps accident. Well, it

413
00:35:37.000 --> 00:35:44.159
seems purposely opening Pandora's box by admitting
that we do take these seriously and we

414
00:35:44.280 --> 00:35:49.320
do take these reports, at which
point there was kind of this tool now

415
00:35:50.159 --> 00:35:57.920
for the politicians or even public citizens
to request information. Okay, you're looking

416
00:35:58.000 --> 00:36:02.000
into UAPs. First of all,
oh, I think this is a pertinent

417
00:36:02.079 --> 00:36:05.800
question that hasn't been asked. Why
you've been laying to the public for all

418
00:36:05.800 --> 00:36:08.039
these years? But second of all, what have you got? What have

419
00:36:08.119 --> 00:36:12.599
you gotten? And now there seems
to be this sense and Chris mellen has

420
00:36:13.000 --> 00:36:17.239
even tweeted this that the Senate Intelligence
Agency is like, why haven't you told

421
00:36:17.320 --> 00:36:20.840
us about this? You're supposed to
brief us on these things, and you

422
00:36:20.880 --> 00:36:25.039
haven't given us any information, and
now we want information. It does seem

423
00:36:25.119 --> 00:36:30.079
like a very savvy kind of plan
that was put into place that has been

424
00:36:30.119 --> 00:36:37.679
successful. Yeah. I mean,
for first of all, I don't know

425
00:36:37.719 --> 00:36:45.519
that I have any unique insight into
Chris Mellon's role. I mean, obviously

426
00:36:45.559 --> 00:36:50.519
I've interviewed Chris a number of times, you know, going back to the

427
00:36:50.559 --> 00:36:53.920
beginning of this saga in twenty seventeen, and the revelations about a tip.

428
00:36:54.480 --> 00:37:01.880
But you know, it's not rockets
when you have someone like him, who's

429
00:37:01.920 --> 00:37:07.400
a former Senate Intelligence Committee staffer,
a former Pentagon official, who's the most

430
00:37:07.519 --> 00:37:15.039
public probably at least of this sort
of establishment class about this issue and hammering

431
00:37:15.039 --> 00:37:20.960
on this issue. You know through
op eds, through interviews on Fox News

432
00:37:21.320 --> 00:37:24.320
that you know that he's had a
big role in sort of shepherding this thing

433
00:37:24.400 --> 00:37:28.320
through. And he's been pretty clear
about that. I mean, just don't

434
00:37:28.400 --> 00:37:30.400
hide that, right right, that
he you know that he thinks this is

435
00:37:30.440 --> 00:37:35.599
an important issue and it's not getting
enough attention. And you know, like

436
00:37:35.639 --> 00:37:37.679
we said earlier, I mean,
he's the one who wrote the op ed

437
00:37:37.760 --> 00:37:44.119
that basically laid out what this report
that the Committee is now asking for should

438
00:37:44.159 --> 00:37:49.519
look like. And so I think, you know, when the history is

439
00:37:49.559 --> 00:37:53.119
written about this issue, and obviously
we don't know the ending yet, I

440
00:37:53.119 --> 00:37:59.360
think Chris Mellen will have played a
very instrumental role in this because he is

441
00:37:59.760 --> 00:38:07.800
the rare, not completely rare,
but relatively rare person who has the connections

442
00:38:07.840 --> 00:38:15.079
within the intelligence community. He's you
know, taken seriously, has a reputation

443
00:38:16.119 --> 00:38:20.039
who's taken on this issue, and
he's been able to move the ball,

444
00:38:20.800 --> 00:38:23.119
I think down the field in a
way that no one has at least in

445
00:38:23.159 --> 00:38:27.800
a very long time. And I
give him a lot of credit for that.

446
00:38:27.880 --> 00:38:31.199
I mean he I think he's genuinely
I got the impression that there was

447
00:38:31.239 --> 00:38:36.320
a time over the last couple of
years where he was getting pretty frustrated and

448
00:38:36.360 --> 00:38:39.960
about to throw in the towel.
Like in other words, there's been some

449
00:38:40.039 --> 00:38:45.079
revelations, there's been some discussion at
the highest levels about this issue and why

450
00:38:45.119 --> 00:38:46.800
it. You know, it should
get more attention, but then it sort

451
00:38:46.840 --> 00:38:52.880
of kind of fell off the radar. But I think this will only embolden

452
00:38:53.000 --> 00:38:58.440
him, probably this victory of sorts
to keep pushing. I don't know if

453
00:38:58.440 --> 00:39:01.960
that answers your question, but does
it does? Definitely, But I'm trying

454
00:39:01.960 --> 00:39:08.840
to how strong is this momentum,
how strong is Marco Rubio's intent to get

455
00:39:08.880 --> 00:39:14.639
information? And this is just one
tool. I would imagine, let's say

456
00:39:14.679 --> 00:39:20.079
this doesn't work, they have other
tools in the toolbox that they can utilize.

457
00:39:20.119 --> 00:39:23.119
Now, there have been other people
in Congress who have asked questions and

458
00:39:23.199 --> 00:39:28.119
haven't gotten a lot of answers,
But of course they're not coming from the

459
00:39:28.159 --> 00:39:31.880
Senate Intelligence Committee. So do you
think they there is momentum that, even

460
00:39:31.920 --> 00:39:38.679
if this doesn't work, that they're
going to keep pursuing this issue? You

461
00:39:38.719 --> 00:39:44.480
know, I think that's a good
question. You know, how how deep

462
00:39:44.519 --> 00:39:52.199
business reservoir of interest, particularly among
policymakers who can make a difference, who

463
00:39:52.280 --> 00:39:58.119
can force the issue. You know, I'm not sure I have a good

464
00:39:58.159 --> 00:40:00.519
answer there. I mean, I
feel like, I mean, number one,

465
00:40:00.639 --> 00:40:05.840
we're in the middle of a pandemic, an economic meltdown, lots of

466
00:40:05.840 --> 00:40:10.239
other problems that are on the you
know, the agenda. This is not

467
00:40:10.599 --> 00:40:16.039
one that a lot of members of
Congress are running around thinking about every day.

468
00:40:16.039 --> 00:40:22.400
They're just simply not And it's really, really, really hard to get

469
00:40:22.800 --> 00:40:30.480
Congress's attention on anything. And so
just prefacing that I think is important.

470
00:40:30.159 --> 00:40:36.000
Number Two, I don't I think
there is momentum, but I think it's

471
00:40:36.159 --> 00:40:43.679
probably among a very select few members
of Congress that really care about the issue,

472
00:40:44.039 --> 00:40:46.360
who have been briefed about it or
on their own got out of their

473
00:40:46.400 --> 00:40:52.000
way to educate themselves and feel like
it does need to be addressed. I

474
00:40:52.079 --> 00:40:59.559
think they tend to be hawkish members
of Congress, and by hawkish, I

475
00:40:59.639 --> 00:41:06.079
mean, they're focused on national security. They're big supporters of defense budgets.

476
00:41:06.559 --> 00:41:12.679
Marco Rubio is a hawk. I
think he comes at this issue with an

477
00:41:12.719 --> 00:41:20.760
open mind, clearly, but he's
also thinking, these are aircraft or spacecraft

478
00:41:20.960 --> 00:41:27.559
or something that are potentially threatening to
our military, and why are we not

479
00:41:28.679 --> 00:41:31.519
more alarmed about it. I think
the same goes for Congressman Mark Walsh in

480
00:41:31.559 --> 00:41:35.800
the House, who's retiring this year. But you know, he's come up

481
00:41:35.840 --> 00:41:38.760
because he wrote a few letters to
the Navy he was demanding more answers.

482
00:41:40.639 --> 00:41:45.920
He sits on the Homeland Security Committee, and you know, I think he's

483
00:41:46.000 --> 00:41:51.519
very animated about it. He's not
a committee chairman, so he doesn't really

484
00:41:51.519 --> 00:41:58.679
have a whole lot of you know, a ton of influence in this issue.

485
00:41:58.679 --> 00:42:00.519
But you know, and then some
of the other members of the Senate

486
00:42:00.519 --> 00:42:06.599
Intelligence Committee, clearly, Mark Order
as the vice chairman, must have supported

487
00:42:06.599 --> 00:42:12.079
this provision that Rubio got into the
bill. And so I don't feel like

488
00:42:13.199 --> 00:42:19.639
there's some groundswell here. You know, it's sort of like it's in many

489
00:42:19.639 --> 00:42:25.199
ways it's a rear guard action.
It's a very plotting step by step two

490
00:42:25.239 --> 00:42:30.840
steps forward, one step back,
then just standing in place for nine months

491
00:42:30.920 --> 00:42:35.280
with nothing happening, and then you
take a step forward. You know,

492
00:42:35.480 --> 00:42:37.840
I think that's a lot of things
get done quite frankly in Congress, you

493
00:42:37.840 --> 00:42:44.559
know, unless it's a bill that
is responding to something like police reform and

494
00:42:44.719 --> 00:42:49.199
needs to be dealt with. Now, you don't really get momentum on anything

495
00:42:49.280 --> 00:42:52.599
unless there's a crisis. And right
now there's no crisis in UAPs that we

496
00:42:52.679 --> 00:43:00.599
know of, and so you know, I think the rear guard action has

497
00:43:00.639 --> 00:43:05.400
been launched. I think there's no
doubt about that. But how many troops

498
00:43:05.440 --> 00:43:08.039
are involved, how many members of
Congress they are going to push for this

499
00:43:08.960 --> 00:43:14.119
and not just push to get this
bill passed, but ry roughshot over the

500
00:43:14.159 --> 00:43:19.159
agencies to actually get a real report
done, because it's one thing to say,

501
00:43:19.280 --> 00:43:21.599
give me the report, but they
could sit on it. They could

502
00:43:21.800 --> 00:43:24.480
land, they could like like I
said earlier, they could deliver some public

503
00:43:24.559 --> 00:43:30.480
version of it that doesn't really tell
as much of anything. You know.

504
00:43:30.559 --> 00:43:32.719
They could also just write a report
saying we went back in our files and

505
00:43:34.079 --> 00:43:36.239
like you and I when we foia
things, they could say, well we

506
00:43:36.280 --> 00:43:42.199
didn't find anything. Sorry. But
again, at least that's something at least

507
00:43:42.199 --> 00:43:46.079
it's forcing them to address the issue. And maybe the ultimate answer here is

508
00:43:46.119 --> 00:43:53.960
that if there are reports, even
if they're not collected in some centralized way,

509
00:43:54.719 --> 00:43:59.840
reports of these ufps and more recent
reports, maybe the next step is

510
00:43:59.880 --> 00:44:02.880
to actually put some money towards it. You know, the Congress could step

511
00:44:02.960 --> 00:44:07.400
up and say, well, you
need dedicated resources to do this. And

512
00:44:07.559 --> 00:44:13.519
so I think we're in the beginning
of a very long process that could also

513
00:44:13.920 --> 00:44:17.039
completely die in the next Congress.
I mean, a whole new Congress comes

514
00:44:17.079 --> 00:44:22.800
in, potentially new committee chairs,
the Democrats could take over, and Marco

515
00:44:22.880 --> 00:44:27.400
Rubio is basically powerless if they win
the Senate. So there's a lot of

516
00:44:27.519 --> 00:44:32.119
unknowns here. But I wouldn't I
wouldn't count our chickens yet. It is

517
00:44:32.159 --> 00:44:37.400
an interesting question because let's say,
of course Trump has made a couple of

518
00:44:37.559 --> 00:44:40.000
comments around UFOs, but not a
lot, not a lot. If Joe

519
00:44:40.000 --> 00:44:45.760
Biden becomes president, Potesta may have
a role in his presidency, and Poedessa

520
00:44:45.840 --> 00:44:50.320
certainly is very interested in the topic, so maybe he would push something forward.

521
00:44:50.800 --> 00:44:53.039
But what about the House? How
interested? Do you have any sense

522
00:44:53.079 --> 00:45:00.320
at all? How the House and
their reception to the bill has been that's

523
00:45:00.320 --> 00:45:07.679
interesting. I mean, you know, I don't I asked Adam Schiff about

524
00:45:07.679 --> 00:45:14.559
this issue. Last summer, I
was in an event, the Aspen Security

525
00:45:14.559 --> 00:45:17.119
Forum. It they're not doing it
this summer, but every summer the Aspen

526
00:45:17.159 --> 00:45:22.679
Institute invites all the muckety MUCKs from
national security circles out to Aspen and they

527
00:45:22.679 --> 00:45:27.719
have a couple of day conference and
Adam Schiff was one of the speakers,

528
00:45:27.719 --> 00:45:31.920
and I was moderating a panel,
and after one of the sessions, I

529
00:45:32.000 --> 00:45:36.000
was chatting with him about a bunch
of things and I said, hey,

530
00:45:36.119 --> 00:45:40.239
you know, this issue has been
bubbling up. And you know, he

531
00:45:40.280 --> 00:45:44.639
didn't say much, but he did
say that there's no doubt there are members

532
00:45:44.639 --> 00:45:47.960
of my committee that are interested in
this. You know, I have not

533
00:45:49.079 --> 00:45:52.400
personally been briefed. He said he
had not gotten a briefing about the Navy

534
00:45:52.480 --> 00:45:55.719
sightings. And again this is a
year ago, this is July of twenty

535
00:45:55.800 --> 00:46:00.960
nineteen. But he said that several
members had and that he had hoped to

536
00:46:01.119 --> 00:46:04.360
or he had planned to. And
you know, he said, I don't

537
00:46:04.400 --> 00:46:07.239
know what to make of it.
It's kind of interesting. It's it's certainly,

538
00:46:07.039 --> 00:46:12.239
you know, something that would fall
under our purview we should look into

539
00:46:13.280 --> 00:46:15.239
and so he didn't dismiss it,
but he also didn't give me the impression

540
00:46:15.280 --> 00:46:20.760
that he was like paying much attention
to it. Quite frankly, maybe that's

541
00:46:20.880 --> 00:46:24.039
changed, you know, but he
did clearly suggest that there were members on

542
00:46:24.119 --> 00:46:30.880
the House Intelligence Committee that that were
interested. So the way this will work

543
00:46:30.239 --> 00:46:36.079
is the Senate will pass its Intelligence
Authorization Bill, and again this is a

544
00:46:36.119 --> 00:46:38.639
massive bill that is, you know, supposed to set policy for all the

545
00:46:38.679 --> 00:46:43.920
intelligence agencies on everything you can think
of under the sun. It's a mostly

546
00:46:43.960 --> 00:46:49.880
classified bill. The House will pass
its version, and then they'll have to

547
00:46:49.920 --> 00:46:54.159
have a conference committee. So the
House and the Senate will pick a number

548
00:46:54.159 --> 00:46:58.760
of members that will then go in
a room and look at the Senate version

549
00:46:58.800 --> 00:47:00.440
of the bill and the House version
of the bill and basically try to marry

550
00:47:00.519 --> 00:47:06.000
it sort of come up with a
common version. And so if there are

551
00:47:06.079 --> 00:47:09.000
provisions like this one that are in
the Setate bill but not in the House

552
00:47:09.039 --> 00:47:13.360
bill, they have to discuss that
do we leave it in, do we

553
00:47:13.400 --> 00:47:16.320
take it out? Do we change
They can also change it, not in

554
00:47:16.360 --> 00:47:20.400
the conference committee, but they can
change it on the floor. So you

555
00:47:20.440 --> 00:47:22.960
know, Senate votes for the Senate
Intelligence bill. House votes for its own

556
00:47:23.079 --> 00:47:28.199
version, they then marry it together. Then they both have to vote on

557
00:47:28.239 --> 00:47:30.599
the final bill again. And so
there's a bunch of steps here that have

558
00:47:30.719 --> 00:47:36.239
to take place. But you know, if there are members of the House

559
00:47:36.280 --> 00:47:40.480
Intelligence Committee that care about this issue, as Adam Schiff mentioned, some of

560
00:47:40.519 --> 00:47:46.000
those members could be part of that
potentially part of that conference committee that has

561
00:47:46.039 --> 00:47:50.480
to come up with a final bill
for both houses of Congress and the past.

562
00:47:51.000 --> 00:47:53.679
So you know, again I said
earlier, I think it'd be very

563
00:47:53.679 --> 00:47:58.639
difficult to take this out. It's
not impossible to take this language out.

564
00:48:00.519 --> 00:48:04.360
But you know, the Senate,
the full Senate, still has a chance

565
00:48:04.400 --> 00:48:07.280
to take it out on its own
without even worrying about what the House thing.

566
00:48:07.440 --> 00:48:12.599
I mean, when they debate the
bill on the floor, they could

567
00:48:12.719 --> 00:48:15.800
change it. They could make it
a completely classified report. I could see

568
00:48:15.800 --> 00:48:20.360
that being a possibility where somebody might
say, well, since we don't know

569
00:48:20.400 --> 00:48:22.480
exactly what we know, you know, don't we want to make this secret

570
00:48:22.519 --> 00:48:27.559
so that we're not revealing any you
know. And the committee sort of references

571
00:48:27.920 --> 00:48:30.400
alludes to that challenge a little bit
in the language. If you remember,

572
00:48:31.159 --> 00:48:36.079
they make some reference. Do we
know that this is sensitive stuff potentially,

573
00:48:36.760 --> 00:48:40.280
but yet we still want a public
report. And so you could see some

574
00:48:40.320 --> 00:48:45.400
people raising questions about how public it
should be because usually in these cases the

575
00:48:45.400 --> 00:48:52.000
report is secret and then they have
an unclassified annex to the report. This

576
00:48:52.159 --> 00:48:55.039
is flipped where the report is public
and oh, you can have a classified

577
00:48:55.039 --> 00:48:59.320
annex if you want or if you
need it, which is very interesting.

578
00:48:59.400 --> 00:49:04.360
I mean, it's it's it's definitely
unusual the way they've done this. So

579
00:49:04.400 --> 00:49:10.239
I guess advocates the best thing they
can not just contact Marco Rubio, which

580
00:49:10.840 --> 00:49:15.400
Chris mellen has kind of put out
there on Twitter, but also their own

581
00:49:15.480 --> 00:49:19.159
representatives in the House and the Senate
to let them know they're interested, to

582
00:49:19.199 --> 00:49:25.760
hopefully influence when they come across it, to leave it in Oh you mean

583
00:49:25.840 --> 00:49:29.880
like the public role. Yeah,
the public I mean, I think,

584
00:49:29.920 --> 00:49:35.440
like anything else. I mean,
constituents can right their congress person. I

585
00:49:35.440 --> 00:49:44.760
think at this stage, you know, you'd probably want to write to not

586
00:49:44.880 --> 00:49:47.960
just members of the intelligence committees,
but the leadership of the House and Senate.

587
00:49:49.519 --> 00:49:52.880
So mis McConnell, Nancy Pelosi,
if you feel strongly about this,

588
00:49:52.039 --> 00:49:59.719
they're going to be the the gatekeepers
on what eventually gets debated by you know,

589
00:49:59.719 --> 00:50:02.960
the Senate in the full House.
But it certainly can't hurt I mean,

590
00:50:02.960 --> 00:50:07.480
if people think this, feel strongly
about this issue, it can't hurt

591
00:50:07.480 --> 00:50:10.320
to badgery. You remember of Congress
about it, or ask them in a

592
00:50:10.360 --> 00:50:15.320
town hall or a virtual town hall
or whatever they're doing these days. Right,

593
00:50:15.199 --> 00:50:21.320
Adam is asking again, do you
know that Melon has any advocates or

594
00:50:21.400 --> 00:50:30.719
people he's working with in the House
that I don't know? I know,

595
00:50:30.880 --> 00:50:37.440
I mean, I mentioned Congressman Mark
Walsh of North Carolina. I think he's

596
00:50:37.480 --> 00:50:40.639
an ally. I mean, and
I say that not because I know specifically,

597
00:50:40.679 --> 00:50:45.039
but just because he's been very public
about this issue, more public than

598
00:50:45.079 --> 00:50:53.039
others. So it's possible that he's
working behind the scenes. He told me

599
00:50:53.280 --> 00:50:57.559
that he was. Mark Walsh told
me a number of months ago that he

600
00:50:57.639 --> 00:51:07.760
was also enlisting. At least the
interest of his name is escaping me.

601
00:51:07.880 --> 00:51:15.440
Now, is it Andrew or Anthony
Rose? A young congressman from New York

602
00:51:15.480 --> 00:51:20.039
State. He's a former military guy. Let me look look him up here,

603
00:51:22.039 --> 00:51:27.760
Andy Rose, who's apparently a military
veteran. He's young, he's in

604
00:51:27.800 --> 00:51:31.400
his thirties, he apparently cares about
this issue, and so you know there

605
00:51:31.559 --> 00:51:40.159
there are ah, there are definitely
you know, yeah, no Andy Rose,

606
00:51:42.239 --> 00:51:52.440
am I not find him. I'm
sorry, Max Rose, Max Max

607
00:51:52.519 --> 00:52:00.840
Rose of New York, who is
a I think he's just got elected in

608
00:52:00.880 --> 00:52:09.519
twenty eighteen. Yeah, he's thirty
three from Brooklyn. He apparently is quite

609
00:52:09.519 --> 00:52:14.400
interested in this issue. So I
just I don't know what he's doing about

610
00:52:14.440 --> 00:52:17.599
it, but Wall should mention that
he was an ally and I think they

611
00:52:17.679 --> 00:52:22.800
serve on the same subcommittee as part
of the Homeland Security Committee. And so

612
00:52:22.880 --> 00:52:25.360
I just throw that out there because, like I said earlier, I think

613
00:52:25.360 --> 00:52:30.480
there are you know, let's call
them the true believers, and by that

614
00:52:30.559 --> 00:52:37.360
I mean true believers that this is
a real issue. It's not a conspiracy

615
00:52:37.400 --> 00:52:42.880
theory. It's not something to be
dismissed, laughed at and joked at.

616
00:52:43.320 --> 00:52:46.159
It's a real policy issue that we
need to figure out what to do about.

617
00:52:46.719 --> 00:52:49.840
And so you know there are members. But again, you know,

618
00:52:50.480 --> 00:52:54.000
as it gotten to the level where
you know, there's huge blocks in the

619
00:52:54.039 --> 00:52:59.719
Democratic and Republican Party that are thinking
about this, I don't think we're close

620
00:52:59.760 --> 00:53:02.920
to that. Yeah, So have
you been vindicated it all. I mean,

621
00:53:05.559 --> 00:53:09.360
I had a controversial topic. I'm
sure you got some raised eyebrows when

622
00:53:09.400 --> 00:53:13.920
you started covering all of this.
I was surprised when you started covering it

623
00:53:14.800 --> 00:53:19.880
with your Space emposium that you guys
have put together. But now that it's

624
00:53:19.920 --> 00:53:23.599
gotten far this, do you have
some of your colleagues coming to you and

625
00:53:23.639 --> 00:53:30.119
saying, wow, Bender, I
guess you were onto something a little bit.

626
00:53:30.159 --> 00:53:36.440
I mean, I don't I always
got buy in for my editor as

627
00:53:36.480 --> 00:53:40.440
a politico. I mean I never
really I mean obviously at first when I

628
00:53:40.480 --> 00:53:43.360
came to a couple of them and
said, you know, I think the

629
00:53:43.400 --> 00:53:49.199
Pentagon's been doing some research on this
issue, and you know, they got

630
00:53:49.199 --> 00:53:52.480
some money from Congress, and there
was a little bit of the sort of

631
00:53:52.519 --> 00:53:54.719
eye rolling. And I think you
and I have talked about this before.

632
00:53:55.599 --> 00:53:59.440
But I think once it became clear
that this was a real project, it

633
00:53:59.559 --> 00:54:05.400
had a real budget, and this
is the A tip program, there was

634
00:54:05.440 --> 00:54:07.719
never any real pushback like, oh, this sounds like a good story,

635
00:54:07.800 --> 00:54:14.199
let's pursue it. But yeah,
clearly, you know, over the course

636
00:54:14.199 --> 00:54:20.960
the last few years, there's a
few comments here and there, but you

637
00:54:21.000 --> 00:54:23.320
know, I've had this discussion I've
been thinking about writing a piece about it.

638
00:54:24.960 --> 00:54:30.760
I don't know how familiar you are
with the Overton window, but I

639
00:54:30.800 --> 00:54:37.840
only recently came across it. Overton
was a scholar, professor fairly recent.

640
00:54:37.960 --> 00:54:40.800
He actually died quite young. I
think he died in the early nineties.

641
00:54:43.280 --> 00:54:46.480
But he came up with this theory
and they became known as the Overton window.

642
00:54:46.800 --> 00:54:53.519
But think of a window, which
is the space where it's acceptable in

643
00:54:55.159 --> 00:55:02.239
academia, policy circles, think tank, congressional committees, any organization that talks

644
00:55:02.239 --> 00:55:07.280
about public policy. There's kind of
a window of what you can talk about,

645
00:55:07.320 --> 00:55:10.719
what's sort of in the window,
what's acceptable. And I think in

646
00:55:10.719 --> 00:55:16.719
a number of ways the Overton windows
has shifted in recent years or it's expanded,

647
00:55:17.480 --> 00:55:23.880
and not just on this issue where
the Senate and TODs Committee chairman can

648
00:55:24.000 --> 00:55:29.360
feel like it's okay to put out
a public report, you know, not

649
00:55:29.440 --> 00:55:31.559
talking about UFOs, not talking about
aliens. There's no words like that in

650
00:55:31.599 --> 00:55:39.599
there, but clearly confronting very head
on an issue of you know, unidentified

651
00:55:39.840 --> 00:55:46.840
objects that seem to defy any technology
that we know of the fact that he

652
00:55:46.880 --> 00:55:55.960
feels comfortable shows that that window maybe
of what's acceptable to talk about has expanded

653
00:55:57.079 --> 00:55:59.440
or shifted, and I think other
examples of it are, you know,

654
00:55:59.800 --> 00:56:05.000
all over the place free college.
I think five or ten years ago,

655
00:56:05.079 --> 00:56:08.440
if a presidential Canada talked about free
college, they would be laughs, off

656
00:56:08.440 --> 00:56:10.679
the stage, what are you talking
about. We don't do that. That's

657
00:56:10.679 --> 00:56:16.159
not acceptable. You know, the
sort of establishment education experts would say,

658
00:56:16.199 --> 00:56:21.440
oh, that's crazy. Well that's
not crazy anymore. I mean Bernie Sanders

659
00:56:21.519 --> 00:56:24.760
talked about it, Elizabeth Warren has
talked about it. People are proposing actual

660
00:56:24.880 --> 00:56:30.159
ways to do it, and so
I think the Overton window is moved on

661
00:56:30.239 --> 00:56:37.320
this issue. I think it's a
combination of just access to so much information

662
00:56:37.519 --> 00:56:40.039
it's out there. I think the
younger generation is more open minded about a

663
00:56:40.039 --> 00:56:45.159
lot of things, and that includes
younger generation members of Congress. I mean

664
00:56:45.360 --> 00:56:49.280
I just mentioned Max Rose. He's
thirty three years old. He doesn't necessarily

665
00:56:49.320 --> 00:56:55.519
have the baggage or the scar tissue
on an issue like this that maybe you

666
00:56:55.519 --> 00:57:00.559
know, members of Congress from our
generation or when we were growing up do,

667
00:57:00.320 --> 00:57:04.679
and so you know, that presents
an opportunity where you can talk about

668
00:57:04.719 --> 00:57:13.960
things that were sort of written off
before or at least written off in recent

669
00:57:14.000 --> 00:57:15.119
memory. I mean, as you
know better than I, and I find

670
00:57:15.159 --> 00:57:20.679
it fascinating when I read some of
the history of the UFO issue. There

671
00:57:20.719 --> 00:57:23.519
were actually members of Congress that actually
cared about this issue even years ago and

672
00:57:23.559 --> 00:57:29.280
wrote memos about it. And I
forget where I saw. I think he

673
00:57:29.360 --> 00:57:34.079
was the Speaker of the House.
John McCormick in the nineteen sixties was on

674
00:57:34.119 --> 00:57:37.880
the record talking about this issue,
like there was a lot of reports,

675
00:57:37.920 --> 00:57:39.079
and he said, we should be
doing more about this, and of course,

676
00:57:39.559 --> 00:57:43.840
as far as we know, nothing
really happened. But so you know,

677
00:57:43.880 --> 00:57:47.760
I think we're in a new era, but it's it's not completely new.

678
00:57:49.119 --> 00:57:52.599
If we need to keep in mind
that there has been public officials that

679
00:57:52.679 --> 00:57:59.000
have you mentioned John Podesta, there
have been public officials of note that have

680
00:58:00.039 --> 00:58:02.119
been willing to talk about this issue. I just think we're in there and

681
00:58:02.159 --> 00:58:07.920
now we're more willing and they don't
see it as political suicide, you know,

682
00:58:07.000 --> 00:58:10.320
to be the UFO person or the
UAP person. But I think John

683
00:58:10.320 --> 00:58:14.800
Podesta, I mean, in a
Biden administration, if Biden wants a national

684
00:58:14.840 --> 00:58:17.559
commission to get to the bottom of
this, John Podesta would be the perfect

685
00:58:17.559 --> 00:58:22.119
person to run it, no doubt. He's worked with him very closely,

686
00:58:22.159 --> 00:58:28.719
and he was around during a lot
of testa Washington UFO hygienks type of stuff

687
00:58:28.840 --> 00:58:31.920
that was going on when some people
think he's an alien himself. Yeah,

688
00:58:32.079 --> 00:58:37.119
I think too. So I have
a a couple of questions from the chat

689
00:58:37.199 --> 00:58:40.199
and when was along the lines of
your last It's kind of along the lines

690
00:58:40.239 --> 00:58:45.840
of what were the Senate briefed on? You know, what information they get?

691
00:58:45.239 --> 00:58:50.360
Steve asked, do you think that
the Senate Intelligence Committee was shown incredible

692
00:58:50.440 --> 00:58:55.039
evidence to justify including that verbiage in
the report? Especially if you consider the

693
00:58:55.119 --> 00:59:00.159
stigma involved with the UFO UAP topic. It seems they were willing to include

694
00:59:00.159 --> 00:59:09.639
it at the risk of public and
political scrutiny. So I'm trying to find

695
00:59:09.639 --> 00:59:21.039
the you cut out there for a
second. Can you sort of repeat that

696
00:59:21.159 --> 00:59:27.400
or I'm trying to find the actual
Oh, it was different, but I'll

697
00:59:27.400 --> 00:59:32.239
post it here so you could read
it too. It's from Steve. But

698
00:59:32.360 --> 00:59:36.559
yeah, do you think that I
have another question tool here they can use?

699
00:59:40.679 --> 00:59:52.079
So, I mean, I think
they were manly. The short answer

700
00:59:52.159 --> 00:59:53.800
is, I don't know. I
mean, you know, I don't know

701
00:59:53.840 --> 01:00:00.000
what exactly the Senate and Totals Committee, you know, learned what they were

702
01:00:00.079 --> 01:00:04.360
brief But you know, I think
trying to think of it this way,

703
01:00:04.519 --> 01:00:07.639
I mean, if you were a
member of the Senate Telenis Committee where I

704
01:00:07.920 --> 01:00:12.239
was, and I was sitting there
and a bunch of Navy guys came in

705
01:00:12.239 --> 01:00:15.320
including it sounds like in one of
the briefings, at least one of the

706
01:00:15.360 --> 01:00:21.239
pilots who had actually made one of
the reports, came in and gave you

707
01:00:21.320 --> 01:00:25.920
this very detailed, credible sounding report
about what we're seeing. You know,

708
01:00:25.920 --> 01:00:31.840
why we can't explain it? You
might and then you saw the three videos

709
01:00:32.239 --> 01:00:36.320
that the Navy put out. I
mean, it's just human nature. I

710
01:00:36.320 --> 01:00:37.920
mean they might be like, wow, what the hell is that? Like,

711
01:00:38.039 --> 01:00:40.960
why do we not know what those
are? And so, you know,

712
01:00:42.239 --> 01:00:45.280
I'm not ready to assume that they
know anything a whole lot more than

713
01:00:45.320 --> 01:00:52.800
we do. I mean, as
I said earlier, you know, oftentimes,

714
01:00:52.840 --> 01:00:55.760
even though they're not supposed to be
the last to know, the oversight

715
01:00:55.800 --> 01:01:01.599
committees in Congress are the last to
know. In other words, especially when

716
01:01:01.639 --> 01:01:07.079
you're dealing with intelligence agencies, they
don't necessarily, you know, give up

717
01:01:07.119 --> 01:01:14.119
the goods on their own unless they
need to. And so I don't get

718
01:01:14.119 --> 01:01:17.039
the impression that the Senate Intel Committee
knows anything more than we do. I

719
01:01:17.039 --> 01:01:20.920
mean they probably they do no more
than we do in the sense that they

720
01:01:20.920 --> 01:01:24.480
have a clearance and they can see
classified documents that we can't get. Maybe

721
01:01:24.480 --> 01:01:30.719
they saw the actual reports which we've
been trying to get through Foye, Like

722
01:01:30.800 --> 01:01:35.599
what did the pilots actually see?
What did they say? Where the interview

723
01:01:35.639 --> 01:01:40.199
transcripts I've asked for the more recent
reports since last year when the Navy came

724
01:01:40.280 --> 01:01:45.239
up with these new guidelines for reporting
these Well, what have they gotten if

725
01:01:45.280 --> 01:01:49.760
people actually reported them and haven't really
gotten anywhere. So maybe know it's possible

726
01:01:49.760 --> 01:01:52.280
they could have seen those or some
version of that stuff that we in the

727
01:01:52.280 --> 01:01:57.719
public haven't seen. But I think
there's enough out there in the public that

728
01:01:57.760 --> 01:02:01.039
if you're open minded about this.
An open mind doesn't mean that you believe

729
01:02:01.039 --> 01:02:06.440
in aliens. It just means that
you believe that there's credible people that are

730
01:02:06.480 --> 01:02:12.280
reporting things that we can't explain.
There's enough already out there to take the

731
01:02:12.320 --> 01:02:15.000
next step, which is, well, what else do we know? Should

732
01:02:15.039 --> 01:02:17.639
we be doing more? Should we
be asking more questions, Should we,

733
01:02:19.280 --> 01:02:23.000
you know, be interfacing more with
our allies about this issue, because you

734
01:02:23.039 --> 01:02:27.199
know, that's something that comes up
a lot. Which is interesting to me

735
01:02:27.360 --> 01:02:30.760
is that we seem to be behind
the ball on this, like in other

736
01:02:30.800 --> 01:02:35.639
words, a lot of other countries
have gotten over their Overton window has been

737
01:02:35.679 --> 01:02:38.800
opened a long time ago, where
they talk about this more openly. But

738
01:02:38.880 --> 01:02:44.159
what's interesting is I don't get the
sense that they have a whole lot more

739
01:02:44.159 --> 01:02:46.800
answers than we do. I mean, you would know more than me,

740
01:02:47.159 --> 01:02:51.280
But no, they got the code
on this. I don't think they have

741
01:02:52.000 --> 01:02:55.039
I agree. I mean we have
the UK. I mean we have quite

742
01:02:55.039 --> 01:02:59.880
a bit of inight into what they
were examining, which is very similar to

743
01:03:00.119 --> 01:03:04.440
us. And they didn't really take
a stance. The only real government that's

744
01:03:04.440 --> 01:03:08.039
taken a stance is Chili. But
Chile analyzed cases that they had that are

745
01:03:08.159 --> 01:03:12.280
familiar to ours, similar that you
find in Blue Book, are similar to

746
01:03:12.280 --> 01:03:16.599
the Knimt situation where essentially an object
is tracked, jets are scrambled, the

747
01:03:16.639 --> 01:03:22.360
object flies off, the jets come
home, and essentially they've determined that they're

748
01:03:22.360 --> 01:03:25.400
not They don't seem malicious, like
they want to hurt us, but that

749
01:03:25.440 --> 01:03:30.480
there's something there. So I think
you're right about that personally, at least

750
01:03:30.519 --> 01:03:37.880
from what we've seen of what the
other governments know. And I also think

751
01:03:37.880 --> 01:03:45.840
that that drives some of the what
I sense, at least from where I

752
01:03:45.079 --> 01:03:51.679
sit, is a not really a
lack of interest in this by the military,

753
01:03:51.840 --> 01:03:55.599
but a sort of a sense of
resignation that you know, it's just

754
01:03:55.719 --> 01:04:00.880
really worth looking into. I mean, you know, if I had a

755
01:04:00.960 --> 01:04:03.119
dime for every time somebody told me
the Air Force looked at this for forty

756
01:04:03.239 --> 01:04:09.119
years and they found nothing, why
would we do that again? Which you

757
01:04:09.119 --> 01:04:12.480
know is sort of a lame answer, because you know, there's always new

758
01:04:12.480 --> 01:04:16.800
information, there's always fresh evidence data
that you could look at. But I

759
01:04:16.840 --> 01:04:20.199
get the sense that there's a resignation
that we're never going to figure this out,

760
01:04:20.400 --> 01:04:24.159
so like, why waste our time? And they're not threatening, they

761
01:04:24.159 --> 01:04:27.800
don't seem to be. You know, they're not shooting down our aircraft,

762
01:04:27.960 --> 01:04:31.039
they're not blowing up our nuclear power
plants, and so I think that's a

763
01:04:31.039 --> 01:04:33.599
big part of it. You know, I had a conversation. I think

764
01:04:33.639 --> 01:04:36.880
I've shared this with you. This
was not something that I was able to

765
01:04:38.039 --> 01:04:47.039
use on the record. But I've
talked to enough senior people in the Air

766
01:04:47.079 --> 01:04:54.000
Force and the Navy to get a
pretty good sense. They don't think these

767
01:04:54.039 --> 01:04:59.360
aircraft for foreign adversaries, and they
don't think that there's some secret US government

768
01:04:59.559 --> 01:05:02.519
plane. And you know, some
of these people I've talked to who don't

769
01:05:02.519 --> 01:05:06.239
want to go public, they have
access to a lot of the deep dark

770
01:05:06.639 --> 01:05:12.280
black programs. They can go in
their super users as they're called. They

771
01:05:12.280 --> 01:05:18.760
can go into the systems and have
a pretty wide access view of what are

772
01:05:18.760 --> 01:05:23.039
the secret programs we've got going on. And I don't get the impression that

773
01:05:23.119 --> 01:05:26.440
they think it's one of ours.
They don't think it's one of theirs,

774
01:05:27.039 --> 01:05:30.079
because I think if they did think
it was one of theirs, they would

775
01:05:30.119 --> 01:05:32.599
take it more seriously, right,
I mean, if they thought it was

776
01:05:32.679 --> 01:05:36.800
Russian or Chinese. I mean they'd
be running around and kicking out their head.

777
01:05:38.000 --> 01:05:42.679
I mean asking for a trillion more
dollars for more hypersonic missiles and more

778
01:05:42.679 --> 01:05:45.440
defenses and more. And they're not
doing that. And I think it's because

779
01:05:45.960 --> 01:05:49.440
they don't know what the hell they
are and they don't really have a ton

780
01:05:49.480 --> 01:05:53.760
of confidence that they're going to figure
it out, and maybe some of them

781
01:05:53.760 --> 01:05:56.840
don't want to know because it's sort
of like I don't want to go there

782
01:05:56.920 --> 01:06:02.360
because it will up and potentially eving
we're all about, We'll have to go

783
01:06:02.440 --> 01:06:10.679
back to basics you've ran across as
similar to what you just said, even

784
01:06:11.000 --> 01:06:13.960
you know, a lot of people
think there's some kind of deep, dark,

785
01:06:14.039 --> 01:06:18.519
hidden reservoir of secrets. Even if
that is the case, the majority

786
01:06:18.639 --> 01:06:23.800
of the military, and this is
my experience from interviews and similar to what

787
01:06:23.840 --> 01:06:28.519
you're talking about, the majority even
of leadership in the military, are kind

788
01:06:28.519 --> 01:06:30.280
of like, well, there's something
out there, we don't know what it

789
01:06:30.400 --> 01:06:34.280
is, but we have no ability
to even figure it out. Nothing I'm

790
01:06:34.320 --> 01:06:38.679
going to worry about. But at
the same time, they have an attitude

791
01:06:38.760 --> 01:06:42.480
that, even though that's my attitude
about this topic, I don't want to

792
01:06:42.480 --> 01:06:45.480
share that with the public. I
don't want the public to know I'm taking

793
01:06:45.480 --> 01:06:48.599
this seriously and I'm just resigned to
the idea that I'm never going to find

794
01:06:48.639 --> 01:06:56.159
out right. And you know,
we've talked about this before too, but

795
01:06:56.440 --> 01:07:02.360
but I do think I think it's
quite possible that there is information to be

796
01:07:02.480 --> 01:07:10.199
known that the government has, and
if at all possible, it would be

797
01:07:10.280 --> 01:07:15.760
nice for you know, assuming it
doesn't, you know, risk national security,

798
01:07:15.760 --> 01:07:18.639
it would be nice for us the
public to be able to know that.

799
01:07:20.519 --> 01:07:24.039
But at the same time, while
I think there might be things in

800
01:07:24.079 --> 01:07:30.280
there hidden, I'm not convinced that
the people who run these agencies know the

801
01:07:30.320 --> 01:07:33.239
stuff is there. I mean,
you have to remember, these agencies are

802
01:07:33.360 --> 01:07:41.519
massive. Oftentimes, even within the
agencies, they're not talking to each other,

803
01:07:41.679 --> 01:07:45.639
let alone sharing information with another agency
and so, and then there's the

804
01:07:45.679 --> 01:07:50.519
whole question of what records are retained
by law. These agencies are not required

805
01:07:50.559 --> 01:07:55.039
to keep a lot of things.
They're just not so small percentage that they

806
01:07:55.079 --> 01:07:59.719
actually have to keep. So imagine
now in the electronic age, as opposed

807
01:07:59.719 --> 01:08:03.440
to the paper age, where you
just clean off a hard drive because it's

808
01:08:03.639 --> 01:08:09.559
a need more space, or you
know, as opposed to writing up a

809
01:08:09.599 --> 01:08:13.079
report and sending it to some functionary
who then sends it to the National Archives

810
01:08:13.199 --> 01:08:15.560
or it gets filed away. I
feel like we also live in an era

811
01:08:15.640 --> 01:08:19.760
where we're even with all the information
we have, our government's not doing a

812
01:08:19.840 --> 01:08:23.640
very good job of retaining it.
I mean, they're getting better I think

813
01:08:24.079 --> 01:08:28.560
the National Archives has put out a
lot of new guidance in recent years about

814
01:08:28.560 --> 01:08:33.319
how to maintain electronic archives. But
I always tell the story about an Army

815
01:08:33.399 --> 01:08:39.359
historian who I once talked to,
who said, this goes back five or

816
01:08:39.359 --> 01:08:43.439
ten years, but he said,
I can tell you where every American soldier

817
01:08:43.600 --> 01:08:47.000
was during World War Two, virtually
every day, where they were within five

818
01:08:47.079 --> 01:08:50.199
miles of where they were standing.
But if you want me to do a

819
01:08:50.239 --> 01:08:55.439
recounting of the Battle of Solder City
in Baghdad in two thousand and four,

820
01:08:55.880 --> 01:09:00.680
I can't tell you anything because all
the hard drives of those units wiped out

821
01:09:00.079 --> 01:09:04.000
when another unit came in and replaced
them. Now, granted, I could

822
01:09:04.000 --> 01:09:09.520
go interview the kids who were there, who fought the Battle of Souturn City

823
01:09:09.560 --> 01:09:12.319
in two thousand and four, and
interview them in a way I can interview

824
01:09:12.319 --> 01:09:15.319
World War two people. But I
don't have a paper trail the way I

825
01:09:15.359 --> 01:09:19.600
do for things that happened a lifetime
ago. And so I just throw that

826
01:09:19.600 --> 01:09:26.319
out there because I think there's this
misimpression, and I sometimes fall trapped to

827
01:09:26.319 --> 01:09:31.039
it too, that somehow the government
just has miles and miles of filing cabinets

828
01:09:31.039 --> 01:09:38.359
of stuff they're hiding, and no
doubt they are, but it's not miles

829
01:09:38.359 --> 01:09:43.399
and miles. It's like you know, your living room full. And they're

830
01:09:43.399 --> 01:09:45.960
in places that a lot of the
senior people don't even know that they're there.

831
01:09:46.399 --> 01:09:48.840
They've never read them, they've never
looked at them. They aren't even

832
01:09:49.079 --> 01:09:53.760
they wouldn't even be able to tell
you what's in there. And so that's

833
01:09:53.800 --> 01:09:57.319
one of the things that's beneficial about
this. Getting back to the report that

834
01:09:57.399 --> 01:10:00.600
the Senate want the Senate Committee wants
is least it's a first start. And

835
01:10:00.680 --> 01:10:06.159
Okay, we haven't really had a
government wide investigation of any of this stuff,

836
01:10:06.199 --> 01:10:12.680
at least in almost fifty years.
Right when did Project Blue Book end?

837
01:10:12.960 --> 01:10:16.199
At least that we know of.
Yeah, but I got to think

838
01:10:16.279 --> 01:10:20.279
the CIA has got stuff. I've
got to think the Air Force has stuff,

839
01:10:20.479 --> 01:10:27.399
even if it's just random, haphazard
here, there, everywhere, And

840
01:10:27.439 --> 01:10:30.199
it would just be nice to pull
all that together and see is there a

841
01:10:30.239 --> 01:10:36.640
picture, more common picture or is
it completely blurry and we have no idea

842
01:10:36.760 --> 01:10:42.039
But we don't even know that.
But again, I to get back to

843
01:10:42.079 --> 01:10:49.079
your question. I'm growning on,
but I think there are people in the

844
01:10:49.079 --> 01:10:57.239
military that that really have just looked
at this issue and said, there's no

845
01:10:57.319 --> 01:11:00.000
winning there. We're not going to
figure out the mystery of the universe.

846
01:11:00.720 --> 01:11:05.039
And as long as we don't think
that they're threatening and you know they're about

847
01:11:05.039 --> 01:11:10.760
to blow us up, you know, we can focus on a whole lot

848
01:11:10.800 --> 01:11:15.640
of other things. And you know, that's kind of disappointing when you think

849
01:11:15.640 --> 01:11:19.760
about it. But as I've said
before, the military is an institution that

850
01:11:19.880 --> 01:11:25.800
has a box for everything. You
take this and you file it in that

851
01:11:25.880 --> 01:11:30.199
box, or you follow that directive
that you're given by your commander, and

852
01:11:30.239 --> 01:11:34.119
it lays out in painstaking detail how
you do it. And then you throw

853
01:11:34.159 --> 01:11:38.520
them something that is a big question
mark. We don't know who belongs to,

854
01:11:38.600 --> 01:11:41.439
we don't know how it works,
we don't know if it's real or

855
01:11:41.439 --> 01:11:44.079
not. You know, is it
is it fake? Is it a spoof?

856
01:11:44.199 --> 01:11:46.560
Is it? What is it?
And you know their head spinds like,

857
01:11:46.600 --> 01:11:50.119
well, what do I do with
that? You know, there are

858
01:11:50.159 --> 01:11:54.479
most people in the military are right
side of the brain people, not left

859
01:11:54.479 --> 01:11:57.119
side of the brain people. And
I think it's the left side of the

860
01:11:57.119 --> 01:12:00.279
brain people that tend to be more
Well, what is this we should figure

861
01:12:00.319 --> 01:12:04.000
this out. And I think some
people are just wired, and the military

862
01:12:04.079 --> 01:12:09.039
tends to have a lot of these
people wired to tell me the answer,

863
01:12:09.720 --> 01:12:13.079
tell me where it fits, tell
me whose job it is. And that's

864
01:12:13.079 --> 01:12:16.039
another thing. It's nobody's job to
do this, not really. I mean

865
01:12:16.079 --> 01:12:24.239
it was a tip's job, but
a tip was like this big m so

866
01:12:24.279 --> 01:12:27.159
this kind of you know, kind
of going down this road a little bit.

867
01:12:27.399 --> 01:12:30.279
I've been getting harassed. I know
you've been getting harassed by a lot

868
01:12:30.279 --> 01:12:34.600
of the the UFO community. I
guess on Twitter about some of these kind

869
01:12:34.640 --> 01:12:39.960
of fringe conspiracies that have been coming
out, but you know, they're attached

870
01:12:40.319 --> 01:12:45.720
no better than to tweet about Roswell, but you know they're attaching some of

871
01:12:45.800 --> 01:12:51.800
the names of people into the stars, including you know, some of the

872
01:12:51.840 --> 01:12:57.479
scientists, but also even Ela Zondo
has gone on Tucker Carlson and said,

873
01:12:57.520 --> 01:13:01.279
I think you know there's a piece
of a uofone material that the government has.

874
01:13:01.880 --> 01:13:08.199
Do you think, you know,
with these guys kind of entertaining these

875
01:13:08.279 --> 01:13:12.680
kind of more fringe ideas, could
that be jeopard could that jeopardize their efforts

876
01:13:14.680 --> 01:13:21.439
with the Senate or with the you
know, in Washington. I mean,

877
01:13:21.520 --> 01:13:31.439
I think there is a risk that, uh, there's certainly a risk that.

878
01:13:31.680 --> 01:13:35.720
I mean, just because the Overton
window is moved doesn't mean that there's

879
01:13:35.720 --> 01:13:40.600
still isn't the chance that people could
get spooked, you know what I mean,

880
01:13:42.680 --> 01:13:45.199
if there's you know, a feeling
I think up there that somehow they

881
01:13:45.239 --> 01:13:54.479
are roaming into territory where they're going
to be vilified or made fun of,

882
01:13:54.880 --> 01:13:59.479
or there's a political cost to doing
this, then they could get scared and

883
01:13:59.640 --> 01:14:01.680
run away and say I don't want
to deal with that anymore. And so,

884
01:14:02.640 --> 01:14:15.119
you know, I think the more
I think, the more the unproven

885
01:14:15.239 --> 01:14:19.760
theories and I know I'm treading on
sort of ice here, but like the

886
01:14:19.800 --> 01:14:28.039
more the whether they're true or not, the more things like Roswell start getting

887
01:14:28.039 --> 01:14:33.640
people to think cookie things, whether
that's justified or not, I think probably

888
01:14:33.680 --> 01:14:40.680
doesn't help move the ball in Congress. In other words, if you start,

889
01:14:40.880 --> 01:14:44.840
you know, throwing around a lot
of conspiracies and interjecting that into the

890
01:14:44.880 --> 01:14:54.520
debate, I think it probably reduces
the chances that something will change. And

891
01:14:54.600 --> 01:14:56.640
you know, I think that's a
risk of to the Star's Academy, and

892
01:14:56.640 --> 01:15:00.960
we've talked about this before. Tom
Delongs has some pretty you know, provocative

893
01:15:00.000 --> 01:15:04.079
things, which you know, I'm
not in a position to say they're true

894
01:15:04.159 --> 01:15:12.039
or they're not true, but they
don't always garner the best headlines in terms

895
01:15:12.079 --> 01:15:19.039
of like being credible among the people
that's sit on the Senate Intelligence Committee,

896
01:15:19.079 --> 01:15:25.359
who you know are presumably gonna,
you know, try to get more answers

897
01:15:25.399 --> 01:15:29.359
and at least in theory, have
the authority to get more answers. Whether

898
01:15:29.439 --> 01:15:33.239
they'll actually succeed is the whole other
issue. But so, you know,

899
01:15:33.479 --> 01:15:39.760
it's it's it's sort of a tough
balance, I guess, but I have

900
01:15:39.840 --> 01:15:42.640
learned my lesson not to tweet about
Roswell because the truth is, like I

901
01:15:42.680 --> 01:15:47.039
have, you know, I have
a sort of viewpoints of it that are

902
01:15:47.079 --> 01:15:51.079
not really based on real knowledge.
I mean, I'm not a UFO expert,

903
01:15:51.119 --> 01:15:57.960
I'm not a historian, and you
know, I've probably watched way too

904
01:15:58.000 --> 01:16:04.079
many History Channel programs. But I
think you know, what about for professional

905
01:16:04.119 --> 01:16:10.760
journalists to get involved in to tackle
all of this is that there are research,

906
01:16:11.199 --> 01:16:15.159
uh standards, there's a rigor to
the work that a journalist does.

907
01:16:15.640 --> 01:16:21.960
Professional journalists journalists in approaching this topic
and to me, that's been great because,

908
01:16:23.399 --> 01:16:27.960
uh, the information is more pure, it's more well researched in a

909
01:16:27.960 --> 01:16:31.199
lot of cases such as yours,
and so if you are documenting it,

910
01:16:31.199 --> 01:16:36.399
it's something that you've researched and vetted
much more carefully than your average UFO.

911
01:16:39.640 --> 01:16:43.039
Well yeah, I mean I think
that's true to a point. But like,

912
01:16:43.159 --> 01:16:47.119
but in defense of the UFO research
community, I mean, it's it's

913
01:16:47.760 --> 01:16:51.960
in many ways, it is a
different universe. It's a different playing field

914
01:16:53.760 --> 01:17:00.239
with different sort of rules, I
guess. And I've really tried and covering

915
01:17:00.279 --> 01:17:08.159
this story to sort of stick to
what we know in terms of the government

916
01:17:08.199 --> 01:17:12.079
paper trail, the money trail.
And that's why a Tip was such a

917
01:17:12.079 --> 01:17:17.239
good story. It was Congress throwing
money effectively to Bob Bigelow to go research

918
01:17:17.319 --> 01:17:23.760
this stuff through an earmark, which
in most cases would have been you know,

919
01:17:24.119 --> 01:17:27.880
one hundred percent smelly, but because
of the topic and the issue was

920
01:17:27.880 --> 01:17:30.960
like, oh wow, that's interesting. Maybe it's Congress actually forcing the Pentagon

921
01:17:30.960 --> 01:17:36.279
to do something that it's not willing
to do in a good way. And

922
01:17:38.000 --> 01:17:41.640
so you know, I've tried to
focus on it from a very sort of

923
01:17:41.640 --> 01:17:45.359
government policy. What is the government
doing what is it saying, trying to

924
01:17:45.359 --> 01:17:49.760
figure out what the Navy knows.
But you know, quite frankly, the

925
01:17:49.800 --> 01:17:54.199
UFO community has done, I think, overall, a whole better better job

926
01:17:54.239 --> 01:18:00.600
than I have in actually browbeating the
Navy into coffee things up, which is

927
01:18:00.720 --> 01:18:09.239
which is all to the positive.
But I think my approach, by definition,

928
01:18:09.600 --> 01:18:13.680
is also going to be criticized by
some people in the UFO community.

929
01:18:14.920 --> 01:18:18.199
And that's totally understandable, and it's
it's totally fine. I mean, I'm

930
01:18:18.399 --> 01:18:27.399
operating in sort of a narrower field
of view consciously then they are. And

931
01:18:27.439 --> 01:18:31.159
so I often get accused of covering
up to the Stars Academy, or covering

932
01:18:31.239 --> 01:18:35.920
up for the government, or you
know, I'm part of some grand conspiracy

933
01:18:36.079 --> 01:18:43.680
to slowly open up the vault,
you know, and and they're feeding me

934
01:18:43.800 --> 01:18:47.079
little things and I'm just upawn in
their big game. And and you know,

935
01:18:47.279 --> 01:18:49.680
if I am, I totally am
not aware of it. I'm an

936
01:18:49.680 --> 01:18:55.600
idiot because they've been taking advantage of
me for twenty five years. And so

937
01:18:55.760 --> 01:18:59.640
you know, I think if you
just understand that Brian Bender Politico is coming

938
01:18:59.680 --> 01:19:05.039
at this issue in many ways a
more narrow way it's a big question.

939
01:19:06.560 --> 01:19:12.399
We don't know the answer, or
at least we don't have enough critical mass

940
01:19:12.520 --> 01:19:20.359
of evidence and testimony to say,
here's the explanation irrefutably. But the government's

941
01:19:20.399 --> 01:19:24.079
trying to figure it out. At
least some elements in the government's trying to

942
01:19:24.079 --> 01:19:27.079
figure it out. They're spending tax
perier dollars to do it. Like that's

943
01:19:27.479 --> 01:19:33.840
worth covering. And like I've said
from the beginning, whether you believe these

944
01:19:34.119 --> 01:19:41.920
instances are made up, whether you
believe they're you know, some high tech

945
01:19:41.960 --> 01:19:46.239
spoofing job, you know, the
UFO equivalent of driving the cat nuts with

946
01:19:46.279 --> 01:19:51.520
the laser pointer, if you believe
it's a secret Russian aircraft, you believe

947
01:19:51.720 --> 01:19:57.680
it's a secret US government program,
or you believe in none of the above,

948
01:19:58.119 --> 01:20:01.600
which could be you know, some
crafts from another planet, from another

949
01:20:01.640 --> 01:20:05.880
dimension. I mean, every single
one of those is one of the biggest

950
01:20:05.880 --> 01:20:11.920
news stories of the era. No
matter what the explanation, even if it's

951
01:20:12.039 --> 01:20:16.479
just fake, they've driven the Navy
crazy. Whoever has pulled this off has

952
01:20:16.560 --> 01:20:21.720
driven them nuts. If it's a
secret US government program, and even the

953
01:20:21.760 --> 01:20:27.600
most senior people in the intelligence community
you appear not to know about it.

954
01:20:28.399 --> 01:20:31.439
That's a huge story because that's a
government within a government. I mean,

955
01:20:31.880 --> 01:20:36.359
that's that's that would be proof that
there's something going on deep, deep,

956
01:20:36.399 --> 01:20:42.760
deep dark inside our intelligence community or
are military that even the people that are

957
01:20:42.760 --> 01:20:45.000
supposed to know these things go about. I mean, that to me is

958
01:20:45.000 --> 01:20:47.640
a great story. If it's a
breakthrough by the Russians of the Chinese or

959
01:20:47.640 --> 01:20:51.479
these Rayleis or the French or whoever, you know, we probably want that

960
01:20:51.520 --> 01:20:57.039
stuff too. So like that's a
huge story. And so that's how I

961
01:20:57.079 --> 01:21:00.119
go about it. Is like I
personally don't know what it is, but

962
01:21:00.159 --> 01:21:04.279
I feel like whatever it is,
it's newsworthy. Yeah, And that is

963
01:21:04.319 --> 01:21:09.800
there concern you think with the Senate
or do they care at all that The

964
01:21:11.119 --> 01:21:16.840
Air Force especially, but all of
the agencies have been denying researchers or people

965
01:21:16.880 --> 01:21:21.319
like me who have written about this
information for decades and essentially telling us there

966
01:21:21.359 --> 01:21:28.199
has been no UFO interest anywhere.
They send us the fact sheet that says

967
01:21:28.239 --> 01:21:30.520
Nope, we haven't been interested in
UFO since nineteen sixty nine. Even if

968
01:21:30.560 --> 01:21:36.960
we're coming at them with a document
that is from nineteen eighty, do you

969
01:21:38.000 --> 01:21:41.640
think they're concerned at all that that
denial has been going on for so long,

970
01:21:41.680 --> 01:21:46.159
despite that there was really something,
there were real investigations, and they

971
01:21:46.199 --> 01:21:54.560
really did actually take it seriously.
I think I'm pretty sure, and I

972
01:21:54.640 --> 01:22:00.079
said this before, I mean,
I'm pretty sure that there's been a number

973
01:22:00.119 --> 01:22:05.880
of government agencies. I can't prove
this, but the Pentagon, the CIA,

974
01:22:06.079 --> 01:22:12.199
the FBI, others who have no
doubt since nineteen sixty nine look into

975
01:22:12.199 --> 01:22:17.680
this issue and have followed reports,
and there's got to be some paper trail

976
01:22:17.720 --> 01:22:26.600
from that, something left over from
that. I just I don't It's just

977
01:22:26.920 --> 01:22:30.479
it's impossible for me to believe that
there's nothing. There's got to be stuff

978
01:22:31.720 --> 01:22:34.800
where it is. Who has it, who's aware of it? Is another

979
01:22:34.880 --> 01:22:41.279
question. I think it's also very
convenient for them to just deny these floyas

980
01:22:41.319 --> 01:22:48.439
on grounds of risking national security or
revealing sensitive information. And you know,

981
01:22:48.479 --> 01:22:51.880
the trick there is they will often
deny things, and it's not because the

982
01:22:51.920 --> 01:23:01.199
information itself is necessarily all that sensitive. It's this blanket fear that they have,

983
01:23:01.319 --> 01:23:06.600
which I think a lot of judges
tend to defer to the government on,

984
01:23:06.680 --> 01:23:11.800
which is, the sources and methods
if we tell you what we know

985
01:23:12.720 --> 01:23:15.279
you could learn how we got it. Did we use a satellite, did

986
01:23:15.279 --> 01:23:20.840
we use some guy with a camera
standing across the street. And so that

987
01:23:21.079 --> 01:23:24.439
is their excuse all the time.
It's sort of like, oh, this

988
01:23:24.520 --> 01:23:27.600
is a nothing burger. But if
we tell you that we have nothing or

989
01:23:27.960 --> 01:23:33.039
you know, we found something that
seems immaterial, might you bad guy might

990
01:23:33.079 --> 01:23:38.039
figure out how we go about gathering
this stuff in the first place. And

991
01:23:38.119 --> 01:23:41.720
so it's very easy on this issue
for them to you know, if it's

992
01:23:41.720 --> 01:23:45.880
something interfering in protected airspace, you
know, they can just say it's secret.

993
01:23:45.960 --> 01:23:49.279
We can't we can't reveal it,
we can't share it with the public.

994
01:23:49.359 --> 01:23:56.000
And so that's what's going to be
interesting about where this Senate report goes,

995
01:23:56.079 --> 01:24:02.560
because it's very specific, like they
want signals intelligence, and so you

996
01:24:02.600 --> 01:24:11.000
know, anything you gathered through technical
means from satellites, from radars, video,

997
01:24:11.840 --> 01:24:17.159
et cetera, you got to throw
that in there too. And you

998
01:24:17.199 --> 01:24:24.039
know that's that's going to clearly run
up against some of these concerns about revealing

999
01:24:24.279 --> 01:24:29.800
classified information and revealing sensitive methods.
So you know, it'll be see it'll

1000
01:24:29.840 --> 01:24:32.359
be interesting to see how they respond
to that and how much of it they

1001
01:24:32.399 --> 01:24:39.640
really provide mm hmmm. One question
was from the have you reached out to

1002
01:24:39.680 --> 01:24:46.000
the n ro O yea, and
not recently. I mean over the years

1003
01:24:46.000 --> 01:24:51.359
I've dealt with the n ro O, not not specifically on this issue.

1004
01:24:51.399 --> 01:24:56.720
I don't think though on other issues, and and maybe I haven't done my

1005
01:24:56.800 --> 01:25:01.319
due diligence, but that's always in
a black hole for me. I mean,

1006
01:25:01.359 --> 01:25:09.640
I don't ever remember I interviewed the
head of the nro once, but

1007
01:25:09.720 --> 01:25:14.159
that was a very sort of you
know, budget related here's the kinds of

1008
01:25:14.399 --> 01:25:17.479
things we want to do, and
here's why the agency is so critical to

1009
01:25:17.520 --> 01:25:20.399
the military. And you know,
the nro as people don't know, I'm

1010
01:25:20.439 --> 01:25:28.920
sure they do is basically builds and
operates spy satellites and it's a very it's

1011
01:25:28.960 --> 01:25:32.760
one of the most secret. But
you know, you would think that's a

1012
01:25:32.960 --> 01:25:40.960
logical place for this report to go
for information. I mean, if they're

1013
01:25:41.000 --> 01:25:44.239
looking at the Earth all the time
from spy satellites from up in space,

1014
01:25:44.399 --> 01:25:48.840
presumably they're picking up some of this
stuff too, and so you know,

1015
01:25:48.840 --> 01:25:51.680
do they keep that, do they
report on those? Do they put them

1016
01:25:51.720 --> 01:26:00.199
somewhere yep? So, and then
there are there's no more question for the

1017
01:26:00.279 --> 01:26:01.600
chat, and I think unless there's
more come up, this will be the

1018
01:26:01.640 --> 01:26:05.399
last question. But you know,
the last time we talked was I guess

1019
01:26:05.439 --> 01:26:12.960
a while ago that we did an
interview like this. And there's been a

1020
01:26:13.000 --> 01:26:21.720
big evolution in the DoD's public responses
regarding all of this. There's been it's

1021
01:26:21.760 --> 01:26:26.560
been somewhat schizophrenic in that, you
know, at the beginning, they were

1022
01:26:26.640 --> 01:26:30.399
essentially denying all of the points that
you or New York Times were making about

1023
01:26:30.439 --> 01:26:35.640
all this project. Since then,
other information has come out, they've kind

1024
01:26:35.640 --> 01:26:40.439
of corrected themselves. They've gone,
you know, they really denied everything,

1025
01:26:40.560 --> 01:26:45.520
Alessandro said. Now they've kind of
backpedaled on some things but not any others,

1026
01:26:45.520 --> 01:26:49.079
and backpedaled on their back pedals.
It's been very strange, and everybody

1027
01:26:49.079 --> 01:26:55.119
who's interacted with them, in particular
Tyler Rogaway wrote a very strong article because

1028
01:26:55.119 --> 01:26:58.520
he works with these guys every day
and he's like, you know, I've

1029
01:26:58.520 --> 01:27:02.159
never ran across this sort of thing. Have you found that strange? And

1030
01:27:02.199 --> 01:27:13.039
what is your take on that?
I mean, it is strange. Some

1031
01:27:13.079 --> 01:27:16.840
of the things that the Pentagon put
out publicly that just didn't ring right.

1032
01:27:18.600 --> 01:27:21.960
And as you said, they've they've
backtracked on I don't. I mean,

1033
01:27:23.239 --> 01:27:28.640
the only theory that I have,
and this is again not not really having

1034
01:27:28.680 --> 01:27:33.800
any direct information, but just having
covered the Pentagon for a long time.

1035
01:27:34.239 --> 01:27:43.960
I feel like one of the major
complicating factors in this whole saga was that

1036
01:27:44.359 --> 01:27:48.000
the eight tip program, which the
Pentagon did acknowledge existed. They couldn't deny

1037
01:27:48.079 --> 01:27:54.119
it. I mean, it was
there was proof that it existed, or

1038
01:27:54.159 --> 01:27:58.000
at least that the budget item existed, that there was money set aside for

1039
01:27:58.039 --> 01:28:06.479
this ended in twenty twelve, and
Lou Alexondo left the Pentagon in twenty seventeen

1040
01:28:08.079 --> 01:28:12.800
saying he was head of the UFO
office and there was no UFO office.

1041
01:28:12.960 --> 01:28:24.920
And so I think in retrospect Alessando
probably was a little oversimplistic in describing what

1042
01:28:24.960 --> 01:28:27.399
his role was. And you know, all of us in the media fell

1043
01:28:27.439 --> 01:28:30.800
into the trap of Lou Alezondo,
the former head of the Pentagon UFO office,

1044
01:28:30.920 --> 01:28:34.560
or you know, that was sort
of the layman's way of describing a

1045
01:28:34.640 --> 01:28:39.439
tip, but a tip technically he
was had been dead for five years,

1046
01:28:39.960 --> 01:28:46.239
and so I think that I guess
I theorized that that led to a whole

1047
01:28:46.319 --> 01:28:53.039
series of sort of Keystone cop kind
of response from the Pentagon when they went

1048
01:28:53.159 --> 01:28:57.399
back and said, what did mister
Elexando do? Where did he work?

1049
01:28:57.479 --> 01:29:00.439
And if you look at his actual
fitness reporters, they would call it,

1050
01:29:00.520 --> 01:29:04.439
like, you know, his kind
of work history in the Pentagon, there's

1051
01:29:04.479 --> 01:29:10.279
no reference to him being UFO guy
on that paperwork because he works to the

1052
01:29:10.319 --> 01:29:15.920
under Secretary Intelligence. He was doing
interrogation stuff involving Guantanamo detainees. He had

1053
01:29:15.960 --> 01:29:20.439
you know, he had other jobs
and so if you're just sticking to the

1054
01:29:20.520 --> 01:29:24.840
facts, you say, well,
you know, Alexander didn't have that role

1055
01:29:26.039 --> 01:29:30.159
in these years. And so it
started, I think, to sort of

1056
01:29:30.239 --> 01:29:36.079
unravel his story. Even though his
story was basically true. I think it

1057
01:29:36.159 --> 01:29:41.039
was sort of a little opening there
where it sort of fell apart for a

1058
01:29:41.079 --> 01:29:44.479
while where you have the Pentagon officials
saying, well, we don't have evidence

1059
01:29:44.520 --> 01:29:47.840
that he was doing what he was
saying he was doing. I mean,

1060
01:29:47.880 --> 01:29:51.119
we do know that he was read
into a tip. We've seen the memo

1061
01:29:51.199 --> 01:29:58.079
from Harry Reid from whatever that was
two thousand and nine, and you know,

1062
01:29:58.079 --> 01:30:04.079
I think what all said and done, his story has held up what

1063
01:30:04.159 --> 01:30:08.680
he was doing and why he was
doing it has held up. I just

1064
01:30:08.880 --> 01:30:11.960
I don't really have a good explanation. That's my best explanation. Incident.

1065
01:30:12.600 --> 01:30:21.640
Again, I think there was this
miss, this uh kind of false sense

1066
01:30:23.600 --> 01:30:30.239
that a TIP was sort of this
distinct office for the staff and people worked

1067
01:30:30.239 --> 01:30:32.399
there and somebody came in every morning
and said, Hi, boss, what

1068
01:30:32.439 --> 01:30:39.720
are we doing today? And it
blies the way a lot of the intelligence

1069
01:30:39.960 --> 01:30:50.359
business works. It's a portfolio,
it's a mission, and so you know,

1070
01:30:51.520 --> 01:31:00.399
and I think quite frankly, Elizondo
kept on this issue, probably with

1071
01:31:00.520 --> 01:31:03.159
some wink in a nod from some
superiors like Okay, you're going to still

1072
01:31:03.920 --> 01:31:08.439
be looking into that, that's fine, just make sure it doesn't, you

1073
01:31:08.479 --> 01:31:12.000
know, take away from all your
other responsibilities. And then I think there

1074
01:31:12.000 --> 01:31:14.920
were some people who were like Loue, el Zondo's the nut job in the

1075
01:31:14.960 --> 01:31:18.840
office. He's still obsessed with the
UFOs. And so I also think that

1076
01:31:19.000 --> 01:31:25.439
depending on press office and trying to
figure out what the story was like any

1077
01:31:25.560 --> 01:31:30.039
place where there's factions, I think
they were also getting two different stories.

1078
01:31:30.199 --> 01:31:33.840
There were probably people who thought Alizondo
was too obsessed with this, and it

1079
01:31:33.920 --> 01:31:36.800
was you know, it's all he
talked about and it's all he wanted to

1080
01:31:36.800 --> 01:31:40.399
do. And then there were probably
other people who said, yeah, you

1081
01:31:40.439 --> 01:31:44.960
know, he sort of had permission
from his superiors to you know, keep

1082
01:31:45.039 --> 01:31:47.359
pulling this string and to see where
it led. So I think that could

1083
01:31:47.399 --> 01:31:50.520
have explained it too, that you
know, he had friends and enemies on

1084
01:31:50.560 --> 01:31:55.319
the inside after he was gone,
and some threw him under the bus and

1085
01:31:55.479 --> 01:31:59.159
others didn't. And I think in
the end though, they came to the

1086
01:32:00.000 --> 01:32:03.439
inclusion like the rest of us,
that his story generally is true. He

1087
01:32:03.960 --> 01:32:06.720
was part of that original A Tip
Office. I don't think he ran it

1088
01:32:06.800 --> 01:32:11.439
necessarily. I mean, I guess
maybe he was the only guy doing it,

1089
01:32:11.600 --> 01:32:15.439
so that therefore he's running it.
And then there was those five years

1090
01:32:15.439 --> 01:32:20.399
from twenty twelve to twenty seventeen where
he was doing this mission or doing this

1091
01:32:21.039 --> 01:32:28.279
intelligence gathering job, but there wasn't
really any sort of formal thing that existed

1092
01:32:28.840 --> 01:32:32.479
like it did when it was quote
unquote the A Tip Office. You make

1093
01:32:32.520 --> 01:32:39.239
a really good point there, and
I think in his want people to think

1094
01:32:39.279 --> 01:32:44.399
that it was just him as a
hobbyist doing as a hobby there at the

1095
01:32:44.439 --> 01:32:47.560
Pentagon, but at the same time. You're right, it wasn't this big

1096
01:32:47.600 --> 01:32:51.960
department, though in his description he's
trying to say, well, no,

1097
01:32:51.960 --> 01:32:57.239
no, this tiny I had other
people that I was coordinating with, even

1098
01:32:57.279 --> 01:33:01.039
if they weren't staffers on this pridect
checked or something like that. So yeah,

1099
01:33:01.039 --> 01:33:04.359
I think you're it makes sense that
a lot would get last in translation,

1100
01:33:08.159 --> 01:33:11.560
right. You know, and if
if you know anything about working in

1101
01:33:11.600 --> 01:33:15.359
the federal government, I mean you
can you could probably show up to work

1102
01:33:15.399 --> 01:33:19.319
and play crossword puzzles every day for
five years and that's how long it would

1103
01:33:19.359 --> 01:33:26.319
take for them to remove you,
because the process of removing a federal employee

1104
01:33:26.399 --> 01:33:30.079
is so onerous that you know it
would you know, you probably could get

1105
01:33:30.119 --> 01:33:33.239
away with just not doing your job
for a long time before it would And

1106
01:33:33.319 --> 01:33:36.920
I'm not suggesting that that's what lou
was doing, but I'm just saying that,

1107
01:33:38.079 --> 01:33:42.960
uh uh. I think he had
a keen interest in this issue,

1108
01:33:43.600 --> 01:33:46.800
and he clearly must have had some
buy in from other people that was okay

1109
01:33:46.840 --> 01:33:54.479
to do this MH with your time
or some of your time. But I

1110
01:33:54.479 --> 01:33:57.760
think there's and maybe some of us
in the mainstream media are partially to blame

1111
01:33:57.800 --> 01:34:02.800
for this perception that there was like
this big, you know, secret office

1112
01:34:03.000 --> 01:34:08.880
that the Pentagon eventually said, oh
well, Aleson had nothing to do with

1113
01:34:08.920 --> 01:34:13.760
that. I mean, it just
wasn't that simple mm hm. But the

1114
01:34:13.840 --> 01:34:17.600
results, I mean, for you's
got to be kind of a bit shocking

1115
01:34:17.760 --> 01:34:24.159
too. Because there's the Melon story, which is pretty impressive that he made

1116
01:34:24.199 --> 01:34:27.880
this all come about. You know, there's a whole team of the big

1117
01:34:27.880 --> 01:34:30.880
Oelo lot who were able to make
this come about. But the Alexando story

1118
01:34:31.359 --> 01:34:36.520
is really interesting too, and that
he left his job to get the word

1119
01:34:36.600 --> 01:34:43.399
out and he did, and you
know, he the the DoD jumped on

1120
01:34:43.479 --> 01:34:47.199
him, you know, denied everything
he had said. Eventually what he had

1121
01:34:47.239 --> 01:34:54.039
said came out to be the fact. And now not only does the world

1122
01:34:54.119 --> 01:34:59.640
know about it, and it's a
big story. Now the Senate Intelligence Committee

1123
01:34:59.680 --> 01:35:03.199
is asking for a report on UAPs, which is essentially his whole task.

1124
01:35:03.439 --> 01:35:09.720
And we know that the whole department
or project he was working on has expanded

1125
01:35:10.039 --> 01:35:14.640
into this multi agency sort of group
headed up by the ONI. So,

1126
01:35:14.760 --> 01:35:18.359
I mean, the results of all
of this is kind of staggering. I

1127
01:35:19.239 --> 01:35:25.640
feel, yeah. I mean,
if you believe as I do, that

1128
01:35:26.000 --> 01:35:33.319
Elizondo left the government frustrated that this
was an issue that was not getting enough

1129
01:35:33.359 --> 01:35:38.760
attention, and he was going to
go public to try and get some attention,

1130
01:35:39.399 --> 01:35:44.680
and ally himself with people like Chris
Mellon and Tom DeLong and others who

1131
01:35:44.680 --> 01:35:49.439
were you know, clearly trying to
get traction as well. I think by

1132
01:35:49.439 --> 01:35:56.479
all accounts, he's been very successful
so far. I mean, I think

1133
01:35:56.520 --> 01:36:03.399
what your definition of success is probably
determined you know where you sit in this.

1134
01:36:03.640 --> 01:36:06.199
In other words, like, you
know, ultimately success would be the

1135
01:36:06.199 --> 01:36:11.640
government costs up everything it knows and
we have the answers we want. But

1136
01:36:13.279 --> 01:36:18.039
to me, the success has been
forcing the issue, getting people to pay

1137
01:36:18.039 --> 01:36:23.079
attention, not just you know,
more of the public, but policymakers to

1138
01:36:23.079 --> 01:36:27.720
pay attention. And I think this
latest thing is it's probably the clearest,

1139
01:36:28.439 --> 01:36:33.199
not even probably, I think it's
undoubtedly the clearest piece of evidence that their

1140
01:36:33.239 --> 01:36:41.640
strategies is succeeding. It's it's it's
accomplishing one of the main goals that they

1141
01:36:41.680 --> 01:36:46.039
had, which was to get this
on the agenda in a public way that

1142
01:36:46.159 --> 01:36:51.760
it hasn't been for a long long
time. And it'll be interesting. I

1143
01:36:51.800 --> 01:36:55.760
mean, you know, I I've
sort of been covering a lot of other

1144
01:36:55.800 --> 01:37:00.560
things. And I've been sort of
keeping tabs on this and like I said,

1145
01:37:00.640 --> 01:37:03.359
you know, filing some floyers,
trying to see what more we could

1146
01:37:03.399 --> 01:37:08.039
learn. But but you know,
for us at political I think there's now

1147
01:37:08.319 --> 01:37:13.600
you know, a real there's a
real storyline to follow now again kind of

1148
01:37:13.600 --> 01:37:15.199
in a way that there was in
twenty seventeen when we found out about a

1149
01:37:15.279 --> 01:37:19.600
ten What is the Senate going to
do? What is the House going to

1150
01:37:19.680 --> 01:37:24.840
do? Does this get in the
bill? If it does, what does

1151
01:37:24.880 --> 01:37:30.359
the president do? And then if
it becomes law? The bigger question what

1152
01:37:30.359 --> 01:37:33.359
are the actual agencies do? How
do they answer the mail on this?

1153
01:37:34.119 --> 01:37:41.760
Do they? And you know,
and this is you know, and what's

1154
01:37:41.760 --> 01:37:44.439
great about the language is that you
know, it's not just still a report

1155
01:37:44.479 --> 01:37:47.479
and get back to us. It's
like one hundred and eighty days. There's

1156
01:37:47.479 --> 01:37:51.279
a timeline. So we in the
press can you know, sort of burned

1157
01:37:51.319 --> 01:37:54.720
on it and say, okay,
well where is that? Where's that public

1158
01:37:54.720 --> 01:38:01.199
reportment? Who's writing it? Are
there agencies and this you know will take

1159
01:38:01.239 --> 01:38:05.520
some source reporting, but other agencies
that are more resistant resistant than others.

1160
01:38:06.000 --> 01:38:10.159
Is this plays out? And why
is that well, you know, the

1161
01:38:10.199 --> 01:38:13.880
Air Force gave you this and it
was two pages long, and that's it.

1162
01:38:14.000 --> 01:38:16.920
The Navy gave you four thousand pages. See how he gave you nothing?

1163
01:38:17.119 --> 01:38:21.279
Well, why and so? And
that's obviously not just my job.

1164
01:38:21.279 --> 01:38:25.800
It's the job of people in your
community too. I mean, who's,

1165
01:38:28.119 --> 01:38:30.239
like I said, done a better
job I think than a lot of the

1166
01:38:30.279 --> 01:38:35.800
media in getting them to cough up, even just incremental stuff that you know,

1167
01:38:36.640 --> 01:38:46.159
adds another paint brush stroke to the
painting. I hope that's helpful.

1168
01:38:46.840 --> 01:38:51.800
It is, it's very helpful,
little talking to you. So let's see,

1169
01:38:51.800 --> 01:38:57.800
Adam says, add the d n
I and how they're going to manage

1170
01:38:57.840 --> 01:39:01.439
all the different prayers. It's a
great question, and I think that it

1171
01:39:01.479 --> 01:39:05.880
will be interesting to see all the
different responses, some more helpful than others,

1172
01:39:05.960 --> 01:39:11.119
no doubt. I wonder if they're
going to ask Space Commander, Well,

1173
01:39:11.119 --> 01:39:19.880
it's interesting. One thing I would
keep an eye on is I don't

1174
01:39:19.920 --> 01:39:26.239
think they've scheduled it yet, but
the Senate Intelligence Committee every year, at

1175
01:39:26.319 --> 01:39:30.960
least once a year, has this
one of their few public hearings. They

1176
01:39:30.960 --> 01:39:35.000
don't do a lot of public hearings, but it's called the Worldwide Threats Hearing,

1177
01:39:36.079 --> 01:39:41.279
and it's the d n I,
I think some of the other heads

1178
01:39:41.319 --> 01:39:46.560
of intelligence agencies, maybe the CIA, the DA, the Defense Intelligence Agency,

1179
01:39:46.600 --> 01:39:50.199
and others. They come from a
public session where they sort of do

1180
01:39:50.319 --> 01:39:56.680
around the world the state of the
globe and what does the threat environment look

1181
01:39:56.760 --> 01:40:00.119
like. And that's a hearing that
normally is never controversial, but it's become

1182
01:40:00.199 --> 01:40:09.479
controversial because Dan Coates, who was
the DNI in the first bunch of years,

1183
01:40:09.800 --> 01:40:13.199
the first couple of years of the
Trump administration, he got in trouble

1184
01:40:13.279 --> 01:40:17.119
with the boss because he said some
things in there that you know, basically

1185
01:40:17.199 --> 01:40:23.159
went against what the President was saying
about. For example, the strength of

1186
01:40:23.239 --> 01:40:27.920
ISIS. Trump was saying, we
have defeated ISIS. His DNI was saying,

1187
01:40:27.960 --> 01:40:30.520
well, not so fast. You
know, here's why we think there's

1188
01:40:30.520 --> 01:40:33.720
still a threat, et cetera.
So since then, the committee hasn't held

1189
01:40:33.720 --> 01:40:38.279
that hearing, and Republicans control the
Senate, so you know, they're in

1190
01:40:38.359 --> 01:40:41.439
charge. I think the Democrats were
in charge, they would have held it

1191
01:40:41.479 --> 01:40:46.479
again, but there's been talked just
in the last forty eight hours about doing

1192
01:40:46.520 --> 01:40:53.920
that before doing that hearing again before
the August recess because you know, obviously

1193
01:40:53.960 --> 01:40:58.880
the Corona virus pandemic, all of
these other things that are going on in

1194
01:40:59.000 --> 01:41:02.640
terms of this global crist The committee
wants to hear from the leaders of the

1195
01:41:02.680 --> 01:41:06.159
intelligence community, and they now have
a new leader, John Radcliffe, the

1196
01:41:06.199 --> 01:41:11.720
former congressman who I mentioned, who's
the d n I And so I'm going

1197
01:41:11.800 --> 01:41:15.439
to watch that, not just because
it's worthwhile watching in and of itself,

1198
01:41:15.720 --> 01:41:19.640
but Marco Rubio chairs that committee.
So he's shairing that hearing. And it's

1199
01:41:19.720 --> 01:41:24.359
John Rodcliffe that would do this report. So, you know, does he

1200
01:41:24.520 --> 01:41:29.800
have the you know, the ball
so to speak to ask this question about

1201
01:41:29.880 --> 01:41:32.840
this in public? I don't know, it'd be something that you know,

1202
01:41:33.560 --> 01:41:36.840
I wouldn't be surprised if Chris Mellen, you know, his dream is that

1203
01:41:38.319 --> 01:41:42.520
Marco Rubio in a couple of weeks
when they have this hearing, brings it

1204
01:41:42.640 --> 01:41:45.720
up and you know, gets him
on the record, Radcliffe on the record

1205
01:41:45.720 --> 01:41:50.800
at least pledging to do this and
you know, to do what the committee

1206
01:41:50.840 --> 01:41:55.359
wants, which gets to the last
question here, which is like how does

1207
01:41:55.399 --> 01:42:00.000
he corral all these other agencies into
participating in that's because you know, the

1208
01:42:00.079 --> 01:42:09.960
DN I basically is overseas seven seventeen
intelligence agencies. So you know, again,

1209
01:42:10.000 --> 01:42:14.359
I'm just throwing that out there because
you never know that No. Seven

1210
01:42:14.399 --> 01:42:17.800
to look out for. And that's
what's great, because you look able to

1211
01:42:17.840 --> 01:42:29.479
capture some really interesting comments here in
that conventions or or feather gatherings. Yeah,

1212
01:42:29.600 --> 01:42:32.720
I mean, it's definitely if nothing
else, this keeps this on the

1213
01:42:32.720 --> 01:42:41.079
agenda, and you know, keep
the George Stephanopolis's and the Tucker Carlson's and

1214
01:42:42.159 --> 01:42:47.000
whoever else, asking senior people including
the President who led I said, I

1215
01:42:47.000 --> 01:42:50.960
mean, I don't know what to
make of what Trump thinks, because the

1216
01:42:51.000 --> 01:42:56.920
truth is he never says anything.
He never says anything. Oh that's interesting.

1217
01:42:57.079 --> 01:43:01.079
Oh I saw the reports. Oh
you know, when his son asked

1218
01:43:01.119 --> 01:43:02.920
him, you know, are you're
going to release all that stuff? He

1219
01:43:03.039 --> 01:43:06.760
just sort of kind of lapped it
off. I don't you know, I

1220
01:43:06.800 --> 01:43:12.039
personally think he knows much at all. That's my sense is if he had

1221
01:43:12.039 --> 01:43:15.359
a briefing, it was like every
other briefing he gets, which if you

1222
01:43:15.399 --> 01:43:18.239
believe the reports from people who work
for him, he doesn't really pay attention.

1223
01:43:20.640 --> 01:43:27.920
And you know, you know,
unless you're unless he's really interested in

1224
01:43:27.920 --> 01:43:30.920
this issue. I don't know,
you know, how much data he's really

1225
01:43:30.960 --> 01:43:34.640
getting. Yeah, he certainly could
get it if you wanted it. A

1226
01:43:34.720 --> 01:43:43.039
purely political animal, really, and
his probably his first response was that,

1227
01:43:43.159 --> 01:43:45.600
you know, they told me something
about it, but I don't think much

1228
01:43:45.640 --> 01:43:47.319
of it, and I'm letting the
Navy look into it. Was probably his

1229
01:43:47.439 --> 01:43:54.279
most honest answer. So it doesn't
seem like he thinks much of the reason

1230
01:43:54.319 --> 01:43:58.600
he would pick it up, as
if he found some sort of political reason

1231
01:43:58.680 --> 01:44:03.960
to do that that might help us
and pain. He's much more into earth

1232
01:44:04.000 --> 01:44:10.880
bound conspiracy theories, right, And
not that that's necessarily of course, I'll

1233
01:44:10.880 --> 01:44:16.800
get criticized for saying that, but
but it's true. So I think that

1234
01:44:16.920 --> 01:44:20.960
is it. I guess the last
question, where does melon go from here?

1235
01:44:26.239 --> 01:44:28.680
I don't know. I mean,
I mean, I assume, like

1236
01:44:28.720 --> 01:44:31.119
I said earlier, this will just
embolden him to be to continue to be

1237
01:44:31.159 --> 01:44:42.279
a public voice on this, advocating
for more research, more information, and

1238
01:44:42.399 --> 01:44:49.000
you know, and he I think
he walks that line between could this be

1239
01:44:49.039 --> 01:44:53.920
a national security threat and could this, you know, explain the mystery of

1240
01:44:53.920 --> 01:44:57.479
the universe. I mean, he
sort of talks about both and I think

1241
01:44:57.479 --> 01:45:01.680
he does it pretty effectively. And
he again, he's got at least the

1242
01:45:01.720 --> 01:45:11.600
credibility within that you know, establishment
community where I think at least so far

1243
01:45:11.760 --> 01:45:16.760
that they take him seriously. And
and you know, I'm pretty sure I

1244
01:45:16.760 --> 01:45:19.920
don't know this one hundred percent,
but I'm pretty sure without Chris Mellan,

1245
01:45:20.680 --> 01:45:26.840
this provision doesn't exist mm hmm,
because you know, he was He's the

1246
01:45:26.840 --> 01:45:30.640
one who's really pushed this idea of
Step one is to just pull together what

1247
01:45:30.640 --> 01:45:35.319
we know or what we think we
know and what we're doing about this government

1248
01:45:35.359 --> 01:45:41.840
wide. And it's you know,
it's not inconceivable that that would have happened

1249
01:45:41.880 --> 01:45:47.560
anyway, but doubtful I think.
Yeah. So season two have unidentified.

1250
01:45:47.560 --> 01:45:51.479
I think one of the things that's
coming up, which Chris Mellan I know,

1251
01:45:51.680 --> 01:45:56.359
plays a bigger role. I've prayed
something about the production. I was

1252
01:45:56.399 --> 01:46:00.479
supposed to actually potentially be in reviewed
in it, but that they had to

1253
01:46:00.520 --> 01:46:04.520
cut it short from the pandemic,
and somebody asked, are you in it

1254
01:46:05.520 --> 01:46:11.159
because you were in the first season. I am not in it. I'm

1255
01:46:11.199 --> 01:46:15.399
not in it. They asked me
to be in it a while back,

1256
01:46:15.439 --> 01:46:21.199
and basically my position was I think
for the first season, which was a

1257
01:46:21.239 --> 01:46:29.039
lot about the revelations of the Office
and Hulu was and how this sort of

1258
01:46:29.680 --> 01:46:33.119
interesting cast of characters came together.
You know, that was reporting that I

1259
01:46:33.119 --> 01:46:38.119
had done and spend quite a bit
of time on. So I felt like,

1260
01:46:38.199 --> 01:46:41.359
as a journalist, you know,
okay, this is something I'm knowledgeable

1261
01:46:41.399 --> 01:46:44.399
of. And when I when they
came to me for season two, I

1262
01:46:44.439 --> 01:46:45.199
was like, well, what am
I going to talk about? What do

1263
01:46:45.199 --> 01:46:48.239
you want me to talk about?
I'm not a UFO expert. I mean

1264
01:46:48.239 --> 01:46:54.640
I can certainly talk about a little
bit of you know, what I'd like

1265
01:46:54.760 --> 01:46:58.840
to learn, what more I'd like
to do on this subject as a beat

1266
01:46:58.880 --> 01:47:03.840
reporter who covers the Pentagon. But
I just didn't feel like there was a

1267
01:47:03.840 --> 01:47:08.039
whole lot that I could add.
I also, you know, the first

1268
01:47:08.039 --> 01:47:11.039
season, quite frankly, you know, I was as surprised as anybody.

1269
01:47:11.439 --> 01:47:14.680
I mean, they interviewed me for
you know, two or three hours one

1270
01:47:14.760 --> 01:47:18.600
day. It came to the Politico
newsroom in Washington, and I think I

1271
01:47:18.640 --> 01:47:21.680
was in every episode, So I
was like amazed that they were able to

1272
01:47:21.720 --> 01:47:29.039
slice and dice well was effectively one
lengthy conversation to make it appear like I

1273
01:47:29.119 --> 01:47:30.359
was sort of, you know,
on a set all the time. I

1274
01:47:30.479 --> 01:47:36.399
wasn't at all. But but you
know, but I haven't given up on

1275
01:47:36.439 --> 01:47:40.000
the issue. I mean, I
certainly want to cover it, and like

1276
01:47:40.039 --> 01:47:43.399
I said, there's more reason to
cover it now, especially for Politico,

1277
01:47:43.520 --> 01:47:48.439
for our publication, which tries to
own Congress and you know how screwed up

1278
01:47:48.479 --> 01:47:51.840
that place is and what they're doing
and not doing, and you know this

1279
01:47:51.960 --> 01:47:57.600
is obviously in the mix now again
in a formal way, which it really

1280
01:47:57.680 --> 01:48:01.359
wasn't. I mean, the last
time that we know of Congress did anything

1281
01:48:01.479 --> 01:48:06.840
like this was in two thousand and
seven or eight when Harry Reid created an

1282
01:48:06.840 --> 01:48:13.079
a tip And so now there's like, you know, something potentially on the

1283
01:48:13.079 --> 01:48:17.640
books that, like I said,
we can start covering and see where it

1284
01:48:17.680 --> 01:48:23.760
goes. It's really it's a great
story. I mean, Melon's storyline is

1285
01:48:24.199 --> 01:48:28.680
great, Lows is great. Tom
DeLong this rock star. How did he

1286
01:48:28.800 --> 01:48:33.239
get in the midst of all these
intelligence guys and helping to make this all

1287
01:48:33.319 --> 01:48:42.399
happen. It's an incredible story.
So it's definitely worth covering for sure.

1288
01:48:43.560 --> 01:48:45.720
Well, thank you so much,
thank you for your coverage. And breaking

1289
01:48:45.800 --> 01:48:49.199
all of this great news that you
do break, and paying attention to all

1290
01:48:49.239 --> 01:48:55.800
of this from your perspective, which
especially now is an important one since really

1291
01:48:56.119 --> 01:49:00.000
the balls in kind of your wheelhouse
in the Senate there. So we'll keep

1292
01:49:00.000 --> 01:49:02.479
an eye on this. And thank
you so much for making the time to

1293
01:49:02.479 --> 01:49:06.560
talk to me and answer all of
these questions. I think these are really

1294
01:49:06.600 --> 01:49:14.279
important questions right now? Sounds good? All right, all right, thanks,

1295
01:49:14.439 --> 01:49:18.800
we'll be in touch. Oh quick
question, is there any way,

1296
01:49:19.720 --> 01:49:23.920
since I haven't been able to scroll
through every question that came in while we

1297
01:49:23.920 --> 01:49:28.880
were talking, is there a way
to capture that so I can, like

1298
01:49:28.960 --> 01:49:30.720
if I log out while I lose
all that, because it would nice to

1299
01:49:30.760 --> 01:49:36.359
just read through all the comments.
I'll do my best. I'll see.

1300
01:49:36.640 --> 01:49:42.359
I think there is okay, I
actually when you log out, you'll be

1301
01:49:42.399 --> 01:49:46.399
able to come back in and read
all of them, so you can read

1302
01:49:46.439 --> 01:49:50.720
them when you come back in.
Good now, I remember that. All

1303
01:49:50.800 --> 01:49:55.960
right? Okay, thanks calculator,
Thank you wellver and out