In this episode of Firebrand, we discuss the latest controversy surrounding a Chinese surveillance balloon and what it could mean for our own national security. We also talk about TikTok and TikTok's impact on the Chinese Communist Party's surveillance efforts.
00:02:09.000And in that sense, there hasn't been a lot of disconnect between the two administrations.
00:02:13.000Is this an admission that the 30- or 40-year Western consensus that said,
00:02:20.000hey, if we bring China into the economic system, it's going to defang them?
00:02:25.000It had the exact opposite effect in it.
00:02:27.000Well, you know, whether it's Western engagement with China or whether it's Europe's engagement with Russia,
00:02:32.000there have clearly been a lot of lessons in recent years that engagement alone does not yield comfortable partnership and easy acceptance of a rules-based international order.
00:02:44.000And each of those struggles obviously is different, but I think some of those patterns do overlap.
00:02:49.000So amazingly, Chuck Todd is right about this.
00:02:54.000The bipartisan consensus in Washington for generations has argued that if we bring China closer to America
00:03:01.000through trade and economic engagement and diplomacy and global legitimacy, that they would be more like us.
00:03:10.000But China has not been defanged, as Chuck Todd would put it.
00:03:36.000We have created a de facto social credit score in this country where everyone in government, from the White House to the Department of Homeland Security, even the FBI,
00:03:47.000they're trying to shape political viewpoint online.
00:04:30.000TikTok is the new big dog on campus and it just so happens to be a company completely beholden to the Communist Chinese, the Chinese Communist Party out of Beijing.
00:04:40.000And this obviously poses a major, major national security risk.
00:04:44.000I mean, TikTok is unique in how addictive it is and how personalized it is, how it caters to you based on, you know, all the data that it collects from your interests to what you're searching, to how you're liking, to how long you're watching.
00:04:58.000I mean, the data that they are gathering from American citizens is massive and in the wrong hands, like in the hands of the CCP, it could be used for extremely effective intelligence gathering and other types of intelligence operations.
00:05:12.000I mean, they can see what's pasted, what's saved in your clipboard.
00:05:18.000They could gather your location data, your facial recognition.
00:05:21.000I mean, all this data is now in the hands of the Chinese Communist Party out of Beijing and they can potentially have that data on elected officials, their staff, military personnel, you name it.
00:05:37.000And if TikTok isn't scary enough because it's in our pocket instead of in our skies, how about the surveillance devices that our neighbors, our family members and even our local law enforcement fly over our skies on behalf of the Chinese Communist Party?
00:05:57.000DJI drones constitute more than half of the drone market in the United States.
00:06:02.000Our own Department of Homeland Security tells us that the CCP uses these drones and our desire to use them in law enforcement to gather key information regarding how to attack and harm us.
00:06:16.000So they give these low cost drones to our local police forces, sometimes our state law enforcement.
00:06:23.000And then as those drones are performing the functions directed by American law enforcement, they're actually sending data back to the Chinese Communist Party.
00:06:35.000That's in our own Department of Homeland Security's reporting.
00:06:38.000Now, according to an additional report last year in The Intercept, quote,
00:06:43.000The New York City Police Department, the largest police department in the country, is continuing to use surveillance drones made by a Chinese company that the U.S. government has made moves to ban, labeling it a national security threat.
00:06:59.000That may provide U.S. critical infrastructure and law enforcement data to the Chinese government.
00:07:06.000Albert Fox Khan, the executive director of the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project, or STOP, a group that advocates against mass surveillance, said the warnings about DJI are just one of many concerns around the NYPD's handling of data that the department gathers directly or in conjunction with private technology companies.
00:07:24.000Quote, there's a lot of uncertainty about the ability to protect the data they're collecting on New Yorkers and no clear reporting if that data is compromised.
00:07:36.000Now, that was Khan pointing to a recent hack of the city's law department.
00:07:41.000The possibility that some data might end up in the hands of foreign governments is alarming, he added.
00:07:47.000That can be a real risk to New Yorkers, and there are plenty of New Yorkers, including a lot of democracy activists, who have a reason to be particularly fearful of the Chinese government.
00:07:58.280That is the report from The Intercept.
00:08:00.320So, tomorrow, Joe Biden will give the State of the Union address, and I'll be in attendance, because whether I agree or disagree with President Biden, and I most often disagree with him, I respect the State of the Union and the Office of the Presidency far more than the Democrats who disgrace themselves and our country with multiple illegitimate impeachments of President Trump.
00:08:23.420So, let's start with what we are going to hear from Biden on the domestic front.
00:08:29.860He'll tout better-than-expected job numbers, but that misses the mark.
00:10:27.440This is going to be the essence of the Biden argument.
00:10:29.760If you were advising President Biden, what would you tell him to do?
00:10:36.420I would advise him that it's not a viable strategy for the country to default on obligations, whether it's interest obligations or obligations to pay contractors or obligations to pay federal workers or obligations to pay Social Security benefits,
00:10:58.880that that that's the stuff of benefits, that that's the stuff of banana republics, and that he's not going to engage in any of that stuff.
00:11:09.040I advise him to basically insist that Congress do its job and approve the borrowing to finance the spending it has already both authorized and appropriated.
00:11:26.140I think he should be staying very strong.
00:11:29.300Will there be any cosmetic things affecting looking at future spending at some point?
00:11:39.560But fundamentally, this is not something where there should be bargaining.
00:11:46.320You can debate who will win the game of chicken.
00:11:49.560What you can't debate is that the American people will lose.
00:11:52.460But you do have this problem where there's a bunch of people in the Republican Party who do seem like they're willing to blow the whole thing up.
00:12:02.700And it's a larger percentage than I think you dealt with during the Tea Party days when they also threatened to default.
00:12:09.920Are you worried that even if it's a 15 percent, 10 percent chance that these republicans can hold up the process and we do have a real crisis?
00:12:24.880I am worried, but I'm more worried about the consequences of kowtowing to terrorists.
00:12:39.040Britt on YouTube says the State of the Union is going to be the highest rated sitcom.
00:12:43.800So I guess it would be funny if it weren't so disastrous, the policies that Joe Biden has pursued and the harm he's done to our country.
00:12:51.060And now we see they called us traitors when we said Trump wasn't a Russian agent.
00:12:55.900Turns out one of the FBI guys involved in the intelligence intake on that case became a Russian agent.
00:13:04.100We were labeled insurrectionists when we sought parliamentary objection on January 6th.
00:13:10.420They called us the Taliban 20 when we demanded the rules of the House be changed to stop omnibus legislating
00:13:16.500and allow open amendments and arguments with actual time to read the bills.
00:13:22.140And now you heard it just there, former Obama era economist Larry Summers now saying we are terrorists for even having the nerve to negotiate spending policy as America accrues $32 trillion in debt.
00:13:38.500Now, I know the left says that everything is terrorism now.
00:13:42.320But is it really terrorism to suggest that we have the same welfare to work negotiations that brought Newt Gingrich and Bill Clinton together on a spending deal?
00:13:54.480Should able-bodied working age people reasonably expect that you pay for their health care, even if they can work but choose not to?
00:14:40.220Maybe when we aren't meeting our own financial needs, we should reflect on the cost of exporting wokeness to other countries.
00:14:50.020Biden will boast about the weapons we've sent to Ukraine.
00:14:53.260If Biden would let the spy balloon into our country without attention, imagine how little attention is being paid to all the weapons we are sending out of the country.
00:15:04.940I shared my perspective on the Ukraine war on the floor of the House just moments ago.
00:15:16.580Which billionth dollar really kicks in the door?
00:15:20.400Which red line we set will we not later cross?
00:15:24.240China reminds us that we have real issues.
00:15:26.880China began its offensive against our homeland, infiltrating our universities, stealing our innovations, buying off our politicians, surveilling our citizens,
00:15:38.200all the while capturing the loyalty of America's most powerful corporations.
00:15:44.200China's influence is overtaking ours, even in our own hemisphere.
00:15:47.740Our conflict with China may turn very hot very soon.
00:15:53.180Many believe we are currently in the window of a possible invasion of Taiwan.
00:15:57.900If not deterred, such an invasion would immediately make life worse for virtually every American.
00:16:05.000But tomorrow, President Biden will tell us how much more we must do for Ukraine.
00:16:41.860But the amount of money we now pour into Ukraine makes Burisma's wildest dreams of wealth through Biden family influence seem meek by comparison.
00:16:54.720Defense contractors need there to be a war going on somewhere.
00:16:58.100Whether the arms end up in the hands of ISIS, the Taliban, the Azov Battalion, or on the black market.
00:17:05.620They get rich in the business of weapons supply, but only when there is weapons demand.
00:17:12.380A serious nation would never let foreign interests abroad or special interests here at home dictate its foreign policy.
00:17:20.000The interests of our countrymen must morally compel our greater attention.
00:17:26.220And as the war slogs on in Ukraine, the benefits to Americans are unclear.
00:17:32.700Bandits in the Sinaloa Mountains hurt more Americans than the men in Crimea.
00:17:37.300But foreigners come to Washington to lecture us about spending our constituents' money on a conflict thousands of miles of away.
00:17:46.760And my colleagues are eager to oblige.
00:17:50.440On this floor, Zelensky's demands got bipartisan standing ovations from most.
00:21:55.340First, CBS's Face the Nation yesterday hosted freshman Democrat members of Congress Robert Garcia from California and Summer Lee from Pennsylvania.
00:22:06.960There were also Republicans that were there.
00:22:11.040And they were discussed, obviously, because these issues drove the shape of many of the midterm campaigns this last cycle.
00:22:17.620So I picked up on something in the Face the Nation discussion that really concerned me.
00:22:24.300It seems the Democrat strategy is to leave the rest of us unprotected, undefended, and afraid.
00:22:33.000So listen to newly elected Congressman Robert Garcia talk about the justification for people coming across our border being in a state of desperation.
00:22:46.240There's this myth that Democrats somehow aren't concerned about a secure border, that we don't want an orderly process.
00:22:53.160But we also want to ensure that we want secure—everybody wants a secure border.
00:22:57.100But we also want to ensure that we're talking about the humanity of people.
00:23:00.280These are people that are coming to this country that are desperate, that are suffering.
00:23:03.840And so this idea that we can't give these people justice, we can't support and help them, I think is anti-American.
00:23:12.600Congressman Garcia speaks of desperate people as if it's some new phenomenon in illegal immigration, as if people used to come for a different reason.
00:23:22.720Throughout most of my life, the principal reason people have come illegally across the U.S.-Mexico border has been desperation.
00:23:30.720The problem is, if the U.S. taxpayer has to pay for all of them when they get here, we will be desperate, too.
00:23:39.140And we'd prefer ambitious and comfortable to desperate and afraid.
00:25:02.100Don't really think that argument makes a lot of sense.
00:25:04.460While we've been broadcasting the show, the Ukraine caucus has sent around the Ukraine ribbon for folks to wear during the State of the Union.
00:25:17.840I will not be wearing the Ukraine ribbon.
00:25:20.620It was quite something when we had the Ukraine flag displayed by Zelensky on the floor of the Congress.
00:25:25.960It was like Democrats finally found a flag they were willing to stand up for.
00:25:30.200I stand for the American flag for the American people.
00:25:33.400That's why we need sensible border policy.
00:25:36.160That's why we need a criminal justice system that holds people accountable.
00:25:39.400It's why we need fiscal responsibility.
00:25:42.100And it's why we need to end the U.S. contribution to this war in Ukraine.
00:25:46.580Thanks so much for joining us on Firebrand.
00:25:48.620Thank you for all of your thoughts and feedback on the live stream.
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