The Great America Show - THE WHOLE CHINA BALLOON THING LOOKS LIKE A CLUSTER FANDANGO, A CHARLIE FOXTROT SAYS FORMER INTEL ANALYST RUSS TICE

00:00:00.000 Hello everybody, I'm Lou Dobbs and welcome to The Great America Show. Good to have you with us and

00:00:05.280 today we're taking up the latest developments on that Chinese balloon. The threat, the shoot-down 0.95

00:00:11.700 and the attempted recovery. We'll be talking about national security and political fallout as well

00:00:18.280 that's resulting for the Biden administration and what looks like real trouble for Pentagon

00:00:23.400 top officials. We'll discuss what looks like a very, very high possibility that White House and

00:00:30.900 Pentagon sources trying to cover up that balloon in their own ineptitude may have kick-started a

00:00:37.040 constitutional crisis that will dwarf all the clamor around this China balloon incursion over America 0.91

00:00:43.700 from sea to shining sea, from the Pacific to the Atlantic. And of course the Biden classified

00:00:49.800 document scandal won't go away. In fact, it's widening. And our guests today are Congressman

00:00:55.680 Austin Scott on the debt ceiling, the Biden scandal, and former intelligence analyst Russ Tice on the

00:01:03.220 Chinese balloon and Tice's concerns about the Chinese purpose. All of that and more coming up

00:01:10.000 in today's episode. Did our military officials violate their constitutional oaths by not informing

00:01:16.980 President Trump of three other instances, they say, of Chinese balloon incursions? And why isn't

00:01:24.240 Biden talking about the China balloon and his document scandal or the massive U.S. debt and the

00:01:31.640 contest over the debt ceiling? Why not? Well, our first guest is Congressman Austin Scott and he will

00:01:38.440 talk about all of that. He's in his sixth term representing Georgia's 8th District, who is a member of the

00:01:45.180 House Intelligence Committee, has called for a national security damage assessment as a result of the

00:01:51.300 Biden family classified document scandal. Congressman Scott, great to have you with us here on the Great

00:01:57.920 America Show. What do you expect the intelligence assessment will find? Yeah, absolutely, Lou, and

00:02:05.120 thank you for having us. And obviously, we want to find out what he had. We want to find out if that

00:02:11.680 information ever got to anybody else. If it got to anybody else, we want to know who it went to. And so

00:02:19.940 we've had a situation now where it's very clear that we've got a problem with the way the executive

00:02:26.080 branch handles classified information, whether it be a Democrat administration or Republican

00:02:31.980 administration. And we need to get the facts on this. And if there has been information that should

00:02:37.700 not have been disseminated to a party that wants to do damage to the United States, we need to make

00:02:42.220 sure we know exactly what it was and figure out a way to fill those gaps. You know, I understand what

00:02:49.800 you're calling for here. I do think that there is a trap here when we start looking at as analogous

00:02:57.740 the situation with former Vice President Mike Pence, former President Donald Trump, the current

00:03:05.540 president and then Vice President Joe Biden. I don't think that they're analogous. Do you, Congressman?

00:03:14.580 There's some similarities, but Biden had stuff from when he was a U.S. Senator as well. And so that's

00:03:21.400 one of the concerns to us is how long has he been doing this? And do we even know what he had taken at

00:03:30.900 this stage? So that's one of the concerns. There are obviously concerns with the family relationship

00:03:36.820 that exists there. And I won't go too far into that on this podcast. But we're going to look into

00:03:42.940 all of that, Lou. It is a, you know, it's a situation where it's very clear to me that in the security of

00:03:50.620 the country, the process of the executive branch is going to have to change.

00:03:54.380 Yeah, and I think you're to be applauded for calling for that assessment. I don't know to

00:04:01.940 what degree we could rely upon an intelligence agency response because of the involvement of the IC

00:04:11.000 in almost every aspect of what has been almost seven years of political persecution of Donald J.

00:04:18.800 Trump. We still have not seen an accounting for the individuals. To me, it's astounding how loud

00:04:25.500 and clearly it should be understood by the American people. Two special counsel investigations,

00:04:31.440 two presidential impeachments, approaching four years of FBI investigations, and not one instance of

00:04:39.520 wrongdoing on the part of President Trump has been discovered, revealed, or even noted. And meanwhile,

00:04:46.440 we know that four consecutive leaders of the FBI officials throughout the Department of Justice

00:04:55.100 have been found to be corrupt and to have indeed been part of an attempted frame-up of a President

00:05:02.880 of the United States, as well as an attempt to overthrow him. It's that straightforward. And for us to

00:05:09.380 proceed as if suddenly the intelligence community is not a corrupt enterprise, I think is woefully

00:05:17.120 ignoring the circumstances that we know to be true and factual.

00:05:23.860 Yeah, well, Lou, let me tell you the one thing that I hope you see going forward. I hope that when

00:05:28.900 you see the House Intelligence Committee meeting on these issues, that I hope you do not see us discussing

00:05:34.480 these issues. And if you want to go back to what you just said, for the last several years, with Adam

00:05:39.780 Schiff in control, they had the Russia so-called classified investigation that ended up, you know,

00:05:47.360 being a hoax and aptly named the Russian hoax. And then he would literally walk out of the skiff 0.83

00:05:54.400 where you're not supposed to talk about anything. And the press and the cameras would be set up right

00:05:59.340 there for Adam Schiff to walk out and speak in abstract as if President Trump was doing something

00:06:04.600 and coordinating with the Russians. And I think that anybody who looks at what the Russians have 0.69

00:06:08.980 done since President Trump left and what the Russians didn't do when President Trump was

00:06:13.580 president, what the Russians did do right before President Trump got to be the president, that you

00:06:18.240 would have to have a little bit of Trump dementia syndrome to think that President Trump was coordinating

00:06:23.960 anything with the Russians, because under his presidency, he is the only time that Vladimir Putin didn't take

00:06:29.000 aggression against Ukraine. And so, Lou, the double standard that you see in the mainstream media is

00:06:35.900 very obvious to me. You look at the FBI's double standard. They used a tactical squadron when they went to

00:06:42.760 Mar-a-Lago. Mar-a-Lago was a facility that was guarded by the Secret Service. There is literally no reason to

00:06:48.660 carry a tactical squadron with you when you're going to visit a facility that is guarded by the Secret Service. And then they

00:06:55.640 turn around and they use the FBI with men in suits to go to go in and look for the classified documents at the

00:07:01.900 at the Biden residence. And look, I don't have a problem with the FBI with the proper documentation

00:07:10.280 going in suits and looking for documents. But when you use a tactical squadron to go after President

00:07:18.440 Trump, and again, you use, you know, the normal suits in the FBI, if you will, to go to go look at the Biden residence. I mean,

00:07:31.160 that's just that's a clear double standard in an agency that used to be one of the most respected agencies in the world.

00:07:36.340 The reality is that we have a corrupt, a corrupt intelligence community and a corrupt Department of Justice and FBI. And we have to

00:07:47.400 contend with it. And we have so many issues right now to contend with. I know that that the Republicans

00:07:55.320 of the House have mounted these campaigns to to get to the truth, whether it be the Committee on

00:08:02.280 Weaponization, whether it be Congressman Jim Jordan, the chair of the Judiciary Committee's

00:08:07.800 Investigations, or James Comer's Oversight Committee. All of that is to the good. And we cannot

00:08:14.520 results cannot come too soon. I'll put it that way, because the American people are just sick

00:08:20.520 and tired of watching what has happened to the nation's capital and the federal government. I

00:08:26.280 want to turn to another part of the situation that we're facing. Over 100 billion dollars now

00:08:34.360 has been directed toward and on its way to Ukraine. We, we at the same time know that there are

00:08:42.760 extraordinary relationships between this president and his son and Ukraine. And one after another are

00:08:53.720 coming up almost weekly. Your thoughts as a member of the Armed Services Committee, we have, we have over

00:09:02.600 100,000 troops on the eastern flank of Europe. We have an increasing commitment of weaponry going to

00:09:09.320 Ukraine. And we know that we've crossed red line after red line on the part of Vladimir Putin. He's been

00:09:16.280 straightforward. Aircraft, no-fly zones, and advanced long-range weapons will be, he considers, he will

00:09:24.760 consider it an act of war. How troubled are you by what is happening? And secondly, what is it doing to

00:09:30.520 readiness for the U.S. military to be watching all of this weaponry moving out of inventory and our

00:09:37.800 troops being posted in Europe when the Europeans themselves and NATO are perfectly capable of

00:09:44.680 carrying out that, carrying out the duties of that positioning in your eastern Europe?

00:09:49.800 Yes. So first of all, Lou, I want to give a tremendous amount of credit to the intelligence

00:09:56.680 community on this particular issue because our intelligence community actually, you know,

00:10:00.920 pegged the actual date that they thought Vladimir Putin would move on Ukraine. And let's go back to

00:10:07.000 what we said just a little bit a while ago that, you know, Putin took aggressive action against Ukraine

00:10:13.160 when President Obama was president and we sent them blankets and we did not send them any assistance

00:10:19.960 from the standpoint of things that they could use to actually defend themselves. And then President Trump

00:10:25.080 was in office and nothing was done. And now that Biden is office, you know, obviously Vladimir Putin

00:10:31.160 sees a weak presidency. And so he moved, he moved again on the Ukraine. I do think that the one thing

00:10:37.960 that was done is the declassification, I think, of the intelligence so that the world could see what we

00:10:43.960 were expecting to come from Vladimir Putin was a good move from the intelligence community. What's troubling about

00:10:53.080 the intel that we had is that the president of the United States went on TV, President Biden and said,

00:10:59.560 well, it will depend on if it's a big incursion or a small incursion into what the, as to what the United

00:11:04.040 States response would have been. Vladimir Putin is across the border in Moldova. The ambassador in Moldova

00:11:10.280 was in my office yesterday expressing serious concerns about Russia's aggression there. They are across the border in Georgia.

00:11:16.920 I personally believe that the Russian goal was to control transit through the Black Sea. I thought for a long time they would go for the port of Odessa. I think they intended to divvy up the ports among their oligarchs.

00:11:30.920 And then every bushel of grain that was shipped out of the Ukraine, an oligarch would get a tax on it,

00:11:37.400 and then Vladimir Putin would end up with some of that money. Let's remember, Ukraine is the breadbasket of Europe.

00:11:43.160 They produce about 50 million metric tons of corn and wheat for the export markets a year.

00:11:48.120 They are a very significant contributor to our global food supply, and that food supply is now

00:11:57.640 having a hard time making it into the markets, Lou. So I'm very concerned about the overall

00:12:04.040 situation with Ukraine. I do believe that we did right in providing the weapons to Ukraine so that

00:12:09.880 they could defend themselves. And I do believe that there has been better coordination from NATO

00:12:17.480 now than there was at the start of it. Now, Lou, one of the things that doesn't get talked about

00:12:23.080 is the reason our NATO allies were reluctant to trust us is because we abandoned them in Afghanistan.

00:12:31.800 And so in Afghanistan, that was always a mission that was by, with, and through partner forces,

00:12:41.640 many of which were NATO partners, others of which were not necessarily NATO partners.

00:12:46.760 But when the President of the United States decided to walk out of Afghanistan, that was a unilateral

00:12:53.000 decision made by the President of the United States that was in direct contrast to what our military

00:12:58.680 commanders were advising him. And I think that as time goes on, you'll see that, you know, General

00:13:05.880 Austin Miller, I think you'll see General McKenzie, when their testimonies are talked about in the

00:13:12.040 future. I think you're going to see that the President ignored the advice of his military

00:13:15.320 leaders with regard to Afghanistan. Now, that led to the reluctance of our NATO partners to trust us

00:13:24.200 with regard to the intel that we were providing in Ukraine. And so it is actions have consequences.

00:13:31.720 And, Lou, had we been honest with our partners in Afghanistan, had our President followed the advice

00:13:38.120 of our military leaders in Afghanistan, then I think that our NATO partners would have been

00:13:45.240 more closely aligned with us at the start with Ukraine.

00:13:48.600 Yeah, that's, you know, that's an optimistic view, and I commend you for it.

00:13:53.000 And I do want to get to a host of issues, including where we are with the debt ceiling,

00:13:59.160 your judgments on what is going on, and the so-called, well, the non-negotiations that are

00:14:05.080 going on between Capitol Hill and the White House. But in that respect, we also knew, speaking of our

00:14:13.240 intelligence agencies, we knew in the fall that we would be witnessing a conflict if Putin were not

00:14:23.000 in some way impeded in his desire. We knew that clearly. The intelligence agencies of Ukraine were

00:14:29.160 telling us that. Our partners in NATO were telling us that. And our own intelligence agencies were telling

00:14:35.800 us that. We moved to February 24th. There had been three months past when the President of the United

00:14:42.120 States could have stepped forward, based on his own intelligence agencies, and that of our strategic

00:14:49.000 partners in Europe, as well as the Ukrainians themselves, and stopped Putin cold. We did not.

00:14:56.680 And that is on him as well. And I just think that you can't get too much emphasis.

00:15:01.640 Well, he made the statement on TV that it depends on if Vladimir Putin has a big incursion into

00:15:08.680 Ukraine or a small incursion into the Ukraine. And I can assure you, Vladimir Putin heard

00:15:14.440 Joe Biden when he said that. And so, I mean, we should never allow any incursion into another country.

00:15:21.560 And the President of the United States should not stand up and say that, okay, well, if you break in

00:15:27.160 and you only take a small piece of land, that'll be okay. But if you take a big piece of land,

00:15:30.680 we're going to respond. A ridiculous and irresponsible, 0.98

00:15:35.320 reckless comment on the part of President Biden. Right now, and I want to move on, 0.98

00:15:42.840 but this last question, this is now we're finding these bioweapon laboratories in Ukraine. President

00:15:49.240 Zelensky ordering the destruction of all records on this one firm associated with Hunter Biden, as you

00:15:57.800 well know, metabiotica. Your thoughts about that, the importance of it, whatever claims the Russians

00:16:08.360 are making, apparently, are being borne out? I just believe in the truth, Lou Dobbs. I think our

00:16:13.800 democracy is contingent upon the American citizens knowing the truth. And the destruction of documents

00:16:19.000 is contrary to the truth being known. And so certainly opposed to the documents being told.

00:16:25.640 I just, you know, the voting public needs to know the truth. And so when you're getting rid of evidence,

00:16:32.280 that is contrary to, you know, our citizens knowing the facts.

00:16:36.440 I will to that say, amen, Congressman. Thanks so much for saying it. The public's right,

00:16:41.400 the American public's right to know is right now under considerable threat. I want to turn to

00:16:49.160 the debt ceiling, the debt, and where we are in a call by Speaker McCarthy for negotiations with the

00:17:00.440 administration. Well, let me, you know, Lou, again, I mean, this is the situation that we're currently in

00:17:07.960 is an intentional part of the democratic agenda to create problems for Speaker McCarthy. Unfortunately,

00:17:15.720 Mitch McConnell went along with it candidly. And what I mean by that is this, Lou,

00:17:20.680 the president of the United States signed a piece of legislation. He signed the omnibus on December the

00:17:25.240 30th. If you're, if you actually pull the daily treasury reports, we had, we had effectively hit

00:17:31.880 the national debt on, on December the 30th, we were at 99.9% of it. And so they had the choice in

00:17:39.000 the omnibus bill to include one sentence, Lou, one sentence in that 4,000 pages is all it would have

00:17:46.600 taken to change the national debt limit. They chose not to do that. And so Biden, Schumer, Pelosi, McConnell

00:17:54.920 combined have about 150,000 years of political experience. And now they want us to think that

00:17:59.640 they didn't realize that, that the country had for all effective purposes hit the national debt

00:18:06.760 limit on December 30th when they passed the omnibus bill. So they had four choices. They could have done

00:18:11.800 a continuing resolution without a debt limit, or they could have done a continuing resolution with

00:18:17.080 the debt limit. Neither one of them would have led to this current debt crisis as it's being called

00:18:23.080 by the administration and Chuck Schumer. They could have put the language in the omnibus bill,

00:18:28.200 again, Lou, one sentence that simply said the national or the statutory debt limit of the United

00:18:35.160 States of America is, is $32 trillion instead of $31.381 trillion. We wouldn't be in the current

00:18:43.080 situation. One sentence in 4,000 pages they could have put. And the other option was what they,

00:18:50.200 they chose, which was the omnibus without the debt limit. So, so by omitting that sentence,

00:18:56.120 they, they, they created the current situation. And now they're out there pointing the finger at

00:19:02.440 Speaker McCarthy and saying, well, it's Kevin McCarthy's fault. Well, Biden, Schumer, Pelosi,

00:19:08.280 and McConnell wrote the omnibus bill. They made a conscious decision not to include

00:19:16.120 the debt limit that it took to fund the omnibus bill in that piece of legislation.

00:19:20.840 And now they're sitting back and laughing and pointing the finger at Kevin McCarthy and House

00:19:24.280 Republicans and saying, this is your fault. It's, it's not our fault. I mean, they, they did this

00:19:29.560 intentionally. Mitch McConnell went along with it. It's, it's part of the Democratic

00:19:34.920 Party's political agenda to create as many problems as they can for, for Speaker,

00:19:39.560 Democratic Party without regard for what it does to the country. So, so we'll work through this,

00:19:43.640 but the national debt now is, is going to be somewhere close to 30, 32 trillion dollars after

00:19:48.760 the omnibus bill is funded. I want to remind you, Lou, in 19, it was about 10 trillion dollars less.

00:19:55.320 When I got here in 2011, I think it's somewhere around 11 or 12 trillion dollars. So, you know,

00:20:01.400 you can't keep running $2 trillion deficits and think that the United States dollar is going to

00:20:06.360 continue to be the world currency. And for most Americans who get up and go to work, you know,

00:20:12.840 40 hours, 50 hours, 60 hours a week, if the United States dollar is no longer the world currency,

00:20:19.800 if you think inflation's bad and has been bad for you in the last several years, I can assure you the

00:20:24.600 loss of, of that currency status is, is going to be a life altering event for every American.

00:20:30.840 It well could be. And I hope that every Republican will, when talking about the debt, the deficits,

00:20:38.600 the, the massive spending programs of this regime will keep saying, remind people whose mess this is.

00:20:47.080 And that is Joe Biden, Chuck Schumer, and Nancy Pelosi. It is their mess. The unfortunate thing is

00:20:55.000 that Mitch McConnell in the most random of ways, but I'm sure well calculated by him, decided to

00:21:03.640 facilitate that omnibus $1.7 trillion. And with that, he undercut the Republican Party viciously and

00:21:14.120 knowingly, in my opinion, your reaction. I think you're absolutely right. And, and Mitch McConnell

00:21:20.200 had the opportunity to insist that the debt limit language be included in the omnibus bill. And he

00:21:28.760 allowed them to do it without the debt limit language in the omnibus bill. And so, so again,

00:21:34.120 that's a conscious decision by someone who knows exactly what they're doing. One sentence in the

00:21:39.000 debt limit and in, in, in that omnibus bill about the debt limit. And we're not having the discussion

00:21:44.280 that we're having right now, Lou, we're having a discussion about, you know, the next budget cycle

00:21:48.600 and how we work to find efficiencies in that budget cycle, but also Lou, how we promote economic growth

00:21:56.120 in, in, in our budget resolutions. And so one of the things that concerns me is someone who came from 0.91

00:22:00.920 the business community is the current tax rates, which have led to the highest tax collections in

00:22:06.200 the history of the country. We revert back to the old tax rates in, in 2025. And so if you look at what

00:22:15.000 those, those, those, those previous 2025 tax rates generated in tax revenue, it's significantly less

00:22:22.040 than what the current tax code does. And you know, as well as I do, a low tax rate, uh, levied on, on

00:22:28.360 good economic growth and good economic activity is going to lead to, to, to more revenue for the

00:22:33.880 government. And, and that is the only way out of this current situation with the debt and the deficit

00:22:38.280 is to throw our way out of it. Absolutely. No one has been able to, to improve on, uh, what is

00:22:44.600 mathematics, uh, and, uh, the math doesn't lie. Uh, we've known that, and I've seen this, uh, over the

00:22:51.480 course of my career, uh, unfortunately, where the Republicans try to contend with all of the issues, uh, and

00:22:59.800 the responsibility and the prudence necessary to run, uh, a rational fiscal policy. But the,

00:23:06.920 the, the worst possible starting point is the debate over the debt ceiling itself. It is, uh,

00:23:14.440 it is the, it is not the condition precedent to all that needs to be done to control spending.

00:23:20.440 And the Republicans haven't won that battle once. Uh, I'm going to, uh, I'm going to just say to you

00:23:27.560 that, you know, we really appreciate you being with us. I've enjoyed our conversation. I hope

00:23:31.080 you'll come back soon. We always give our guests the last word, Congressman. So if I may, your

00:23:36.600 concluding thoughts here today. Lou, I think our democracy is contingent upon the public knowing

00:23:42.520 the truth. I think if you look at what's happening, if you look at the double standard with the way,

00:23:46.280 uh, the press, the mainstream media has reported the Biden documents versus

00:23:50.280 the Trump documents, the way the FBI handled the, the situation at Mar-a-Lago versus the way the

00:23:56.200 FBI has handled the situation with president Trump. I think if you look at those, those, um,

00:24:02.360 those differences, that, that is very telling of, of one of my great concerns about our democracy

00:24:08.840 as we push forward is that without the public knowing the truth, I don't see how the democracy

00:24:14.120 survives. Congressman, you and I, uh, I think I've been on an agreement on

00:24:19.800 every single issue here today. I really appreciate you being with us. I, uh, I applaud your, uh,

00:24:25.800 your, your thoughts there and wish you Godspeed as you, uh, continue to serve this country with,

00:24:31.960 uh, with great distinction. Thanks Congressman Austin Scott. And now we're taking up that Chinese 0.99

00:24:37.480 balloon that was shot down off the coast of South Carolina after a week long traverse of the country.

00:24:43.240 Why did Biden allow it to cross the United States? It could have been shot down anywhere. It could have

00:24:49.880 been shot down over the Aleutian islands. What will we find in the wreckage and debris? We asked

00:24:56.840 former intelligence analyst and operations officer for the Naval Security Group and the NSA to join us

00:25:02.980 here today. Russ Tice had a nearly 20 year career with various agencies working missions from the Kosovo

00:25:10.120 war, the USS coal attack in Yemen, operation Iraqi freedom and Afghanistan. And he was a whistleblower

00:25:18.440 speaking publicly after he discovered the NSA was spying on American organizations and groups.

00:25:25.240 Russ Tice, thanks for being with us here on the great America show. What were your thoughts as you

00:25:30.440 watched the news accounts this past week of the China surveillance balloon as it crossed the country?

00:25:36.200 Well, my thoughts were basically, I'm certainly hoping that we're, um, taking advantage of the technical

00:25:42.440 collection that we could be, uh, you know, uh, garnering from, from this thing before we either have to

00:25:48.360 bring it down, uh, gently or abruptly, which I do believe abruptly was the choice made.

00:25:55.640 I agree with you. Uh, and, and when you talk about garnering and gathering intelligence,

00:26:02.040 that was obviously a surveillance and intelligence gathering satellite, uh, uh, array below that, uh,

00:26:10.440 that, uh, balloon, uh, they, there were implications and a lot of it was CYA stuff that you would expect

00:26:18.600 from the, from the federal government, from the defense department, but saying that, you know,

00:26:23.720 we've been in control of this and no, they weren't, we made sure they weren't picking up sensitive,

00:26:28.320 uh, intelligence from the arrays on that balloon as they passed over some, an estimated 450 missile

00:26:35.280 silos and, uh, and, uh, you know, air bases, uh, along the way. Your thoughts about how,

00:26:44.320 how good are we? Were we in fact jamming their surveillance or did they, in your judgment,

00:26:50.880 collect surveillance that would be a value to Beijing? Um, well, quite often jamming a signal

00:26:57.680 is, is not going to give you a whole lot of information about the signals that are being used.

00:27:02.320 It would be more advantageous to, to let them try to collect as best they can for us to determine what

00:27:09.200 the general route would be and tell our, our missile silo sites to shut off their telemetry and their

00:27:14.240 any RF communications they may have when this thing is within line of sight. And then for us to,

00:27:20.000 uh, to take advantage of what the, the, uh, balloon is doing as far as it's, it's, uh,

00:27:25.520 it's mechanisms, uh, to, to collect on us. So basically we collect on how they're trying to

00:27:31.360 collect, uh, for the, the intelligence that we can get. I can go into some detail if you want on

00:27:36.240 some of the things that would be interesting. Well, I, I would love to, and I think the audience

00:27:40.720 would love to hear that detail. Uh, so long as if you make allowances for my, uh, my comprehension

00:27:47.680 level on when it comes to technology. Most of them are understandable. Like for instance, uh,

00:27:53.920 what, what is the power source for this thing? Is it solar? Do they, does it have batteries? Uh,

00:27:59.040 is liquid fuel in station on, on the airship? Um, how does it maneuver? Does it have propellers?

00:28:05.360 Does it have jet thrusters? Um, uh, what does it use? Is it using, uh, hydrogen? Is it using helium?

00:28:13.600 More than likely, I would hope it's using, uh, helium. Um, how is it controlled? Uh, is it controlled

00:28:19.840 by preset programming? Is it controlled by direct commanding or, or a combination of both? Um,

00:28:26.880 what types of, what types of arrays, uh, community, uh, collection arrays are on this thing? Is it, uh,

00:28:32.480 um, what we call measurement and instrument, uh, uh, uh, signature collection? Uh, things like, uh, chemical,

00:28:40.400 nuclear, biological, uh, is it electro optical? Electro optical basically means cameras, uh, signals

00:28:47.280 collection. Now, if I had to bet, I bet they have a whole lot of signal collection on this thing.

00:28:51.680 Um, and if they do, we would want to know what kind of frequencies this thing is looking for. 0.67

00:28:57.760 If the frequencies this thing is looking for and matching up with the signals we normally

00:29:01.920 use for our missile fields, then we know that they already know the other general frequencies

00:29:06.960 that we use and they, they're trying to collect on frequencies that they already know exist. And

00:29:11.840 that's not a good thing. Um, what was targeted? Um, were the missile fields targeted? We can probably

00:29:17.840 say probably yes. What else was targeted? Um, if we can get into the internals of this thing,

00:29:23.520 we might be able to figure that out as well. Um, the antennas they were on, what, what is the

00:29:28.720 capability of those antennas? What are, what are the, the, the antenna arrays capabilities as far as the,

00:29:34.400 the, uh, the view angles and, uh, the line of sight capabilities of the antennas? Um, basically things

00:29:40.880 like, oh, what, what sort of storage capability was on that platform? Uh, and, and how did they get

00:29:47.920 the, how did they dump the, uh, the information they're getting off? Is it, is it a time storage

00:29:52.640 where they keep a certain amount of information and then they dump it every half an hour or something

00:29:56.320 like that? Um, is it a, a real time, uh, transfer of communications, uh, intelligence from this thing?

00:30:04.160 And I'm assuming they would be using a satellite for that. Um, things like, um, if they're, if they're

00:30:11.920 using, uh, signals, uh, to get the information back to mother China, um, are, are they using special

00:30:18.880 types of signals basically, or, or, or signals that are hard to, for us to pick up on, or what we call

00:30:24.640 low probability of intercept, uh, things like, uh, burst transmissions, frequency hopping transmissions,

00:30:31.200 spread, spread signal systems, transmissions, uh, low frequency signal transmissions. Um,

00:30:38.240 those are the sort of things, uh, that, that are basically when someone's trying to hide a signal

00:30:43.760 that they're trying to send, that they, they use these, these hiding techniques so that it's hard

00:30:48.640 to collect on them. Um, uh, you know, another question is, are they using, uh, GPS systems to,

00:30:56.960 to maneuver this as best they can to maneuver this, uh, this balloon, um, and, and what satellites are

00:31:03.840 being used? What, what transfer satellites are being used? Um, are, are military Chinese military

00:31:09.360 satellites being used? We could probably bet the answer for that is yes. What about commercial

00:31:13.680 satellites? Are they using, uh, commercial satellite capabilities? Uh, NavSat, are they using our GPS?

00:31:19.600 Yes. NavSat are the, uh, the, the sats that we use for our, our, our U.S. GPS systems that every time

00:31:25.600 you, you pull that up on your, on your phone and you're going something, going to grandmom's house

00:31:29.520 and you're from where grandmom lives. Uh, hopefully you didn't do that, but, but, uh, you know, that's,

00:31:34.640 that's our GPS system, uh, or the GLONASS system. Some of our systems use GLONASS, which is the Russian,

00:31:40.240 Russian system, uh, the, the Galileo system, which is the, the European system, which I don't think

00:31:46.480 is complete yet, or the Chinese completed like a couple of years ago, their own, uh, 0.87

00:31:51.680 their own, uh, geolocating system. Uh, I think it's called the Bedow three system. Uh, I, I,

00:31:58.720 certainly they'd be using that as well, but it'd be interesting to know if they're using ours and

00:32:03.280 others too, to hone in on things. Um, so I'm sorry, go ahead. Yeah. Yeah. I, Russ, I mean,

00:32:11.120 that's fascinating and it raises just those questions raise another, and that is how much

00:32:19.040 sophisticated technology could be aboard that balloon. Uh, you've seen the pictures as we all

00:32:24.960 have, uh, and news sites of the, the bottom of that balloon with those arrays. Uh, I, I know there are

00:32:31.280 arrays. I'm just not sure what they are designed to either transmit or to pick up. Uh, it looks like

00:32:38.480 there would be a lot of communication between, uh, let's assume Beijing. Uh, it could be any other

00:32:44.960 city in China, obviously, or perhaps not even China, perhaps on one of the pieces of real estate that the

00:32:51.040 Chinese have bought in this country over the last few years. Uh, but what do you, did you have a sense 0.99

00:32:57.360 of just how sophisticated, uh, the technology was by just looking at the base of that payload on the,

00:33:04.160 uh, on the balloon? Well, I like most, I could be, I, I only saw pictures of it that they showed on

00:33:09.680 television. So I mean, I didn't get some kind of, but they're saying it's the, it's the length,

00:33:14.000 this array is basically the length of three, you know, um, city buses. That's, that's a lot of space

00:33:20.240 to put things on. Um, so certainly they could have, you know, all those different collection systems.

00:33:26.000 They could literally have all of those on this thing. Um, and then some, uh, some,

00:33:30.720 that we're not even talking about, but, uh, but there's all kinds of technology to be garnered

00:33:35.760 from this thing. And, and, and then, you know, are they, are they using signals with encryption?

00:33:40.160 Are they using, uh, uh, coded coding with encryption and other telemetry? Is that being encrypted?

00:33:46.400 Um, if we can collect that and it's something we've already broken at the agency, or I should say at NSA,

00:33:52.880 then, then we can pin it down even better as to what kind of technology they're using, uh, to control this

00:33:58.720 thing. Um, what kind of transmitters, receivers, uh, sensors are on this thing? Um, it's just, uh,

00:34:05.920 this thing is, could be, uh, uh, basically, uh, a technical, um, uh, bonanza of intelligence.

00:34:14.160 What would be the difference in the, the capability to, to, uh, to surveil, uh, an area like missile

00:34:22.960 silos or a base of silos, uh, satellite versus this array and your judgment?

00:34:30.960 Well, for instance, uh, if you're talking about, uh, electro optical, basically cameras, uh, it's,

00:34:37.360 it's like the same thing. If you have your, you know, your, your camera, put the best camera you

00:34:42.320 can put it in space and then take that best camera and, and put it, you know, uh, 70,000 feet above the

00:34:51.120 earth. Well, that's a big difference. So in other words, the fidelity is going to be better instead

00:34:55.760 of, instead of, you know, down to basically like two feet, uh, or better from, from a satellite,

00:35:03.680 you're now getting to two inches or better from, for the fidelity from a camera that's, you know,

00:35:09.280 that's very close to the earth. So instead of looking at the, the top of a missile silo and the

00:35:15.760 lid, we're now looking at the hinges and what kind of bolts are being used to keep that thing on the,

00:35:20.240 you know, the blast bolts from, you know, what type are being used in that missile silo. So yes,

00:35:26.960 the fidelity makes a difference when you can get that camera closer. If, if the Chinese don't have 1.00

00:35:32.720 a viable, uh, overhead, uh, signals capability, uh, for looking down to the center of the Central

00:35:41.040 America, I mean, North America, then this thing would, would be their only option for doing signals

00:35:46.960 intelligence, uh, uh, for, for something like our missile silos. Let's draw on your intelligence

00:35:53.680 analyst background a bit. Uh, why would they want a satellite to go over Latin America?

00:36:00.400 I mean, uh, I don't know of too many missile silos in Argentina, but how would you characterize

00:36:05.680 this as a national security threat? I would say this is a low, low, uh, threat to national security

00:36:11.760 because we knew the general track this thing was going to take, you know, what jet stream it's

00:36:16.640 going to take. So we can basically shut down the comms, uh, that it's going to collect and you can,

00:36:22.240 you can take measures to, to, um, to mitigate any electro optical camera stuff you put in camouflage

00:36:28.800 and that sort of thing. So, um, in it's, it's, you gotta wonder, um, is this thing's just sort of a slap in

00:36:37.760 the face? You know, in other words, we can do this and we're going to do this and, and it's an affront.

00:36:44.800 Um, it, it's hard to gauge, you know, because I, you know, once we know what this thing is,

00:36:52.560 I even thought maybe this whole thing is a canard. Maybe, maybe this thing is literally just a, a, a,

00:36:58.560 a juiced up weather satellite that they're sending it over to, to see what our reaction would be to doing

00:37:04.720 something like this. Wouldn't that be interesting that this thing isn't the, this super high tech,

00:37:10.320 you know, the surveillance thing that I'm talking about, but the time will tell when hopefully the

00:37:15.200 Navy pulls all those pieces out of the ocean. They're off the Carolina coast, but it's, um,

00:37:20.480 it's, it's hard to tell because it's pretty overt. The way they're doing this is this is in your face.

00:37:25.760 Exactly. Uh, and in our face also was a conflict in the discussion leading up to what was ultimately

00:37:32.960 the missile shoot down of the, uh, umbrella. Initially 20 millimeter was being reported as

00:37:39.200 the gun that they preferred to use so that there could be a slow descent from the balloon. Uh, it

00:37:43.600 could be managed if not controlled, uh, and would probably result in less debris, whether it landed on

00:37:50.400 the ground or in, in, uh, the ocean to fire a sidewinder missile and blow the thing out of the

00:37:57.840 sky. That means there's going to be a jarring landing. I think most people know that whether

00:38:02.880 you're using a parachute or whether whatever it may be landing in on water is about the same thing

00:38:08.880 as landing on concrete, uh, in terms of impact force, uh, your thoughts about that.

00:38:14.800 I would have thought that, um, that the way to bring this thing down

00:38:21.120 was to wait till it goes over missile fields and then put those cannons into it and punch some holes

00:38:27.200 in it so that this thing gradually starts to lose its, its gas. It starts to come down, do it on a day

00:38:33.040 when you don't, it's not very windy and this thing lands in a, in a, a, a Kansas wheat field or a

00:38:38.800 Nebraska corn field. Um, and then we, as, and we have our, our military, you know, following along.

00:38:45.200 And as soon as this thing lands, we, we jump on it and packages on, package it up and send it to

00:38:50.480 Wright-Patt, the foreign technology division where we exploit that thing. By the way, that's one of

00:38:55.440 the places I was stationed when I was in the air force. Uh, so I'm familiar with what they do at

00:39:00.160 Wright-Patt. Um, so it all, it's almost like, you know, we decided, uh, I guess they wanted to make

00:39:08.080 a big grand show of it. Um, and, and I guess they had to blow it up right after it got over the coast,

00:39:14.240 because if you put holes in it, by the time it drifts, you know, 25 to 30 miles out to sea, then,

00:39:20.160 then you're no longer in, uh, in domestic waters. You're now in, um, international waters. And it can

00:39:26.000 be, it could be, uh, you can have the Chinese out there getting the pieces of their own saddle. I mean, 0.98

00:39:30.880 their own balloon. Well, it did surprise me. I have to say it did not surprise me that they

00:39:36.000 shot it down over the coast because they wanted to maintain the, the shallow waters of the, of the

00:39:42.160 continental shelf there. But it, it does surprise me that they didn't have salvage, uh, ships and

00:39:49.680 crews organized around where they thought it was going to land. Uh, and it just seemed a little bit,

00:39:57.680 uh, I don't know, sloppy on the part of the military, not to have that more organized with that many days,

00:40:04.640 uh, to execute a plan. Your thoughts? It doesn't look like the folks that were involved in this

00:40:12.640 with the most erudite, uh, lot of thinkers. Um, uh, yeah, you would think if they're, if they know,

00:40:20.880 if they know in advance, they're going to, you know, going to, you know, blast it just after it

00:40:24.400 goes over the coast, that they're going to have some ships out there that the Navy, uh, uh, uh,

00:40:29.520 teams that, uh, do the diving and the recovery, uh, would be already on site. So it's, this whole

00:40:36.560 thing sounds like, uh, how would you say in the military? We saw it, we call it a cluster fangdango. 0.94

00:40:42.480 If anyone in the military knows what, uh, the Charlie Fox truck means, and, uh, and that sounds

00:40:47.680 what this is, you know, how they ran this thing, how, how it is. Yeah. It seemed that way even to,

00:40:54.240 uh, uh, uh, civilians and what's your sense? There's now an argument about this happened

00:41:00.640 three times in the Trump administration, uh, this being loosely, uh, a balloon going across

00:41:07.680 some part of the U S territory, whether it's a Guam or wherever it might've been, uh, no specifics,

00:41:14.720 at least in the briefing to Congress and the Senate over the weekend, uh, the specificity,

00:41:21.520 at least as they reported, uh, repeated the report, uh, didn't include dates. Uh, do you

00:41:28.240 think this has been going on for quite some time? Would that be your judgment? Absolutely not.

00:41:33.600 Come on. Something like this is going to be spotted by someone. Uh, and, and they certainly,

00:41:37.920 if it happened during the Trump administration, they, they'd, uh, I mean, they, they'd collar,

00:41:43.120 uh, President Trump as a coward for letting it even get near our coast. So, um, no, I don't think

00:41:50.160 this happened and knowing Mr. Trump that I don't know him personally, but, but I bet if this happened

00:41:55.440 to him, he'd had that thing shot down before it even got close to, uh, U S territory.

00:42:01.280 And to that point, uh, we know now that, uh, because of the cover your, the CYA approach of

00:42:08.560 the Biden administration saying, well, it happened to the Trump administration. Then they had to explain

00:42:13.280 why they didn't tell the director of national intelligence. They didn't tell the national

00:42:17.920 security council or the president of the United States, the commander in chief about those

00:42:22.640 incursions, uh, or whatever, however you want to style them. That is a serious breach of

00:42:29.440 constitutional, uh, reporting and authority, uh, on the part of the military. And my guess is there's

00:42:35.920 going to be hell to pay. Uh, and this is just the beginning salvo, uh, your thoughts.

00:42:41.280 Well, if, if that were true, uh, you know, then, then they'd be lying about all of that. So to, to

00:42:51.440 discredit our former president. So, um, not that they have a problem with lying about things like

00:42:58.160 this. I mean, my goodness, they, they, uh, accused of practically our president of being a Russian agent

00:43:05.760 for Mr. Putin. So, and they've gotten away with it, despite everyone knowing that it was

00:43:13.120 a conspiracy to overthrow a president. And there has been no accountability, uh, for anyone in the

00:43:20.080 justice department, the intelligence community, the FBI, uh, it's outrageous, but the outrages

00:43:27.520 continue and in some ways worsen. You know, I have some of my liberal friends that only watch

00:43:34.400 certain liberal news outlets and they still believe all that Russian nonsense. It's still,

00:43:42.080 oh, well, that, that happened. I'm like, no, it didn't. It's, you know, look at the Mueller report.

00:43:46.080 Well, no, it didn't. That happened. It's, it's, there's dead set on believing what they've been fed.

00:43:52.000 Um, it's, it's just like Pravda, um, you know, of years gone by that, you know, you just kind of

00:44:00.800 shake your head and, and mainstream press is going, is going to, going to push these, 0.93

00:44:06.240 these idiotic lines of, uh, you know, for the, for the people that, that aren't going to take the time 0.99

00:44:11.520 to, uh, to do a little research and find out what the truth might be, especially with a complicit, uh, 0.99

00:44:17.520 news media, uh, at work on behalf of their corporate masters. Uh, I, I just want to say,

00:44:23.440 Russ, we always give the last word to our guests. I really appreciate you being with us today, uh, to take

00:44:29.680 up these important issues. Uh, if you will, your concluding thoughts today, as we wrap up here.

00:44:37.520 Well, concluding thoughts on the balloon would be, um, we have to think smarter about how we, uh,

00:44:43.840 deal with situations like this and, and need to have a pre-planning to, uh, to determine,

00:44:50.320 you know, what, what will we do in a situation where, you know, this could happen? Are we,

00:44:55.840 are we going to collect some, some intelligence on it? Are we going to put it down in a, in a,

00:45:00.480 in a, you know, a cornfield or, you know, are we going to let it go across the country all the time?

00:45:06.880 Um, it's, um, I've, I've seen the intelligence field, um, become not so intelligent in the past

00:45:17.680 20 years. Um, and I, you have to wonder, you know, if you're no longer, you know,

00:45:24.880 your job as an intelligence analyst or intelligence officer is to, is to tell the executive the truth

00:45:30.880 about what's going on and it's up to the executive. If you become an arm, a political arm and, and a

00:45:37.520 shill to any political party or to a deep state or to, or to some ideology, you are no longer a viable

00:45:45.600 intelligence agency or, or, um, uh, useful to the national security of this country.

00:45:52.000 Yeah. And I think we've seen the examples of that, uh, in the efforts to overthrow President Trump

00:45:57.520 and the, uh, the revelations that followed, uh, it's, it's remarkable the, the power of the so-called

00:46:05.440 interagency and how it has subsumed so much constitutional authority, um, from various departments, uh, and, uh,

00:46:13.440 uh, and really altered the balance of, uh, powers in, in our, in our government.

00:46:18.960 Russ Heist, thanks for being with us. I appreciate your time and look forward to talking with you

00:46:23.520 further about this China surveillance balloon, the fallout and repercussions from all of this

00:46:28.920 here tomorrow. We'll continue to follow up on the China balloon recovery efforts and the political

00:46:34.440 fallout joining us tomorrow will be judicial watches, Chris Farrell on balloon politics and

00:46:40.900 general Millie's role in all of this, the Biden scandals. And of course, George Soros check out

00:46:46.860 the source files on judicial watch.org. That's the source files on judicial watch.org. Also joining

00:46:54.660 us tomorrow will be cash Patel on government gangsters. The title of his new book, a catchy title, don't you

00:47:01.700 think? And absolutely app these days. Thanks for everybody for joining us. Our guests tomorrow,

00:47:07.620 Chris Farrell and cash Patel till then. Thanks. And God bless you and God bless America.

The Great America Show - February 07, 2023

THE WHOLE CHINA BALLOON THING LOOKS LIKE A CLUSTER FANDANGO, A CHARLIE FOXTROT SAYS FORMER INTEL ANALYST RUSS TICE

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