Valuetainment - Colonial Pipeline Reveals Threat to National Security

00:00:00.000 My guest today is General Robert Spaulding, author of Stealth War, and he's been on Valley

00:00:04.760 Timing multiple times.

00:00:06.140 He has his own show called Generally Speaking.

00:00:08.980 His expertise is China, cybersecurity, foreign policy, national security policies, and he

00:00:14.700 was the former senior director to National Security Council, and he's here to tell us

00:00:19.560 and educate us on what really happened with the colonial pipeline.

00:00:23.800 General Robert Spaulding, thank you so much for being a guest on Valley Timing again.

00:00:27.460 Great to see you again, Patrick.

00:00:28.820 Yes, brother.

00:00:29.320 So, Robert, what is going on?

00:00:32.000 I mean, I got a lot of different data.

00:00:33.560 Did they pay the $4 million to $5 million to hackers?

00:00:36.880 Biden's refusing to get happened.

00:00:38.280 This is the largest 5,500-mile colonial pipeline.

00:00:42.760 I'm in Florida right now.

00:00:43.980 It got hit.

00:00:44.460 Many different states got hit.

00:00:45.860 What can you tell us about what really happened here?

00:00:48.880 Well, I can't tell you exactly what happened because I don't work for the company, but it

00:00:53.580 sounds like they were hit by ransomware.

00:00:55.560 And if you know anything about ransomware, they basically lock down your systems and tell

00:01:02.900 you, if you don't pay, we're not going to unlock them.

00:01:05.920 And not only that, we're going to delete all your data.

00:01:07.780 So, that's enormously, as you know, valuable to a company.

00:01:12.300 So, they'll pay almost anything to get that unlocked.

00:01:14.960 And it sounds like that's what happened here in this case.

00:01:17.700 So, is there a formula for ransomware on asking the right amount of money to get where the

00:01:23.720 company is willing?

00:01:24.660 Do you know there's a formula for it?

00:01:26.920 Well, you know, I don't know if you remember the hijacking of ships that was going on near

00:01:31.780 Somalia, but they knew, you know, what the cargo was worth.

00:01:37.800 They knew how much the company was insured for.

00:01:41.340 They knew.

00:01:41.900 So, it was a calculated business decision.

00:01:44.240 And when they negotiated with the hijackers in Somalia, I mean, they knew their business 0.50

00:01:50.440 down to the penny.

00:01:51.860 So, I would imagine the same thing goes on for these hackers.

00:01:56.720 They understand the nature of the company, and then they basically figure out what they

00:02:01.660 can extract.

00:02:02.480 And I think for them, it's not like just a smash and grab.

00:02:09.860 It's a calculated business decision.

00:02:11.880 So, in many cases, like in the cases of the Somalia and hijackers, they had funders.

00:02:16.940 So, these guys may even be funded by somebody.

00:02:20.280 They've got bills they've got to pay.

00:02:22.040 I mean, this is a business for them.

00:02:23.940 And unfortunately, we've created this vulnerable infrastructure that allows these businesses

00:02:28.320 to thrive.

00:02:29.480 How much is this is going on right now?

00:02:31.480 Are you seeing a lot of this?

00:02:32.980 I mean, obviously, this has been going on for a while, but the tactic and approach probably

00:02:37.200 has changed.

00:02:38.200 Are you seeing a lot more of this happening today?

00:02:40.400 No, I don't think it's any more.

00:02:42.920 I think it's just pervasive across industry.

00:02:46.520 One of the things that got me focused on China was really understanding that this was going

00:02:52.500 on.

00:02:52.920 And when people think about this, they just think about the hackers.

00:02:55.640 They don't think about the social engineering going on and the profiling of the company.

00:02:59.700 These hacks can be very sophisticated in the way they work and, in many ways, can have state-sponsored

00:03:07.220 activity behind them.

00:03:08.860 You know, in the case of some of the companies I looked at, it wasn't so much as a cyber hack

00:03:13.400 as it was a human hack.

00:03:15.180 And, you know, they're using social engineering.

00:03:17.660 I remember in one case, they basically found out that the guy that had the keys to the servers

00:03:25.100 was actually a football fan, a college football fan.

00:03:29.140 And so they crafted a newsletter for his football team because they knew that he got it.

00:03:35.180 And then they embedded in that newsletter a link that gave them access.

00:03:40.640 So many times they're looking at Facebook profiles of these people, Twitter profiles.

00:03:46.420 They're surveilling the company who has access.

00:03:50.020 And then they're trying to figure out what does this person click on?

00:03:53.140 What are their habits?

00:03:54.280 So it's a really sophisticated human engineering.

00:03:57.840 So it's social engineering, really.

00:03:59.360 And it takes a long time to really cultivate targets in this manner.

00:04:04.640 It's just not like you can spam people.

00:04:07.740 But a lot of companies are getting sophisticated in terms of what they tell their employees

00:04:11.880 about how to be careful about things.

00:04:14.120 Some of the things I've seen have been basically generated for the person, the single person,

00:04:19.920 that they know that they can get access to the system.

00:04:23.100 Do we know how this dark side hacker group that's from Russia,

00:04:29.100 do we know how they hacked into the colonial pipeline?

00:04:33.280 Has that come out public?

00:04:35.360 No, I don't think so.

00:04:36.460 But I would imagine it's some kind of social, my guess would be that some kind of social

00:04:42.020 engineering, they found out somebody that they wanted to target, they sent them, I would

00:04:49.160 imagine some kind of phishing mail, email, and then they clicked on a link that they probably

00:04:54.060 shouldn't have clicked on.

00:04:55.160 And the company had access through that.

00:04:58.080 It's very hard to just break into a system.

00:05:01.040 Most companies have firewalls and everything else.

00:05:03.260 So they're looking for somebody to do something that provides a vulnerability that they can

00:05:09.520 exploit.

00:05:09.960 You know, the thing that really people ought to be concerned about is, not only is this

00:05:14.020 happening to things like Colonial Pipeline, we saw where probably a state-sponsored

00:05:22.220 hacker was trying to put chemicals into water treatment in a city in Florida.

00:05:30.720 We've seen the Christmas bombing in Memphis, where it took down first responders and the whole

00:05:38.200 cellular network for AT&T in Tennessee for like two days last Christmas.

00:05:43.680 So there's all kinds of infrastructure attacks going on that, you know, when you look across

00:05:48.520 the country, we've got a big problem here in terms of vulnerabilities.

00:05:52.500 Yeah, that's very obvious.

00:05:55.300 And by the way, we're not talking about a small company.

00:05:57.080 We're talking about 5,500-mile pipeline transports 100 million gallons of fuel a day.

00:06:06.600 This is a sophisticated company.

00:06:08.540 It's not like they probably have cybersecurity insurance.

00:06:11.500 They probably have the right analysts.

00:06:12.840 They probably have the right team in place.

00:06:15.240 So this could happen from the smallest company to the biggest company.

00:06:18.680 We've done these, you know, my wife, this will typically happen to us.

00:06:23.400 It'll happen at least once a week.

00:06:25.180 They'll get an email saying, hey, Jennifer, coming from me, saying, hey, Jennifer, I just

00:06:31.020 want you to know, I forgot your phone number.

00:06:32.820 Can you please email it to me so I can call you back?

00:06:35.560 And Jennifer will come and she'll say, babe, did you email me this?

00:06:38.940 I said, babe, why would I email you this?

00:06:40.100 This is, I'm your wife.

00:06:41.280 I'm your husband.

00:06:41.820 I know your phone number.

00:06:42.680 But they'll do this.

00:06:43.960 And so many times, so now we have a whole team that looks out for this.

00:06:47.880 But no matter what you do, they seem to still be figuring out a way to how to get in there.

00:06:53.680 What can companies do to prevent this from happening?

00:06:57.220 Well, it's really about teaching their employees to do just what you did, which is, or your

00:07:03.700 wife did basically come and ask you, did you really send this?

00:07:06.600 If you have any suspicion, first of all, don't click on any links.

00:07:09.760 I think that's the biggest thing.

00:07:10.980 When I was in the Pentagon, the joint staff got hacked.

00:07:14.400 And it was basically somebody clicked on a link in an email that they shouldn't have clicked on.

00:07:19.940 And in that case, it was the Russians that we reported that had done it. 0.67

00:07:24.660 But I mean, this stuff is going on all over the country.

00:07:27.200 I think the problem is people don't realize how vulnerable our infrastructure and our companies

00:07:33.660 and our government is to this type of thing.

00:07:36.020 And we've looked at warfare through the lens of, you know, F-35s and tanks and ships and

00:07:41.180 bombers and I flew bombers.

00:07:43.160 But quite frankly, warfare is coming to our shores, into our own living rooms, just like

00:07:47.380 you said, into your wife's email, because this is the way that we undermine our, the economic,

00:07:56.060 the social and the political fabric of our society today.

00:07:59.340 And that's what's going on in the big time.

00:08:01.560 By the way, there was a guy named Roger Robinson who worked in the Reagan administration.

00:08:06.140 And they, what they did back in the Reagan administration is they slipped into Russia's

00:08:12.920 supply chain, a valve that ended up creating the biggest explosion, non-nuclear explosion

00:08:20.020 in history, was witnessed by our satellites in space in the Soviet Union.

00:08:25.040 And so infrastructure attacks have been going on through nefarious means, you know, since

00:08:30.260 the Cold War.

00:08:31.220 What's happening today is that we've connected all of our infrastructure and our companies

00:08:36.080 to the internet.

00:08:36.960 And that means anybody at any time can be attacked today.

00:08:42.500 This, this makes me, this makes me think about, I mean, obviously you look at the stats,

00:08:47.220 we've all read the stats.

00:08:48.260 68% of gas stations in North Carolina reported fuel outages.

00:08:51.200 According to GasBuddy, roughly half of all the gas stations in Georgia, South Carolina,

00:08:55.720 Washington, D.C.

00:08:56.520 and Virginia also reported outages.

00:08:59.600 There was an interview done this morning on Fox Business with Mario Bartiroma, where

00:09:03.580 John Castimatidis, who's a billionaire, says the payments have been made to the terrorists.

00:09:08.620 I understand from my sources that $4 million was paid.

00:09:11.600 He's calling them terrorists.

00:09:13.320 I mean, we don't know who these people are.

00:09:15.100 And, you know, what, what makes me think about this as you go into it, okay, so gas prices

00:09:21.220 beginning of the year, we're on 225.

00:09:23.240 They hit 303.

00:09:24.700 That's a 40% increase, 35% increase like this.

00:09:27.680 When you and I spoke last time, I mean, we've spoken and you got millions on top of millions

00:09:32.560 of views where you were speaking from experience as the former senior director, National Security

00:09:37.180 Council.

00:09:37.600 Do you think this is a, you know, because they're saying maybe this is, because if you

00:09:43.840 go on DarkSide's website, they'll say, here's our business model.

00:09:47.700 Here's who we've hacked before.

00:09:49.380 Here's who we've gotten money from.

00:09:50.880 We're not political.

00:09:52.040 We're not religious.

00:09:53.360 Matter of fact, we even have some values and principles.

00:09:55.580 We don't target funeral homes.

00:09:56.960 We don't target health insurance.

00:09:58.180 There are certain things they don't do.

00:09:59.620 So these are very value-based criminals, if you want to call them.

00:10:03.680 So they're even telling you how they go about doing business.

00:10:06.120 Do you think this is at all linked to the man at the top, Putin, who is, you know, encouraging

00:10:13.140 this to take place?

00:10:14.300 Or do you think this was just a couple of guys, you know, an organization that's making money

00:10:17.480 and this is their business model?

00:10:19.280 Well, I mean, that's the whole point, right?

00:10:21.500 We don't know.

00:10:22.260 And we don't even know if it's the Russians.

00:10:23.920 I mean, it could be coming from anywhere.

00:10:26.780 It could be coming from within the United States.

00:10:28.480 I mean, that's the nature of cyber attacks today.

00:10:31.060 And, you know, so, I mean, it's very hard to say who it is or even what their motivations

00:10:37.100 are.

00:10:37.920 Like, it's funny because, you know, we said that all of a sudden the lockdown stopped

00:10:44.700 the coronavirus in China.

00:10:46.300 You know, we can't even believe that.

00:10:48.300 So I would not believe anything that these guys said because we have no way of verifying

00:10:53.680 that information.

00:10:54.420 I was talking to Bernard Carrick today.

00:10:57.220 I said, you know, he was here on the podcast.

00:10:59.200 You know, Bernard Carrick is a former commissioner of NYPD, 55,000 employees.

00:11:04.300 And he also was the commissioner of the Correctional Department of New York.

00:11:08.400 So he ran the prisons and he ran NYPD.

00:11:13.180 And I said, how do you deal with things like this?

00:11:15.120 He says, typically, you know, when we find out the business model of criminals who do these

00:11:21.160 types of things, it takes us a while to adjust.

00:11:23.980 OK, and get better at it.

00:11:25.160 I said, so who's more creative, the criminal or, you know, the organization, NYPD, DEA,

00:11:31.040 CIA, FBI, whoever, maybe he says, it's typically the criminal is more creative than us.

00:11:36.460 But we try to make adjustments.

00:11:38.660 Let's just say you're in charge right now.

00:11:40.680 OK, and you get as much intel as you can.

00:11:43.640 OK, how are you pivoting to protect, you know, this from happening?

00:11:49.660 Because this affects the nation.

00:11:51.640 This affects the populace.

00:11:52.760 This affects people being scared.

00:11:54.540 I'm in Dallas yesterday running a meeting.

00:11:56.400 My wife says, the moment you land, go to the gas stations.

00:11:58.680 I'm like, for what?

00:12:00.000 I'm in Dallas.

00:12:00.580 She says, babe, you haven't been following the news.

00:12:02.260 I said, I just had a meeting with 2,500 people.

00:12:04.320 I've been in a meeting from 7 a.m. till midnight.

00:12:06.780 I don't know what's going on.

00:12:07.780 She says, go look at what happened.

00:12:08.840 I'm like, oh, wow, I didn't know this was taking place.

00:12:10.420 But how would you be handling a situation like this yourself to make sure this doesn't happen again?

00:12:16.740 I know you said training, education, all of that.

00:12:18.880 But how do we even go above that?

00:12:21.040 Do you go do the business model of the movie Catch Me If You Can with Frank Abingale?

00:12:26.020 Do you get some of those guys in to say, how do we go even track where this is coming from?

00:12:30.400 Because, you know, it's very easy to do a proxy.

00:12:33.560 Proxy wars, oh, it's the Russians, but it's really China. 0.63

00:12:36.380 Oh, it's the Chinese, but it's really in the States. 0.98

00:12:38.500 Oh, it's really.

00:12:39.020 So how do we find out the fingerprints on this?

00:12:41.940 Because that's really what we really need to figure out the fingerprints.

00:12:45.120 How would you go about doing that?

00:12:46.780 Well, so first of all, you know, if I was going to put time and I had the resources and I was in charge,

00:12:52.440 what I would do is go about protecting our infrastructure in the country.

00:12:55.840 So it would really be about preventing this from happening in the future.

00:12:59.840 You know, one of the things that we did during the Cold War is that we decided that we were going to focus on growing our economy.

00:13:06.160 So we invested in infrastructure and manufacturing and science and technology.

00:13:10.080 We haven't been doing that for a long time.

00:13:12.000 One of the things I said is that we needed to rebuild our critical infrastructure.

00:13:16.560 Today, you could light off a high altitude nuclear weapon over the country and shut off the grid permanently.

00:13:22.920 And that would be devastating for our society.

00:13:25.540 You saw what happened after Katrina.

00:13:27.020 So it's really about strengthening and hardening our infrastructure, our SCADA systems that power our gas, power our electricity,

00:13:36.160 it powers our water, it powers our transportation, our banking system, our roads are crumbling.

00:13:42.380 You know, we've been spending almost a trillion dollars on defense for the last 25 years,

00:13:47.700 and it hasn't really helped us very much in these cases.

00:13:51.460 And so I would reprioritize spending on defense.

00:13:55.220 I would cut the defense budget by something like 10 to 25 percent.

00:13:59.840 And I would reallocate that that money into building new, strong, critical infrastructure that protected the society from these types of attacks.

00:14:10.420 We see them happening every single day.

00:14:12.300 I mean, think about this, you know, you were in the army, you know, what would what would you do if you were you were coming under constant attack every single day?

00:14:21.280 I mean, you would beef up your defenses.

00:14:22.980 You would basically go out and go on the offensive.

00:14:25.840 You know, in this case, we have to actually think into the future.

00:14:29.680 Let's don't go back and try to catch a criminal.

00:14:32.000 Let's strengthen our society.

00:14:33.720 So this doesn't keep happening.

00:14:35.160 What do you mean by going on the offensive?

00:14:37.180 Do you mean offensive like offensive?

00:14:38.920 Let's go spend money.

00:14:40.160 So one of the things.

00:14:41.780 So one of the things that you would do, you know, if you're you're in a forward operating base, you would go outside the wire and start going on patrols.

00:14:50.500 So we'd actually be looking for these people, you know, aggressively and they can be found.

00:14:56.200 It's just that, you know, right now what happens is colonial is not the government.

00:15:00.440 Right.

00:15:00.840 And so the government is not going to protect colonial.

00:15:04.020 Colonial has got to protect itself. 0.92

00:15:05.620 That's why they paid a fine.

00:15:07.280 You know, if if you believe that economic prosperity is a key component of a functioning society and you're allowing your society to be rated, then you're not defending the sovereignty and independence of our country.

00:15:22.540 Today, we have a quality under the law.

00:15:24.280 We don't have economic opportunity.

00:15:25.760 Part of the reason is because we're allowing our companies to be destroyed in front of us.

00:15:30.840 You know, I was taught to drop bombs on companies when we wanted a policy enacted elsewhere, like in Kosovo, for example.

00:15:40.240 We dropped bombs on factories of the henchmen that were supporting Milosevic.

00:15:44.580 That's how we got Milosevic to stand down, because all of his support wilted away.

00:15:49.100 Wait, say this one more time.

00:15:50.340 You were instructed to drop bombs on companies in Kosovo?

00:15:53.100 We took out the assets, the factories that were owned by the henchmen that were supporting Milosevic.

00:15:59.340 That was what was done during the Kosovo war to get the Serbians to stop killing the Kosovars, and that we had to stop Milosevic.

00:16:07.580 So it was using military force to achieve a political objective.

00:16:11.120 The way we did that is by going after the assets of the people that were supporting them.

00:16:16.220 What I found in 2014 when I started getting into this is, you know, you can take out assets with the JDAM.

00:16:23.140 You can also do what exactly happened to Colonial. You can begin to take out things using cyber, use social engineering.

00:16:31.740 You could own the supply chain, just like I talked about with what we did to the Soviet Union. 0.92

00:16:36.240 So there's a million different ways that you can attack a society, and that's what's going on.

00:16:41.340 We have a society that has been, we're thinking in terms of this 20th century way of protecting our society, like, you know, somebody's going to drop bombs on us.

00:16:49.860 No, they're going to attack our economic, our political, our social, our financial system relentlessly until we are broke.

00:16:58.140 That's the goal. And that's what, you know, the Russians, the Chinese, the North Koreans, the Iranians, the most prolific are the Chinese. 0.69

00:17:05.220 But I mean, they're all coming after us. And quite frankly, we are not thinking and we're not playing the right game.

00:17:12.860 And that's why you're talking about cutting defense at 10 or 25 percent and taking that and putting it into a different infrastructure because wars are not being played the same way as they were played 20, 30 years ago.

00:17:22.860 And it's going a different direction. By the way, just out of curiosity, since we're already talking about this, I'm going to take it on the angle with, since your background is national security and foreign policy.

00:17:32.700 What what's going on right now with Palestine between Hamas and Israel? OK, obviously, we've seen it.

00:17:39.040 We've seen the videos. We've seen the stories. We've seen one say if they want to come against us, we're going to go.

00:17:43.800 We saw what Netanyahu responded with. And it keeps happening. There were more events that took place today.

00:17:49.460 You're still ongoing. How ugly can this get?

00:17:53.320 Or do you think this is going to calm down and it's going to be the traditional war that they keep having, you know, every few years?

00:17:59.340 You think this can get ugly or you think it's going to calm down?

00:18:02.160 No, I think I think I think the Trump administration basically looked at this and said, look, we're not going to let the Palestinians get in the way of Middle East peace anymore.

00:18:09.640 In fact, they're out of the equation. We're going to go after whatever peace we can we can achieve.

00:18:14.380 And I think what's happened is the Palestinians see in the Biden administration an ability to basically tie peace in the Middle East to solving the Palestinian issue.

00:18:23.560 And that's an issue that, you know, from my perspective, I don't think the Palestinians want to solve. 1.00

00:18:29.320 Yasser Arafat had the opportunity to solve this and basically decided not to.

00:18:34.600 He thought that he could make more money by continuing to be, you know, prevent that from happening.

00:18:40.260 So I think the Palestinians think they have an opportunity to basically go back and and re litigate this again. 0.85

00:18:47.360 And I think, you know, the Trump administration was really achieving in the in the last part of the administration was really achieving some goals because they said, look, we can't solve the Palestinian. 0.98

00:18:58.340 We can't basically solve all of Middle East peace.

00:19:01.040 And by saying, hey, we have to solve the Palestinian issue first. 0.93

00:19:04.860 No, let's start. Let's start going after those low hanging fruit. 0.98

00:19:07.920 Anybody knows that if you're trying to solve the hardest problem first, you're and you're making everything else contingent on that, that you're going to be you're bound for failure.

00:19:17.200 And I think that the Palestinians sense that. And I think that's what they're that's why they're doing this. 1.00

00:19:21.760 What's the what's the right move to make today for U.S.? What is the right move in U.S. to make?

00:19:26.280 Now, obviously, we're not a Trump administration. We're a Biden administration. It's a different one.

00:19:30.500 What is the right move for America to make that we're watching this taking place?

00:19:33.480 They're going back and forth. It doesn't seem like it's slowing down.

00:19:36.300 And obviously, you know, we know historically Israel has got one of the strongest air forces.

00:19:41.940 I know everybody knows how powerful their Hamas is. 0.95

00:19:45.220 You know, they're what is it? Assad is their secret. 0.93

00:19:49.400 You know, the intelligence they gathered, they're one of the best in the around the world.

00:19:53.440 But what role should America play in this?

00:19:56.740 Well, I don't know. There is a role for America to play in this.

00:19:59.480 I think one role we shouldn't play is to basically say when the Israelis respond to attacks and provocations to say, hey, guys, cut it out.

00:20:10.080 You know, don't stop. Stop responding to the provocations and attacks.

00:20:13.800 I think, quite frankly, let the Israelis settle it and don't in any way support or give any kind of credence to or support for what the Palestinians are doing.

00:20:27.560 I think that's what they're hoping to see.

00:20:29.700 They want to they want to see something, any kind of sliver of sign of the Biden administration that would give them indication that they're going to come down on Israel to prevent them from responding to the provocations and attacks.

00:20:43.020 I saw earlier today, Biden talked about the fact that they're going to stay out of their way and kind of try to let them hash it out, which I think you probably agree with that decision.

00:20:50.240 But you're seeing a lot of people on the news that are saying things like I heard a story from Trevor Noah.

00:20:55.880 He was explaining this whole thing and he says, OK, I don't know.

00:20:58.360 I know people are going to get upset.

00:20:59.460 But when I was a kid and I was growing up, you know, my would fight with my brother and sister.

00:21:05.140 And one time my younger brother hit me and I hit him back.

00:21:07.860 And my mom said, why would you hit somebody that you know they can't hurt you?

00:21:10.900 Why hurt somebody that, you know, even though they hit you first, there is this fantasy of, hey, I know they're bombing us, but we know you can destroy them.

00:21:21.000 Just let it go.

00:21:22.640 Just let it go.

00:21:24.100 Why is it so important for Netanyahu to not just look the other way instead to retaliate?

00:21:30.740 What what is the downside of him not retaliating versus him retaliating?

00:21:35.820 I think if you don't retaliate, if you don't deal with the attacks and the provocations and you invite more, it's it's it's you invite more.

00:21:44.480 It happens all the time.

00:21:45.940 Did you say you invite more?

00:21:47.560 You invite more.

00:21:48.440 You invite more attacks.

00:21:50.100 Now, all of a sudden, you've got the Lebanese coming in and joining in and maybe even the Syrians.

00:21:56.180 You know, you have to it's it's really one of the things I remember about the Trump administration.

00:22:03.000 I was actually at Mar-a-Lago is back at the hotel and I knew that she was having dinner with the president.

00:22:11.460 And then I saw the strikes happening in Syria.

00:22:14.460 So the strikes happening in Syria were twofold.

00:22:17.720 One was to basically deal with the use of chemical weapons, but also to tell she that, you know, hey, I mean business.

00:22:25.220 So in a lot of ways, you have to basically meet provocation with strength or else you're inviting more attacks.

00:22:31.840 I had a CIA agent on last week, Mike Baker.

00:22:35.380 I think his name is Michael Baker.

00:22:37.480 And interview hasn't come out yet, but it'll come out here soon.

00:22:40.340 And I was speaking to him.

00:22:41.600 I said, a question for you on who is the best, you know, secret agency, you know, intelligence agency in the world.

00:22:49.920 Of course, we got CIA, MI6, Assad, Mossad, all these other ones that are out there.

00:22:54.840 Which one would you say is the best one?

00:22:57.240 Is it Israel?

00:22:57.860 Is it ours?

00:22:58.380 Is it UK's?

00:22:59.520 And he said it's U.S.'s agency that's better than everybody else.

00:23:03.800 Of course, you have to say that because that's who you represented.

00:23:06.320 You were part of it for nearly 20 years.

00:23:08.280 But here's a question for you.

00:23:10.960 How superior is China's intelligence agency today?

00:23:17.340 Because that name is never dropped amongst the other MI6.

00:23:22.260 Is China kind of looking around saying, please don't put us on that list?

00:23:25.160 Because we kind of like the fact that none of you guys know how far ahead we are of you, how much more advanced we are of you.

00:23:31.100 Because all these three names you're talking about, they're innocent.

00:23:33.680 We're willing to go places that they're not willing to go.

00:23:36.800 How would you describe to the average person?

00:23:38.820 You've been, you've lived in China, I think, twice.

00:23:41.280 One time you went there as a, well, you were in the Air Force and then you came back and you went back again and you were a general in the Air Force.

00:23:47.440 So you've been studying the topic of China for quite some time.

00:23:50.260 Matter of fact, when you were the senior director one time at the National Security Council, you got up to kind of give a briefing to everybody about what really, why China is really the biggest enemy.

00:23:59.000 And you had McConnell sitting on one side, Biden sitting on one side, one's a Republican whose wife has got family over there with the big construction company.

00:24:05.700 And you got Biden, obviously, with his son having a relationship with China.

00:24:09.600 And then six months later, they fire you.

00:24:11.780 Maybe you triggered something when you said that.

00:24:13.700 But how strong is their secret, you know, intelligence agency against all the other ones in the world?

00:24:21.240 Well, I think it's a strength of their system.

00:24:25.120 And it's a fact that everything and everybody is responsive to requests by the Chinese Communist Party.

00:24:31.600 If you're a student, if you're if you run a company.

00:24:34.000 I don't know if you remember, but, you know, if you're a billionaire in China, you can just be disappeared.

00:24:40.260 You know, look at Jack Ma, look at, you know, a bunch of other billionaires that have basically found themselves out of power.

00:24:48.880 So their system is one in which the party requires people to do things and and doesn't take no for an answer.

00:24:59.380 And so, you know, we think of, OK, if you get hired by the CIA, that's one thing.

00:25:06.460 If you're if you're running a company, you know, you're not part of the government.

00:25:09.740 You're not supposed to be doing anything funny business.

00:25:12.780 The Chinese Communist Party doesn't see the world that way.

00:25:15.200 And in fact, they enlist everybody, the entire population in one way or another.

00:25:21.480 They either use indoctrination to basically, you know, give a party line, but they also use the fact that, you know, companies, Chinese companies are global.

00:25:33.440 They use the fact that the market of China is an incredible draw for other companies.

00:25:39.920 So one of the things that just recently happened, I don't know if you saw Shanghai Expo, a girl gets up on top of a Tesla, starts jumping up and down and saying the brakes are bad and I got bad service from Tesla.

00:25:51.900 What happens? So they do they do they smash that protest?

00:25:57.180 And you remember, this is a country that killed 10,000 people in Tiananmen Square.

00:26:00.400 No, no, they videotape it and it goes on national media all over China.

00:26:04.500 And then it's picked up on social media. Don't buy Tesla cars. Buy Chinese electric. 0.97

00:26:09.500 Tesla's the number one selling electric vehicle in the market in China.

00:26:13.540 Now they're down 27 percent. It's falling like a brick.

00:26:18.300 What are they doing there? What was that about?

00:26:20.580 You know, so who is who is the target ultimately of that attack?

00:26:24.840 The target, I would say, of that attack is Elon Musk.

00:26:28.380 And the target of that attack is not so much Tesla, I believe, as it is SpaceX.

00:26:35.740 Why? SpaceX is building Starlink.

00:26:38.260 What could what could Starlink do?

00:26:40.740 Starlink could could transmit into the mainland China and provide Internet to the people of China.

00:26:48.020 I think that's one of the things that the Chinese Communist Party is concerned about.

00:26:52.540 And so they basically want to send a lesson to Elon Musk.

00:26:56.600 And now, you know, he's trapped.

00:26:58.900 He's basically sold the market on the fact that he's going to have all these sales in China.

00:27:04.680 They've got him. They've they've they've hooked him.

00:27:07.520 And this is what they do. I've seen it over and over and over again.

00:27:10.820 What they wait till they got you.

00:27:12.380 They got you hooked.

00:27:13.720 And then they start to turn the screws and you don't even know what they're trying to get right now.

00:27:19.900 And then I saw a report, you know, the officials at Tesla are trying to figure out what do they even want?

00:27:25.660 They they may not even tell you what they want until, you know, they've let you kind of swing a little bit.

00:27:32.520 So this is the problem with the Chinese Communist Party is it's not just their their they have impeccable impeccable intelligence services because they collect so much data on us and and have AI that they that they run.

00:27:46.500 In fact, you know, they say they want to become the Saudi Arabia of data for their AI, their ability to collect intelligence on us from your smartphone, everything around you.

00:27:55.480 So they have an incredible machine that is merged with their commercial sector in a way that, quite frankly, we don't understand.

00:28:05.640 And we don't we we don't look at Jack Ma and say, hey, Jack Ma is not only working for the Chinese Communist Party, he's also working for Alibaba.

00:28:13.660 So, you know, you don't you know, you didn't even know he was a communist member until he came out and said so.

00:28:19.820 And then, you know, of course, they they they deposed him from his role as CEO.

00:28:23.840 So this is a system. It's a far, far more dangerous system than we've ever faced because we've allowed it to come into our midst.

00:28:33.340 So so the concern is if Elon Musk does what he wants to do and he provides free Internet for the folks in China, they may be able to get on Facebook, Twitter, create those kind of accounts where folks around the world can really see what's going on in China rather than being able to control and silence everyone in China.

00:28:52.800 Is that kind of what you're saying?

00:28:54.480 That that's what I'm saying.

00:28:55.460 Do you think they will ever have freedom of speech to the point where we can actually see what's going on?

00:29:04.280 Do you think it'll ever happen?

00:29:06.340 No, I you know, I think Silicon Valley made such an incredible model for dictatorship.

00:29:13.100 I mean, it it's beautiful because you can you collect all the information about your entire population everywhere from everything that they do, cameras that are around the city.

00:29:22.280 You know, all the transactions they make, you figure out what makes them tick.

00:29:26.500 What are they responsive to? Do they have a sick kid?

00:29:29.240 You know, they have a mortgage that's going bad. Does they got a business that's going back?

00:29:32.760 And then when if you need if you need something, you begin to turn the screws or, you know, if you don't want this person to be a success because they're they're a nonconformist.

00:29:44.020 They don't they don't they don't like the government or they don't like being told what to do.

00:29:48.140 OK, well, you just basically say, hey, their kids can't get into school.

00:29:51.560 They can't get a mortgage. You can't get a job.

00:29:54.180 You know, it all becomes related.

00:29:55.840 You know, when you have this global globalized economy and Internet where everything's connected, you when you have financial relationships with it, when with a regime like that and they can pull the trigger.

00:30:10.140 What do they do with the NBA when Daryl Morey talked about Hong Kong?

00:30:15.220 What did what did what did LeBron James say?

00:30:17.260 He came out and said, well, the NBA better not say anything. 0.59

00:30:19.900 So here is a a national basketball association in the United States basically being told by one of its players that the Chinese Communist Party shut up and said shut up and you better shut up.

00:30:32.220 I've seen this time and time again in U.S. corporations.

00:30:35.500 So, you know, we think that we live in a free society.

00:30:39.680 And in reality, our society is being engineered for us right out from under us.

00:30:43.660 And we don't really understand it because we don't think in terms of this this digital world that, by the way, we created Silicon Valley created this.

00:30:55.380 I've asked you this before. I'm curious to know what you'll say today.

00:30:58.060 What are your top three biggest threats we're facing today in America, not worldwide, specifically in America?

00:31:05.100 If you were to say number one is this number two, it is number three is this.

00:31:08.340 What would you say it is?

00:31:10.100 I think number one is the Fed.

00:31:11.520 I think the I think the Fed has gone off the rails.

00:31:15.040 You know, they believe there's no inflation going on.

00:31:17.560 I think the inflation is showing up in the it has been showing up in the stock market, showing up in real estate.

00:31:22.320 I think it's showing up in things like Bitcoin.

00:31:24.140 I mean, people are just losing their minds trying to figure out how they're not going to lose the value of a dollar.

00:31:29.540 So I think the Fed's a big problem.

00:31:31.680 I do think that the political system is a problem.

00:31:34.800 I think the parties are focused on themselves, not on what the American people want.

00:31:38.100 And I think we've engineered this system through both the introduction of dark money, but also in terms of the way we've structured the voting system, the election system.

00:31:49.020 What I'm talking here about is closed primaries.

00:31:51.820 I'm talking about the fact that if you don't do what the party says, they'll primary you out the next time.

00:31:55.980 So I think the political system is a big problem.

00:31:58.260 And I think the the the unwillingness of the federal government to really focus on the things that matter to, you know, Alexander Hamilton understood industrial policy.

00:32:11.520 He understood economic strength.

00:32:13.660 He understood that national security, you know, United States security came out of growing the economic power and prosperity of the American people.

00:32:21.820 And to do that, you had to you had to put the American people first industrial policy.

00:32:27.740 You know, we don't have to have a centralized economy, but we do have to recognize that other countries, Germany, Japan, China in particular, have industrial policy that are that are set to erode the economic productivity of America.

00:32:41.620 I think having the government understand this and really, you know, focus on economic prosperity of Americans is really the third and our industrial policy, the third piece of that.

00:32:54.760 And so, you know, financial, I think political and I think economic is our number one, two and three problems in this country.

00:33:02.960 You think we're about to have a third party after what happened with Liz Cheney and how she opposed the Republican Party has been now divided into two?

00:33:09.020 Do you think it's going to turn into something else or think they'll eventually unite?

00:33:13.660 You know, I really, you know, I really subscribe to what Catherine Gale and Michael Porter wrote in the book, The Politics Industry.

00:33:21.240 I think what happened in Alaska in November is going to is going to happen more.

00:33:25.560 I don't think it's we're going to have three parties.

00:33:27.880 Well, I think what's going to happen is, you know, particularly what happened with all the mail in ballots in the November elections,

00:33:35.280 where, you know, state secretaries basically came up and unilaterally decided to send out, you know, massive mail mail in ballots.

00:33:45.160 I think the legislatures are standing back up and saying, hey, no, we had a constitution.

00:33:50.340 We had a state constitution said in our U.S. Constitution said this legislature is supposed to determine voting rules, not not the executive branch of a state.

00:33:59.120 So I think you're starting to see votes in that. I think you're going to see people stand up and say, look, I'm tired of the parties not doing what I asked.

00:34:07.040 So it's not about Liz Cheney. It's about D.C. that doesn't work for the people anymore.

00:34:13.820 I think many people would agree with you. General Spaulding, thank you so much for your time. Appreciate you.

00:34:19.340 Thanks. Great seeing you again.

00:34:20.360 Yes, likewise. Take care.

00:34:21.240 Pretty powerful and concerning, isn't it? If you enjoyed what he had to say and you want to know more, there's two videos I want you to watch.

00:34:28.040 One of them is an interview he did with a hacker, Chris Roberts, where he talks about the alarming, you know, challenges that we're facing with cybersecurity today in America.

00:34:36.820 The other one is the interview I did with General Spaulding, where he got deeper into how China's silent takeover of U.S. while the American elites slept.

00:34:47.400 That's his book, Stealth War, that he talks about China. It got a few million views.

00:34:50.380 If you've not seen this one, click over here. If you want to know more about cybersecurity, click over there.

00:34:54.380 Thanks for watching, everybody. Take care. Bye-bye.

Valuetainment - May 14, 2021

Colonial Pipeline Reveals Threat to National Security

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