00:03:29.340Is it foreign governments spying on us?
00:03:32.880There's a bigger conversation that I think we need to have.
00:03:36.860And that is, I am genuinely worried now that there are so many Americans that have no trust in the U.S. government.
00:03:44.740They have no trust in our agencies like the FBI or the CIA or the Department of Homeland Security because they've been lied to, whether it's on COVID or whether it's on us having a secure border, like Mayorkas said over and over again,
00:03:57.180or lying to us about saying terrorists are not coming across the southern border when there's people on the terrorist watch list.
00:04:03.140And so now with this drone thing, there's genuine concern and paranoia that when the government comes out and says, hey, everything's okay, everybody says, why would I believe you?
00:04:16.180And I'm going to start with I've been in the U.S. Senate 12 years.
00:04:21.440I have the top-level classified clearance.
00:04:24.380I have classified briefings regularly.
00:04:27.340And I'm here to tell you I have no frigging idea what's up in the sky.
00:04:31.480It actually is frustrating as all get out.
00:04:34.820So I'm going to walk you through some of the data points.
00:04:36.740I'm going to walk you through what I've been told and where the American people are.
00:04:40.900First of all, we're getting reports all up and down the eastern seaboard about people seeing strange things in the sky.
00:04:47.480For example, Governor Larry Hogan, former governor of Maryland, he tweeted out the following, quote,
00:04:52.840Last night, beginning at around 9.45 p.m., I personally witnessed and videoed what appeared to be dozens of large drones in the sky above my residence in Davidsonville, Maryland, 25 miles from our nation's capital.
00:05:06.180I observed the activity for approximately 45 minutes.
00:05:10.680Like many who have observed these drones, I do not know if the increasing activity over our skies is a threat to public safety or national security.
00:05:18.620But the public is growing increasingly concerned and frustrated with a complete lack of transparency and the dismissive attitude of the federal government.
00:05:26.460The government has the ability to track these from their point of origin, but has mounted a negligent response.
00:05:33.560People are rightfully clamoring for answers, but aren't getting any.
00:05:37.740We're being told that neither the White House, the military, the FBI or Homeland Security have any idea what they are, where they're coming from or who has launched or is controlling them and that they pose no threat.
00:05:51.620That response is entirely unacceptable.
00:05:55.360I join with a growing bipartisan chorus of leaders demanding that the federal government immediately address this issue.
00:06:01.660The American people deserve answers and action now.
00:06:15.440Now, now here's another another tweet.
00:06:17.540This is from Congressman Tom Keen in New Jersey, quote, we here in New Jersey are at our wits end with the complete absence of answers on drone activity over our neighborhoods.
00:06:29.900The federal government should either explain if these are our government's assets and practice or if these are truly unknown flights, responsibly remove one from the sky for examination.
00:06:42.400Either option would lead us to an answer.
00:06:47.100And the public is rightfully demanding closure here.
00:06:51.100Nothing about what is occurring is acceptable.
00:06:54.660Governor Murphy and President Biden need to step up right now.
00:07:02.180Now, I got to say, I asked my staff, I'm the incoming chair of the Senate Commerce Committee, the Senate Commerce Committee, among other things, has jurisdiction or the FAA.
00:07:10.040I asked my team, find out from the FAA what the hell these are.
00:07:14.700Staff had a briefing with the FAA and the FBI and other agencies.
00:07:19.600And and what we were told is there's no evidence that they're drones.
00:07:24.540But they have been able to verify that what people see are manned aviation because there are flight plans.
00:07:31.860And I've heard different people say one one staffer is speculated, quote, the ones in New Jersey are airplanes.
00:08:14.900It's little green men in the sky above New Jersey.
00:08:18.820Now, as much as I'd love to make a headline by saying I can guarantee you I can prove to you right now it is space aliens above New Jersey.
00:08:27.360I do not, in fact, have that information.
00:08:30.180Now, I can't tell you it's not space aliens above New Jersey.
00:09:03.900And they didn't shoot it down until after it had completed what you would describe as a mission.
00:09:08.040And remember, look, the first government spy balloon we knew about, people up in Montana spotted it and said, hey, what the hell is that thing in the sky?
00:09:17.900And then the Biden administration reluctantly said, oh, yeah, this is spy balloons from China.
00:09:23.160And, by the way, we've had a bunch of them before.
00:09:35.240And it wasn't until some citizen spotted it that we were caught.
00:09:39.580And then even after that, even after it was public, this is a Chinese spy balloon.
00:09:44.200It is being maneuvered to fly directly over military bases to engage in surveillance.
00:09:50.180The Biden administration decided to let that Chinese spy balloon fly over the entire continental United States from Alaska all the way across the country.
00:09:58.340They finally shot it down over the Atlantic Ocean.
00:10:01.100So all of us experience that when strange things were flying in the sky and the Biden administration knew what they were, they refused to tell us.
00:10:12.560So so I don't think people are being unreasonable when you're getting lots of reports of people looking up, seeing strange things in the sky, figuring, you know what?
00:10:21.700The Biden administration knows what these are and they're not telling us.
00:10:25.580I've heard people speculate it's the military, it's experiments.
00:10:29.080I have no idea, but I'm frustrated that when I ask, I don't get an answer.
00:10:35.940And I do think this is a responsible thing to say.
00:10:39.660Ordinary citizens should not shoot them down if they are, in fact, manned aircraft.
00:10:44.920We don't want someone in a helicopter copter getting shot down.
00:10:47.900So don't shoot at the thing flying above you if you see something flying above you because you don't want to you don't want to kill someone.
00:10:54.400You don't want to knock it down and have it crash down and injure or kill your neighbor.
00:10:59.540But but I will say that there is a real need for for transparency.
00:11:05.520And and it says an enormous amount that that the level of distrust is so deep.
00:11:12.460And it's because we've seen this administration lie to the American people over and over and over again and expect them to believe the lies.
00:11:24.080And you mentioned classified briefings.
00:11:26.340So if you'll explain kind of how this works, because there was a briefing to the media today and the briefing was with a statement that came out from the U.S.
00:11:36.500government. It was kind of like a kumbaya universal statement from a lot of agencies under the Biden administration that this is not a threat from some adversary around the world.
00:11:45.900Everybody calmed down. And then there were some House members that got a classified briefing.
00:11:52.260And immediately the question was asked by them by the media is, well, if there's no threat here, why was it a classified briefing?
00:12:01.080If you're saying that this isn't us and it's not an adversary.
00:12:04.700So is that a bunch to do about nothing or explain your thoughts on that and why it would have been done in a classified setting possibly?
00:12:13.100Well, listen, and we've talked about this on verdict previously.
00:12:16.940Some time ago, there was a classified briefing on potential UFO sightings.
00:12:21.760And I was really interested. I'm like, hey, I want to know this.
00:12:39.800That's it. Like it was a bunch of pages of, I don't know, some people said, look, look, look up in the sky.
00:12:46.080It's a bird. It's a plane. It's a dog.
00:12:49.680That, by the way, for people old enough to remember is the opening of Underdog, which which were you old enough to watch Underdog as a kid, Ben?
00:12:57.780I was not. No, I actually think this is on the band list.
00:13:01.880This is the 10 years showing glaring right now.
00:13:51.240This is something actually both Republican and Democrat administrations do.
00:13:54.840But the Biden administration is particularly bad about it.
00:13:57.560They'll classify a briefing just because they don't want to talk about a topic or because they think it's politically embarrassing,
00:14:03.200not because, look, things are proper properly classified.
00:14:06.820If it so happened that it was a spy satellite from from the American government, you would want to classify that.
00:14:15.280We don't we're not in the business of telling people about our spy satellites since I have I have not attended a classified briefing on the drones.
00:14:24.020People have speculated that, but I have no information one way or the other.
00:14:28.420What I would just say is at this point, so many people have reported seeing this, including credible, serious people that I think the federal government owes the the American people just some level of leveling.
00:15:07.000The government ought to frigate answer it.
00:15:09.160And they won't tell members of the Senate.
00:15:11.820So if they won't tell me that they don't view it, that they owe anything to Congress, they don't view it, that they owe anything to the American people.
00:15:19.220And no wonder so many Americans fundamentally distrust our government when you don't have the government leveling with you and just telling you the basic facts.
00:15:29.180And by the way, just saying it's nothing to worry about.
00:16:11.800You and I several months ago talked about the number of drone incursions that were happening at the southern border and how the cartels down there are using an incredible number of drones to basically spy on U.S.
00:16:35.020And yet they're using them for intelligence to see where we're moving and how we're trying to protect our border to human smuggle, sex trafficking, fentanyl, drugs, all of it.
00:16:50.420Then we have a second now aspect of drones.
00:16:53.760And it's what we're witnessing in the Middle East.
00:16:56.120We are seeing drones that are being used to attack in the Middle East.
00:16:59.600We've seen drones that have been used in the war between Russia and Ukraine at a level that I think five, ten years ago no one could have imagined.
00:17:07.420And then we had a drone expert on TV who was asked a couple different things.