The Chris Cuomo Project - Luis Elizondo on What the Government Isn’t Telling You About Drones and UAPs

Episode Date: December 19, 2024

Luis Elizondo (former director, Pentagon Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP), and author, “Imminent: Inside the Pentagon’s Hunt for UFOs”) joins Chris Cuomo to discuss the growing presence of advanced drones operating near U.S. military facilities and the ongoing government investigations into unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAPs). Elizondo sheds light on how these drones—whether foreign or domestic—pose serious national security risks and why the lack of transparency around both drones and UAPs continues to erode public trust. Cuomo and Elizondo also explore how misinformation and social media distort the truth, and what greater openness could mean for public understanding of these aerial phenomena. Follow and subscribe to The Chris Cuomo Project on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube for new episodes every Tuesday and Thursday: https://linktr.ee/cuomoproject Join Chris Ad-Free On Substack: http://thechriscuomoproject.substack.com Support our sponsors: Shopify Upgrade your business and get the same checkout Untuckit uses. Sign up for your one-dollar-per-month trial period at SHOPIFY.COM/chrisc Cozy Earth Want your Cozy Earth pajamas by Christmas? Order by December 13 for free shipping! Missed it? You can still get expedited shipping until December 20 to ensure it arrives in time. Head to cozyearth.com/CHRIS now and use my exclusive code CHRIS for up to 40% off. AG1 So this new year, try AG1 for yourself – it’s the perfect time to start a new healthy habit. And that’s why I’ve been partnering with AG1 for so long! And AG1 is offering new subscribers a FREE $76 gift when you sign up. You’ll get a Welcome Kit, a bottle of D3K2 AND 5 free travel packs in your first box. So make sure to check out DrinkAG1.com/ccp to get this offer! Get Maine Lobster Listeners of The Chris Cuomo Project get 15% off all orders store-wide with the promo code CUOMO. That’s right—15% off the freshest lobster you’ll find anywhere. So this season, create new memories, make it extra special, and add a touch of Maine to your holiday table. Visit GetMaineLobster.com and use promo code Cuomo Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As a Fizz member, you can look forward to free data, big savings on plans, and having your unused data roll over to the following month, every month. At Fizz, you always get more for your money. Terms and conditions for our different programs and policies apply. Details at Fizz.ca. You want to know what is most and least likely when it comes to what's happening with the drones? Good, because I've got the guy for you today. Chris Cuomo here at the Chris Cuomo Project. Luis Elizondo. This is a man who is not a hobbyist. He does not exist only on social media.

He has worked and been a warrior for America on the field of battle and in the field of intelligence and counterintelligence. Multiple administrations, left, right, but always reasonable. He has done the job many different ways. He is also known as the man who had the balls, the ganas, as they would say in Espanol, to go before Congress and say,

you are not being told what is known by agencies and programs in government about what is going on in the air and in the world around us. And that's why I rely on him so highly. He is a man of complete integrity. He knows what he knows, he knows what he doesn't know, and he is straight about the same. So you wanna know what has proof

and what is poppycock when it comes to drones? Luis Elizondo is a man, and he is also the man when it comes to having this conversation. And I learned a lot, and I hope you do as well. LESSONS OF THE DAY Luis, thank you very much. Good to have you as always. Appreciate the relationship. Yeah, Chris, my honor and privilege to be with you and your wonderful audience.

So to remind people, people will recognize you from having testified in Congress. Why did you do that? Well, because I think we need to bring truth and transparency to the American people, something that unfortunately, I hate to say, but this current administration has forgotten. Do you believe that this administration is different in regard to being closed mouthed about UAPs? I know they are. Unfortunately, I have friends on the inside that were at meetings when the conversation was brought up at the National

Security Council, the same one, by the way, that said 30 days before a horrendous attack in Israel that the Middle East has never been safer. Anyways, long story short, anytime the topic of UAP came up, they were told to stand down and not discuss it. And I think that's probably part of the reason why we are in the situation we're in now because anything in the sky that isn't identified immediately is what we call a UAP, unidentified anomalous phenomenon. And drones included and balloons and anything else. And of course, on the other side of the spectrum,

you have the really truly exotic, but at the end of the day, we don't have really good cognizance of what's in our airspace. We don't have complete aerodomain awareness. And it's getting to the point now where there's air safety issues. Let's not forget, they literally had to close down

Wright-Patterson Air Force Base for a while because of these incursions of these drones or UAP. Most people, I think, agree that they're drones, but there's still some people that say, look, what we're seeing doesn't look like a drone, doesn't act like a drone. So I think the jury is still out to some degree on what exactly these are.

Well, look, in a vacuum of transparency and information from the power source, people get sideways and susceptible, what's the old expression? When people are desperate for answers, the answers get more and more desperate. Now, to also give people context about why I rely on you as heavily as I do, give people just the flavor of why you would have the honor flag over your shoulder

and all of the numerous affinity patches. The short answer is because I'm old. I've been around a long time. I was kind of like that kid in the old generation, your older generation folks might remember this, Mikey from the Life Cereal commercial, right? If anybody, the kids didn't want to eat any cereal, they gave it to Mikey and eat anything.

That was kind of like me in my career. Every job that nobody wanted, somehow I wound up taking it. So I am a career long intelligence officer and special agent in counterintelligence. Most of my focus has been in counterterrorism, counterespionage, counter narcotics and counterinsurgency operations. I'm not a science fiction guy.

I went to school into the medical program and I studied microbiology and immunology. I am a disciple of the scientific methodology and principles. But later on in my career, when I left an element within the intelligence community, came back to the Department of Defense for a little while. That's when I was brought into a program

where I learned the reality that your tax dollars, the American tax dollars are being used to study UAP and quite aggressively, frankly. And I think the American public would be shocked to learn just how often these incursions are occurring over controlled US airspace, over sensitive military installations and even over nuclear equities.

Give a little bit of depth and context to that for people. What kinds of incursions, how often, and what is the reason that they are not aware or not able to stop or not willing to admit? Yeah, wow. Let me unpack a lot of that there. So to the surprise of many, the US government has been investigating UAP or unidentifiedidentified Anomalous Phenomenon, or Indivinacular UFO, for decades. Despite the public posturing that we don't look at these things, these things are silly, tinfoil hats and whatnot, the truth of the matter is we've been looking at these things for a very long time, for decades.

And what sets these things aside from anything else, let's say like quadcopters or let's say conventional explanations like balloons, like we saw a few years ago, there's five performance characteristics that separate truly anomalous UAP from anything that we have in our current inventory. We learned this when I was in the program. The program was called ATIP. It was at the Pentagon. It stood for the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program, And it was a program to investigate UFOs, or now what we call UAP. And we found a lot. And a lot of folks now probably look back and they remember the famous Nimitz video and the the Roosevelt incident videos and the gimbal video and GoFast. Those all came as a result of our program that we were running at the Pentagon. And there was a lot of things there that we saw that really were quite perplexing.

And to put the case in point here and emphasize what you're saying, what makes these things stand out, look different and behave different? It's these five characteristics, right? You have vehicles, when you look at a human being, for example, Chris, we can experience for a very short period of time,

nine G-forces on the human body on average before we start suffering medical consequences like blackouts and redouts and ultimately death. And that's why our pilots wear G-suits. And in comparison to one of our very best, most highly maneuverable manned aircraft, it's older, but it's still one of the most highly maneuverable manned aircraft,

that's the General Dynamics F-16. And that can handle at the unclassified level, probably about 16 to 17 G-forces before you start having structural failure, meaning the aircraft begins to disintegrate while you're flying it. What we are seeing are objects that are performing in excess of 1,000, 2,000, and 3,000 G-forces.

So well beyond the healthy limitations of anything biologically to withstand, and certainly beyond the structural engineering limitations from an aerospace perspective that we know how to make. Also to put that in comparison, another observable is hypersonic velocity. That is the speeds at five times the speed of sound. Now, do we have vehicles that can do that?

We do, sure. For example, the Lockheed YF12A SR71, the Blackbird that everybody talks about. That can push about 3,200 miles an hour, right there at the edge of Mach 5. But when it wants to take a right-hand turn, Chris, it takes roughly half the state of Ohio to do that. And what we are seeing are vehicles

that are not doing 3,500 miles an hour, but in some cases 10,000, 13,000 miles an hour in a low earth atmosphere environment. And they're able to execute immediate right angle turns and 180 degree turns. So these are some examples. Another one's low observability, which we're now seeing with these drones.

Another one is transmedium travel, the ability to operate in multiple domains to include atmosphere, underwater, and even outer space. Those type of technologies that we have been seeing for many years now at the Pentagon and with the intelligence community is taken very seriously within certain circles inside the US government.

The problem is the messaging and the communication to the people and to Congress and even to the president at times is very disjointed. And so now we have the situation we have now where you have local and state law enforcement officials literally recording these drones, these vehicles on their phone. And you have, on the other hand,

a White House statement coming from John Kirby saying things that these are all prosaic and these are all manned aircraft and are all legally there. If that's the case, then why would you shut down Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, right? The answer is that it's not. These things are not being coordinated with US government. It's a complete mystery, Chris, and it's a problem. What's the best sense that you developed about where they're coming from and who has them?

Well, there's several scenarios. One is I think now it's gaining some popularity and traction. Again, let me emphasize in the absence of information, so now we're leaving people to speculate. You have drones being flown at night, which is very atypical. Usually do that when you don't want people to notice you too much.

Some of these have been described as being bigger than an automobile or an SUV. So Chris, that's a substantial, substantial drone, right? This is not a quadcopter that's being used at Amazon or Pizza Hut to deliver a pizza. It's not a typical recreational application. You can't find them online for purchase. That's correct.

No, we're talking at least government sponsored because now you're talking about loiter capability using a battery by the way, right? Not liquid fuel like gasoline that weighs a lot, but a battery where these things are staying aloft for in some cases more than five, six, even 10 hours at a time and able to traverse a really long distance. Now if you look at that compared to common drones, normal drones, conventional drones, they have a lifespan of maybe air time total 15, 20 minutes before they come down and run

out of battery. And they're only line of sight because you're using radio frequency to control them. If you wanna go beyond the line of sight, Chris, you need to have a really sophisticated infrastructure. You need either an aircraft to bounce and relay that system, or you need a satellite. And that takes manpower, it takes money,

it takes time and attention. So this would be something either, at the end of the day, I think there's only two options if they're drones. One is they are foreign adversarial drones, which I don't think that's a possibility because you have to recover these things, you have to maintain them, then you have to deploy them again.

Logistically, I just don't buy it. It'd be way too difficult. The other option is that there are drones, if there are drones, if there are drones, and there's two reasons that they could be being used. One is you have a significant threat situation. Think of a broken arrow situation where there is some sort of WMD,

whether radiological, chemical, or even biological, that has somehow been nefariously placed here in the continental United States or around sensitive military installations. So what would our response be? Typically in the old days, we'd fly up a couple of helicopters, but there's a response time there.

And frankly, helicopters are limited in what they can do. It's much easier to send up five drones. You can have something geo-tagged. If there's a, for example, something coming into your perimeter, these things can automatically launch and do what you need them to do. So in this case, you could imagine our drones being used by the Department of Energy, maybe loaned out by the Department of Defense or DHS or someone else, maybe a government contractor with sniffers,

with the electronic capability to detect trace amounts of radiation or biological or chemical weapons. And that's a scenario that would certainly make sense. The problem is you're not seeing the typical reaction you would see from the special operations world. Folks like JSOC, Joint Special Operations Command, and SOCOM, tier one organizations that would definitely be ready to go and be on some sort of retrieval

basis, should they find something. That's an important cover point. So I ran down that road because the New Jersey report that something was missing and got this entire education and how often this happens, how insignificant this medical rod is or whatever it is and how they get stolen or misplaced. And just because we say radioactive doesn't mean what we, what is or whatever it is and how they get stolen or misplaced. And just because we say radioactive doesn't mean what I would think it would mean from the movies or whatever.

And the point that you're making now, which is you wouldn't be using just drones. You wouldn't be doing it at night. You would be all out and having all kinds of ground and interactivity within law enforcement if they were looking for something like a WMD or something like that. And I haven't had anybody give me any reason to believe

that that's what this is that's good. They can't tell me what it is in the alternative, but they say, look, I work on this kind of stuff about tracking nukes and stuff, and this is not what it would look like. Yeah, so you would have folks from the National Counter-Proliferation Center, NCPC, folks from NCTC, National Counter-Terrorism Center.

Everybody would be up in arms on this thing and would be trying to find whatever this is if that was a scenario. So I tend to agree with you. There's another scenario here that has been brought up and frankly can't be dismissed as remote as the possibilities as may be in the words of Sherlock Holmes.

Once you have done the deductive reasoning and you have eliminated all other possibilities, what you have left over has to be it. Now, this is simply a speculation based upon what some of the data is suggesting. So I just wanna make sure I caveat that. But there are some people who are saying that these drones are silent,

that some of these drones are significantly much bigger than an SUV, and that the lights that they see, the strobe lights, they are not in the same frequency or order or even color as common navigational lights that you would expect, let's say, on a Cessna 172 or a helicopter, police helicopter. is common navigational lights. So you would expect, let's say on a Cessna 172 or a helicopter, police helicopter.

And so what I've been told by some, and again, this is, let me caveat here, this is complete speculation. I cannot say this is happening or not, but there are some people who have reported that these things are coming out of the water and they're zipping off away at fantastical speeds If that's the case what we may have here is a confused public. We might have

some people reporting true UAP events Followed by a Department of Defense response by launching drones to go ahead and try to find these these UAPs in the old days when you had a sensitive military installation or a Department of Energy facility and You had an incursion across the perimeter you would when you had a sensitive military installation or a Department of Energy facility, and you had an incursion across a perimeter, you would usually send up a helicopter. But that requires having to wake up a pilot and starting the helo and getting it started and flying it. Now, we have the technology to literally geofence a facility. And if something comes across, automatically these drones deploy to their pre-planned coordinates and start doing the racetrack mapping back and forth,

which some of these drones appear to be doing. They just kind of go back in this lazy track, racetrack, back and forth, scanning for something. There is some anecdotal videos. They'd have to be analyzed to see if they're legit or not, but some of these show traditional drones trying to intercept, some of the videos now online, intercept some of these lights and they wind up getting shut down and falling some of the videos now online, intercept some of these lights,

and they wind up getting shut down and falling out of the sky. And meanwhile, the big set of lights just kind of disappears has been reported by some law enforcement. Still too early right now to speculate if that's the case, it's certainly an option. Then there's also some other options that if, for some reason reason some government contractor

is trying to get some attention on how effective their drones are, I guess they could in contravention of the law and violating local laws and federal laws do a show of force, demonstrate the capabilities of these drones. Let's not forget, Chris, drones are very serious business right now. We, a lot of our neighbors' kids have them and they fly them around, but the reality is all you have to do is look at Ukraine right now and look how these things are being weaponized.

And they're being weaponized to a great effect. Can you imagine if that was happening over here? And this is, I think, my issue with the current administration. What if some non-state actor decided to take these drones, put a bunch of chemicals and crap on them, fly them over populated US areas. And now our administration is saying, well, we don't know what they are. We don't know where they're from. We don't know who's flying them, but don't worry,

take it from us. They're no threat. That doesn't work. I don't understand that logic. You go to an airport or a train station today and all you hear is, if you see something, say something. And yet when it comes to these drones or UAP, it's kind of the reverse. It's kind of the opposite perspective. I think you guys have a culture of denying information that either you don't want people to have or that you don't have complete control

and understanding of. I think they are equally threatening to people in power within government. So I think that I've been slow. Well, that's not true. Last night I dropped the hammer on the administration but that's only because I got to deal with all this social media bullshit now

because of the vacuum they created. And I don't criticize people for using their platform the way they want. Like, Joe Rogan is a comic and a conversationalist. He is an expert in nothing outside of UFC, as far as I can tell, and he doesn't claim to be. But when he says, oh, this guy makes sense, this drone guy who's putting out this nukes thing

that he doesn't know anything about, his big thing is that, well, this guy I'm talking to, Luis, he had his hands on one of these drones that had nuclear capability. He had his hands on it. I don't know why anybody who knows anything would want their hands on anything like that. But, and now you get 10, 15 million people

watching this guy's video. I don't blame Joe Rogan. I blame the government because Joe's doing what he does, you know, which is playing with dumb shit sometimes. Chris, you're 100% right. And here's the problem we have with this administrative, politics aside, okay, and let me be clear here because I don't pick a side.

When I was serving our presidents, I served a lot of presidents, both liberal and conservative and everything in between. So I tend to try to publicly anyways be apolitical. And we're seeing that bipartisanship by the way, in Congress now on this topic like never before. Who would have thought, right? Of all topics, this topic, UAP and drones.

But the reality is that this administration has done horrible at strategic communication. And what they've done is actually done the opposite than creating comfort for the American public. They've created more distrust because what they are saying is the exact opposite of what people are actually seeing in reporting to include law officials and people in Congress and lawmakers, right? Senior military officials. I've got videos of these

things hovering over Andrews Air Force Base, Langley Air Force Base, right? Stop telling people these are legal drones. No, they're not. That's where the president of the United States keeps his airplane, is at Andrews, right? And so, at this point, I almost trust the public relations folks of Chuck E. Cheese more than I do right now of the White House. Well, why would they have to have a classified briefing, actually multiple ones, if there is nothing to really discuss?

They've had two now. The only legit answer, and then obviously you add to it, is that if the detection technologies that they're using to come up with their analyses are classified, then they would have a classified briefing not to share discoveries, but that their methodology is stuff they don't want people to know.

And they might share some threat reporting, classified threat reporting that we get on a regular continuing basis. And so what they might say is, look, you know, we had threats over here and here and here, but we don't think this is a case for this reason or that reason. There are certain aspects in a briefing

that if you want to give background, you do have to give some classified information, but I don't think it's necessary in this case, unless you're gonna be revealing a very classified or sensitive capability, which okay, that's fine, but you probably don't need to, if this is just a drone issue, which again, my concern is the administration

is not being forthcoming. In fact, John Kirby again doubled down last night. I took my disbelief, I couldn't believe it. Here's a former Navy Admiral. And I gotta think to myself, are you guys really sitting around the table and saying, yeah, yeah, this is gonna be the best thing to put out strategically and communicate

to the American people that this is all just misidentified stars? Give me a break. I mean, how old, how unsophisticated do you think the American public is? You know, there's an old Bob Marley saying, you can fool some people sometimes, but you can't fool all the people all the time.

And that's the message I think that this National Security Council and the Pentagon need to remember. Why Jersey? Well, Jersey's got a lot of sensitive infrastructure there. Jersey is actually, people say, well, why Jersey? And not New York or even Washington, DC. Well, we have seen it in Virginia.

Yeah, we've been getting sightings all across the country. Yeah, yeah, you're getting it. But this concentration is Jersey. I have two producers who live there. They haven't had to leave their house in the last week and a half to do their job. Yeah, but you have places like Picatinny Arsenal that do some very interesting work for the US government.

You do have some sensitive government installations, both from the Department of Energy perspective and the Department of Defense, and it's along the Eastern seaboard. You have several major airports in the area that are some of the biggest ones in the East Coast. And then you have some, I'll be careful what I say here, but some communication notes that are very important

for our infrastructure, critical infrastructure protection. So there's a lot. Jersey is a, plus know, plus you have, I mean, they call you guys what? The Garden State for a reason, right? Aren't you something like 70% forest? So, you know, hey, there's a lot of places to hide. If you wanna conduct drone activities

in an anonymous fashion, one could simply say, okay, well, you know, let's launch these out of the forest here where no one's paying attention to, fly it, you know, five miles and these out of the, out of the forest here where no one's paying attention to fly it, you know, five miles and do our work and to bring it back. Support for the Chris Cuomo project comes from every day dose. Look, we all want to perform at our best mentally and physically. Sometimes habits don't set us up for success. Everyday dose.

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AG1 is one of my favorite partners. The consistency, the constancy, the routine of wellness is fundamental to me. People often think I'm tan. I'm not tan, I got mass cell activation from my long COVID. And it makes me very nutrient deficient and I'm very vitamin dependent. And that's why it's so important

that I get good balanced supplementation that I can trust and I know will be absorbed. This year, try AG1 for yourself. They're offering new subscribers a free $76 gift when you sign up. What is that for 76? Get a welcome kit, a bottle of D3K2, okay, which is a very important vitamin combination and ratio

that you should look up for yourself. Five free travel packs also in your first box. Make sure to check out drinkag1.com slash CCP to get this offer, obviously through the Chris Quimmel project. That's drinkag1.com slash CCP. Get yourself to a better place today. Try it. You'll like it. today. Try it. You'll like it. Now you've got a lot of guys, you know, sometimes if it's criminality, we talk about copycats. Um, but you know, you also have hobbyists who just want to join this now because many online are

seeing this as some type of, uh, what you called earlier, a show of force, not in terms of, if it were a show of force from an inimical power or a corporate entity that has something new, they would want to attach themselves to it, but that this is, hey, start taking drones seriously. Like these hobbyists are now part of a subculture as far as they're concerned,

and that they're just flying their shit at night now because everybody is. Yeah, there's certainly possibility. There are a lot of copycats. We see it all the time. There was unfortunately, not to change tracks here, but we just saw with a horrible, horrible school shooting. And if you look at some of the manifesto, the individual, I'm not going to even say the person's name, but they credit other school shootings as a motivation for this particular school shooting that just happened. So you're right, there's a lot of psychologically

unstable people out there, a lot of vulnerable people that are looking for attention or in some cases, maybe feel they're doing the right thing. Maybe they're challenging the government, maybe this is their way of protesting one thing or another and flying drones in the face of the US government. So let's talk about that. Let's put your intelligence,

let's put your Intel counter Intel hat on for a second. And let's unpack two different aspects. One is, what is your read on what is becoming of social media in terms of... Because you don't want my opinion on that. Let me tell ya, as bad as it may be for you, I get shredded and ripped apart every single day. I'll tell you, this is the truth.

Luis, I would never compare us in any way, but if you wanna go down the road of who gets more shit on social media, brother, you do not wanna be pickin' this fight with your boy right now. I was put on the ISIS, Al-Qaeda kill list in 2014 because of my work in counter-terrorism in Guantanamo Bay. I've had more death threats against me now

by people in the UFO community than I ever did by ISIS or Al-Qaeda. It's the reason why I live in the middle of nowhere Wyoming and I have six German Shepherds. I'm not kidding you. It's unreal. I mean, I laugh about it now, but I'm still looking over my shoulder, right? If I were to tilt my screen up,

you would see a lot of things hanging on the wall that some people might not. I moved too. I live in a much more remote place now also. I have stupid security also. I do not have six German Shepherds. I wish I did. I have three rescue mutts that just make a lot of noise. But on social media, and this is the part that I need your noodle on, it's not just that

there's no truth. It's not that there's no science. It's not that there's misinformation. There is a collect, and I know that social media is not the majority of the country, let alone the world. I get it, I get all of that, okay. And I stipulate to all of it. But, but, the media and the power players increasingly

do use social media as Vox Populi. So we are magnifying this minority. There is a force multiplier in effect on social media. So it is relevant. And that's why Joe Rogan is relevant, even though he didn't ask to be. When I look at social media, it seems that every alternative to reality

is equally saleable to the people on there now. So if it's the assassin of the CEO, there is open to the idea that he's a good guy as that he's a bad guy. And I think that if we get, oh no, I can't believe I put an F on it, that's how old I am. The Hamas is getting the benefit of the doubt

from people on social media, which I would have never conceived of. Russia. I'll tell you why, our guys on cover, you're not gonna believe this. Speaking of, and I can put you right with the right guys, you're gonna want to do a story on it. Something as simple as Wikipedia, right?

You would think that would be fair and unbiased. Turns out there's a group of individuals, they call themselves the guerrilla skeptics of Wikipedia. And what they do is they hijack people's Wikipedia pages because they're senior editors, but they hide their names. And so like for me, for example, they completely wrote totally biased crap about me, called me a conspiracy theorist.

I've never been a conspiracy theorist. I'm a man of science for God's sakes, right? And it took me almost nine months just to change my birthplace because they insisted I was born in Miami, Florida, even though I had a birth certificate, and then to come to find out that some of these people are being paid by other individuals who have an interest in a narrative. And so they're hijacking people's Wiki pages, anybody who believes in something that they don't agree with, they will go ahead and turn it in a very negative way.

And this goes to the greater issue of propaganda that you're talking about and social media, because most people, most people on social media, the silent majority are mostly good, honest Americans. They just wanna pay their bills. They want to learn something, say hi to grandma, something like that. You have a loud minority that has learned

how to weaponize social media because what social media does, it democratizes the media landscape. So now anybody has a voice. And if anybody has a voice, everybody has a voice. And it's very hard then to determine when you see something cross your X feed or anything like that or Instagram,

are you looking at something real? Are you looking at something fake? Are you looking at a deep fake? Are you looking at something that's politically biased? You know, what is the motivation? Is it driven by clicks and likes and money? I think that's the dangers of social media, Chris, because it does not allow for a fair back and forth.

Yeah, I feel like, let's say a God forbid happens, okay? And the government says, this is who we said did it. I feel like you are going to have people who either support whoever did it, will deny that that's who did it, and all of this other bullshit for clicks and likes. Yeah, or justify it, right? I watch your segment not too long ago,

a couple days ago when you're interviewing an attorney for that individual who assassinated the healthcare CEO. And it was amazing the amount of vitriol that I saw online of people saying that, oh, this guy deserved it. Now, wait a minute, you don't have to agree with what this person did, but murdering somebody on the streets of New York in cold blood, that is never acceptable.

I don't care who you are or what type of beef you have with insurance companies, that's never acceptable. And violence. And this is the problem with social media because a lot of people are very animated, they're very emotional, and a lot of times they don't realize what they're saying until they say it. And it causes a lot of division, unfortunately.

And people like you and me are a target of it all the time. Mike Tyson, the worldly philosopher that he is, really got it right. And I hate to keep quoting him because people beat me up for it, but I don't care. As long as Mike Tyson's not beating me up, I don't care who it is. He said, social media has made people forget

that sometimes what you say can get you punched in the face. And I think that there is a benefit to that. People are able to speak their truth, but that's not what's happening. We're not being held accountable, right? They're speaking what they want to speak, but there's no accountability. And they're getting a free pass every time under freedom of speech. And it's not. And it's not even their name.

And there is a fundamental misunderstanding about the First Amendment in this country anyway, but anytime you explain it, people think you're trying to limit it. One, it only applies to government regulation. Second, it was never designed so that people could say the worst untrue shit that they could. That's right, it's called libel and slander.

Yeah, and get away with it. And even the case law, it's interesting. Our culture is getting more and more repressive, in my opinion, but the jurisprudence on this issue has gotten more and more expansive. I don't know what will happen with this new court under Trump, but I think that his picking on what he wants to call censorship,

I think will probably keep the expansion going. But there used to be, for instance, fighting words. I came up to Luis Elizondo, and let's be honest, there's only one reason they're saying you come from Miami, it's because of your name, right? They're thinking that you're like some cocaine cowboy or something. So if I used to come up to you and make fun of your mother

and you punched me in the face, the police would process the case and say, well, you insulted his mother. Those are fighting words that doesn't exist anymore. You know, you can't say fire in a crowded theater. Sure you can, depends on the context. You know, it's become more expensive. Well, actually, it's funny you say that, Chris,

because there are limitations, but now it's based upon people's feelings. Okay, so there You know, it's become more expensive. Well actually, funny you say that Chris, because there are limitations, but now it's based upon people's feelings. Okay, so there's, here's what's more scary. But that's social, not legal. That's right, there's things that I, but there's also things that people, look, I'll be the first to tell you, I'm Latino, but I think people should have the right,

if you think that there's something wrong or you wanna call me a lousy X, Y, Z, you should have the right to do it. I went to war, so you would have the individual right and freedom to call me an asshole I'm okay with that just because it hurts my feelings doesn't mean that your Your freedom of speech stops at my freedom of feelings And I think this is where part of the problem is because a lot of the things that should be fighting words That were at one point say, listen, there's consequences

for what you're saying are now okay. But then other observations, if I don't use, and again, this is not political, but if I use the wrong pronoun by mistake with somebody, they're gonna shame me for it. And they're gonna- Cancel culture is a new thing that is social media, crowd sourced consequences.

It is an offsetting thing. Victimization is now a virtue. I don't know when that happened, but victimization is now a virtue. Yes, and I think, look, all of this, people are listening and watching this, oh, this is really interesting. What does it have to do with drones?

It's all part of the matrix of understanding of this issue. People see things, some of it is doctored, like that stupid drone on the LIE or wherever it was, they said it was like a predator drone that had crashed. It's fake, but the fakes look so good now. So that's kind of tempting. And there is something empowering, if not even satisfying and even cool

about saying the government's lying. And all institutional things suck. So these people celebrating the kid whose family made all the money off healthcare, and then he assassinates the healthcare CEO, I don't even think they're anti-healthcare. I don't even think most of the young people I see on TikTok that are going after it

are paying their own health insurance yet. I think most of them are still in their parents' plans. I think it's just anti-capitalism, anti-corporate, which is another thing that's being turbocharged. Institutionalism within the academic world, unfortunately, look, academia should always be free and you're always trying to push the boundaries and getting young people to learn how to think.

The problem is academia now is trying to teach people what to think, and there's a difference. Yes. Right. So you now have an education system that's really doing more than that. It's sensitizing and socializing ideas and principles, but they tend to be very biased, one-sided. And if you disagree with those, you are labeled.

You're labeled something. You're given an actual label. You're either anti this or anti that or whatever. Or in my case, an individual who chases down conspiracies, a conspiracy theorist. And they use that label against me a lot and some other ones. I think you're right.

I think part of the drone issue is that social media and ultimately let's really be honest here. The real issue is that the government, our White House isn't being transparent enough. And so people are able to write whatever the hell they want to write and say what they want to say because the government isn't doing them any help by just remaining quiet and dismissing these

all as manned aircraft that are legally operating in controlled US airspace. And that fuels the fire. We already have a problem with social media. And in the absence of information, you'll fill that with whatever, as you said, with whatever information you have available to you. And that's what's happening with social media. And the White House, the government, our administration isn't doing any, they're not recognizing that

and doing anything to try to solve that issue by providing relevant information to the parents. You're gonna give Congress a classified briefing. Why the hell wouldn't you give the American people an unclassified briefing? That makes no sense. I have people who've been in these meetings who are going to talk to us and tell us

basically what they're hearing without violating anything that'll get them in trouble. But I do believe that every one of these scenarios we're coming up against these days is affected by social media perversion. And look, what's gonna happen with the drones, in my opinion, okay, is one of them is going to crash into something intentionally

or unintentionally and do damage and kill somebody. And then there will be this completely exaggerated reaction formation against drones that makes it sound like they're all missiles. And there's gonna be this huge wave of anti-drone legislation and all this other stuff which is gonna be this huge wave of anti-drone legislation and all this other stuff, which is gonna be just as silly as what we're dealing with right now.

But I do think it's a good lens into, why are people anti-vax? Why do people believe that COVID was a setup? Why do they not believe any government investigation of anything to do with Trump? It's lack of transparency. Lack of transparency. Yes. Like a transparency.

And two other factors. One is generationally there's a shift. Our generation, Gen X guys, there was right and there was wrong and there was a price for the difference between the two. Oh yeah, there were consequences. I remember those days. Now, there is, you can fuck around about anything.

And there is an off-sale, so nothing is worth taking seriously. You can mock and degrade anything you want, but at the same time, everyone's a victim. And that is a really dangerous combination. If I have the right to say, ah, yeah, he's an intelligence officer, but ah, you know what, I read somewhere

that everything he's saying is wrong. And you know, I have the right to say, yeah, he's an intelligence officer, but you know what, I read somewhere that everything he's saying is wrong. And you know, like my opinion all of a sudden is equal to yours, and if you say anything to me, I'm being victimized. You were rude, you're out of order and what you did and you should be canceled. That is a really dangerous combination. I can only liken it to what I see in my house

when one of my big dogs has finally had enough of the little dog. And they eventually pounce on the little dog. And she, after eating their food, biting their faces, and making all this noise, immediately flops on her back and pees just enough to make my wife go psycho and chase after the big dogs. And all of a sudden she's the victim.

After everything she's done. And that's where we are. They've weaponized rhetoric. And if you try to come back and defend yourself, you are now looked as being the bully. And so what I've done on social media now, a friend of mine, a colleague of mine, Dr. Gary Nolan, a Nobel Prize nominee,

who worked with us, by the way, on AATIP and some of our work back in the day in the Pentagon, he used to have a saying, he said, block, what he said, block early and block often. Now, of course, that really upsets a lot of people on social media, because they say, well, you blocked me. Well, look, because you're acting like,

I don't care if you disagree with me, but don't be disrespectful towards others, right? There's children on these platforms and you're saying obscene things that anybody can read. That's offensive and I don't want that on my platform. If you wanna disagree with me all day long till the cows come home, we'll have a respectful debate. But they see you, they see that as a badge of honor.

If you block them, they say, they make it sound like they got to you. And that's why they were blocked. And there shouldn't be children on these platforms. I think Australia is right. I have no problem with the age restriction on social media. I got three kids. And yes, my parents thought that the television

was a brain sucking device, the boob tube and everything else, but not like the phone. These kids have been materially negatively affected by their phones. It's not just attention. Did you know that the algorithms in TikTok in China, it's a Chinese company, are completely different than the ones here in the United States

and what they do is they reward positive behavior. Here, the TikTok algorithms rewards a different type of behavior and it can get very nasty really quickly. Why do they do that? You think they're trying to make us weak or they have different regulations for their own? Well, I don't know.

Maybe it's a matter of free speech principles. Maybe it's a matter of trying to do social engineering. I don't know. But China doesn't tolerate that. They are very, very careful. Of course, now they have this whole social credit thing too, but long story short is their algorithms are different for TikTok and some of these other platforms.

And it tries to encourage positive behavior. I don't know why it's different over here. I couldn't tell you, I'm not an IT expert, but that was told to me by someone very, very credible who I trust implicitly, who works with some of the big IT organizations here in the US. And if that's the case, that's problematic, right? Because that's just further putting fuel to the fire.

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Go to selectquote.com slash Chris C today and you get started. selectquote.com slash Chris C. Do you think that we get lucky here? And by the way, for the record, I don't believe in luck. I just believe in probabilities and making things happen. But because of all of this Biden fucked it up energy, do you think there's a chance that the incoming administration,

right now Trump is messing with it just to undermine the current administration, right? But do you think there's a chance that the new administration may see this as an easy win and kind of completely flip the script and be like, we'll tell you everything we know, or our guys like you gonna come to the new guys and say, we're not saying anything because we don't know.

We don't have the capabilities to understand some of this stuff and we do not want that out there. Don't undermine us. Great question. Super insightful, Chris. Don't undermine us. Great question. It's super insightful, Chris. I've never been asked that question before and remotely in any way like that.

So let me see if I can address that a little bit. I can tell you that from firsthand knowledge, there are several individuals that are part of the new administration that are handpicked to be cabinet members that are very, very sympathetic to increased transparency as it deals with national security issues, as it deals with securing the borders,

as it deals with drones and UAP. They've set it for the record. If you look at who some of these people are, they've been very vocal about it. And it's not just a few. There's a lot on this new cabinet and there's a lot in very key positions that I think are gonna demand more truth

be provided to the American people. Now, with that said, every time more truth comes out, more questions are asked, right? So when you're in administration, you don't really want all the questions being asked if you don't have all the answers yet. But I do think that this administration is motivated for that.

Again, let me caveat, politics aside, just because I'm talking that this administration's pro-disclosure, pro-transparency, doesn't mean that certainly they're good at everything else. So let me just caveat that. But from a transparency perspective, look, they've already said they're gonna try to release all the JFK files.

I think that's a good thing. Hell, they're 70 years old, right? Anybody who's part of that was probably dead by now. Why are they still- Why didn't Pompeo do it? That's right. Why didn't Pompeo do it? I know the answer.

That's right. So Pompeo was gonna do it, right? He was gonna be the head of the CIA. He was the head of the CIA. He was gonna do it. Trump had promised to do it. And this is where the question comes from. Exactly what I'm suggesting is what happened. Guys from your community,

and I'm not saying that they were wrong, said the nature of the truth of how that went down is bad for us. And we don't want that out there is bad for us. And we don't want that out there because it undermines. Is that actually illegal? You can't, there are, if you look at the, for example, the Department of Defense, you can look at their policies,

start with executive order 12333 and work your all the way down to DOD 5240.1. And you'll notice in there that it will say that you cannot classify information just because something is either inconvenient or it is embarrassing to the US government. It has to be in order to protect sources and methods, right? To classified systems, weapon systems, collection systems,

how you collect it and who you collect it from. But you can't just willy nilly classify crap just because it's embarrassing. And unfortunately, we have done that. We've abused that over in Iran. Contra is a perfect example. CIA, BlackSide, everything that a lot of programs I was part of, they were abused by the classification system

simply because they did not want the truth to come out. I'll give you a perfect example of this, Chris. White countries keep shit, white countries keep stuff secret. You can curse all you want. This is the internet, brother. It's vulgarity is a strength. Yeah, well, kids are gonna be listening

and I'm cursing, sorry. If any parents out there, I apologize, mea culpa. Let me give you a real life example. In the 50s, we had this height of the Cold War, then Soviet Union against the United States. And we had this treaty saying we wouldn't fly manned missions over occupied mainland Russia. And what did we do?

We did exactly that because we were worried about their ICBMs. So Lockheed, Skunk Works worked with CIA to develop the U-2 airplane. And this plane was going to fly so fast and so high that the Russians would never even be able to detect it, let alone shoot it down. And for the first few missions, that's exactly what happened. And so we celebrated. That was until the Russians developed the SA-2 surface-to-air missile and successfully shot a U-2 down and paraded powers, the pilot and the wreckage in front of the world and the

United Nations. And it wasn't until they had a solution for the problem did they ever admit to the world and even their own people that there was a problem. Right? They never admitted we were, they were tracking every single one of our flights, but because they didn't have a capability to respond to it and neutralize it, they kept it quiet, they didn't tell anybody. And this is very common practice with governments. Our government does this as well,

along with all the other governments out there. So you know, I think the problem is, and I think I'll stop bothering you for only this one segment because you are a go-to for me on a regular basis. And you're going to be beyond any of this stuff with the new government because we're gonna need fair brokers talking about how our institutions are being used

and intelligence is gonna be a key one. Nobody wants to be better, Luis. Nobody wants to be better, Luis. Nobody wants to be better anymore. The seeking of advantage has overwhelmed and the easiest way for me to get more resonance, relevance, or even revenue than Luis Elizondo is to shit talk him. And look, we even see it at the highest levels.

I don't do what, I don't punish people for voting for Donald Trump. I understand it. I have a lot of people whom I love, okay? Like my people, mi gente, that I are in the family that I have chosen who vote for Trump. And I'll tell you right now, none is a bigot and several are people of color. But one of the appeals right now,

or part of the appeal is he messes with everything the way people on the internet do. He's not looking to be better. He is saying you all suck and you suck at everything and this is wrong and that's bad. And it works, it's effective, but that's all we're about these days. So even with the drones, government, you suck.

I did it last night, you suck, you're not being transparent, this is what you get, now everybody's gonna fill in the gaps with all these stupid ideas, this is on you. But who's gonna be better, and who's gonna step up and say, I'm gonna do this in a better way. Now celebrate me for it. Now give me my, put some respect on my name for being better.

I told you the truth, now you don't like it, but respect what I'm doing. We don't reward better to your point about the TikTok algorithms. We don't hold people responsible either. I would submit to you now, again, politics aside, because people don't know what my politics are. Like I said, I've worked for all presidents

and I used to run, I ran a White House sap for Obama. That's what I did for the National Security Council. So, you know, but I look at things from very matter of fact sort of way. I would say to you now that the Trump administration has a, I would be scared to death if I was a Trump administration because now I have a responsibility to deliver on every promise I made.

And there's no excuse because you don't have to go up for reelection. You've got four years, baby. That's it, right? So you have to deliver. You said you were gonna do some things before. You don't get that by anymore. Now you have to,

because there's an expectation by the American public that you're gonna do this, right? And so that is accountability is a big thing. The other thing you said is people wanting to take more than they give back. And that is something you're at our generation, Gen X, we're always selfless service and always try to make the world

a little better than you found it. Now it's, what can I get out of it? What's my angle? Where's my advantage? And I want some of that. And I think that's problematic. I'll share with you, Chris, a quick story. My father passed away two years ago on Father's Day

and he was an incredible guy. He was a revolutionary Bay of Pigs survivor. He was a prisoner of war, fought with Castro against Batista. Then when he went communist, my father worked with the CIA and tried to overthrow him in Bay of Pigs. Long story short, I asked my father, I knew he was dying about a month before

and he never told me, but I could tell with my medical background. And so we had a chance to drive across country and I said, dad, and I kind of feel bad about it because Chris, I said it flippantly and not even trying, I guess I was just trying to fill in the uncomfortable quiet of the drive. But I said, dad, what do you think

is the greatest threat to humanity? And he looked to me and I'm thinking, is it maybe a national pandemic, terrorism, whatever. And he looks at me and he says, son, there's corruption. And I looked at him kind of quizzically, I said, corruption, like financial corruption? Like religious corruption? He said, no son, corruption is the act of trading away

one of your core values in exchange for something else. And whether it's religious corruption, financial corruption, governmental corruption. And once you do that, especially in the government, you begin very quickly chipping away, eroding away the very foundations of democracy. And when that happens, it's a very slippery slope, a very quick slope, a very quick descent

from democracy to tyranny. And it's something that my father knew a lot about, actually, experiencing it firsthand. And that is what, if we're not careful with, if we do not take an active approach and interest in our government and our governmental affairs and who's in charge and what decisions are they making, and that includes Congress,

then we can expect the same. People wonder, well, how do we get here to where we are? Well, they say bad politicians are voted in by good people who don't vote. Get your ass up and vote. And by the way, learn the issues ahead of time, right? Don't just go, well, my dad was a Republican, so I'm gonna be Republican, or my mom was a Republican, so I'm gonna be Republican,

or my mom was a Democrat, so I'm a Democrat. No, think for yourself. Look at the issues. What are the issues that mean something to you? And try to look at it from both perspectives. What are both sides saying about the argument? We forgot about this critical thinking skill that we used to have.

We don't do it anymore. We just, I listen to a sound bite, a five minute sound bite on the media, tends to be an echo chamber. No disrespect to you, by the way, Chris, just I'm saying in general media, most people tune into the media platforms that they like because either they like the host,

or they like the material, right? And so it can be an echo chamber in there. And that's why I think you doing what you're doing now is really helpful because you really, you have a good way of bringing both sides. Yes, you have your perspective, but you're also willing to listen to other people's perspectives.

And that's rare in today's media world. It really is uncommon. Most people- That's because they get punished. So at CNN, I remember when this phrase became developed, it wasn't developed by CNN, but I remember I was at CNN when I remember when this phrase became developed, it wasn't developed by CNN, but I remember I was at CNN when I started hearing it, that people should be de-platformed.

Why did you give Luis a platform? And I had never considered that before in the media. There was a kind of a bright line, right? Which is, well, this guy's a Nazi, so he's not coming on here. Nobody's coming on to tell me that one group of people is less than another unless they have been voted into power or someone in power is backing them.

Then I would just bring them on long enough to remind people what a piece of shit they are and then throw them off. But other than that, it was always like, well, Elizondo is a player in this. And my job is to get players and have conversations with them or hold them, you know, test power. And it's not about whether I like Elizondo or not,

it's he's in charge of this. And that was always the standard. Now it's not the standard. Now there's a new standard within the media which is making it more like social media than what it should be, which is playing to preference. Right. Right. And why do you have Corey Lewandowski on?

Or why do you have Joe Manchin on? He turned on the Democrats. Whatever their preference is, they don't even wanna see these people. So what you're asking them to do is the opposite of what they wanted. Critical thing, be open to the, what? You're like asking me, I want caviar, and you're asking me to like sample a shit sandwich.

No thanks. And they don't even look anywhere else anymore. So what I get now, back to where we started about who deserves more of a chip on their shoulder about social media, I will one night have been red-pilled, which I didn't even know what that meant. I thought that meant that you went Republican, but now I understand it's a matrix reference from-

Right, it's a reference to a movie. One is reality, one is a matrix. So I have been red-pilled, but then I can the next night, or even within the next night, or even within the same show, be a Democrat shill. And that is the silo effect. And again, it comes down to the same thing we're struggling with with these drones.

Who will be better? Who will come out and say, look, here's what we know, here's what we don't know. And I know people get scared when we say we don't know. America can handle it. Tell them, look, if you what we know, here's what we don't know. And I know people get scared when we say we don't know. America can handle it. Tell them, look, if you don't know, you don't know, and that's okay. But don't fabricate because you lose credibility. And look, organizations, institutions, religions, government, they only work because there's a social contract that you and I and others agree that that body has authority and can make decrees on our behalf.

Yes. But that's, that's, that, you know, look, that is only because we all agree to that. When that contract begins to be called into question, bad things happen, right? And governments become destabilized. And so it is inherent upon the White House to always make sure it is being open and honest with the American people.

And when it can't, at least give a reason why, say, say listen we're not going to lie to you we're just not going to tell you everything because there's things going on from a national security perspective we don't want to go ahead and and interfere with an ongoing operation that's very important blah blah blah we'll explain it to you later you'll get it that type of conversation I think would resonate people may not like the answer but at least it's a truthful answer and you can't get mad at an administration for doing that. And that's on both sides. I'm not just picking on the Biden administration.

I've seen this since I first became, first got into government service. I saw the politics at the army level, I saw it at the DOD level, I saw it at the CIA level, and then saw it at the National Security Council level. And it's just that that mindset has permeated for some reason. And I guess at the end of the day,

is people don't want to tell the boss they don't know. That's right. You know, they don't. And there are too many people who are looking to take you down any way they can. And everybody plays scared now, you know, and the one guy who really doesn't wound up distinguishing himself, which is Trump.

And he's backing people that no other guy would be allowed to back. That's why they don't pick wacky picks. It's not because they haven't thought about picking wacky people. It's that you can't defend them because the media and the insiders will crush you. He is freed from that.

We'll see what he does with it, to your point. He's got four years. We'll see what he does. But what's more important is what we do. And you and I are on the same page. Every time there's a need to discuss what is and what is not being said on this issue or other issues of national interest where intelligence and information is not being said on this issue or other issues of national interest where intelligence and information is involved.

You're one of my first calls and I appreciate you for it. Chris, I appreciate that. Listen, my colleague, Chris Mellon, really respects a hell out of you. And by the way, that's a person, there's five people, you know, I can count on this hand, that if they told me to put my boots on and go to war at four o'clock in the morning, I'd do it. And Chris Mellon is one of them. And he respects the hell out of you. Please keep doing what you're doing.

I speak to a lot of people on both sides and in the middle. And I gotta tell you, I really appreciate your platform. I really like the way you do it. You know, you give everybody a voice and you just don't see that in media anymore. I appreciate you. Thank you for helping me do it. Say hello to Chris.

Chris likes me because I'm always happy to admit that I don't know what he's talking about. And that I'm bringing him in. He's definitely in a different orbit. That guy intellectually speaking. People in my position, anchors think they have to know everything and I kind of come at it the opposite way. That's why I always call you guys the better minds.

It's like, I'm not an intelligence official. So let's bring him in. I don't know this stuff the way Mellon does it. Bring him in, let's hear what he says. I know what questions to ask, but you know, you gotta have people who know things better if you wanna help elevate your audience. And that's what we're all about.

Thank you for helping me do that, Luis. I wish you the best for Christmas and we'll be in touch. Honor and privilege as always, Chris, take care. All right, God bless and thank you. You got it, Chris. Take care. All right, God bless and thank you. You got it, Chris. Take care anytime, buddy. Told you, not only do you get to find out about drones, but we talked about intelligence,

we talked about what social media is, we talked about how politics shapes all of this and what may be to come. That was a very tasty and satiating meal of information and perspective for me. I hope it was for you as well. Chris Cuomo here at the Chris Cuomo Project. Thank you for subscribing and following.

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You don't have to, five bucks a month. You get the podcast ad free. That should be the end of the proposition, but it isn't. You get my long COVID doctor who gives you what she is using to help treat my long COVID, which is flaring up right now, which sucks, and longevity advice from her. And you get my walk and talk series about what I've learned up right now, which sucks, and longevity advice from her. And you get my walk and talk series

about what I've learned about life through philosophy, even if I don't practice it well, you can, all for five bucks. And where does the money go? To help people get treatment for long COVID with my doctor and her group. So it's a pretty good proposition if you think about it, and I hope you'll take me up on it. I'll see you soon.

The problems are real. We gotta stay together. It is the only way through. We used to say, we're all in it together. No, we're not. And that's the problem. So let's get after it.