The President's Daily Brief - PDB Situation Report | November 16th, 2024: Grading Trump’s Cabinet Appointments & Bombshell UFO Hearing Breakdown

Episode Date: November 16, 2024

In this episode of The PDB Situation Report: Donald Trump’s cabinet is taking shape less than two weeks after his victory over Kamala Harris. We’ll analyze his surprising picks for Secretaries of State and Defense with Retired Senior Military Intelligence Officer Lieutenant Colonel Tony Shaffer. Congress held a hearing on Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAPs), where a former military intelligence officer declared, "We are not alone in the cosmos." National Security Analyst Brandon Weichert from The National Interest joins us to break down the revelations. To listen to the show ad-free, become a premium member of The President’s Daily Brief by visiting PDBPremium.com. Please remember to subscribe if you enjoyed this episode of The President's Daily Brief. YouTube: youtube.com/@presidentsdailybrief Blackout Coffee: https://www.blackoutcoffee.com/PDB Patriot Gold: Call 1-888-870-5457 for a free investor guide. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to the PDB Situation Report. I'm Mike Baker. Your eyes and ears on the world stage. Let's get briefed. Less than two weeks after Donald Trump's victory over Kamala Harris, you may have heard about that, his cabinet is already taking shape. Now, some major surprises have come with the announcements for top spots like Secretaries of State and Defense. We'll break down his picks with retired senior military intelligence officer, Lieutenant

Colonel Tony Schaefer. He's a great one to come in here and bring his insight. He actually served on the transition team back. in 2016 for President Trump's first term. Later in the show, we're diving into a topic once reserved for conspiracy theories, UFOs. You didn't see that comment, did you? This week, Congress held a hearing on unidentified anomalous phenomena that rolls off the tongue, or as they say in Washington, D.C., UAPs, where a former military intelligence officer boldly declared during the hearing, we are not alone in the cosmos. National Security analyst Brandon Weikert from

the national interest joins us to unpack what was revealed at the hearing and what was not revealed at the hearing. But first, today's spotlight. President Trump is shaping his new cabinet, rolling out key appointments since last week's re-election win. Now, some of his choices like Senator Marco Rubio for Secretary of State have received broad approval. But other picks have sparked surprise and, in some cases, disappointment and at some cases outright shock. The biggest surprise so far, Trump's selection. of Florida Congressman Matt Gates as Attorney General. Gates's appointment has stirred up a storm, and heads have been exploding all across the country, especially after he resigned from Congress

just after the announcement. Speculation is swirling that he stepped down to sidestep an upcoming ethics probe set to drop this week. Another unconventional pick is Fox News host and Army veteran Pete Hegseth for Secretary of Defense. Now, while Hegseth is a decorated 20-year veteran, and many are questioning whether he has the experience to lead a vast bureaucracy like the Pentagon, and it is a vast bureaucracy. To dive deeper into Trump's choices, we're bringing in retired U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel Tony Schaefer. Hey, good to be on with you, Mike. Thanks for having me.

Of course, and thanks for coming back. Not everybody does. Okay, so we had an election, I am told, anyway, I haven't been paying attention. And as Barack Obama used to always famously say, elections have consequences. And one of those consequences is that the incoming president starts naming senior positions and cabinet posts and traditionally is given a great deal of deference to build a team around them. So I was hoping to get your overview. You've spent a lot of time and you got a lot of experience.

I don't mean to age you, but, God, you're what? You're in your early 80s now at this point, right? in my own feel that way. No, I'm actually 62 and proudly now able to get discounts and all known of eating establishment. So it's great. I mean, to be fair, you don't look at day over 61, Tony. What I'm hoping to do is give me some thoughts based on all your experience and then maybe throw out a letter grade, you know, A to F. Just like we're back in school and let us know what you're thinking. So we're starting with Secretary of State. Marco Rubio.

Look, I was on the transition team in 2016, so I've had some experience making judgments on folks, and having been through and seen this, I think the president, as you said, has a right to do this. So let's go to Marco Rubio. I've met Marco Rubio. I've met the senator. I've met him there in the green room at Fox,

where you've been before. I think he's someone who understands national security. he's got a very even temperament. I think as long as he's willing to do what the president wants done, and he said this publicly, I think he has a potential to be an A minus Secretary of State. And I'm saying that because he's not a new guy. And from what I'm hearing, Mike, they're having crying sessions at the State Department about Barker Rubio coming over.

So that's a good sign. Well, let's hope they don't resort to having Kool-Aid breaking sessions like they did in Georgetown. That would be bad. But I think it's a good sign that they're freaking out over there. Crying sessions at the Department of State. Yeah. That reminds me of universities providing wellness days, you know, health days off for students

after the election results came in following the last Tuesday's election. You know, okay, those are university students. they still don't need to be coddled, right? They shouldn't have to be coddled. But now we're talking about grown adults at the Department of State. So it is somewhat striking. Yeah, I tend to agree with you. On Rubio, I think, again, very non-controversial. I think he's going to get fine bipartisan support, Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Senate Intel Committee. Yeah. Yeah, I think that yeah, he's almost a lock. And I tend to agree with you. I think he's very, he's very, even keeled. And so I think you're A-minus. I'm right alongside you with that one. Okay, well,

we're talking foreign policy. So let's go to UN ambassador, Elise Stefonic. A good choice, she's shown courage. And first off, as you know, she called out publicly the chancellors of Yale, of NYU, of Pennsylvania. She was fearless in going after these people. And I think Mike, she got rid of most of them. I think they all ended up leaving in some form based on her being dogged. So I think by the fact that the president chose her based on her performance, based on the fact that she can be publicly, I don't want to say in your face necessarily, but she can be very demonstrative in what she wants to get out of people.

I think her going to the U.S. is going to be a good thing. I was hoping that you would have someone who's going to be able to not only fight the UN, but be able to go in there and do things necessary, also build some level of cooperation. So you've got to do both. I think there are people in the UN who are willing to work with us. And I think she's got to have, and I think she's got that skill. I think she can go hard when she has to. At the same time, I think she's going to earn respect of others.

to build bridges and make things work. So I think, again, I'm going to go with an A-minus with her, too, based on the fact that, yeah, we don't know how she's going to perform at the international level, but she's done a fabulous job at the national level so far regarding what she's had to do. So I wish I had you as a professor. I mean, I was, I came out of university with an abysmal GPA, but I didn't have anybody lobbing grades like this at me. You know, I think for what it's worth. And this is, you know, my two cents, which nowadays is worth, what, about three quarters of a penny. It's one thing to take on the dean or the head of Columbia University, right, or an Ivy League university president. It's another thing to sit in the UN and go back

and forth with the UN representatives from the Chinese regime or the Russian regime. You know, The jury's out on that one for me. I was a little surprised. I get what you're saying. And I guess top line also. We have to, and we'll look at this after we go through this list. But there's this question that says, okay, I understand if you've got a mandate, which the election certainly shows that he does. Right.

To pursue the policies that you ran on, right? So people, you have to assume, if you're logical, they voted for you because of the policies that you heard. And so, therefore, you want people who will implement those policies, but you also want to some degree, and this is where it gets a little tricky, because people will say, nope, you don't want independent thinkers, right? You want to want people who are going to say yes and, you know, keep marching. I want to have that conversation after we go through some other names. Homeland Security, this one surprised me. Governor Christy Knoam, I'm skeptical a bit on her too. So that's...

Wireless can feel like a world of traps. But not with Visible. It's one-line wireless with unlimited data and hotspot. Powered by Verizon for $25 a month. Taxes and fees included. Plus, for a limited time, new members pay just $20 a month for one year on the Visible plan. Using the code Fresh Start. Refresh your wireless with Visible.

Tap the banner to switch today. Terms apply. Limited time offer subject to change. See Visible.com for plan features and network management. details. How many discounts does USAA auto insurance offer? Too many to say here. Multi-vehicle discount. Safe driver discount. New vehicle discount. Storage discount. How many discounts will you stack up? Tap the banner or visit usa.com slash auto discounts. Restrictions apply. This may be where you and I may have some agreement. I like her. I don't know

her. I've never met her. That's not a prerequisite for my judgment. I'm just saying that I know, you know, I've best to me to the other folks we're going to be talking about. She's not had law enforcement experience that I know of. I may be wrong on that, but I don't think she's been someone who actually has had to do anything relating to the core mission of DHS. Now, DHS, while she's got good instinct, she's a good constitutional focused governor or someone big on economics. DHS doesn't really function economically. That's not their job. So the one thing the DHS has done, I think you and I would agree, was horrible, was this whole disinformation board they attempted about two years ago with Jankowitz, the Mary Poppins singing undersecretary that was going to be doing that.

God, you know what? I'm sorry you brought that back up. I actually kind of, I was able to for a while just get that out of my memory. And now you've put it right back there. I'm not going to thank you for that, but I see what you're saying. At this point, I would say a B minus. B minus is a B minus kid. Yeah, I think it's interesting because, right, I really value the experience that governors can bring to positions, right?

I've always thought that, yeah, exactly, you're managing, right? You're actually organized. You're building something. You're developing something. You're having to cut budgets. It's a day-to-day management operation, right? And there's a lot of moving parts, obviously, in any state. So I like that fact.

The DHS part I found interesting. I'm not surprised at all that she was selected for a senior role, but I was somehow, I guess, imagining that it would be Secretary of the Interior. I mean, Ryan Zicki was over at Interior when he went into the last ministry. I thought Ryan was a great choice for Interior. So I would have agreed with you. I think she would be a better suit in some ways to probably do that. All right. This one. This one has caused a lot of heads to explode on the left. The borders are Tom Holman. I know Tom. I'll just say it. I think it's an A plus. Tom has got law enforcement still going for decades.

While he's not a lie, he is very accurate in his representations in front of Congress in front of the media. I've heard him speak. I've been in events with him. I think it's an A-plus. I think he'll be able to do the things which President Trump wants. He'll be able to do it quickly because he understands the system. And I think he's got a lot of allies on the inside are going to be willing to help him. And he's going to bring back morale to the border patrol and help actually do the –

and I think he's going to come up with a plan to get rid of remove illegal aliens within the next two years. So I think it's an A plus. The histrionics on the left on this issue, the idea of sweeping deportations, they're going to take your grandma, they're going to separate families, they're going to build, you know, camps. It's going to be awful. You know, look, here's what I think. It's government, right? So you always assume you're going to get half of what you're talking about. And then part of it is, so you're saying things to get votes.

So, you know, even if you just say, look, as long as they accomplish the deportation of migrants who have been convicted of crimes, right, and who have also reached the end of their process for deportation, I'm hard for us to understand how, you know, people on the left find deporting criminals to be a problem. And yet we've got states, including Massachusetts and Illinois and California, saying, oh, no, this can't be done. And our police force will not support the federal agencies in this effort. Right, exactly. But I agree with that. A plus. Yeah. Okay, let's do one more before we has to take a quick break.

Let's go with the National Security Advisor, Representative Mike Walts. Mike and I are friends. I know Mike, I think he's equipped based on both his experience going back in government. You know, he worked with the Bush White House. He's also a combat veteran. He's a special operations guy, an 18-series guy. He's been in our circle too in media. He's actually, again, another guy I first met at the Fox Green Room in D.C.

So this is a good appointment because the one thing he has to do and understand more than others is the mechanisms of governance. That is to say, what is available to the president? How do you manage those resources in real time? and it's, you know, I was talking to one of the deputies over there, and it's a, part of the job is requirements. What are the requirements that you have to task out to the intelligence community? Get that back, shape a picture. You also direct the special operations forces. They direct elements of CIA. These things are all important. It's almost like a brainstem. You have to understand, but you're the conduit of policy. You're not, you're not the policymaker. So I think, again, I

I think I would give it a solid A is his choice. I have absolutely no issues there. I agree on that. I might even give it an A plus. And you're absolutely right also that without that understanding, without that level of experience, you can't hold that position because everything funnels through there to the community back as far as those priority requirements and tasking. So you're spot on in that regard.

Tony, if you could stick around, we have a few more to go on this list, and then I have a couple other questions for you. But we do have some terrific sponsors, and we're going to hear from them. So thank you very much. We'll be right back. Hey, everybody. Mike Baker here. Well, look, America, you may have heard about this, just got done with a historical election, right? You probably heard the news. Sure, there's going to be some change in the White House.

There's some change. But the fundamentals haven't changed, and that's true. The dollar is in decline, with the U.S. adding, Get this, $100,000 in debt every second. Oh, there goes another $100,000 and another. Meanwhile, Bricks nations have introduced the unit. A new global currency pegged 40% to gold and 60% to BRICs currencies, which could mark the beginning of a global monetary reset.

Now, what should you do? I'll tell you what you should do. Call the proud Americans of the Patriot Gold Group today before it's too late. Mention PDB, and you'll always get best in class service from Patriots protecting Patriots. Patriot Gold Group has the no-fee-for-life IRA, where your IRA or 401K can be in physical gold and silver, and you may be eligible for the no-fee-for-life IRA unqualifying rollovers. Call 1-888-870-5457 for a free investor guide. Patriot Gold Group, and this is important, is Consumer Affairs top-rated gold IRA dealer for seven years in a row.

Call 1-888-870-5-4-57. Welcome back to the PDB Situation Report. All right, joining me once again is retired U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel Tony Schaefer. Now, we've been doing the hit parade of nominees for the incoming president-elect. And I think it sounds like, remarkably, because I don't know that we've ever agreed on anything in the past. but it sounds like we're on the same sheet of music for most of these choices. Let's go with CIA director John Radcliffe. What can you tell me about that?

So Radcliffe was notable in that he's already served as the DNI, I believe. He was appointed to that. He had been nominated before for some senior posts. And I got to tell you, I'm not overly impressed with him. I know this is probably going to get me in trouble. It's going to come out to bite me, but I'm going to say this, and I think you'll agree with me, someone going into CIA, and I'm getting this from Jim Woolsey, our friend Jim, Jim, has said, from his own experience, you need to have been a serving blind intelligence officer to fully understand and run CIA.

That's from Jim Woolsey, who's not an intelligence officer. So I'm just going with what Jim is saying. So I think there were better, more adequate and effective choices. Maybe Mike Baker would have been one, just saying. Because I think that guy, I'm just telling you to be effective. Look, I'm trained by you guys. I went through the farm. I'm just saying that if you need to have the respect of the DO.

Come on, Mike, you know, if you don't have the DO, you don't run the agents. And I know a lot of folks who have never really gained the respect. to the DO, and if you don't have that, you're not really running CIA just saying. So I'm, I'm skeptical, and I'm going to give it a B at this point based on a little bit of skepticism since he's not, he's not an intelligence. But that's to be, you know what, that's still actually very nice, a B. A B is still very nice. The guy was there for a long time. I've always had the opinion that my preference was to have a director who had come up through the ranks. Now look, and again, I was, I was territorial, right? So I always thought the best ranks would be to come up

the director of operations. But having said that, you know, just growing up in that organization and understanding because it's relatively small. So you can be in the DIY, you can be in the director of intelligence and understand deeply what goes on in operations because you're there, you're absorbing it every day, you're responsible for taking that raw intelligence and making something of it. But, you know, also, to be fair, I have worked under extremely good directors who didn't have that experience. And so... Jim Woolsey. I love you know. Jim Woolsey, I thought it was a great director. I worked with him when he was director and so, yeah. You know, Leon Panetta, obviously, George Tenet. And, you know, there's, there's, so there's, there's, there's precedent to say you can be from outside the organization and be an extremely effective advocate and director.

A part of that is obviously the relationship that, at least in the old days that they would have with the White House, right? that you wanted the director to have an open door in a sense, to be able to walk in and say, we have an issue related to national security that we must talk about. The DNI slot, when they built that up, that kind of changed the dynamic to some degree and moved the CIA director a little bit off of center stage,

which I think is a mistake. But again, I'm subjective. I'm saying things that I think people would say, well, of course he's going to say that. Jury's out. I think I understand again, because of John's position and the things that he's done, I understand why they would have looked at him and said,

okay, this makes sense. I think he's a better choice than some of the names I had heard being thrown around that had me somewhat concerned. All right, well, now here comes one. Speaking of concern, the Democrats have already expressed significant concern over this next nomination, which would be for the DNI, right?

Tulsi Gabbard. I think that caught some people off guard. What do you think? All right, Tulsi and that. our friends, old disclosure, I just posted a congratulations photo of she and I in her office when she was a Democrat when I was advising her. So Tulsi's been on a long journey of growth. And it's been said, Mike, by several of my Democrat friends. I didn't leave the Democrat Party. The Democrat Party left me. I think Tulsi is of that mind. Having been an advisor of

Tulsi Gabbard, someone who knows her, I think it's a great choice. Now, Washington, She was not on the Intelligence Committee while she was in Congress. She was on Armed Services. As you and I both know, and I'm a military case officer, DOD has a significant intelligence holding, if you will. NSA is actually DOD, NRO has, you know, NGA. CIA and DOD jointly man NGA. So there's, you know.

So I think based on her experience within Congress, being a, Lieutenant Colonel and the reserves, which I still respect, and obviously I think it's a good thing, based on her being targeted and on the terrorist watch list, which I did get confirmation from a separate DHS source, I think she is going to go in there and be willing to do some things that other DNIs would not have necessarily been willing to do because they were afraid of upsetting the status quo. So based on that alone, I think I give it an A for what I see is coming. Okay. No, that's very interesting. And again, look, I take your point. He's like, I'm friends with her, but, you know, what that means also is you've had a chance to observe and

view and watch. And I've known you for some time, and I know you're an honest broker. So if you had concerns, I know that you would also voice him in a diplomatic fashion. Well, I don't know. I called Lloyd Austin on, I know Lloyd Austin and I called him the ultimate DEI hire yesterday. So I I don't know. I think I'm pretty glad. I somehow missed that one. Wow. Okay. You know what? I'm sure he's going to take that well. Oh, I'm sure. Be fine.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Stand by for your Christmas holiday party invitation to Lloyd Austin's home. The DNI slot, I will say it's because of the number of entities that exist in that that organization under the DNI umbrella, a lot of it is a management issue, right? A lot of it is the coordination of all those moving parts. They are not have budgetary control. Yeah. Do your point, Mike, they have no budgetary control. Each entity still has their own budget that they have to justify to Congress. So that was one of the big things. I actually met with Agri-Ponthe on this when they formed it. So Ambassador Negroponte was the first D&I and he and John

layman, my friend, former Secretary of the Navy, they were going back and forth as this was based on a recommendation from the 9-11 commission to create this this warehousing, if you will, of requirements. And so one of the issues was, and still is, without budgetary control, you have a hard time being director. So it says director of national intelligence, well, you're not really directing much other than the flow of information because you don't actually control the, those 17 agencies below you. Just saying. Right.

Right. No, no. It's a very good point. I think a lot of people don't understand necessarily how the DNI functions, what it means. And in fact, they don't understand the myriad of organizations that exist underneath it. All right. Let's go to another one that raised some eyebrows. And that would be SecDef, Secretary of Defense.

And the nomination in this case was Pete Hegsteth. There is Pete Hegsteth. Well, considering I just badmouthed the current guy. And so I can only go up from here, Mike. So, knowing both men. Now, so this is great.

You know, this is great. I know both men. I have served with Lloyd Austin. It's documented in my book Operation Dark Heart, so people can read about that if I want. And I know Pete Hanksden. I've been,

you know, friends with Pete for a long time. Again, full disclosure, I'm friends with Pete. So people just make that with a grin of salt is as part of my assessment. He has several things going for him. He's actually got a good degree. He's, he went to Princeton. He went to Harvard. He's always got some education, good education,

Ivy League. He's a combat veteran, two bronze stars, major. I don't know if he's still in or not, but he made it to major in the guard. And he wrote a book, War on Warriors, which he actually was very clear on what he would be willing to do or want to. do if he was given a position of power, which now he is. What he doesn't have is links and obligations to the military industrial complex. This is huge. General Eisenhower warned us in his exit briefing, I think it was either 1959 or 60, about the military industrial complex. Well, that is what has largely influenced the thinking of senior Pentagon leadership regarding any number of things, especially weapons system. So Lloyd Austin, for example, came out of, I think,

Raytheon or something like that. Most of these guys have a revolving door. Well, he's not in that boys club. He's not in that revolving door. He owes nothing to anybody except President Trump, which means he's going to be loyal to Trump. I give this a solid A. And I know that may be controversial, but

I think it's an ABA. Yeah. No, it's good. That's, you know, Tony, look, that's why we have you on here is because you do have, and we should actually run through your resume because I think a lot of people just think of you as as like some handsome fellow who occasionally gets on TV and talks. But, you know, you've got an extensive background,

and that's why we thought immediately we wanted to run through this list that if you were available, it would be great to have you on. Look, I think, you know, I think the biggest issue that is the immovability of the military of the Pentagon. It's like trying to turn the Exxon-Baldives around, you know. It takes time. there's a lot of complexity. I know we talk about the military industrial complex.

The reality is there's very few corporations out there that can manufacture the munitions and the weapon systems that we talk about. And so people always say, well, how come it's always the same companies? Well, you know, because that's unfortunately the way it works right now. I don't know whether you can diversify it to that degree. But the management issue, but the thing is we don't want to run out of those weapons in three weeks that we have to go to war with China. And I think it's one thing Pete has said.

It's like it's one thing to say, hey, we know the Chinese are bad and they made challenges. Okay, if we made the right selection of weapons and the amount we need. That's why I think I agree with you. But that's what he's got to look at is how do we overcome that? Yeah. And that's a big. That is, again, I'm always cynical about the ability to move government, but also certainly when you're talking about, look, I've seen defense contracting.

I understand how some of the companies operate. And it needs a shank up, but it also, you've got to be pragmatic about how quick you can make that happen. So I'm hoping that there can be some really solid decisions. I have no problems with, you take nothing away from his experience. I think that the hit that he's been taking is a lot of times is, look, it's the biggest budget in the government. Right. It's well over a million personnel, and there's no real management experience. And part of this is always is understanding that management line.

Again, I get it. I understand, right? We're looking to shake things up. That's what he ran on. That's what he should be doing. Right. Well, remember, you've got the Undersecretary Defense for policy. You've got several assistant undersecretaries.

He can't do it alone. So I've learned personnel is policy. So it's going to be, he's got to pick a really good team who could either compliment his strengths or help him overcome his weaknesses. And I think Pete's smart enough to know what he doesn't know and look for help. Yeah, no, I think that's true. And I think it's going to be a combination of both, right? You've got to build on your strengths and you also have to fill the gaps in your weaknesses. Nobody comes to the table without any weaknesses.

So, no, I get it. And I think also you look at it and you think, I believe, maybe I'm wrong about it. this but I think during Trump's first administration, I think he churned through five sectaps. Is that right? During the course of his first. Well, matters for the first. I think there was either or five. Yeah, I have to go back and look, but yes, they were a number. It was a lot of churn. And I think in part what he's looking to do is say, look, I need a team around me that understands why I ran again, what I was running on, and why people voted for him and will implement the things that I say so that I'm not, there's not chaos at the top,

like he experienced the first time around. So I think that experience may have informed the decision making currently. No doubt. And remember, this is not the first time they picked someone very young to come in with relatively little industrial experience to do this. Remember, John Lehman. John Lehman was appointed when he was still a serving commander. And then it is For a fact, I've heard stories, Mike, of John Lehman, commander John Layman, showing up to do a trap on an aircraft carrier and the crew freaking out. It's like, you know, that's the Secretary of the Navy. He's like, well, he's just here for reserve duty. He's like, yeah, right.

So I'm just saying that this has happened before in 81, Reagan appointed a very young John Lehman to be Secretary of the Navy to turn the Navy around and he did it. So just saying. Yeah, yeah. Traditionally, the greatest job in the government, the Secretary of the Navy. Maybe. Give me 30 seconds of your background, including your experiences on the transition team and working with Tulsi. Just so people understand why it was great to have you on talking about these things. Well, I was serving military case officer for most by career in our version of the DO in different organizations within DOD. I ran the first undercover cyber unit, Stratis Ivy, where we did all the things that the IOC now does.

if you know what IOC is, the information operations, folks. I was a third time in Afghanistan. I wrote a book about it, Operation Darkheart, where I served with McChrystal and Lloyd Austin. I actually worked for Lloyd Austin. And after that, I came back, was a whistleblower on 9-11 failures, on something called ABLE Danger. That's how I kind of diverted from my career into politics.

And from there, I ended up working and becoming essentially a think tank guy, I ran the London Center for Policy Research in New York. I currently run something called Project Sentinel. I wrote a couple of books, Operation Darkhart regarding my experiences, was on the Trump transition team in 2016, advised the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Joe Dunford, when he was chairman, ended up advising a bunch of folks like Tulsi and others. So I ended up kind of getting stuck doing media and politics. So that's why I'm here.

And I know these folks, because I've worked with him in some form. So I appreciate you giving me the time, Mike, to help inform your audience of some of the things that I've experienced directly. And I hope I better help them understand what's going on with these folks and why Trump or President Trump picked it. Now, I think it's really critical, right? And I think you and I have talked about this before, which is it's how difficult it is for people to sift through the noise, right? The sort of the partisan nature of media, the difficulty of being siloed in social media where people just tend to read what reinforces their own thought. and also the disinformation, a lot of misinformation. So having a conversation that is reasoned where you say,

look, this is based on my experiences and I'm glad you laid them out, I think it's critical for people to understand because at the same time as we're coming out of this election, we really got to keep thinking, how do we dial the temperature down, right? How do we get back to a relatively, I don't think it's ever going to happen, by the way, but how do we get to some sort of civility in the political process? but look Tony this has been delightful I didn't even ask you but the last one I was saving I tell you what just give me a letter grade don't give me any comments or anything because we

don't we're running out of time Matt Gates attorney general man he's he's kind of the canary and the coal man mine right speaking of turning a temperature town first off let me see it for the record Matt Gates was not abducted by aliens whatever they say that did not happen just saying so let's be clear on that so let me give two kids grades on this, Mike, since you put me on the spot here. So, the choice to have Matt be the Canary and a coal mine,

it's a solid day. It's like, okay, if you want to have distraction from all the other nominees, nominate Matt Gates. So that's probably a native trough more than Gates, but it's like, he's the guy they're going to look at. Regarding the choice, I think, look, I give it a B plus because

well, he's not a law enforcement guy. He's willing to do and say things others would not be willing to do. And so I think that's why people are freaking out because they know he's going to be fearless. He's got nothing to lose. And come on, let's face it, you and I have known Med who have nothing to lose and they don't stop. So I think that's what they're afraid. Yeah, but there you go. All right. No, I like that. That's a great answer, Tony. Listen, thank you so much. Retired Lieutenant Carl, Colonel. Thanks, Mike. Thanks, stopping by again. Next time that we have you on, I too will wear my

U-boat Captain sweater. Thank you for being here, man. Well, look, coming up next, this is not something you were expecting, is it? Unidentified anomalous phenomena. That's official government speak, of course it is, for UFOs, which took center stage during a congressional

hearing on Capitol Hill on Wednesday. We'll unpack that with Brandon Weikert. He's the author of Winning Space, how America remains a superpower. And we'll do that when we come back. Hey, Mike Baker here. If you're tired of the same old coffee from those same old mega corporations pushing their woke agendas and you know the ones I'm referring to, well, listen up. It's time to take a stand and support a brand that really embodies American values.

And that would be, of course, blackout coffee. They stand with hardworking Americans who believe in family, faith, and freedom. They roast, frankly, some of the most incredible coffee you'll ever taste using only premium-grade beans roasted and shipped to you within 48 hours. Come on. For the cold brew fans, Blackout Coffee is now also excited to announce the launch of their two new ready-to-drink cold-brew coffee latte options. That is not easy to say. Don't settle for less. Make the switch to Blackout Coffee. Head over to blackout coffee.com slash PDB and use the code for 20% off your first order. That's Blackout Coffee.com slash PDB and of course the code is PDB. Look, join the movement and taste the difference. Remember, with every sip, you're supporting a brand that stands for America. And as we say around here, be awake, not woke.

Welcome back to the PDB Situation Report. Now, on Capitol Hill Wednesday, a gripping session unfolded. As former Defense Department official, Lou Elizando declared, quote, let me be clear, UAP are real. In his opening testimony, he spoke of advanced non-human technologies, monitoring sensitive military sites worldwide. Although the hearing lacked direct evidence, that would have been something if we actually had direct evidence,

witnesses made a number of startling claims. Some testified that U.S. government employees have been injured by UAPs and that a secret UAP retrieval program exists within the government. Now, before you think that this is some crazy Republican snipe hunt, the push for transparency on UAPs is bipartisan, with Democratic Representative Jared Moskowitz of Florida calling on President-elect Trump to throw off the veil of secrecy on these unexplained occurrences. Okay. Joining me to unpack all of this, I'm happy to say, is Brandon Weikert.

He's a national security analyst at the national interest and the author of Winning Space, How America Remains a Superpower. Well, Brandon, first of all, thanks very much for joining us. I don't know. Are we going to be able to win space if we're talking about battling aliens and UFO? Well, just to be clear, the book is nothing to do with aliens. It has to do with the technology undergirding high-tech space development. And actually, my personal opinion here is everybody's getting lost in the weeds on, you know, is it little green or gray men from the Zeptar galaxy?

I think that what we should be focusing on in Nancy Mace during the committee hearing yesterday, she was really hammering this home, which is we need to understand the underlying technology. of this phenomenon, and specifically the energy and maybe even possibly the metamaterials involved. And that leads me to my conclusion, which is likely I do not believe the aliens are coming down from their celestial homes to get in the gutter with us. I think this is probably exotic military technology and drones and whatnot belonging to us and maybe China and Russia, maybe even Israel and some of the other great powers on the world. And I think that there is technology. that we have developed, and our enemies are probably developing as well, that is beyond what

we know about in the public space. I think you're spot on. And I've talked about this before. I have, for whatever reason, become a bit of the sort of the UFO guy sometimes on Discovery Network or on Science Channel. And the point being, and this is what you're talking about, and I agree with the 100%. Look, of course we have compartmentalized programs. Of course we have secret programs, right? And of course, as I think Nancy Mace pointed out during the hearings, you know, there are programs with budgets, hidden budgets, and that is true as well, right? If you have a black program, typically the budgets are buried inside of other more exposed programs. Yeah. And so you've got this, and that always leads to then cynicism about what the government's up to.

Then the other side of this coin is the necessity. Okay, well, why did we have an A-TIP? Why did we have an Advanced Aeronautics Threat Identification Program office at the Pentagon? Of course, because there's aliens out there. Well, no, to your point, because from national security perspective, it's impregn't to understand what's out there that we can't readily identify. If some, yeah, so an aviator, an aviator, see something and he says, I got to report this, can't quite identify it.

And it looks unusual. Maybe it's a different propulsion system. material science issue, whatever, we have to understand it. So you have to have the ability within the government to pursue these anomalies, these things that we can't easily say, okay, this is what that was. Yes, exactly. And I would just say that I hope people don't think that all we got out of Operation Paperclip at the end of the Second World War was rockets and jet engines. There was an entire new science being developed at places like Pino Munda by the the Nazi scientists, and we were racing with the Soviets for a reason to get our hands on that

science. And we did mostly get our hands on that science, and that is a credit to the OSS, the precursor to the CIA. And for about 70 or 80 years now, we've been able to, I think, experiment with highly advanced technologies and build off of it. And this is something that the former head of skunk works alluded to in the 90s. I've been out to Edwards Air Force Base. I know a lot of people out there. I talk there usually once a year. And I've always gotten the sense that there are some very advanced programs out there that we will never know about. And in fact, other parts of the government probably don't even know about because like you said, this is so highly compartmented. And when I worked on the hill trying to regulate and oversee the military budget is it's almost a futile exercise because of how they layer these things together. So what do you make of, if we look at the hearing that they just had up on Capitol Hill, what do you make of some of the testimony from folks like, you know, Lou Elizando and Michael Schellenberger, where they're not just saying that we have government programs because

we're looking at the issue of hostile nations, perhaps developing new material science capabilities that we need to know about. They're saying, you know, they're appearing to say that there's extraterrestrial evidence that the government's been sitting on. You know, I mean, it's hearsay. And, you know, that's not to say that I wouldn't listen to somebody like Lou Elizondo who has the kind of background that he does and counterintelligence and whatnot. I do think it's interesting at counterintelligence operative is saying this stuff in the public space. But, okay, you know, I don't know.

I don't have an answer. I just haven't seen anything compelling that make me think that little green men, and this is probably my own bias, but then my little green manner are coming down here when we're not even questioning beyond the rudimentary, well, is it us? And then we hear from people like Lou saying, oh, no, there's no possible way it's us. Well, how do you know that? With all due respect, nobody in government has all the answers. The government is like two million employees. You know, they don't know what's going on in other departments and offices in other departments. And so, I mean, we really should be, you know, investigating just what exactly have we been funding in the black budget for the last 70 years. And I think the answers would be really incredible. Not that I think that we should, by the way, release all of that information because there is national security that we have to worry about. But, you know, clearly there is a concern on the part of the public that needs to be allayed. And I think it's sort of a, I think it's kind of a cop out to say, well, it's little green men. Well, you know, when our F-16 and F-22 pilots are. operating in restricted military airspace and they're encountering these things in a dangerous way, you know, we should probably get to the bottom of it and we should not be surprised if maybe it's an enemy threat actor operating in our airspace or even one elite unit trying to figure out how our best pilots would respond under duress. I mean, this is, we don't know, but aliens just seems so, you know, yeah, otherworldly. The unsatisfying part of any of these hearings, not that they've had a lot of hearings, I think 2022 was the first one they had in like 50 years about UFOs.

So we don't have a long history of UFO hearings up on Capitol Hill. But I think that the unsatisfying part of it is what you alluded to, which is that there's never any specifics, right? You'll get testimony, well, we've got, you know, the government's sitting on evidence. Well, okay, what's that evidence? Well, I can't talk about it. Or, you know, they've got stuff. They're holding on to stuff. Well, what is that stuff?

Well, I can't talk about it. Or, you know, I just know that they've got it. I was just say, well, when David Grush was testifying last year, I remember he said that, you know, I can't reveal this without being in a skip. And then they said, well, unfortunately, the skips aren't being made available. And I worked on the hill. That's, okay. That's an odd statement to make the skips aren't being made available. It's okay.

You know, you know what I mean? Like it's just the whole thing's a little odd. Maybe they don't want to talk about it. And that's why, and by day, I meet whoever's covering it up, X-File style. But, you know, I don't know. I just, I'm very skeptical about how this is going about. And it's just strange to me that we're being told to completely upend our worldview about, you know, basic, you know, questions of religion and life based on a, just take my word for it. You know, if you go back years, you know, decades and decades ago, and if you had a pilot,

a military pilot, and he spotted something that was out there, and it was moving in an unusual fashion or whatever, there was no upside for him to land back on the carrier or wherever he was flying out of and say, hmm, I think I spotted up. You know, because all they had for it at the time was a UFO, right? I mean, and that had taken on such a stigma that there was. was no upside for anyone to come through and say, okay, I've seen this, let me file a report. It's not going to be all that helpful to your record, you know, when you're looking for an ex-promote. They'll probably ground you.

So I think it's ground. They'll probably ground. Yeah. So I think Pentagon had gone to the length of saying, you know, we have to come up with some way of cataloging these sightings and then trying to investigate them. And then we're going to tick a bunch of them off because we're going to say, okay, the siting was not, you know, accurate. or we can explain it was a balloon or a drone, whatever. So that's a good thing that we actually advanced the ball. Now, I guess on the margins, what it also does is it creates paranoia, it creates cynicism,

and it creates this belief that they are hiding something because, you know, the one truism about the American public is they always assume the government's hiding something. Okay, they're not always wrong. They're not always wrong. No. They're not always wrong. And so I guess, you know, I guess where I'm going to, with this is it's important, right, that we understand the national security perspective,

the reason why you would want to do this. And then it's important to also understand that every time you hold a hearing on Capitol Hill, there's an obligation, right? Because it just perpetuates this problem. If Nancy Mays comes up and as the head of the subcommittee and says, well, you know, some unnamed people tried to pressure us into not holding this hearing, okay, I'm Sorry, who were the unnamed people? It's like saying we're sitting on a trove of evidence. Okay, well, where's the evidence sitting? Right.

I mean, you were involved in this program, so tell us a little bit more. So you're always sort of getting this tantalizing tidbit, and then that just kind of keeps feeding the idea that the government's hiding something. And again, I'm not saying they're not. Maybe they are. Never say never, as far as I'm concerned, right? I don't believe personally that we're alone out here, that somehow life on earth is all it is, right?

I agree with that. I just, I'm not sure that they're visiting us. And if they are, why haven't they made themselves available? You know, why? I mean, you know, I, because they're so disappointed. They're so disappointed, Brandon, and what they're seeing. I've traveled for white years to get here, right? I mean, all those, they sat in that goddamn spaceship for light years and then they get here and this is what they find.

They just move on. They go to the next one, right? Yeah, but, you know, I mean, I do think, and I want to make it clear, I'm not. discounting what people see. I believe that people do see it. I've seen something not long ago, a very odd thing over my, and, you know, it did not look like anything that I'd seen before, but, you know, these, the technologies that are being displayed, yes, they're radical, but you take into account things like Nick Cook's book, which was a history of anti-gravity, and he was the Jane's Defense Weekly editor, so he's not some, you know, conspiracy theorist.

I mean, he did you mean Nick, Nick, Nick, do you mean Nick Pope? Was it Nick Pope? I can't, I thought it was Nick Cook at Jane's defense. Could be, okay, could be, okay, I'm getting my Knicks. I'm getting my Knicks mixed up. Okay. Yeah, but he, you know, he did a great book in 2002 where it was really a great breakdown of all the investments in the 60s into anti-gravity technology. There were even advertisements in popular mechanics, what Lockheed was doing of these mockups of anti-gravity devices. And then by the late mid-60s, they all disappeared. We wouldn't talk about it anymore.

And so, you know, there is a possibility that we've really cracked something, but we don't want to share it with the wider world because of the national security implications. Right. You know more than you're letting on, Brandon. I know it. I can tell it. I'm pretty good at reading people. You guys are.

And let's, we're going to take a quick break, Brandon. And then when we come back, I want you to reveal what it is that you know. So that's, we'll be back with Brandon Weikert. And this is actually, we sometimes we're joking about this a little bit. but it's very serious, right? And this is a very serious matter that deserves more transparency, deserves more conversation.

But we'll be right back after this. Yamava Resort and Casino at San Manuel is California's number one entertainment destination for today's superstars. Catch the Jonas Brothers return to the Yamava

theater stage on April 30th, the powerful vocals of Demi Lovato on May 17th, and the signature Southern Country Rock of Eric Church on July 19th. Tickets on sale now at yamava theater.com. Only at Yamava Resort and Casino,

celebrating its 40th anniversary. You in? Must be 21 to enter. Who cares about your poops? Ali does. That's why Ali's science-backed gut health lineup help support your family's regularity. From daily probiotics to fiber gummies, your kiddos will love.

Find it all on ali.com. That's o'l-l-l-com. These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. Welcome back to the PDB Situation Report. Joining me once again is Brandon Weikert. Now, he's a national security analyst at the National Interest, and he's the author of a terrific book.

Go out and get this. It's called Winning Space, How America Remains a Superpower. You should read it. I'm telling you. Read it. I'm going to test you on it later on. Brandon, thank you very much for sticking around and coming back. We've been talking about the hearing.

We've been talking about A-Tip and its follow-on. office in the Pentagon to look and identify and catalog anonymous phenomena or unknown aerial whatever we want to call it. I keep getting confused. I was so happy with UFO and then they changed it and they keep changing it. I think they're just trying to confuse the public. But, you know, at the end of the day, talk to me about the likelihood, based on all your experience, the likelihood that somehow one of our rivals, one of the U.S. rivals, the West

rivals, Russia, China, I think we're kind of looking at those two. What's the likelihood that they've made some advancement in material science when they're dealing in hypersonics or they've made some advancement with propulsion systems? Have you seen any evidence that that's the case? Well, I think it's very interesting you bring that up because this is really when I cover significantly at the national interest. And in fact, Pete Hegset brought this. up in his recent interview with Sean Ryan. Russia and China both are light years ahead of us in hypersonic weapons development. China just at the Zhuhai Air Show at Guangdong this week, they revealed this CH7 stealth drone, which is very advanced. They have a mock-up of their

six-generation warplane, which could be a game changer if they can make it work. So the likelihood that China in particular has created an exotic proponent. fulsion system, using metamaterials to kind of create the craft itself, I think is very high. I mean, we know there's a race for metamaterials. This is what Shane Todd was murdered over in 2012 in Singapore. He was an American scientist from MIT who was working for a Wally subsidiary, and he realized that the company was trying to basically illegally acquire certain materials for metamaterials, and he tried to tell the Americans about it, and he was found hanging in his Singapore apartment.

His parents insist he was murdered by China. And so this is going back years, metamaterial race. So it is my belief that China in particular has probably leapfrog dust in a handful of areas, including possibly exotic technology, aerospace technology. Now, the question is, do we, do they, if we have these systems, why don't we use them more readily? In my opinion, it is probably at issue of scale. These systems are probably so advanced and so.

expensive and everybody's trying to keep them under wraps so much that we don't have them in a large number. And so that's why you don't see these things being used in wars because we just, it's sort of like the prototype and that's it. It's a cool thing that we can do and we learn from. And so, you know, that's what I think is probably at play here likely. But yes, I believe China in particular could have leapfrogged us. It's interesting because this is as a personal aside at the CIA, they have a very

a director at science and technology, an amazing place with amazing people, and they develop technology that's just, it's hard to imagine. But in terms of operational gear, sometimes they'd come up with a piece of kit, right, that you'd look at and you go, that's great, I can't wait to get that out in the field, this is going to make life so much easier. And then they go, well, no, that's kind of stay on the shelf because, you know, here, you take the previous generations gear because we don't want you to lose this or we don't want that to get out just yet. So I take your point with where China is. And it's also interesting because,

look, I spend a lot of time talking about the Chinese regime and their theft of intellectual property and economic espionage, stealing research and development information. And that was how they got themselves as far along the food chain as they have over the years. But what you're implying now is they've gone past that. They've developed their own rather than just reverse engineering. now they've developed their own engineering capability, if in fact they have made advancements of the sort that you're talking about. Yes. I just want to make it clear that, you know, we say China's an imitator derisively,

but people imitate because it's cheaper and easier to just steal. And then when you reach a certain parity with the person you're stealing from, that's when you start innovating. And I think we've reached that tipping point now with China. And so it's very believable. I want to make it clear also. The Chinese have been seeing UAPs or UFOs in the South China Sea since, 2022, and when the general in charge of the unit and one of those man-made islands was asked about

it, he said, oh, we know exactly what it is. It's American technology. So the Chinese are not convinced at all that what they're saying is aliens. They think it's all American technology. Now, maybe that's their bias, but I think they probably know more than they're letting on. Yeah, I suspect also it's, you know, you could argue, you know, in another, you know, parallel universe, it's the same way with climate change. We spend all our time worrying about, oh my God, we've got to get everybody on board with climate change. Meanwhile, the Chinese machine, they don't care about climate change. They're building more coal mines than our coal plants and the rest of the world. And laughing at us. So, yeah, and laughing at us. So I could see where

they'd go and say, okay, if you guys want to believe that it's alien technology, that's all, you know, well and good. It is a fascinating subject. I will say, I'm glad that they have these hearings, right? Me too. It is frustrating in the sense that it's always the same type of, again, little scintillating bits and pieces, but never actual evidence, never specifics, and it never really advances the ball. But talking about transparency and the importance of identifying potential threats, that's

And a lot of counterintel guys are witnesses. It's very odd, very odd. It's very odd. But anyway, it is. I digress. Listen, Brandon, it's delightful, as always. That's what I always say. People say, well, how is Brandon?

I always say you're just delightful. And you're also the author of Winning Space, How America Remains a Superpower. And I do encourage everybody to go out and get a copy of that, if bookstores are still a thing, if not go to Amazon or wherever you get your stuff. But we always appreciate your insights, Brandon. I hope you'll come back again. Always happen to be here. Absolutely. Well, that's all the time that we have for the PDB Situation Report.

Now, if you have any questions or if you have any comments or you have any humorous and notes, please reach out to me at PDB at thefirstTV.com. I mean, I think you might have heard about this before, but what happens is we take all those mailbags full of your stuff, and once a month, our team of PDB interns, of course, overseen by our executive team and the board of advisors, they choose some of the best viewer questions, and they produce our monthly Ask Me Anything episodes. So what I'm saying here is, obviously, keep your cards and your letters and your fax is coming. Now, to listen to the podcast of this show ad free, become a premium member of the president's daily brief by visiting PDB premium.com. It is really a very simple process. I'm Mike Baker, and until next time,

stay informed, stay safe, stay cool.