PDB Situation Report | November 16th, 2024: Grading Trump’s Cabinet Appointments & Bombshell UFO Hearing Breakdown
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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 coming, 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 Weichert 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 in some cases outright shock. The biggest surprise so far...

Trump's selection of Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz as Attorney General. Gaetz'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, 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, 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? Am I wrong? I feel that way. No, I'm actually 62 and proudly now able to get discounts at all known eating establishments. That's great. I mean, to be fair, you don't look a 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. How can you do it? 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

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 Marco Rubio coming over. So that's a good sign. Let's hope they don't resort to having Kool-Aid drinking 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, health days off for students after the election results came in following the last Tuesday's election.

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. Yep.

Yeah, I think that he's almost a lock. And I tend to agree with you. I think 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 Stefanik. At 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.N. is going to be a good thing. You know, I was hoping that you would have someone who's going to be able to not only fight the U.N.,

But be able to go in there and do things necessary. Also build some level of cooperation. So you got to do both. I think there are people in the U.N. 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- 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 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 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 people who are going to say yes and keep marching.

I want to have that conversation after we go through some other names. Homeland Security. This one surprised me. Governor Kristi Noem. I'm skeptical a bit on her, too. Ford Pro FinSimple offers flexible financing solutions for all kinds of businesses, whether you're an electrician or run an organic farm. Because we know that your business demands financing that works when you need it. Like when your landscaping company lands a new account.

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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 met some of 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,

And while she's got good instincts, she's a good constitutional-focused governor, someone big on economics, DHS doesn't really function economically. That's not their job. So the one thing that DHS has done I think you and I would agree was horrible was this whole disinformation board they attempted about two years ago with Jankowicz, the Mary Poppins-signing undersecretary who was going to be doing that.

And, um, God, I, you know what, you know, I skipped it, Tony. I, yeah, I'm sorry you brought that back up. I actually kind of, uh, I, I was able to for a while, just get that out of my memory. And now you've put it right back there. And I, I, I'm not going to thank you for that, but I see what you're saying. Um,

Yeah, I would. At this point, I would say a B minus. B minus is- A B minus, Ken. 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 organizing. 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 a secretary of the interior. I mean, Ryan Zinke 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 suited 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 border czar, Tom Holman. I know Tom. I'll just say it. I think it's an A+. Tom has got law enforcement still going for decades. While he's not alike, 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. Uh, I think it's an a plus. I think he'll be able to do the things which president Trump wants. Uh, he'll be able to do it quickly because he understands the system. And I think he's got a lot, a lot of allies on the inside are going to be willing to help him. And he's going to bring back, uh, morale to the, the border patrol that, and, uh,

help actually do the and i think he's going to come up with a plan to to get rid of uh to remove illegal aliens within the next two years i think i think it's an a plus the histrionics on the left um on this issue uh you know the idea of sweeping deportations they're going to take your grandma they're going to you know separate families they're going to build you know camps it's going to be awful um

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 also you're saying things to get votes. So, 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-pressed 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. 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 have to take a quick break.

Let's go with the National Security Advisor, Representative Mike Waltz. 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 18th 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, yeah,

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 to

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 the policymaker. So I think, again, I think I would give it a solid A. It's his choice. I have absolutely no issues there. I agree on that. I might even give it an A+. And you're absolutely right also that, you know, without that understanding, without that level of experience,

You can't hold that position because everything funnels through there to the community 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.

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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 Ratcliffe. What can you tell me about that? Yeah, please.

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 line 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 agency.

And I know a lot of folks who have never really gained the respect of the DO. And if you don't have that, you're not really running CIA, just saying. So 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 an intelligence. But 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 territorial, right? So I always thought the best ranks would be to come up through 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 DI, 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 also to be fair, I have worked under extremely good directors who didn't have that experience.

And so... Jim Woolsey, I love Jim Woolsey. Jim Woolsey, I thought was a great director. I worked with him when he was director. So, yeah. You know, Leon Panetta, obviously, George Tenet. And, you know, there's... So 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? 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, Tulsi Gabbard.

Uh, I think that caught some people off guard. What do you think? All right. Tulsi and I are friends, uh, full 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 has been on a long journey of, uh,

And I, you know, it's been said, Mike, by several of my Democrat friends, I didn't live to lead 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, while she was not on the Intelligence Committee, while she was in Congress, she was on Armed Services. As you and I both know, I'm a military case officer. DOD has a significant intelligence background.

holding, be well. NSA is actually DOD

Uh, NRO has, you know, NGA, we, CIA and, and, and DOD jointly man NGA. So there, there's a, you know, so I think based on her, uh, experience within Congress being a Lieutenant Colonel under reserves, which I still respect. And obviously, uh, I think it's a good thing based on her being targeted and on the, the, uh, 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...

And again, look, I take your point. I'm friends with her. But 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 them 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 don't know. I think I'm pretty blunt. Oh, no.

I somehow missed that one. Wow. Okay. You know what? I'm sure he's going to take that well. Oh, I'll 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

in 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 do not have budgetary control. Yeah. To 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 Negroponte on this when they formed it. So Negroponte,

Ambassador Negroponte was the first DNI, and he and John Lehman, 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 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 those 17 agencies below you. Just saying.

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. 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, or is Pete Hegsteth. Well, considering I just badmouthed the current guy, I can only go up from here, Mike.

So knowing both men now. So this is great. You know, this is this is great. I know both men. I have served with Lloyd Austin. It's it's documented in my book, Operation Dark Heart. So people can read about that if they want. And I know Pete Hengstead. 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 grain of salt is as part of my assessment.

He has several things going for him. He's actually got a good degrees. He's, he went to Princeton. He went to Harvard. He, so he's 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, in the guard. And he wrote a book, war on warriors, which he actually was very clear on what he wanted.

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 systems. 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 eight. And I know that may be controversial, but, you know, I think it's an eight. Yeah. So.

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

I think the biggest issue that is the immovability of the military of the Pentagon. It's like trying to turn the Exxon Valdez around. 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 people

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 if we have to go to war with China. And I think it's one thing Pete has said. It's one thing to say, hey,

we know the Chinese are bad and they made challenges.

okay, we made the right selection of weapons and the amount we need. That's what I think, I agree with you, but that's what he's got to look at is how do we overcome that, prevent loss. 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 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. Yeah.

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 of 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 can 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 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 this, but I think during Trump's

first administration, I think he churned through five SEC DEFs. Is that right? During the course of his first administration. Well, Matt, I think there was either four or five. Yeah, I have to go back and look, but yes, there 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 Layman. John Layman was appointed when he was still

a serving commander. In fact, I've heard stories

Mike, of John Layman, 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 Layman to be Secretary of the Navy, to turn the Navy around, and he did it. So just saying. Yeah. Traditionally, the greatest job in the government is Secretary of the Navy. Give

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...

I was a serving military case officer for most of my career in our, in our version of the DO in different organizations within DOD. I, uh, ran the first undercover cyber unit, Stratus Ivy, where we did all the things that, uh, that, uh, IOC now does. If you know what IOC is, the information operations folks, uh,

Uh, uh, I was, uh, served time in Afghanistan. I wrote a book about it, Operation Dark Heart, where I served with McChrystal and Lloyd Austin. I actually worked for Lloyd Austin. And, uh, 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 in, uh,

Becoming essentially a think tank guy. Ran the London Center for Policy Research in New York. I currently run something called Project Sentinel. Wrote a couple of books, Operation Dark Heart, regarding my experiences. Was on the Trump transition team in 2016.

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

I've worked with him in some form. So, uh, 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, uh, what's going on with these folks and why Trump or president Trump picked him. Now, I think it's, it's, it's really critical, right? And we, I think we've, you and I have talked about this before, which is, is how difficult it is for people to sift through the noise, right? That the sort of the partisan nature of media, uh,

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 is 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 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're running out of time. Matt Gaetz, Attorney General. Man, he's kind of the canary in the coal mine, right? Speaking of turning the temperature down.

first off, let me say for the record, Matt Gaetz 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 grades on this, Mike, since you put me on the spot here. So, nom's choice to have Matt be the canary in a coal mine, it's a solid A. It's like, okay, if you want to have distraction from all the other nominees, nominate Matt Gaetz. So that's probably an A to drop more than Gaetz, 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 while 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 men who have nothing to lose and they don't stop. So I think that's what they're afraid. Yeah, there you go.

No, I like that. That's a great answer, Tony. Listen, thank you so much. Retired Lieutenant Colonel Tony Schaefer. Thanks for 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. Now, he's the author of Winning Space, How America Remains a Superpower. And we'll do that when we come back.

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Welcome back to the PDB Situation Report. Now, on Capitol Hill Wednesday, a gripping session unfolded as former Defense Department official Lou Elizondo declared, quote, Let me be clear. UAP are real. Mm-hmm.

In his opening testimony, he spoke of advanced non-human technologies monitoring sensitive military sites worldwide. Now, though 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 UFOs? Well, just to be clear, the book has 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, and 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 in 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 you 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. You 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 AATIP? 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 important to understand what's out there that we can't readily identify. So an aviator, an aviator sees 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 Pinamunda by 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, 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 Elizondo 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 in counterintelligence and whatnot. I do think it's interesting a counterintelligence operative is saying this stuff in the public space.

But OK, you know, I don't know. I don't 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 my little green men 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? You know, with all due respect, nobody in government

has all the answers. The government is like 2 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, I think it's a 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.

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 seem 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. Yeah. 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, well, what's that evidence? Well, I can't talk about it. Or, you know, they've got stuff. They're holding onto 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 going to 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 skiff.

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 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 they, I mean, whoever's covering it up X-Files style. But, you know, I don't know. I just, I'm very skeptical that the,

about how this is going about. And it's just strange to me that we're being told to completely upend our worldview about basic questions of religion and life based on a, just take my word for it. If you go back years, 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 where he was flying out of and say, "Hmm, I think I spotted a..." Because all they had for it at the time was a UFO, right? And that had taken on such a stigma that there was no upside for anyone to come through and say, "Okay, I've seen this. Let me file a report."

Man, it's not going to be all that helpful to your record, you know, when you're looking for an expert. They'll probably ground you. So I think it... They'll probably ground you. 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 sighting was not, you know, accurate or we can explain it was a balloon or a drone, whatever. Yeah.

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 and 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, uh,

I guess where I'm going with this is, it's important 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 Mace 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. OK, I'm sorry. Who were the unnamed people? It's like saying we're sitting on a trove of evidence. OK, 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, in what they're seeing. They've traveled for light years to get here, right? I mean, all

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, I've seen something, uh, not long ago, very odd, uh, thing over my, and, uh, you know, it, it did not look like anything that, uh, I'd seen before, but, um, you know, the,

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 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 James Defense. Could be. Could be. OK. Could be Nick Cook. Yeah, I'm getting my next. I'm getting my next mixed up. OK. Yeah. But, you know, he did a great book in 2002 where it was really a great breakdown of of

all the investments in the 60s into anti-gravity technology. There were even advertisements in Popular Mechanics, what Lockheed was doing, of these mock-ups 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 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 next.

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.

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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.

Rita, 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 AATIP and its follow-on office in the Pentagon to look and identify and catalog issues.

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's 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 were 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 what I cover significantly at the national interest. In fact, Pete Hegseth 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 Airshow in Guangdong this week, they revealed this CH-7 stealth drone, which is very advanced. They have a mock-up of their sixth 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 propulsion 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 Huawei subsidiary. And he realized that the company was trying to basically illegally acquire

um, certain materials for, um, metamaterials. And he tried to tell the Americans about it and he was found hanging in his, uh, Singapore apartment and his parents insist he was murdered by China. Um, and so this is going back years, uh, metamaterial race. So, um, it is my belief that China in particular has probably leapfrogged us in a handful of areas, including possibly exotic technology, aerospace technology. Now the question is, do they, do we, do they, um,

do we, if we have these systems, why don't we use them more readily? In my opinion, it is probably an issue of scale. These systems are probably so advanced and so expensive. Um, and everybody's trying to keep them under wraps, uh, so much that we don't have them in a large number. Uh, 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. Um, and so, you know, that, that's what I think is probably at play here. Likely, uh,

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 directorate in 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'd 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 got to stay on the shelf because, you know, here, you take the previous generation's gear because we don't want you to lose this or we don't want that to get out just yet. So, yeah, I take your point with where China is.

And it's also interesting because, look, I spent 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 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. 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 on 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 seeing 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 regime, they don't care about climate change. They're building more coal mines and, you know, our coal plants and, you know, 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 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. Counterintel being witnesses, it's very odd. But anyway, I digress. Listen, Brandon, it's delightful as always. That's what I always say. People say, well, how is Brandon? I always say he's 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 happy to be here. Absolutely. Well,

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 anecdotes, please reach out to me at pdbatthefirsttv.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 faxes coming.

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