| Speaker | Time | Text |
|---|---|---|
|
unidentified
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Because he's just not that popular. | |
| Thank you. Thank you. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| U.S. House will be back at noon Eastern today to start work on a bill to permanently classify fentanyl-related substances as Schedule I drugs that have the strongest controls and penalties. | ||
| Also, this week, a measure to block bans of oil and natural gas fracking. | ||
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| This is Representative Pat Harrigan. | ||
| He's Republican serving the state of North Carolina, also a member of the Armed Services Committee, as well as the Science, Space, and Technology Committee members. | ||
| Welcome to the program. | ||
| First time to the program. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Pedro, thanks for having me. | |
| It's great to be here. | ||
| Let's throw your military background because I think it would probably inform what you do on the Armed Services Committee. | ||
| Tell us a little bit about that. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, so I'm a West Point graduate, and then I went into the infantry, then went into the special forces, had a couple tours to Afghanistan in that time, and then I got out, started a company that's in the defense space, and then decided to run for Congress after the fall of Afghanistan. | |
| So I've had a heavy defense focus for quite some time in my life. | ||
| With your service in Afghanistan, you've seen what's happened while you were there and after that. | ||
| How does that inform decisions when you make not only, say, in Afghanistan, but other matters of foreign policy on the Armed Services Committee? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, I think it certainly heavily informs the direction that I think this country should go because I think we made a lot of mistakes in 20 years during the global war on terror, not just in Afghanistan, but all across the Middle East. | |
| We spent an awful lot of money that we have burdened on our children's children, and we did not achieve strategic outcomes that were productive for the United States of America. | ||
| And so we've got two existential crises right now, in my opinion. | ||
| One of them is debt. | ||
| The other one is China. | ||
| And as that informs the direction by which we move forward in the defense space, both of those things deserve, I'd say, the equal amount of respect. | ||
| When you see efforts on China that you talked about, I know it falls in the space of economics, but when you see tariffs being placed on the country that the president announced, how does that fit broadly into foreign policy and particularly with armed services? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, I think President Trump is simply trying to get a better deal for the American people, right? | |
| He does not like countries that manipulate their currency, that subsidize their market economies, and create an unfair playing field for American manufacturing and American innovation. | ||
| And so I think he's just trying to level the playing field. | ||
| He did that in his first term. | ||
| He's doing that again. | ||
| And I think that that makes America more competitive from a defense perspective, particularly when you start talking about Section 232 tariffs, right? | ||
| That is very specifically to protect U.S. national security and very important manufacturing interests that we have to have here in the United States in order to provide for our national security. | ||
| I imagine those would include those in the state of North Carolina as well when it comes to that manufacturing. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Absolutely right, all 50 states. | |
| And, you know, that's just a reality that we have to contend with. | ||
| And we've got to make sure, I think a lot of people don't really care if we get ties or our suits from China, but I do think that they care if we get critical minerals that go into our fighter jets or chips that go into all of our governmental computers. | ||
| Those need to be coming not from an adversary. | ||
| When it comes to being on the Armed Services Committee, what would you say is the focus in the months ahead, particularly now that Republicans and Republicans control the House and the Senate? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, I think that there's a very clear problem with our defense spending, right? | |
| We are at a near historic low. | ||
| We've never spent less on defense since World War II. | ||
| We're at 2.9% of GDP. | ||
| Right now, China is a seven. | ||
| And so we have a very serious concern with the amount of money that we are investing into our defense. | ||
| I personally have a serious concern that the military that we have today is not the military that we need in order to win against China. | ||
| Should we not be able to successfully deter that conflict, which is what everybody really cares about more than anything else? | ||
| But we've got to be strong in order to not fight. | ||
| And so the way that we're going to accomplish that is, number one, we've got to reinvest in our industrial base, and we've got to get our industrial base into a paradigm where we're producing the low-cost solutions to our enemy's high-cost problems. | ||
| Because right now, it is the other way around. | ||
| We're the ones who are producing the high-cost solutions to our enemy's low-cost problems. | ||
| And that causes us to lose the economics of war. | ||
| And history is very unkind to countries that lose the economics of war. | ||
| What's an example of a low-cost solution to a high-cost problem? | ||
|
unidentified
|
A Stinger missile, right? | |
| Look at the experience that America had in Afghanistan in the 1980s with the Mujahedin. | ||
| We were providing circa $1985, $8,500 Stinger missiles to the Mujahedin that were using that to shoot down Soviet aircraft that cost the Soviets between $2 and $8 million to produce. | ||
| And so $8,500 investment, $2 to $8 million return on that investment. | ||
| That is a fantastic investment. | ||
| We should have made that investment. | ||
| We did make that investment. | ||
| Not only did we cause the Soviets to lose Afghanistan, shortly thereafter they actually lost their country over it. | ||
| And so what we're doing today, though, is we're sending $2.6 million Patriot missiles to Ukraine to shoot down drones that Russia's manufacturing for $50,000. | ||
| That doesn't work. | ||
| Our guests with us until 8 o'clock. | ||
| And if you want to ask him questions, 202-748-8000, one for Republicans, 202-748-8000 for Democrats and Independents, 202-748-8002. | ||
| Text us your questions or comments at 202-748-8003. | ||
| Elon Musk has been tasked to find savings and cost savings throughout the government. | ||
| Should he apply that type of philosophy towards the Defense Department? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Absolutely. | |
| And I'll work with him to do that. | ||
| Because, you know, yes, on one hand, we need to increase our defense expenditures. | ||
| Number two, and I would say in parallel with increasing those defense expenditures, we absolutely have to change the philosophy by which we're acquiring military technology and hardware. | ||
| And I think that we need to institute a principle that if it, as Pete Hegseth has said, Secretary Hegseth, we are going to align capabilities to threats. | ||
| I think that if the cost of what it takes for our country to produce the capability exceeds what it costs our adversaries to produce the threat, we should not acquire the capability. | ||
| And that needs to be the driving force behind the revolutionary attack that we take on our defense industrial complex moving forward. | ||
| That's how we're going to push these defense contractors into actually providing low-cost solutions to our enemy's high-cost problems. | ||
| You've seen Mr. Musk and how he's been impacting Washington over the last couple of days. | ||
| Should he apply that kind of philosophy to the Defense Department? | ||
| What's the role of Congress in either agreeing on these cut savings or pushing back on some of the savings? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, I think that what Elon Musk is doing is necessary. | |
| I think what he's doing is he's simply diving into the PL on the balance sheet of all these different agencies that make up the federal government, and he's throwing up red flags where he sees them. | ||
| And at that point, it's up to either the president with executive authority or Congress with legislative authority to do something about that, to choose to do something about it in the first place, and then what the particular course of action should be to get the American taxpayer a better deal for the money that they're spending and respect their tax dollars again. | ||
| To what degree are you concerned about Mr. Musk's approach and either the president's or Congress's ability to say, wait a minute, do this, but don't do that, or at least how much control over his actions? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I think anytime that you are messing with government expenditures, it's going to create a backlash because people like to get the money from the government. | |
| I mean, our society has become very, very good at voting themselves money. | ||
| And at some point, you look at $36.2 trillion worth of national debt. | ||
| You look at a deficit spend rate of $1.8 trillion a year. | ||
| That's in the hole per year. | ||
| That has to change. | ||
| And that's not going to be a fun process. | ||
| Our guest is with us. | ||
| And if you want to ask him questions, you could do on the lines. | ||
| Here is Kenny. | ||
| Kenny is from North Carolina. | ||
| Independent Line, you're on with Representative Pat Harrigan. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Go ahead. | |
| Yes. | ||
| I want to, you know, it's pitiful. | ||
| I want to ask them, this representative, about, I noticed the first thing he said was China. | ||
| It was a Republican that gave China the most favored nation status and brought them in. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Now, when it comes to the free trade, the NAFTA and all that, it was Republicans that was pushing that. | ||
| It was Republicans that got us in the war in Afghanistan. | ||
| It was the Republicans that got us in all of this. | ||
| And, you know, they are the ones now saying that they can fix it. | ||
| But they don't want to take no blame for anything. | ||
| And it's pitiful. | ||
| And now they're doing it again. | ||
| You look at the Supreme Court as far as money and politics. | ||
| They got, they passed it where rich people could be citizens. | ||
| And it brought us to this point. | ||
| It seemed like everything that they have done, and the Democrats are very slow as far as pointing that out. | ||
| Hello, sir. | ||
| Yeah, I'm here, Kenny. | ||
| Oh, okay, then. | ||
| I got you. | ||
| It seemed like the Democrats are very, very slow at pointing this out, you know. | ||
| But, you know, I could see it. | ||
| And, you know, it's pitiful that these guys coming up here, they're the ones that created the problem. | ||
| And now they're saying that we're the only one that can fix it. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| That's Kenny there in North Carolina. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hey, Kenny, thanks for your statements. | |
| I appreciate them. | ||
| And look, I think you've got a point. | ||
| I think it was a mistake that China was given most favored nation status. | ||
| I think at the end of the day, I disagree with your assertion that Republicans exclusively were behind NAFTA. | ||
| I think that was President Clinton. | ||
| And look, you're from North Carolina. | ||
| I'm from North Carolina. | ||
| I know what NAFTA did to our well-paid, highly skilled labor force, particularly in the furniture industry, which is what we had to deal with in the 10th District 25 years ago. | ||
| Folks are now just getting back to the income and quality of life that they lost 25 years ago due to NAFTA. | ||
| But I think you hit on a broader topic, which is, you know, President Trump is kind of his own enigma, right? | ||
| I think you've got to look at the number of votes that he received versus the number of votes that Republicans received in Congress. | ||
| He received over 77 million popular votes, and Congress only received 74.6 as Republicans. | ||
| So I think we've got to be understanding that folks across this country, they didn't necessarily vote for Republicans. | ||
| They voted for President Trump and his policies. | ||
| And so to some extent that that might cut through the partisan cord that you were talking about, I think people should pay attention to those numbers. | ||
| Janet joins us from New York City. | ||
| Democrats Lying. | ||
| You're next up. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Three points. | ||
| He talks about that he's on this committee for the budget for defense. | ||
| So why over these years we've scared Israel over $220 billion and never asked for anything? | ||
| Why haven't we seen their nuclear systems? | ||
| Why are we just giving them money? | ||
| They are bombs that alienated that country. | ||
| And now we're going to say we're going to move them because we destroyed it. | ||
| Second of all, you mentioned Musk. | ||
| Musk is not an employee. | ||
| He has never been vetted. | ||
| Why are you discussing everything with him? | ||
| We don't even know who he's letting into these buildings. | ||
| So that should not be. | ||
| And then we have our allies. | ||
| If you're saying Sentinel is coming across Mexico, we have border agents there. | ||
| What if they're not doing their job? | ||
| Why are we going to penalize them? | ||
| Why are we going to try and penalize Canada? | ||
| So there are things that we need to answer first before we blame somebody else. | ||
| We're blaming everybody for jobs that we're not doing. | ||
| Okay, Janet there in New York. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hey, Janet. | |
| Thanks for the comments. | ||
| And look, I think with Israel, we've got to pick sides. | ||
| This country historically has sided with Israel. | ||
| And the reason behind that is because they're the good actor in the Middle East that we can depend on. | ||
| They are our greatest ally in the Middle East and one of our greatest allies across the world. | ||
| And so we've always been supportive of them. | ||
| We cannot forget that their response to defend themselves was due to terrorist attacks that happened on October 7th. | ||
| And that should inform our perspective that we must understand that they don't live in a safe environment. | ||
| I think President Trump is trying to shake things up with this Gaza deal. | ||
| For 100 years, Gaza has been a problem. | ||
| It continues to be a problem. | ||
| Any solution that any country has ever moved forward on has not worked, it has not borne fruit. | ||
| And we continue with the same cycle of violence over and over and over again. | ||
| So I'm excited to see President Trump try something new here. | ||
| With respect to Elon Musk, I think that very clearly we have serious problems in our government. | ||
| I mentioned earlier that we're $36.2 trillion in debt. | ||
| At some point, this debt bomb will catch up with us, and it will cost us the world's reserve currency if we don't immediately arrest it. | ||
| So what Elon Musk is doing right now is perhaps one of the most important things that could possibly be done at this point in time for the future of our country. | ||
| have to remember that the dollar is printed on paper. |