July 13, 2025 • 31 mins
Former astronaut and fighter pilot and current Senatorial candidate from Texas Terry Virts makes a very prescient prediction of the effects of Trump’s cuts to science (this was recorded two weeks ago). He also recounts his own call to service, his frustration with the current Democratic Party, the disaster of Trump’s immigration manipulations, and Texas’ place in the world.(www.terryvirts.com)
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
I'm John Cipher and I'm Jerry O'Shea. I was a
CIA officer stationed around the world in high threat posts
in Europe, Russia, and in Asia.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
And I served in Africa, Asia, Europe, the Middle East
and in war zones.
Speaker 3 (00:14):
We sometimes created conspiracies to deceive our adversaries.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
Now we're going to use our expertise to deconstruct conspiracy
theories large and small.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Could they be true?
Speaker 4 (00:25):
Or are we being manipulated?
Speaker 1 (00:26):
This is mission implausible.
Speaker 5 (00:31):
And now we continue our conversation with Terry Ertz, former
astronaut and Air Force commander, who recently announces candidacy to
be the Democratic senator from Texas.
Speaker 3 (00:42):
Terry, I want to throw you under the bus my
favorite thing. Yes, why should people vote for you? What's
your vision? Why do you want to do this? And
how do people help?
Speaker 4 (00:52):
That is a great question. I believe that I'm a
candidate who can win. And of course I'm running in Texas,
which is a republican state. It's not super republican. It's
not Wyoming, and it's not Alabama. It's Texas. It's a
little bit republican. And we haven't had a Democrat win
here in over thirty years. So if we keep on
doing the same thing over and over again, we're going
to keep on getting the same result. So I'm a
(01:13):
different kind of candidate. I'm not a politician. I don't
have a ten year voting record with Joe Biden, and
I'm definitely not a national Party darling. They've been very
clear that they don't want me to run, so I
feel like as an outsider that gives me a leg up.
Texans like their independence and that's the kind of Democrat
that I am. I'm also common sense. I'm going to
focus on healthcare, education issues and not on the culture
(01:36):
war stuff that doesn't play well nationally, it doesn't play
well in Texas. Here's a stat for you. Then, there's
thirty two hundred counties in America. About two thousand of
those are rural counties. When Clinton was running for president,
he won more than half of the rural counties. That
number has been going down. Kamala Harris won eight percent.
So basically Democrats have completely lost Bill America. A god
(01:59):
named Shane Golden for the New York Times just did
some great research. He looked at every county over the
last ten years and thirteen hundred counties in America have
been dramatically shifting towards Republicans, and fifty have been shifting
towards Democrats. So the party is lost. It has a
twenty seven percent popularity rating nationwide right now, it's about
(02:21):
the same in Texas, and we're going to get our
butts kicked. And the problem with that is we have
this disaster that is Trump. We have chaotic tariffs that
he shot our national reputation in the foot. Overseas, We're
sending masked men pulling people off the streets, throwing them
in on marked cars. That is the direction we're going
(02:41):
unless Democrats can get better. So I want to be
the kind of independent, common sense Texan Democrat who can
actually win in a state like Texas. And if I
can win in Texas, that'll make national news, right, That
changes the national that changes the international conversation. So if
people want to support me, I would super appreciate that.
Terry Urch dot com is my website, te r r
(03:01):
y v irts and I'm not a politician. I'm not
coming in with a big fundraising base. This is my
first race, so getting fundraising going is super like that's
the rocket fuel that makes the rocket lift off.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
What is the biggest challenge of running in Texas. I
would think would be like not being able to say
openly that the cowboys suck?
Speaker 2 (03:20):
Is it?
Speaker 4 (03:22):
So you know there's Aggi's and Longhorns, and there's Cowboys
and Texans, and there's Astros and Rangers, and you know
there's a West Texas and East Texas. Yeah, there's a
lot of countries here in Texas. You know, Texas were
in a country, we would be the eighth biggest economy
on Earth. It's a huge state. So it's kind of
like running for the top office in the eighth biggest
(03:46):
economy on Earth, you know, like in Germany or England
or something like that. It's a big financial raised the
last election, both candidates raised right around one hundred million
dollars each. I think to win the primary, I'm gonna
need twenty million dollars. You have to have a staff,
and my staff they want to be paid. They're so annoying,
like they expect to have a salaries and they and
(04:07):
you know, I'm trying to work them twenty hours a day,
but they want to get paid for that, and you
have to run ads. I think there's twenty media markets,
I've been told in Texas, so there's Austin in the
Valley and Beaumont. You know, there's all these different media markets,
which means it's expensive because you got to run ads
in all these different places. So there's a lot of
challenges to running in Texas. But I think it's the
right thing. And here's the bottom line. There's an astronaut
(04:29):
senator in Arizona, Mark Kelly, and Texas needs an astronaut senator.
I mean, we can't have at Arizona having one without
Texas having one. So that's my pitch.
Speaker 1 (04:38):
What's the challenge from the Democrats? Who is your challenging
And it seems like they keep running same people over
and over.
Speaker 4 (04:44):
Basically, I don't know yet. As far as I know,
I'm the first one, you know who's been public about announcing.
I assume that the guy that lost the last time
was Colin Alright, I think he's going to run again.
I like Colin, good guy. I was supporting him six
months ago against Ted Cruz by almost ten points. I
did some research on Wikipedia. It's very high tech, and
(05:07):
I went back one hundred years. Nobody has ever lost
the Senate race and then won in Texas in one
hundred years except for one time nineteen sixty LBJ ran
for Senate and vice president. So when he won vice president,
there was a special election for a Senate seat a
few months later, and so John Tower lost originally and
(05:29):
then he won a few months later the special election,
and that was like the week after the bea Pig
or two weeks after the bea Pig's fiasco, and he
won by one percent. So basically, Texans don't if you
lose a Senate race, that's bad omen for trying to
do it again.
Speaker 1 (05:44):
I remember John Tower.
Speaker 2 (05:45):
He used to drink quite a.
Speaker 4 (05:46):
Bit, and he was not Secretary of Defense because I
think mister Reagan, although he did, there was the Tower Commission,
so he did the investigation after Challenger.
Speaker 3 (05:55):
I think it was so terry that John and I
are always asked, like inevitably, what's the best spy movie?
Keving Ben and Cia we have a sort of stink.
So what's the best astronaut movie?
Speaker 4 (06:09):
I have my Mount Rushmore. From a documentary point of view,
is it Spaceball? No, it's not Spaceball, So it's Apollo eleven.
Apollo eleven was a CNN film They did it a
few years ago on the fiftieth anniversary of Apollo, and
it's awesome. I watched it in theater and Imax twice
and I was literally my heart was racing more watching
that movie when they launched than it was when I
(06:31):
actually launched in the space. It's a great documentary about
Apollo eleven.
Speaker 6 (06:35):
Pollow eleven has very simply been given the mission of
carrying men to the Moon, landing them there, and bringing
them safely back, like the color is gone.
Speaker 4 (06:48):
Over landing. I love Apollo thirteen, the Tom Hanks movie.
That's just awesome. It's and it's real, Like it's not
even made up. It's a real story. You know, those
are real characters, good guys put on on the moon.
Speaker 1 (07:02):
This is the crew of Steve Paulow thirteen wishing everyone
back on at pleasant evening.
Speaker 4 (07:14):
Houston, we'd have a problem, And the astronats were actually floating.
They filmed it in the Vomit comment, So there's this
big airliner that goes up and pushes over and you
get twenty to thirty seconds of waitlessness. So all the
scenes of them in space, they're actually floating. They're actually
like they built a little Apollo inside the airliner and
they're filming them floating and the thanks. So I love that.
(07:35):
I love the right stuff. I read the book. I
didn't see the movie for years later, but the book
is just spectacular. It's about Chuck Yeger and the early
Mercury astronauts. It's a great movie. On October fourteenth, nineteen
forty seven, Captain Charles Jaeger shattered the sound barrier.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
You've heard about our project sounds dangerous.
Speaker 4 (07:54):
It's very dangerous.
Speaker 6 (07:56):
Count me in.
Speaker 4 (08:00):
My favorite is Interstellar. I listen to that soundtrack. It's
when I was in space. I would listen to that
soundtrack going to sleep, floating in my sleeping bag. I
listened to it last night here usually most nights on Earth,
I'll just turn it on and let it play while
I fell drift off to sleep. It's a like a
(08:21):
fantasy movie. It's not really a space movie, but it's
a father daughter movie, which is why I like it.
What's your favorite spy movies. I love spy movies.
Speaker 2 (08:36):
Because I was in that media. I like Zero Dark Thority.
Speaker 3 (08:39):
It's kind of dark, but I know some of the
people who their characterized, and I think that's a that's
a good one.
Speaker 4 (08:45):
I watched that in Star City right before I launched.
Speaker 3 (08:47):
But I'd have to say there are some movies that
get some things right, but I don't think there's one
movie out there that really like gets it.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
What do you think, John, There's a couple series and
TV shows that are better than others. There's the French
series The Bureau, and there's The Americans, which has the
sort of cover on how you work under cover stuff, right,
but the murders and things aren't realistic.
Speaker 3 (09:08):
So right back answer then, Terry, what do you think
about Top Gun?
Speaker 2 (09:11):
You were also a fighter pilot? You just how does
it fit it?
Speaker 4 (09:15):
So Top Gun one is the best. I mean, it's
hard to imagine a better movie. It's so entertaining the
lines are I can quote the movie literally. If I
was an actor, I wouldn't need the script. I know
the entire movie by heart. I've seen it five million times.
It came out when I was a kidet so like
I was just I wanted to be a fighter pilot
more than life itself. It was my burning desire. So
(09:37):
I watched that movie a million times, and Top Gun
two was Top Gun one with just older Tom Cruise
and a lot more CG, a lot of the flying
with CG and Top Gun two. I mean they're fun.
They're not realistic, but they're just fun movies. That's why
you go to the movie theater. Jows like it's just
a fun movie to go see. Which, by the way,
Jos fifty years old. Now that's as old as Chuck
(09:57):
Schumer's political career. He got elected when jobs came out.
And I'm running against John Cornyn here in Texas. He
got elected when I was in high school. Wham was
at the top of the church. Wake me up before
you go go when John Cornyn first get elected, These
guys need to be gone.
Speaker 2 (10:14):
When you win, it'll be interesting to talk to you.
Speaker 1 (10:16):
Say, what is it that's so great about being a
politician that people want to stay until they're like ninety
years old?
Speaker 6 (10:21):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (10:22):
I would think that you do your thing and then
you know, when you're seventy, you'd be like, I got
a life ahead of me. I'm done.
Speaker 4 (10:28):
Yeah, that's going to be me, John. Look, the only
way I'm going to die in the Senate is if
I got run over by a bus. And if you win,
what's in it for us or that's handouts, lots of pork. Yeah,
new post offices, curbs for the streets, you know everything.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
So let's take a break.
Speaker 4 (10:45):
We'll be back in a moment.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
To go back to your time as an astronaut. How
does he's traveled change your perspective on things on Earth,
or humanity or politics for that matter.
Speaker 4 (11:07):
It changes them a lot. It is a beautiful planet.
It's an amazing Earth. I just you can't imagine until
you see it yourself. And it's hard to get impressed
with people. A lot of people in our pop culture,
pop politics, Hollywood, they're very impressed with themselves. Donald Trump
likes gold. When you see Earth, it's hard to get
(11:27):
impressed with the latest Kardashian news or whatever. It's like,
there's just a much bigger universe out there, So it
puts that in perspective. The things that matter to me
are people who are doing good for other people, you know,
trying to solve malaria, trying to stop hunger in Africa,
trying to stop wars from happening, trying to help working
class Texans be able to afford to buy a house.
(11:48):
And as far as politics, it hit me after a
few days in space I realized that you can't see
people during the daytime. You can see them at nighttime.
You see them in city lights, and I had never
thought of that. I'm like, oh, wow, there's people, but
during daylight, and if you know what you're looking for,
you could see a city or something, but you don't
notice it. And then it hit me after a few
more days, I'm like, city lights at night, you're not
(12:10):
seeing population, you're seeing wealth because in Africa there's no
lights on. In North Korea South koreasm I could show
you a picture. There's a striking difference between North and
South Korea, and what you're really seeing there is corruption
in politics. You're seeing systems that work and you're seeing
systems that don't.
Speaker 2 (12:27):
Right.
Speaker 4 (12:27):
Africa is like, unfortunately full of corrupt folks. So that
was my take from space. It's a beautiful planet. It's
hard to get too impressed with people who think they're
important or want to make gold plated whatever in the
Oval office. Politics need to be done right and not
in a corrupt way, which is the way this administration
wants to do them.
Speaker 3 (12:48):
Intelligence is about fix, or at least assessing fix as
best we can, and you're both as a fighter pilot
is and an astronaut expertise and scientific fis X are like,
that's how things work. So you can out of a
fit base milieu and we get a teamwork.
Speaker 5 (13:06):
Right.
Speaker 3 (13:06):
The fighter pilot doesn't you know, he doesn't guess off
the plane and you know, and fix it and all.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
The rest of that. So what's your sense going into politics?
Speaker 3 (13:14):
What is it you want to do as far as
promoting expertise, accepting fix even if they conflict with.
Speaker 2 (13:20):
What you believe.
Speaker 4 (13:21):
So I think that's my selling point. I mean, I'm
not a politician. I'm not doing this just to join
Team D so I can bash Team ARE, which is
what they do constantly. That's not what Texans want, That's
all what most Americans want.
Speaker 5 (13:35):
You know.
Speaker 4 (13:35):
There's a thing called a bell curve. Right, it's fat
in the middle, and it's skinny on the right and
on the left, and most Americans are in the middle
of most things. I think that's my experience in life,
and so I just want to solve things. You know,
when I'm eluctant Senator, I'm going to go meet with
Ted Cruz and I'm going to shake his hand and say, Ted,
what can we do? For Texas. You know, we're not
going to agree on very much, but there's some things
(13:56):
we can agree on. We'll agree on the space falls, like,
there's probably space work we can do. Let's agree on energy.
I'm a big all of the above energy. I've been
working for nov which is an oil and gas company,
for the last four years as a consultant, helping them
do energy transition technology. So let's work on energy anyway.
I want to figure out how we can solve things.
How can we solve the debt the normal political process
(14:16):
of well, we'll vote at fifty one to forty nine
in the Senate and then make this giant sweeping thing.
That's the wrong way to do things. We need to negotiate.
Let's try and figure out what works for everybody. When
you have a disagreement in the Senate, for example, there
should be some give and take. Let's negotiate. I don't
like everything about this bill, but I like most of it.
(14:37):
I'm going to want to actually govern and work with
both sides, and that the art of that has been gone. Unfortunately,
we don't get the politicians that we want. We get
the politicians that they want. And the reason that that
happens is something called jerrymandering. The districts here in Texas
are so funny. Some people are like, you should run
for House. There's no winnable House seats because they're so
(14:58):
badly jurymannered. And then we do partisan primary, so only
the most extreme Republicans pick the Republican candidate, and only
the most extreme left wing Democrats pick the Democratic candidate.
So the House is fifty to fifty, but it's fifty
to fifty with some of them, not all, but many
of the most extreme people. So the system that we
have is just not designed to work properly. And I
(15:19):
do want to work properly. So I want to work
with both parties to actually govern and do things that
the Texans want. I think that's a difference between a lot,
not all, but that many of the politicians today.
Speaker 1 (15:30):
I think we need to start electing a few people
like you and others that are trying to work to
the center instead of to the extremes. And there's some
young politicians who seem good at that. You know, obviously
we go Spanenberger here in Virginia seems to be able
to work across the aisle and list of Slotkin these
are both CIA people.
Speaker 2 (15:45):
That's the way we.
Speaker 1 (15:48):
Think. But you know, the system is creating this problem
that you say, yeah, But let me just say as well,
a Texas thing that we don't necessarily have a strong
opinion on. I don't think Jerry and I we would
like come and sense solutions immigration. It seems like something
that our Congress, our Senate end house has essentially kicked
on the road for years, and it's created the problems
we lead now, and now we're attacking each other rather
(16:10):
than solving them. So what's your take as a Texan
on what the dangers of immigration and what maybe we
can do?
Speaker 4 (16:17):
So I feel very strongly about this. I love legal
immigration and I think we should have zero illegal immigration.
Everybody here in Texas is an immigrant from somewhere. Everybody,
even Native Americans thousands of years ago, came across the
Burying Sea from Russia. Everybody came from somewhere to be here.
And by the way, our economy depends on immigrants. You know,
I'm going to have some strawberries for lunch. They were
(16:39):
I'm sure picked by immigrants. I live in a house
that was built by immigrants. There's a lot of important
work that makes our economy function.
Speaker 1 (16:46):
But you talked about the political the system is the problem. Yeah,
but the immigration system is part of the problem because
you're saying you don't want no illegal immigration, but there's
almost no means to get in legally because we haven't
created a system, not prohective immigration reform.
Speaker 4 (17:02):
Congress has completely failed. Last year, there was a very strong,
one of the most Republican immigration bills of all time.
Democrats wanted to pass it. I talked to a Republican senator,
he told me face to face. Trump called Senator Lankford
from Oklahoma, former preacher, one of the most conservative Republicans
in the Senate. I think a good man. He negotiated
(17:25):
this bill. This was a tough bill, very tough on
the numbers of people who were allowed to come over,
thousands of more border patrol agents, thousands of more judges.
It was going to break this logjam. Trump called the
Republicans and said, don't vote for it. I want immigration
to be an issue for the election. So the Republican
Party chose party over country. They actively chose to hurt
(17:48):
America and continued this immigration disaster that was happening. So
Republicans are hugely responsible for this because they wouldn't vote
for that bill when they should. And Democrats are respond
well too. I mean, Biden was president for four years.
There were millions of illegals coming over, and Democrats would
not stand up and say, hey, this needs to stop.
Let's stop this. He could have taken extraordinary measures, he
(18:11):
could have taken leadership. They gasled America and they said,
don't worry. The legal immigration's fine. If you're against it,
you're a bad person. And that was wrong. And you
know what, now Donald Trump's president. Because Democrats would not
accept responsibility for what was a profound failure in this
immigration disaster. Americans said, we trust Donald Trump more than
we trust Democrats. And that's an indictment on my own party.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
Sounds like you're making the right enemies.
Speaker 4 (18:35):
I have no problem making enemies about NASA.
Speaker 1 (18:38):
You know, we talked about these new companies and Musk. Yeah,
now a space force. You know, you worked through an
organization NASA, big bureaucracy like we worked in CIA.
Speaker 4 (18:48):
Big briain.
Speaker 2 (18:49):
Yeah. What is the future of NASA?
Speaker 1 (18:51):
What is its role and if any in sort of
managing all these different things that are happening, is it
and there's been huge NASA cuts. Are those good things?
Bad things?
Speaker 2 (18:59):
What's your take?
Speaker 4 (19:00):
Yeah? So, if I have anything to say about it,
NASA will have an important public private partnership role going
forward in exploration. The science that NASA does is super important,
super interesting in its world leading and what Trump has
proposed in his proposed budget is an absolute disaster. It's
(19:20):
unmitigated disaster for the nation space capability. It's a national
security issue too. I'm here in Houston. There's thousands of
people at the Johnson Space Center that are going to
get laid off. Trump is proposing of fifty percent cut
in science. And it's not only a NASA, it's also
across the government. It's a National Science Foundation, National Institute
of Health, Department of Energy, all the different government agencies
(19:42):
that do research. There's a big radar right here in
my hometown in South Houston that tracks the hurricanes. Whenever
you see the hurricane coming across the Gulf, this is
the radar that does it. They're going to be losing
a lot of researchers and a lot of scientists who
attract this weather. So the science cuts that Trump is
doing are absolutely disastrous, and he's doing that to save
(20:04):
pennies on the dollar so that he can give tax
cuts to billionaires. It's immoral, it's disgusting. It's going to
hurt Texas and generations to come. Kids who are here
at Texas A and M and University of Texas and
Rice that want a job. There's not going to be
any jobs. NASA is not hiring. None of the companies
around here are hiring. They're all laying off. What's happening
(20:24):
right now is a terrible state of affairs for science.
I hope Congress does its job and resets it, but
even their damage is still done. Even if Congress resets
a budget that's reasonable, they can still do real damage
just being the executive branch.
Speaker 1 (20:40):
Just hold on for a short break.
Speaker 2 (20:41):
We'll be right back, Terry.
Speaker 3 (20:53):
We talked about Russia, and you know Russians, and you
understand the air war.
Speaker 2 (20:58):
The politics of it. What what would be your Ukraine policy?
Speaker 4 (21:03):
That's a great question. My first Ukraine policy would be
to make an unequivocal stance that hey, we are on
the side of Ukraine. You're our allies, We're going to
support you. I've been there several times in the last
year doing humanitarian emissions, delivering ambulances. I mean, these folks
are our allies. These are the good guys. There's no
moral equivalent here. Vladimir Putin wants to be Catcher in
(21:26):
the Great he wants to restore the Russian Empire. He's
attacking a free and independent country. He's violating the nineteen
ninety four agreement where they gave up their nuclear weapons
in exchange for some security agreements. We're not honoring our
side of that deal. And by the way, other countries
are noticing, Hey, if you sign a deal with America,
you can't trust them. We backed out of Buddhapest memorandum,
(21:46):
we backed out of the Iran deal. We've backed out
of lots of deals. So countries have noticed that America
is not dependable and that's not acceptable. When I saw
Vladimir Selenski get berated in the White House, it was
one of the worst days of my life. I couldn't
imagine and the country that I love so much would
be berating our friend and victim and praising this monstrous
(22:08):
terrorist enemy in Vladimir Putin. One of the most important
things in my life. In nineteen ninety five, I led
four f sixteens on a Missing Man formation at Colville
Sir Mayor over the American Military Cemetery in Normandy, France,
and I remember I was so emotional. I'm like, man,
Americans came here, We liberated Europe, we fought the enemies.
(22:28):
When I was sixteen years old, I live in an
exchange program in Finland, and I lived in a town
that was right on the Soviet border. We were on
a lake and part of the lake was the Soviet
Union and part of the lake was Finland. And that
really made an impact on me. And I was like, man,
these people they can't leave. There's guards there keeping them in.
When they would come on tourist visits, they had to
walk in a line. They couldn't, you know. I was like,
(22:50):
this sucks. So the next year I went to the
Air Force Academy raise my right hand to defend Europe
from Russia, because I knew how dangerous they were and
we need to bring that realization, like let's open our
eyes up and realize that there are bad people on earth. Russia, China,
North Korea, Iran, they don't share values. They're authoritarian surveillance states,
(23:12):
and there are good people on Earth and We need
to get back into that moral compass aligned towards true north,
and this administration has thrown that out the window. We
need to we need to go reach out and pull
bring it back in the window.
Speaker 2 (23:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (23:25):
The rules based order that the US established after World
War Two, that's allowed us to become wealthy and a
world leader. It's also not just about defending Europe and
defending our ideals and democracy. It's also about defending our
jobs and our place in the world.
Speaker 5 (23:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (23:42):
Let me say real quick, Texas, I was bragging about
how big our economy is. Our trade so just imports
and exports are right around four hundred and forty billion dollars.
So if all Texas did was important export goods to
and from other countries, we would still be a top
third economy in the world. Trade is incredibly important to tech,
you know, to mechanics, to school teachers, to policemen. Our
(24:04):
economy thrives. The reason why the Texas economy is so
awesome and it's so big and important is because of trade.
And the reason why trade is so successful is because
of the rules based order that these young men went
to Normandy to die for in nineteen forty four. That
allowed us to put all this infrastructure in place. The
Trump administration and today's GOP has really put that at risk.
(24:27):
China and Russia drooling. They love seeing what's happening. They
love seeing America split apart from our friends in Europe.
This is absolutely their best possible scenario, is what Trump's
doing right now. When I'm in the Senate, I'm going
to try and undo that and put us back on
the right direction.
Speaker 1 (24:43):
You mentioned that you lived in Finland, and I lived
in Finland too, and Jerry lived in what was in
Berlin and what was West Germany before that, and we've
been on those borders. And what's interesting about those borders
between the free and the unfree world is the towers
that are at the borders. The towers in Finland they
look east to protect against Soviets. Hours on the Russian
Soviet side they also look east to keep their people
(25:05):
in and so it's a different thing entirely, And so
you know, we need to defend those things. Those are
important things the people closest to those problems understanding really well.
But I wanted to ask about the thing that I
mentioned when I was looking you up in my introduction
about this circumnavigation of the Earth. Yeah, tell me a
little bit about that if you have time.
Speaker 4 (25:25):
Sure. So that was an amazing project. A friend of
mine put it together. It was on the fiftieth anniversary
the Apollo moon landing. He wanted to do something to
commemorate that, So I got to make a film. I
was actually a director of this film called One More Orbit.
We're trying to set a world record.
Speaker 3 (25:43):
It's the lastest time ever to go from one place
on the Earth, over both poles and back to the
same point on the Earth old in under fourteen hours.
Speaker 4 (25:53):
Calling themselves one More Orbit. Their goal is to complete
the fastest circumnavigation of the Earth via the North and
South Poles in a business this jet and they're live
streaming the whole thing. We took off and landed from
the Kennedy Space Center and we flew over the North
and South Paul and we set a world record for
circumnavigating the globe, for flying around Earth. That was a
fun project.
Speaker 3 (26:11):
So you you mentioned when you took your oath on
the Constitution right to defend the ideals and the Constitution
from all enemies foreign and domestic. And you know I've
served in Afghanistan and Iraq and our province Ramadi, Fallujah
and up country in Afghanistan. John has done time in
the Belly of the Beast in Moscow and some really
dangerous places as well. So service has always been important
(26:35):
to us. And I remember one of my bosses early
on when I was in CIA, said, if you want chicks,
money and fame, you know, join a fucking rock band,
you know, and if you could give us your sense
of like what service meets you? Because none of us
got rich, right, we all chose courses that place strains
on our friends and family, strains on our life.
Speaker 2 (26:57):
You know. We didn't make a lot of money.
Speaker 3 (26:59):
And we took some big risks, but we did it
for something that we believe in, something for service. And
I was wondering, everybody has a sort of a different
take on this, but what's your sense of what does
service mean to you?
Speaker 4 (27:09):
Speaking of rock bands, by the way, I just saw
Metallica last week here in Houston. They were awesome or
all like older than me, but man, those guys could play.
They were getting after it for like hours. I'm reading
this book right now called An Unfinished Love Story. It's
about the nineteen sixties and this couple that was involved
in JFK and lbja's administration. It's a great book. And
reading these speeches that this man Dick Goodwin was writing
(27:31):
for the presidents, they're amazing. And the things that John
Kennedy was saying, I mean he said, ask not what
your country can do for you, but what you can
do for your country. And a lot of times as politicians,
we just want to hand out goodies and promise all
these things and I'll wait my magic wand and everything
will be better. Well that's not true, that's not how
it works. And service is really important.
Speaker 2 (27:52):
You know.
Speaker 4 (27:52):
I did a graduation speech at n F thirty five
highlight graduation from training. And these kids are, I don't know,
twenty three. I was twenty one flying jets when I started,
so they're in their early twenties. They are great. I mean,
they are really good. They're a lot better than I
ever was. And they want to serve their country. And
so there's a lot of young people in America that
want to serve their country, which gives me hope. I
(28:15):
remember when I was based in Germany, used to go
to the Luxembourg American Military Cemetery there. General Patten's buried there,
and I remember just sitting there weeping because it struck
me that all these guys were nineteen twenty years old
and they lost their whole lives. I mean literally, their
whole life was given for us. Those men gave their
(28:35):
lives so that we could live in a free world
without Nazis running things. We'd be speaking German if it
wasn't for them. And I have a really strong sense
that I need to give back. There's a verse in
the Bible that's to those who much has been given,
much will be expected, and I encourage people to think
about that. You know, what have you been given? What's expected?
Not everybody has to run for Senate or join the CIA,
(28:58):
but there's things that you can do to serve your
That's what we've had. We've had a tradition to that,
and I hope that can continue the current administration. I
don't think service is necessarily a thought that crosses that
administration very often, but service before self is one of
the core values of the Air Force. It's one of
the core values of my campaign, and I think it's
(29:18):
what we need for the country.
Speaker 1 (29:19):
Well, thank you for your service, and thank you for
your willingness to continue to serve. Anybody who wants to
help support the campaign can go to Terrytz dot com
and look at his original or first campaign ad.
Speaker 4 (29:31):
It's pretty cool from Orbit Earth takes your breath away.
It felt like seeing creation from God's point of view,
something no human was meant to see. But amidst that beauty,
danger is never far. You learn fast that chaos is lethal,
So you adapt, You solve problems, and you lead because
(29:54):
your lives depend on it. Down here, Trump's chaos must
be stopped. The corruption is overwhelming, our constitution is under attack,
and MAGA wants corrupt Ken Paxton in the Senate. After
the twenty twenty four election disaster, Washington Democratic leadership skip
the debrief while chaos spreads. They claim to the same
(30:17):
old bankrupt ideas that they and not voters, should pick
our candidates and then we should run the same old,
tired playbook again, hoping for a different outcome. This moment
demands something different. Honesty, courage, and a clean break from
the past. I'm an American first, a Texan second, and
a common sense Democrat third. It's time for new leadership.
(30:39):
I'm Terry Urtz. I'm running for US Senate and I'm
ready for my next mission.
Speaker 1 (30:43):
Well, thank you for spending so much time with us today.
We love talking to you, We love getting your opinion
in view one things really appreciate it.
Speaker 4 (30:50):
Thanks for having me on. You guys are awesome.
Speaker 7 (30:56):
Mission Implausible is produced by Adam Davidson, Barrie O'shay, John Seipher,
and Jonathan Stern.
Speaker 2 (31:03):
The associate producer is Rachel Harner.
Speaker 7 (31:06):
Mission Implausible is a production of honorable mention and abominable
pictures for iHeart Podcasts.
I'm John Cipher and I'm Jerry O'Shea. I was a
CIA officer stationed around the world in high threat posts
in Europe, Russia, and in Asia.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
And I served in Africa, Asia, Europe, the Middle East
and in war zones.
Speaker 3 (00:14):
We sometimes created conspiracies to deceive our adversaries.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
Now we're going to use our expertise to deconstruct conspiracy
theories large and small.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Could they be true?
Speaker 4 (00:25):
Or are we being manipulated?
Speaker 1 (00:26):
This is mission implausible.
Speaker 5 (00:31):
And now we continue our conversation with Terry Ertz, former
astronaut and Air Force commander, who recently announces candidacy to
be the Democratic senator from Texas.
Speaker 3 (00:42):
Terry, I want to throw you under the bus my
favorite thing. Yes, why should people vote for you? What's
your vision? Why do you want to do this? And
how do people help?
Speaker 4 (00:52):
That is a great question. I believe that I'm a
candidate who can win. And of course I'm running in Texas,
which is a republican state. It's not super republican. It's
not Wyoming, and it's not Alabama. It's Texas. It's a
little bit republican. And we haven't had a Democrat win
here in over thirty years. So if we keep on
doing the same thing over and over again, we're going
to keep on getting the same result. So I'm a
(01:13):
different kind of candidate. I'm not a politician. I don't
have a ten year voting record with Joe Biden, and
I'm definitely not a national Party darling. They've been very
clear that they don't want me to run, so I
feel like as an outsider that gives me a leg up.
Texans like their independence and that's the kind of Democrat
that I am. I'm also common sense. I'm going to
focus on healthcare, education issues and not on the culture
(01:36):
war stuff that doesn't play well nationally, it doesn't play
well in Texas. Here's a stat for you. Then, there's
thirty two hundred counties in America. About two thousand of
those are rural counties. When Clinton was running for president,
he won more than half of the rural counties. That
number has been going down. Kamala Harris won eight percent.
So basically Democrats have completely lost Bill America. A god
(01:59):
named Shane Golden for the New York Times just did
some great research. He looked at every county over the
last ten years and thirteen hundred counties in America have
been dramatically shifting towards Republicans, and fifty have been shifting
towards Democrats. So the party is lost. It has a
twenty seven percent popularity rating nationwide right now, it's about
(02:21):
the same in Texas, and we're going to get our
butts kicked. And the problem with that is we have
this disaster that is Trump. We have chaotic tariffs that
he shot our national reputation in the foot. Overseas, We're
sending masked men pulling people off the streets, throwing them
in on marked cars. That is the direction we're going
(02:41):
unless Democrats can get better. So I want to be
the kind of independent, common sense Texan Democrat who can
actually win in a state like Texas. And if I
can win in Texas, that'll make national news, right, That
changes the national that changes the international conversation. So if
people want to support me, I would super appreciate that.
Terry Urch dot com is my website, te r r
(03:01):
y v irts and I'm not a politician. I'm not
coming in with a big fundraising base. This is my
first race, so getting fundraising going is super like that's
the rocket fuel that makes the rocket lift off.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
What is the biggest challenge of running in Texas. I
would think would be like not being able to say
openly that the cowboys suck?
Speaker 2 (03:20):
Is it?
Speaker 4 (03:22):
So you know there's Aggi's and Longhorns, and there's Cowboys
and Texans, and there's Astros and Rangers, and you know
there's a West Texas and East Texas. Yeah, there's a
lot of countries here in Texas. You know, Texas were
in a country, we would be the eighth biggest economy
on Earth. It's a huge state. So it's kind of
like running for the top office in the eighth biggest
(03:46):
economy on Earth, you know, like in Germany or England
or something like that. It's a big financial raised the
last election, both candidates raised right around one hundred million
dollars each. I think to win the primary, I'm gonna
need twenty million dollars. You have to have a staff,
and my staff they want to be paid. They're so annoying,
like they expect to have a salaries and they and
(04:07):
you know, I'm trying to work them twenty hours a day,
but they want to get paid for that, and you
have to run ads. I think there's twenty media markets,
I've been told in Texas, so there's Austin in the
Valley and Beaumont. You know, there's all these different media markets,
which means it's expensive because you got to run ads
in all these different places. So there's a lot of
challenges to running in Texas. But I think it's the
right thing. And here's the bottom line. There's an astronaut
(04:29):
senator in Arizona, Mark Kelly, and Texas needs an astronaut senator.
I mean, we can't have at Arizona having one without
Texas having one. So that's my pitch.
Speaker 1 (04:38):
What's the challenge from the Democrats? Who is your challenging
And it seems like they keep running same people over
and over.
Speaker 4 (04:44):
Basically, I don't know yet. As far as I know,
I'm the first one, you know who's been public about announcing.
I assume that the guy that lost the last time
was Colin Alright, I think he's going to run again.
I like Colin, good guy. I was supporting him six
months ago against Ted Cruz by almost ten points. I
did some research on Wikipedia. It's very high tech, and
(05:07):
I went back one hundred years. Nobody has ever lost
the Senate race and then won in Texas in one
hundred years except for one time nineteen sixty LBJ ran
for Senate and vice president. So when he won vice president,
there was a special election for a Senate seat a
few months later, and so John Tower lost originally and
(05:29):
then he won a few months later the special election,
and that was like the week after the bea Pig
or two weeks after the bea Pig's fiasco, and he
won by one percent. So basically, Texans don't if you
lose a Senate race, that's bad omen for trying to
do it again.
Speaker 1 (05:44):
I remember John Tower.
Speaker 2 (05:45):
He used to drink quite a.
Speaker 4 (05:46):
Bit, and he was not Secretary of Defense because I
think mister Reagan, although he did, there was the Tower Commission,
so he did the investigation after Challenger.
Speaker 3 (05:55):
I think it was so terry that John and I
are always asked, like inevitably, what's the best spy movie?
Keving Ben and Cia we have a sort of stink.
So what's the best astronaut movie?
Speaker 4 (06:09):
I have my Mount Rushmore. From a documentary point of view,
is it Spaceball? No, it's not Spaceball, So it's Apollo eleven.
Apollo eleven was a CNN film They did it a
few years ago on the fiftieth anniversary of Apollo, and
it's awesome. I watched it in theater and Imax twice
and I was literally my heart was racing more watching
that movie when they launched than it was when I
(06:31):
actually launched in the space. It's a great documentary about
Apollo eleven.
Speaker 6 (06:35):
Pollow eleven has very simply been given the mission of
carrying men to the Moon, landing them there, and bringing
them safely back, like the color is gone.
Speaker 4 (06:48):
Over landing. I love Apollo thirteen, the Tom Hanks movie.
That's just awesome. It's and it's real, Like it's not
even made up. It's a real story. You know, those
are real characters, good guys put on on the moon.
Speaker 1 (07:02):
This is the crew of Steve Paulow thirteen wishing everyone
back on at pleasant evening.
Speaker 4 (07:14):
Houston, we'd have a problem, And the astronats were actually floating.
They filmed it in the Vomit comment, So there's this
big airliner that goes up and pushes over and you
get twenty to thirty seconds of waitlessness. So all the
scenes of them in space, they're actually floating. They're actually
like they built a little Apollo inside the airliner and
they're filming them floating and the thanks. So I love that.
(07:35):
I love the right stuff. I read the book. I
didn't see the movie for years later, but the book
is just spectacular. It's about Chuck Yeger and the early
Mercury astronauts. It's a great movie. On October fourteenth, nineteen
forty seven, Captain Charles Jaeger shattered the sound barrier.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
You've heard about our project sounds dangerous.
Speaker 4 (07:54):
It's very dangerous.
Speaker 6 (07:56):
Count me in.
Speaker 4 (08:00):
My favorite is Interstellar. I listen to that soundtrack. It's
when I was in space. I would listen to that
soundtrack going to sleep, floating in my sleeping bag. I
listened to it last night here usually most nights on Earth,
I'll just turn it on and let it play while
I fell drift off to sleep. It's a like a
(08:21):
fantasy movie. It's not really a space movie, but it's
a father daughter movie, which is why I like it.
What's your favorite spy movies. I love spy movies.
Speaker 2 (08:36):
Because I was in that media. I like Zero Dark Thority.
Speaker 3 (08:39):
It's kind of dark, but I know some of the
people who their characterized, and I think that's a that's
a good one.
Speaker 4 (08:45):
I watched that in Star City right before I launched.
Speaker 3 (08:47):
But I'd have to say there are some movies that
get some things right, but I don't think there's one
movie out there that really like gets it.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
What do you think, John, There's a couple series and
TV shows that are better than others. There's the French
series The Bureau, and there's The Americans, which has the
sort of cover on how you work under cover stuff, right,
but the murders and things aren't realistic.
Speaker 3 (09:08):
So right back answer then, Terry, what do you think
about Top Gun?
Speaker 2 (09:11):
You were also a fighter pilot? You just how does
it fit it?
Speaker 4 (09:15):
So Top Gun one is the best. I mean, it's
hard to imagine a better movie. It's so entertaining the
lines are I can quote the movie literally. If I
was an actor, I wouldn't need the script. I know
the entire movie by heart. I've seen it five million times.
It came out when I was a kidet so like
I was just I wanted to be a fighter pilot
more than life itself. It was my burning desire. So
(09:37):
I watched that movie a million times, and Top Gun
two was Top Gun one with just older Tom Cruise
and a lot more CG, a lot of the flying
with CG and Top Gun two. I mean they're fun.
They're not realistic, but they're just fun movies. That's why
you go to the movie theater. Jows like it's just
a fun movie to go see. Which, by the way,
Jos fifty years old. Now that's as old as Chuck
(09:57):
Schumer's political career. He got elected when jobs came out.
And I'm running against John Cornyn here in Texas. He
got elected when I was in high school. Wham was
at the top of the church. Wake me up before
you go go when John Cornyn first get elected, These
guys need to be gone.
Speaker 2 (10:14):
When you win, it'll be interesting to talk to you.
Speaker 1 (10:16):
Say, what is it that's so great about being a
politician that people want to stay until they're like ninety
years old?
Speaker 6 (10:21):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (10:22):
I would think that you do your thing and then
you know, when you're seventy, you'd be like, I got
a life ahead of me. I'm done.
Speaker 4 (10:28):
Yeah, that's going to be me, John. Look, the only
way I'm going to die in the Senate is if
I got run over by a bus. And if you win,
what's in it for us or that's handouts, lots of pork. Yeah,
new post offices, curbs for the streets, you know everything.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
So let's take a break.
Speaker 4 (10:45):
We'll be back in a moment.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
To go back to your time as an astronaut. How
does he's traveled change your perspective on things on Earth,
or humanity or politics for that matter.
Speaker 4 (11:07):
It changes them a lot. It is a beautiful planet.
It's an amazing Earth. I just you can't imagine until
you see it yourself. And it's hard to get impressed
with people. A lot of people in our pop culture,
pop politics, Hollywood, they're very impressed with themselves. Donald Trump
likes gold. When you see Earth, it's hard to get
(11:27):
impressed with the latest Kardashian news or whatever. It's like,
there's just a much bigger universe out there, So it
puts that in perspective. The things that matter to me
are people who are doing good for other people, you know,
trying to solve malaria, trying to stop hunger in Africa,
trying to stop wars from happening, trying to help working
class Texans be able to afford to buy a house.
(11:48):
And as far as politics, it hit me after a
few days in space I realized that you can't see
people during the daytime. You can see them at nighttime.
You see them in city lights, and I had never
thought of that. I'm like, oh, wow, there's people, but
during daylight, and if you know what you're looking for,
you could see a city or something, but you don't
notice it. And then it hit me after a few
more days, I'm like, city lights at night, you're not
(12:10):
seeing population, you're seeing wealth because in Africa there's no
lights on. In North Korea South koreasm I could show
you a picture. There's a striking difference between North and
South Korea, and what you're really seeing there is corruption
in politics. You're seeing systems that work and you're seeing
systems that don't.
Speaker 2 (12:27):
Right.
Speaker 4 (12:27):
Africa is like, unfortunately full of corrupt folks. So that
was my take from space. It's a beautiful planet. It's
hard to get too impressed with people who think they're
important or want to make gold plated whatever in the
Oval office. Politics need to be done right and not
in a corrupt way, which is the way this administration
wants to do them.
Speaker 3 (12:48):
Intelligence is about fix, or at least assessing fix as
best we can, and you're both as a fighter pilot
is and an astronaut expertise and scientific fis X are like,
that's how things work. So you can out of a
fit base milieu and we get a teamwork.
Speaker 5 (13:06):
Right.
Speaker 3 (13:06):
The fighter pilot doesn't you know, he doesn't guess off
the plane and you know, and fix it and all.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
The rest of that. So what's your sense going into politics?
Speaker 3 (13:14):
What is it you want to do as far as
promoting expertise, accepting fix even if they conflict with.
Speaker 2 (13:20):
What you believe.
Speaker 4 (13:21):
So I think that's my selling point. I mean, I'm
not a politician. I'm not doing this just to join
Team D so I can bash Team ARE, which is
what they do constantly. That's not what Texans want, That's
all what most Americans want.
Speaker 5 (13:35):
You know.
Speaker 4 (13:35):
There's a thing called a bell curve. Right, it's fat
in the middle, and it's skinny on the right and
on the left, and most Americans are in the middle
of most things. I think that's my experience in life,
and so I just want to solve things. You know,
when I'm eluctant Senator, I'm going to go meet with
Ted Cruz and I'm going to shake his hand and say, Ted,
what can we do? For Texas. You know, we're not
going to agree on very much, but there's some things
(13:56):
we can agree on. We'll agree on the space falls, like,
there's probably space work we can do. Let's agree on energy.
I'm a big all of the above energy. I've been
working for nov which is an oil and gas company,
for the last four years as a consultant, helping them
do energy transition technology. So let's work on energy anyway.
I want to figure out how we can solve things.
How can we solve the debt the normal political process
(14:16):
of well, we'll vote at fifty one to forty nine
in the Senate and then make this giant sweeping thing.
That's the wrong way to do things. We need to negotiate.
Let's try and figure out what works for everybody. When
you have a disagreement in the Senate, for example, there
should be some give and take. Let's negotiate. I don't
like everything about this bill, but I like most of it.
(14:37):
I'm going to want to actually govern and work with
both sides, and that the art of that has been gone. Unfortunately,
we don't get the politicians that we want. We get
the politicians that they want. And the reason that that
happens is something called jerrymandering. The districts here in Texas
are so funny. Some people are like, you should run
for House. There's no winnable House seats because they're so
(14:58):
badly jurymannered. And then we do partisan primary, so only
the most extreme Republicans pick the Republican candidate, and only
the most extreme left wing Democrats pick the Democratic candidate.
So the House is fifty to fifty, but it's fifty
to fifty with some of them, not all, but many
of the most extreme people. So the system that we
have is just not designed to work properly. And I
(15:19):
do want to work properly. So I want to work
with both parties to actually govern and do things that
the Texans want. I think that's a difference between a lot,
not all, but that many of the politicians today.
Speaker 1 (15:30):
I think we need to start electing a few people
like you and others that are trying to work to
the center instead of to the extremes. And there's some
young politicians who seem good at that. You know, obviously
we go Spanenberger here in Virginia seems to be able
to work across the aisle and list of Slotkin these
are both CIA people.
Speaker 2 (15:45):
That's the way we.
Speaker 1 (15:48):
Think. But you know, the system is creating this problem
that you say, yeah, But let me just say as well,
a Texas thing that we don't necessarily have a strong
opinion on. I don't think Jerry and I we would
like come and sense solutions immigration. It seems like something
that our Congress, our Senate end house has essentially kicked
on the road for years, and it's created the problems
we lead now, and now we're attacking each other rather
(16:10):
than solving them. So what's your take as a Texan
on what the dangers of immigration and what maybe we
can do?
Speaker 4 (16:17):
So I feel very strongly about this. I love legal
immigration and I think we should have zero illegal immigration.
Everybody here in Texas is an immigrant from somewhere. Everybody,
even Native Americans thousands of years ago, came across the
Burying Sea from Russia. Everybody came from somewhere to be here.
And by the way, our economy depends on immigrants. You know,
I'm going to have some strawberries for lunch. They were
(16:39):
I'm sure picked by immigrants. I live in a house
that was built by immigrants. There's a lot of important
work that makes our economy function.
Speaker 1 (16:46):
But you talked about the political the system is the problem. Yeah,
but the immigration system is part of the problem because
you're saying you don't want no illegal immigration, but there's
almost no means to get in legally because we haven't
created a system, not prohective immigration reform.
Speaker 4 (17:02):
Congress has completely failed. Last year, there was a very strong,
one of the most Republican immigration bills of all time.
Democrats wanted to pass it. I talked to a Republican senator,
he told me face to face. Trump called Senator Lankford
from Oklahoma, former preacher, one of the most conservative Republicans
in the Senate. I think a good man. He negotiated
(17:25):
this bill. This was a tough bill, very tough on
the numbers of people who were allowed to come over,
thousands of more border patrol agents, thousands of more judges.
It was going to break this logjam. Trump called the
Republicans and said, don't vote for it. I want immigration
to be an issue for the election. So the Republican
Party chose party over country. They actively chose to hurt
(17:48):
America and continued this immigration disaster that was happening. So
Republicans are hugely responsible for this because they wouldn't vote
for that bill when they should. And Democrats are respond
well too. I mean, Biden was president for four years.
There were millions of illegals coming over, and Democrats would
not stand up and say, hey, this needs to stop.
Let's stop this. He could have taken extraordinary measures, he
(18:11):
could have taken leadership. They gasled America and they said,
don't worry. The legal immigration's fine. If you're against it,
you're a bad person. And that was wrong. And you
know what, now Donald Trump's president. Because Democrats would not
accept responsibility for what was a profound failure in this
immigration disaster. Americans said, we trust Donald Trump more than
we trust Democrats. And that's an indictment on my own party.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
Sounds like you're making the right enemies.
Speaker 4 (18:35):
I have no problem making enemies about NASA.
Speaker 1 (18:38):
You know, we talked about these new companies and Musk. Yeah,
now a space force. You know, you worked through an
organization NASA, big bureaucracy like we worked in CIA.
Speaker 4 (18:48):
Big briain.
Speaker 2 (18:49):
Yeah. What is the future of NASA?
Speaker 1 (18:51):
What is its role and if any in sort of
managing all these different things that are happening, is it
and there's been huge NASA cuts. Are those good things?
Bad things?
Speaker 2 (18:59):
What's your take?
Speaker 4 (19:00):
Yeah? So, if I have anything to say about it,
NASA will have an important public private partnership role going
forward in exploration. The science that NASA does is super important,
super interesting in its world leading and what Trump has
proposed in his proposed budget is an absolute disaster. It's
(19:20):
unmitigated disaster for the nation space capability. It's a national
security issue too. I'm here in Houston. There's thousands of
people at the Johnson Space Center that are going to
get laid off. Trump is proposing of fifty percent cut
in science. And it's not only a NASA, it's also
across the government. It's a National Science Foundation, National Institute
of Health, Department of Energy, all the different government agencies
(19:42):
that do research. There's a big radar right here in
my hometown in South Houston that tracks the hurricanes. Whenever
you see the hurricane coming across the Gulf, this is
the radar that does it. They're going to be losing
a lot of researchers and a lot of scientists who
attract this weather. So the science cuts that Trump is
doing are absolutely disastrous, and he's doing that to save
(20:04):
pennies on the dollar so that he can give tax
cuts to billionaires. It's immoral, it's disgusting. It's going to
hurt Texas and generations to come. Kids who are here
at Texas A and M and University of Texas and
Rice that want a job. There's not going to be
any jobs. NASA is not hiring. None of the companies
around here are hiring. They're all laying off. What's happening
(20:24):
right now is a terrible state of affairs for science.
I hope Congress does its job and resets it, but
even their damage is still done. Even if Congress resets
a budget that's reasonable, they can still do real damage
just being the executive branch.
Speaker 1 (20:40):
Just hold on for a short break.
Speaker 2 (20:41):
We'll be right back, Terry.
Speaker 3 (20:53):
We talked about Russia, and you know Russians, and you
understand the air war.
Speaker 2 (20:58):
The politics of it. What what would be your Ukraine policy?
Speaker 4 (21:03):
That's a great question. My first Ukraine policy would be
to make an unequivocal stance that hey, we are on
the side of Ukraine. You're our allies, We're going to
support you. I've been there several times in the last
year doing humanitarian emissions, delivering ambulances. I mean, these folks
are our allies. These are the good guys. There's no
moral equivalent here. Vladimir Putin wants to be Catcher in
(21:26):
the Great he wants to restore the Russian Empire. He's
attacking a free and independent country. He's violating the nineteen
ninety four agreement where they gave up their nuclear weapons
in exchange for some security agreements. We're not honoring our
side of that deal. And by the way, other countries
are noticing, Hey, if you sign a deal with America,
you can't trust them. We backed out of Buddhapest memorandum,
(21:46):
we backed out of the Iran deal. We've backed out
of lots of deals. So countries have noticed that America
is not dependable and that's not acceptable. When I saw
Vladimir Selenski get berated in the White House, it was
one of the worst days of my life. I couldn't
imagine and the country that I love so much would
be berating our friend and victim and praising this monstrous
(22:08):
terrorist enemy in Vladimir Putin. One of the most important
things in my life. In nineteen ninety five, I led
four f sixteens on a Missing Man formation at Colville
Sir Mayor over the American Military Cemetery in Normandy, France,
and I remember I was so emotional. I'm like, man,
Americans came here, We liberated Europe, we fought the enemies.
(22:28):
When I was sixteen years old, I live in an
exchange program in Finland, and I lived in a town
that was right on the Soviet border. We were on
a lake and part of the lake was the Soviet
Union and part of the lake was Finland. And that
really made an impact on me. And I was like, man,
these people they can't leave. There's guards there keeping them in.
When they would come on tourist visits, they had to
walk in a line. They couldn't, you know. I was like,
(22:50):
this sucks. So the next year I went to the
Air Force Academy raise my right hand to defend Europe
from Russia, because I knew how dangerous they were and
we need to bring that realization, like let's open our
eyes up and realize that there are bad people on earth. Russia, China,
North Korea, Iran, they don't share values. They're authoritarian surveillance states,
(23:12):
and there are good people on Earth and We need
to get back into that moral compass aligned towards true north,
and this administration has thrown that out the window. We
need to we need to go reach out and pull
bring it back in the window.
Speaker 2 (23:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (23:25):
The rules based order that the US established after World
War Two, that's allowed us to become wealthy and a
world leader. It's also not just about defending Europe and
defending our ideals and democracy. It's also about defending our
jobs and our place in the world.
Speaker 5 (23:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (23:42):
Let me say real quick, Texas, I was bragging about
how big our economy is. Our trade so just imports
and exports are right around four hundred and forty billion dollars.
So if all Texas did was important export goods to
and from other countries, we would still be a top
third economy in the world. Trade is incredibly important to tech,
you know, to mechanics, to school teachers, to policemen. Our
(24:04):
economy thrives. The reason why the Texas economy is so
awesome and it's so big and important is because of trade.
And the reason why trade is so successful is because
of the rules based order that these young men went
to Normandy to die for in nineteen forty four. That
allowed us to put all this infrastructure in place. The
Trump administration and today's GOP has really put that at risk.
(24:27):
China and Russia drooling. They love seeing what's happening. They
love seeing America split apart from our friends in Europe.
This is absolutely their best possible scenario, is what Trump's
doing right now. When I'm in the Senate, I'm going
to try and undo that and put us back on
the right direction.
Speaker 1 (24:43):
You mentioned that you lived in Finland, and I lived
in Finland too, and Jerry lived in what was in
Berlin and what was West Germany before that, and we've
been on those borders. And what's interesting about those borders
between the free and the unfree world is the towers
that are at the borders. The towers in Finland they
look east to protect against Soviets. Hours on the Russian
Soviet side they also look east to keep their people
(25:05):
in and so it's a different thing entirely, And so
you know, we need to defend those things. Those are
important things the people closest to those problems understanding really well.
But I wanted to ask about the thing that I
mentioned when I was looking you up in my introduction
about this circumnavigation of the Earth. Yeah, tell me a
little bit about that if you have time.
Speaker 4 (25:25):
Sure. So that was an amazing project. A friend of
mine put it together. It was on the fiftieth anniversary
the Apollo moon landing. He wanted to do something to
commemorate that, So I got to make a film. I
was actually a director of this film called One More Orbit.
We're trying to set a world record.
Speaker 3 (25:43):
It's the lastest time ever to go from one place
on the Earth, over both poles and back to the
same point on the Earth old in under fourteen hours.
Speaker 4 (25:53):
Calling themselves one More Orbit. Their goal is to complete
the fastest circumnavigation of the Earth via the North and
South Poles in a business this jet and they're live
streaming the whole thing. We took off and landed from
the Kennedy Space Center and we flew over the North
and South Paul and we set a world record for
circumnavigating the globe, for flying around Earth. That was a
fun project.
Speaker 3 (26:11):
So you you mentioned when you took your oath on
the Constitution right to defend the ideals and the Constitution
from all enemies foreign and domestic. And you know I've
served in Afghanistan and Iraq and our province Ramadi, Fallujah
and up country in Afghanistan. John has done time in
the Belly of the Beast in Moscow and some really
dangerous places as well. So service has always been important
(26:35):
to us. And I remember one of my bosses early
on when I was in CIA, said, if you want chicks,
money and fame, you know, join a fucking rock band,
you know, and if you could give us your sense
of like what service meets you? Because none of us
got rich, right, we all chose courses that place strains
on our friends and family, strains on our life.
Speaker 2 (26:57):
You know. We didn't make a lot of money.
Speaker 3 (26:59):
And we took some big risks, but we did it
for something that we believe in, something for service. And
I was wondering, everybody has a sort of a different
take on this, but what's your sense of what does
service mean to you?
Speaker 4 (27:09):
Speaking of rock bands, by the way, I just saw
Metallica last week here in Houston. They were awesome or
all like older than me, but man, those guys could play.
They were getting after it for like hours. I'm reading
this book right now called An Unfinished Love Story. It's
about the nineteen sixties and this couple that was involved
in JFK and lbja's administration. It's a great book. And
reading these speeches that this man Dick Goodwin was writing
(27:31):
for the presidents, they're amazing. And the things that John
Kennedy was saying, I mean he said, ask not what
your country can do for you, but what you can
do for your country. And a lot of times as politicians,
we just want to hand out goodies and promise all
these things and I'll wait my magic wand and everything
will be better. Well that's not true, that's not how
it works. And service is really important.
Speaker 2 (27:52):
You know.
Speaker 4 (27:52):
I did a graduation speech at n F thirty five
highlight graduation from training. And these kids are, I don't know,
twenty three. I was twenty one flying jets when I started,
so they're in their early twenties. They are great. I mean,
they are really good. They're a lot better than I
ever was. And they want to serve their country. And
so there's a lot of young people in America that
want to serve their country, which gives me hope. I
(28:15):
remember when I was based in Germany, used to go
to the Luxembourg American Military Cemetery there. General Patten's buried there,
and I remember just sitting there weeping because it struck
me that all these guys were nineteen twenty years old
and they lost their whole lives. I mean literally, their
whole life was given for us. Those men gave their
(28:35):
lives so that we could live in a free world
without Nazis running things. We'd be speaking German if it
wasn't for them. And I have a really strong sense
that I need to give back. There's a verse in
the Bible that's to those who much has been given,
much will be expected, and I encourage people to think
about that. You know, what have you been given? What's expected?
Not everybody has to run for Senate or join the CIA,
(28:58):
but there's things that you can do to serve your
That's what we've had. We've had a tradition to that,
and I hope that can continue the current administration. I
don't think service is necessarily a thought that crosses that
administration very often, but service before self is one of
the core values of the Air Force. It's one of
the core values of my campaign, and I think it's
(29:18):
what we need for the country.
Speaker 1 (29:19):
Well, thank you for your service, and thank you for
your willingness to continue to serve. Anybody who wants to
help support the campaign can go to Terrytz dot com
and look at his original or first campaign ad.
Speaker 4 (29:31):
It's pretty cool from Orbit Earth takes your breath away.
It felt like seeing creation from God's point of view,
something no human was meant to see. But amidst that beauty,
danger is never far. You learn fast that chaos is lethal,
So you adapt, You solve problems, and you lead because
(29:54):
your lives depend on it. Down here, Trump's chaos must
be stopped. The corruption is overwhelming, our constitution is under attack,
and MAGA wants corrupt Ken Paxton in the Senate. After
the twenty twenty four election disaster, Washington Democratic leadership skip
the debrief while chaos spreads. They claim to the same
(30:17):
old bankrupt ideas that they and not voters, should pick
our candidates and then we should run the same old,
tired playbook again, hoping for a different outcome. This moment
demands something different. Honesty, courage, and a clean break from
the past. I'm an American first, a Texan second, and
a common sense Democrat third. It's time for new leadership.
(30:39):
I'm Terry Urtz. I'm running for US Senate and I'm
ready for my next mission.
Speaker 1 (30:43):
Well, thank you for spending so much time with us today.
We love talking to you, We love getting your opinion
in view one things really appreciate it.
Speaker 4 (30:50):
Thanks for having me on. You guys are awesome.
Speaker 7 (30:56):
Mission Implausible is produced by Adam Davidson, Barrie O'shay, John Seipher,
and Jonathan Stern.
Speaker 2 (31:03):
The associate producer is Rachel Harner.
Speaker 7 (31:06):
Mission Implausible is a production of honorable mention and abominable
pictures for iHeart Podcasts.
Hosts And Creators
Adam Davidson
John Sipher
Jerry O'Shea
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