Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
President Trump announcing you as Space Command moving to Alabama.
Much reaction to this move, especially from Colorado's congressional delegation,
with the entire delegation unanimously coming out against the President's decision,
joining us now.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
In the KA Commaspirit Health hotline. Congressman Jason Crow, who
also serves on the House Armed Services Committee, Congressman, welcome
back to Colorado's Morning News. Just to jump right into it.
Is there anything within reason or is reasonable, whether military readiness,
war fighting, lethality, A lot of those words that the
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseith brings up, proximity contractors, costs
(00:33):
that you see at all that makes this move logical
or strategic? You know?
Speaker 3 (00:39):
There just is that I have strained to see any
angle of this that is positive. And I've spent my
life largely in defense of this country. And this is
the true definition of an unforced error. You know, a
Space Command has been here for years. It is fully operational,
it's fully staffed, we have the talent, we're doing the mission.
We are working against our ades like China and others
(01:02):
in a hotly contested space race to try to gain
dominance and catch up actually in a lot of ways,
and the fact that we're going to move this now
and lose years of time and try to rebuild it
in a different state is just truly unbelievable and will
undermine our national security.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
The Congressional Delegation statement, like you just mentioned, says at weekends,
our national security at a worst possible time. So what
are some of those concerns that you have about national
security or what would the process of moving Space Command
look like?
Speaker 3 (01:32):
Well, we do even know what the process is going
to look like. But what we do know is that
it's going to cost hundreds of millions of dollars. So
let's be clear about something. Nobody was asking for this.
No generals were asking for it. Space Force was not
asking for it, Space Command was not asking for it.
Anybody who knows anything about space or national security was
not asking for this. The President was very clear in
(01:53):
his press conference yesterday announcing the move that the reason
he's moving this is because Colorado has mail it voting
and he doesn't like mail in voting, despite the fact
that it works and it increases voter participation.
Speaker 1 (02:06):
So this is a.
Speaker 3 (02:07):
Politically motivated decision. We're going to be far worse off
as a country. It's going to jeopardize the safety and
security of our troops. It's really a bad.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
Decision, and it should be pointed out that Alabama has
it as well. They call it ABS and tee voting,
but it is a form of mail in voting a
little different than Colorado's, but they still offer it. Congressman,
what do you make of that? I think it was
the GAO five six years ago that came out with
that report. It was sort of a mixed bag. It
didn't really endorse either location, but said Huntsville would be okay.
But I know it was peeled back because they felt
(02:36):
some of the data was a little grain, didn't really
show that Huntsville would make a lot of sense. But
you probably saw that data. What do you make of that?
Speaker 3 (02:43):
Yeah, it could have gone either way, you know, years ago,
it could have gone in Huntsville, could have gone here.
Ultimately it was placed in Colorado because of the ecosystem, right,
There were a lot of different factors. They looked at
the cost of housing, they looked at the infrastructure to
the cost of electricity, They looked at the talent. You know,
where does is more than anything? What makes this successful
(03:06):
and a highly skilled and extremely technical workforce. Now let's
remember these are people who are operating in satellites, who
are doing you know, very technical computer computing, encoding skills
and all sorts of things that frankly are much smarter
than me that try to figure out how to do
you know, that's about talent. In Colorado has that talent.
(03:27):
We have an incredibly educated workforce. We have people coming
out of the universities here that know how to do
this stuff. So that's why they ended up placing it here.
And we also have tons of space. You know, we
have Buckley Space Force Space, we have Shriever, we have
a lot of infrastructure and a lot of economies of
scale in Colorado that ultimately made this the right place
to put it. So moving it is going to take
(03:48):
all of that away. And what we do know for
sure is that a vast majority of the civilian workforce,
because Space Command relies more on civilian workers than almost
any other command. Right, you have your uniform military person,
Now do you have a highly skilled and technical civilian workforce.
Those folks just aren't going to move. They're going to
stay here in Colorado because their families are here, their
(04:09):
kids are going to school here. They love Colorado like
we all do. They're just not going to move. So
now we're going to be without that talent. It's going
to take us years to recruit and train and build
that up again. And meanwhile, China's moving ahead at light speed,
so we're going to fall further behind them. And that
is a great travesty.
Speaker 1 (04:28):
Congressman in a video statement yesterday, you said you would
fight back as much as you can against this. But
what can you do or what will you try to do?
I mean, is this a done deal?
Speaker 3 (04:39):
Well, it'll take years to do or to undo, we
should say, so we're going to do everything possible. Listen,
I'm never going to stop fighting for Colorado. I'm never
going to stop fighting for our national security and our troops.
If something is wrong, I'm going to always try to
fix it. I just don't give up. That's not in
my nature. So you know, we're going to look at appropriations.
We're going to look at ways of slow this down.
(05:01):
We're going to look at ways of retaining as much
admission as possible and getting additional basing. You know, we're
going to look at everything and just try to be
as creative, and as you mentioned in your introduction, the
delegation is unanimous here. You know, it doesn't happen often,
but it happens occasionally. We're every single one of us,
regardless of our backgrounds, is that this is a huge
(05:22):
mistake and it's bad not just for the state, but
for the country and for our national security. And we
are a lockstep in that. So we're going to fight
back however we can.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
Final question, Congressman, I know that some people across the
aisle from you, they've been harping on fraud, waste, and abuse.
I'll set aside the fraud piece in the in the
abuse maybe a little bit there, but what is this
going to cost tax payers? What's going to cost Colorado?
I mean to me, that seems like a lot of
waste to make this move.
Speaker 3 (05:47):
Yeah, it's a ton of waste, and it's unnecessary waste.
It's going to I've seen projections that say would cost
you upwards of several hundred million dollars, which makes sense
because you have to move a lot of technology, you
have to build a lot of infrastructure, you have to
rebuild new buildings. You know, this is a whole command
These are thousands of people. This is a whole military
(06:08):
command that would have to be rebuilt in a different location.
So that is an extremely pricey endeavor. And you know, listen,
I am a government reformer. There is a waste and
abuse in government, There's no doubt about that. There's a
lot at the Department of Defense. I have spent years
trying to root out that waste and abuse and make
things more efficient, to save money for taxpayers, to make
(06:29):
it better and leaner and meaner for the war fighters
so it can actually do our job and protect our country.
And this is just a prime example of some of
the worst waste that I've seen in recent years.
Speaker 1 (06:42):
Congressman Jason Crow, thank you so much for your time
this morning.
President Trump announcing you as Space Command moving to Alabama.
Much reaction to this move, especially from Colorado's congressional delegation,
with the entire delegation unanimously coming out against the President's decision,
joining us now.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
In the KA Commaspirit Health hotline. Congressman Jason Crow, who
also serves on the House Armed Services Committee, Congressman, welcome
back to Colorado's Morning News. Just to jump right into it.
Is there anything within reason or is reasonable, whether military readiness,
war fighting, lethality, A lot of those words that the
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseith brings up, proximity contractors, costs
(00:33):
that you see at all that makes this move logical
or strategic? You know?
Speaker 3 (00:39):
There just is that I have strained to see any
angle of this that is positive. And I've spent my
life largely in defense of this country. And this is
the true definition of an unforced error. You know, a
Space Command has been here for years. It is fully operational,
it's fully staffed, we have the talent, we're doing the mission.
We are working against our ades like China and others
(01:02):
in a hotly contested space race to try to gain
dominance and catch up actually in a lot of ways,
and the fact that we're going to move this now
and lose years of time and try to rebuild it
in a different state is just truly unbelievable and will
undermine our national security.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
The Congressional Delegation statement, like you just mentioned, says at weekends,
our national security at a worst possible time. So what
are some of those concerns that you have about national
security or what would the process of moving Space Command
look like?
Speaker 3 (01:32):
Well, we do even know what the process is going
to look like. But what we do know is that
it's going to cost hundreds of millions of dollars. So
let's be clear about something. Nobody was asking for this.
No generals were asking for it. Space Force was not
asking for it, Space Command was not asking for it.
Anybody who knows anything about space or national security was
not asking for this. The President was very clear in
(01:53):
his press conference yesterday announcing the move that the reason
he's moving this is because Colorado has mail it voting
and he doesn't like mail in voting, despite the fact
that it works and it increases voter participation.
Speaker 1 (02:06):
So this is a.
Speaker 3 (02:07):
Politically motivated decision. We're going to be far worse off
as a country. It's going to jeopardize the safety and
security of our troops. It's really a bad.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
Decision, and it should be pointed out that Alabama has
it as well. They call it ABS and tee voting,
but it is a form of mail in voting a
little different than Colorado's, but they still offer it. Congressman,
what do you make of that? I think it was
the GAO five six years ago that came out with
that report. It was sort of a mixed bag. It
didn't really endorse either location, but said Huntsville would be okay.
But I know it was peeled back because they felt
(02:36):
some of the data was a little grain, didn't really
show that Huntsville would make a lot of sense. But
you probably saw that data. What do you make of that?
Speaker 3 (02:43):
Yeah, it could have gone either way, you know, years ago,
it could have gone in Huntsville, could have gone here.
Ultimately it was placed in Colorado because of the ecosystem, right,
There were a lot of different factors. They looked at
the cost of housing, they looked at the infrastructure to
the cost of electricity, They looked at the talent. You know,
where does is more than anything? What makes this successful
(03:06):
and a highly skilled and extremely technical workforce. Now let's
remember these are people who are operating in satellites, who
are doing you know, very technical computer computing, encoding skills
and all sorts of things that frankly are much smarter
than me that try to figure out how to do
you know, that's about talent. In Colorado has that talent.
(03:27):
We have an incredibly educated workforce. We have people coming
out of the universities here that know how to do
this stuff. So that's why they ended up placing it here.
And we also have tons of space. You know, we
have Buckley Space Force Space, we have Shriever, we have
a lot of infrastructure and a lot of economies of
scale in Colorado that ultimately made this the right place
to put it. So moving it is going to take
(03:48):
all of that away. And what we do know for
sure is that a vast majority of the civilian workforce,
because Space Command relies more on civilian workers than almost
any other command. Right, you have your uniform military person,
Now do you have a highly skilled and technical civilian workforce.
Those folks just aren't going to move. They're going to
stay here in Colorado because their families are here, their
(04:09):
kids are going to school here. They love Colorado like
we all do. They're just not going to move. So
now we're going to be without that talent. It's going
to take us years to recruit and train and build
that up again. And meanwhile, China's moving ahead at light speed,
so we're going to fall further behind them. And that
is a great travesty.
Speaker 1 (04:28):
Congressman in a video statement yesterday, you said you would
fight back as much as you can against this. But
what can you do or what will you try to do?
I mean, is this a done deal?
Speaker 3 (04:39):
Well, it'll take years to do or to undo, we
should say, so we're going to do everything possible. Listen,
I'm never going to stop fighting for Colorado. I'm never
going to stop fighting for our national security and our troops.
If something is wrong, I'm going to always try to
fix it. I just don't give up. That's not in
my nature. So you know, we're going to look at appropriations.
We're going to look at ways of slow this down.
(05:01):
We're going to look at ways of retaining as much
admission as possible and getting additional basing. You know, we're
going to look at everything and just try to be
as creative, and as you mentioned in your introduction, the
delegation is unanimous here. You know, it doesn't happen often,
but it happens occasionally. We're every single one of us,
regardless of our backgrounds, is that this is a huge
(05:22):
mistake and it's bad not just for the state, but
for the country and for our national security. And we
are a lockstep in that. So we're going to fight
back however we can.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
Final question, Congressman, I know that some people across the
aisle from you, they've been harping on fraud, waste, and abuse.
I'll set aside the fraud piece in the in the
abuse maybe a little bit there, but what is this
going to cost tax payers? What's going to cost Colorado?
I mean to me, that seems like a lot of
waste to make this move.
Speaker 3 (05:47):
Yeah, it's a ton of waste, and it's unnecessary waste.
It's going to I've seen projections that say would cost
you upwards of several hundred million dollars, which makes sense
because you have to move a lot of technology, you
have to build a lot of infrastructure, you have to
rebuild new buildings. You know, this is a whole command
These are thousands of people. This is a whole military
(06:08):
command that would have to be rebuilt in a different location.
So that is an extremely pricey endeavor. And you know, listen,
I am a government reformer. There is a waste and
abuse in government, There's no doubt about that. There's a
lot at the Department of Defense. I have spent years
trying to root out that waste and abuse and make
things more efficient, to save money for taxpayers, to make
(06:29):
it better and leaner and meaner for the war fighters
so it can actually do our job and protect our country.
And this is just a prime example of some of
the worst waste that I've seen in recent years.
Speaker 1 (06:42):
Congressman Jason Crow, thank you so much for your time
this morning.
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