Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Mike, your math on human trafficking is wrong because each
incident typically involves multiple victims. So your math is based
on one victim per incident. Not unusual to have twelve
victims per incident.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Well, it's not my math, it's their math.
Speaker 3 (00:18):
And yes, there may be more than one person involved,
but they're calculating on the number of incidents reported, and
I don't know what the incidents reported include. I swear engineers.
I swear, damn engineering. They got a nitpick at every
little thing they can possibly.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
Find, totally unlike lawyers. Well, exactly, that's exactly right. Dragon.
Speaker 3 (00:45):
I'm glad you recognized that I've reserved saying anything about
what's going on in North Carolina and parts of Georgia
for that matter, because having having been through the type
(01:07):
of media the media, rectal examination, firing squad, yeah, firing squad,
firing squad, rectal examination, whatever you want to call it,
I'm loath to say anything and and want to give
benefit of the doubt to what's going on, primarily because
(01:33):
people generally don't understand until a disaster hits you. You
don't really understand the logistics that are involved in trying
to respond to something like that, and then you pile them.
And by the logistics I mean is I think I
said earlier this week, probably a Monday, I think I
(01:54):
talked about this. You know, for example, to Landishanook or
a black Hawk, you need a fairly wide berth. You
need you need a large l Z, a large landing
zone in.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
Order to do that.
Speaker 3 (02:10):
Well, you unless there just happens to be a naturally
occurring l Z that's large enough for a Chinook or
a black Hawk to land. You have to get people
in to create that l Z, and that in and
of itself takes time because you've got to, uh, you've
(02:34):
got to move people in on the ground in order
to clear out that area. The other alternative is to
put you know, to for for more likely than not,
a Chinook too slowly lower some you know, heavy earth
(02:56):
moving equipment one piece at a time to slowly start
doing it, all of which takes time. So just to
create a landing zone could take at a minimum a
day and twenty four hours in a disaster when people
are dying, twenty four hours. When you're trying to move
as much material and equipment and supplies, twenty four hours
(03:20):
is like twenty four days. It's time is highly compact
in a disaster, every minute counts. So I've tried to
watch the news, I've tried to you know, talk to
some people that are you know, in the know about
(03:40):
what's happening, and I've given them enough time. But now
it's time to really talk about what the hell is
going on? What's going on? Well, let's start first with
Alejandro Majorcis, the Secretary of Homeland Security.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
Would I wonder.
Speaker 3 (04:10):
Part of the issue in any disaster is the flow
of information. My theory always was and is to this day,
that people if there's if there's a hard truth, for example,
just like I described the logistics of create creating an LZ,
(04:35):
if people understand that their their frustrations may still exist,
but at least they know and can comprehend and they
can process what's going on to help them. If you
don't communicate what you're doing to help someone, then the
(04:56):
frustration level just magnifies and gets even worse. And then
that's when because remember people are in shock. So when
you're in shock, both physically and mentally, everything is exacerbated.
Every single thing is worse. So go back to communications.
(05:17):
If you don't communicate to someone who is in shock.
Then their shock turns to anger and frustration, and so
then they get even madder, and and and when they
get mad and they're frustrated, they may make irrational decisions
that put themselves in danger. So you've got to communicate
(05:41):
even if the even if the message that you want
to deliver is a bad message, that listen, it's gonna
take it. You know, I'm just gonna make up stories
here for a moment. But if if you're trying to
get to a particular I remember a particular town in
California was completely devastated by the wildfires, and we were
(06:04):
having a difficult time again because this is this was
a highly forested area that had just been totally dea
and it was a poor community. It was basically very small,
single family homes and mostly trailer mobile homes. Well, trying
(06:25):
to get into that area because of all the burned
and down trees was incredibly difficult.
Speaker 2 (06:33):
So we finally.
Speaker 3 (06:34):
Managed to get using DoD assets, not using not using anything,
but using dood assets, we were able to get into
that community so that I could tell people. And of
course we dragged along, you know, some a press pool
with us so they could report the same thing, to
tell them that this is what we're doing. And you know,
(06:57):
we we brought with us some minimal supply, some you know,
some food and water, enough to get by for at
least the next say, twenty four to thirty six, maybe
forty eight hours, until we can really get everything in
that you need.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
That went so far in calming.
Speaker 3 (07:19):
People down because even though they didn't get everything they
wanted initially, they got a little something to tide them over,
and they now knew the process that we were going
through to get things to them made all the difference
in the world. I don't see that happening here. I
(07:41):
don't see that happening anywhere. And that gets to not
just Alejandro Mayorcus the Secretary of Homeland Security, but where's
the FEMA director.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
Where is she?
Speaker 3 (07:54):
Because she should be doing briefings with the media, and
she is and I'm not hearing it. Then I'll criticize
the media, But they ought to be telling us, what
are you doing? Just tell us what you're doing, and
sometimes it's even more important to tell us what you're
not doing and maybe why you're not doing it. So communications,
(08:20):
let's just think about communications. The Biden Harris government's hold
Land Security Secretary Allehanda may Orcus is now suggesting that FEMA,
which should never been put in well, department of full
man Security, should never been created in the first place.
That's a whole other story. He is suggesting that FEMA
(08:45):
likely will not have enough money in its budget to
get through hurricane season now, while FEMA claims that the
catastrophic damaging caused from Hurricane Helene will limit its ability
to respond to future storms. FEMA announced three hundred and
eighty million dollars in supplemental funding for illegal immigrant housing
(09:10):
less than a month ago, bringing the total that FEMA
is taking out of the disaster Relief Fund to over
a billion dollars for FY twenty twenty four for illegal
immigrant housing. You have told you before that there were
(09:32):
times in DC where I would go to a conservative
member of Congress or Republican and say, you know, we
shouldn't be doing this or this, because it's one it's
it's really not a conservative principle to be doing what
we're doing. And the other point I would say to
(09:53):
them is and that totally detracts from what the mission
of FEMA is. And they would look at me like
I was crazy, Like I was I was being I
was being a horrible person. I was being blasphemous by
even suggesting me not doing it because it was a
(10:15):
pet project of theirs, and it was kind of a
it's it's it's rude awakening to understand that sometimes doing
the right thing is not going to get done simply
because members of Congress are a bunch of idiots. They're stupid,
they're self centered, they they their conservative values.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
F those I got to get re elected now.
Speaker 3 (10:42):
May orc has made similar claims back in June, telling
Congress that FEMA was under budgeted. FEMA is always under budgeted.
I think the only time that FEMA that in my
personal knowledge, I can't speak for you know. I'm sure
James lee Wit, the FEMA director under Clinton, may have
(11:04):
some of his own stories, and those that went before
him may have had some of their own stories. But
I'll tell you what my story. FEMA was always underfunded.
The only time that it wasn't during my tenure was during.
Speaker 2 (11:17):
Nine to eleven.
Speaker 3 (11:19):
And the only reason we weren't underfunded during nine to
eleven was because the President literally pulled a number out
of his butt. And said, this is what we're going
to ask Congress for. And I remember walking out of
that meeting in the Roosevelt Room and pulling one of
the deputy I think I pulled Joe Hagen, who was
(11:41):
the deputy chief of staff. He was WT Hugh Staff
for operations, and I said, Joe, how did we come
up with twenty billion dollars? What am I going to
do with this twenty billion dollars? And he goes, I
don't know, it's the first I heard of it. Figure
it out. So I'd figure out where I'm going to
spend twenty billion dollars. And we had more than enough money.
(12:02):
And in fact, when we got near the end of
nine to eleven, I shouldn't say near the end, but
when we got near the end of the response and
recovery phase in both Pennsylvania, Virginia and in New York
and all the other I mean some of that money
went all over the country, depending on the business and
the circumstances. We got down near the end of that,
(12:24):
and I still had, you know, tens of millions of
dollars to spend. And I literally had to sit down
with Chuck Schumer and Hillary Clinton and then yeah, who's like,
well those are yah, who's too and yeah, who's like
Jerry Nadler to figure out exactly. Okay, well, what you
know we got. Let's just say it was ten million dollars.
We have ten million dollars left that we need to spend,
(12:47):
and you know it's been budgeted and Congress expects us
to spend this money, So give me some ideas. And lord, no,
if I had ten million dollars left to spend, they
had one hundred million dollars ideas. So that's the only
time that I know of that FEMA wasn't under budget.
Now why do I say it's always under budgeted Because
(13:09):
the Disaster Relief Fund, the DRF, is funded once a
year when generally when Congress does a budget, which means
they never did it, but in one of the Continuing Resolutions,
Congress will appropriate X number of dollars to put in
the Disaster Relief Fund, and that's intended based on historical averages.
(13:30):
That's intended to cover you know, what's anticipated to be spent. Well,
it never works out that way because there's always some
sort of catastrophic disaster that has nothing to do with
climate change, but there's always some sort of catastrophic disaster
that occurs that exceeds what's you know, the anticipated expenditures
far exceed what's in the Disaster Relief Fund budget. The
(13:53):
dirty little secret is this. You can always go to
Congress and say, look, we've got sixty billion dollars in
the DRF, but we just had this horrible event occur
in Georgia and the Carolinas, and the preliminary estimates are.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
It's going to be one hundred billion dollars.
Speaker 3 (14:13):
Okay, well we'll give it to you and they'll just
quietly appropriate and additional whatever it takes to get you
up to that number, and if you have to go back,
they'll just do it, and they always do it. But
so two points about that. First, for alle hundred majorcus
(14:33):
to claim that it's underfunded is legitimate, But then to
point out that it's underfunded because you spent so much
money on illegal immigrant housing says everything you need to
know about the priorities of this administration and the expenditure
(14:58):
of your tax dollars their priorities, And it's still in
the THEMA website. Number one is equity. Number one is equity.
In FY twenty twenty four, FEMA song allocation of around
around twenty billion dollars DHS got about sixty one billion
(15:21):
dollars in total, and I would say that those are
not unusual numbers for me. Those are pretty much kind
of what we normally had. Last April, FEMA announced that
it would provide six hundred and forty million dollars of
available funds out of the Disaster rey Leaf Fund to
enable non federal entities.
Speaker 2 (15:42):
To offset allible costs.
Speaker 3 (15:46):
That were incurred for services associated with non citizen migrant
arrivals in their communities. That's the quote. Now where did
those funds go. It went primarily to paying for food
and shelter for illegal immigrants as they await their appearance
(16:10):
before a judge. Now, those appearances before an immigration judge
sometimes are at least at a minimum a year off,
if not five sixty seven years off. And despite the
initial allotment for housing for illegal immigrant housing, FEMA announced
I found an announcement at the end of August that
(16:31):
it would make an additional three hundred and eighty million
dollars in grants available. The supplemental grants bring FEMUS total
spending on food and shelter for illegals to over a
billion dollars.
Speaker 4 (16:42):
I'm sorry, Michael, I'm going to have to brush your bubble.
They can make temporary LZ's in less than two hours.
Being a unit movement officer in the United States Army
for thirteen years, it's possible.
Speaker 2 (17:01):
Bud.
Speaker 3 (17:03):
You have warning goobers.
Speaker 1 (17:06):
Twenty five dollars a month for illegal aliens, seven hundred
and fifty bucks for Americans who lost their homes.
Speaker 2 (17:13):
No, I ain't eve got it here?
Speaker 3 (17:16):
How buy a little whiskey for my men? Here for
my horses. Oh, just just just hang on, but let's
go back to the LZ for a moment. In many
conditions you can do that. But in conditions where you have,
for example, live electrical lines, where you have piles now
(17:36):
maybe maybe you've never seen this before, but where you
have literally piles upon piles of uprooted pine trees. You
know these pine trees in the Carolinas that are just
you know, sixty one hundred feet in the air and
they're literally just piled like matchsticks on each other. You're
(17:58):
not going to do that in two hours. You're just
not going to do it in two hours. Somebody sent
me an email and said, hey, and maybe it was you.
Why wouldn't I just suggest that the chinooks create their
own ILZ. You know, you just hover and rev the
rotor blades create a wind vortex that pushes everything out
of the way. Engineering engineering, a solution that lawyer wouldn't
think of. I've been there, I've watched it, I've done it,
(18:21):
and it cannot be done if you have live power lines.
You want to hover a chinook where you got live
power lines flying all over the place, It's not gonna happen.
Or you have another situation, particularly like you have here
in the Carolinas, where you have flooded, saturated ground that
you simply can You can hover all day long and
(18:42):
try to dry it out, but you're going to have
to find other areas to clear. And then if those
other areas that you let's just say you could do
it the way you want to do it. Now you're
forty or fifty miles away from where you're actually trying
to get the supplies, and in these wooded areas, now
you have to build a path to get from the
l Z to the area where you're trying to get
(19:04):
the stranded people.
Speaker 2 (19:06):
I'm just telling you I've been there, I've done.
Speaker 3 (19:08):
It, and in a perfect situation, yeah, hover shanook, blow
everything out of the way and landed. But unless you've
seen those piles of trees, unless you've seen you know,
in in Bandaachi during the tsunami in Christmas of two
(19:30):
thousand and four going into two thousand and five, there
were areas that we flew over that we intended, intended
to land, but because of the tsunami, there was there
was no way, and we sent cruis, we weed and
and the and the Thai government ended up flying sorties
(19:56):
off the USS Lincoln trying to get just supply eyes
into people who had literally been you know, rushed and
hid as far away from the beaches as they could
and still five ten miles inland. You couldn't land a shaniok.
You could land it on the beach because guess what,
(20:16):
the tsunami had completely cleared the beach, but then you
had to get through all of the literal piles of debris.
I'm talking about hotels and beach homes and everything. You know,
I should post a photo of it, but you see
just how bad it is. So I don't know what
your experience is, but that's my experience. So and again,
(20:43):
if whether your stories or your experience is the same
or different from mine, here's what's missing in in both
of them, and that is explaining to these people what
you are trying to do to get.
Speaker 2 (20:59):
Help to them.
Speaker 3 (21:00):
The lack of communications and the lack of bringing in
the media and having the media understand what you're doing
is a fatal flaw, an absolute fatal flaw, which gives
me back to what's going on with this administration. I
(21:23):
don't want to say they don't care, but I don't
think they care. Look with Bush took it took a
a phone call to Crawford, and I'll never forget him
asking me, what what are you talking about? When I
(21:49):
was trying to explain to him how bad things were
in New Orleans. When I'm trying to explain to the
President of the United States of America how bad things
are in New Orleans because the levees have not been topped.
If the levees had been topped, water would reach an
equilibrium and your flooding would stop. When when the levees
(22:15):
are breached, the floodwaters just continue in until they've saturated
everywhere and reach whatever other parts of either a levee
or a rise in the ground, whatever. So the water
reaches equilibrium. And I'm trying to explain to him how
devastating this is what's going on. He's totally clueless, completely clueless.
(22:40):
And George W. Bush had all of his faculties. Now
imagine dealing with these two ditches. You got Joe Biden,
who really doesn't have a clue what day it is.
You got Kamala Harris who is an airhead. And you've
got Allejundra Majorcus who is more concerned about out what
(23:01):
what's his greatest concern. Well, let's go to MSNBC.
Speaker 5 (23:07):
We hear time and again, and we've heard it over
the last couple of days, mister Secretary, from folks who say,
maybe they've lost everything, but they feel lucky to be alive.
They feel grateful that they and their family may be safe.
Not everyone has that luxury. For lack of a better word,
I want to read to you something that the mayor
of Canton, North Carolina said talking about the frustration that
(23:29):
a lot of people feel about the lack of communication.
Speaker 2 (23:32):
Here's what he said.
Speaker 5 (23:33):
It is unacceptable and disgusting that in our time of need,
cellular service for the entire region is locked out. There's
no excuse for that. I mean, we knew the storm
was coming. I can't believe this is a normalcy. Is
this a systemic problem? Is this something that is going
to be more and more normal as we see more
(23:55):
and more devastating storms. What do you say to people
who are deaf for to find out whether people they
love are still alive?
Speaker 3 (24:04):
Before he answers, let me tell you something. This idea
that we have that these stupid phones that we carry
around are always going to be working is a myth,
an absolute myth. Now, the latest version of the iPhone
(24:24):
you can use with satellite. If there's no cell service,
you can use satellite to send text messages, so that
there is that new development. But in terms of cellular service,
when the towers are down, there is no service. So
how do you restore service? Will you use what's called
(24:44):
a cow cell? Youer on wheel and every provider has them.
Most governments do not, but every private sector provider does.
But again you have to get them, and you have
to have generation power because there's likelihood there is no
(25:06):
other power. There's not like a plug in for them.
So you've got to have a generator to supply power
to the cow, and then you put cows wherever you
can in an area to start providing cell service. Now,
one thing we learned about cows and cell service on
nine to eleven, which is still true to some degree today.
(25:27):
If you don't have enough cows to put into the
disaster zone, they're going to be overwhelmed. So sell your
service may be restored, but still be spotty because there's
just not enough bandwidth on those cows to provide all
of the calls that people are making.
Speaker 2 (25:48):
So she starts.
Speaker 3 (25:49):
With and we all start with this idea that everything
that we have can instantaneously be turned back on, and
it just simply is not true. It may be turned on,
say with him twenty four hours, but I would challenge
you to go lock your phone up somewhere in a
(26:10):
safe and not touch it for twenty four hours.
Speaker 2 (26:14):
We'll try that.
Speaker 3 (26:16):
And you're not in a disaster zone. Now, imagine your
home's been destroyed, you've lost everything you have. You're hoping
to get some water, you're hoping to get some food,
you'd like to get some shelter, and you'd like to
be able to communicate. You'd like to be able to,
you know, make sure your loved ones, you know, you
know where they are, they know where you are. You'd
(26:38):
like to be able to use your phone, and you can't,
So you have all the stress of everything else, plus
this stupid little thing I'm holding in my hand doesn't work.
Your frustration just skyrockets, absolutely skyrockets.
Speaker 2 (26:52):
So to the premise of her.
Speaker 3 (26:54):
Question, even restoring cell service is not done in instantaneously,
and that would have been my answer to her. I
would have said to her, we are working with Verizon
and T Mobile and AT and T and everybody you know,
and cellier one and all these other providers to get
as much cellar wheels in as possible. They themselves want
(27:18):
to restore power as quickly as possible, so the private
sector is doing what they can.
Speaker 2 (27:23):
We're supplementing that with what we can, and we hope.
Speaker 3 (27:26):
To have at least some sell service back up within
twenty four hours or less.
Speaker 2 (27:31):
That would have been my answer. What's his answer.
Speaker 6 (27:36):
I well understand the concerns expressed. These are people in
the midst of a tragic hurricane. That is precisely why
we and others have been deploying communications resources to ensure
that communication is reinstated as quickly as possible. The reality is.
Speaker 3 (27:57):
But give me the specific tell me where, tell me who,
tell me how, the five ws who won't wear women?
Why tell me those? After the break? Guess what he
goes to as.
Speaker 7 (28:14):
A certified disaster recovery specialist certified. I was through Katrina
with you, and I got to tell you, if you
were in charge, we see things happening. And one thing
I learned during Katrina poor preparation on your part does
us constitute an emergency on my Have a great day, Michael,
(28:38):
wish you were taking care of this problem.
Speaker 3 (28:40):
Wow, thank you. I didn't well, I didn't expect that.
Put that in the archives.
Speaker 2 (28:48):
Dragon. Back to Alajandra Mayor. But by the way, thank
you very much. Thank you. Back to Alejandro Mayorcis.
Speaker 3 (28:58):
Oh, someone's say on the text line, how do you
know they're not getting information? Well, this just happens to
be something that is a particular interest to me. So
I monitor the local news coverage. I can use Lexus
and Nexus and West Law to do that. And the
(29:18):
other thing that's happening is, you know, iHeart has radio
stations in Asheville and throughout that area, and iHeart uses
me as a resource to talk to those people on
those radio stations, and I understand from the questions they
ask me about what's going on that I know they're
(29:40):
not getting the kind of information that at least I
would be providing, and they seem to relish getting that information,
and they seem to clamor for that information.
Speaker 2 (29:54):
So that's how I know what's anyway, may.
Speaker 5 (29:59):
Orcus for the last couple of days, mister secretary, from
folks who say maybe they've lost everything, but they feel
lucky to be alive. They feel grateful that they and
their family may be safe. Not everyone has that luxury.
For lack of a better word, I want to read
to you something that the mayor of Canton, North Carolina
said talking about the frustration that a lot of people
(30:20):
feel about the lack of communication.
Speaker 2 (30:23):
Here's what he said.
Speaker 5 (30:24):
It is unacceptable and disgusting that in our time of need,
cellular service for the entire region is locked out. There's
no excuse for that. I mean, we knew the storm
was coming. I can't believe this is a normalcy. Is
this a systemic problem? Is this something that is going
to be more and more normal as we see more
(30:45):
and more devastating storms. What do you say to people
who are desperate to find out whether people they love
are still alive.
Speaker 6 (30:55):
I well understand the concerns expressed. These are people in
the midst of a tragic hurricane. That is precisely why
we and others have been deploying communications resources to ensure
that communication is reinstated as quickly as possible. The reality
is that the severity and frequency of extreme weather events
(31:21):
are only increasing, and it is precisely why our infrastructure
is in such need of improvement and strengthening, which is
why the historic infrastructure funds that the President has delivered
for the American people are so incredibly crucial, especially at
(31:42):
this time.
Speaker 2 (31:44):
Wow, go to.
Speaker 3 (31:46):
Climate change and go to your legislation. Go to politics.
You star can bite my ass.