As long as congressional hearings. I just wanted to hear your perspective. I want to jump into in the thing that impressed me the most we talk about misinformation. In 2017 a lot of what was going on all this is before russia invaded ukraine. What were dealing with on the Armed Services committee where i sit is misinformation going out from every angle what is going on communicating, what russia, ukraine. You hit on that is one of the key challenges that were going to face in the next phase of owego wanted the world. I love your perspective on that. I appreciate that, for me its going to get worse. The russians have spent the lasg three decades perfecting operation. For more information it is a domain just like air, land stays in place. Period will know what theyre going to do, they dont the military capabilities they used to have. With finding out right now in ukraine. Has to be controlled and information. N right now were talking about are they pulling troops back. No, theyre not. You cant believe anything that they say. I remember i want to say it was 2015 or 2017 when the russians were deep in syria. The russians put out a notice that they were leaving syria and you saw all these planes leaving the Syrian Air Base and g everybodys like all my gosh the russians are leaving. The planes were going back i to russia and they put the information out there. The difficulty that we do that now versus the 80s is information can move so fast. They call it tooth decay, where youre able to have separating and then you have the systems that can move the information very quickly. One thing were going to talk about the book, british philosopher back in the 1400s. Was basically a lie can travel faster than the truth. We talk about that for a couple of centuries. My fear when and if we ever get into a conflict with china. And have the capabilities in the digital fear, specifically. We have to assume and what are the things i would s love for yu to do since i got out ofom congress with Great Technology companies and i see a lot of companies in stealth mode. We have to assume the Chinese Government and deep fakes that are real. Imagine what conflict is going to be like when you have as a tool. You put an interesting framework with a political issue basic and lucrative pretty talk about the lucrative side. Theres so much to the game and click base and the way things that are communicated. Anything else, foreign political issue and lucrative i havent seen the misinformation that were going to be dealing with Going Forward that is articulated in playing out. Literally a month or so as your book gets released in playing out. I appreciate that, one of these ive always looked to the lab, they have been following this in a methodical way for a really long time. One of the things that i was able to do when i was in congress andmi the committee is whenever i would travel somewhere, i would always stopped the capital and stop in brussels with the eu partners in that you lab in the work that theyre doing on this is pretty fantastic. The German Marshall Fund has a dashboard that tracks this kind of stuff. There is a Great Company based in israel called sy abra, they track the accounts. The amount of fake accounts that are outre there is shocking. The ability to separate and understand and what is theti motivation. When i was in the cia, what is the motivation to potentially work with you. We have to understand the motivation and the factors. This issue i dont want to say easy is the right word but were were looking at the four adversaries and we have domestic entities that are involved in the same kinds of activities. We also need to make sure that our media and our standards when it comes to sharing information and just because they gotta keep information from one person somewhere in the administration, what ever happened to make that a fact. Is such an antidote it doesnt make it data. For sure, for sure. Answer makes Printing Agency being an intelligence officer, information. Is only one piece f the intelligence. How that person had access. This is broader than doingit something on purpose, unwitting and involved in some of these kinds the cooperation, just so quick to consume and so w quicko communicate. You bring up a good point, another key theme in this book, america will need her allies to love us and we did our enemies to fear us. He knew spouted off five or six really strong allies. One thing about that thats a key piece in the box of Global Leadership in the u. S. And you see that in the next phases. It is worrisome. I was this book because i want to make sure this century stays in the american century. We are better than two50 to 0 years, we need to be taken about the next 250 even beyond century. 100 . There is a . About whether we stay up late. And lets look at the events in ukraine. Look at the globe into the numberat of countries that e not participating in the financial sanctions. Most of latin america, most of africa, most of the middle east are not participating. You have to ask yourself why. The why is not only russia and for china. Some people criticized President Biden about how she framed speech about democracy. I think that was appropriate. Not as rare as things are devolving into. We have a bigger posse than the Chinese Government. I make it clear in the book. We talk about nuclear war with russia, russian conflict with russia but the relationship that is going to define the rest of the century as a relation from the u. S. And china. I think both of us can exist at the same time as long as we are competing and were going to cooperate and compete. Economically emigrated. What will put restrictions on other than energy in the debate games,ca shellfish . Vodka . Diamonds . That is all there was, imagine with china. Our Economic Immigration is a vastly different but it does it presents an opportunity for us to have a shared interest to avoid this type of conflict. A better deterrent to revisit with taiwan in the currently doing to ukraine. What does russian have to lose, nothing, the chinese have a lot to lose, and that potential conflict. How do we prevent that from happening. Make sure your friends. And that starts with, why haveat we not seen high level delegations in the western hemisphere should be withh us 100 when it comes to russia but theyre not with us when they come to russia its going to be more difficult when this conflict against the chinesech government. When i was in congress and out of Congress Talking with very Senior Leaders throughout the middle east and the government that we say dont make issues. By implying youre not gonna like our answer and so these are issues that we have to deal with now the Biggest Issue driving in a relationships in the in the middle east right now is is iran and how we handle that issue and so so all of these things are connected and the world works better. When america is showing leadership in this International Order that that we created following the end of the second world war. America is at its best when we are helping people and we become an exceptional nation because of what we have given and that is where we need to focus. Lets go you were sitting across from another ally and they are telling you you might not like my answer do we are not fighting that leadership across the globe. F when i was running my own campaign it was the start of a pandemic. We have to build an International Coalition if we want to find a way. We are going to be able to do things to subpoena them or have a professional hearing. As a global entity we have to be able to build that community and we want answers. We need to know how this will affect all of us and what well we will do about it. So many things areon happening. Imagine my first few months of congress when everything is happening in afghanistan and ukraine and Energy Prices and that stuff. Ive been navigating all of this are the point they make is where not in the right spot right now. Id love to hear you expound on that about what america can do to get off the edge. We are not in the spot right now in awe lot of areas and we are still the Global Leader. Those are under threat for the next century whether we need to do to get off the edge . P p guest the fact that saudi arabia is evenut thinking about selling energy to china thats a scary thing you would need to be concerned about this. And the second lesson you learned on day one the supersecret test the first lesson is lock your car door in the second lesson is to get off the x and the last place you want to be when its going down is where its going down. 72 of people think its the countries on the wrongot track. This sentiment has existed and grown over the last couple of centuries of the country feels likely to do something different. Yes we are the most powerful nation that has ever existed in this country. Capitalism is up with the people to achieve heights that were previously unimaginable. We have to make sure that this continues and whats getting ini the way is the inability to get things done because of political gridlock within washington d. C. And that is metastasizing to state capitols and City Councils and such. For us, for me this notion that america has become exceptional when w we play a role in the led and the world is interconnected. George washington gave hisl a farewell address and said the war was very different back then. So now we are soo interconnected but we have to have elected officials and people in thera administration have continued to make the case why these things matter. Why does taiwan matter to the couple that owns a coffee shop in the midwest. Why does the person at selling skiing attire why should they care . Why should my brother desk of thee most beautiful congressionl district. Lets go of course, of course. My brother sells cable. Those of us that are involved have failed to articulate why this matters so we start with that and what ive learned. People care about a roof over their head and food on the table and making sure the people they love have that. All these things areen interconnected and we are better off. Your retirement will be better when america is the one leading this global International Order that we created after world wart ii. The issue we will have to deal with is complicated. Biotec. Technology exists today to program dna the way you program a computer. The technology is so new and we have aga Artificial Intelligence. This is an algorithm. Its going to be smarter than any human. Quantum computing. Lets go we have seen people programming does and if that transition happens you are right we are moving into around that was made about movies and the terminator days. Guest i go back and watch that Science Fiction and a lot reof them predicted this. Weti should be having those conversations here in d. C. So this is why this is important and i try to articulate some of these things and probably what we should be talking about. My degrees in Computer Science in the first job i ever had was in college working in the computer lab and when the computers werent working what did i do . I reboote it. Its not changing the software. Getting the software back to its original form and thats what we need to do. Plus the lemmy pullback. He talked aboutut the contempt n and the gridlock we face in our political world ive seen it for months now the majority of bills passed by we dont tackle the big things. The majority in the margin politically democrats are progressive push with a lot of bad outcomes. Things that Congress Needs to be addressing i jotted down a few Immigration Health care. We are not tackling that. We are not. Thosess are the nearterm issues if we dont figure out a way to come together and not quit worrying about the political ramifications. We are legislators and lawmakers and we need to look his on the policy perspective but we are all fortune to the situation. Appeasing the base. You have free election. Youve got to address these things inan their gridlock is making it very difficult. Guest concentration of power in the hands of a few is always a bad thing. This started two or three decades ago when decision started being made by leadership. 20 or 30 years ago the appropriationsti bill was writtn by the appropriations chair and the Ranking Member. Decisions along the nda was decided by the chair of the house Armed ServicesRanking Member and now a lot of these things originally start withy te majority leader. Thats where, and when you have thes decisionmaking down to leaders of the committee and with the penne subcommittee chairs they work with their committee and they work with people on the other side of the aisle and thats why when we think of any major piece of legislation of the last 50 years but was always done in a divided congress and a different white house. Host the last time we bounce the budget . Reporter a democratic president in republican house. Guest two or three decades ago we asked who y did something to see what was going on over there and last few decades. Host i it goes back to come it starts with primaries. In 2018 the last nonpresident ial election the average t contested primary with 56,000 people. 54,000. Thats. That means 27,501 people decide who that member of congress is going to be in that happened in 92 seats. 90 of the house seats decided in the primaries. So 2 of the population. Host id love to go to those numbers. Guest in 2020 the number was close to about 60,000. So that means elected officials are speaking to the party not where the middle of the majority is. Thats why so many people think we are on the wrong track. Costco i see the Approval Rating of congress and your own district has a little bit more popularity. Guest the structure, the system is designed for it. How do you fix fix it quick gete people voting. I forget what year it was. Im on a panel on south by southwest down in austin, texas the Music Festival and a lot of technology and im on the stage with four other youtube stars. I didnt know who any of them were. T all four of them said all four of them combined had a billion followers on youtube and at the time i thinkhy i had 60. Why am i on this stage . One of them was the digital director and them moving boowono was about to come out. She goes if no one fails at the box office are we going to criticize moviegoers and shame on you for not going to the movies or will we say it was a movie . I think was very successful in abu if that would have happened her point was we blame the person that was supposed to be making going to the ballot box versus the product. A lot of people 30 Million People voted in the primaries march 1 out of 30 million. Thats a number. That apathy and i would say part of it is we are not inspiring the people that are not coming out to vote. One of the chapters in the book mocommunity leaders are interesd in fearmongering rather than inspiring. Itss hard. Host you talk about your own leadership. You have leadership on the global scale. Individually what are some the things you take from your background and your personal story that drives your leadership . Guest i think it goes back to it was bullied as a kid. My mom pulled out a little picture. I was going to movie didnt help. Guest i had a speech impediment until high school. I wore a size 13 shoe in fifth grade. So for me that experience taught me it doesnt matter what people think about you what matters are your loved ones. My dad taught me to have the positive mental avenue attitude. My parents moved to south texas in 1971 after being in california and they live in the house they live in now because it was the only place that somebody would sell to an interracial couple which is. Its. Those are the experiences that drive me and ive learned to be honest. Tell people whatd you are doing. One of the benefits of having represented a district is no matter what i did people were upset with me that as long as i went told people what i was doing it why i was they appreciated it. When folks push me on this i would say do you agree with their spouse 100 of the time . Do you agree with your best friend 100 of the time and of course the answer is usually no. Why do expect to agree with your elected official 100 of the time . That is what drove me when i was up here and lessons ive used most of my life. Plus the bad advice we spoke before about background tonight love that conversation. I had to use that and i dont think you shared that with me. Thats one of the biggest points i have learned about this. I get a yes or no vote, you get a yes or no vote. Theres a lot of context that goes into it. Im in a very concerted district and it didnt necessarily go down the majority of the party. I had to show up that day and tell people why a dig in to the constitutionality of the. Gets the harder way to do it. It is flat out a lot more difficult and its something that im proud of that ive been able to do. Ac i go back and they get it. I leave my town halls with look some of you call me to conservet and somebody call me to moderate all within 10 minutes of each other. Im tryin to give context. I say we arent owing to agree on every single decision but i encourage you to find an area where rick do agree and lets build a relationship from there. Im trying to do that here with my colleagues. Ha lets go you articulating what your values are and they know a that. For me when things about your audio in your video have to match. The things you say have to match the things that you do so when you do that people respond. They may not agree with you but they appreciate you and the occult by the way they are showing up if you arent afraid of your constituents. When you go there and articulate they are like okay in the fact that they know goes a long way. I always remember we get all these letters about some particular thing h. R. 2727. How do i feel about this . What do i believe and i remember one that was fascinating. It was about whether it should be illegal to eat cats or dogs. Im sitting there like. Host i have an opinion on this. D guest gest eating cats or dogs is strange for sure. It was already it illegal to eat cats and dogs and the last time a dog was eat United States was in 1982. I use it as an example you have to find what your value is and then make decisions based on that. Sometimes i talk to kids and i try to talk to as many high schools andg middle schools as i can. Like music or instrument or being a scientist or a doctor it takes practice. When you are able to make good decisions and do the right things it makes it a lot easier to do then right thing and when the stakes are high. Unfortunately m there are too my people that sometimes get into positions of power that it never had to make tough decisions when the consequences, when doing the right thing make the consequences more negative than its hard for some people to understand that but it happens. If you have experience with that when the consequences areou high you may make a bad decision. Host i have never interviewed anybody before. Guest i would not have known that. Host something ive been trying even though im a strong conservatives i represent my city. The one county that i lost tended to be more liberal and i will still show up at the town hall and the debate usually ends up yearround climate c change. You talk about takingti that conservative message to communities in how did you do that when youre in office . Wises so important . Guest ive represented 29 counties. It took 10. 5 hours to drive to my district are they the miles an hour. Lets go Law Enforcement respected acrosstheboard. Guest and we didnt have cell phone service. The dynamics when i first ran for one i won my first election if every republican voted for me it would still lose so i had to appeal to both. I took it seriously. I represented everybody. The people voted for me and the people who didnt vote for me and the people who didnt vote. I took each consistency constituency seriously. Parter was showing up in a lot of these communities theyy know itse hard. One of my favorite towns is in loving county. The entire county has 90 people in it. Its really hard to get to. And i went six or seven times and i met 75 people. A county judge i said judge there are 15 i have not met. And he said they want to be met. So part of it was understanding those parts of thehe district. A republican representing a 70 latino district. Nobody thought i had a chance. This is a benefit paid when you show up most of the time for other people have not shown up so you have an opportunity. Ive been inin el paso texasn overwhelmingly democrat. I would knock on peoples doors and they are like why are you here . And want to represent represent you in here were your issues arb and they are like no one has ever done that before. Heres what i have learned. Whether im in el paso were a neighborhood the same issues. I would say the exact same thing. My remarks didnt change an opinion depending on where he went. The questions didnt change depending on where i went and doing that early on made me realize w these issues, way more unites us than divides us pray for me now its like you have to talk about education. In texas with the School Choice issues there has been a longitude no study over 20 year0 that shows the achievement gap between and kids has decreased when i go to a Charter School in texas. Thats amazing. Why are we not talking more about that stuff and when you take that message, im a proud product of the Public Schools and Public School should have the ability to be flexible the way charterr schools can. If you take a positive message to people they appreciate you. Host that illustrates the point that you are elected then you have a thousand people in your district and elected in the primary. You havet to be willing to rise above that. I have found if you just communicate with people and just be out there and present and tampering down the rhetoric. Alwe agree on this and i think u can take all the major issues like a set from immigration all those things that are plaguing our country right now and not to get political here but that is the way guest politicians not getting political . Host i could actually watch this interview. S thats what i think the American People want to see right now. We saw it in the virginia governors race. They are like okay the decisions made in washington have really affected my life. We talk a lot about Energy Policy and climate in conservation. We go through all that stuff and theres an opportunity right now for the Republican Party to take to with people like okay im frustrated with this but but ths affected my life. It depressess their workforce ad with existing supplychain issue i dont think everything is due to President Bidens administration. Injecting 2 trillion of nonoffset spending in the covid bill those types of things go directly into the equation of inflation and theres only one thing you can get out of that. You get inflation and unfortunately theres only one way out of it. Thats going to hurt peopleiz t. People recognize it. I love how much you are talking about going out up to and reached communities and for the Republican Party to look more like americans. Guest you mentioned governor youngkin. An 80 sweep from the year prior . Host biden and trump if youngkin was running in 2020, im a pollster and i get excited about that stuff great but they went democrat in their last statewide election and they swung hugely for the guest thats a trend. The Slander Campaign and how they reached out. Guest they do want something different. I think there is a lot of conversation about we will do this or this. lets make it in and issue and one of the issues you mentioned is immigration. This one drives me. Republican primary voters in democratic or merry voters want to see ay solution and that solution they agree on 80 and theres a bill and this is probably one of the things i was most frustrated by by my time in congress that would address borderat security. Whats happening on the border is this crisis is the its ever been. We are using your intelligence to dismantle trafficking organizations and networks that are happening. Terrorists only have to do something once human smuggler in a Drug Trafficking organization have to have infrastructure that could replicate at which means its something you can dismantle. We are doing enough there. Ifif you streamline illegal immigration it takes off that pressure. Every Industry Needs a worker and it might be Seasonal Workers in utah for Agricultural Workers imported. Host that alleviates pressure on the border as well. The individual in your seat now is one of the most sound voices. He isua one of the most sound voices on immigration. Guess the way you greet about where you want to get to. Everybody is scared to vote one way or another. I remind people the d. R. E. A. M. Act when it was first brought up it failed because of six democratic senators. Went president obama came into office and the usa act was prevented to coming to the floor by republican leadership. Now democratic leadership is preventing that from coming forward. The leadership on both sides of the party would rather use this issue as a political football. These are some of the Real Solutions and oh by the way what people forget, folks want you to go back to their district can be like i did l this. Ive fixed this problem. This is what i did for this community. Thats m the way bigger motivatn than to be like i prevented those on the other side from xyz. Whats a while for me is some people say your views are a little too sweet. You are a little too optimistic. Im optimistic because the people that are out there that i talked to him i k this is what we need in a this is what we wa. We always want to look at the last election or the last war were not the next war and the opportunities. We have to get through this because the challenges we are having to address are going to be. Host i wont bring up march madness. You talk about the analogy and you related to that in the stand. Of course its timely. I actually had kansas and novo playing. I have kansas in my bracket. Im still in the game. Y extra in the tank. You know, my my brother is super disappointed because hes a texas tech red raider so its been around but them my bracket had houston going all the way so i was so my minds messed up but but the analogy i use is coach k talks about how if you try to hit somebody with your fists, you know, and your fingers are open. Youre gonna break your hand, but when you close that when you all five fingers are close together, you can pack a powerful punch right and think of this chris rocks lucky there was yeah. I know exactly were moving on. Were not going there exactly and so the stress of teamwork, right . Yeah is is important. And and you know another another good another good coach that i used to play in the in the the member lobbyists basketball game i play in that and and we had we had a guest coach a coach calipari. All right. I mean people telling me about that. Yeah, and and it was great. I we were behind because the members, you know, we hadnt practiced together much and and our endurance was pretty terrible and we were getting we got real close. We got with him two points, and he called the he called he called a timeout and theres all these grown men right sitting around and coach. He looked. Each of us in the eye. And we all come down and he goes breathe just breathe right and were like, yeah, were gonna breathe right . And so sometimes when we when we settle down right and we can we can look to sports as some examples on how to solve many of our problems Work Together be common cool and we can get a lot of accomplish. That is is. Is thats a great, you know, thats a great sentiment in communicating that because with you know, what coach k has done in his careers is really neat and you have to sort of build that that structure and again, i want to just go back to this. This next century like ive showed ive laid out some of my you know big things that we need to be addressing. But you know. I serve on Armed Services intelligence background ive served myself in Southeast Asia and lived over there. Lets talk just like zero in a little bit more on the china side. Sure. I personally think our debt in china or two of our our most our biggest challenges. And so we talked a little bit about this but the belt and Road Initiative and you he explained it better than than i really seen it in text before. Just how concerning that is the debt that these countries are getting into to china. Exactly what china wants to have happened . They dont care if they have to spend a little bit more on an Infrastructure Project in africa or latin america. Theyre going to be able to use that. For their un security vote sure. Thats a scary scary thing. I love your perspective on that look, so it starts talked about motivations. What is the motivation of the Chinese Government and xi jinping . Its very simple. As a surpass a United States of america as a global superpower. This is not my opinion. This is not me laying in my bed thinking at night. What is gonna happen . This is not collecting intelligence when i was in the cia about what the Chinese Government is doing. This is what the Chinese Government has said said about themselves in english. So so start with that and how are they going to surpass us . Theyre going to surpass us by being the Global Leader in a number of advanced technologies 5g ai quantum. Im a hypersonics biotech, you know, its space right . Theres about 14 industries. 5g weve been talking a lot people talk a lot about does 5g matter . Its going to be awesome. To download season 3 of ted lasso in two seconds on my phone. Yeah, okay, but the route the reality of 5g when you have your phone and you do something on your phone and it goes into the cloud and then response comes back that that time it takes for that process to happen is latency. 5g is going to allow us for that that trip to take place in one nanosecond. Our thoughts are in seven nanoseconds . So we are going to have the entire power of the internet. In our hands in real time. What is that going to allow us to do right and so when china and huawei specifically there they a Chinese Technology company you bring it up because i could i would have taken us theirs too owns 30 of the worlds infrastructure when it comes to 5g so that means anything thats traveling over that infrastructure. They can influence. I dont care how great you think your encryption is. The ability that that process has to travel over an infrastructure owned by an adversary. They can do a whole lot of stuff with it. They can they can stop it. They can try to get into it. They can turn it back. They can change it. Right and so so this is why and it starts with 5g because Artificial Intelligence in order to have Real Intelligence and to have ai at the edge right at the end in your phone in your device. You have to have that 5g infrastructure to make that happen. Thats why these two things are connected Vladimir Putin said whoever matches ai is gonna master the world. He said said that back in 2014. I think its the only thing he and i agree on right and so so this is the methodical approach that the Chinese Government is taking we talk about privacy in the United States a lot. Europe theres a transatlantic beef on privacy. But guess what . You know who doesnt care about civil liberties. It rhymes with the Chinese Governments, right . They are the and so you do not want these new technologies being driven and decided by the authoritarian government who doesnt care about civil liberties. These are the with the delivery mechanism in hallway what the delivery mechanism and okay why so tiktok i dont care. If you do a silly dance. And share it. Okay, i dont. However all of the data tagging your friends tagging locations User Behavior all of that stuff. That is why tiktok was a National Security issue because all of that can go in the government the Chinese Government can use it and they can use all that information to train their algorithms. Whoever has the most data is going to be whoever has the most data and has the most Computing Power is going to be able to make these algorithms do something. So imagine a scenario in which an algorithm can know absolutely everything youve ever done digitally about you. And then direct ads or influence you based on that information. Look, i i use timely information that you that theyre identifying when youre making a decision about something and theyre able to directly influence you. I cant say i dont really care if its a Grocery Store might even help me might even help me like oh what product actually do it. Do i care about but if im gonna be making a political decision and im gonna go vote and im you know, im getting the ballot. They know its coming three weeks before and they go and they communicate it. Its scary. Its scary. Right . And so so look, we should embrace these things right technology is going to also allow us to do things like look. Were already seeing Energy Companies using Artificial Intelligence to improve the amount of hydrocarbons. They get out of the ground. Theyre using less water. Theyre using less land right were seeing agriculture to be able to you know, bruce bruce crops outputs. Thats what thats why like its amazing. Were able to detect more right now. You can look at your iris and detect the number of of cancers well in advance of any kind of technology that we have now, which means people are going to live longer lives. So theres a great upside. I always we need to take advantage of before it takes advantage of us. And so this is the landscape in which were going to compete with the government of china and i want are 401ks. To be based off of investments in American Companies not chinese companies. I want our kids growing up to in our grandkids growing up to get jobs with Great American or european or western company our allies our countries of our allies a democratic countries. Thats what i want to happen. Look i dont get me wrong. I watch a foreign film every once in a while. I watch the that what was the show on netflix that was in korean, you know, i watched that with yeah with the subtitles why im fine with that i speak korean. So yeah, i dont want every movie. Being in mandarin with english subtitles, right . These are is that this is what is ants is that state . And and what is the Chinese Government realizing, you know, we just got out of the olympics right or a couple months ago and there was all that focus on that young woman from california who decided to to compete with the chinese. Im not going to debate the decision of a young 18 year old woman, but whats even more fascinating is why did xi jinpin put the hardcore press to get her to do that . He understood. The value of having this young californian, you know make the choice could have been on the us could have the us across her ski gear absolutely said she was she was wearing the so the fact that theyre seeing that soft power the fact that theyre using the belt and Road Initiative to to when you look at the map. Of all the countries that they have a belt and Road Initiative. It is staggering how much money theyre putting and we have debates here in the United States about how 1 of our budget is too much when it comes to form aid right . So this is this this is where things are going and it really does jeopard jeopardize our standing in the world at jeopardizes are retirements. It jeopardizes everything and and those are what some of the conversation i think we should be having and what they can use they can lay this out. Hey athletes. Youre going to become you have. How many in china now how many how many people live in china now . Theres two billion. Yeah. Im here you have immediate access. To billions of people that youre going to be a star in a sensation. I her decision has her decision. But like thats a lure for people to be like thats immediate success and you know you dont become a you know you popular during the olympics but you dont become a National Sensation off of one Olympic Event or if you know and i i im a big fan of the olympics where i represent park city of course were hoping to have him back soon and we need to you know that soft power so let me move it away from the soft power and just hit on one thing that im in the of right now and i know that our dods in the middle of it and we used to design these contracts. We have just a few minutes left, but we used to design these contracts. Company would take it on perform a really important innovative feat for our department of defense then four or five years later. Were declassifying enough of this and it ends up being very very applicable commercial use those days are slipping away and its way too expensive and too timely to develop the capabilities that our department of defense needs. Weve got to embrace our commercial technology our Small Businesses our cyber world. Thats where the work and the innovative work is being done and it needs to inject into our dod and were figuring out how to go about making this transition brother. Dont dont start with me because i love talking procurement right because because right now the government needs by not build right the fact that is so hard to get Innovative Technologies introduce into the government is is plaguing our ability to compete an authoritarian government like china can get some place first right because they can move all factors of production in one direction, but but i will always take entrepreneurship in an ingenuity and freedom over authoritarianism. But yes, we have and part of the problem. Is the way procurement works in the government the person purchasing the good or service is different from the person using the good or service, right . And that disconnect is what creates some of that problem now moving some of that that power and authority to those individuals that are ultimately use it youll see speed, you know, the cia usually adopt stuff probably earlier than most folks in the government part of that is a commitment to the mission and to help people downrange. And so so yeah, look the only way were gonna to solve this. Have an allies right having a bigger posse and making sure that the public and the private sector are working together against dealing with these these issues an industry. Ive spent a lot of time in the last over the last years space. Yeah, the number of commercial companies in space is mindboggling like if you would have asked me back in 2015 when i first came into congress, would there be more Space Companies and you can name i would say absolutely not no way but i know of a company thats good. Thats gonna be building the first structure on the moon. Right probably within two years like its just its its wild and so the Science Fiction is really becoming science reality and the only way were continuing to keep up. Is if is if public and private sector actually we figure out a way to Work Together and introduce novel in technology into the government. Its that the space piece. With the lack of treaties and the one one satellite that they blow up. Did you hear the trepidation in the the people on the International Space station . Theyre like we have to go on a spacewalk. This might be hitting us like you could hear their absolutely it is its an its a frontier without sounding trekkie. It gets a its a its a concern that we dont have the order figured out on how were going to go manage this and the amount of you know, they are now designing every launch based on space junk and how theyre gonna navigate and miss that and thats only gonna perpetuating if we dont get control over. Oh, thats a whole number dia did a report. I want to say two years ago and talked about how space is contested. Its no longer this. Were all Holding Hands singing kumbaya right when you when you create a satellite. That has a claw on it. Right that clause im gonna be used for one thing and thats when it gets close to Something Else is going to cut it. Hit it. Knock it out. Right, right. And and so and and what we sometimes forget is how important space is to us here on earth our communications how we navigate the understanding the weather all of that stuff is important. And so these are some of the conversations that are super complex, but we got to be able to find answers to well youre gonna sign my book again american reboot one of the with the book when i love about just final comment. Is you have so much personal introspection on you know, what drives you to do your next thing like any final thoughts on on your your history your upbringing . You know, how all that plays into your motivation to to go out and stay involved. Sometimes when you leave Congress People are like, oh no like i think youre doing youre doing a lot of things. I appreciate that and and for me, ive been lucky. Ive been lucky to serve my country and a number of different ways and im lucky, you know, i have more opportunities and my father had and i hope for my nieces and my nephews to have more opportunities and i had and it starts with as my dad always told me. Im have a pma positive mental attitude, but also to make sure you model the behavior you want to see happen. If you know, its really if if you dont like social media and you think its toxic. Well, are you being toxic on social media . Right. Are you encouraging the people that are doing the things you want to see right and so model the behavior that you want to see when we do that. I think this place will be a little bit better. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. Yes. Onfiction authors about their latest work. Lets open this big book i thought perhaps you could read us a little bit about from the opening pages. Theres the first chapter in m