host: how do we remain a superpower? guest: we will need to have a coordinated strategy that high-tech strategy in the bellman, specifically related to the human spaceflight program in nasa. and a large, dedicated investment into the new united states spaceports. host: you write the following quote. the situation between russia and the united states is far more akin to that of the united states and imperial japan, leading into the second world war. the strategic cultures are distinct. what's more, they are separated by geography and time. but the rationale is eerily the same. can you explain? guest: basically, we see this also with china. with russia, they have a very explicit strategic aim. that is they basically want to create buffer zones around what they think is weak and permeable borders. and we see this with their current attempts to reclaim parts of ukraine. you see this with their attempts to meddle in eastern europe and evenpoland and moldova or finland or norway as well. and the reason is because the historical objective on the part of russia, they want to create a buffer zone on the western border with europe and they want to be able to basically kind of have a safe space if you will. and we saw this with japan in the previous century where the japanese were interested in in asia. and in order to have their dominant position held, they needed a thought to push the americans out of what they ansidered to be, to use russian term, there near abroad. something similar is that play in russia, particularly in eastern europe. china has a similar thought. i focused in the opening chapter on russia because russia is actually deploying systems in space that could destroy our satellites. host: you say that the u.s. is risking what you are referring harbor, in order to prevent this from happening, which should be washington's primary goal, washington must take action today. time is not on america's side. when you say a space pearl harbor, and attack from who? guest: it could be russia, it could be china. they have similar capabilities. in the book, as i said, russia is deploying what are known as, technically they are called co-orbital satellites. -- wessians refer call them space talkers. russians say hey, this tiny satellite is a repair drone. if our communication satellite goes down, we can use the time your satellite to repair -- the tinier satellite to repair our system. it is dual use in nature. in a time of war, the russian could use -- russians could use the tiny satellites like a james trailillain and behind one of our sensitive satellites like the constellation or the immuno os -- muos. they could knock those systems out of orbit which would render our forces at sea, on land and in the air and cyberspace blind. it would give the russians or the chinese, it would give the russians in this case an advantage over armed forces defending eastern europe. host: how big or how real of a threat is that? guest: it is a significant threat, i think. we know that they have been watching the systems, the russians in particular have been watching the systems in orbit for several years. there are many who would claim, overstate the threat, but i think these people tend to underplay or downplay the threat. too much to our weakness. just like pearl harbor, we did couldlieve the japanese use their technology, particularly aircraft carriers in that case the way they did to go so far away from their homeland and attack in such an unconventional way and do so much damage to our key strategic base in pearl harbor. something similar i think could happen with the space talkers in space. also, the chinese are developing systems to knock out our satellites as well. we have to keep our eye on china. there is a longer -- they are the longer-term threat. in this specific case, the russians are sending systems in orbit that can and will be used to knock out our systems in orbit. host: i want to frame our next question in terms of where we are today with training scientists and engineers and mathematicians, especially in light of covid with so much virtual learning on the high school and college level. 63 years ago in the book, you quoted dwight david eisenhower who in november of 1957 said the in the combined category of scientists and engineers, a greater number than the united states and they are producing graduates at a faster rate. the trend is disturbing, we need scientists in the 10 years ahead. plus years ago. where are we today? guest: obviously we still produce some of the world's best scientists. if you look at countries like, in this case, china, they are heavily committed to sending their young people to learn stem. science technology, engineering and math. in china, they had a plan. they wanted to become a workshop of the world and we let them. but they did not want to just be a workshop of the world. they did not just want to be a manufacturing economy. all of the money they have made over the past 30 years from becoming a manufacturing hub and a logistics hub from the world economy reinvested and they reinvested in the knowledge economy and the economy of stem. they have been sending people, for 30 years now, abroad to learn from the top universities and scientists throughout the west. those people come back home to china and they then become the nucleus of indigenous scientific research innovation. as they build back infrastructure, that knowledge infrastructure, in this case in china, the western scientists and western businesses see that infrastructure and they say we want to do business over there. and so ultimately that is why you have these companies like google which is very much an american creation, having no problem talking about going over to china and doing artificial intelligence research over there. that is why you have companies looking to do business in china for biotech research and, yes, for space technology development. obviously all high-tech sort of undergirds the country's national space program. they are connected. 50'seisenhower said in the -- 1950's, i think the united states is in a similar position today. we need to start ramping up investment in the beginning into r&b and into the stem-based educational field to stay competitive. host: let me follow up on china. you said china wants to harvest the resources from the moon. i am curious, what does the moon have that we want or potentially have? guest: the moon, we believe has a bevy of what is known as rare earth minerals. these are minerals that we need to develop advanced technology. your laptop, your smartphone. they are built with rare earth minerals. this is one of the reasons why china has been so hot and heavy in developing. africa has a lot of rare earth there. we know that just sitting near the surface of the moon, there is a lot of rare earth there harvest, could use, sell and dominate the rare earth market. in 2010, the chinese attempted to take over the rare earth mineral market. they have a lot of advantages there. just imagine if they were to go to the moon, where it is a lot of rare earth everywhere and be able to monopolize those resources. there is also an isotope known as helium-3, which they think could potentially be used in a few nuclear fusion developments. china is heavily invested in alternative energies, not just nuclear fusion energy but also space-based solar power which is different from the solar power we have. with helium-3, they think they could power a city like shanghai cleanly with a canister of about keepig and be able to themselves energy sufficient so that they would not have to import so much oil across what they think are vulnerable maritime supply lines that the u.s. navy could cut off at any moment and they could instead bring it in from the moon and from the asteroid belt as well and sort of do indigenous energy production and become the new great power in energy. host: our guest is joining us the assume -- via zoom. his book how america remains a superpower. give us a call at (202) 748-8000 in the eastern times and. for those of you out west, (202) 748-8001. we will get to phone calls. you say president trump's various remarks in the 2016 -- about ae 2016 campaign more robust presence in space are heartening. it indicates a strategic seriousness that the last four euros private -- four u.s. presidents have liked. -- lacked. guest: that is correct. i looked at the last four presidents and there has just been a decline. they make great speeches about being able to do all of this wonderful stuff in space but they never follow through. i understand you have to blame congress but it requires presidential leadership to get some of these big ticket items done. this is not a question of could we be spending that money on more earthbound issues. the issue is, our society in particular when it comes to satellites, our society relies completely on function, not just the military. you cannot log onto facebook anymore without signals going into space. atm ornot access your purchase gas at a gas station if you are using your card like i do without having your signals go through space. if we lose satellite, we go back to a pre-1970's era of existence. our society is frankly not conditioned for that type of existence. president trump is the first president in my life who is -- has not only talks a big game but he has actually followed through on resolving a lot of strategic vulnerabilities, specifically with our satellite constellations. go to victor, joining us from silver spring, maryland. caller: good morning. i am 73 years old area die am legally blind. i have been for the space program practically all of my life. talked about it all the time on talk radio. and some of the spinoffs have helped me as a blind person. i saw the first talking calculator in 1976, when my father had to come up with a calculator for his blind daughter to take a science course. i saw the first talking calculator in 1976. around that time of year, the first reading machine for the blind came out. scientists in order to feed their families. will it go to countries like north korea, iran, or saddam's iraq and basically proliferate elastic missiles technology? we need the american taxpayer paid the russian space program to stay active and to pay those scientists to not have them go to the state, and then the russians were able to take that money and become enmeshed in america's space infrastructure, the space launch infrastructure. basically, not only now today, until today, were we dependent on russia to launch our astronauts into orbit after the obama administration cut the space shuttle program with no replacement. but before that even, we were relying, going back to the clinton administration, on russian built rd 180 rocket engines to launch at least half of our military satellites into orbit because it was cheaper and they already -- rd 180 was brilliant. so we basically paid, in the 1990's, to keep the russian space program approach -- afloat. and they were able to innovate from there and become invest in the -- enmeshed in the global supply chain. and it's been very hard to disentangle ourselves from that because obviously we see that russia cannot be fully trusted, and we have to deal with them sort of as a cause i rival, or frenemy, and it's been a big problem for us. but yes, the obama decision to cut the space shuttle was extremely damaging. as i say in the book, it's akin to when we were colonizing the new world, the british had said we are going to disband our navy and rely solely on the french to get our people to the new world. it's not good. now we are playing catch-up. the one thing th obama administration did do is allow for private space companies to get involved. they should've done more. steve: in the book, you write the obama administration did preside over the last nasa space shuttle flight. not only did the program end, but so did the man spaceflight program. that's changed in recent months with spacex, this headline from nasa saying there were three rocket launchers today. they postponed it because of weather. beenlon musk and spacex into america's masses space program? >> is changed the game. he's completely change the game. you know, i'm on the conservative side of the aisle and i know many of my colleagues on the right really don't like elon musk. they think it's corporate welfare, etc., but he's doing what bell labs and sort of the federal research and development budget used to do until the 1990's, when we began cutting that budget incrementally. for 30 years, if you look at a graph, david goldman talks about this all the time. if you look at the graph of r&d, it's gone down precipitously since the 1990's. so elon musk has stepped up. and yes, he did receive tax dollars to do some of the things he's done. but with those tax dollars, is innovated and allowed upwards of a 40% decrease in the cost of launch for u.s. military satellites because of reusable rockets. that's just him doing a modest bit of work. imagine what this man can do, and other startups like spacex, but also blue origins is trying to get in on the action. you have a bevy of new startup companies that are already revolutionizing the space launch services sector. as i say in the book, being cheap and easy in space is how you're going to get to getting colonies on the moon and getting americans on mars. because right now, the biggest hindrance to the spaceflight program is really the cost. most of that cost comes from getting people into heavy earth orbit into space. we can cut down without with elon musk. i had a colleague at the office who is retired now who said what you're talking about is retro tech. it may be retro tech, but we haven't been doing it. elon musk is the first to do this. he's completely changed the game and we need more of it. steve: from clinton, maryland, good morning. >> good morning. i'd like to suggest he keep his theories of government and the space program serparate. i know he's a supporter of president trump, that he confuses people because they feel as though the other four presidents did nothing, and president trump is a great provider. we don't want to hear that. just give us the facts and stick to their own private beliefs. i appreciate it. steve: thanks for the call. brandon: tom, i did stick to the facts and you are welcome to the book. i started it when i worked on capitol hill. i'm not receiving any funding from president trump. i have no connection to the administration whatsoever. this is a passion project for me that actually proceeds -- precedes president trump. everything i said is factual and i welcome you to purchase the book and you can look at the bibliography. steve has a copy of the book. he's seen the bibliography. this is not me coming on and espousing my personal opinion. and support the president as i said, because he has not only talked a big game, but he has followed through. we should give credit where credit is due. i'm sorry that you feel that i'm not being honest, but i'm being completely honest. that's really all i have to say on that. steve: to ohio next. andrew, good morning. i had a few comments and a question on military spending. 36% of military spending and we've got military bases in 80 countries, plus we've got the homeland security, which is another bill. i want to hear his opinion on the national nuclear security administration within the department of energy and why the department of energy control he -- controlling our stockpile of munitions? steve:steve: thank you, andrew. brandon: that's a great question. guest: they are doing a lot of research with nuclear technology. in terms of the military budget, i'm somebody who says there are areas we can probably find agreement with our friends on the left in terms of maybe we should cut some things. maybe we should not have so many bases around the world. the one area i'm serious about is we need to be more robustly involved in space. space defense, defending our satellites, creating -- finally getting space-based missile defense, which we can do. we have not had the leadership since reagan to do it. the technology has finally caught up with the rhetoric. it is just a question of willpower. if you look at what north korea and iran are doing, no matter how any trips north korea we may make to make a deal, we cannot ever seem to put that nuclear genie back in its bottle. we see with your own as well, no matter whether we have a deal or the surge capacity to ramp up a nuclear weapons arsenal. we need to be spending less money on bases in iraq and more money on developing systems that will defend our homeland from a nuclear rogue states and possibly from rival great powers like russia and china. ofterms of the department energy, that is a separate issue. i understand what you're saying, and i do think the military should have a greater role but that is not related to what i am talking about. from let's go to jan california. caller: i would like to tell you you are doing a great job at your station. is telling me absolute truth and such good information. is i disagree that russia may be first. you have to watch out very much for china trying to get the entire world. are aware of that and frightened. i am frightened of biden. he is going to have the football and he does not talk to us. he does not come to see us. that he should have the football without anybody else making that decision. careful.e should more the higher ground is a dangerous place. in the book, as i said earlier, i spend probably 70% of the book talking about what china is doing. it is not just in the military round -- realm. with china, everything is a military battleground, the economy, technology and innovation. spectrumd of a full there, what the israelis referred to as the gray zone. with russia, the reason i talk about russia is because they have been launching systems for the last two or three years into orbit that will physically threaten our systems in orbit. it is not as easy of a fictional china. -- as easy as with china. we cannot let that happen. that is going to require a more robust way of meeting the threat. russia is launching systems in orbit to threaten ours, to hold ours hostage because they want to keep us back from eastern europe. space force needs to focus on sending up our own satellites to our early missile warning systems. that way, it is harder for ourian space to threaten systems. we would have our bigger satellites how a secret services jumps in front of a leader if he is being shot at to dive at a bodyguard satellite. we also provide greater situational awareness. and it would provide a new form of retaliatory capability. in terms of that, the more that we keep pushing moscow in front of -- over syria or ukraine, the more they get closer to china. they don't like china. they also don't want to be pushed around by the united states. what we are seeing in terms of the last couple of years is that the russian and chinese space agencies are getting closer and closer together, doing joint cooperation missions. that is something we should not want to do. what i propose doing is maybe do a limited new partnership with nasa and the russian space program. we want to be involved in another major project with nasa. it should be conditioned -- contingent on them not offloading technology to the chinese. threat can be illuminated if we have a better diplomatic stance toward russia. if we start taking into account some of their concerns. i think that can be mitigated. with china, it is very different. china wants to knock us out. they want to replace us, not just on earth in the cosmos as well. that will mean we need allies and we need a greater level of resources and funding available to combat that threat over the next 10, 20 or 30 years. host: if you are listening on c-span radio or channel 124, we are talking with brandon weichert. he is talking about his book, winning space, how america remains a superpower. this is from michael, the u.s. has much ground to wake up -- make up. the government should hire you on. muska understands how to motivate and how to lead -- musk understands how to motivate and how to lead. i believe china is going to moon to -- the moon to obtain helium-3. helium-3 is very rare on earth but abundant on the lunar surface. on both of these points, your reaction? guest: you have very smart viewers. they are correct. musk is a visionary in terms of what he has been able to do. i wish we could give him more resources because he has an objective of getting human beings, specifically americans to mars. and he wants to do it asap, as soon as possible. giving him more. if we would leave it up to the government of bureaucracies alone, they have proven after 30 or 40 years that they can't do it. we have to rely, until recently, on the russians to get people into lower orbit. we don't leave leo anymore. we should have been going back to the moon from the 1970's onward. we should have a base on the moon. we should not still be talking about it in 2020. it is a strategic imperative now. the chinese are there. they have a rover on the dark side of the moon testing the soil. the lunar lander will be launched in the next year. it will be a sample return mission. take the u2 to rover and they will bring it back to beijing and they are hoping to determine that there is enough resources available to warrant the investment into a lunar colony by 2024. the democrats in congress have already said to nasa that your mission plan is to get to the moon in 2024 and it will be scrubbed. we will not fund it, no earlier than 2028. that is not good enough. china is licking their lips, saying the americans will be out of the game. just like the americans were out of the game with the south china sea. i have to point out, the head of the chinese lunar program said to audiences in 2018 that china views the moon as the south china sea. off view mars as an island the philippines coast. that tells you the chinese have a geostrategic objective for taking the high ground of space. --is not just wrecking taking out satellites like the russians want to do. it is to take space, the moon, the asteroid belt and mars and go beyond. we, as a country, i don't think would be able to live with ourselves or be able to prosper in a world in which china has monopolized the high ground. it would be akin to our forefathers letting the wild west beat monopolized by britain or spain or another country. we would not develop along the way that we have and we would not have the same kind of security or opportunities i think that we have today because of that. host: which is what you say in your book, another excerpt. clear, the united states cannot afford to leave things as they are with the legal regime governing space. the world will move on without the u.s. at the helm in orbit and beyond if washington continues during on this matter. they would go from superpower to middle power. rob is next from independence, missouri. good morning. caller: good morning, gentlemen. brandon, i'm sure your book is nice. i probably would not use it. because of the references you put into donald trump. trump only cares about one thing and that is ratings. he does not understand science. redid thesharpie and path of the hurricane which basically conflicted what the national weather service was saying, which, i'm sorry, i rely on that more than donald trump for the weather. you are completely wrong and this whole space force things is a space farce. it is baloney is what it is. my real comment or my actual comment and recent call is i wish c-span would get rid of this 30 day call policy because, especially this close to the election. secondly, people have multiple phones in the house and they can call on several phones whereas i have one phone. it is unfair to people like me who can only place one phone call every 30 days while others get to use multiple phones to place phone calls. maybe mr. lamb can look into that policy. i would appreciate that. host: thank you for the suggestion. we will get a response on the earlier point. guest: if you want to use my book for a prop, you are welcome to. i will commute to purchase it and i might -- welcome you to purchase it and i might sign it for you. the fact you don't like president trump is irrelevant to the conversation. he is doing it. whether he believes in -- i was critical of the noaa thing that happened last year. i wrote about it. that is irrelevant. the point is he is doing something that will benefit the country in the matter of space. and if you don't approve of that because you think orange man is always bad, that is on you. i feel very sad that we would negate the progress that has been made. the previous administration did very little in space. they made a point of doing very backward looking mentality that we need to focus on earth. earth is part of the solar system. system, asof the much as our environment is part of a system on earth, the earth itself is part of the system. i believe that mankind, specifically the united states, have a greater and more proactive role. elon musk is certainly not a trump supported. he has been very positive about the space policy coming out of this administration. it is a concerted, coordinated strategy. it has a long-range view. this is the stuff that we used too presidents to know how to do. strategy.ong-term whether the president has done it, people like scott pace have done it, they are doing it. we should be applauding them. this is something frankly all americans should be brought together and it should be a ratings getter. this is awesome. i don't know how you look at a rocket launch -- i don't know launch ontch a rocket earth and return guest: you are right about the parts being shipped overseas. what i was talking about earlier with russia's space program is we have a tendency to pop up our -- prop up our enemies. this has been a failing of the last four or five presidents from both parties. this is another reason i think president trump has the following he has is because he is talking to these issues as well. but, when it comes to the space program, we used to invest at a federal level into r&d. my libertarian friends think that silicon valley is a libertarian paradise. it was u.s. tax dollars used in the 1940's and 1950's to invest in things that now the silicon valley took. into things like computer technology. what happened was when the investment was made, venture capital came in and said the risk has been reduced. we can now start investing and innovating. that is what happened. that is how our system has worked and that is how it is supposed to work. we get in return, there is an argument to be made that maybe we should be getting more dollars in return from these fields. that is something i think that should be discussed as well. in terms of how the system has worked, we have invested in the creation of the infrastructure that has allowed for investors to come in from the private sectors and to innovate. -- the how you had internet was a small dod project that after it became -- after it was built, the private sector came in and expanded on it and created this thing we now know as the internet. it required a partnership. keynes met adam smith. that is how it works. there has been an imbalance. i agree that maybe the private sector or the parasites as you refer to them, maybe they take too much. the bottom line is now that we have seen for 30 or 40 years that the federal are indeed budget has been declining. the risk is too high. of a is a great example new alloy that google likes invested in. x invested in. it would require an additional $200 million investment to see if it would work. google killed it. if this were china with all of the state funding they have, they would have thrown the $200 million at it. if it works, they have a new strategic advantage and they have a new thing they can sell to the rest of the world and make dependent on their product. and so we need that goose from the goosing of the system from the federal government and from there, allow the private sector to innovate spinoff technology. host: let me go back to what we were talking about earlier with regard to the alarm that president dwight eisenhower gave the american people. you said today that the u.s. finds itself in a similar position that it found itself on october 4, 1957 when the white house and our -- dwight eisenhower gave that speech. the only difference is that most americans today have failed to recognize just how dangerous a position the country of the u.s. is in. thet: basically, back in 1950's when sputnik happened, americans pretty much were panic stricken about, my goodness, the reds have the ability to control the high ground. what does that mean? it was a shock. we had known just a few years before that that we had won world war ii because of our air dominance. if there is space that is higher than the air, maybe they can control that and threaten us and they can put nuclear weapons up there. who knows? encouraged us and it leaders from both parties, eisenhower and jfk especially came in and said we will take space and we will get more competitive in space. we will throw the money we need to and over a decade, we will allow things to mature with this extra funding and extra leadership and committed leadership and we will leapfrog the soviets. that has not happened yet in terms of the new space race, specifically with china. that has not happened yet. the chinese launched an impact satellite missile in 2007. they did it without warning anyone and it was in violation of international law. international agreements maintain that a country that is going to do something like that has to won the world because there are 70 systems and it could damage -- so many systems it could ricochet and damage them. they just did it and they created the world's largest brie cluster that is still in -- debris cluster that is still in orbit today. why did they do that? it was a signal to the americans that we will not follow your rules, we do not respect you, we do not care about collateral damage, we are going and we are going now and we are going to take it. that was a sputnik moment. a military sputnik moment. nobody paid attention. -- haveese have made managed to get quantum internet going. that is a sputnik moment. we have had a few sputnik moments in space and high-tech rnd and we don't take heed. that is a problem. that is why i talked about the need for a $1 trillion or more investment in the space program, in the high-tech rnd field and in the education field. the book, winning space, how america remains a superpower. our guest is brandon weichert. he is the author of the weichert report, world news done right. this is what the website looks like. he will go to crake in tulsa, oklahoma. good morning. good morning. i appreciate your book. spaceerican that says exploration is a waste, they don't understand what is happening. preston trump is positioning ash president trump is positioning us toward the second industrial revolution. -- president trump is positioning us toward the second industrial revolution. when mining is brought back, it will be the equivalent of giving every american arrays in income through lower energy prices. it is very possible that this will be a huge room and the public-private partnership that nasa is doing is not for no reason. why would private industry be interested? there will be a great income increase for americans. we are basically ahead of the russians and everyone else on a land run. we can claim areas that are ours and there are russian probes up but we are capable of having manned areas. an organ space station as well as a station on the moon. we are getting ready to prosper. trump andk president americans should for promoting that. guest: we would still be talking about it 20 years from now. there is a real chance with the leadership that has been given and the resources and priorities that have been given to this program that this goldrush, you are absolutely right. i talk about this extensively in my book, the space mining boom. when i worked on capitol hill, we passed a law in 2014 that basically said any company that can reach an asteroid for instance and mine it, the mineable resources they can turn around and sell to the people on earth. it is predicted that a minimum, minimum of $1 trillion -- a $1 trillion face economy is waiting to be had. -- space economy is waiting to be had. the chinese know this, the russians know this and we know this. as the caller had, -- caller said, we have had the ability to take these resources and we have not done it. it is because of bureaucracy and a lack of leadership over the course of a decade. we have not focused on it and now we are in a position where the chinese are catching up and russians are doing things to catch up in specific areas and to complicate our plans. we need a major leapfrog moment. because we need to take those resources. of $1 trillion, it is significant lee morgan. a minimum, think of what we could do with $1 trillion -- significantly more. with of what we could do $1 trillion. we should be spending on more terrestrial pursuits. darn it, if we had space mining, that money we get from taxing the space mining activity can be used to fund better social safety programs. interest that would arise in young people when young people start going more into fields that pay more like science, technology, engineering and math and start dreaming of a better tomorrow. it is not pie in the sky. our rivals are thinking like this. there is such a thing as national prestige and nationalism in space. our rivals believe in this and they are pushing hard to catch up and leapfrog us. we have a finite window where we can stop them from catching up and then leapfrog them and stay in the lead. space mining is a key sector. joining us from morgantown, west virginia. go ahead. caller: i wanted to preface my question with a quote from stem in the u.s.. the quote is asians are over ed.resent 17%.f -- with second and third generation asians, the rhetoric of us being in competition and china being i amnemy, at least what hearing from you in terms of the state policy you are advocating, it seems a little under socialized. i don't want us to go backwards in time in terms of the discrimination the japanese faced in world war ii where every japanese was question about their loyalty -- questioned about their loyalty to the united states. i am not saying you are saying that but i will raise that as a question. host: thank you for the call. guest: i am not advocating racist policy in the slightest. i think one of our problems with this has been that we don't talent talent -- retain when they come over here to train. they end up leaving the country and going back to china. there is a discussion to be had changee -- how do we certain things to make sure we remain competitive. i am not talking about racist. i am talking about china the country. it is not me saying they are an enemy. they have made it clear they are in a competition with us. all you need to do is go through and listen to what the president has said since 2012. he views this as a competition. we need to respond accordingly. i take what my rivals say at heart. if they say they are coming for us and they want to displace the americans, if they want to say writethey want to historical wrongs, we have to be aware of this. historical wrongs, we have to be aware of this. person before he died told graham allison, he was a great singaporean leader, a personal icon of mine. somebody i think is one of the great leaders of the 20th century, he said to audiences that the year before he died, he warned the chinese audience of divide thee, do not wolf's milk of nationalism. in china, they educate their young people to never forget national humiliation. they educate young people to actively view western countries that had assorted -- a sordid history in china. they educate the young people. they have a sense of grievance toward those countries and we have to be in. we have to do to them on some level that which they did to us. i think that is a very unhealthy view. i don't think it is the way things should go but that is what they are doing. we in our country have to respond accordingly. i'm not saying we should go to war with china. i am saying we should baton -- respond in a competitive manner. we should be aware of the threats they have imposing. they have been trying to blind american pilots from their face -- face in djibouti. they are doing things to directly harm americans. what is the threat? it's capabilities plus intent. they now have capabilities that they did not have five years ago. that is what i am talking about. so, we need to stay competitive. yes, we need to look at certain things with the way we do stem education and the way we retain talent. we need to educate our own indigenous foreign populations better. i had an air force general asked basically we do about wanton anti-americanism. he said they are mostly your age. mostly millennials. i said that is a department of education thing. a curriculum problem. you have a lot of political education going on for the last 30 years. it is a problem. we should focus on the basic s. it is sort of the bobby knight version of strategy. bobby knight took a basketball team of ok players and he would make them competitive i sticking to the fundamentals. that is what we need to do. stick to the fundamentals. host: quick question, quick response. kelly from washington, go ahead and be brief. caller: i thought it was funny how such a nonpolitical subject can be so politicized in the united states. if anything can bring back the together, it could be this. host: we will go to woodbridge, virginia. caller: it doesn't matter what a democrat or republican proposes. the obama administration proposed protecting satellites. the u.s. and china were trying to find a way to bring it down. the obama administration proposed the russians were jamming our signals on our destroyers. sayh mcconnell republicans trump is going to have a space force and every thing is ok. it doesn't matter who proposed the idea. it has to be done. we need to protect our satellites. we don't have a choice. host: thank you. guest: i agree in principle with your previous color. obama was briefed on many of these issues. but in terms of the presidential notership, he did prioritize it. it was not listed as a priority until the last year obama was in office. the chinese were building lasers to knock out satellites at least as early as 2013. our satellites are being left vulnerable in 2012, 20 13 and 2014. when i worked on the hill, that was what inspired me to work on this project. they were getting briefings. our previous presidents, not just obama, they made these great speeches about what we are going to do in space and it was never followed through. it is fair to say that the republicans in congress did not prioritize this. the point is now we have a president who is using the pulpit to get congress to do what he wants them to do which is good for everyone in this case in space. jack davenport in iowa, good moring. we are brief on time. caller: how much of a threat does this post to our technological development? host: thank you, jack. guest: it could be. we know that there are some who do end up becoming spies and we need to be aware of that. ultimately, most of the chinese who come here do not want to go home. we make them go home. we will have to have a discussion on how we balance the need for tougher integration -- immigration policies with the need that if we are going to bring people from arrival country to be educated in high tech, we will need to figure out a way to keep them and not have it where they go back and become the founders of the next great threat to us. when they go back to china, china wants them to become the leaders in their country and treats them like they are kings. we want to be able to stay competitive. if we are going to train them up, we have to keep them. it is not just a foreign student thing. when my wife was at yale, her cohort, american students as well were being targeted by chinese companies to do genetic research. you will get great money and all the things you need. you will have financial needs met and student loans repaid. just come to china and build a genetics lab. that is not just going to asian students. that is going to students of all backgrounds at elite universities. what we need to do is start being aware of the threat that all of our well-trained young people are being targeted and we need to figure out how to keep them here and we need to figure out how to stay competitive. that is the big thing here. that is what we need to worry about in terms of education at the higher end. the: you mentioned potential of a modern-day paul harbor, space -- pearl harbor. space pearl harbor. what is the challenge that we face? ourt: they are targeting satellites for everything we require from military projection to basic communication. if those satellites are knocked out, we lose the ability to have a modern society and the enemy, russia, china or even north could runiran roughshod over our military and allied forces or could devastate the american economy i making us unable to do transactions and unable to committee kate with each other's. . we would be a pre-1970's culture in a 2020 world and that cannot work. host: winning space, how america retains its power, brand >> everyday we are taking your calls live on the air on the news of the day. we will discuss policy issues that impact you. monday morning, a former fema roletor talks about fema's in the covid-19 pandemic and recent natural disasters. and a discussion of federal oversight. watch live at 7:00 eastern monday morning. be sure to join the discussion with your phone calls, facebook comments, text messages, and tweets. the sunday news programs focused on recent protests and violence in american cities and the president's plans trip this tuesday to kenosha, wisconsin. >>

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