House Armed Services keeping up with China.

0:00 Speaker 1 With us today is Congressman Rob Whitman, vice Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee and US representative from the first Congressional district in Virginia since two thousand and seven. And Congressman, what keeps you up at night?

0:17 Speaker 2 Well, John, the threat from China really keeps me up at night. I serve on the Select Committee on the Strategic Competition between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party, and I am concerned with what China is doing to not just the United States, but what they’re trying to do to dominate the world economically and strategically. And let

0:34 me tell you, they are insidious in what they are doing. Their intention is not just to compete, but to defeat the United States in every way, shape or form. It concerns me the aggressiveness that they’re pursuing and the means to which they will are willing to go to to defeat the United States.

0:51 Speaker 1 Well, there’s a big and four hundred million of them, probably one hundred million are members of the Communist Party that they’re out doing what they have to do to accomplish that. I mean, our borders are under attack. Fetanyl coming in from the Mexican border, our education system are you know, they’re fighting our armed forces. I mean they’re

1:20 gonna have more ships in the Navy than we do, Yes, and I think the air force they’re gonna exceed us in airplanes and in their.

1:29 Speaker 2 Future they are at every turn strategically they’re gonna outpace US air, land, sea, space, and cyber We have to do more to be able to not only keep pace, but be able to have any chance to counter them and their efforts around the world, most in cities. Thing they’re doing is entangling themselves in every aspect of the

1:49 world economy. If you look at what they’re doing now in South America and Central America, look at the spy station they’ve set up in Cuba, look at what they’re doing in Africa exploding natural resources. You know, they are there for one purpose and one purposely, and that is to provide strategic dominance for China, and they’re willing to

2:09 do anything to achieve their ends.

2:12 Speaker 1 And there’s one hundred minion of them on that mission, Yes, Congressman. The other thing that they’re doing is they’re using their influence. They’re pushing electric vehicles and and it seems like a big scam to me. I mean, the United States has a hundred years worth of oil and they have no oil, so they rather push the electric vehicles. They’re making all

2:41 the batteries, et cetera, et cetera. And I understand you met with a foreign was it Toyota you met with? Yes? Yes?

2:52 Speaker 1 Tell us about your meeting with Toyota.

2:54 Speaker 2 Well, we had some great conversations with folks at Toyota Motor Company and just to just get their perspective, because a lot of American motor companies, and of course Toyota manufacturers in the United States, have a mindset about what they’re going to do with electric vehicles, and Toyota has said that their mindset is they are going to build

3:12 a whole variety of vehicles. They’re going to build evs, electric vehicles, They’re going to build hybrids, They’re going to build gas and diesel because they see the need being there for those different vehicles. And they said if they just limited their production to a single vehicle that is an electric vehicle, that it would not coincide with the

3:28 infrastructure available in the United States. I’ve spoken to our electric companies that have said, rob we cannot supply electricity in a reliable form in the time span that these car manufacturers want to go totally over to electric.

3:43 Speaker 1 Vehicles, and I agree with that one hundred percent. I don’t mind having electric vehicles. It should be an option to the buyer. I mean, you want an electric vehicle, you can have one. You want a gas vehicle, you can have one. And I mean I’ve been saying that motives that they’re going to push all their customers to

4:02 electric vehicles. My final another bankruptcy, and that’s my opinion. I mean, but it’s energy. That’s another good subject. Yes, we’re not going to provide enough energy for the United States of America with windmills and with with with sun.

4:20 I mean, there’s new technology coming out and it’s called what is it SMR.

4:28 Speaker 2 Yes, small modular reactors. It’s an exciting technology that’s actually been used for decades with the United States Navy. If you look at what they’ve done empowering nuclear aircraft carriers or nuclear submarines, they’ve done this more consistently and safer than anybody in the history.

4:42 Speaker 3 Of human kind. Not a single accident. And that’s what.

4:45 Speaker 1 We’ve got, A single accident in forty years. That’s right, Yes, yes, well, except for the thrush of forty years ago.

4:50 Speaker 2 Yeah, well that was that was a an accident with the submarine itself. It really wasn’t due to the to the to the nuclear plant, but the but the issue was the challenge for us today in getting this to scale.

5:08 What I want to see us do is to say small moderary actors have worked for for decades.

5:13 Speaker 1 So it’s the size of this room. I think it’s not that big because they feel that they they’re on nuclear submarines, they are on aircraft carriers and uh uh I understand that they’re gonna they can power of city of half a million or a million. Uh and you can even buy two of them to have a backup power.

5:35 Speaker 3 Just that’s right.

5:36 Speaker 2 And and you know, and they’re in they’re environmentally friendly. You know, we can manage the what whatever. Listen, there’s there are all kinds of safety measures there to make sure that these things are safe. I think that we can do that with without concern. And we’re gonna need that for this nation’s energy needs in the future. You

5:52 cannot you cannot meet this nation’s energy needs without nuclear It’s.

5:56 Speaker 1 The green energy. To French, and I understand the French and the Germans have already said it’s a green energy.

6:04 Speaker 3 I think it’s our future.

6:05 Speaker 2 In fact, I have a bill in HR thirty five fifty three, the twenty first Century Atomic Energy Production Act, And what this does is to say, we are going to aggressively go after the regulatory process to make sure we can simply and quickly get these plants approved, make sure that we’re doing everything we can to get the

6:25 newest technology in place, to make sure that they’re safe.

6:28 Speaker 3 I mean, those are things that we need to be doing. If we’re serious.

6:31 Speaker 2 About the energy demands of this nation in the future, nuclear energy is going to be a part of that. If you don’t do that, then you’re never going to get there, never going to get there.

6:42 Speaker 1 I’m an animal lover. I understand these windmills they’re trying to put on on the East coast. You know, they’ve got to dig down deep because if the windmills are six hundred and seven hundred feet high, you got to build a big foundation. And there’s a lot of explosions going on trying to put those foundations in. They’re killing

7:04 all our whales.

7:06 Speaker 3 Well, listen, there’s a lot of questions.

7:08 Speaker 2 We had a hearing last week on right whale strandings and trying to figure out what was that issue, and some of the witnesses there wanted to talk about entanglements and ship collisions, and certainly those are part of mortality, but there’s also other things, John, as you said that lend themselves to a right whale mortality as well as

7:26 humpbacks and others. It includes predation by orcas and great white sharks, as well as the impacts of these construction projects offshore. As you know, whales are very sensitive to this low frequency sound. I think it does have an impact, and even the Biden administration themselves says, hey, you need to look at this to see what the impact is

7:46 on these whale populations.

7:47 Speaker 1 And they’re killing millions of birds because then we don’t even count them because they go they don’t see the turbines training, and they fly into the turbans and they’re killing millions of birds. So these environmentalists that want wind energy, they’re killing all the whales and they’re killing all the birds.

8:06 Speaker 2 Well, it’s certainly having an effect, and I think what we need to determine is is what’s the scale of the effect. How many birds are indeed being impacted by this, and listen. It may not be killing them out right, but it may be enough to where they can’t fly and then they’re on the water.

8:23 Speaker 3 And they eventually perish. The same with whales.

8:26 Speaker 2 I mean, all these things they are doing out there, I think invariably do have an impact on marine mammle population. So it may not just be whales, it’s other marine mammals out there also.

8:34 Speaker 1 Comesman, we got a minute left. Tell us what do you want to tell the American people? There’s you know, millions of them listening right now, maybe you up to five million where National Show on Sunday morning.

8:46 Speaker 2 Yes, Well, what I would tell them is is the greatest challenge that our nation faces today is the threat of our lifetime is China.

8:53 Speaker 3 And we have to approach this on all front.

8:56 Speaker 2 So it’s not just a military issue, it’s also an economic issue. You I would tell them if they have investments, uh to talk to their to their investment counselor and ask them are they invested in companies that are Chinese companies are there because every company there is tied to the Chinese companies. Part they are they investing in bond

9:15 funds that buy Chinese bonds because in every one of those situations, that is feeding the wolf that will eat us.

9:23 Speaker 3 I’m just so.

9:24 Speaker 2 Concerned about that because the magnitude of this continues to grow every day, and I want to make sure that we address it. There needs to be transparency there so people understand.

9:31 Speaker 1 You need transparency. Congressmen, whether whether you’re you’re a h fund guy or whether you’re an investor, if you invest in China in the wrong way where they make you disclose your trade secrets, yes, that’s going to hurt the America that we love.

9:51 Speaker 2 Does handing over intellectual property or for them that matter, they steal intellectual property. All of that harms America and America’s companies. We cannot survive doing that well.

9:59 Speaker 1 Congress, Thank you so much. Congressman Rob Whitman, Vice Chairman House Armed Services and Virginia’s first congressional district since two thousand and seven, Thank you so much for coming on WABC, and God bless you and God bless Mark John.

10:17 Speaker 3 Thanks so much. Great to be on with you.