Kash Patel: Biden Administration Diverts Attention From National Security Failures—From Chinese Spy Balloon to Fentanyl Crisis

“I can tell you without equivocation that during my tenure, there was not one shred of intelligence that came across that showed that even the possibility of a balloon from the Chinese Communist Party or otherwise was going to cross the territorial waters of the United States of America,” says Kash Patel.

Defense officials have said Chinese spy balloons entered U.S. airspace at least three times during the Trump administration. During a press briefing on Feb. 6, Air Force Gen. Glen VanHerck, commander of the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), said that those Chinese spy balloons had gone undetected at the time.

Kash Patel argues the Biden administration is trying to distract from its own failures. We discuss the Chinese spy balloons and President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address.

FULL TRANSCRIPT

Kash Patel:

Hey everybody and welcome back to Kash’s Corner. Jan and I are out on the West coast in different locations, but we didn’t want to miss a week, especially with this week’s State of the Union and everything about the CCP balloon. Jan, where would you like to kick off this episode?

Jan Jekielek:

Kash, that’s right. We do need to talk about the State of the Union. My mind has been on this balloon and whose mind hasn’t been on the balloon as it’s been traversing the entire continental United States only to be shot down in the end?

But let’s start with the State of the Union. You should put your national security hat on here and let’s look at the State of the Union through the national security lens.

Mr. Patel:

The part of the State of the Union that stuck out the most to me or was most alarming was the entire situation and how this administration has dealt with the CCP, the Chinese Communist Party and Xi Jinping and his leadership. If you dissect it, and instead of talking about generalities like President Biden did, he actually did bring up Chinese fentanyl, which is where I want to start. He said 70,000 people died last year in America from Chinese fentanyl overdoses. That number is actually a little low, but it’s still unacceptably too high. You’re talking about thousands of deaths a week to get to that number and it is solely attributed to Chinese fentanyl.

My biggest problem with it was Joe Biden’s solution that he offered during the State of the Union, which was to increase drug detection machines and computer systems at airports and train stations. That, in my opinion, Jan, is not how you combat narco-trafficking, especially when our government knows that Chinese fentanyl comes in through our country not by air or sea, but through their partnership with the Mexican drug cartels and the kingpins south of the border. There has to be a two-phased approach like we did in the Trump administration.

What we did there was an economic approach against the CCP by levying tariffs across the board to many companies and individuals affiliated with the CCP that hamstrung their economy and forced the Chinese Communist Party to the table to address concerns such as fentanyl. The other measure is you have to go down south.

You have to go down to Mexico and go after the drug traffickers where they exist, because without the drug traffickers in Mexico, the Chinese fentanyl doesn’t make it into the United States. Drug detection machines at airports and border crossings are not going to do the job. We are only going to detect a minute amount of the fentanyl coming in through that system of surveillance, if we were to call it that.

But there’s a lot of things we can do. We can also levy tariffs on the Mexican government for allowing the CCP to partner with the drug cartels, because that’s what they’re doing. It’s not like the Mexican government is prosecuting the CCP and their production and transportation of Chinese fentanyl through Mexico. They’re just letting it happen, and we are taking no position against the Mexican government on that.

So, there has to be a multi-pronged approach and machines are just not the answer. You have to have a diplomatic approach, an economic approach, and a national security approach on the ground that attacks the drug traffickers.

Now look, President Trump, to put it in juxtaposition, came out on Truth Social maybe a couple of weeks ago and essentially said that if he’s elected president again, drug traffickers in Mexico will receive the death penalty if they’re convicted in the United States of America. Now, that is a substantial uptick in the temperature when it comes to how we handle drug trafficking cases. And I for one, agree with that measure that certain drug traffickers at certain levels after they’re convicted should have the death penalty. This administration is taking no such position.

I just didn’t see any substance on one of the biggest national security risks that America is facing right now via our number one adversary, the Chinese Communist Party, when it comes to fentanyl. I thought that was wholly lacking, Jan.

Mr. Jekielek:

I definitely want to talk about the Chinese Communist Party more, and actually, the fact that it was barely mentioned in the speech. But before we go there, there’s the general situation at the border with huge amounts of people that are coming to the border every day. This creates an opening for these mules and these different operations to actually get the drugs in through the southern border.

Mr. Patel:

The illegal border crossings directly correlate with the amount of human trafficking, the amount of sex trafficking, and also the amount of drug trafficking that pours in through our borders. If they’re not willing to take on in some form a stronger border security policy, be it a border wall or otherwise, then these problems are going to continue to exist.

But the only thing Joe Biden did in the State of the Union last night was pay lip service to the radical Left-wing agenda in the mainstream media. And sadly, you saw the headlines, Jan, the next day or the day after they’re basically glorifying him for his approach to border security. I don’t know how you can say that when you look at the facts when it comes to the border and fentanyl.

Those two things are inextricably intertwined in my opinion, as is the sex trafficking, and as is the human trafficking. From a national security perspective, I saw no actual policy decisions presented by our Commander in Chief to take any of those on. So unfortunately, 2023 is going to be a very rough year when it comes to the CCP, border crossings, Chinese fentanyl, and human trafficking.

Mr. Jekielek:

President Biden did mention very briefly something to the tune of if China violates our sovereignty, the American sovereignty, then he will deal with it. But that was about the extent of the mention of the Chinese Communist Party in the speech itself.

We’re filming this on Wednesday, the morning following the State of the Union. The last couple of days, there have been multiple incursions into Taiwanese aerospace by Chinese jets. And this is a reality. The Chinese Communist Party has noted that it’s very unhappy with the idea that Speaker McCarthy will be visiting Taiwan, which is one of his promises as he was going for the speakership, so this context is valuable.

Mr. Patel:

I think so, and it’s interesting that the new Speaker of the House has said he’s going to go over to Taiwan and see the leadership in government there. That’s more than just a political statement. That’s a national security position that I’m glad Speaker McCarthy is taking, because it shows that at least leadership in the House of Representatives is willing to take on China and the CCP specifically. They don’t want us there.

Look, as Chief of Staff of DOD, we had to patrol and maintain observations in a heavy posture in the South China Sea. That’s the waterway that separates mainland China from Taiwan. And we did so. We had aircraft carriers running through there and we had other national security devices in and around the region to make sure we were tracking their movements.

When you fast-forward now, two years after that administration ended and into the Biden administration, Xi Jinping is doing almost anything he wants in the South China Sea. They’re increasing their presence and building more artificial land structures and land islands in the South China Sea. They’re also launching, as you’ve pointed out, more aerial campaigns to show force, maybe to collect intelligence, maybe to threaten Taiwan or a combination of all those things to foreshadow what he ultimately wants to do, which I believe is to take over Taiwan in some fashion.

And unfortunately, our administration under the Biden regime is allowing this to occur. It’s another strategic failure when it comes to China. You’re right, he mentioned it in the speech, but he didn’t say how he was going to countermand those actions that Xi Jinping and the CCP have taken, be it with fentanyl border crossings, the South China Sea, Taiwan, and the aerial campaigns they’re now running over there. What are we, the United States, going to do about it? I heard no answers from the Commander in Chief in the State of the Union on that.

Mr. Jekielek:

One of the things was this balloon that basically crossed the continental United States with some kind of unknown payload. We don’t really know what it was doing there. I can think of 15 different ways in which it could have been used. In fact, it could have been even used as a weapon of sorts, and it was finally only shot down on the other side. Why don’t we start at the beginning? What do you make of this whole thing?

Mr. Patel:

First, let’s get into the specifics of what the balloon is from an intelligence national security standpoint, Jan. These balloons, and it’s no surprise to most Americans, are used for surveillance capabilities. Even though the Chinese Communist Party came in and said it was a weather collection apparatus, anyone and everyone knows that’s a complete farce.

Now, it would have been one thing Jan, if as soon as the balloon hit the territorial waters of the United States and it was first detected on the Aleutian Islands, which is the western portion of Alaska, way out in the Pacific Ocean where there are no human beings and essentially no marine traffic, to take it out there.

But for some reason, we detected it and our Secretary of Defense and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Director of National Intelligence made no phone calls to the Chinese Communist Party and their counterparts to say, “What are you doing?”

That’s the first measure that should have immediately been taken upon detection—a point-to-point Cabinet, Secretary-level phone call to say, “What is the meaning of this?” And if the answer to that question was unsatisfactory, then we should have immediately shot it down.

Now, to fast-forward, I want to juxtapose that with something that just happened this week. Secretary Austin, the Defense Secretary for the Biden Administration, finally attempted to call his counterpart after we shot the balloon down. His counterpart in China, the Defense Minister, refused to take his phone call, Jan. That shows you the difference in how the Chinese respected cabinet secretaries in the Trump administration versus the Biden administration.

And so, that is a failure in not just operations, Jan, but it exposes the weakness of America on the diplomatic world stage; we can’t even get the leadership of our military and intelligence apparatus to call their counterparts in China to take this thing head on.

Was there an intentional decision to make sure that call didn’t happen? That’s something else we need answers from this White House, because it’s not like no one thought not to call them. Somebody had to, and somebody then made a decision to say, “We’re not going to call them,” or, “If we try to call them and they don’t pick up our phone calls, that still has to be reported.” But either scenario is terrible from a national security standpoint.

But flipping back to what this balloon is actually capable of. Look, as a former Deputy Director of National Intelligence, there are all sorts of mechanisms for collecting info, not just against people in the United States, Jan, not just against our phones and our laptops and our internet traffic with TikTok. We’ve covered that endlessly as to why we call TikTok the new Chinese digital fentanyl.

Those balloons serve a specific purpose, in my opinion, when they traverse our entire continental United States of America starting in Alaska. They are looking at national security installations across our country from Alaska to Montana, down to Carolina. We have military bases in every single one of those locations. We have other facilities, intelligence and otherwise, in every single one of those locations, and I bet you the CCP knows that.

Concerning the trajectory of this balloon, I just want to make sure people understand this, it’s not like you just light it or it’s not like you just fill it with helium and you set it on its way. It is actually controlled by human beings, probably from somewhere in mainland China, as to its direction and where it’s going next, and it’s done with a strategic purpose.

At those locations, which is why the governors in these states were freaking out and rightfully so, why is this thing collecting this information? We didn’t even make any effort, as far as I’m aware, Jan, to again, call the CCP and the government there once it entered our mainland, our heartland, in the Midwest.

So from a strategic and national security and intelligence standpoint, the Biden Administration failed across the board, and we haven’t even gotten to the shootdown yet.

Mr. Jekielek:

There are a few things that are worth mentioning at this point. One of them is there is no structure under the Chinese Communist Party, essentially the entire military and civilian structures in communist China, that isn’t dual use or dual purpose. If something’s a weather balloon, it’s also doing intelligence gathering for the military. It is never one or the other over there. Structurally, that’s just how things go, so that’s important to note.

The thing that I found really bizarre throughout the course of the transit of the balloon across the continental United States, was the ever-evolving narrative about what was happening with it. At one point a journalist said, “Don’t the people have a right to know what it’s doing up there?” And the spokesperson said, “Well, you have a right to look up and see it,” or something like that. It was very strange to me.

Mr. Patel:

Unfortunately, it’s worse than strange, Jan, when you talk about the collection capabilities it has. What we didn’t talk about was that the apparatuses in this balloon are not like a VHS recorder from the ’80s, where you have to remove the tape and then physically transfer it back to mainland China in order for them to exploit the data.

They were getting live-time collection feeds, in my opinion, based on my experience in government, that were communicating photographs and other intelligence for days on end across the American heartland and Alaska. So, they already have the intel. Every hour that balloon was in the air over America, more and more intel was being relayed back to mainland China on a minute-by-minute basis.

Now we know China got away with it, they have all this information, they were doing it for a strategic purpose, and the Biden Administration’s response was literally to sit on their hands. It’s now been reported that they actually detected the balloon a few days before it was put out in the media, and that the balloon was up over Alaska. They intentionally decided to withhold that information from the American public.

Now, let’s go to the shootdown. Okay, we finally shot it down after the balloon crossed over the Carolinas and hit the Atlantic Ocean and their recovery effort was underway. That actually is a good thing because we need to go in there and recover it and see what kind of capabilities and payload are on this balloon, so we can know and can reverse-engineer what China and the CCP were doing to us, and we can then call them out on their lies. That should have happened on the other side, literally, of the world when the balloon hit the Aleutian Islands in the territorial waters of the United States of America.

You saw the strategic difference between how President Trump would have handled this, versus how Biden would have handled this. Look, I can tell you for a fact that I talked to President Trump during the balloon saga and I said, “Sir, if this happened during our watch, I would have told you immediately, and I think I know what your response would have been.” And he basically said, “Yes, shoot it down. What’s the next national security thing we need to focus on?” It would not have lasted days. It would have been handled immediately.

Now the American people have to ask themselves, were they satisfied with the approach that Joe Biden took at the State of the Union when it comes to the balloon and other national security matters that are plaguing our country?

Mr. Jekielek:

There are a few other things that are worth noting. We’ve had in our records that there was a comparable balloon that the Chinese Communist Party launched back in 2018, that was actually carrying hypersonic payloads, basically missiles. Not over America, but the point is that this kind of a balloon can definitely have this sort of capability.

There was all sorts of discussion about a potential EMP being on board, and there could be some sort of gas in the actual balloon part of the balloon as opposed to the payload. Anyway, there’s multiple ways, aside from intelligence gathering, that such a device could be used.

Mr. Patel:

Absolutely. It could be an offensive weapon, for lack of a better term. And since we supposedly have recovered it from the Atlantic Ocean, those answers should be readily available.

Now, will those answers be provided to the American public? I don’t think so. They’ll be kept classified by the Biden Administration when it’s taken to the appropriate location to cull through the wreckage and damage and then reverse-engineer what was on there.

But you’re right, there’s every chance and every possibility that there could have been a projectile that could have been launched from that balloon, that there could have been a lethal combination of gasses and liquids in that balloon, that there could have been things other than just intelligence collection from that type of apparatus.

We should be told those answers. Unfortunately, what the Biden Administration will do is they will say, “Okay, we’ve recovered it. America is now safer.” And he will say yet again another empty epithet like he said from the State of the Union, “If China enters our sovereignty, they will take it head on.” When Joe Biden says that, it’s completely meaningless. China entered our airspace 10 days ago and allowed this balloon to traverse our airspace for a week and change and he did nothing.

That is the thing I would like our audience to focus on, that there’s a difference between what he was saying in the State of the Union and the actions taken when it comes to our national security. We have a long way to go. Unfortunately, in my opinion, it’s another victory for the CCP and the Communist Party over America’s national security apparatus.

Mr. Jekielek:

Something we really do have to talk about with respect to the balloon was this evolving narrative around balloons that apparently had come perhaps into American airspace, or it’s actually unclear exactly where they were, perhaps off the coast, perhaps even over the continental United States, during the Trump Administration.

Initially it was said that this was something the Trump Administration knew about. Numerous officials have come out, including yourself, saying, “We knew nothing of this.” And now, we had the top NORAD General coming out and saying, “Well, actually it’s true. We didn’t know anything about it back then, but we know now .” It’s very difficult to square all of this. What do you think?

Mr. Patel:

The reason it’s so difficult to square is because, again, the Biden Administration chose to lie to the American public and immediately analogize the situation that they had to confront into something like, “Look, it also happened during Trump,” because that’s their safety button. That’s their exit. That’s how they get out of this scenario.

But you have the former Deputy Director of National Intelligence, like myself, or the Former Director of National Intelligence like John Ratcliffe, or the former Secretary of State or the former Secretary of Defense like Chris Miller, all coming out and immediately saying, “We were never presented with any intelligence whatsoever to show that the CCP or otherwise were floating aerial devices over mainland America. We know that did not happen.” And then, the Biden Administration continued to muddy the waters when they said, “We couldn’t detect it then, but we can detect it now.”

I don’t even know what that means, Jan. What are they saying? They’re going back through five years worth of intelligence collection and they’re saying, “We missed it”? I know they’re not going to say that because we didn’t. What they’re going to do is go back and rejigger the puzzle to say, “Oh look, the generals at NORTHCOM…” And just a sidebar, NORTHCOM is the United States Northern Command.

They are responsible from a military and a national security standpoint for the protection of the territory that is the continental United States of America. And NORAD is an installation that rests within NORTHCOM. The top general there you alluded to earlier, Jan. He came out and basically backed the position that we all made very public, once the Biden Administration, we believe, chose to lie to the American public.

And another point, the Biden Administration said publicly, “We’re going to brief Trump officials who were in DOD and Intel.” We talked and our position is we are going to refuse any such briefing from the Biden Administration, because we don’t have any faith, since you already lied to the American people about this situation, that you will be forthcoming in what you produce to us.

But more importantly, it’s not that we need to see it if it exists—it’s that the American people need to see it. They are going to service up a bunch of classified nonsense where they will say, “You can never talk about it.” They’ll go out and basically do what Adam Schiff did for five years during Russiagate and say, “Look, I’ve got the evidence, but I can’t show it to you because it’s classified.”

We’re not going to let them run that ruse again on the American public, which is why we stood up in unison across the board once this information broke. And I think you’re going to see this scenario continue to implode on the Biden Administration.

Let me just say this, Jan, though, it’s not a victory for us just because we were right in the Trump Administration. It’s a loss that we are dealing with this against the national security interests of America, and we have a president and a cabinet administration that fails to grasp the severity of it and chooses to lie about it rather than have any accountability towards the American people they’re supposed to be safeguarding.

Mr. Jekielek:

Kash, I just want to clarify to be sure here. This top NORAD General, he himself said that we believe these incursions did happen during the Trump Administration, these three incursions that are alleged, but that we just weren’t aware of them at the time.

Mr. Patel:

You’re right, that’s what he said. And that’s what doesn’t square with me. What do you mean you believe they happened? You mean you detected them and failed to tell the Secretary of Defense, the Director of National Intelligence, the Director of the FBI, the Attorney General, the President of the United States, the Vice President and so on?

That would be a strategic failure of epic proportions from our chain of command. Is there a videotape of a balloon from America that was hidden to the Trump Administration by our military and intelligence officers that didn’t make its way to the Presidential Daily Briefing, which I was a part of running and handling and doing? No, that’s absurd.

As the Deputy DNI who helped create the Presidential Daily Briefing, the most sensitive intelligence collection that we provide to the President of the United States and the cabinet secretaries, I can tell you without equivocation that during my tenure, there was not one shred of intelligence that came across that showed that even the possibility of a balloon from the Chinese Communist Party or otherwise was going to cross the territorial waters of the United States of America.

Mr. Jekielek:

Hopefully we’ll find out what they mean.

Mr. Patel:

Actually, Jan, you raise a really good point. I know we’ve talked about it extensively in past episodes, but I just want to highlight one thing.

Congress is going to have the opportunity to conduct some oversight here. This should fall to the Armed Services Committee and the Intel Committee, in my opinion, because those are the two lanes it fits into. They should request all the documentation, not just on this balloon, but all the documentation that that NORAD General is making that statement on, which I think is totally baseless, and the rest of the Biden Administration, I believe, is lying about.

What is the intelligence that you are now saying years later this happened before, but it wasn’t detected then? That just doesn’t pass the smell test to me. These committees of jurisdiction have the right and authority to subpoena this documentation and these witnesses, and they should do that, Jan.

Mr. Jekielek:

From what I understand, the Gang of Eight is going to be briefed on this balloon, and perhaps they’ll be briefed on those other balloons at the same time. Any final thoughts, Kash?

Mr. Patel:

No. I think the State of the Union was, whatever your politics are, an opportunity for the world to see where America stands, from my perspective, in the National Security Defense, Intel, law enforcement spaces. And tragically, President Biden failed across the board, and there’s a lot of work that needs to be done to hold some people accountable.

Mr. Jekielek:

Kash, I think it’s time for our shout-out.

Mr. Patel:

Jan, this week’s shout-out goes to Erica Knight who has been kind enough to let us into her home. And of course, she is a dear friend of the show and the publicist who is in charge of my life. We greatly appreciate Erica welcoming us into her home, and we appreciate all the comments on the board. We greatly enjoyed the live chat last week and every week, and we hope to see you all next week on Kash’s Corner.

This transcript has been edited for clarity and brevity.