Transcript: Representative André Carson on "Face the Nation," July 4, 2021
The following is a transcript of an interview with Representative André Carson of Indiana that aired on Sunday, July 4, 2021, on "Face the Nation."
ED O'KEEFE: In a recently declassified report, US intelligence officials have offered no explanation for dozens of unexplained sightings witnessed by Navy pilots since 2004. Congressman André Carson of Indiana chaired a classified briefing on this report and joins us from Washington. Congressman, happy Independence Day to you. I know you can't share all the details of that classified report. We wish you could. And before we talk about UFOs, I want to ask you about these reports of a new ransomware attack over the weekend that apparently has affected at least dozens of American companies. As a member of the Intelligence Committee, have you learned anything more about it?
REP. ANDRÉ CARSON (D-IN): Well, these attacks obviously have always targeted primarily two pillars of our American foundation, the government and US businesses, and we've seen this debacle with SolarWinds. We've seen it with the Colonial Pipeline. We've been briefed as a committee. We're looking into it. The Biden administration has a very serious plan in terms of pushing back on these attackers. And so along with the startup entities and small businesses and the US government, we're working on encryption. You know, we want a system that is- is protected, but we don't want something that's so impenetrable we can't catch criminals--
ED O'KEEFE: Right.
REP. CARSON: --and human sex traffickers. And so we're working through this issue regularly.
ED O'KEEFE: Just for the sake of trying to cut to the chase, do we know who did it? Was it Russia?
REP. CARSON: I can't speak to that matter right now.
ED O'KEEFE: OK, not taking it off the table. Understood. Look, this report that the Pentagon released and that you're pushing for more conversation about, it's about a nine page declassified report. And nowhere in this do I see mention of the words outer space, extraterrestrial or alien. Seems they didn't want to go there. Is that wrong? Should that be ruled out?
REP. CARSON: Well, the report is inconclusive. What we do know is that there are nearly a hundred- and there have been nearly 150 sightings. Eighty of those sightings have been detected with some of the best technology the world has ever seen. And we can't rule out something that's otherworldly, but that's a very small percentage. People want members of the government to say it's extraterrestrial. We won't stop there. But certainly it- it poses a technological concern for us and it poses a national security concern for us because we don't want our adversaries to have, one, a technological advance over us in terms of what they can do with their capabilities. But what is curious is that many of these sightings have occurred around many of our military assets,--
ED O'KEEFE: Right.
REP. CARSON: --our naval bases, our military installations.
ED: O'KEEFE: Yeah, I mean, you said earlier this week in another interview that it's your hope that the so-called UAPs aren't something from another nation who has a strategic and technological advantage and that it's not from the private sector. I mean, if it's not them, then what is it?
REP. CARSON: Well, I mean, you know, we always have to look at natural phenomena. We have to look at the weather balloons. We have to look at drones. We have to look at aircraft that we may not be able to understand. At least most people may not be able to understand. But if it is otherworldly, we have to take into account our advancements in terms of our cell phone technology and why aren't these images being captured? We have to think about the nearly 4,000 satellites that are orbiting the Earth right now. Most of those satellites have cameras attached to them. Why hasn't any of that information been released? And so we still want to make sure that our adversaries don't have a technological edge on us, but we still can't rule out that 2-6% that could be something we can't explain, maybe even otherworldly. So my hope is, as the chairman of the Subcommittee on Counterintelligence and Counterproliferation, that we will have a series of hearings and possibly a public hearing in the very near future.
ED O'KEEFE: When would that be?
REP. CARSON: You know, we have a pretty ambitious schedule. Chairman Schiff has a pretty ambitious agenda and in my own committee, we're planning on having a series of hearings, hopefully in Indiana as well, dealing with our white nationalist threat, our internal threats to our internal security and hopefully we will discuss UAPs in the very near future. I can't give a definitive date right now.
ED O'KEEFE: You've talked about sort of dealing with the stigma of the possibility that this is coming from somewhere beyond Earth. In your view, quickly, is there life out there?
REP. CARSON: Look, it would be arrogant to say that there isn't life out there. Certainly I believe that there's something in the- in the expanse of the universe. Now, the question is, is there life in our solar system? Perhaps the moons of some of our planets will give us clues. Maybe there's microbial life. Maybe there's life in some of the oceans on the moons. We'll find out very soon hopefully.
ED O'KEEFE: We appreciate this out of this world conversation. Congressman, thank you for spending part of the holiday with us. And- and we'll be right back.