GOP, Dems Pull Back Spending From North Carolina Senate Race

With your Homeland Security hat on. I'm just wondering if there's anything you can add to this remarkable story on on the B-1 bombers and if the UK is under this type of threat, is the U.S. homeland as well. You know, it's a great question. I do take issue with what Senator Warner just described as somehow malfeasance from the United States. There in the new world that we are operating in, it is one where low cost weaponry can inflict tremendous cost. Uh, in terms of the damage that it procures. And we've seen this as an example. When Ukraine sent $10,000 drones, uh, and bombed a fleet of Russian bombers to the tune of billions of dollars. And, you know, that's that's the first problem. The second problem is there are people in Europe, just like there are people in the United States from abroad who have exploited the open border policy left. That's that control. And, uh, they are willing to do harm. They worked for pariah states. So you combine those two realities, and the United States obviously has Intel. Uh, this real time that merited the the swift action that it took to get those bombers off of the base. Well, but to return to Joe's question about threats that will be that could be posed to the homeland domestically. Is there a real risk that you've been briefed on, Congressman, about, uh, a threat happening here? The president yesterday was talking about having to go to a war with Iran in the first place to make sure they couldn't destroy a city, naming specifically Los Angeles and San Diego that you could, quote, unquote, let them take home. Of course, you know, this is one of those things that has been an obvious consequence of deliberate action from the from the previous administration. And when you have open borders, people will exploit that who want to harm the country. We have arrested thousands of terrorists. We have people who are international actors that are working on behalf of foreign governments inside the country right now. There are absolutely terror cells in the United States, and we are doing a lion's share of the work right now to prevent them from operating here. But that threat is very real, and it's very real in Europe, and it's something that we have to be on guard against at all times. But are there specific threats here? Absolutely. Do we know about specific terror cells in this country? Do we know where they are, who they are? We may have lost the congressman. Well, I certainly hope so. And again, this this administration has done a good job. Um, you know, identifying, rooting out, deporting, arresting and fighting that threat. We do. There are specific thug words, if not thousands of terrorists who have already been apprehended, who crossed into the country illegally. And the threat that I see are the cells that we don't know about. And, uh, I think we'd be foolish to assume that we have gotten every single one of them. And that's why it is imperative that local, state, and federal law enforcement work together to ensure that these operators are stopped before they can carry out an attack on this country. As we consider local and state issues, Congressman, we're having a little bit of a difficulty with your connection. So I hope that you can hear me in North Carolina in the statewide race. Uh, for Senate, we are seeing, uh, the Republican, uh, National Party and, uh, associated PACs like the Senate Leadership Fund pulling money out, uh, of Michael Whitley's, uh, coffers, if you will, are not committing as much money to him as it looks like Roy Cooper, uh, is is leading the polls by a decent margin in that state of North Carolina. What is going on in your state that makes this a difficult environment for Republican? Like you are, a Republican like Whatley? Well, I'll say this just to be sure that the message is clear. There are still tens of millions of dollars that are being on behalf of Michael Whatley. Some of that money has been pulled out to go to other states where it's a very competitive environment. And we will stipulate that, of course, midterm elections are always very tough. And many of the problems that we are trying to fix started before we ever took power, whether we're talking about excessive regulations, the overhang of inflation. All of these things started years ago. And if the the complaint is we're not fixing it fast enough. I agree with that. We need to move faster. We're working hard to fix it. And, uh, you know, Michael Whatley is running a good race. He is closing the gap. And I expect it to close further as Election Day approaches. But, you know, he's running against a two term, uh, governor. A two term attorney general. Roy Cooper was elected before I was even born. And, uh, so he has a lot of name I.D., a lot of money behind him and is a very tough candidate. But again, I think that we're going to close this gap in a meaningful way as Election Day approaches.