Mike McCaul: Drones ‘Over Our Military Sites Are Adversarial and Most Likely Are Coming from the People’s Republic of China’

Reporter: “OK. I was just — I know you were just talking about Afghanistan, but on the drone silence. I did ask you, you know, do you have any idea, what line of questioning you all are going with? The public and lawmakers obviously have a lot of questions about what those are.”

McCaul: “Yeah, we want answers. The response that I’m getting is that we don’t know whose drones these are. I was with the NASA administrator, Bill Nelson. He said that these drones have been reported over military sites, military bases. I would not think those are friendly. I would think those are adversarial. And, in fact, NASA seems to be picking up more than our military is on — with respect to the drones. So I think it’s — we’re going to — Congress is going to pursue this. I know the House Intelligence Committee is having a hearing on this. We need to identify, who is behind these drones? My judgment, based on my experience, is that those that are over our military sites are adversarial and most likely are coming from the People’s Republic of China.”

Reporter: “Do you think you’ll be satisfied with what you hear today?”

McCaul: “Probably not. I think they’re going to say they don’t — they don’t know. And that’s a concern in and of itself, that if we have drones flying around military bases and we can’t identify where they came from or who’s responsible for them. I know there are a lot of commercial drones out there. And Secretary Mayorkas has talked about this. That’s fine. But the ones flying over our military bases, by definition I would say are adversarial. We need to know who is behind that because it — I believe they’re spy drones, and the PRC, Chinese — communist China is very good at this stuff. And we know they bought land around military bases. This would be very consistent with their policy over the last couple of years.”

Reporter: “Anything else you could tell me on the —“

McCaul: “I don’t know — get into UFOs and all that. It’s — we’re not getting answers. And I think it’s because our government does not know who is behind them, and that in and of itself is very disturbing to me.”

Reporter: “Good question. Thank you so much.”

McCaul: “Thank you.”

Reporter 2: “Could you help us understand some of the traffic down here? We saw Sullivan walk out.”

McCaul: “Yeah.”

Reporter 2: “Is that from a separate meeting?”

McCaul: “Yeah. It was about Afghanistan.”

Reporter 2: “Got it.”

McCaul: “Yeah.”

Reporter 2: “So, Sullivan has walked out of that. Are you going into the drone — “

McCaul: “I’m not.”

Reporter 2: “You’re not?”

McCaul: “No.”

Reporter 2: “Can we ask you one more question in what you have seen as it relates to kind of these drones? You mentioned China, et cetera. Do you think that there’s kind of a dichotomy here where some of them are obviously misreported sightings as Kirby, et cetera has said, and then some of them are more nefarious? Is there kind of like a [inaudible]?”

McCaul: “Right. I mean, you have, you have commercial drones that are, you know, Amazon has a lot of drones, for instance. There are a lot of commercial drones in the sky and they’ve worked with the FAA on, you know, the procedures. They seem to think that most of them are American-based commercial. It’s the ones over the military sites that I can’t explain and they can’t either. But I, you know, I can’t imagine what commercial benefit it would be to operate a drone over a military base. So, you know, like, I know it’s speculation, but it’s pretty good speculation to assume that’s coming from an adversary, and I think the best target would be communist China. They have the capability and they’ve bought land around our military sites and that would be my speculation.”

Reporter 2: “And just so we have, Mr. Chairman, can we ask you one quick question —“

McCaul: “Sure.”

Reporter 2: “— on Speaker Emerita Pelosi and the fall that she had?”

McCaul: “Yeah, yeah, yeah.”

Reporter 2: “Just, you know, your thoughts to her. What have you experienced there? How’s she doing, if you’re aware?”

McCaul: “She’s doing well? She had a hip replacement. I was right next to her. She likes to wear high heels, very high. She was on one of her last steps on this marble staircase. It didn’t have a railing, and she lost her footing and fell to the ground. You know, we immediately, I immediately helped pick her up. And we took a picture after that. You can see me holding her up by her hand. And then very soon thereafter a vehicle showed up and she was taken to the hospital. I wish her a speedy recovery. She was transported from Luxembourg to Ramstein and specifically Landstuhl Hospital, where I believe she currently is having a hip replacement. She’s 84. But when I talked to her on the phone, she had a lot of energy. Very spunky. She wants to get out of there. She wants to be able to fly back home to the United States. But you know, overall she’s in good spirits and there’s no more health danger to her other than, you know, hip replacement.”

Reporter 2: “Thank you very much.”

UNKNOWN: “Thank you so much.”