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Speaker 1: Now here's a highlight from Coast to Coast AM on

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Speaker 1: iHeartRadio and welcome back to Coast to Coast George Nori

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Speaker 1: with you, Doctor Peter Prye with US Executive Director of

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Speaker 1: the Task Force on National and Homeland Security, a Congressional

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Speaker 1: advisory board dedicated to achieving protection of the United States

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Speaker 1: from the electromagnetic pulse that's an EMP, cyber attacks, mass destruction, terrorism,

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Speaker 1: and other threats to civilian critical infrastructures on an accelerated basis. Peter,

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Speaker 1: welcome back, my friend. How are you, sir? Thank you

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Speaker 1: so much for having me. George. Yeah, I've got to

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Speaker 1: ask you this as we get into this incredible story

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Speaker 1: of trying to protect our grid. Is it conceivable I've

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Speaker 1: never asked you this, but is it conceivable that there

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Speaker 1: are those out there who do not want the grid

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Speaker 1: fixed for some nefarious reason? Oh? Absolutely there are. One

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Speaker 1: of the biggest problem here is called the NERK, the

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Speaker 1: North American Electric Reliability Corporation. It's supposed to partner with

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Speaker 1: the federal government in protecting the grid and providing for

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Speaker 1: grid reliability, but it's really a lobby for the electric

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Speaker 1: power industry, and you know they don't want to spend

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Speaker 1: any money on protecting the grid against EMP or cyber

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Speaker 1: threats or sabotage. You know. That's why, frankly, you know,

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Speaker 1: federal or state or regulation is necessary, you know, to

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Speaker 1: compel them to do the right thing and protect the

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Speaker 1: American people. That's the role of the government anyway in

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Speaker 1: the Constitution to provide for the common defense. They don't

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Speaker 1: see it as their role as providing for national security

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Speaker 1: and their right. And that's why we have been trying

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Speaker 1: to work with both states and with at the federal

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Speaker 1: level to get a regulations passed that would require the

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Speaker 1: grid to be protected. And there's other actors too. For example,

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Speaker 1: the EMP for the Obama administration was a politically incorrect

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Speaker 1: threat because it endangered a lot of their secret house

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Speaker 1: like the Iran nuclear deal, the idea of a world

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Speaker 1: without nuclear weapons, and the idea that climate change is

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Speaker 1: the biggest existential threat we face. You know, EMP basically

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Speaker 1: knocked into a cocked hat all of the all of

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Speaker 1: those political agendas that they had, and so there was

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Speaker 1: a lot of resistance to the idea of taking EMP

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Speaker 1: seriously from the Obama administration and from their their minions

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Speaker 1: and left wing academia who would often write propaganda articles

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Speaker 1: saying o EMP is not a real threat, that it's exaggerated.

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Speaker 1: So yeah, there's a lot of people that are still

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Speaker 1: and these Obama people and deep state bureaucrats are are

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Speaker 1: still and deeply embedded in the federal bureaucracy resisting efforts

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Speaker 1: to protect protect the grid, and not just against the

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Speaker 1: MP but even putting up the wall or implementing any

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Speaker 1: of President Chump's agenda. I mean, I think the political

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Speaker 1: reality as a person who's you know, working in the

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Speaker 1: Washington area has been working with the government. You know,

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Speaker 1: we have President Trump, thank goodness, but uh, you know,

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Speaker 1: but basically it's still the appoint administration except for you know,

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Speaker 1: the top level of appointees he got. He never really

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Speaker 1: came in and did what the Democrats usually do when

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Speaker 1: they take over the government, which has purged the ranks

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Speaker 1: and get rid of hundreds, even thousands of these of

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Speaker 1: officials and replace them with people who are sympathetic to

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Speaker 1: your political point of view. People in the end of policy.

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Speaker 1: And it's two years into the Trump administration and a

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Speaker 1: last I have to say, I think the president is

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Speaker 1: Bear's responsibility now for being the author of a lot

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Speaker 1: of his own problems, failed the fire people who resist

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Speaker 1: his policies. And I would have thought that this would

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Speaker 1: have been high on his agenda to get this fixed.

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Speaker 1: I would have preferred to fix this before we even

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Speaker 1: talked about some wall along the Mexican US border. It

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Speaker 1: is high on his agenda. He's the first president. I

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Speaker 1: give him tremendous credit. Uh. You know, he's the first

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Speaker 1: president to include EMP protection of the critical electric grid

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Speaker 1: and life sustaining critical infrastructures in his National security strategy.

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Speaker 1: Why didn't he tell the American people he's trying to

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Speaker 1: do this and and uh, and well he did when

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Speaker 1: he when he when they published the National Security strategy.

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Speaker 1: The press doesn't pay a lot of aten. Nobody reads that,

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Speaker 1: you know. And the President as we speak, is in

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Speaker 1: the process of drafting a presidential Executive Order to protect

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Speaker 1: the country from EMP. So President Trump is definitely giving

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Speaker 1: this a high priority. The question is just like he's

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Speaker 1: trying to give the wall high priority. The question is

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Speaker 1: canny overcome. You know, when I was a when I

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Speaker 1: was a young man, and I grew and the Congress

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Speaker 1: deserves credit to Congress and a bipartisan basis passed a

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Speaker 1: bill called the Critical Infrastructure Protection Act that directs the

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Speaker 1: Department of Homeland Security to come up with a strategy

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Speaker 1: to protect the country from EMP. They did that, and

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Speaker 1: when I was a when I was a young man,

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Speaker 1: and America was still a constitutional republic. You know, when

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Speaker 1: the commander in chief and his national security strategy, you know,

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Speaker 1: says to the federal bureaucracy, you know you're going to

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Speaker 1: do this, and then the Congress backs him up on

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Speaker 1: a bipartisan basis unanimously, you know, with the book build

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Speaker 1: that says you aren't going to do this, and we're

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Speaker 1: making it the law that you're going to do this.

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Speaker 1: Then you and I wouldn't have to talk anymore and

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Speaker 1: it would have would have been done. Okay, But now

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Speaker 1: we know there's this thing called the deep state, where

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Speaker 1: you've got these deeply embedded bureaucrats that are part of

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Speaker 1: the permanent government who outlast they're there after president. Presidents

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Speaker 1: come and go, Congresses come and go, and these people

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Speaker 1: are so arrogant they think they know better than the president,

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Speaker 1: they know better than the Congress, they know better than

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Speaker 1: the EMP Commission, and they don't overtly say, well, we're

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Speaker 1: not going to do it. But for example, in response

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Speaker 1: to the Critical Infrastructure Protection Act a couple of months ago,

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Speaker 1: the Department of Home and Security did finally put out

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Speaker 1: the so called national EMP strategy. Does that strategy strategy

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Speaker 1: consist of they're going to study the EMP threat until

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Speaker 1: twenty twenty eight and then make a decision about what

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Speaker 1: to do. So they're kind of they're checking the box

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Speaker 1: on the letter of the law, but in effect they're

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Speaker 1: really doing nothing. And this is the problem. Those people

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Speaker 1: need to be fired. As an piano, for example, the

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Speaker 1: people in the DHS who basically have defied the President

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Speaker 1: and the Congress to move out at flank speed to

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Speaker 1: get this problem fixed. Is it possible, Peter, that there's

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Speaker 1: also that rationale that if the grid goes down, the

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Speaker 1: entire planet goes down, millions of people die, and this

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Speaker 1: is their plan, This is what they want. I mean,

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Speaker 1: is it that sinister? I have heard some people in

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Speaker 1: the electric power industry sort of talk that way, and

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Speaker 1: you know, but they don't see themselves. What's the point

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Speaker 1: of doing it? To say? If it's an armor getting

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Speaker 1: type scenario? And uh, and well, the point of doing

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Speaker 1: it is that there's some armor geddings you can't really

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Speaker 1: do much about, okay, like an all out nuclear war

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Speaker 1: or if an asteroid hits the planet or right. But

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Speaker 1: but there's no excuse for being vulnerable to this. One.

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Speaker 1: One of the reasons I've devoted so much of my

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Speaker 1: professional life as have my you know, my colleagues who

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Speaker 1: are former CIA directors, former science advisors to presidents. Uh,

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Speaker 1: you know, is there's no excuse to be vulnerable to this.

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Speaker 1: This is a problem that should be easily fixable, quickly fixable,

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Speaker 1: and won't even cost that much to fix. So uh.

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Speaker 1: Now I also have to say there's could be another

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Speaker 1: source of the problem along the lines of what you're

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Speaker 1: talking about, because I do believe I think our utilities, um,

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Speaker 1: you know, probably have been penetrated by bad actors or

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Speaker 1: an agents and the like. Uh. That may sound paranoid

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Speaker 1: your audience, but just just consider this for a moment,

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Speaker 1: all right. You know, we know the Russians, the Chinese,

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Speaker 1: you know, Cubans, all of our adversaries you know, have

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Speaker 1: tried to penetrate and often successfully penetrate our intelligence community.

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Speaker 1: You know, there was a case where in the Defense

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Speaker 1: Intelligence Agency where the person on the Cuban desk for

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Speaker 1: twenty years turned out to be an agent for Cuban intelligence.

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Speaker 1: And we go to tremendous efforts to try to stop

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Speaker 1: these foreign agents from getting into our intelligence community. They go,

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Speaker 1: We polygraph our people, the FBI does extensive background checks,

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Speaker 1: and they still leak through. They get through. Now, when

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Speaker 1: you're talking about people who belong to organizations like the

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Speaker 1: North American Electric Reliability Corporation NERK, or the Federal Energy

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Speaker 1: Regulatory Commission for or parts of the Department of Energy

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Speaker 1: that deal with you know, electrical regulation issues, you know

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Speaker 1: these where there's still a culture, you know, where this

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Speaker 1: is not considered a big national security thing. It's more

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Speaker 1: of an economic Listen to more Coast to Coast AM

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