Trump’s UFO directive: Disclosure shift or political strategy? | Reality Check

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Barack Obama said that aliens are real. Have you seen any evidence of nonhuman visitors to Earth? >> Well, he gave classified information. He's not supposed to be doing that, you know. >> So, aliens are real. >> Well, I don't know if they're real or not.

I can tell you he gave classified information. He's not supposed to be doing that. He made He made a big mistake. You took it out of classified information. No, I don't I don't have an opinion on it.

I never talk about it. A lot of people do. A lot of people believe it. >> Do you believe it, Peter? >> Well, if the president can declassify anything that he wants to, so I may get him out of trouble by declassifying. >> We know illegal aliens.

>> Yeah. Illegal. Only illegals. >> What else? >> All right, Ross. We have some major breaking news.

President Trump has said he is going to disclose some UAP information. What's your initial reaction to him posting that? >> Okay, Megan. Well, off the top, I'm not holding my breath that this is any kind of meaningful disclosure because frankly, we've seen this before. We saw this with the promises that were made with the JFK records, the JFK assassination records act in 1992 under J. George HW Bush.

and it took 30 years to get any kind of meaningful disclosure. Essentially, they promise and they don't deliver. >> So, I think that's the first thing that I observe. And also, it's very important to note Donald Trump is not saying in what he's announced to date that he is going to declassify anything. All they are talking about is reviewing records.

He's acknowledged earlier this week that President Obama allegedly breached secrecy relating to UFOs, which implies that there are serious classifications placed on the subject of UFOs, which is quite hilarious really when you think about the fact that we've been told by the Pentagon for a while that there is nothing about UFOs because there's no evidence of UFOs engaging with this planet, no evidence of extraterrestrials. So, there's an obvious contradiction there. I think the primary concern is the reality. How is it going to happen? What was originally proposed in the UAP disclosure laws through the national defense uh appropriation act and this was knocked back was was a 10 member review panel where they were going to have a group of gray beards, people who were familiar with the subject who were going to make an assessment about what could and couldn't be declassified. uh that doesn't seem at the moment to be in the proposal that Donald Trump's putting up at the moment.

All we're talking about is a review and release of records. If I was the Pentagon, I wouldn't interpret that as an order by the president for declassification. And that's the key word. If the president stated categorically that he has the intention to declassify all UFO records instantaneously from henceforth, you and I would be able to go and do a Freedom of Information Act request and cite that presidential statement as a policy reason for release. >> But he very cleverly hasn't done that.

And I I think the whole nature of the wording of that statement is consistent very much with somebody externally advising the president in a very clever way to be very constrained. Make it sound good like make it taste good but really in the long run it's not very nutritious. That's my big concern. And and there are other specific concerns I have with it. For example, he's talking about government files.

Now we know from our own sources at reality check a lot of the evidence that's coming is from whistleblowers inside private aerospace inside private companies and the big corporations Lockheed Northrup Grman Boeing Rathon these companies that I know have got access to non-human technology they have knowledge about UFOs they have technical information about these craft if they can be described as craft they're not compelled under any expression of intention by President Trump at the moment to release any information. So, that's the big issue I have. It sounds good. It's getting us all excited, but before we all get excited, let's just make sure that the president follows through with an executive order or some kind of legislative authority, which means that we do get real reform because we've heard this before. They promised this over 30 years ago with the JFK assassination records act and it didn't happen for three decades.

>> So I had a thought about this and let me know if you agree with me or not. When President Trump made that statement, one of the first things that I thought was doesn't this kind of make the government look like a joke? You have all all of these congressional groups, this disclosure group coming together. They're working really hard trying to get evidence as for disclosure. They're holding congressional hearings, which go nowhere by the way, all for the president, to just be asked. And then he sends a post on Truth Social.

Doesn't that kind of show that in DC there's just like this internal rat race of people asking for information that they're getting denied when it it exists? >> It does. Well, I think the issue here is that we have executive government. It's quite clear that the secrecy, I mean, I've spoken to people in the legacy program, people with knowledge of this program that's not meant to exist. And they tell me that there are executive orders, presidential executive orders that have been kept secret that are essentially mandating under what's called a title 50 exemption that this UFO stuff will be treated like a covert action and kept secret from the US taxpayer >> and from the Congress. That's the issue.

And a lot of people in Congress are very angry about this because you taxpayers, you American taxpayers are paying for this. Probably billions if not trillions of dollars have been spent on a secret UAP retrieval and reverse engineering program that has been operating completely outside the oversight of Congress. I've spoken to one or two members of what's called the gang of eight and they are the elite group of grey beards in the in the Senate and in the Congress who basically are assigned to be uh read in to the top secrets in the US administration and it's the idea that yes we want oversight but for the really big secrets for the um unacnowledged special access programs or the wooaps the waved unacknowledged official access programs. You have eight people who are meant to be briefed into these secrets. Well, I've been told by people who have been members of the gang of eight.

They've never been told about the UFO secrets, about the deep underground military bases, about the expenditure on reverse engineering and retrieval programs that we know exist because of our witnesses David Grush and Jake Barber. So, Congress has been kept in the dark and that's the fundamental issue here. I actually don't blame them. >> Yeah. >> You know, they look stupid and it looks ridiculous that the president after all this time can make an executive order or I presume that's how he's going to do it.

Eventually, he'll make some kind of an executive order. But really, let's be honest about this. I suspect this has largely happened as a reaction to the ongoing revelations of the scandals in the Epstein files. And President Trump is desperately looking for something to distract the public from what's in those files. And if I was him, I'd do the same thing.

And frankly, who are we to question it? The simple reality is it's opened up, I think, a Pandora's box. The big question now is what's going to come out of it? Because really, it depends on what kind of an order the president issues. And more importantly, will Pentagon officials and intelligence officials just drag their feet until the midterms in the expectation that Trump after the midterms doesn't have the power he has now? >> Because we're in a unique position here. The president is able to mandate executive orders and pass legislation pretty much at his own beck and call. It's an extraordinary situation.

It hasn't happened much in Congress in the last 20, 30 years. presidents have normally been restricted by um limited voting in the House or the Senate. So, we've got a situation now where Donald Trump can pretty much do what he wants to do, and he's done that. But if I was the Pentagon, >> if I was an intelligence official who wants to continue concealing the legacy retrieval and reverse engineering program, I would just drag my feet until the midterms and hope like hell that nothing uh comes out of it because the president loses a lot of his power. So, you've brought up the Pentagon a couple of times, so I really want to bring up Arrow because this just to me seems so counterproductive, so counterintuitive.

What was the point of creating Arrow? It seems like it's a cover to the cover. >> It is. Look, I I I don't doubt for a moment the integrity of Dr. John Ksowski, who's the named official in charge of Arrow. He's a good guy.

I actually like him. I mean, I haven't met him, but he's a good bloke, I'm told, by all people who've met him, including James Fox, the filmmaker, who had a meeting with him in a skiff in the Pentagon. [snorts] >> And Dr. Coslosski admitted to James that he was, frankly, he he I think he used the phrase, he couldn't even cut his hair without the permission from the Pentagon. >> And let's be honest about it, Arrow was all the time a body that was created to constrain the narrative on UAPs.

It's 2 years overdue for key reports that it's meant to have presented to the Congress and the US taxpayer mandated by Congress to deliver information that it's failed to deliver. And I think that shows to a certain extent an indication of I think how the Pentagon's going to respond to this presidential edict. I think they're just going to stick it up in him and say no. They're just going to drag their feet. I've se I say that because I've seen the Pentagon do that on so many other issues.

When they don't want to reveal something, they can put up any manner of bureaucratic and administrative impediments as had happened with the JFK files. I mean the uh JFK assassination records review body legislation went through in 1992 under George Bush senior. 30 plus years later, we finally started getting some answers, but we're still no clearer to resolving the conspiracy that killed President JFK, as you and I both know from a past reality check. >> So, I'm sorry if I sound very skeptical and cynical. I I just don't think the Pentagon and the intelligence community are going to heed the president's wishes.

And I think to some degree, the president doesn't really care if they do or they don't. He's looking for a short-term distraction. and he's got it. >> So, I'm glad you ended on short-term distraction because you did mention a distraction from the Epstein files. I want to pose another idea.

Iran, the president is constantly now saying last couple days, deadline to sign a deal. Deadline to sign a nuclear deal. Could there possibly be something in these files, in this disclosure that shows we have a massive technology that should be feared to force their hand to sign? Well, the president, that's a very good question. President Trump and President Vladimir Putin of Russia have both hinted about super weapons. And I suspect what they're talking about are what are called scalar weapons, which are unimaginably horrific weapons that make allegedly thermonuclear weapons look like children's toys.

Um, on multiple occasions, both leaders have hinted that there is some kind of weapon that has not yet been publicly revealed. A lot of people think that it's the discom discombobulator that Trump referred to out of Venezuela. I don't think it is. I think that it's something else. I do think the United States has been working on awesome weaponry in the black.

>> And I do think from people I've spoken to, there is a degree of complacence. They believe that they have an advantage over our potential adversaries because of this weaponry. >> And maybe that's what they're thinking as we're going into what looks like a confrontation with Iran. >> But what if Russia, which has been a longtime friend of Iran and China, which has also gained UAP technology, what if covertly they have obtained technology? And what if they have obtained the ability to develop this kind of weaponry? That's my biggest fear and I can tell you honestly that's the fear of the people that I speak to inside the national security establishment. They worry that we are probably at a more dangerous time in our history than at any other time, even the Cuban missile crisis.

We are closer to thermonuclear war now than ever before. >> So, could this be a We'll show you ours, but you have to show us yours because we don't know what they have and they don't know what we have technology. >> You know, there's one other thing I wanted to point out. You just reminded me of this. In the Epstein files, there are multiple references, intriguing references, where Jeffrey Epstein, incredibly is soliciting information from prominent physicists about propulsion and energy systems.

I suspect he was doing this on behalf of the Israelis, >> and I hope it wasn't on behalf of the Russians because that's another thing. He had a close relationship with the Russians. Let's hope that it was with the Israelis. If that's the case, it does imply what Him is shed, the leader of the Israeli space program, he's the previous head of the Israeli space program, and he spoke out in a Hebrew newspaper quite a few years ago now, and did this extraordinary interview where he revealed that Israel was well aware of the US legacy retrieval program for alien spacecraft. and he implied very strongly that there was a high degree of collaboration between Israel and the United States on propulsion systems and technology like energy systems.

And I think it's no coincidence that the Epstein files that have still to be released, some of the redacted files very clearly show that there is a high degree of um uh interest by Epstein in energy systems and propulsion systems. So, it's sort of both ways. I think the government's anxious to protect what it was that Epstein was interested in as a spy or some kind of agent of influence, >> but I also think they're terribly concerned to try and protect the guilty in the remaining redacted files. >> So, if they are trying to protect the guilty, which is a lot, I want to go back to Trump being the president of disclosure. We have talked about this a lot on reality check.

You have changed your tune a couple times when he was first coming in and being elected. You were like, "This is it. He's it." >> You've since said, "I don't think he is." >> I was wrong. >> I I Yeah, >> I was wrong. I freely admit it.

I mean, >> I'm not trying to make you >> No, no, no, no, no. I I And it's really interesting. I'm very happy that I was wrong >> because I can tell you there were people in the National Security Council who were telling me they had not heard a thing about this. So whatever this is, whoever's made this decision, and it does look like there have been people at a very high level advising Trump, >> not everybody in the National Security Council knew about it. I wonder if Marco Rubio, the acting national security adviser, >> knew about this decision.

>> Was it an impetuous decision by Mr. Trump that was made without reference to cabinet? Was Marco Rubio, Secretary of State and national acting national security adviser read in to this decision or was it just a permpary decision made by the president in the last few days since Barack Obama made this statement? Yes, there are aliens. We just don't know. >> Yeah. And Marco Rubio was the first name that came to my mind when I did see that expost from the president because I thought well now is his neck kind of on the line because as we saw an age of disclosure he did admit to some of this knowledge and then he immediately walked it back before the film was coming out now that he is in a higher position within our government.

>> Yeah. I mean I think to be honest with you in summary it's a wait and see. >> I think we're entitled to be extremely skeptical about promises made by a president about transparency and disclosure. Forgive me for giggling as I say that. I I just don't believe politicians when they make promises like that.

Are they really going to reveal the classified technology propulsion systems and energy systems that could frankly destroy the US economy if the public became aware of them? I mean, we're talking here about claims that have been made repeatedly by people from within the legacy program that the United States has cracked quantum free energy, zero point energy, energy from the quantum vacuum. If that's true, if that's true, that's the end of the US petro dollar. That's the end of the dominance of the US petro dollar, which frankly is the only thing that's keeping America's 40 plus trillion dollar debt from having to be paid. >> You know, you can always keep on printing money because the world is so liquid with US dollars. What if the US dollar becomes largely irrelevant because it's no longer relevant because the petro dollar declines in significance? I think that's the key driver that lies behind the reluctance by the national security state to release what they know.

>> Well, one one more one more point. It seems just super hypocritical that these whistleblowers, they and people inside the legacy program, they cannot speak out and they're bound so tight by all these NDAs and can't say anything. But then all of a sudden, the government is allowed to from a pres from the president just saying so just here are all of our cards on the table. or fully. >> Well, that's the constitutional system that we have.

The president is the commanderin-chief. But you know what I find most intriguing? >> We know that there's a succession of presidents that have not been allowed to know this information. >> Yes. >> They've either been told, as allegedly President Carter was, that he had no right to know, >> or they've been lied to, as I suspect President Clinton was. I know President Obama inquired, but he was allegedly, I'm told, briefed postpresidency, which is why it's very interesting the way he answered the question the other day when he was asked by that young podcaster what he knew about aliens.

And he said, "Yes, there are aliens." And something about how there aren't any deep underground military bases hiding aliens. They're not in Area 51. >> Uh, I wasn't told about that, at least not during my presidency. Mhm. >> That's the key line.

It was an interesting qualification during his presidency. What about the briefing that President Obama received after his presidency? That's the big question. And and why have certain presidents not been briefed into this secret? Because if you think about it, the president, the commanderin-chief is responsible for the defense, for the national security of the United States of America. He has the discretion at any time to use thermonuclear missiles. And JFK back in the early 1960s became so concerned about UFOs being detected by both sides, by Russia and by the US, he was really worried about a mistake leading to nuclear war because he thought that a UFO might be mistaken for an attack from either side.

>> And so it's actually David Grush pointed this out to us in his interview with us in 2023. It's written into ballistic missile nuclear uh test treaty negotiation treaties that there will be consultation between the two powers about drum roll UFOs. The simple fact that there has existed for 50 years on the books of the United States, a clause in a treaty that acknowledges there are these things called UFOs that we have to protect against because we might kill each other if we mistake them for a nuclear missile. The mere fact that for half a century we've had a statement like that in a treaty shows to me the lie that the Pentagon, the US government have perpetrated on the American people for pretty much 60, 70, 80 years. And I think the biggest issue that President Trump is going to have is the onlogical shock for the American public that a government can so calumously and maliciously lie to the American public.

>> But is that what he wants to drain the swamp? >> I hope it is. >> I have one more thing. I'm sorry. I know I said that before, but just because I love being skeptical of the government, you just keep popping all these ideas into my head. presidents who were briefed in versus were not.

They who briefed the president once their term is completed. Do you think that's based off of did they behave and can we trust them? >> That's a really good question. The thing I find quite concerning is there is much more of a Republican slant, a GOP slant to who was briefed as a Republican president and read in whereas the Democrat presidents were largely kept in the dark. Correct. >> Now, I think that's a huge issue and it's going to be a sore thorn when the Democrats realize just how much they've been lied to.

That's the big issue. Yes, there have been individual senators, particularly Democrat senators, who were read in or briefed partially into the program. Uh, but I think generally the Republican party has been far more aware of the legacy program and the implications of that for American society. It's just unhealthy that our political system has been I think >> stricken by this cancer from within that there is this dark secret that billions of dollars are being allocated to and this dare I say noble cause corruption >> where the public are being gas lit where they're being lied to where people have testified under oath that there is no evidence of extraterrestrial engagement with this planet and yet they've known all along that it's a calamous dirty lie. >> And I I think that's the biggest issue is what this is going to do to the public's sense of faith in government.

It's already pretty low. >> What are people going to think when they realize that the biggest secret in human history has been kept not just from the American public, but from the world? >> I guess we'll have to wait and see. Ross, >> thanks very much. >> Yeah. And before we go, please don't forget to send in any questions you have for me to reality check atnewsnation now.com.

Looking forward to answering your questions as best as we can. Thank you for watching. Subscribe below and download our NewsNation app right now on your phone and you will get fact-based, unbiased news for all Americans.