CNN Newsroom: Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-TX) Is Interviewed About The Evacuation Of Americans In Sudan

Interview

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Well, Jim, it is a very both sad and tragic and dangerous situation. And so, I'm glad that the official diplomatic personnel and their families were evacuated by the Biden administration. And I believe that the United States government will, in the end be helpful to any individuals or family members that need to get out of Sudan.

We've seen that in other countries. And, you know, because there is a recommendation that Americans get out, anybody that's got family member, any Americans that are here that have family members there that are trying to get out should contact the State Department and seek assistance on that.

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Oh, no, we absolutely should. I think when Americans are in danger somewhere around the world because something like a civil war or a coup or a situation like this, the United States government should do everything that it can to help evacuate people.

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Yeah, they should. And I suspect that they very much are. Russia and Wagner group are essentially engaged in destabilizing activity in different parts of the world, whether it's cyber intrusions on election systems, as we saw in our own democracy in 2016, or supplying weapons and other things. You know, that -- it could be that that's what's happening here. And so, it's important that the United States and our allies do

everything that we can to help the Sudanese, the different sides reach a peace agreement, move back towards the path of a democracy so that the people have ultimate power in deciding who their elected leaders are. Remember, this all came about four years ago because the civilians, the people, came together to overthrow Omar Bashir who had been a brutal dictator for about 30 years.

And now you've got those military groups that were working together, the official military and the paramilitary groups that are now split. But thousands and thousands of people are going to die in this conflict potentially and it could include more Americans. So, we don't need any more destabilizing forces to come in there and make the situation worse.

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That's something that the United States Congress, I serve on the Intelligence Committee and have since 2016, is investigating and we're trying to figure out why that information was on for so long and whether it was missed or whether our intelligence agencies were on top of that.

This also begs the question about how easy it is for folks who don't need particular classified information to get that information. We've seen this challenge before with Edward Snowden and others, sometimes who are contractors that took classified documents home with them when they shouldn't have. And so, we're going to review again all of the protocols, all of the controls that allow something like this to happen.

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Well, you can fix this in two basic ways. First, you can limit access to who can see the information. That seems to be a little bit tough with this airman because he had an I.T. job where he may have needed to get into this or he looks like he did need to get into the systems, have access to the systems to be able to fix any problems that were going on. So, you can control who has access, but it looks like maybe he was supposed to have access. The second thing is that in the past, we have made this point again and again when we've got the agencies in front of us and the intelligence committee that there has been lax oversight. I would describe it as in terms of the controls of who can take information when they go home for the day.

This is somebody who had these documents, took them home, photographed them, uploaded them. And then this also introduces a different element here, which is you had somebody that put it up on Discord, on a platform. Well, who's monitoring these individuals that have this very sensitive access to figure out whether they're posting information or sharing information once they've already taken it. So, those are some of the things that we're going through now.

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That is (inaudible) any three other people.

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Yeah. I said for a long time that I think Joe Biden will run for re-election and will win re-election in 2024. I think he's got a strong record to run on. He rescued us from a global pandemic. He's created millions of jobs. He's brought American standing back into the limelight around the world, really made us a north star again.

And so, look, you know, the president and his team may look at those numbers and, yeah, they're unflattering numbers and I wish they were better and wish that it was higher. But at the end of the day, I don't believe that the American people are going to choose Donald Trump over Joe Biden. I don't believe that they would choose Ron DeSantis, who's fighting Mickey Mouse over Joe Biden. I think the president's going to run for re-election. And I think he'll win in 2024.

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No, I mean, I get the question, but I just -- it's not something you can prescribe, you know. It's one of those things where, you know, I think President Biden's going to win both the primary and then the general. But look, you know, if people want to run, they should run. That said I don't -- I don't -- I don't see a serious threat right now in terms of political threat in the primary to Joe Biden.

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Thank you.

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