State of the Union: Interview With Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ)
Interview
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Well, thank you for having me on, Jake.
My view hasn't really changed .And we are suffering a heat wave here in Arizona. It is typically very hot in the summer. This is obviously dangerous to seniors and folks who are living on the streets.
Hey, when I went into space four times, I mean, I could see how thin the atmosphere is over this planet. It's as thin as a contact lens on an eyeball, and we have got to do a better job taking care of it.
I have not seen in my time in the Senate many folks that deny that the climate is changing. That was a thing of the past. Now is, what do we do about it? We passed the Inflation Reduction Act, which is a big down payment on reducing the amount of carbon we put up into the atmosphere. That will make a difference over time. We obviously have to do more.
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Yes, I think maybe in some cases. I haven't taken a look at his legislation, the specifics on it, and I will. But that could be an approach here.
Hey, you know, we have got to continue to work towards reducing the amount of carbon dioxide we're putting in the atmosphere. We're taking some steps here in Arizona. We have got a company called Li-Cycle that's recycling the components that go into batteries to help us enable this renewable energy economy.
We have got a KORE -- company called KORE Power that's building utility-scale batteries that's going to help us transition to solar power, instead of using fossil fuels. So these are very positive things enabled by the legislation that we passed in the last Congress.
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Well, Jake, an F-16 is not like training somebody on how to use a 777 howitzer. I mean, it's a lot more complex. They have got to stand up, essentially, a squadron to do the training. They have got to get airplanes there to train the Ukrainian pilots.
They have got to identify the pilots. They got to come up with a syllabus and then train maintainers. This is going to take some time. I don't think it's being slow-walked, but the process is a lot longer. The F-16 has incredible capability.
When I was over and speaking to Zelenskyy in April about this, they weren't exactly sure, between him and his national security team, what they wanted to use the F-16 for. I mean, you're talking about possibly a dozen different missions. Certainly, the suppression of enemy air defense is something that I would put very high on the list.
But all of that stuff is still being sorted out.
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Well, let me start with why I don't think No Labels is a political party.
I mean, this is a few individuals putting dark money behind an organization. And that's not what our democracy should be about. It should not be about a few rich people. So I'm obviously concerned about what's going on here in Arizona and across the country.
I think the president has a very strong record to run on, and we have got about 18 months before the next election, and my hope is that this all gets sorted out.
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Yes, I talk to Senator Manchin frequently about a lot of things, this included.
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Well, I'm not going to go into details of conversations I have with my fellow senators. That's sort of a policy of mine, Jake.
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I have not. And none of my colleagues have, as far as I know. And we actually very rarely even speak about this. I can't remember one time in space that we actually talked about aliens or focused on a mission.
Hey, if it doesn't have a negative impact on our national security, I think transparency with the American people is the best option. So I haven't seen this -- maybe I have. Let me also say, Jake, that, when we have extraordinary claims, we need some extraordinary evidence. That's what Carl Sagan said about this kind of stuff.
And I think it's important to get the information out there, as long as it doesn't impact our national security.
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A little skeptical, I mean, I -- the distances involved from -- when you think about the physics of spaceflight and how -- what it take to get around just our galaxy.
Now, having said that, there's two trillion, minimum, galaxies in the universe, each with hundreds of billions of stars. So, when you think about the potential of life in the universe, even within our galaxy, it's tremendous. But I have yet to see any strong evidence of any life-form visiting being us from another part of our galaxy.
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Well, that's right. And we have -- exactly.
And we have come a long way in the last 120 years, right? We went from first flight of an airplane to Neil Armstrong stepping foot on the moon in about 70 years. Think about what we're going to be able to do in 1,000, 10,000, 10,0,000 years. Yes, I get that.
I think it's important to get that information out there, again, if it doesn't have a negative impact on our country's national security.
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Thank you, Jake.
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