Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN) — Co-chair, Congressional UAP Caucus
Listen: Laslo & Burchett
Ask a Pol UAP asks:
The Congressional UAP Caucus has been really outspoken lately on classified info, is that cause y’all are banking on disclosure coming from President Donald Trump?
Key Burchett:
“We’re just frustrated, brother,” Burchett exclusively tells Ask a Pol UAP. “We’re just frustrated.”
Do you think full disclosure is actually coming?
“I really don’t think we’re going to get this information,” Burchett says. “The one shot we’ve got is somebody gets to the President before the other side does and says ‘release it’ and he pulls a classic Trump and does what he wants to do, regardless. Which I, in this case I would love that.”
Burchett reveals more details on his UFO chat with President Trump the morning of the State of the Union address, after we ask:
Does the White House even know where to look?
“I told him, look, it’s so many levels of this thing — you got to peel back that onion. I said we need to get to the bottom of it. He was very receptive.”
Because there’s a chance UFO files are held by military contractors, so it could even be outside the government entirely?
“Exactly,” Burchett says. “That’s why they’ve done it. It’s (un)FOIA-able — that’s why I think it’s going to be almost next to impossible unless Trump grants them some sort of amnesty to come forward.”
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Other UAP Caucus members want to replace AARO, while Burchett just wants to blow it up:
“I’m tired of restructuring government. We just end up with the same dad-gum thing every time,” Burchett says. “I just want to do away with it.”
ICYMI — UAP Caucus left FBI gushing
What should we ask Congress this week?
Caught our ear, per the FBI’s UFO office:
“I don’t trust the FBI to do anything,” Burchett says.
Below find a rough transcript of Ask a Pol UAP’s exclusive phone interview with Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN), slightly edited for clarity.
TRANSCRIPT: Rep. Tim Burchett (4-10-2026)
SCENE: Congress is still off for their two week Easter recess, so Ask a Pol’s Matt Laslo called UAP Caucus Co-chair Rep. Tim Burchett by phone for a candid check-in on all things UAP — from a new bill to blow up AARO, to missing scientists, to details of his UFO conversation with President Donald Trump…
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Transcript I — first half of Burchett call
Matt Laslo: Hey, how you livin’?
Rep. Tim Burchett: I’m just livin’ the dream. I got this inner ear problem so I’m having trouble hearing. Hang on, let me turn the volume up here. I’ll put it in my good ear. What’s up?
Laslo: I was just wondering if you had a minute. There’s been so much news these past week or so.
Burchett: Crazy, man. Matt Gaetz — when he said that, what he said, you know. He didn’t say that it was going on, that they’re interbreeding with aliens, but he did say that he was briefed on it and it was a military guy. And I remember — we get briefed on this stuff individually. People come up and tell you stuff and people want to meet with you and you always do. And of course he represented one of the biggest military installations in the country. So, I think he had more military people in his district than anybody in Congress, so…
Laslo: Huh.
Burchett: You know, and then they started asking me about it, and I was like, ‘Well, yeah. I haven’t seen it, but I’ve heard about it.’ Everybody has, but anyway. What’s up?
Laslo: Do you — it’s kinda feels like you guys on the UAP Caucus have been a little more talkative, almost like…?
Burchett: We’re just frustrated, brother. We’re just frustrated.
Laslo: Yeah?
Burchett: And honestly, that’s — the only way we’re going to get this stuff out is talking about it. You know, it’s a crazy thing with the news, what’s gonna go viral and what isn’t. I’ve never quite figured out that magic formula with the news, you know? Sometimes I’ll post something and think, ‘wow, this is going to go crazy,’ ‘This will freakin, I’ll get a million views’ and I’ll get 20,000 views. Then I’ll post some obscure something and all of a sudden it just blows up. I don’t know if it’s the time of day or the day of the week or what it is.
Laslo: I’m a media professor on the side and I wish I could help you but I can’t. I don’t know the science myself.
Burchett: Algorithms or whatever they call them, I’m sure some egghead tells you this stuff, but the reality is I just don’t think anybody really knows what the magic formula is. I mean, if you’re Elon Musk you can say anything and it’ll, you know, but I don’t have that luxury. Anyway, what can I do for you, brother?
Laslo: I was curious if have you guys have had any communication with the White House or DNI [Director of National Intelligence] or FBI [Federal Bureau of Investigation]? Like, it feels like from what you guys have been saying — just more talkative out there — that you really feel like disclosure is coming.
Burchett: Well, I go back and forth. I really don’t think they’re going to give us everything. I think they’re going to try to hide it…
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Burchett: …you remember what I proposed — you know, disclosure, it was still two pages long. And then [Senate Minority Leader Chuck] Schumer comes out with this 60-page one that was a huge bureaucracy modeled after the Kennedy assassination committee, which — 60 years later — we still don’t know everything there. And all they’re going to do is hide something and hide it under national security. That’s what they always do. You know that, I know that. And it just infuriates me — and that’s, and it’s hard to get by, because you’ve got all these guys that are just, whatever the war pimps say at the Pentagon or around Congress they just jump in bed with them regardless. You know, they offer em all the money and everything else.
Laslo: But then they’re going to have these commemorative coins?
Burchett pauses to take a call from his Chief of Staff.
Burchett: Hey, hey, can I call you right back?
Transcript II — second half of Burchett call
Siri: Butchers “Rep. Tim Burchett”
Laslo: Hey, thanks for calling back.
Burchett: I’m sorry, dude — that was my Chief of Staff. She was giving me instructions on the seat heater or butt warmer or whatever. I’m 61-years-old, dude. I don’t want to get in the car and get cold.
Laslo laughs.
Laslo: Heck no. I’ve got a bad back, so I love those.
Burchett: Oh, I do too. It is the ticket. The lumbar support, man, I just crank that thing up. Alright. Hey, go ahead. I’m sorry.
Laslo: Do you — oh, what we were saying is, I was like: But then the administration’s going to print these UFO commemorative coins? Doesn’t that risk really alienating this whole community?
Burchett: I didn’t know anything about any coins.
Laslo: Oh no? There’s been chatter.
Burchett: Can you send me information on that? I would love to know about that. Yeah, I talked to Trump about it on the morning of the State of the Union address. And I told him, ‘look, it’s so many levels of this thing.’ I said, ‘you can only, you know, you gotta peel back that onion.’ And I told him, I said, ‘we need to get to the bottom of it.’
Laslo: Well, that’s where I’m curious about the White House — like, do they even know where to look? Like…
Burchett: That’s my — and I said that too. I told my liaison at the White House, he was asking me, ‘what do we — what do y’all want to do?’ And I said, ‘well, we need to go meet with the President’ and put him with some people that can tell him where to look and what to ask for.
Laslo: I mean, because there’s a chance that this stuff is in military contractors, so it could even be outside the government entirely?
Burchett: Exactly. That’s why they’ve done it. It’s (un)FOIA-able — that’s why I think it’s going to be almost next to impossible unless one of these, one of these. Unless Trump grants them some sort of amnesty to come forward.
Laslo: Huh.
Burchett: And that’s just what they do. I just don’t think — that’s why I go back to: I really don’t think we’re going to get this information. The one shot we’ve got is somebody gets to the President before the other side does and says ‘release it’ and he pulls a classic Trump and does what he wants to do, regardless. Which I, in this case I would love that. Wouldn’t you?
Laslo: Yeah. But that was interesting on the morning of the State of the Union when you talked to him, he sounded receptive?
Burchett: Very. Oh, yeah. I mean, I think he likes to upset the status quo, as I do.
Laslo: Yeah?
Burchett: He’s tired of these arrogant people, because they’re the same people who told me I couldn’t run and told him he couldn’t win, you know?
Laslo: Yeah.
Burchett: It’s the same mentality, you know, I’m sure you’ve had — you know, the reporters, I don’t know, maybe they treat you differently. But I see them, some of those reporters out there, they don’t treat you and me with the same they would somebody else, you know what I mean?
Laslo: Yeah.
Burchett: I always feel like, I mean in leadership, those guys, they kinda look down their nose at me.
Laslo: Oh yeah. They can tell I come from four generations of landscapers.
Burchett: Yeah. I mean — screw it, you know?
Laslo: Amen.
Burchett: The same old thing ain’t working anymore, brother. You and I might not agree on anything other than that we respect each other and we’re friends — and these guys can’t get past that.
Laslo: Yeah.
Burchett: They can’t get past the fact that, I’m sure the media doesn’t like that you and I talk so much. I talk to you more than I probably talk to anybody up there on a regular basis.
Laslo: Right? I was also curious, so you have this new bill — you’re done with AARO?
Burchett: Yes. Yeah. I just think it needs to go. And we’ve gotten some blowback. Somebody called the office saying maybe we could restructure it or something.
Laslo: Huh.
Burchett: I’m just tired of restructuring government. We just end up with the same dad-gum thing every time. I just want to do away with it. I just think it’s time.
Laslo: My question is — because I talked to Burlison and Luna when they were leaving the FBI UFO office, and back then they were like, ‘Oh, this is way better than AARO. Maybe this could actually replace AARO.’ My question is, so when AARO was created, it was created to be public-facing — to disclose, to help the public understand this. That’s not the FBI’s mandate. They’re internally focused. They love secrets. So I’m curious if you think…
Burchett: I don’t know that we — I just don’t think there’s a replacement. I just, I think it’s another trap.
Laslo: Interesting.
Burchett: Yeah. I don’t trust the FBI to do anything.
Laslo: That’s interesting. You think there doesn’t need to be a UAP office?
Burchett: Well, I just think we need total disclosure and do away with it all. That’s what I think. That’s my idealistic view. Because the FBI — listen, brother, all these agencies laughed at the UFO thing, but they had people studying it. They had all these alphabet agencies — except maybe the IRS, though I wouldn’t put it past them — they’ve all studied the UFO issue and they’ve got files on it. Because you and I’ve met with every one of them — or at least I have — and now they realize that over half the population thinks there is something going on, and now they realize it could be a fundraiser for them.
Laslo: I know, right?
Burchett: And I’m really worried about the PSYOP effort, and that reeks of the FBI.
Laslo: What’s up with these nine, I believe on last count, like nine missing scientists?
Burchett: Yeah. There’s more than that if you go back further. It’s just very mysterious, dude. And you know, I came up with this analogy: it’s like if you’ve got a chef who’s giving away all your secret recipes. And he’s high-profile chef, and he’s got a lot of knowledge — you’re not going to take him out. But you’re going to take out a few busboys just to send a message. And not that these people are busboys — and they’re outstanding in their fields — but there’s always somebody higher in that chain, and somebody’s got to be looking at this thinking, ‘Wow, I’m going to chill out on this stuff.’
Laslo: Interesting. Yeah?
Burchett: 9inaudible at start) Yeah. I just, that’s why I always say I’m not suicidal. My wife says, ‘Why do you always say that?’ I say ‘because it’s insurance, honey.’ So if I die of a heart attack or a plane wreck or I get mugged or I die of sleep apnea — something bizarre I have no history of, then somebody’s going to start asking some dad-gum questions.
Laslo: So priority-wise, do you think whistleblower protections are still needed even if the White House is saying they want disclosure?
Burchett: 100%. 100%. Because what happens with the next president? And then what happens if they say, ‘Oh, this falls outside the realm of this — this is a national security matter, you’re engaged in espionage.’ Some bull deal like that. Again, I just don’t trust the government. I am the government.
They laugh.
Laslo: Right? Adulthood, isn’t it grand?
Burchett: Yeah. Yeah.
Laslo: Well, hey brother. I know you’ve got a day job. I’ll let you get to your Chief.
Burchett: No. You pay for my salary. Behave, brother.
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