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Who?
Sen. Mike Rounds (R-SD) — Armed Services & Intelligence Committees
LISTEN: Laslo & Rounds
Ask a Pol asks:
How was your recent meeting with the new head of AARO — the Pentagon’s All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office — Dr. Jon Kosloski?
Key Rounds:
“It was good. I think he’s technically very adept. I was impressed with him. He clearly has had some opportunities made available to him to visit with different people,” Sen. Mike Rounds exclusively tells Ask a Pol.
Do you think he can regain — or gain the trust of whistleblowers?
“Yet to be determined,” Rounds says. “We'll have to wait for someone to come back and tell us that.”
UAPDA in NDAA?
Is your UAPDA with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer gonna make this year’s National Defense Authorization Act — NDAA — or is it gonna end up on the cutting room floor again?
“We met and we haven’t gone that far at this point,” Rounds says. “Meaning, there's [UAP] stuff in the NDAA, but I don't know whether it's what you're concerned with.”
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Caught our ear:
“There’s clearly a phenomenon which is real,” Rounds tells us. “We just don't know who this real phenomenon belongs to.”
Below find a rough transcript of Ask a Pol’s exclusive interview with Sen. Mike Rounds (R-SD), slightly edited for clarity.
TRANSCRIPT: Sen. Mike Rounds
SCENE: Ask a Pol’s Matt Laslo’s walking past a tram underneath the US Capitol when he spots Sen. Rounds and two aides in one of the cars, so he hops on at the last moment.
Mike Rounds: “Hey, you made it!”
Rounds’ Aide: “How you?”
Matt Laslo: “Miserable — but I’m a political reporter, so that’s on me.”
Rounds and aides laugh.
MR: “What do you mean? Target rich environment, ain’t it?”
Rounds laughs.
ML: “Remember, I'm also a professor of government at John Hopkins.”
MR: “I didn't know that.”
Tram doors lunge closed.
ML: “So my heart breaks your daily. I teach in our MA program, where I did my MA.”
MR: “You teach what?”
ML: “History of the media, history of politics, with an eye towards how politicians and the media have — and have not — adapted to new mediums overtime.”
MR: “You mean ‘policymakers'.”
Rounds laughs.
ML: “Yeah.”
MR: “Yeah.”
ML: “No, I call us part of the political whatever — the political industrial complex.”
MR: “Yeah? It may not be pretty, but it's still the best process.”
ICYMI — Lynch complains of “conflicting” UAP info
ML: “Yeah. Fair. Did you — were you just at one of the classified briefings?”
MR: “Yeah.”
ML: “You were at the one with [Director of National Intelligence Avril] Haines?”
MR: “Yeah.”
ML: “On China?”
MR: “Yeah.”
ML: “Because Booker and Warner told me that there was also going to be one on UAPs and the incursions they've been seeing over New Jersey, but also Langley.”
MR: “I wasn’t in that one.”
ML: “Yep? I don't think they were either. How did your meeting recently go with the new head of AARO?”
MR: “It was good.”
ML: “Yeah? What do you think of them?”
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