call 1 808 31 37 100. Us
officials fear classified
intelligence documents leaked
online could now jeopardize
sources and relationships that
the us has with its allies. The
documents which provide a rare
window into how the U. S spied
on allies and foes alike exposed
east dropping on key allies like
South Korea, Israel and Ukraine
. It goes into how deep the U. S
has penetrated the Russian
ministry of defense, apparently
and the mercenary. Organization
Wagner group. Ukraine is now
altering some military plans
because of the leak and joining
us now to talk about this
democratic congressman Ruben
Gallego of Arizona. He serves on
the armed services committee.
Congressman how worried are you
about this? Look I think we have
to be worried. Number one, the
most important thing. We have
something that we learned when I
was chairman of Intel. Special
operations are sources number to
our allies and when those are
both put in jeopardy that makes
us less secure, and it makes our
enemies more emboldened. And
according to some of the
screenshots, reviewed by CNN,
some of the document images were
posted back. In March. One
document seen by CNN reveals
that the us has been spying on
Ukrainian president Zelinsky,
one of the few allies caught up
in this alongside some
adversaries. I know some of this
has happened in the past these
sort of spying scandals and
revelations come forward from
time to time. How damaging is
it? Look we don't know the
extent of the damage and first
off, we actually have to figure
out the extent of how much is
actual verifiable information
that we've collected. How much
is it? Something has been
repurposed by our foreign
enemies Russia for their end
goal and let's be clear. The
reason this is coming out right
now. It's because it is its goal
is to weaken our resolve. Weaken
our alliance and help their end
goal, which is to take all of
Ukraine. So we first have to
really figure out how deep the
hole is before we actually can
figure out how to fill that that
whole, but let's be clear. It is
very dangerous when we don't
know who is handling our
information how it's being
handled or why it has been
mishandled when it comes to this
situation, and China has been
conducting military drills in
response to the president.
Taiwan meeting with the house
speaker. Kevin Mccarthy that
includes some simulated
precision attacks. Your
colleague on the Republican side
, Michael Mccaul, on the foreign
affairs committee says Taiwan
needs more weapons and training
. You've been to Taiwan. You've
met with the leaders there. What
do you think? Do they need these
weapons? Look I have visited
Taiwan has spoken with the
president and the passive,
actually have author language in
the defense budget to help the
Taiwan defend itself. I do think
that it's more helpful to Taiwan
if we give them better weapons,
not for them to conduct a war,
but for us to actually deter
China China right now, is that
actually have the capability to
fully take Taiwan and a
traditional invasion situation
they're trying to build to that.
Now we can actually armed Taiwan
to the point where China will
have to think twice about doing
and maybe we can avoid a
situation where you know China
tries to invade Taiwan, but it
is in our best interests,
obviously for Taiwan to be able
to defend itself. It's in the
interest of the world. And just
of Arizona, for example, we have
the largest Taiwanese are
largest chipmaker in the world.
That is a tsmc, which the
Taiwanese chip making plans
that's moving here to Arizona.
And if Taiwan is shut down, much
of the world's commerce will
also be shut down, so making
sure that they could defend
themselves, uh and stand on
their own with, of course,
alliance help is going to be
really, really important and
make sure China knows that it's
even more important. Let me ask
you. I mean, this is very timely
with so many folks traveling
around Easter. I know you've
been talking about this junk
fees prevention act proposal of
bill that you say would
eliminate $9 billion in late
fees. 7.6 billion an airline
Visa. Hope all this this all
right? 2.9 billion resort fees
annually. This is something that
president Biden called out in
February and it got people lot
of people scratching their heads
saying, well, why is this in a
state of the union speech, but
it is actually something that
drives everybody crazy. Is there
something that you think could
be tackled? Look I do think it's
Michael. This is a hidden tax on
working class people. When
you're just trying to take a
vacation. People have very few
dollars nowadays. Take vacations
to see what you thought was in
affordable. Uh you know, hotel
now being more expensive is
awful trying to get airline
tickets and then having to get
charged extra to your child sits
next to you does not allow you
to really plan a vacation. Go
see a tourist Taylor Swift
concert when no one else concert
and then going to the final page
and realizing that 26% more uh
then then you originally planned
is not the way that that
consumers should be treated. So
this bill all it really is
asking for transparency. So
people know what they're getting
, uh, and that they could
actually plan for it. And I
think at the end of the day,
this is something very
bipartisan. Whether it's
Democrat Republican. We want the
consumer to have as much
information as possible so they
could actually make logical
choices and trying to be
essentially conned into paying
the speeds. And let me ask you a
political question. The wall
Street journal reports that
senator Kirsten cinema who is
now an independent, is getting
ready to launch a re election
campaign. I know you plan to run
as a Democrat against her. What
about have you dissected? This
looked at this with your
political advisors about how a
three way match up could
potentially help Republicans win
that seat? How do you prevent
that from happening? And it
doesn't really matter. Kirsten
cinemas always going up in third
place, and it's not because of
the Republicans are because the
Democrats because no one errors
on a truster, uh, she basically
violated the values of Arizona
in siding with Wall Street,
starting with pharma, and she's
not going to get that back and
no matter what she does, and how
often she does it, she won't get
it back because she doesn't need
to do what you can do the bare
minimum. She refuses to have a
town hall to talk to her
constituents. She hasn't met
with constituents in four years
and until she actually tries to
really repair that bond it
doesn't matter how much her wall
Street buddies are going to give
her. She's going to end up in
third place. We're not worried.
We will win this ratio. There's
a two way race or a three way
race, etcetera etcetera just