Best of The Program | Guests: KT McFarland & Ken Alibek | 5/5/20

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Coming up on the podcast, Nancy Pelosi is going down the same crazy road as every other politician in Washington.

We'll get into her bizarre ramblings.

Also, Joe Biden,

how he's being treated by the media.

Very, very interesting.

We spent some time with KT McFarland as well.

You remember her from Fox of the Trump administration?

She's talking about Michael Flynn and everything that's going on with the FBI and how that affected her career and Flynn's career as well and what they're doing about the truth.

Also, Ken Alabek,

he was a former Soviet Union bioweapon program head and how he's talking about what is going on with coronavirus, how it would affect

the

case on China and the lab and where it came from, and one of the worst claims ever from Don Lemon

on Donald Trump versus, you know, it's an idea that he believes that Michelle Obama looks, is better looking than Melania Trump.

And it's just, I can't even comment on it.

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You're listening to the best of the Glenbeck program.

You know, last night

I went back and I read a couple of speeches.

And, you know, maybe tomorrow we're going to go through them.

But I read the 1981 first inaugural speech of Ronald Reagan, and then I read the 33 first inaugural speech from FDR.

That's the famous one, we have nothing to fear but fear itself.

And both of them have something in common.

They're uniquely different.

FDR just talks about the corruption and how the government needs to, you know, get involved in control things, where Ronald Reagan said the exact opposite.

But they both talked about fear.

The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.

Now, he wasn't talking about the fear of a distant enemy.

He was talking about the fear that we had that we would never be the same, that we would never recover.

Okay, so this is the thing that we really need to conquer here.

And this COVID-19 talk is not helping us.

I mean, I read stories every single day, all the time, that say, you know, we should be in for the next year.

We should be in for the next to two years.

Well, you know, airplane travel is a thing of the past.

We're not going back to the skies.

What are you crazy?

Let me flip this around.

You know, one of my favorite stories today is Tom Cruise and Elon Musk are in talks right now to shoot the first movie in space.

Thank you.

That's who we are.

That's who we are.

And I spend 10 minutes just thinking, only Tom Cruise.

Only Tom Cruise.

And he could be sucked out of an airlock and he'll be like, no, I got to do it myself.

No stunt double.

You just want me to open my helmet shield outside?

Okay, I'll give it a shot.

Let's get it in one take.

That's who we are.

We're explorers.

We are not people that sit around on our hands.

And that is one, just one of the problems that is currently happening in the United States.

First of all, we've got to get rid of the fear.

What happened in 2008?

In 2008, we had the fear that the entire thing is going to be shut down.

And so, what did we do?

We ran to TARP.

Huge mistake.

Huge mistake.

What did we do

after 9-11?

We were fearful.

So we ran immediately to the government and got the Patriot Act.

Huge mistake.

Can we stop repeating the pattern?

We've got to stop repeating the pattern.

And the pattern is the government takes more control because

you have fear and you want someone to protect you.

Now, I want to play this audio from Nancy Pelosi, who was talking with

CNN and Wolf Blitzer.

Wolfie was on to talk about some tax cuts, a payroll tax cut.

Everyone would get a payroll tax cut.

The reason why a lot of people in Washington Washington don't want a payroll tax cut is because once you see how much you are actually making and earning every single month, trying to get that baby and that genie back into the bottle is going to be really difficult.

But that's not why Nancy Pelosi doesn't want it.

Here she is trying to explain.

Listen.

Is a payroll tax cut

okay from your point of view or is it a non-starter?

No, it is not.

And if it is a non-starter, Madam Speaker, why is a payroll tax cut a a non-starter?

First of all,

first of all, this is all to be related to the coronavirus.

We have enormous, enormous costs, much of it incurred because the president was in denial early on.

Okay, so we got delayed,

caused deaths.

But what's wrong with the payroll tax cut?

We have $500 billion for state,

$250,000, maybe $300 billion for local.

this is a way for us to address the the the situation there are other things direct payment unemployment insurance issues like PPP there's a great deal of money that is being put out there

ah okay so

let me ask you something

Stu

Yes, if I had a shovel and we were out digging a ditch and I was holding a shovel,

how much sense would it make if we were really in a crisis and we really needed to get things done to hire someone to take my shovel,

cut a little bit of the handle off of that shovel,

then

give it to you.

You cut a little bit of the handle off and then hand it back to me.

Does that make any sense at all?

It seems suboptimal.

Glenn.

Yeah, it does, okay?

We all have the shovel.

We all have the money that they're trying to give us, okay?

They're taking it from us, taking a little bit out, giving it to somebody else who will also take a little bit out and then handing it back to us.

What the hell is that?

That didn't make sense.

You know what that does?

That diminishes your dollar.

It diminishes what you have.

And it gives the power to the people that we have to look at and go, can we just get our damn shovel back, please?

Also gives it empowers them.

And it gives them the opportunity to take the piece of the handle that they've taken from our shovel and give it to some other random ditch digger somewhere else.

They get to redistribute it to whatever design they're going for.

And then say, I'm going to give that to these other people here who have no shovels.

And then they'll give them that piece of the handle that is not a shovel.

It's just a piece of a handle and say, you know why you don't have a shovel?

Because these people over here are all hoarding the shovels.

It doesn't make any sense.

No sense.

Fear makes us do these things.

Fear

and wanting somebody in charge.

Well, you're in charge.

Welcome to America.

You're in charge.

That's the way it's supposed to be.

Now, let's go back 2008.

What happened?

Well, we let somebody else be in charge, take the shovel.

They took our shovel.

They cut about half the handle off and said, we're going to help people.

They gave that half and many of the shovels to the banking system and said, okay, now it's fixed.

Now they're not afraid.

Well, no, they were afraid because we no longer had shovels.

So they were like, I can't give this person a loan.

How's he going to make any money?

He doesn't have a job.

You know, he doesn't have a shovel.

Okay.

So what did they do?

Because of their fear of us,

they were like, you know what?

I'd rather invest this money someplace else.

I'm going to make it a little harder to get loans.

Okay.

Okay.

All right.

Now,

since this bailout, Chase is now requiring a credit score of at least 700 for all new home loans.

They're one of the financial institutions also now requiring at least 20% down.

So you have to have a credit score of 700 700 and at least 20% down.

Okay, well, maybe, maybe that's what we should have been the whole time.

I don't know.

I know that because of the government, who wants to give pieces of shovels to everybody,

they've made it really easy to get loans.

And so what happens?

You make it too easy.

Oh, you don't need any ID.

You don't even need a job.

You want a house?

Here, here's one in Beverly Hills.

Okay, well, that doesn't make any sense.

Now, Chase

didn't disclose the previous

down payments, but records show it used to be about 6% down.

So you could put 6% down.

Well, that's ridiculous.

That's ridiculous.

I remember when 10% loans,

you know, where you had to put 10% down, that was a good deal.

20% was usual.

I think when I was growing up, it may have been 30%.

So the home that you have purchased, or the mortgage that you have, or the loan, would you have been approved under the new Chase standards?

No.

And Chase isn't the only one.

Everybody's doing this.

Why?

Because

they are afraid

that you're not going to have a job.

They're going to be stuck with a bill.

Okay.

All right.

Equity homes are equity loans are getting even harder to get.

Now,

this is going to have a dramatic impact on the U.S.

economy because not only are the consolidation loans, but credit cards are getting harder to get.

They're lowering the limits now on what you can spend.

They're upping the interest rates, and they're canceling some cards.

Some cards are just being canceled without any notice.

They're just canceling them.

All right, well, that's a problem because we're a consumer-driven economy.

Remember, we don't create anything.

We're the buyers of everything

as designed, not by you, not by me, but by our government.

So when we open up the economy, how fast are you going to a concert?

How fast are you going to a

crowded restaurant?

And why?

Why?

What is the coronavirus like in your town?

What is the coronavirus like in your state?

If you're living in New York, I get it.

If you're living in New York City, I get it.

But if you're living someplace in the middle of the country, why?

Can you imagine?

Can you imagine if

the coronavirus would have killed

20% of the population of Des Moines, Iowa?

Do you think that New York City would be closed?

Do you think New York City would have closed everything because there was a pandemic in Des Moines, Iowa?

No.

So why is Des Moines, Iowa closed?

Because there's a massive pandemic in New York.

New York would not have closed for a pandemic in any small town in America.

It could have wiped everybody out in Lubbock, Texas, and they still would be open today.

So why is it reversed?

Why is it reversed?

Why are we closing all of America down?

Why don't we have any kind of

local control

when people are struggling?

They're opening now in California, willing to go to jail because they're like, I'm going to be, jail is better than living under a bridge.

And you know what's crazy?

All of these states are opening up their jails.

Did you hear in California, the guy who was arrested three times?

Three times yesterday he was arrested.

Three times you're three, three times, you're right.

Three strikes, you're out.

Isn't that California?

No, not anymore.

Guy was arrested yesterday, three times.

But because they decided, ah, no bail, they took him to the station house.

He went out.

He committed another crime.

They caught him.

He took him to the station house.

He got out.

He committed another crime.

He took him to the station house.

He got out.

Whoa.

So we're taking people who are just trying to stay in business and we are taking them and throwing them in jail.

A jail where they say the coronavirus is rampant, so we have to let all these criminals out.

And you're taking people who aren't criminals, who are just trying to survive, and you're putting them in jail.

When did the world go mad?

And when did America forget the only thing we have to fear is fear itself?

When did America forget who we are?

That we are the people that went to the moon.

We are the people that crossed the Rocky Mountains.

If you've never driven across the Rocky Mountains, you must do it.

You must do it.

You're probably going to do it because God only knows when the airlines are going to open up again.

And God only knows when people are going to be willing to get onto a flight again.

But cross the Rocky Mountains because my son and I did it last summer and we drove and we drove and we joked joked the entire way.

So if you were a pioneer and you didn't know how far this mountain range was going or what was on the other side even, tell me where you'd stop.

We both said Denver.

That's as far, actually, I said the Missouri River, but we didn't drive over the Missouri River.

I would have looked at the river and went,

have fun, guys.

If I would have crossed the Missouri River, I definitely would have stopped at Denver.

Nice place.

Look at the mountain.

No, I don't think so.

Then, if you decided to go up over the mountain, you get to the first peak to where you think, oh man, I just got to get over this peak.

Then you see a sea of peaks.

And you're like, I would have, that's the place I would have killed the guy who convinced me to go over the mountain because now it's too late.

That's who we are, not the Mi's,

the ones who actually crossed it.

We need to convince our leadership to sit down, shut up while the people lead

because

we're not afraid.

And quite honestly, they're not afraid of us.

This is the best of the Glenn Beck program.

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Held national security posts in the Nixon, Ford, Reagan administrations.

She was an aide to Henry Kissinger on the National Security Council.

She has won the Defense Department's highest civilian armor honor.

She is received the Distinguished Service Award.

She's an alumni of George Washington University, Oxford, and MIT.

She is kind of credible.

She was

one of the most prominent

conservative

foreign policy experts out there.

She was on Fox for years and years and years.

She was President Trump's first deputy national security advisor and helped Trump turn many of his campaign promises into foreign policy and actually get things done.

Well,

she was working with General Flynn, and the FBI came in and

took General Flynn out.

He pleaded guilty.

The FBI questioned her.

There was nothing wrong with her, but she has been so discredited.

It is awful what has happened.

And America needs to hear the story, especially now with General Flynn, because we now have things coming out

and being released that nobody seems to be paying attention to that really calls into question whether we can trust our intelligence and

national security

when it when it comes to the Justice Department,

what they are finding out about Russia.

Can we trust any of this?

Katie McFarlane is here now with us.

Hi, Katie.

Hi, Glenn.

It's great to be with you.

So I want to start with this.

You just wrote an editorial.

The last thing National Security Pfizer Michael Flynn said to me when he left our West Wing office for the very last time was laced with irony.

You know, I joined the military to fight the Russians.

You are,

you were there,

and

he made a deal with the government, but he shouldn't have made the deal with the government, should he?

No.

No,

but the problem is that they blackmail people.

I didn't realize when they came to me to try to set me up that they had conducted themselves the same way with General Flynn.

I mean, his lawyers, my lawyers said, you know, I couldn't talk to Flynn.

So I was operating and flying blind.

But it turns out now with the stories that have come out, and I write about it at great length in my book of the tactics, that the FBI was doing exactly the same thing to him.

Show up at the office, in my case they showed up at my home without warning, and then said, well, you know, don't you want to help us find out what the Russians did?

And I said, yeah, sure, more than anybody.

I want to find out what the Russians did and make sure they can't do it again.

And so then I said, well, do I need a lawyer?

Flynn, they did the same thing to Flynn.

Well, the implication was you don't really need a lawyer.

When I asked them directly, they said, we can't tell you not to get a lawyer, but we're just here to ask you some questions, to get some context of what went on, yada, yada, yada.

And then it turns out that they had seized all of my government records, which by law I had turned over to the government when I left.

My cell phone logs, text messages, emails, everything, they had done the same to Flynn.

And then they kept them, they controlled what I was able to see, and they cherry-picked what they wanted.

And in most cases, they showed me things out of context, or

they showed me an email, which, you know, the subject had been deleted, three of the four paragraphs had been redacted, and then they asked me about it.

And at a certain point, I said, well, can I see these all at the same time or in chronological order?

And I should have known at that point.

The FBI said, that's not how we do things

and at the end of the day they were trying to trick me it was like they had the answer key because they had all the files I was working just from memory and if they got me to say something like oh well it happened on Tuesday night and but the phone call really happened on Wednesday morning they could jump up and say you're lying That's a lie.

You're trying to dissemble us.

You know, you're lying to the FBI.

That's a perjury charge.

And they tried to trick me that way, and they obviously tried to trick General Swim that way.

They had the transcript of a phone call that he had with the Russian ambassador, Glenn, and they were asking him questions about the phone call, which he didn't have a transcript of.

He didn't remember very well.

And that was the beginning of their charges against Flynn.

That's not the way you conduct yourself if you're really actually trying to tell the truth.

And you didn't get an attorney for a while because you thought that, you know, you were just you've done this forever.

Katie, have you ever seen anything like this?

I mean, you've been with Nixon, Reagan,

what's the other administration you were with?

You Ford.

I mean, I've been through Watergate.

I've been through Iran-Contra.

I've been through everything.

And nothing.

Right.

Nothing really.

Have you ever seen it?

No, nothing.

But after September 11th, we gave the intelligence community enormous power.

And I think that's a good thing because they were supposed to use it to go after terrorists, mass murderers, et cetera.

But in the Obama administration, the senior officials of the intelligence community used those powers to go after political opponents.

And that's the dangerous thing that's happened.

And as you point out, my career was destroyed.

General Flynn's has been destroyed.

And in the end of the day, I wasn't, I never would plead guilty to a crime I didn't commit.

And I refused to implicate General Flynn or President Trump in crimes they didn't commit, which was what the FBI and the Mueller people implied I should do, and they would go away if I did that.

I wouldn't do it, knowing full well that I might have to fight them in court and go bankrupt and everything else.

General Flynn had an additional pressure point, though.

They threatened his son.

And so he sacrificed himself to protect his son.

He pled guilty to a crime he did not commit in order to get his son free from the clutches of the Mueller investigators.

That's how bad bad it's gotten.

And you know, at the end of the day, Glenn, it's not about Flynn.

It's not about me.

It's about a group of people who are unelected, unaccountable to anybody, the deep state.

They didn't like the election results in 2016.

So they were going to either take the president out, take his advisors out, or make sure he couldn't govern.

When they said

in that memo that was just released, you know,

what is our goal here?

Are we trying to find the truth or are we trying to get him to lie so we can

take him out, charge him with a crime or get him

out of the administration?

I found that a little frightening myself, and I know that they try to do perjury traps, but is this the kind of perjury trap that

the FBI always uses?

Because they're trying to say that they did nothing different than they normally do.

Well, that's even more terrifying.

Is this how they treat American

things they don't like?

You know, either you choose.

Either they abused their power in going after Flynn and myself and others, or they didn't abuse their power, that this is the power that they've decided to use against everybody.

And I find that even more terrifying.

You know, here's one of the real motivations behind going to Flynn as opposed to other people in the administration.

At first, was because Flynn and I and the president had already talked about streamlining the intelligence community.

Flynn had done it when he was head of the Defense Intelligence Agency in the Obama administration.

He streamlined it.

He changed how they collected intelligence, how they analyzed it.

And the deep state, the guys in the 16 sprawling intelligence agencies, they didn't want anything to change.

So it was a preemptive strike against Flynn.

Take him out before he has a chance to get his feet in and then start looking at the intelligence intelligence community, because that was Trump's job.

And we did.

We looked at the foreign policy of the Obama administration, the defense policy, and the intelligence policy.

And there were a lot of changes made, but not to the intelligence community because Flynn had been preemptively taken out.

So

I've talked to people in Washington, and they've said, Glenn,

at least 30% across the board just has to be cut because it's so infected now.

It's just, it's just out of control.

I don't see this happening, especially when they have the power that they do.

I mean, you talk about, you know, if this is what they'll do to you guys, you know,

they'll do it to the average citizen.

What's truly frightening is doing it to the average citizen would never come to light.

These guys are so confident that they can do it to some of the biggest names that we all know and the president of the United States.

They're not afraid.

What chance do we have of cleaning this up and getting this in order?

Well, I've always believed sunlight is the best disinfectant.

And you're right.

They came after Flynn, who was one of Obama's, I mean, one of General General Flynn is one of Trump's top advisors.

They came after me.

I was the most powerful woman in the West Wing of the White House, one of the most powerful people in the national security community.

And if they could take us down and just, as you you point out, nobody else has a chance.

The other thing that they understand is that they can bankrupt you, whether they find you guilty of something, whether you are, whether they charge you with a crime.

If they don't like you, they can bankrupt you because you have to pay for your own lawyer's fees.

They have infinite resources

and infinite ability to get everything,

every kind of record there is.

So for General Flynn's case, he lost his house, he lost his pension, he's millions of dollars in debt.

My legal defense cost me high-fixed figures, and I didn't even meet any Russians.

And as you point out, I'm not new to this game.

But the overabuse is pretty significant.

I think that's why it's really important to re-elect President Trump, because he's promised me personally a number of times, we're going to find out, we're going to get to the bottom of this, and we're going to get rid of these guys.

Otherwise,

hang on just a second.

Yeah, sure.

No, go ahead.

Finish.

Otherwise.

Otherwise, if you just get a couple of low-level, mid-level guys in the FBI and call it a day and say, well, that was who did it, this will never stop.

It means nothing.

Yeah, it means nothing.

It's only orchestrated at the highest levels.

Okay, so I want to talk about that when we come back.

This is KT McFarland.

She's former Trump National Security Advisor.

She is really a legend,

I think,

and a decent human being.

She's always been rock solid

and a good individual.

And I wanted you to hear her side of the story.

She has a new book out.

It's called Revolution.

But I've wanted to talk to Katie for a while on this.

And now that we have...

Now that we have this information coming out about Flynn, she was right there.

She saw it all.

And they tried to do it to her.

They did it to Flynn, but they couldn't do it to her.

The book is Revolution.

I don't know exactly how she's going to pay off her bills.

I think that's why she

wrote the book.

And it is important.

It's all about the inside story of what is happening to try to take Donald Trump out.

And we'll talk to her and continue our conversation in just a minute.

The name of the book is Revolution: K.T.

McFarlane.

This is the the best of the Glenn Beck program.

So Ken Alabak,

he was born in Kazakhstan in 1950.

He went to the

Tomzik Medical Institute in the former Soviet Union.

He majored in infectious diseases and epidemiology.

He has, and I don't know if I'd want this on my resume.

This is really kind of weird and frightening.

He holds a PhD in microbiology for research and development of the plague and tulmeria biological weapons.

He also has a doctorate of science in biotechnology for developing the technology to manufacture anthrax on an industrial scale.

He ran the Soviet Union's bioweapons labs.

And

when you read his book, which came out years ago, and you find out how he really became the director, I mean, it's terrifying what they were doing over there.

When the Soviet Union collapsed, he immediately came over and defected to the West.

He's a guy.

I'm glad he's on our side.

Welcome to the program, Ken Elibek.

Hello.

Good morning.

How are you, sir?

I'm fine.

How about you?

I'm fine.

I want to talk to you about,

first of all, tell for anybody who hasn't read your book, I think it came out, what, in the 90s or early 2000s?

The first edition came out in 1999.

Since then, we've had several new editions here in the United States, in many other countries.

Well,

I have a first edition.

This is the most chilling book I've ever read.

Tell people the difference between the United States and the former Soviet Union on how we look for cures before we weaponize.

You didn't feel that there was any weapon that was really a good weapon in the Soviet Union unless there was no cure.

I have that right?

Absolutely.

You know,

general principles for designing and making biological weapons in the Soviet Union and the United States were absolutely different.

In the United States, there was a requirement because the United States program continued from nineteen forty three to nineteen seventy two, seventy one, seventy two.

And the major principle was not to develop any biological weapon if there is no cure of

vaccination.

In the Soviet Union, the principle was different.

There was no much interest in biological weapons if there was a cure.

It doesn't mean that no weapons were developed if there was no cure.

I mean, there was a cure, but major focus was on something

which wouldn't be treatable.

That's terrifying.

Now, Ken, the difference between the United States and the Soviet Union, especially towards the end,

in safety procedures procedures in these real bioweapons labs.

Did the Soviet Union have the kind of safety procedures that we have?

Is it the same?

Was it the same, especially towards the end?

I would say in the Soviet Union, there were strong requirements just to have a very strict

biosafety

for when we worked with some contagious agents.

Specifically, the work with Ebola, hemorrhagic fever, smallpox,

then Marburg hemorrhagic fever.

There was a requirement not to do any work if there was no quarantine after finishing certain work.

For example, we had some groups working, for example, for two weeks or three weeks.

Then after finishing the work,

they were not allowed just to leave the facility.

They were staying

at a certain facility just at for

14 days, and after this, there were allowed Lutonists to come out.

Okay.

So now let me switch to China.

China,

does this communist country have the same kind of philosophy of biological weapons that the Soviets had?

Logically,

at that time we didn't know much about a Chinese biological weapons program, but there was some information coming

even at that time.

We had some information, we called it special information, coming from some intelligence agencies of the Soviet Union describing what was happening in China.

At that time,

China had a biological weapons program.

We didn't know much about the actual size and number of facilities, but it was obvious there were some efforts to design biological weapons.

So now that we are facing the coronavirus, do they have the same kind of standards that you have in the Soviet Union and that we have here on these bioweapons labs?

You know, a while ago I had such a question coming from my readers.

And I was explaining how these facilities should function.

I mean, what levels of protection in order not to let a virus coming out.

And to me, it was a kind of

rule in which we knew, for example, if there is this level of protection,

nobody would do any work with contagious agents.

You know, if we analyze, and that's what actually I thought about this facility in Yuhan

in China.

But some information coming that the facility was not so strictly,

I mean, didn't have a strict requirement on bio safety.

Whether it's true or not, of course, it's still to be seen and investigated.

But if there was no rule, let me say, not to stay in quarantine for at least 14 days, a probability the virus is coming from the lab actually exists.

That's what I think.

So

I don't believe that this was a biological weapon or intentionally released.

It looks like it might be just sloppy work followed by,

you know, like the Soviet Union with Chernobyl just doing everything they can to cover,

you know, for the state.

Would you say that that is a safe bet or not?

Yeah,

I would agree with what you say.

For some while I was trying to collect all information about how it happened, when it happened.

And

I collected some

dates

in December,

some in November and December and January, and it was clear to me that there was a pattern when we saw some people infected, for example, from a group of three, then a bigger number.

And by the time,

looks like it was the beginning of January, let me say, we saw already it was a much bigger number of people infected than

Chinese actually reported.

But at that time, they didn't report anything.

But at the same time, when we talk about whether it's an intentional attack or it's an accidental release, or somebody was infected from some wild wild source, it's obvious uh it was not uh a biological attack because, in case of a biological attack, you would see a big number of people infected within a short period of time.

In this case, we saw some uh very small numbers, but what Chinese reported they said they didn't find uh

uh uh zero patient, patient zero.

Because a zero patient actually is usually a patient who was the first infected and started distributing infecting others.

They found some people who were uh

the first, I would say, in uh in the line to start the infection.

But uh the actual f uh first patient, I mean uh patient zero was not reported.

Was it done intentionally or not?

Uh and some people say uh b because we know when we do uh uh epidemiological investigation, we can go and we actually can find, for example, if you find three people for example, infected, just investigation by collecting information, they can show, for example, where they were, what they did.

And finally, we can say, okay, they contacted this particular person.

And if this person is already dead or

survived, but at least we can say, okay, in our chain of investigation, we found the one who was the first one.

But if it's not known and Chinese didn't want to release this information, there is a very high likelihood that this person was coming from a lab.

We're talking to Ken Elibek.

He is the author of Biohazard.

He ran the Soviet bioweapons laboratory, the biggest bioweapons program in the world.

And we just wanted to get touch base with him on what's happening with China.

Ken,

when you look at this coronavirus,

you're now in biodefense.

Are we doing the right things by staying in and closing the world down?

What is this virus?

I mean, we've never done this in the history of the world.

Are we doing the right thing or what should we be doing?

It's interesting from this.

In many cases,

sometimes it seems to me, maybe I'm wrong, but you know, just if I'm wrong, for example, just would be happy if somebody corrects me.

But you know what?

It looks like sometimes we don't get our lessons.

And the first lesson we got, it was a Spanish law, 1918.

And if you analyze, for example, what was happening just 100 years ago with what we do now, and you can say exactly we haven't

developed any new measures for protection compared to what we had 100 years ago.

Same situations with social distancing, masks, and and that's it.

Nothing new.

And you need but it cannot be a situation okay okay, one uh through the period of 100 years, yes, we found no solution.

It's really, I mean, just,

I would say, strange.

But then we shouldn't forget, let me say, other epidemics.

It's a SARS epidemic, first coronavirus epidemic in China coming from China, infecting many people at different locations, different countries.

It was not so big.

But it was a first sign, for example, okay, coronavirus is coming.

And

I consulted

the Government of Singapore 2003, 2004.

And yes, and we knew at that time that

that virus, let's call it SARS-I,

it had a very high mutation rate.

And you know what what it means in this case?

It means the probability of somebody who was infected first would pass the virus to another person, but the virus will be already different because it's mut uh mutated.

It means, for example, in terms of uh vaccination uh or some other things, for example, we already deal with some other viruses.

Not necessarily absolutely different, but but some difference would be already obvious.

But in this case, uh if uh just I do remember all these uh discussions at that time at different levels and we discussed the necessity just to develop vaccines uh just to uh and it's interesting from this point, there is a very uh sophisticated uh agency in the United States with the name of DARPA,

Defense

Defense Threat Reduction Agency.

It's

the agency of the Department of Defense which is focused on high risk, high payoff problems.

And it had a program with the name of non-conventional or unconventional pathogen countermeasures.

It started sometime in 2000, 2001, just exactly after this terrace attack in New York City.

And the issue was so sophisticated.

So many new things have been designed and developed.

We call them non-specific defense against unknown threats.

And have no idea what happened in 2003, 2006 or 2007.

The program was closed down.

But it was the most promising program just to d defend people because, you know, just when we talk about vaccination, you know, just everybody rely on vaccines.

But how can we in the beginning of the 21st century rely on defenses coming from from the 19th century?

You know what's happening in this case?

Yes, vaccines are important, but vaccines are coming

from a former threat.

You know what I mean?

Because

we developed

you can't keep up with it.

You got to get ahead of it.

Yeah, today is coronavirus.

Tomorrow could be new Ebola.

It could be something different.

In this case, you know, there is a kind of

saying, okay, generalists are fighting previous wars, not future wars.

In this case, what we do, in this case, we fight previous infections, previous epidemics.

Because next epidemic, if you take a look, SARS-1,

2002,

2004,

MERS, another coronavirus, 2012 and continued for several years.

They are different.

Now we're having a situation with SARS-3,

I would say, the third one.

But the problem is, if somebody analyzes the differences between these epidemics, they would see a dramatic difference because people were not scared.

And in this case, we thought, okay, this infection wouldn't cause any significant damage.

But it was changing.

And if we compare them, we'll see those epidemics were quite limited by size, number of deaths, and so on and so forth.

But we suspected and we published articles.

We published articles in 2004, 2003, 2006, saying, okay, guys, we need to be ready for a pandemic.

I do remember my article published in the Journal of Fish Orology.

And we, specifically, a group of four, we said, okay, guys, we need to be ready for a new

pandemic.

It was said 14 years ago.

And, you know, just...

I will tell you, Ken, that George Bush was the last president that really took this seriously, and he's the guy that put that DARPA program in.

And

it was in the trains of the administration that that thing, I think the DARPA was canceled but all of his preparations uh also went by the wayside he actually really believed in it uh and others didn't think it was a priority and it's a it's a shame that we didn't pursue that I've got to run for a network break but Ken it is great to talk to you thank you for all of your work thank you for your work in biodefense No thank you for all the stuff that you did in the Soviet Union, but

I mean, it brought you where you are today.

So thank you so much, Ken.

Appreciate it.

The name of his book is called Biohazard.

It is

bone-chilling.

It is

one of the best books I've ever read.

All true.