0 a signal to president xi that the u.s. stands very firmly with taiwan and it will be taken as such by beijing. >> bill: thank you, jennifer. good to have you on today, michael pillsbury and dan hoffman and smitty. >> sandra: chuck grassley joining us at 1:00. >> bill: we'll see you then. here is harris. >> breaking news now with house speaker nancy pelosi on the ground in taiwan. china has been threatening the united states for days not to go there and one chinese state media commentator with these chilling words, pray for pelosi. i'm harris faulkner and you are in "the faulkner focus". nancy pelosi becomes the highest ranking united states official to visit taiwan in a quarter century. the last speaker of the house to go there was newt gingrich in 1997. china is angry over the support for the nation of taiwan with threats of major military response and reports of chinese fighter jets flying and armed tanks at the ready. both taipei and washington, d.c. are bracing for any reaction. at first they wanted to see if there would be any harassment of pelosi's plane on the way in. next we'll see and watch for both those governments to see if anybody will want to harass her plane on the outside or rather on the way out. by anybody i mean china. house armed services committee member mike gallagher is in "focus" for us. so we want to go straight to him right now. congressman, first of all, the importance of this trip and why china is having such a sharp reaction. >> first i salute the speaker for going ahead as she planned. it was an important signal to send to the chinese communist party we have will not be intimidated. neither the ccp nor the executive branch gets a veto over the travel of members of congress, particularly constitutional officers. this is entirely consistent with the language of the taiwan relations act as well as the taiwan travel act. speaker pelosi did not violate in the protocol. a useful way of fostering deeper ties between taiwan and american officials. i salute her for that. what we need to do going forward on a bipartisan basis. i wish republicans have come with her. to take the steps necessary in congress to arm taiwan to the teeth so they can defend themselves against a possible pla invasion as well as increase training exercises between our two countries and rebuild our own military so that the chinese never feel like they have an opportunity to take taiwan by force. >> we had talked about this on the program a week ago, congressman, about there needing to be a bipartisan delegation for a few reasons. the world sees how divided we are politically. it sends a message that we're clear on who our enemies are. >> i totally agree with that. i don't know if she reached out to republican offices and they couldn't go. my office received no such invite. i would have been happy to accompany her on the trip. that being said, i do genuinely believe it is a rare area of bipartisan agreement. you've seen bipartisan calls for enhancing assistance to taiwan and increasing our funding for the pacific defense initiative. the seize the initiative fund. a lot of areas where we can move forward and learn the right lessons from our failures in ukraine and afghanistan and apply those lessons in the indoe pacific before we lose world war iii through surrender or battlefield defeat. >> i'm curious. is it gamesmanship that the president of the united states wouldn't throw his weight behind the house speaker all in the same political party and let the world see there might be daylight within that party that has both chambers on the hill and the white house? or is there something else afoot? does he not want to seem touched by this so he has clean hands to do -- i don't know what you do. you have iran, russia, china. your thoughts on it. >> i think it is fear. quite simply this administration seems to be afraid at every step of the way of provoking our adversaries. if you've seen what happened in ukraine consistently signal what we're not going to do out of fear of provoking putin. the same thing i think is true here. we're so risk averse and afraid of provoking the chinese communist party we put ourss in a straight jacket and restricted our ability to move aggressively and think creatively. there is a divide in the administration. those with a more realistic view of china and want to work with republicans and the wing of the administration that believes climate change is our biggest threat and we need to have a more cooperative relationship with the chinese communist party to combat climate change. i think the second camp is naive and responsible for a lot of incoherence on the strategy of china. >> they aren't paying attention to what russia and some of these countries are willing to do out of hate. you don't have to look down the road for change. climate or otherwise. you have immediate change per weaponry that they willing to kill millions of people with right now china against ukraine and -- russia against ukraine and would love for it to go further as they want more land. i will ask you to stand by for a second to get a quick report on the ground. greg palkot is watching. tell us about the plane landing if you can. >> not since a long time ago so many people watched a plane land, harris. in fact, we got the touchdown about 20 minutes ago at taipei airport. we watched the u.s. air force plane land and we watched nancy pelosi, speaker of the house, get out. it was a monumental moment. a lot of nervousness on the run-up to this, harris. one of the multitude of threats coming from beijing is there could be some kind of interruption or interception of that flight. that didn't happen. there were so many planes up in the sky along with her plane from taiwan, also from the u.s. it is hard to believe that beijing would have tried something like that. she did go the long way around, harris, her route from malaysia to taipei, taiwan, was all the way around the philippines missing the south china sea where there is a big chinese military presence. it was clearly trying to avoid any kind of entanglement with any chinese military on the approach, harris. >> all of those are blessings she is on the ground. i will go back to congressman gallagher now. we wanted to get the particulars there. we see quite the delegation. congressman, they had lit up a building that said welcome speaker pelosi. this also sends a signal to china from taiwan. what does taiwan want to communicate with us oh than the ground representative? >> i think this was the risk of her backing down. imagine how demoralizing it would have been to our friends on the ground in taiwan. it sends a strong signal of support for them that america stands proudly and strongly with our partners in taiwan. we will not be deterred by the threats of the chinese communist party. what do they want going forward? i mentioned some initiatives we can take to improve our foreign military sale process to taiwan. for example, my understanding is the harpoon anti-ship missiles that they've purchased aren't scheduled to be delivered until 2028. that's too late. we need to expedite the delivery of critical systems particularly missiles and mines in order to help taiwan defend itself. i believe we've entered the window of maximum danger here and the pla will make a move. >> i don't mean to cut in. i watch history being made for the second time like this in a quarter century for our nation to send a high-profile leader to taiwan. and you tell me that it is going to take until 2028 to deliver something that is critical, harpoon missiles. we already know the company that china keeps. three watching to see what russia has been able to do against ukraine even though we're sending them billions of dollars and weapons and everything. is that a smart calculation and true friendship is what i'm trying to ask? we've seen pelosi on the ground. would you leave your friends hanging high and dry for another six or seven years? >> part of that friendship will involve a little bit of tough talk. we have been trying to convince the taiwanese to invest in asem it rick systems and not by legacy capabilities that would be less effective. the better our overall diplomatic relationship is the better position we are to have that conversation. ukraine, the hard math is we burned through seven years of javelin missiles in ukraine. we don't have the ability to buy them and stockpile them in europe and the indo pacific. we need to use the defense production act for. not green new deal project just for the progressive base of the democratic party. >> i want harp on this but it is the reality the world watches us grapple with we promise to help taipei and promised to help ukraine and others. we burn through so much fossil fuel to give the nation right now electricity. we have to do that. we've been having black-outs and brown-outs and water issues even in my state. no water pressure and boiling and so on and so forth and it takes electricity to get the water moving. we aren't quite in that green space but these people need our help right away. >> also for all these electric vehicles that we will be subsidizing. electric vehicles i'm not an expert but they need electricity. and that will be a problem going forward. or the solar panels, right? the plants in which the solar panels and parts are being made and manufactured are not using solar energy, right? the tragedy and irony of the john kerry strategy on energy and climate change is that it really amounts to giving china supremacy over solar panel supply chains made by slave labor in china in dirty, coal-fired power plants. you can't make this stufp. it is absurd and why we need to focus on the true threat to america over the long term is the chinese communist party and rely on innovation to help climate change while not destroying our domestic economy. >> thank you so much for handling the breaking news with me now as we watch history be made. thank you for being in "focus." i want to get more reaction to this, though, from capitol hill where aishah hosni is right now. i watched you reporting all morning law. will she, won't she. she did. now we wait to see what china will do next. what's happening among our lawmakers who were bipartisan in support of this except for the white house? >> exactly. that's a key point i want to hit on in a moment. you are right. there has been so much bipartisan support for this moment and what a moment, right? took my breath away when i was watching it. we're watching history take place live on television right now. the first time in some 25 years that the speaker of the house visits taiwan. and really sends this strong message to china defying china and its aggressive rhetoric against the u.s. in trying to dictate what it is that we can and cannot do. whether you agree with the speaker's policies or not. i know there are many out there that don't like her and don't like what she stands for but i can tell you that for those of us that cover the speaker here on capitol hill, we knoll that she is not one to back down and there were many expectations along the way this past week that she would make this trip and make good on those plans that we kept hearing about. she have is a bold one and she has been in a very similar moment before. if you remember about 30 years ago back in 1991, i believe it was, when she went to tinmen square and went with lawmakers and stood there and held up a pro-democracy banner in opposition of the chinese government to honor those protestors who had lost their lives in fighting for democracy. she did that and was essentially chased away by chinese police. i actually went back and watched that video this morning and it was quite a sight to see for 1991 for the speaker -- not then the speaker but for her to do that along with other lawmakers. i just want to also bring up, you know, there have been rumors swirling on capitol hill for quite some time that the speaker might be retiring after she -- after the mid-terms later on this year and this would be what a way to cap off her tenure here on capitol hill to be able to say look, this is my legacy and this is how i stood up for human rights. she has repeatedly stood up for human rights, specifically in china. i think you raised a really great point. that is the question of what does it say about the white house and how the speaker of the house takes action? >> i think that's the question. >> that's the question. >> congressman gallagher of wisconsin and i were talking as she was on the ground and now we have moments ago video on the screen. we understand that she is still projected to meet with the president of taiwan. these are huge moments and she is not the only person to have been there. not the only speaker. newt gingrich in 1997 was there, too. but these are rare moments and we will watch them. the one perhaps sticking point for gallagher and many others, republicans and democrats, is more didn't go? why does it have to be here? more might have gone a made a bigger footprint in history. right now we have the speaker of the house. china is pretty mad. aishah hosni, thank you reporting with reaction from capitol hill. the leader of al qaeda is dead. president biden down played the terror group's presence in that country but were they letting him take cover in afghanistan? the taliban, were they really doing that? i thought we had communication back and forth. the administration personally on this show, admiral kirby, when he was at the pentagon and now inside the white house, that they would work and talk with the taliban to get soef our people home. to get those behind enemies lines who helped us out and that they would potentially house the head of al qaeda? 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