Hi, everybody. Good morning. Looking forward to going to Alaska and campaigning for Dan Sullivan, a really great guy, a Marine Corps veteran and just somebody we really need to keep in the United States Senate. So I'm excited to see him. Um, as you probably saw, Usha and a couple of the kids are joining.
This is Usha's 50th state, which is why we are bringing a nine week old baby on a 7.5 hour flight to Alaska. So if I give a speech tonight and I look haggard and stressed out, that's exactly why. But it's good to see you guys and I think we'll have fun.
Awesome. Mr. Vice President, Mary [Inaudible] has said that she doesn't support men in women's sports, but she voted for men in women's sports previously. What do you think's going on there?
Well, I think what's going on with so many of these candidates is they realize that the woke era, all the crazy stuff that Democrats had to say and do from call it 2018 to 2022, that voters don't like it. So now they're actually confronting voters and they're trying to run away from their record. And I would just say to Alaska voters, don't judge Mary by what she's saying in the final six weeks of a Senate campaign.
You got to judge her by what she actually did. And the reality is that she did support a lot of radical Democrat policies, including men in women's sports when her voting record was on the line. What she did is that she supported radical left policies.
Mr. Vice President, why is this seat in play? Or why do Democrats think this seat is in play?
Well, if you look historically, actually, Alaska, it's one of the reasons why I love it. I've never been there myself, I'm really looking forward to it, but it's a very interesting state. In very deep red years, Alaska is competitive. In very deep blue years, Alaska is still competitive. So I think it's just a reality of the politics of the state.
They obviously have the kind of weird ranked choice voting system that I don't fully understand. But, you know, I think that whether this was going to be a blue wave or a red wave year, you're going to have a competitive Senate race in Alaska. That's been true historically, and I suspect it's going to be true this year, too.
Mr. Vice President, do you think the PSA's are a good use of taxpayer dollars, even in a midterm cycle where Republicans have a major cash advantage?
Well, look, if you look historically, um, you know, go back to the Obama administration with the Affordable Care Act, you have the people's government using tax dollars to advertise about what the government is doing. It's part of, actually, I think, living in a constitutional republic. You have to be honest with the American people about what you're doing, about what's going on, and part of that is getting out there and telling the message.
So I don't think there's anything unusual or unorthodox about it. I'm sure that some people probably don't like it, but if you look at the message of those advertisements, they're not partisan. They're not -- you know, it's not like we're advocating for a particular candidate. We're trying to tell a story, I think, about how great the United States of America is.
Even though one of the ads -- Sir, after that Fly Dubai flight, had these -- this horrific attempted hijacking happened on it, do you have concerns that Iran was involved? Any updates on that? And do you also have concerns about foreign pilots coming to the US and flying flights to the US?
Well, I think any time you have any person coming from outside the United States, you've got to be extra careful that that person is actually, one, a good human being, is going to contribute to American society. And of course, that's the story of the 9/11 terrorist attack, is that we brought a lot of people into the United States of America who shouldn't have been here and certainly shouldn't have been flying planes.
I think the interesting thing about that story is we knew that guy was a problem, meaning not United States intelligence, but if you look historically, that person should not have been flying an airline. And so we're certainly looking at our procedures within the United States to make sure that people who are obviously flight risks are not getting behind the wheel of an airplane.
But I feel good about what's going on in the United States of America. In terms of involvement with Iran, that's something I defer to John Ratcliffe and some of the intelligence folks on. I don't want to get ahead of any announcements there, but it's certainly something we're looking at but I wouldn't say I've seen anything conclusive just yet.
Relatedly, sir, the attempted terrorist activity, or suspected terrorist activity in the UK, the US has moved bombers out of that base, what's your sense of Iranian involvement there? And should we expect more precautions in overseas military installations?
Well, I think that we're going to be as careful as we possibly can be. Obviously, doing these missions is sometimes inherently risky, even flying a training mission, as we sometimes find out. Unfortunately, a training mission in the United States of America can be risky because these are very powerful, very next generation pieces of technology.
So what you saw there is the Secretary of war, out of an abundance of caution, trying to protect our guys. We do feel with some confidence that the Iranians are -- you know, they're trying to do what the Iranian state has done for 49 years, which is engage in acts of terrorism against the United States and against a lot of other people as well.
So we are being extremely cautious and that's all I'd say about that.
On the Alaska pipeline, should Alaskans trust that the pipeline will happen, even though South Korea has said that it's not a finalized deal? Well, the pipeline is something that we really want to see happen and a lot of our Asian friends want to see happen as well.
It's not just the South Koreans, the Japanese would love to see this pipeline. A lot of the East Asian economies that have suffered from higher natural gas prices would love to see more American gas flowing into their economies. So I think it's something that's going to happen. Obviously, you still got to work out some of the details.
And the South Korean, you know, have spoken to that, but when there's a demand for this stuff and there really is strong demand for American natural gas, I think we're going to be able to get it done. All right, guys, we'll see you in Alaska. Thank you.
If you want to come back and visit us, you can bring Alec. We'd love to meet him.