00:00I am speaking to U.S. senators on both sides of the aisle. The shutdown is definitely destructive.
00:06Everything we're trying to do is lower American energy costs and enable American businesses to build more manufacturing facilities in our country.
00:15Losing workers, having uncertainty, having funds frozen or uncertain, that's not helpful.
00:21If I can give one example, we are modernizing our nuclear weapons stockpile at the Department of Energy.
00:28That's done by about 100,000 contractors. They're not government employees. They're contractors.
00:35So they're not going to get back pay. We've been paying them to date.
00:40But starting tomorrow, Monday at the latest, we're not going to be able to pay those workers.
00:45If that continues on for long, they may get other jobs.
00:49They're going to stop their efforts to modernize our nuclear weapons to guarantee the sovereignty of our country.
00:55That's not something we should mess around with.
00:58Are you saying you are furloughing employees at the National Nuclear Security Administration, which keeps our nuclear stockpile in check?
01:07We have not furloughed anyone yet, but we will be out of funds by tomorrow or early next week.
01:14So we will be forced to do that if this shutdown continues. I desperately do not want to do that, but I have to follow the law.
01:21Well, what does this mean for our national security posture?
01:26Of course, we keep people for emergency services. Our existing nuclear stockpile will be secure and will be ready.
01:37But the modernization program to replace our older weapons with new modern weapons, that's a key part of my job.
01:44We're just ramping those efforts up. We're just getting momentum there to have everybody unpaid and not come into work.
01:52That will not be helpful. I'm adamantly in favor of ending this shutdown as soon as we can.
01:58Unfortunately, Chuck Schumer's worried more about AOC than America's nuclear safety.
02:03So what we can do is start to establish our own chemical system that can accomplish awayblest, and it's a key part of our company...
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