'You really believe that?': NewsNation's Leland Vittert fact-checks Mace in real time as she goes '100% deep state' on the UFO files
On July 10, 2026, Rep. Nancy Mace went on NewsNation's 'On Balance' to talk about the Pentagon's latest UFO file release, and host Leland Vittert spent the segment pushing back on her. When Mace claimed 'three-letter agencies' are blocking UAP documents, Vittert pressed: 'Come on, you really believe that?' and asked whether she really believed that over 80 years these agencies 'have managed to keep secrets from everybody, and nobody has ever spoken out.' Mace answered, 'I 100% think the deep state,' and said it hides information 'not only from the American public, but from elected officials.' Earlier she called one released video 'a cluster of balloons,' said 'I'm not an expert in this,' and later conceded she had 'seen no proof' of aliens. Her words and the host's skepticism are reproduced here in full so readers can judge.
On July 10, 2026, Rep. Nancy Mace (@NancyMace), a member of the House Oversight Committee, appeared on NewsNation's "On Balance with Leland Vittert" to discuss the Pentagon's latest batch of released UFO files. What makes the segment worth cataloging is not the footage of unidentified objects. It is the interview itself, because the host spent most of it pushing back on his own guest.
Reporting credit: This dispatch is built on the July 10, 2026 segment of "On Balance," reported and hosted by Leland Vittert for NewsNation. The full interview is embedded below and linked in the sources. Every quote here is verbatim from that broadcast. The characterizations of Mace's claims are Vittert's own, put to her on air; Maceopedia adds none of its own.
Rep. Nancy Mace on NewsNation's "On Balance with Leland Vittert," July 10, 2026. Watch the full segment on YouTube · NewsNation's writeup.
The host wasn't buying it
The turning point comes when Mace tells Vittert she was informed, through the Oversight Committee, "of an individual that says that there are certain three-letter agencies that are blocking documents in the UAP UFO space from this administration." Vittert does not let it pass. What follows is the exchange, in full and in order:
Vittert: "Come on, you really believe that?"
Vittert: "You really believe that the CIA is telling their own director you can't look at something?"
Mace: "It's not just the CIA."
Vittert: "You really believe that, that over 80 years, somehow these three-letter agencies have managed to keep secrets from everybody, and nobody has ever spoken out?"
Mace: "I do, I do. I 100% think the deep state..."
Vittert: "Have you ever known the government to be that good?"
Mace: "Look how long it's taken us to declassify some of this information. I do think that some of the deep state does go about hiding information, not only from the American public, but from elected officials."
That is a sitting member of Congress telling a friendly, center-right host that she "100%" believes a decades-long "deep state" cover-up, and the host openly treating the claim as implausible. Vittert's "Have you ever known the government to be that good?" is the whole segment in one line.
"A cluster of balloons"
The skepticism did not come out of nowhere. Minutes earlier, Mace had undercut the very premise she was there to advance. Praising the release, she said, "the Trump administration is the most transparent administration in American history." Then, describing one of the newly released videos, she offered this:
"One of the videos that came out today looks like a cluster of balloons. You know, so I'm not an expert in this, but it looks like balloons and it's floating with the wind.", Nancy Mace, on the July 10 UFO file release
In the space of one answer she called the government's mysterious footage a bunch of balloons and volunteered that she is "not an expert." Vittert also pressed the national-security logic head on, asking why anyone would "push the government to release something that would give the Chinese an upper hand," whether the objects "are from this planet or any other planet."
"I've seen no proof of that"
Mace repeatedly said there are images she has seen "in a skiff" (a secure facility) "that I can't discuss" and "would really like the American people to see." But when Vittert asked whether those images would prove there are aliens, she conceded the payoff isn't there:
"No, I don't think it would prove that there's aliens. I've seen no proof of that.", Nancy Mace
Pressed on what the point was, then, she fell back on a general principle: "I think the American people have a right to know," while allowing that disclosure should not come "without sacrificing our own national security," the exact caveat Vittert had been pressing on her the entire time.
The exchange, captioned
The back-and-forth is short and it plays for itself. Below is a Maceopedia supercut of the segment's key moments, with the speakers labeled, so the pushback and the answers sit side by side.
Maceopedia supercut of the July 10, 2026 "On Balance" interview. Footage: NewsNation. Watch the full segment.
None of this is sealed, privileged, or in dispute. It is a public television interview, dated and on the record, and it is reproduced here word for word. Readers can judge for themselves how a member of the House Oversight Committee sounded when a sympathetic host asked her to defend what she was saying.
Sources & related coverage
- NewsNation, "On Balance with Leland Vittert" (July 10, 2026), the primary source: full segment on YouTube · NewsNation article, "UFO files: 'Deep state' may be withholding material, Rep. Mace says".
- Background on Mace's long-running UFO/UAP oversight role: Congresswoman Nancy Mace Questions UFO Whistleblower (mace.house.gov).
- Related Maceopedia dispatch on the 2023 UAP hearing where David Grusch testified: Human or non-human biologics.
Read next
November 5, 2026 · DispatchNancy Mace Called El-Sayed 'Jihad Adjacent.' Dave Smith, a Self-Described Right-Winger, Asked: 'Where's the Evidence of This?'
On Piers Morgan Uncensored's election-night panel, Rep. Nancy Mace said she has called Michigan Democrat Abdul El-Sayed 'jihad adjacent' because of his family and a student group. Podcaster Dave Smith, who said 'I'm an immigration restrictionist and I'm an America First, you know, right winger,' answered: 'if you're making allegations that these guys are secret jihadists, like, where's the evidence of this?' The two items she cited are in the public record: his half-sister's 2012 and 2013 posts about relatives in the Muslim Brotherhood, and his seat on the board of the University of Michigan's Muslim Students' Association from 2003 to 2007. Bridge Michigan's fact check found 'no evidence that El-Sayed has ties to the organization.' El-Sayed won Michigan's Senate seat that night. Every quote below is checked against the broadcast audio.
November 5, 2026 · DispatchNancy Mace Says She Has Been to the Israeli Border 'Where I Could Touch Libya.' Libya Does Not Border Israel
On Piers Morgan Uncensored's live election-night panel, Rep. Nancy Mace described a trip to Israel: 'I've been to the border where I could touch Libya or be right next to Syria.' Libya does not border Israel. Israel's land borders are with Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria, plus Gaza and the West Bank, and about 540 miles of Egypt lie between the two countries. Seconds later the host asked how she had 'made Egypt disappear,' she answered 'I did what?', and panelist Omar Baddar said she had her 'borders a little confused.' We found no correction from Mace as of Thursday morning. Every quote below is checked against the broadcast audio.
November 4, 2026 · DispatchNancy Mace on Election Night: 'The Only Thing Worse Than Being Fed a Pile of Sh*t Is Being Asked to Swallow It'
Rep. Nancy Mace spent election night on Piers Morgan Uncensored's live panel in Washington. Watching the House seat she is leaving slip toward a Democrat, she said, 'I just found out, we're losing my seat,' and then, 'the only thing worse than being fed a pile of shit is being asked to swallow it.' When CBS called South Carolina's Senate race for Democrat Annie Andrews, she said, 'It's not unfucking real,' and added, 'Sorry, you said I could curse.' Two hours earlier she had said of Andrews, 'This was not a hard race.' She was not on the ballot. She said she won the seat by 18 points in 2024; it was 16.6. She called herself one of 'the only four Republicans who voted to release the Epstein files'; the House vote was 427 to 1, and the four were the Republicans who signed the discharge petition. Every quote below is checked against the broadcast audio.
November 4, 2026 · DispatchNancy Mace's Bill Says Losing Plaintiffs Pay. Her Replies Asked: What About the Falsely Accused?
Rep. Nancy Mace has promoted her Speak Your Truth Act, H.R. 10783, in nine X posts since October 12. The bill would make a plaintiff who loses a federal defamation suit over a statement about sexual assault, harassment or discrimination pay the defendant's lawyers. We read the 445 replies X showed under those posts. 37 asked about people who are falsely accused, and 21 more pointed to her own accusations; 47 supported the bill. The accusations her replies raised include the ones she made from the House floor on February 10, 2025. The only defamation suit over those that has ended, Brian Musgrave's, was decided in federal court on immunity, with the judge offering 'no opinion concerning the truthfulness or the lack of truthfulness' of her allegations. The state's prosecutors did weigh the evidence. In August, Solicitor Scarlett Wilson wrote that SLED's report 'offers zero evidence that Mr. Musgrave committed any crime,' Solicitors Duffie Stone and Kevin Brackett concurred, and Brackett wrote that Musgrave 'is completely innocent.' He was never charged. The bill has no cosponsors and has not moved since October 9.
November 4, 2026 · DispatchMark Levin to Nancy Mace: 'STFU You Washed Up Political Loser'
At 4:20 a.m. the morning after the Republican midterm losses, Rep. Nancy Mace quoted Fox News host Mark Levin on X: 'STFU. No one wants to hear a word from you. Your beloved Iran War lost seats everywhere.' At 4:44 she added: 'Mark Levin is a moron.' At 6:46 Levin answered: 'STFU you washed up political loser. You're angry because you'll actually have to now work for a living. You're one of the most mentally unhinged POS to ever be in Congress.' He ended: 'Good riddance, crackpot.' At 9:05 she replied: 'In a civilized society we'd have already put you on an ice floe and shoved it out into the middle passage.' Here is every post in order, with links, and what the record shows.
November 3, 2026 · DispatchNancy Mace Says She Promised Three Terms in 2020. The Only Pledge on Record Says Something Else.
Nancy Mace says that when she first ran for the House in 2020 she promised to serve only three terms. The pledge she signed as a candidate in 2019, the U.S. Term Limits pledge, is a promise to co-sponsor and vote for a term limits amendment; it does not say the signer will leave office. We searched the 2020 record for the personal promise she describes and found it in no source from 2020. This page sets her statements beside the record, with every source.