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Feb. 27, 2024 - Triggered - Donald Trump Jr

01:31:49

PUBLICSQUARE TOWN HALL: Live with Rep Matt Gaetz and Michael Seifert

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	you you
	you Hey guys, thanks so much for tuning in on a special edition of the show.
	We don't normally do this, but we've been talking about this a lot.
	We're doing a Public Square Town Hall in Pensacola, Florida, with Michael Seifert, the CEO of Public Square, and Congressman Matt Gaetz, a great fighter for the America First movement.
	We'll talk all about the patriot economy.
	We're continuing to get the message out and connect like-minded businesses with like-minded consumers.
	This is a big tenant of pushing back against the woke mob that has taken over so many of our critical institutions, especially corporate America.
	As we watch that poison take over, as we've watched them take your hard-earned dollars and weaponize it against all things that you may like But even the basic tenets of American freedom, we gotta push back.
	So we've done that, and you're gonna really enjoy this one.
	It's a major theme of the show, obviously, and we want to make sure that everyone's out there doing it,
	that they are aware, that they can find and they can choose to have their hard-earned dollars go to people like them.
	True patriots, small businesses, you don't have to simply support the woke corporate mob and its radical left-wing
	agenda.
	There are great options for you, and I think that's really important.
	So with some of that, I want to thank a lot of the major and incredible sponsors of this show.
	Rumble, frankly, is one of those companies doing just that.
	But be sure to check out The Wellness Company, a leader in providing emergency medical kits.
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	Avoid the high costs, the hospital wait times, and take control of you and your family's health needs.
	Go to TWC.health, like The Wellness Company, TWC.health slash triggered
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	That's TWC.health slash triggered, like the name of the show.
	Check it out, and I think you got to help take care of your family's health and safety needs.
	Also, with that, go check out the great folks over at Gold Co.
	We see it every day.
	Interest rates are rising, inflation is persisting, and of course, we're still seeing the reckless spending,
	global turmoil, and Biden-caused disasters each and every day.
	It's only leading to more economic anxiety.
	I want you to be prepared.
	Like, with your health, we want you to take care of your financial well-being, you and your families.
	Owning tangible, physical inflation-hedging gold and silver can help secure and stabilize your portfolio.
	Gold Co. is top-notch customer service.
	They'll answer all of your questions.
	They will walk you through the whole process, so you can use this time to go and educate yourself.
	Go to donjrgold.com.
	D-O-N-J-R-gold.com to learn more.
	It's that simple. D-O-N-J-R-gold.com.
	Learn more. Educate yourself.
	So thanks so much, guys.
	Enjoy the town hall.
	Like it. Share it.
	Subscribe. For the people who are asking, hey, what can we do to help?
	I'm sure we'll be talking about all of these things today.
	All of the things that we need to do to be able to promote and push forward the America First agenda.
	Supporting patriotic small businesses, etc.
	This is going to be your cheat sheet.
	Check it out. Share it with your friends.
	If you get your podcast in other ways, you can get this later on or you can share it later on with people on Spotify, on iTunes, podcasts, etc.
	It'll all be available there.
	It's you guys that help get this out there.
	Main Street again and the small businesses that make our nation so special, Public Square is the marketplace for that.
	We have 80,000 vendors on the platform now.
	We well past a million consumer members faster than Twitter, Airbnb, Spotify, which is again a sign that we the people are ready for solutions.
	We're ready for solutions politically and we're ready for solutions economically.
	we at Public Square, amen, are proud to be the demonstration of that.
	So without further ado, we wanted to come together and host this town hall series with
	a simple goal.
	We want to bring together leaders from our community, leaders from our country with incredible community members, small business owners or active participants in your local community.
	Which all of you qualify as tonight.
	And we wanted to make sure that you know that your voices and your opinions and your concerns are valued.
	And we want to give you the opportunity to hear from them about how these leaders plan to pave a new way forward so that we may protect those things that we hold so dear.
	So that's the purpose of our Town Hall Series.
	We cannot wait to enjoy it with all of you tonight.
	One last piece. This time together tonight is being live-streamed on Don Jr.'s Triggered podcast on Rumble, which is really exciting.
	So everybody say hi to the Triggered crew!
	Yeah! So this podcast will go live tonight.
	If you'd like a replay, make sure you go check out Don Jr.'s channel on Rumble where you can watch this whole thing.
	If you have family or friends that wanted to be here tonight but couldn't make it, you can give them that podcast and say, hey, relive the moment with me.
	Y'all ready to see Don Jr.
	and Congressman Matt Gaetz?
	I would like to introduce to you Donald Trump Jr.
	and 4 to 1's Congressman Matt Gaetz.
	Thanks.
	So, Michael, you threw us for a little loop there.
	You put the stairs.
	It's like a Biden trap.
	Like, he'd fall down the stairs.
	So, at least Matt and I can still make it and navigate the staircases.
	I was planning on coming down like a fireman pole if it was available.
	Ginger would have loved that, wouldn't you, Ginger?
	Yeah, absolutely, yeah.
	How's it going, Pensacola?
	Can I just take a moment because it's so special for me to be able to show off all of you to my friends Michael and Don and there's a there's a very special person I want to recognize here Kimberly Guilfoyle Kimberly Kimberly Kimberly is like a member of our family as well.
	A lot of people don't know this, but I really don't think I would have gotten married to Ginger, my amazing wife, if it wasn't for Kimberly, because Kimberly saw us wandering around Mar-a-Lago, me trying to get the courage to talk to Ginger, Ginger talking to way more impressive people than me, and... Tough but fair.
	Yes. Tough but fair. And so Kimberly says, you know, it's my birthday party tonight, and you need to ask Ginger to be your date.
	And so I said, you know, Ginger, Kimberly's got her birthday.
	I really need a date.
	And Ginger said it was a pity yes, that she didn't want me to have to go without.
	And so she was sitting between me and Tucker Carlson at the dinner, and Tucker kept going on about his show, and Ginger turned to him and said, it's lovely you have a television show.
	What's it about? Yeah.
	So you're saying there's a chance.
	Right. That was your window.
	It all worked out great.
	I also have to thank Don.
	This is the third consecutive campaign I've been in where Don Jr.
	has come to Northwest Florida to help me share a positive message about the America First agenda.
	We like our fighters, guys.
	We've got to support our fighters.
	We don't have enough of them.
	And... You know, there are like 220-some-odd members of the Republican House Conference, and I think Don gets about 400 requests every year to go to People's District.
	And I think it's a combination of our dear friendship, of the patriotism that emerges of this place, and the exquisite hunting and fishing that we offer today.
	That gets Don to the community.
	And finally, you know, Don and I have got a few things in common.
	We both definitely are getting to spend our lives with women who are way above our league.
	We both, you know, have incredibly powerful fathers.
	And I just want to thank my dad, Don Gates, for being with us here tonight.
	And, you know...
	Don is an incredibly successful international businessman, and I have a very powerful father.
	So it's really exciting to come together tonight to not just talk about what's going on in the nation, but what's going on in our economy.
	Because while every few years you get to vote with a ballot...
	Every single day you get to vote with your dollars.
	You get to choose who you engage in commerce with.
	And what's so positive and exciting about this movement we have is we really are one family.
	We're one country. We want to be there for one another.
	And that's what's so exciting about the mission of Public Square.
	It's there to make sure that when we vote with our dollars, we're engaging in commerce with people who actually love America and don't seek her demise.
	Michael, it's the biggest sadness I have about Congress.
	When I was in the state legislature, sure we had Republicans and Democrats and we disagreed about stuff, but I really felt like most of the time both sides wanted Florida to win.
	We just had different ideas about how to get there and more and more these Democrats I serve with today, they actually believe that their mission, that the world would be a better place if America were weaker.
	If we were diminished. And that is something Northwest Florida will never abide.
	We are all here to make America stronger.
	So, Michael, thank you for bringing us together.
	And I'm excited about, you know, us not just leaving here encouraged and inspired, but all of us leaving here more capable To engage not only in our politics, but in our economy in a meaningful way.
	Well, thank you, Congressman. Couldn't think of a better way to kickstart our conversation tonight.
	We are going to focus on the economy.
	And we are going to cast a vision for what a better economic future could look like.
	As Main Street and the small businesses that make this country so special are supported.
	So we're going to go through a little panel tonight and then we're going to have an opportunity for folks to ask questions.
	We've had some great questions come in over the past few days from folks that RSVP'd to this event.
	So thank you for submitting those.
	Matt, I actually want to start with you.
	So you...
	I want you to extrapolate a little bit on the message you just gave.
	Small businesses are obviously incredibly important to you.
	Northwest Florida has some of the best restaurants I've ever been to in my life, for example, by the way.
	The Panhandle's a very special place.
	And the real classic Americana heart of Main Street seems to be alive and well here.
	But what are some of the biggest threats you see to that way of life that you're trying to cherish?
	Well, when we look at the cost of money right now, it's out of control.
	I mean, when you look at the fact that people's starter homes are now becoming their forever homes, when you look at the cost of a car loan, 61% of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck.
	And more and more folks are having to rely on credit cards to get you from that paycheck to the next one.
	And the reason we are in default on loans more than at any time in the last decade is because of the federal government spending.
	You see, I think for many, many years there was never a cost to the debt that we were accruing.
	People saw it, but they didn't really feel it.
	But now we're $34 trillion in debt.
	We're gonna be 50 trillion in debt on the path that we're currently on and that is causing major credit ratings to devalue the United States of America and that means everything you've worked for your whole life is becoming worth less and less.
	Now, that is all too acceptable to the people I work with.
	They don't mind not taking the tough votes and making the tough decisions and making you pay the price for it every time you go to the grocery store or the gas station.
	And so I think a lot of what we've got to do is get a little more courage among my colleagues in Washington, D.C. And one thing I know is...
	Courage is contagious.
	Because I saw a lot of these weak folks in Congress, when Donald Trump was in the White House, when he was laying out that clear vision of productivity and progress and unapologetic success for the American people, a bunch of them got in line.
	But as President Trump has not been there these last four years, we've reverted.
	To the establishment mean.
	And they've been all too willing to sell we the people out.
	And so that's why tools like Public Square give us resilience.
	We have to have resilience against this.
	If they're making things more expensive, if they're making buying a sandwich or buying groceries a lot harder,
	we need to make sure that when we have the opportunity to do that,
	the benefit is going to people who, I don't know, hire our fellow Americans and put up the American flag,
	not that weird flag with all the triangles and pink and black on it all the time.
	So crazy, you're so radical.
	I mean, how dare you put America first in America!
	It's so true.
	When Michael came to me a little over a year ago talking about Public Square and just trying to get this off the ground, it literally started at home during the lockdowns.
	He was like, hey, I'm going to a coffee shop.
	They're forcing me to wear a mask.
	Who's not going to do that? Who's going to honor the freedoms?
	Literally, it started like that.
	It was a list that he made on his own, and then it sort of expanded.
	When he brought it to me, It's like, hey, do you think you could maybe help us?
	I was like, yes. Within a year, we were literally traded on the New York Stock Exchange because people understand it.
	And the same weakness and the same lack of courage that Matt's talking about from our representatives, we see from corporate America.
	They feed that beast.
	That beast goes with the woke talking points because it's easy.
	While sacrificing your guys' jobs, your guys' well-being, making you pay more, destroying every shop on Main Street, they don't care.
	Those interests are very much aligned because those are also the people, the corporations that are willing to write the big checks that perpetuate the process.
	So this is something that's different.
	And they'll sell us out. Every time.
	One of the things I was just most startled by in a recent revelation on an investigation the House Judiciary Committee was doing, you had the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security, and entities that they fund telling banks that they had to report back to the government suspicious activities.
	And guess what those suspicious activities included?
	The purchase of a gun.
	How about a Bible? The purchase of a Bible.
	Wow. The donation to any cause where you put America First or MAGA in the memo line, and it was compounding.
	So if on the same day you bought a gun and a Bible and made a MAGA-oriented donation, they are trying to remove you from the American economy.
	This is not a punchline.
	This is not an applause line.
	This is a warning call to all of us.
	This is the direction they're trying to take us.
	And so, you know, what I think they're most afraid of is they're actually more of us than there are of them.
	That's so important.
	And I heard when you said it about the Bible, someone just, in the back, I can't really see because the lights are bright, but someone said, what?
	No, no, that's happening.
	That literally happened.
	And the banks, many of whom you work with, willingly just gave over that information.
	They're not required to do that, but they just, it's easier to bend the knee.
	That's the same FBI and the same DOJ that labeled concerned mothers and parents going to PTA meetings Who did not want the indoctrination of their children into DEI and other nonsense?
	Domestic terrorists. That's the same organization that also labeled practicing Catholics domestic terrorists.
	Now, if you're a trans shooter and you shoot up a children's school, they will protect your identity?
	They will hide your manifesto for months.
	It was definitely something other than, you know, jacking up someone on all sorts of ridiculous drugs since they were, you know, a teenager or even much younger, which they'd love to do.
	It definitely wasn't those things.
	But if you're a MAGA, if you bought a Bible, if you purchased stuff at Bass Pro Shops, you're on a list.
	So, by the way, if you're here right now in this room, you are now all on a list.
	Welcome! No!
	Matt... Matt and I are on every list, so you're just part of this club, but it's why we do have to band together, right?
	We saw this with my father.
	We see what they try to do to the squeaky wheels who will actually be willing to talk about these things, whether it's what social media does, trying to censor me and others like us, whether it's what they did to my father, where they canceled, quite literally, the most powerful man in the world, at least on paper.
	If we all band together, they can't do that.
	Didn't they try to kill you yesterday?
	No. Yeah, well, yes.
	I mean, what happened with that? Every time you come to town...
	It's my second sort of, like, white powder envelope hate mail thing.
	Hunter Biden has been waiting for that white powder every day, and they send it to Don Jr.
	I heard he was pissed.
	I mean, every time you come here, you were on The View the day before the last time you came to Pensacola.
	That was fun. By the way, if you haven't seen that one, Google it.
	Yeah, if you had to get killed by anthrax or go on The View again, which would you take?
	Well, that one was, going on The View was sort of like shooting fish in the barrel because they're used to, no, but go watch the episode, right?
	It was their 5,000th episode, so that's a lot of episodes.
	And they had me on to talk about a book.
	I was doing a book tour and, you know, I didn't get a single question about my book.
	Now, you know, you're supposed to, you figure they're at least honorable, but I said, you know what, in case this goes really wrong, why don't I just Google the dumbest things ever said on The View?
	And that list was actually long and not very distinguished.
	So I just had a couple pointers going in, and, you know, we went there, and Kimberly was there with me.
	She was sort of, you know, I call her Kimberly Voice of Reason, because, you know, I go aggressive hard, and, you know, you had to sort of, even if it was five on one, basically, with them against me, right, you have to sort of let them get their stuff out.
	And once the audience started realizing, like, this wasn't me talking about my book, then I could start hitting back.
	We had about, we got ten tickets in the room of about 150 people.
	But... They started losing the audience when I started heading back because the audience themselves didn't know, you know, Whoopi Goldberg, you know, being an apologist for Robin Polanski, and they didn't know that, you know, Joy Behar had done the blackface thing, and all these, you just call them out on all of the hypocrisy each and every day.
	And what was the best that you did not see, Matt, but I wish we could get the outtakes real.
	Like, when we were in commercial break, Whoopi was there, MFing, quite literally, using the full words, the people in the audience.
	This isn't an MFing MAGA rally!
	I was like, no, no, these are people from New York.
	I have less than 10% of this audience.
	We're friends. But when you actually...
	When you talk about the truth, when you bring the reality where they're just not the people that are in charge, someone else needs to go there.
	I was there to sell a book, but they weren't going to do that, so I figured I'd just go scorched earth and have some fun.
	But when you don't need them to come back again and you don't care, they got nothing.
	They're empty suits.
	So when we all band together and do what we're trying to do with public square, link patriotic people, link like-minded individuals, take the extra effort.
	Don't just go on Amazon and, well, it's easy.
	I can click one button. I click two buttons.
	We're getting there. Take the effort.
	To take that next step, you take away that money that they've been using to fund against you, to weaponize against you each and every day the causes that you can't stand, that they're gladly donating to.
	You know, they'd put all of us in the gulags if they had their choice at this point.
	Well, I appreciated the comfort of it.
	When we were in Washington last, and we wanted to know where to go to dinner, you pulled up Public Square, and we knew we were going to go somewhere where we weren't going to be harassed, that we could have a nice experience.
	And really, it's a community you guys are creating.
	Yeah, we had wild – it was Matt, myself, Kimberly, Carrie Lake, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Nigel Farage, like really like leaders of the movement.
	And we went to a restaurant in Washington, D.C., the heart of liberal insanity in America, where conservatives are harassed.
	And we were brought into a restaurant.
	That we were loved at.
	The managers, the waiters, they're sitting there taking selfies with us.
	We closed the place down.
	Not a peep. And so it exists.
	It's so much more common than people know.
	Again, once you become unafraid and you're willing to explore and just sort of break out of the easiness that's been sort of put before us right now.
	Don? Yeah, let's hear it for that.
	That's fantastic. So, two weeks ago, Politico wrote a piece.
	You ready for it? This was the title.
	Donald Trump Jr. ventures into the lifestyle space and brings the culture war with him.
	And in this piece, they mention a quote, and they meant this negative, okay?
	So everything I'm about to tell you, they were trying to make this some dig on Don that he feels this way.
	And you tell me if you resonate with this quote.
	I know that I do. Having your dollars go to a small business that shares your values instead of some woke conglomerate that's donating to whatever leftist cause is and literally weaponizing people's hard-earned money against them, I'm all for that.
	Highly controversial. Incredibly radical.
	That was the voice of the people.
	It's how I feel. It's how all of us in this room feel.
	If you have a dollar and you can choose to spend it for you, the family that you have, and the community you want to build, or you can give that dollar to somebody who's going to use it and put it into a pool of $400 million to fund elections against you, what are you going to choose?
	$90 million. The choice is pretty simple.
	We're all choosing the former.
	So, Don, you've really been a leader in this sort of parallel economy movement.
	One piece I want to highlight, one thing I love about the men on this stage and all of you here tonight, is that you're more known for what you're for rather than just what you're against.
	The left has no vision for the future.
	They only know destroy.
	These men actually want to build something.
	We at Public Square want to build something.
	We actually want to take our roots and And bring something beautiful to life through it that's rooted in excellence and meritocracy.
	So I love that this concept of a parallel economy is more than just boycott.
	It's actually, here's how to move your money more positive.
	Here's the businesses you should support rather than the ones that you just should stay away from.
	So Don, speak to that a little bit.
	What's your history with the parallel economy?
	When did you start realizing that we had a need for a new American renaissance in the world of economics?
	Honestly, it really started with politics, right?
	Because I was a business guy from New York.
	We built buildings. It's a very liberal city.
	I was always a conservative. But my first political fundraiser ever was for Andrew Cuomo.
	I know, but that's the reality of the world.
	I'm not saying I agree with it, but when you build buildings in New York, the Attorney General is the guy that signs off on all of your offering plans.
	You literally couldn't do it. So you start learning the political game.
	You understand what's going on.
	But then once we actually entered politics with an R next to our name, as opposed to sort of,
	hey, I'm a conservative, but I got to play somewhat of this game, that's when you started seeing the attacks.
	We saw the attacks on our businesses. We saw the things, you know, my quote sort of about my father in the elevator
	going down before he announced the bid back in 2015. It's like, and
	now we find out who our real friends are?
	Like, it shows, like, he got it.
	He knew exactly what was going to happen, but more importantly, he knew exactly what was going to happen, and he did it anyway.
	And so we saw the attacks.
	We saw the attacks on our business, and then, you know, otherwise.
	And then they started doing the whole, you know, well, if you don't like it, build your own.
	It's like, okay. Will do.
	That's the reality, right?
	We took that. Now, they say it sort of sarcastically, like you're never going to be able to do it, but we did it with True Social, and we're doing it with Public Square, and we're doing it with other things.
	I started a publishing company, because as you know, Matt, they would literally, whether it's other colleagues of Matt, congressmen, senators, conservatives.
	I got canceled by a French publishing company.
	It was the first time the French stood up for anything.
	And it was to cancel my book.
	The one time they don't surrender.
	Right. And so, you know, they say it's sort of like build your own, but then when you do, then they make everything much harder for you.
	Then they try, they actually, they're not trying to give you a fair chance, right?
	It's sort of like, well, you can do that, but oh, your business is on Amazon Web Services.
	Now we're going to shut it down. So Rumble.
	That's why I have my podcast on Rumble, not other places.
	It's about free speech.
	You know, Rumble now and working and talking with Chris Pawlowski, you know, they're bringing out literally cloud services.
	So they're going to compete with Amazon so that you're not actually concerned about those guys allowing you to build a business to a certain point, committing the blood, sweat, tears, toil, you know, capital that it takes to get something going only to find now you're cut off.
	I mean, we've seen that.
	I mean, how many businesses do you see?
	Oh, and now you're canceled. Or now you're cut off.
	They did it to other conservatives' things on social media, so you have to separate those things.
	That's why that whole concept of the parallel economy, it has to be everything.
	You know, there's great banks on Public Square that aren't going to do what those other banks did.
	I started a media business, news, literally just aggregation, because, you know, you go on Google, and we've seen Google in the last week with Gemini.
	It's like, Apparently, the Founding Fathers are African-American.
	It's lunacy.
	But they've been doing that with Search.
	For two decades now, manipulating the scales of truth, influencing people's mindsets and decisions with lies and nonsense, and that's the way the algorithm works.
	You now see that.
	So I started literally a media company that just aggregated news.
	So, hey, you want to see the New York Times?
	Great, but you're going to juxtapose it against Breitbart or The Daily Caller or a conservative place.
	Instead of, you know, you go on Google, the first 200 searches or pages worth of searches are the CNN version of...
	You know, not exactly the truth.
	Like, you know, is that true or did you see it on CNN? Because it's one or the other.
	And so I did this, and it was right around the time of CPAC, right?
	Actually, there was the day before this dinner that we were talking about in Washington, D.C. And my partner in the deal, literally, we're not creating news.
	We're just literally showing you everything so you can read all of it and make up your own minds.
	But they don't like that.
	So PNC Bank, a big bank out of Pennsylvania...
	Apparently canceled our account.
	We didn't know this. So my partner calls me.
	He's like, hey, the operating account for this entire business that we started was like three quarters of a million dollars.
	He goes, it's at zero. I think we got hacked.
	So I'm sitting there like, that's, you know, it's a lot of money.
	Just gone. And like, that's the whole business.
	I'm like, what do you mean? We got hacked?
	Well, I mean, we're at zero.
	We were at 750 yesterday.
	We call the bank. Oh, oh, yeah.
	We just don't want to do business with you.
	There's a cashier's check in the mail.
	I was like, they didn't even call.
	So, of course, it happened to be at CPAC, so I'm telling Matt.
	Matt's tweeting about it. Carrie Lake's tweeting about it.
	Kevin McCarthy even tweeted about it.
	So this was a universal one, okay?
	All sides, all sides were hitting this thing.
	So then they call us, oh, it was a mistake.
	I go, but it wasn't a mistake.
	You literally got on the phone and told us that it wasn't a mistake.
	You said you didn't want to do business with us.
	You just, now it's a mistake because you got caught, just like what happened.
	So again, this is about that unity message of getting together.
	Once we all go out there, you know, 175 million Americans, and it's more, because the independents see what's going on right now also.
	I also think it's about trying to get us to self-censor.
	I think there are a lot of Americans, there are a lot of Northwest Floridians, there are a lot of people who wear the uniform in our community who worry that if they fly their patriotic flag at full mast, that there is some damage that will come to them.
	And so we have to figure out ways not just to, oh well, maybe I'll self-censor a little less.
	No, we have to say we're going to make our values and the things we believe an advantage.
	We're going to use that to grow our networks, to strengthen our relationships, to improve our commerce, to make it make us feel better.
	That's how we flip the script on them, not just by saying, oh my gosh, you know, if we put something online, are we going to get kicked out of the PTA? If someone sees me in a MAGA hat, am I going to get thrown out of my church group?
	In Northwest Florida, you know, I think that we've got a good way of things because we've got so many veterans who live here, so We got a good way of thinking about stuff.
	But maybe that's the obligation we have to lead.
	Maybe because we're a little less worried about those consequences in the neighborhood or around the block, maybe we need to be the first ones out there saying, no, we're going to be a central part of that resilience.
	And I'm so glad you were able to highlight the zenith of Kevin McCarthy's speakership.
	That I can now never say he never did anything good.
	Listen, I gotta bring it all up.
	I gotta call them all out. But it is what we're up against.
	But it also feels, honestly, there feels like a hope.
	People are calling out the nonsense.
	They're calling out Google.
	They understand. But then you have to make the definitive decision to get away from that.
	So we see it.
	It also feels like there's a component of cancel culture.
	Think of the things that you're now saying.
	The things you're calling out.
	I talk about it all the time.
	Whether it's the insanity of some of the trans movement on our children.
	People are now having the guts.
	To attack back.
	And guess what? They're not getting canceled anymore because people understand that the people are actually there, but so many of the people were the silent majority because they were pushed into a corner.
	They were afraid. But it's gotten so ridiculous.
	The other side has failed so badly across the board in every conceivable metric.
	You can't lie to them anymore.
	You can't tell them that Bidenomics is working when they go to the grocery store.
	I'm the son of a billionaire. Like, if I go to the grocery store and I'm pissed off, America sees it.
	Like, like... I mean, in all fairness, if I'm like, damn, I got sticker shock.
	I paid $11 for carrots the other day.
	Carrots! Congressman, a question I want to ask you.
	You mentioned Northwest Florida leading, which I love it.
	I come from San Diego, California, although we have recently moved.
	We are political refugees to the beautiful state of Florida.
	We moved our business here.
	It feels good.
	The air is different.
	It's just more free. It smells like freedom.
	It does. It does smell like freedom.
	It's the freedom and humidity together.
	A little blend.
	But one area that I've seen you lead specifically is in the world of trying to dismantle business
	and politics at the financial level in the sense that for a long time, DC has really
	been bought and paid for by corporate oligarchies that pretend that they're rational free market
	actors, but we all know they're structured as fascist actors.
	The definition of fascism, by the way, is big business and big government in bed together
	doing the bidding of a regime against the American people.
	So I always find it ironic that we are called the fascists when it's the literal definition
	of what they're doing.
	But point is, one area that you really led that I admired.
	You famously said in 2020, honest capitalism is under attack, not just from Bernie Sanders, Antifa, and the radical left, but by special interests and political action committees in the swamp of D.C. D.C. has been bought and paid for.
	And it makes it really difficult as a small business to advance against what seems to be a Goliath.
	You've put your money where your mouth is.
	You've also said that you're not actually accepting federal PAC money, which I found really admirable in this quote here.
	It's amazing. But, Congressman, speak to us for a second about this issue of D.C. being infected by corporate dark money that acts more like political actors.
	No, thank you. And I want you all to know I'm the only Republican in the entire United States Congress who takes no donations from federal lobbyists or political action committees.
	I work...
	And I... I do that because there are going to be times we disagree on something.
	You might see things one way.
	I might see things another way.
	But I want you to know that there aren't any money strings attached to what I believe.
	I know who I work for, and it's all of you.
	So I've got three reforms I'm pushing for.
	Members of Congress shouldn't be taking money from lobbyists in PACs.
	Members of Congress...
	Second, members of Congress should have a lifetime ban on becoming lobbyists or registered foreign agents...
	And third, for the same reason you don't let the referee bet on the game,
	members of Congress should not be allowed to trade individual stocks.
	And...
	...
	To President Trump's credit, President Trump has come out and he has endorsed all of these reforms,
	and we can do them by House rule.
	And because I'm fighting for them, they fight against me.
	But you know what? Any politician who stands before you and tells you that the millions of dollars that they get from lobbyists who are paid to buy their votes or the millions of dollars they get representing foreign countries when they're out of office doesn't affect them.
	They're not being straight with you.
	And I think that something that This moment in our politics has awakened is a consciousness where you all know, you know the real deal from the fakes and the posers and the sellouts.
	And that is my mission now.
	I wish so much I could be home every single day.
	But in Northwest Florida, look, we got Navy towns, Air Force towns, Army towns, and we know that...
	Sometimes you've got to be an expeditionary force.
	Sometimes you've got to leave home and you've got to go to where the fight is.
	And on March 5th, we've got the beginning of primaries in Ohio and Texas and other states, and they run all the way through September.
	And my goal right now in life is to ensure that the United States Congress is better prepared for the second term of Donald Trump than we were the first term.
	And so...
	Just like Don's been on the trail.
	I don't think you spend a lot of nights at home.
	Kim's been on the trail. Ginger and I, we are out there trying to inspire and encourage and really to connect people.
	And that's what Michael's about.
	If we connect people who believe these things, we don't have to be political experts.
	We don't have to be the rich and the elite.
	Our patriotism will be the shining light.
	It's always been the shining light.
	And so that's why I do what I do.
	These are the reforms I'm fighting for and I hope you're proud of them.
	Amen!
	By the way guys, he actually loves you more than you love him.
	You should have heard me say the people of the – when he was talking up there.
	I mean, it's genuine, and that's why that's amazing.
	I am a little shocked, though, Matt, to hear that the people don't genuinely believe that Nancy Pelosi is better at trading stocks than every person on Wall Street ever.
	I'm shocked that that is not the case.
	But she does better than all of them.
	And big tech is one of those areas.
	I mean, one of the reasons why platforms that we believe in are important to be a part of and invest in is because so much of big tech has turned against us.
	And Nancy Pelosi's husband was betting on the big tech stocks.
	Well, I was working to try to break up big tech.
	Now, how do you think that made me feel?
	I didn't have too much of a chance, but we don't deserve that.
	This is, I work every day and I walk under the statues of people like John Adams and
	Thomas Jefferson.
	I see the sacrifice of George Washington reflected in these murals and then I work along the
	side of these folks who are willing to sell out and willing to put their own future and
	a short-term financial benefit over what's right for this country.
	And we can't win with those people.
	And so the only way we do this is that we shock the system with the greatest political
	comeback in American history.
	And I think we all know what that is.
	Wow.
	Well, thank you guys.
	I appreciate it.
	Thank you.
	Thank you.
	Well, thank you guys.
	You know, it's – honestly, it's moments like that that make all of it worth it.
	You know, we got a half-a-billion-dollar judgment against us last week, and they want to put my father in jail for 700 years-plus, maybe the death penalty.
	I mean, minor details. That's like an average – that's like an average Tuesday for us at this point.
	But I understand that I am not the upstanding citizen that Hunter Biden is.
	But I feel like maybe I've been treated a little bit disproportionately bad.
	If it was my laptop, I think it'd be a problem.
	You'd hear about it. The intelligence people and agencies wouldn't be coming and pretending it's Russian disinformation.
	You know, minor things like that. But it's why we fight, and that honestly means the world to us.
	I can assure you it was a lot easier just being a businessman, even in New York City, even as a Republican.
	But it's that that makes it worth it.
	It's that spirit.
	That we're all fighting for.
	You know, having five young kids and wanting to make sure they grow up in an America that we all know and recognize that is disappearing before our very eyes is super, super important.
	And so thank you all.
	That's just awesome. Your daughter is, like, going to be on the LPGA soon, man.
	Every time I'm on Instagram, your daughter is, like, hitting a golf ball 300 yards.
	So, until a man's competing against...
	She's the best golfer in the Trump family. We just don't tell Grandpa that, you know.
	Did I say that out loud?
	Yep, on your podcast, yeah.
	It's that I can't really control my internal monologue.
	It was like... He's going to call you Don.
	I heard about your controversial statements in Pensacola.
	Well, it was like, and Kim can vouch for this during my father's presidency a couple times.
	I'd get the call. It's, Mr.
	Trump, this is the White House operator.
	The president would like to speak to you.
	Like, what did I do now?
	He's like, sir, I don't know, but he's not that happy.
	Don, you're getting a little too aggressive on social media.
	I'm like, what's that? I'm looking around for Ashton Kutcher to jump out of a cake and be like, you're being punked.
	I was like, really? Like, you know, I truly respect my father.
	I fight hard for him. I worked hard for him in business.
	I'm like, I will listen to you about all things with maybe that being the solo exception where perhaps you've seated the high ground, Dad.
	It's like, you know, like... And Dad, this is why you're not allowed to have a Twitter account.
	Yeah, exactly, yeah.
	Oh, yeah, that was the best.
	Hey, Don, have you ever thought about telling your dad maybe not...
	No, I never thought about it.
	Not once.
	When they call me at like 4 in the morning and be like, hey, you're going on CNN in 20 minutes.
	What happened now? Well, there was a 2.30 a.m.
	tweet. What are the talking points?
	I don't know, man, because you're on your own.
	You're good at this crap. Figure it out.
	Get out there. Go get them.
	I love it. I'm ready for Mean Tweets to come back, aren't you all?
	I'm ready for Mean Tweets.
	People want to criticize the mean tweets, but when Donald Trump was president, even the dictators were on their best behavior.
	Weren't they? Weren't they?
	I didn't see Putin invading any other countries when Donald Trump was president.
	And, you know, Biden and them, they all go play foreign policy like it's paid by numbers.
	And Donald Trump understood that sometimes you talk softly and carry the big stick.
	I remember when your dad saw those pictures of those kids from Syria who had been bombed with chemical weapons.
	And he didn't go out there And run his mouth, and he didn't give a bunch of speeches, and he didn't write a bunch of strongly worded letters.
	He dropped 68 Tomahawk missiles on the airbase that launched those attacks, and there were no more of them.
	By the way, he gave that order while he was shitting with Xi of China at Mar-a-Lago.
	It was like, oh, by the way, once they were about 30 seconds out, he told them.
	Somewhere between his first and second milkshake is...
	Yeah, two scoops. Two scoops.
	But, no, I mean, listen.
	Hey, I will take mean tweets and world peace.
	I mean, like, seems like a fair trade-off.
	And by the way, I think the mean tweets often got too much criticism because, like, you can have a mean tweet, but it can be true.
	Meaning, we all probably had maybe, you know, it was probably actually in my life, it was probably more my mom, you know, Eastern European tough woman, like, you know, we all had, like, the disciplinarian parent that you needed at some stage in your life that kind of, you know, Maybe we all as Americans actually needed to hear some of these things.
	We've become so scared of telling people that maybe, well, that's just not good.
	Everyone wins in the participation medal society in which we live in today, except for Republicans, but minor details.
	But I think the mean tweets may have been mean at times, but they were...
	True. They were right, and we all needed to hear it, and that's why we were prosperous, and that's why we had peace.
	That's why it disappeared like that.
	Yeah, it's true.
	One of my favorite authors says, the world does not need more nice men, it needs more honest men.
	Yeah. And I think that's true in politics.
	It's certainly true in business.
	You've watched these CEOs of these mega-corporate entities cower away the minute they have a diversity officer on their board say, sir or ma'am, you need to do this, or else the investors will think that you're not meeting your ESG or DEI goals, and they'll cower into a corner.
	And our planes will fall out of the sky.
	Yeah, I was going to say. Minor details.
	Yeah, yeah. If you've never read Atlas Shrugged, it's a good book that demonstrates where this all goes when you have this just general apathy move through society.
	So I think that, you know, sometimes the DEI ESG-driven world is really funny, like Google's Gemini, which I want to ask about in a second.
	But other times it gets really disastrous.
	If you are prioritizing in your customer service or in your safety these woke expectations instead of excellence and meritocracy, what other expectation can you have other than disaster?
	None of it goes a good place.
	I want to lighten the mood, though, a little bit, and I do want to talk about Google.
	They lost $90 billion in market value in two days this week.
	Don, you first. I would love to hear your take.
	We talked about social media and Twitter.
	One of the most things that went the most viral this week is Gemini, the release of this AI that they had spent billions on that was unwilling to show a single white face in their demonstrations of anything.
	What are your thoughts on this?
	What does it show you about society more broadly?
	Well, listen, I mean, I think...
	The fact that the pendulum has overcorrected so far, they're so desperate now to push the stuff that they did that they're saying the quiet parts out loud.
	You know, when it was just search, it was like, wow, that's weird.
	I'm only seeing CNN, but, you know, at the time, maybe if you're not like – if you're here, you're into this stuff, so you're paying attention.
	You've been watching. You're sort of awake to what's going on, but there's – Tens of millions, probably 100 million Americans that, hey man, they're busy trying to live what's left of their American dream, what hasn't been exported to China or elsewhere.
	We've got to use the proper vernacular.
	So, you know, they hear this stuff in the background, and they assume it's true, whether that's media, whether that's tech.
	But in the desperation to try to claim that stuff, to try to make, no, no, DEI, it's great corporate governance.
	It's good. It's like, no, no, how about just having the best person for the role?
	I mean, that was an article today.
	In the UK, where, you know, that is controversial.
	Hiring the most qualified person for the job is controversial because, for some reason, that is considered to be racist in the UK. And that's – we're not far behind.
	So watching them spend that kind of money to do this insanity, watching Disney spend billions in a movie to remake it with, like, woke characters that no one understands and then no one shows up, and they're like – Well, it's racist if you don't show up.
	It's like, no, like, if you make good content, people will show up.
	It's that simple. And so they've overcorrected so badly, but it's good because people understand it now.
	They know that even if they fix it, the problem will still be there.
	They'll just figure out a way to do it more subtly.
	The influence will still be there.
	They've done immeasurable damage to our country and to reality.
	Because the way they've been able to influence people's perception.
	But it's not just Google. That's going on on Facebook.
	That's going on on all of the meta platforms.
	That's going on on social.
	It has been forever. I see what's going on since we sort of got back in the race.
	My algorithms and my engagement on social media is down the tubes because they are actively out there pushing other things.
	They're pushing the opposite side.
	People get it, though. You know, we're combating multi-trillion dollar enterprises that are actively out to destroy our country and our way of life.
	But, like, we're actually doing pretty good despite that because people finally get it.
	Again, once you get over that hurdle, once you become unafraid, once you stop caring about what they're going to do, we actually win this battle hands down.
	Yes. But we have to be hyper-aware, and we also have to, like I've said, the point of this is take the time to go find the people, the businesses that actually share those values and support them.
	If you just take the easy way out and say, well, okay, I won't like them, but I'll still use it.
	I'll still bank there instead of switching to go across the street or whatever it may be.
	I'll still go to Starbucks instead of, you know, the coffee shop across the street that actually shares our values.
	We won't win because the funding is what has enabled them to do this.
	It's why Google is a trillion-dollar business.
	It's why they have that power.
	We have to just abandon those things, and we have to take the time, energy, and effort to create the alternatives.
	Hey, Congressman, you – yeah, that's fantastic.
	Let's hear it for that. One of the last questions I want to ask you here before we jump into audience questions.
	The hot topic the last few weeks has been immigration.
	And I came across a stat as we were conducting some small business research just two weeks ago.
	For foreign-born people living here and engaged in our economy, whether they're here illegally or legally, they
	have experienced parabolic job growth in the last five years.
	But if you are a native-born American, you have flatlined.
	No job growth.
	And one of the worst things about illegal immigration, this unfettered crossing across our borders, zero respect for
	our national sovereignty, is the fact that it hits small businesses so hard.
	Wages decrease for native-born Americans that are just trying to earn an honest wage.
	So, Matt, talk to us a little bit about what does Congress need to do to fix this behemoth of an issue at our southern
	border.
	To be honest, Congress doesn't need to do anything to shut this border down.
	President Trump got the border closed with executive action, and Joe Biden on his first day repealed all the Trump policies, and that's why we are the way we are.
	We all remember watching that Democrat debate, and when they asked the question, who wants to give free health care to illegal aliens?
	Every one of their hands went up, including Joe Biden.
	So that's why we have these challenges.
	And so I don't believe that we ought to be baited into the notion that we have to give $60 billion to Ukraine to close our border.
	Or we have to give, like, Joe Biden's woke and weaponized government everything they want, or raise spending over Nancy Pelosi's levels.
	I believe that it's the three things that Trump did.
	You stop in the first safe country you get to, you don't travel all the way to the United States.
	If you have an asylum claim, remain in Mexico.
	And third, according to Title 42, we have a public health emergency to stop the flow of fentanyl and illegal immigration into this country.
	You do those three things, you solve the problem.
	But you know what I worry about?
	I worry about the lack of courage among so many of my colleagues, because while we have a two-vote Republican majority in the House, there is not a majority to really stand and fight on these issues.
	And you know why? Because there's no special interest in Washington that actually wants to reduce the flow of illegal immigrants.
	Just like Michael was saying, these big businesses, they want to increase the flow.
	And their big white hat entities, they're all there to push for open borders policies.
	And because that's where the money is, and that's where the interest groups are, that's where your politicians go.
	And the one man who put the working women and men of this country first was Donald Trump.
	And that's why we have to get him back in the position to do it again.
	You mentioned the bureaucracy out of D.C. or these larger corporate entities that have celebrated illegal immigration
	and have welcomed it with open arms.
	One of the most shocking institutions that is leading that charge to welcome illegal immigration into our country, disrespecting your sovereign America, is the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
	They stand for everything except the U.S. and her commerce.
	They're the Chamber of Chinese Commerce.
	Yeah, 100%.
	So, Don, talk to us a little bit about this, and then I want to ask you both one more question.
	The U.S. Chamber of Commerce was supposed to be the institution that was celebrating American small business.
	They were supposed to be the one bureaucracy out of D.C. that would help small business America, Main Street, know that their values were protected.
	And unfortunately, they have sold us out every chance they get.
	So, if you're sitting here tonight, you're giving advice to a business owner, what is
	your encouragement to them?
	Why should they keep fighting?
	Why should they remain hopeful when it feels like so many of these larger entities are
	against them?
	What's your encouragement to the small business owners that are here tonight?
	Listen, I think the fact that guys like us are actually out there doing this kind of
	You know, people... There was a serious consequence to this, but now people understand what's happening.
	They see it with their very eyes.
	You know, those same interests. The Chamber of Commerce became Washington, D.C. It became the swamp.
	The billionaires and their mega corporations said, hey, you know, we can ship your American dream over to China.
	We can buy our widgets for two cents cheaper.
	We want that. We're going to fund the Chamber of Commerce.
	We're going to create all sorts of little interesting things for you.
	It's a perpetual job.
	Congratulations. Your policies now reflect that of big corporate America, not the little people.
	And so as people have figured that out, as they understand, as they go, you saw what's going on with some of the auto workers supporting Trump right now.
	You know, they're coming out and be like, yeah, wait a minute.
	But the unions, right?
	The unions were still big Democrat super donors because they've been bought and paid for by the Democrat Party forever, not the workers.
	But you listen to what they say, the EV mandates and all of this nonsense.
	So you're going to pay dues.
	You're going to give it to the union.
	That union is then going to basically encourage policies that will literally be the demise of your job, our company, and push EV mandates for batteries made in China with rare earth minerals controlled entirely by that dictatorial regime, and you're still going to pay union dues?
	Yeah. They get it now.
	They understand. So, you know, the people that had been lied to, again, it's hard to get by in this world.
	You know, you're working hard. You trust the people that you put into leadership.
	But I think Trump and the commensurate Trump derangement syndrome that came with it.
	No, the insane reaction to common sense.
	You know, the visceral reaction to just logic, facts, and reason.
	People are like, but wait, why wouldn't we do that?
	Why aren't we doing this?
	This makes total sense. No, no, no, you must.
	You've got to believe your lying eyes.
	People get it now.
	They've seen it. So perhaps we needed that level of insanity.
	It's sort of like anything else. Are you going to hit rock bottom?
	I think we have, and the hardworking men and women of this country who have been abandoned and sold out by the corporate interests in Washington, D.C., and otherwise, they've had enough, and they're willing to finally say it.
	Love it. And Congressman, I want to make this Pensacola specific.
	Or we'll broaden it to Northwest Florida specific.
	The great people of Florida one.
	What is your advice to the business community here?
	Why should they keep fighting? Why is it worth it?
	Well, because life here is better than everywhere else on the planet.
	If you can't do it here, where are you going to go?
	You know, we are blessed.
	We are blessed by the nature and fabric of our community being so connected to the military.
	Raise your hand if you're part of a military-connected family out there.
	Look at this. This is incredible.
	You don't get this anywhere else.
	And also the people who come to visit here often are from, you know, the SEC states, the Bible Belt, and they want to come here to have a good time and relax.
	And oftentimes they've worked all year for that one week that they get on Navarre Beach or Pensacola Beach or Okaloosa Island.
	They get what? They get seven days to spend like we get to spend the whole rest of our year.
	And so you know what? Let's kill it for them.
	Let's make sure that we've got great businesses and great opportunities and great experiences.
	One thing I know, the whole secret of this place, we've got all these great military folks, and they're here to do their naval aviation or their equipment training or their research and development work, and if we can get that white sand in between their toes a little bit...
	And we can get them dipped in that emerald green water, get a red snapper tugging on the end of the line.
	It's real addictive. And then they want to come back and have their families here and make their forever home here and have their roots here.
	And we are the ecosystem that can be a shining example to the rest of this country.
	When I brag about you all so much, when I go around this country, I say, listen, my folks know what a great nation this can be, but we have to fight for her.
	You know, Madison said the greatest role in this government wouldn't be congressman or senator or even president.
	It would be that of citizen.
	And so you have to undertake that obligation, and you have to know what that calls upon from each and every one of you.
	And it's something I don't doubt one bit.
	We know it full well here in the Florida Panhandle.
	Ladies and gentlemen, it's here for Congressman Matt Gaetz and Donald Trump Jr.
	Thank you, guys. Did we win Michigan yet?
	Do we have any Michigan news?
	Did we win Michigan yet?
	Have we won Michigan?
	Joel? Did we win?
	Is anyone paying attention? Kim, why don't you check?
	At least it's good. No one was on their phones while we're talking.
	Wow, we had them enraptured, Don.
	You got the primary there.
	We all realize it's over, but it's just another way to make fun of Big Haley.
	I just moved out here from Michigan.
	Well, by the way, we love that you're here.
	Don't go back, but I'm kind of worried all the Republicans are coming here.
	You're allowed to come here, but you have to send 1.2 Republicans back to Michigan to take your place.
	You have to find them, and they have to go.
	You know, we tell our fellow Californians all the time, there are over 5 million registered Republicans in the state of California.
	It has the second largest conservative representation in the entire country, and yet, California is a supermajority in both chambers of Congress at the state level in the state House and legislature.
	So imagine if you took the five million conservatives from California and just moved them to all the purple states.
	We would have a cemented red majority as long until the cows come home.
	It would be amazing. Oh, could you just imagine how...
	I want to deliver the notices.
	Be like, hello, Sheila.
	I know it's 76 and sunny in Santa Barbara, but you've been selected for Wisconsin.
	Yeah. It wouldn't work.
	We get the New Yorkers.
	We love Wisconsin. We get the New Yorkers here.
	We tell them they're all welcome so long as they leave their Democrat voter registration card north of the Mason-Dixon line.
	We say, y'all come.
	Don't New York my Florida.
	As a political refugee myself, can we move Trump Tower to Orlando?
	Can we just...
	Hey, ladies and gentlemen, we're going to jump into some audience questions, which we're excited about.
	That's how we're going to end the night here, and then we have a fun surprise for you at the end.
	One more fun story, though, about Florida.
	My wife and I just moved here six months ago, and we stepped foot into a restaurant on night number two.
	And we're sitting there, and we're talking about the menu, and the sweet waitress said, oh, is this your first time here?
	We said, yes, ma'am, it is.
	We're new to the entire state, actually.
	And she said, oh, where'd you move from?
	And we kind of leaned in. We're like, California.
	California. She's like, oh, no, oh.
	And she was trying not to be mean, but it kind of felt mean.
	But she was like, oh, no.
	We're like, we promise we're the good kind.
	That didn't stop her from spitting in your food.
	I tried to put that part out of my mind, but it was so sweet.
	She said at the end, welcome home.
	And I thought that was incredible.
	That's how you all have welcomed us tonight, and we're so grateful for it.
	So we have a microphone in the back here, and we're going to take some questions.
	I've got a list of folks that I'm excited to introduce, and it is so blindingly bright up here.
	So I can't see you, but as long as you can see me, then we're in good shape here.
	I want to start with a question from Ken Weeks.
	Ken Weeks, are you here tonight?
	Yes. Yeah, there you are.
	Raise your hand, Ken. I can't see it.
	Say something, Ken. You got a microphone?
	Yeah, hello. Hey.
	Hey, there you are, Ken.
	Fantastic. You've got a question for us tonight.
	Yes, sir. So, Florida has seen substantial growth recently.
	How can we keep Florida as free as we can with all the new influences?
	Yeah, with a whip and a chair.
	You know? Yeah, I think that the good thing about Florida, I've noticed, is it gets in the blood pretty quick.
	You know, folks can come here from just about anywhere, and, you know, you can tell them the new arrivals, they're like, they're trying to get that cup of coffee a little bit faster, and, you know, they're in a little bit of a hurry.
	But you know what? It gets right.
	We get them squared away here in the panhandle especially.
	And here's the good news. You know, when Don and I were campaigning for Ron DeSantis in 2018, this state had 300,000 more registered Democrats than Republicans.
	And like today, we have half a million more registered Republicans than Democrats.
	It's not just that everyone who wants their third grade teacher to pick their kid's gender moved out.
	It's that a lot of great, patriotic, freedom-loving Americans moved here.
	And so I think the best way to ensure that our influence really permeates is to be the very best version of ourselves.
	And we do a pretty good job of that here in Florida One.
	I also think, honestly, that all of the things that we're talking about have sort of appealed to a lot of demographics that would have been traditionally Democrat voters.
	I mean, I think if you look at where it's going in Miami-Dade even, very left area, the Latino community over there, I mean, they are...
	Republicans. By the way, they've always been Republicans, they just didn't know it, and they didn't vote accordingly.
	But they believed in family and education and hard work and all of the things that we all believe in, and so they're now getting it.
	And the Republican Party is the outlet that they realize the Democrat Party is no longer anything about.
	Kimberly gets the credit for that.
	She flipped all the Hispanics.
	Puerto Ricans for Trump. President right there.
	Kimberly, go for it. Love it.
	Great question. Hey, let's head to Barbara Mile.
	I apologize if I mispronounced your last name.
	But Barbara, we'd love to hear from you.
	What's your question for us tonight?
	Well, I just wanted to thank you all for coming, and Mr.
	Gates has known me for a long, long time.
	We were on his first campaign, so we thank you.
	We've had our ups and downs, but it's like a marriage.
	You know, you fight, then you get back.
	I'm just glad I know what you're talking about, ma'am.
	I'm just glad I don't have to pay any alimony, Barbara.
	We thank you. We thank you, Matt.
	You know, the panhandle always brings the people home because South Florida is like an hour ahead of us, but we, even with Rick Scott, with DeSantis, like just that tenth of a tenth of a percent, the panhandle hits a home run every time and brings you guys in.
	So, I want to know, how can we, in the panhandle, now that things have changed a little bit, how can we better support President Donald Trump in the upcoming election?
	Listen, I think Florida, honestly, I think it's going to be more red than it's ever been this time around.
	And I remember back in the 16th election, I did ungodly amounts of radio and TV the
	day of the election.
	And it was that.
	It seemed like the panhandle numbers were lower.
	I think we weren't thinking about the time difference, but we knew it was sort of going
	east to west, right?
	I literally remember getting on the radio to every DJ in the area that was live.
	I was screaming at Sean Hannity, like, just stay on the radio.
	He's like, I'm off.
	I'm like, no, you just get back on the radio.
	We've got to make sure that the people here turn out.
	But, you know, again, I think you see it here, the patriotism that exudes from this part of the state.
	They're going to show up anyway, but I think we've actually backfilled a lot of what was lacking in other parts of the state that, you know, hopefully we don't need to depend on you guys.
	We want you to show up, obviously, but we just want it to be a landslide rather than something we're thinking is even close.
	Yeah, and you know what?
	We may have to travel a little to fight.
	You know, Georgia's not that far away.
	And we're going to be organizing some groups of folks to get into southern Georgia and to make sure that we've got good turnout for good patriotic Americans in that part of the country as well.
	But, Barbara, I want you to know, when I first saw President Trump in Washington, D.C., I made sure he knew who delivered that victory in the Sunshine State.
	And it was all of us in the Central Time Zone.
	One more thing.
	I just want to thank you for getting me to the inaugural.
	Thank you for coming.
	You deserved it. Thanks for all you did for the President.
	Thank you, Barbara. That was fantastic.
	I want to now head to...
	Let's go to Donovan Lee.
	Donovan Lee, are you here? Right here.
	Hey, there you are. How are y'all?
	Fantastic. How are you? Pretty good.
	I don't know what's going on in Michigan, but I'm not a betting man, but I bet your dad took Michigan tonight, sir.
	I'd say that's safe. I think the only state that Nikki Haley is going to win is the state of denial.
	But it hasn't stopped her yet, so, you know, participation medal, it's awesome.
	Yes, sir. All right, my question is, what can we as a community do to encourage the local businesses to participate and join Public Square?
	Well, that's for you, Michael. Gladly answered that one.
	But I do want to hear y'all's take because you've both been really instrumental in helping this platform grow.
	So I'll give you sort of a high-level answer and then I'll give you a practical one.
	The high-level answer is let us be, hopefully, if you think we're worthy of it, as a platform, let us be a part of your regular conversations with these small business owners.
	If you go into a coffee shop and you see a big American flag on the wall, I know this works because I've done it before, it's worthwhile saying, hey, do you love the country?
	I think you do. I see the flag.
	Do you love the Constitution? Yes, I think you do.
	There's this platform that I'd really love to see you on.
	I'm trying to spend all my money through businesses that are on this platform, and it helps other patriots know they're not alone.
	Very simple. Last weekend, I was in a hardware store.
	I don't go to the Home Depots.
	I don't go to the Lowe's. I don't even really go to the Ace.
	I go to the local hardware stores because there's a sense of character and customer service that you can't duplicate anywhere else.
	And so I went to a local hardware store called Hulls in West Palm Beach, Florida, last weekend.
	And I saw the guy on his shirt.
	He had a We the People with an American flag on his shirt, and it was their company uniforms.
	I'm like, oh, this is shooting fish in the barrel.
	Hulls from South Dixie, right? Yeah.
	That's why I go too. Isn't that amazing?
	I do it for the same reason, yeah.
	Yeah, so they've got Public Square basically written all over them, and I said, hey, I'm a part of this platform.
	I didn't say I'm me, but I just said, hey, I'm a part of this platform.
	I really enjoy it, and I think you guys would be a great fit for it.
	And sure enough, I was talking to the manager, and he said, you know what?
	I'll absolutely check it out.
	They just joined four days ago.
	So... You'd also be amazed, you know, we really pride ourselves that it is a small business-focused platform.
	98% of the businesses on the platform are small and medium-sized businesses.
	What's really cool, though, is that the businesses that are joining, most of them aren't even explicitly political.
	You'd never see that on the surface.
	They're just great businesses that are providing incredible quality products and services for you, and it just so happens that their values totally align with yours.
	So I'd say as a philosophical point, let Public Square be a regular part of your conversation.
	You'll be amazed at where that leads if you talk about the mission first.
	Practically, we have a table at the back, the back corner there, right before you leave at the door, where, yeah, we've got some great team members back there that would love to help sign you up for our ambassador program, where we'll literally, if you're like, hey, dude, I'm an evangelist for the platform.
	I love the idea. I'd love to invite businesses.
	We actually will give you a t-shirt, we'll give you stickers, we'll give you all the things that you need to go out into your local community and just spread the word.
	By the way, if you, most of you live in a very red area, but even if you don't, you'd be amazed at some of the success we've had in heavily blue regions.
	Would you believe that Chicago is our second most dense city in the entire country on Public Square?
	No. You know why?
	Because they need it so badly.
	And so they flock to it.
	Would you believe Seattle's in the top five?
	So, of course, they're the evident ones like Dallas and like South Florida and like Tampa.
	Like, you've got these great cities represented, of course.
	But you never know who needs it, no matter how blue or how red of an area you live in.
	So, it really transcends politics, and we'd love your help growing the movement.
	Any other things you'd add there, guys?
	I would just say for all of us, we all shop at a ton of veteran-owned businesses, right?
	I mean, a lot of the breweries we go to, a lot of the small businesses here are veteran-owned.
	And the good thing is, a lot of them advertise that they're veteran-owned, right?
	And so when we see veteran-owned businesses, that seems like a way for all of us to help our veteran-owned businesses connect with customers who will want to patronize them.
	Yeah, we actually did some internal research recently and discovered we actually have the largest compilation of veteran-owned businesses of any marketplace in the entire country, which is super exciting.
	Again, I'm from San Diego.
	I love Pensacola. Heavily military-influenced cities.
	There's just a real sense of America that you feel when you're in places like this.
	See, we train the aviators that are flying over all those folks that are getting trained in San Diego.
	That is true. That's absolutely right.
	Hey, I want to kick it to a few more questions here.
	We talked a little bit about business ownership generally, but I want to talk a little bit about the folks that are actually starting businesses and taking their first steps.
	And Josh Patello had a really good question about this.
	So Josh, are you there? Sweet.
	There you are. All right, Josh.
	Floor's yours. My name is Josh Botello.
	I am a senior engineering student local here in Pensacola.
	And a little bit of the background or influence for my question comes from my mom.
	She is currently running for the Republican congressional seat in Connecticut for the 5th District.
	Make it red, baby. She's a Trump supporter, and she is America first.
	And she supports a lot of the young and small businesses in her district.
	She endorses several of them.
	And, I mean, you gave me a mic, so I'm going to give her a plug.
	But she really does need that support up there.
	So that's Michelle Botello.
	Michelle! But she's really inspired me with just having that entrepreneur drive.
	So my question for you guys is, what is your plan to help young entrepreneurs in Pensacola specifically?
	Yeah, I think it's the connectivity.
	And first of all, you're in good company because Don and I are both mama's boys.
	That was one of our first connections as friends, is nothing wrong with being a mama's boy.
	And no one's ever going to love you like your mother.
	And so it's great that you gave her a shout-out.
	But I really think around here, there's kind of a unique...
	It's a cachet about Pensacola, our history, our culture, our image.
	It's why American Magic wants to be here.
	We're getting more and more television and different things.
	And so being able to be a part of enhancing that Pensacola brand and telling that story.
	I mean, you go up and down Paula Fox Street here, we got so many businesses that are doing...
	like millions of dollars in e-commerce and they say having that downtown Pensacola historic address helps them market and so in a way we're all a part of that brand like it or not and so we're brand ambassadors and we have to elevate it for the community but but also like Michael's been saying shopping local We got so many options around here for Florida-based businesses, Northwest Florida-based businesses.
	You don't always have to surrender to the ease of the big box or the Amazon or the Walmart.
	And I think that if we make those small choices here, all of it stays among us.
	Love it. It's fantastic.
	I want to add something to that to say that if you're young and starting a business, recognize the economic moment we're living in.
	When I was first pitching Public Square, I had this thesis.
	I was going to investors that were values aligned and said, I really believe there's going to come a day when you're going to see some of the major corporate entities in our country show their colors, like who they really are.
	Little did I know Bud Light would just be a year and a half later.
	But I said I really feel like there's this reckoning coming, and there's sort of this divide coming that we didn't start, but we have a responsibility to respond to.
	And so as these corporate entities reveal their cards for who they are, it's going to leave a market gap.
	Here's some numbers to quantify this.
	Did you know that Trump voters in 2020— By the way, our platform's not just registered Republicans.
	Our platform spans even political ideology because there are people, there are Democrats that are super frustrated by what's happening.
	Will they be the ones to tell you?
	No, they won't. But they exist, and they'll come and they'll support the types of businesses that we're describing.
	But even if you just said, you know what, let's just quantify the Trump economy.
	If you take the folks that voted for Trump that they're willing to admit in 2020, and you quantify those in terms of GDP representation, Trump voters in 2020 accounted for over $7 trillion in GDP. Seven trillion.
	That makes Trump voters in 2020 the third largest economy in the entire world by GDP. Only smaller than China and the United States more broadly.
	And can you name me even one major corporate entity that's even trying to talk to those people?
	In fact, they're doing the opposite.
	A welcome and a God bless you and I'm glad you're here.
	If you can provide that experience, you will night and day differentiate yourselves over your competitors.
	It is that simple. People are starving for the things that used to be normal in our country and young entrepreneurs like you can bring us back to it.
	So that's the thing I'd add. Hey, we've covered a few of these questions tonight in our comments previously, but there's one here that I want to end on that I just think is fantastic, that I think would be a really wonderful way to sum up the evening.
	Lance Stone, are you there?
	Lance Stone? We got Lance in the house?
	No Lance. Oh, that's a bummer.
	I'm going to ask Lance his question.
	I try to pretend like I don't know what the questions are.
	I know all the questions. I have them right here.
	But... I will gladly ask Lance's question, but the credit goes to him for asking this.
	What can you tell us to give people hope that this country can still be saved, that we haven't gone too far?
	And I think you all need to speak to that one.
	I think you can look at every poll that's out there in every state, despite, again...
	The manipulation from tech, despite the manipulation from the media, you see it in their commentary, you see it in their desperation.
	They understand they've lost control.
	When I say they, I mean those conglomerates that are working as the marketing arm of the Democrat Party.
	It's groups like this, people who are able to show up, whether it's this, whether it's one of the countless other The primaries that we're talking about where people are showing up, they're getting engaged, they're involved, they're going to the places that a couple months ago, a couple years ago, you'd literally be afraid that you're going to be ostracized in society.
	People have had enough and they're showing it.
	To me, I mean, it just feels like an awesome place to be.
	It's a 1775 type of moment in our country where people, you know, they went along for a long time, they figured out, and now they've had enough, and they're making it very clear they've had enough.
	So I see this as I go around the country and I go around every – people, they're getting it.
	They're awake, they're pissed off, and rightfully so, and they're going to act accordingly.
	So I get this question everywhere.
	I get this question at all of our discussions.
	And before we roll, I've got to thank the McDavids, my good friends who are our hosts tonight, who've made this wonderful venue available to us.
	It means the world to us to be able to celebrate in this space together.
	Thank you for everything you've done for our community.
	I remember hearing this as a young man going out into the world when Barack Obama was president.
	They said the economic growth would never exceed 2%.
	America would always be reliant on other countries for our energy and our raw materials.
	That we just had to accept the fact that Obama would be bowing to the Chinese and going to baseball games with the Castros in Cuba.
	And I saw how one man put this economy and this country on his back.
	And he delivered a level of positivity and success and wealth.
	And we were richer and we were stronger and we were prouder and we were better.
	And he did all of that despite the fact that in the United States Congress he had Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell doing everything they could to stop him.
	He did it despite that.
	Now, my friends, we are better prepared for 2025 than we ever were for 2017.
	Because in all that President Trump has endured, he has exposed the liars and the thieves and the cheats and the worst in our government.
	He has this unique ability to force them to expose themselves.
	And now people see the media.
	For what they really are.
	And I see the Congress for what it really is.
	And that's why I will spend the coming months on the campaign trail throughout this country backing the candidates who will have the courage and the strength and the fortitude and the willpower to make the tough choices we have to make.
	I wish I could tell you that we were one renamed post office or blue ribbon commission away from saving the country, but we are not.
	The easy decisions, they're in the rearview mirror and we have tough Work ahead, but we are a tough people.
	This is a tough district and you have a tough congressman and I will never stop fighting for you.
	Applause Ladies and gentlemen, let's thank Donald Trump Jr.
	and Congressman Matt Gaetz.
	Well done, Michael.
	Thank you, thank you.
	Don't forget to sign up on publicsquare.com.
	Remember, it's not just about the business, it's also the consumer.
	It's both sides. We're linking up both sides of these transactions, and you guys are a critical part of that.
	Love it. Ladies and gentlemen, we have a fun little surprise for you at the end of the evening here.
	So, at this Town Hall Series, we wanted to make sure that every time we stop off in another city full of glorious patriots like yourselves, we want to give back to the community in some way.
	We want to actually select a local business and give a grant, albeit small but hopefully mighty for the success of this business, of $1,000 to a different small business every single city we go to.
	I remember when we were just starting out and growing as a very small business, $1,000 was material.
	It matters. It's another payroll you get to pay.
	It's another bill you get to pay off so that you can sleep easier that night and get refreshed for the next day, excited to keep conquering.
	So tonight, we're really excited to give $1,000 to a small business from the panhandle here in northwest Florida.
	I want to introduce you to a man named John Blackrock who started a great company called John Candor.
	John, are you here? I'm here.
	Hey, there you are.
	Guys, let's hear for John Blackrock.
	Thank you. Thank you.
	So, yeah, we had to do a big check.
	It just felt right for something like this.
	So, hey, John Kandor, I can speak from personal experience.
	He's an incredible clothing company maker, specifically in the world of accessories like shoes and leather goods.
	The world of footwear has become dominated by people who are either incredibly woke and want to lecture your kids about gender or by people that will actually lobby Congress to allow them to continue utilizing slave labor to make your shoes.
	That's the world of footwear today.
	John Kandor is bringing something different to the mix.
	I'm a proud customer of his.
	He's been a public square business of ours for probably over a year now.
	And John Blackrock, we're incredibly grateful that you're here with us.
	So, guys, let's hear it for him.
	Thank you so much.
	Thank you.
	Thank you.
	Thank you for all your support.
	Thank you.
	Thank you.
	Well, ladies and gentlemen, we're super grateful for businesses like John Kandor.
	We're grateful for folks like you that make our nation special.
	I'm hopeful to that last question from Lance.
	I'm hopeful because I remember the first time we had a small business reach out and say we only had 150 businesses on the platform at the time.
	A small business reached out, a hair salon in San Diego, California, and they said we were about to have to go under.
	And after three weeks of being on Public Square, we've had our most successful month we've ever had times five.
	And I remember, this thing has taken blood, sweat, and tears to build in three years, but I remember sitting with my wife and saying, if that's all that this ever is, if it was that story, if that's all that we ever do, all of this was worth it.
	And so I'm incredibly grateful that there's been thousands of stories like that now, and with the help of patriots like you, there will be thousands more.
	Pensacola, thank you for greeting us tonight.
	Thank you for being amazing.
	Palafox, Worf, Peter, Sandy, thank you so much to both of you.
	We're so grateful for you for hosting us this evening.
	Thank you.
	Ladies and gentlemen, we hope you have a fantastic night, and we'll see you next time.
	Okay guys, thanks so much for tuning in.
	I hope that was a masterclass in how to combat some of the woke mob that has taken over and owned the corporate media, just corporations in general, how to find those patriotic small businesses and to support them.
	If we band together, they can't cancel us all, folks.
	So thanks so much for tuning in.
	Make sure you're liking... We'll put it up there later on.
	So if you... Perhaps get your podcast when you're driving or flying and you're not necessarily on Rumble.
	Go check them out over there.
	Share them. Subscribe.
	It's because of you guys that we're able to get this messaging out there.
	That and with the help of our incredible sponsors.
	So go to twc.health slash triggered for 15% off the emergency medical kit.
	Take control of your family's health, their well-being.
	And also go check out the great folks over at Gold Co.
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	of the insanity that we see taking place before our very eyes each and every day.
	You can do that by going to donjrgold.com.
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	Donjrgold.com.
	Check it out.
	Check those companies out.
	Support the companies that have the guts to push.

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