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Nov. 4, 2021 - Firebrand - Matt Gaetz
23:18
Episode 14: Speaker Jordan? (feat. Rep. Jim Jordan) – Firebrand with Matt Gaetz
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The embattled Congressman Matt Gaetz.
Matt Gaetz was one of the very few members in the entire Congress who bothered to stand up against permanent Washington on behalf of his constituents.
Matt Gaetz right now, he's a problem in the Democratic Party.
He can cause a lot of hiccups in passing the laws.
So we're going to keep running the stories to keep hurting him.
If you stand for the flag and kneel in prayer, if you want to build America up and not burn her to the ground, then welcome, my fellow patriots!
You are in the right place!
This is the movement for you!
You ever watch this guy on television?
It's like a machine.
Matt Gaetz.
I'm a cancelled man in some corners of the internet.
Many days I'm a marked man in Congress, a wanted man by the deep state.
They aren't really coming for me.
They're coming for you.
I'm just in the way.
I don't care if they're Republican, Independent, Democrat, Martian, American.
I don't care.
What I care about is getting the information.
Mr. Speaker, everyone knows this is a joke.
It's all pretend.
That the Comey FBI and the Obama Justice Department worked with one campaign to go after the other campaign.
That's what everything points to.
Repeal Obamacare, reform welfare, build the border security wall and fix our immigration system and control spending.
We haven't done that.
What's it going to take?
What's it going to take for the State Department to put in place the practices that are going to save American lives?
I'm asking basic questions about the investigation like, who's heading it up?
And you can't tell me that.
Tell us if I'm wrong.
But I don't think I am.
I think that's exactly what happened.
And if it did, it is as wrong as it can be.
And people who did that need to be held accountable.
We're going to keep digging to get the answers.
This is unbelievable.
And I'm here to tell you, Mr. Rosenstein, I think the public trust in this whole thing is gone.
Somebody who was interviewed by the FBI told the FBI we tipped her off.
Have you done an investigation, Ambassador Kennedy, and who might have tipped off?
I mean, here's what this gets to.
Once again, Hillary Clinton gets treated different than anybody else.
She got tipped off.
Money in politics.
Here's how it works.
Politicians give money to Planned Parenthood.
Give it back to politicians at election time who get elected.
We'll give it back to Planned Parenthood.
We'll give it back to politicians who get elected and the game plays on.
If you had the government working with one campaign to dress up a fake news National Enquirer garbage report, to dress it up as intelligence, take it to the FISA court to get a warrant to spy on the other campaign, that should not happen in this country.
It's the most important issue in front of the country the last six weeks.
You don't know who's heading up the case, who the lead investigator is.
At this juncture, no, I did not know who did.
You get that information to us, we'd like to know.
We'd like to know how many people you've assigned to look into this situation.
No wonder Americans hate this place.
No wonder they're cynical.
We make the job of being a member of Congress way too complicated.
Let's do what the...
Let's do what we said.
We make this so hard.
Let's just do what we said we would do.
That'll be good politics.
And more importantly, that'll be good policy for the hardworking families of this great country.
Do what you said you would do.
That's the directive from the OG firebrand, Congress's most talented member, Congress's hardest working member, someone I look up to, someone who has really inspired a generation of fighters in the Congress.
My good friend, Jim Jordan, also the title of the upcoming book from my friend.
And I think it informs on a lot of important issues facing the Congress, facing the country.
And Jim, you know, the title really, I think, begs the question, what is it that we have to say we are going to do to the country to earn the trust of our constituents and to strengthen the institution of Congress?
First of all, I'm not the most talented you are, and you are a friend, and I appreciate your leadership and your willingness to fight for what you told the constituents in Florida that you would fight for when they elected you.
I always say we make this job way too complicated.
What did you tell them you were going to do when you put your name on the ballot and you went out and talked to the folks in your district and they gave you the privilege to go serve in the United States Congress, which is a privilege only about 12,000 people have ever had in the history of our great country.
What did you tell them you were going to do?
Do that.
Do that.
Even if your own party's against you, no matter who's against you, go do what you said.
You have done that, and that's why you're a friend and someone I so respect.
What we told them we were going to do is the things they care about.
Make sure we defend the sanctity of human life.
Make sure we don't spend this country into the debt that we now see.
Make sure we stand up for the Constitution and stop this assault that we've seen over the last year on their First Amendment liberties.
This is the part that bothers me the most as two guys who sit on the Judiciary Committee, the committee that's supposed to protect the Bill of Rights, the Constitution, and your liberties under the First Amendment, the Fourth Amendment, the Second Amendment.
That's what we've got to make sure we do.
If we get the majority, that's what we've got to focus on.
Jim, all over America right now in Republican primaries, people are working to define themselves as Jim Jordan Republicans in a lot of ways because you and Mark Meadows and many of our other colleagues started the Freedom Caucus to be a rudder for the body, to provide a sense of direction in the A town that can often be so corrupt and tumultuous.
Walk us through kind of the scenes of the book where you start the Freedom Caucus, where you decide that this has to be an organization to inspire people and to draw people in.
And it's an organization that's inspiring campaigns throughout America today.
In the introduction, I talk about the day Mark Meadows filed the motion to vacate the chair, something that hasn't been done over 90 years in this country, where it's the equivalent of filing a vote of no confidence in a parliamentary form of government.
And I will always remember this, and they can read this in the introduction, but it's A moment that has stuck with me.
Mark is in the well of the chamber.
We're sitting in the back where Freedom Caucus people typically sit.
And as Mark is getting ready to sign the document down there at the dais, he turns and looks back.
And he's actually just thinking.
He wasn't trying to look at anyone.
He's just thinking.
It was because it was a major moment.
It was a huge moment, frankly, in American history, I think.
And he turns back.
He's looking up.
And then his gaze sort of came down.
And he...
We lock eyes.
And that's when I thought, he's doing it.
We've been talking about it.
We didn't know he was gonna do it that day.
And I thought, he's doing it.
And there was this smile on his face.
And it wasn't a smile that said, we're gonna get John Boehner.
It was just a smile that said, here we go.
We're gonna do something that hasn't been done in almost a century.
And with signing that document, filing that motion, within a few months, something that has never happened in American history, the Speaker of the House steps down midterm with no health concern and no scandal.
He stepped down because he didn't have the votes to stay in power.
Because he wasn't doing what the people elected us to do.
And we start with that and we talk about that a lot through the book.
We talk a lot about Matt Gaetz, particularly one of my favorite things in my time in Congress was when you and Steve Scalise and a bunch of our colleagues stormed the bunker in the basement.
And frankly, and I know your viewers know this, but that would not have happened but for your leadership.
And you joined those of us in there who were doing the depositions.
And I remember Adam Schiff.
He got all fired up, stormed out, if you remember.
And he wanted to talk to me, so I had to go down to his office.
And he basically told me, you've got to kick him out.
And I'm like, I'm not kicking them out.
You're the chairman.
And oh, by the way, I'm kind of glad they're here.
And they want to be here because they're standing up.
Oh, I remember what you said to me, which is now that you're here, you better not leave.
That was your direction to me at the time.
But that was a turning moment and a moment.
We jailbroke the truth.
Yes, yes.
Where with your leadership, our conference came together.
And remember at the time, The conventional wisdom was that the Democrats were all going to vote to impeach President Trump, the best president we've had.
They were all going to vote to impeach him just 13 months before an election and they thought a bunch of Republicans were going to jump on their side.
And what happened because of what you did and so many people come together and the good staff we had and all the fighting we did, what happened is no, every Republican voted not to impeach President Trump and Democrats came our way and one of them even switched parties.
I don't know that all that happens.
I really don't believe it does if you don't take the action you did.
And the country is better off because of what you did and a number of other of our colleges stood strong.
Well, those were times when a lot of people in our party believed that we ought to just fold our hands and hope that Donald Trump hadn't done anything illegal or criminal.
And they were unwilling to challenge the basis for these investigations, whether it was the Ukraine sequel or the Russia hoax at the outset.
And, you know, you talk about your role in history, dislodging John Boehner and really setting the right on a new course and a better course.
But it hasn't been a course without some rough seas.
The Paul Ryan speakership.
I mean, we went from Boehner to Paul Ryan.
The title of your book is Do What You Said You Would Do.
And what we said to our voters in election after election was that if they trusted us, we would repeal Obamacare.
And then Paul Ryan took like $14 million from HMOs in the weeks leading up to dropping legislation that they told us repealed Obamacare, but they didn't repeal Obamacare.
And so talk about being in that position and the pressure that the Freedom Caucus was under to inform the entire movement and the entire body that to do what we said we had to do, we couldn't turn the product over to the lobby corps.
Yeah, no, great point.
It was a tough time.
And the legislative strategy we embarked on was maybe the dumbest in history, because if you remember, Paul Ryan talked about three buckets, like we were going to do something now, something later, then have the Dr. Price, who was head of HHS, Health and Human Services, do something on his own, which sort of begged the question, well, if he can do it on his own, why doesn't he do it now?
Why does he have to wait until we pass?
It was just a crazy legislative strategy.
We should have just passed what we had passed before.
The Congress before President Trump got here and had it on his desk?
Because President Trump would have signed that on January 20, 2017. So your concept is put the same bill on Trump's desk that we had put on Obama's desk.
But is there a greater example during your time in Congress of people not doing what they said they would do than the Republicans who were willing to vote for an Obamacare repeal when they knew Obama would veto it, but then who weren't willing to vote for the same bill in the whip checks when it was President That's a great point, and you're exactly right.
But guess what?
Guess who was willing to do what he said he would do when he got here?
President Trump.
You remember when we first got here, we'd go to the White House, and in the West Wing, they'd have on the board that big whiteboard, and they wrote down every single promise they made to the American people.
And then when they did it, they checked it off.
That's the kind of leadership we had under President Trump.
And we go back to when they started the lies about President Trump.
Here's the other thing I remember.
There were only four or five of us.
There were only four or five of us who said, wait a minute, something doesn't smell right here.
One of them's the governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis.
Exactly right.
And the leadership of Devin, you, Mark Meadows, and Ron DeSantis, that's all there was.
And there were a few people in the press, Molly Hemingway and some of the other great people who wrote some things.
And we started reading this.
We said, something doesn't make sense here.
We were close enough to the Trump campaign to know that it was impossible for that group to collude with Russia because we were a traveling carnival.
We were just so happy to be on to the next city to bring positivity and an America first spirit.
Never violence, never destruction, always love of country, reverence for our military and our law enforcement colluding with Russia.
We could barely collude with the next venue location.
You know, and so we knew that it was such a joke at the outset.
And it was an effort to destabilize the presidency because they couldn't deal with the results.
So, you know, in this next kind of period for Congress, you know, what is that thing that you think particularly the Judiciary Committee can have a role in delivering on it?
No secret, you're the Republican lead on the Judiciary Committee.
If we take the majority, you will likely be the first chair of that committee to not be a member of the bar in the history of the committee.
So walk us through the Jim Jordan vision.
For kind of the opening weeks.
No, that committee has a, I always say, a storied history.
You think about Henry Hyde.
You think about some of the people who've led that committee.
A storied history of defending the Bill of Rights, the American people's fundamental liberties and freedoms.
And right now what we have is a committee that's doing just the opposite.
So what we're going to have to do is, one, we're going to have to do the investigations that need done.
I mean, this idea that the IRS released thousands of people's tax returns, now that'll probably be, you know, led over in the ways it means we have an investigation.
We definitely need that.
We need to look into the IRS situation.
We need to look into what's happening with this Justice Department going after parents, this issue that we're focused on right now, and school board meetings, what they're doing, the political nature of our Justice Department right now.
We need to look into all that.
We need to go after big tech, censorship.
I mean, this thing...
What's happening to speech?
I always say, the five liberties we have under the First Amendment, your right to practice your faith, the right to assemble, right to petition your government, freedom of press, freedom of speech.
Speech is the most important.
Because if you can't speak, If you can't speak, you can't really fully practice your faith.
So speech is the most important.
What big tech in collusion with big government is doing in this cancel culture world we live in is so wrong.
Barry Weiss called it the digital thunderdome.
You take on the woke mob, they will put you in the thunderdome.
Ask Drew Brees, who said we should stand for the national anthem.
Now, Drew Brees is as apple pie as you can get.
He is a great American, wonderful Christian family guy, and he had to back down from the mob.
This is frightening, but I said this last week.
I actually think Americans are going to push back in a big way, and I think the main reason is what happened with Merrick Garland.
He goes after moms and dads.
Like, wait a minute.
This is the last straw.
So that's what the Judiciary Committee has to focus on.
Those fundamental rights we have under the First Amendment, making sure we defend them.
You write in the book, do what you said you would do, which, by the way, I'm going to get for my parents for Christmas.
That is going to be something they will truly enjoy.
You write that we need to break up big tech.
How would you do it?
Yeah, I think you've got to get the case.
One of the things we're talking about is speeding up the process so you get it to the Supreme Court.
Justice Thomas seems to want to deal with this.
He's indicated, I think, that a lot.
So you get rid of the liability protection in Section 230, and you create an expedited path to get that to the Supreme Court so it can happen.
And it does take 100 years for this to break them up because we ain't got that amount of time.
What you describe is not dissimilar to the way that we went after tobacco companies at the state level in a lot of ways.
Strip these entities of their defenses and declare open season on them and stick the trial lawyers on them.
But then the remedy does not emanate from the legislative branch of government.
It emanates out of the judicial branch in your vision.
It does, because I'm nervous.
And I know we've debated this.
I'm nervous about giving more power to the bureaucracy, particularly the bureaucracy controlled by the Biden administration.
And I guess exhibit number one would be, look at the Justice Department controlled by the Biden administration, what we've seen there.
So that makes me nervous, because I actually think...
Big tech and big government collude to further stick it to conservatives.
So let's make sure we get after big tech, but let's do it in a way that doesn't combine the all-powerful big government with the all-powerful big tech.
Both those entities want to censor Matt Gaetz and Jim Jordan.
I still remember the...
I still remember the day that you called me up because you're much better at all this tech stuff than me and how to handle it and the tweet and the post and everything.
You called me up just a few summers ago and you said, Jim, Twitter is shadow banning us.
And I think you related that I said something like, well, that sounds terrible, Matt, but what's shadow banning?
And then you explained it to me, and we figured out, and you were 100% right.
They were doing that, and it was interesting.
It was Gates, Meadows, Nunes, Jordan.
Interesting four.
And Jack Dorsey, actually, remember he put out the statement and said, oh, no, no, it wasn't intentional.
It was just a glitch in their algorithm.
And I'm like, glitch in their algorithm?
What did they put in the algorithm?
The names Gates, Meadows, Nunes, Jordan.
So this is why we've got to get a remedy to this.
I think that a judiciary committee that is laser focused on vindicating the liberty interests of our fellow Americans, where we have seen them so abridged by tyrants at every level of government, would really rally people and expand our movement to the very types of people we see rising up and becoming hyperpolitical in places like Loudoun County, Virginia.
Yeah.
And so, you know, I do think that that's a way to expand the movement.
I would go further with legislative power.
I think that, you know, we can go beyond using legislative power to strip immunities.
We could use it to literally reshape these companies.
But I think the ultimate result is one that would democratize access to the digital world for people, regardless of their politics.
I mean, access to the digital world is central to the American experience.
And the terms of service on Twitter can't be more important than the rights that undergird the Constitution of our country, for sure.
So some of our colleagues, Jim, have impeachment fever.
And I want to talk to you about this because you and I have spent a great deal of our time in Congress and we've deployed a great deal of our credibility to defend the presidency and the institution of the presidency against frivolous and politically motivated impeachments.
And while I do think Joe Biden is worthy of impeachment, and particularly where they seem to be failing on purpose on the border, I worry about impeachment by reflex.
And I worry that if everything is a basis for impeachment, not just purposeful wrongdoing, Then any time you have a president and a Congress that are in different parties, part of the ceremonial exchange of power will be an impeachment.
I don't want the country to look that way.
Do you also worry about impeachment by reflex?
I do, and I have not called for that.
There may be a time when it needs to happen.
I think that's where you are.
I've actually called for Joe Biden to resign.
I mean, you watch that.
I go back to that press event after the The debacle that was the Afghanistan exit.
And I said, this guy's just not capable of doing the job.
But yeah, we do have to be careful of that because you don't want it just to flip back and forth.
And that is a...
And to be frivolous.
Yeah.
And certainly what the Democrats have made it and what they did to President Trump.
I mean, they tried to kick him out of office before he got there.
That's when they started the Trump-Russia investigation.
They tried to kick him out while he was there.
And then once he'd left, they tried to kick him out even though he'd already left.
And he had the greatest presidency, I think, certainly in our lifetimes, but maybe in the history of this great country.
And yet the Democrats were so obsessed because this guy came here and turned this town around, took on the bureaucracy, took on all the Democrats, took on all the mainstream press, and he had to take on some of the Republicans too.
Which was amazing.
And yet, in spite of all that, did all he did.
But it was so invigorating.
It sure was.
It sure was.
Because when we had good ideas, we could get them right to the forefront of power in our government when everything in Washington is driven to try to constrain innovation and creative thinking and actually valuing the people who sent us who, you know, we owe, I think, a tribute of fidelity.
And Trump just gave us that platform.
He sure did.
It's certainly, you know, a time that I know will enjoy.
Is one reason people need to read Do what you said you would do because you're going to be Speaker of the House one day, Jim?
No, I'm not.
I want to be Chair of the Judiciary Committee.
I want Matt Gaetz Chair in one of the subcommittees, whichever one he wants.
I want to fight for the things I think the American people sent us here to fight for.
And first and foremost is their rights.
I mean, what's happened to Americans?
But you used to want to be Speaker.
I mean, I remember in Florida with you and Ron DeSantis going from small town to small town in my district.
That was a fun trip.
I was very proud to be the first member of Congress to endorse Jim Jordan.
Thank you for sending Matt Gaetz to Congress.
He's truly a great American who is fighting for the things that matter in our country, that made our country great in the first place.
Jim, you'll learn about my district.
These are fighting folks.
These are warriors.
These are people who've served in our military, who've been members of military families, and they did not send me to Washington to play defense.
I believe I represent the best district.
You didn't have a speaker campaign with a great deal of corporate infrastructure, but people showed up with homemade signs.
And I'm going to put them on the screen.
They brought their homemade signs that said Speaker Jordan.
And I've never seen people react to a leadership race in our country the way they did that.
What was the day you realized you didn't want to be speaker?
I never really did want to be speaker.
You just sort of had to run at that time.
But I still remember that was such a fun trip.
You had to run it that time.
Yeah, I don't want to run it.
I didn't want to do it.
But anyway, we started on the western end of your district, traveled east.
I think we made three stops in one day, had the Harley guys, the big Trump bikers team leading the charge.
We had you emceeing every stop.
And, of course, Ron running for government.
It was one of the most fun campaign kind of things I've ever done.
And then we got to hang out in your fine town.
And now we get to be a part of the Ron DeSantis fan club as he takes these values that we fight for, you know, often tilting against windmills in Washington.
And he goes and puts them to work for people.
A lot of the liberty agenda that a chairman, Jim Jordan, would pursue in the Judiciary Committee, we are seeing play out in the great state of Florida every day.
I liked when he said, my job is not to protect business.
My job is to protect the citizens of my state, their liberty.
And I thought, that's Jefferson.
That's Adams.
That's Madison.
That is what it's supposed to be when he said that.
Kind of sounds like what we said we would do, right?
Yeah, exactly.
Exactly.
And that's why the country loves him so much, too.
And we do as well.
Do what you said you would do.
It's the upcoming book by Congressman Jim Jordan.
And if you read it, you'll be able to see the future because you will be able to see the agenda that we are going to fight for in the House Judiciary Committee on behalf of our fellow Americans.
Thanks for joining me on Firebrand.
Thanks for being the OG Firebrand.
Thanks for inspiring a generation to try to serve in Congress in a way that is worthy of, I think, the great platform you and Mark Meadows have created.
I forgot to say one thing.
My two boys love Matt Gaetz's speeches.
They love all the stuff you do.
So thank you again for having me.
All right, man.
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