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May 16, 2022 - Firebrand - Matt Gaetz
37:49
Episode 43 LIVE: Educate, Don’t Eradicate – Firebrand with Matt Gaetz
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Thank you.
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 applause.
So we're going to keep running those stories to get hard again.
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 canceled 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.
Welcome back to Firebrand Live.
We are simulcast streaming out of our office on the Capitol Complex here in Washington, D.C. If you're giving comments on Facebook and on YouTube, we're able to get those right here to the desk, to the show.
Already seeing Jerry Pope saying that we have a stolen government, Sepi Salem.
Never thought it would get this bad.
Gas, inflation, baby formula, Ukraine.
Illegal immigration.
And indeed, the dollar is under attack.
We've got proof now that the whole Ultra MAGA label was in fact an operation.
The squad has been all show, no dough when it comes to their legislative agenda.
I'm going to break down some of those tactics, see what we can learn from them.
And we're also going to have the latest on a war that could go nuclear.
But first, the shooting in Buffalo this past weekend was tragic and horrid.
I condemn it and the type of depravity that could ever lead someone to such a craven act of murder.
Democrats in Congress and throughout the country are now, somewhat predictably, calling for gun control.
And I want you to know, I oppose gun control as a mechanism to stop violence.
It will not work.
We see some of the worst violence in some of the places that have the most restrictive gun control.
Take a look at the city of Chicago, for example.
Also, gun control in the way that Democrats presented and in, frankly, many of the ways it's articulated throughout the country is unconstitutional.
The Second Amendment is absolute.
But there is a new call that Democrats now offer alongside the gun-grabbing demands.
Never let a crisis go to waste now means use every crisis to get control over information.
From the New York State Governor to leaders in Congress, we have already heard shrill calls to control what people can say, even if it violates no law, even if it's just a thought crime.
Shooting used to only inspire calls to have the government control more guns.
Now, and probably forevermore, it will also be used to empower the government to control more thoughts.
There's a direct line from them setting up this Nina Jankiewicz Ministry of Truth to how they are now responding to the shooting in Buffalo.
There's also a lot of discussion of replacement theory.
And replacement theory means different things to different people.
The media, of course, is now reflecting on replacement theory exclusively through the lens of race.
I'm about to play you a CNN clip from 2018. Michael Smirconish is the host.
He's interviewing a guest about essentially what the media is now describing as the exclusive way to evaluate Replacement Theory.
Take a listen.
If the current trends continue, by 2045, the nation will be less than 50% white.
True?
Correct.
Yes.
And the political implications of this, Dr. Saenz, are very significant.
Explain what it means in a state like, say, Texas.
Yeah, Texas, you see these demographic trends have already been playing out.
Right now in Texas, the Latino population is about 39, 40% of the population.
Whites are about 41% of the population.
Demographers project that by 2022, Latinos will become the largest racial or ethnic group in the state of Texas.
Yet, when we talk about politics, there is a significant lag period here with respect to demographic strength translating to political power.
So here in Texas, for example, we have about 30%, one third of the Latino population are less than 18 years of age.
So these are individuals who are not eligible to vote.
And then you also have a certain portion of the population that are here without being U.S. citizens.
They may be here legally, temporary residents, etc., but they are not U.S. citizens, so they cannot vote.
So it's a significant portion of the population in Texas that cannot vote.
So you have that There's a lag period between demographic strength and political power.
I understand.
I understand.
But having said that, if the current alignments maintain themselves, meaning those groups that tend to vote for each party and that party's candidates, long term, the GOP's got a problem.
He's saying the quiet part out loud that in many places, the Democrat strategy is to bring people into the country that they haven't yet failed.
I mean, so many of the people that the Democrats have failed in Democrat-run cities and in Democrat-run states have relied on Democrats the most for an extended period of time to make their lives better.
And they failed to do that, and so they seek unchecked immigration to try to replace the people they failed with a new set of voters.
Notice that entire analysis, from my standpoint, is race neutral.
And by the way, if you go down to the southern border right now, there's not some monolithic race.
Racial illegal immigrant.
You have people from Europe, from Africa, from Latin America, from everywhere.
It's like the United Nations down at the southern border.
So there's no racially monolithic illegal immigrant.
The replacement theory, as I have discussed previously, really gets to this core issue of failing voters of all races, of all color and kind, And then now being in the circumstance where if you bring new people in, well, maybe you have a better chance because you haven't screwed them over yet.
And what Democrats are noticing is that actually Hispanics are breaking heavily toward Republicans.
I think we're now about 50-50 with Hispanics.
And so you're going to see this, I think, effort to try to really, really focus on identity in the upcoming election.
And really, we should be focusing on the quality of life for our fellow Americans, the policies of the Biden administration, That have left people far worse off than they were during the Trump administration.
We're going to get to that economic analysis in a moment in the show.
That clip from 2018 is Michael Smirconish.
We pulled it off of Rahim Kassam's substack, so make sure to go check that out.
Give it a good read.
And it walks through how I think you're going to see the media and the left kind of construct replacement theory solely through this lens of race.
And as I have stated many times, including on this podcast, I explicitly reject ethno-nationalism, white supremacy, anything of its ilk.
Here's a throwback clip to one of our prior segments on the subject.
Take a look.
Nick Fuentes is a charismatic internet personality.
He hosts a show that allows him to express political philosophy and thoughts on various topics.
Nick Fuentes is also an ethno-nationalist, which I don't agree with.
I reject those politics.
I reject white ethno-nationalism.
I reject black ethno-nationalism.
If there's a brown ethno-nationalism, I'm against that too.
But as wrong as ethno-nationalism is, holding these wrong beliefs isn't a crime.
It's not criminal.
And we should be very cautious about empowering the government to create real punishments for thought crimes.
There's also been discussion about what Ultra MAGA is.
Ultra MAGA, you remember hearing Joe Biden talk about Ultra MAGA?
And you almost wonder, like, did Joe Biden just come up with that?
And it turns out he didn't.
The description was carefully tested, researched, reviewed, As it turns out, it took six months and a group of leftists to come together to try to use Ultramaga as a smear.
Take a listen to this startling admission from a question presented by Chuck Todd on Meet the Press.
Ashley, ultra MAGA. This ultra MAGA messaging by the team Biden, this was focus grouped?
Yes, it was the result of, believe it or not, about six months of research by liberal groups.
Biden has decided to try to reappropriate MAGA. He added on ultra with his own flair.
And what you're seeing, of course, is that Republicans and Trump are reappropriated.
They're proud to be MAGA. They're proud to be ultra MAGA. That's gonna change the outcome of all the elections.
Ashley Parker of the Washington Post has it right.
Damn straight we're proud to be Ultra Omega.
It means we're fighting for people.
It means we're advancing the cause of our constituents facing these tremendous headwinds where people are getting crushed all over the country.
And you notice like they tried it with fake news, right?
The way that they were trying to discredit any information That was critical of Hillary Clinton, that disputed the Russia hoax back during the 2016 election.
They called fake news.
And then the irony is that so much of what the mainstream media presents is actually fake, is actually misleading, is actually improperly sourced.
And so we did convert that term to our use and we were able to point out how much the media lies to people by turning the canons of fake news back on the liars.
Same with Ultra MAGA. You know what?
It's like Florida Man.
They called me the Florida Man and they intended it as a slur, but I wear it as a badge of honor just like I wear Ultra MAGA as a badge of honor.
But what does this tell us?
What's the signal about what Democrats are really attempting to do in the upcoming election?
See, they want to indict not President Trump, not his tone, his style.
They want to indict an entire political movement that they disagree with and that they fear and that is rooted in unifying populism.
Populism that can bring together people who previously have identified as Democrats, Independents, Republicans around the banner of America first.
Put our country and our people first.
One way to do this is we must stop the attack on the American dollar.
And make no mistake, my friends, the American dollar is under attack.
It's being weakened, diminished.
If you thought America was a bad force in the world, if you thought America was deplorable, irredeemable, racist, then you wouldn't necessarily have to harm the US dollar to harm America.
And that is exactly what the left has done.
They've devalued the dollar at home by printing trillions under the fiction of COVID fear porn.
They've simultaneously limited the utility and strength of the dollar abroad by deploying some of the most aggressive sanctions the world has ever known.
Sadly, these sanctions have not always had their intended effect.
Check out this piece in the Washington Examiner.
Russia doubles profits from oil and gas sales to EU during the war.
So, like, if you believe that Russia has not been able to sustain the sanctions regime, literally their profits are going through the roof.
That means the sanctions did not have their intended effect.
Not to mention a sanctions regime that continues to fail just off the coast of Miami in communist dictatorial Cuba.
It's not like the sanctions there have resulted in some new breath of liberty or opportunity from the people of Cuba who are being abused by their totalitarian communist regime.
So now, forces around the world are recognizing the unique vulnerability to the U.S. dollar.
And it's been created by the flawed policies of the Biden administration.
And members of Congress are enabling it every time they vote for more Fed policy, for more social spending, for more COVID spending, without any offsets or reforms or reduction in entitlements.
How about let's at least start by getting rid of entitlements for the illegal immigrants?
That That would seemingly be an easy one, but not for these Democrats in charge.
What you've got to understand is that there are consequences to us printing money at home and then weaponizing the dollar and limiting its utility abroad.
Listen to this stunning report from no less than CNN's Fareed Zakaria.
Take a listen.
The Biden administration deserves huge credit for the economic measures it's been able to take against Russia for its invasion of Ukraine.
As an essay by Gary Huffbauer and Megan Hogan note, they are the most comprehensive imposed against a major power since the Second World War.
On a punishment scale, they rank them as at least an 8 out of 10. But the unprecedented nature of these measures is producing concerns around the world that the United States has weaponized its financial power and could lead over time to the decline of the dollar's dominance, which is what gives America its financial superpowers in the first place.
Let me tell you about three reports from three good sources that I trust.
One comes to me from New Delhi, reporting on a conversation that took place at the highest levels of India's government.
The topic?
How to make sure that the US could never do to India what it has just done to Russia.
The second from Brussels, where staff of the European Commission have been tasked, even while working with Washington on the sanctions, to find ways to reduce the role of the dollar in its energy imports.
The third, a shrewd Asian observer of China, speculated that the overly severe lockdowns in Shanghai, which even involved the rationing of food and basic supplies, might be part of an effort by Beijing to experiment with a scenario in which it faced economic sanctions from Washington, perhaps after an invasion of Taiwan.
We are back live in my congressional office here in Washington D.C. Simul streaming on Twitter, Getter, Facebook, Instagram, Rumble, YouTube.
We've got the comments coming in hot.
Lukey McDonald says, fight the elites in both parties.
And it's so relevant to the conversation we're having about the economic conditions in America because members of both parties joined to engage in this irresponsible spending that led to the inflation that It is having such a devastating effect on the country.
And so to protect the dollar, we should stop printing so damn many of them.
And we should want more countries to buy and sell in the dollar, not fewer.
Tell that to the sanctions authors.
And while many left-leaning economists praise the Obama presidency as one of sustained economic growth following the 2008 recession, The way the economy recovered is often overlooked during that era.
To be clear, I'm very much for economic growth.
What's good for the economy is good for all Americans.
I'm not like one of these left-wing greenies who say that we should stop growth for these broader social objectives.
I believe in capitalism.
I believe in growth.
I also recognize that top-down government-initiated spending is not the catalyst for a fast economic resurgence.
Under President Obama, the GDP growth averaged about 2.1% per year, the slowest rate among the 11 economic expansion periods for the United States since 1949. This so-called Obama recovery was historically weak.
The average GDP rate was between 1.5% and about 2.1%, depending on the source.
It is the weakest recovery for the United States at all in the post-World War II period.
Meanwhile, let's turn to the economics of the Trump presidency before COVID. And now I'm quoting from The Hill on January 20th, 2021. The unemployment rate fell to less than 4%, which was near the lowest in half a century.
The inflation rate fell to 1%, which was even below the target level set from the Federal Reserve.
The percentage of people who fell below the poverty line declined to the lowest level ever recorded in 2019. The wealth of households, including their stocks, savings, and real estate, rose to the highest level in history, wealth for our people.
The Census Bureau saw median income rise to above $65,000, up by more than $5,000 in three years, and double the gains from the last decade.
Close quote.
Saying that President Trump's economic success was buoyed by the Obama administration's achievements is like saying Ronald Reagan's success was an extension of Jimmy Carter's.
I think we all know that's not true.
So, let's save the American economy by being judicious, responsible, and yes, fiscally conservative.
I also want to give you an important update regarding what's going on with Russia and Ukraine and these pronouncements by politicians that we are at war.
A war I don't think a lot of you wanted us to be in and certainly not a war that any of us voted on explicitly.
Last week, I shared with you my remarks warning that America was sleepwalking into war with Russia.
Then...
The Democratic majority leader, Steny Hoyer, like on cue, gave a speech following mine.
He basically said the quiet part out loud as well.
Take a listen to both of our remarks side by side.
Representatives, now recklessly assert that we are at war.
But very frankly, we're at war.
Regime change in Russia is their actual objective, not defending Ukraine.
A dictator, has invaded, without justification, a friendly country.
A game of chicken between nuclear powers is insane, and this from Joe Biden, who campaigned to be America's calming sedative.
It is unfortunate that a time of war that we spend all the time blaming our own president.
And to achieve this goal, they're willing to send billions to Kyiv that will line the pockets of corrupt officials just like we did in Afghanistan.
We are sleepwalking into a war, and the American people are left in the dark.
I wish we'd get off this and really focus on the enemy.
I know there's a lot of politics here, but we're at war.
We're back live in my congressional office.
Still getting a lot of great comments in.
On Facebook, Jamie Wise Martin says, where did our money go?
Inflation really feels like it steals from you.
It takes from you.
And to make matters worse, a lot of your money, more than $50 billion, went to Ukraine, a country probably a lot of Americans couldn't point to on a map until a few weeks ago, maybe even now.
And it's not justified.
Russia's belligerence is appalling.
And rather than responding by getting entangled in yet another low-yield war that lasts forever, we should raise our gaze and become far more realistic about the technologies and capabilities we need to keep up with the great powers in the world.
Enough trying to trade caves back and forth with barbarians in Central Asia.
We need the nuclear capabilities, offensive and defensive, to truly hold the high ground in this world.
Reagan understood that.
President Trump understood it.
That's why we have Space Force.
We need to also understand that hypersonic weapon systems will ultimately carry nuclear payloads.
That's why I'm always talking about hypersonics.
That's why it's so important.
And we need serious leaders in our military who understand that.
We're currently behind in hypersonics and we need to catch up.
And fortunately, instead of that seriousness and focus and success, we get Lloyd Austin.
The Secretary of Defense who has made a career out of failing up.
He rather like rancorously lectured me during our last exchange that there was no basis to claim that America was behind in hypersonics.
Then his own Secretary of the Air Force contradicted him.
Christina Wong at Breitbart busted them on that inconsistent testimony.
And if you need more evidence...
That our Secretary of Defense in the United States of America misled the Armed Services Committee and more importantly the American people?
This clip features the Democrat Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee making my very point.
Take a listen.
We're behind in hypersonics.
We failed to deter Russia.
Last year...
So what do you mean we're behind in hypersonics?
How do you...
Okay, who's ahead in hypersonics?
How do you make that assessment?
On hypersonics, I think it's really important to point out, we are behind the Chinese and the Russians right now because they have deployed them.
Okay, I'm impressed that We're coming up.
We've got a bunch of programs that are moving forward.
We're going to get there.
We haven't deployed them yet.
So we've got to keep moving.
We're moving in a good direction.
I'm quite confident that a year from now, when we have this conversation, we will be caught up.
But I don't want to give anyone the misimpression that we're not.
How do you make that assessment?
I don't know.
I make that assessment because China is fielding hypersonic weapons systems and we are still developing them.
I make that assessment because Russia actually used one.
By the way, your own people brief us that we are behind and that China is winning.
Are you aware of the briefings we get on hypersonics?
I am certainly aware of briefings that we provide to Congress.
He's really not aware of those briefings or even what his fellow administration officials say or even what the Democrat Chairman of the Armed Services Committee says.
John Hall on Facebook in the comments said, quote, go get Matt Gaetz.
And that did worry me until it appears it was a typo.
John said later, go get him, Matt Gaetz.
So very helpful edit.
Back to our military, it's not just hypersonics where we're falling behind.
Our military is not meeting its recruiting thresholds.
This is very important.
More than any weapons system, our people are the critical component, the critical asset, the critical feature, the winning element of our military.
And we are below the number of pilots we need.
Yet we kick pilots out of the Air Force and the Navy if they don't take the jab.
What sense does that make?
The Army has had substantial recruiting shortfalls.
The total force is below one million for the first time in two decades.
And maybe, just maybe, One reason is the DOD's embrace of wokeness.
Of course it is.
Many of the very people our military need to inspire and recruit will not join and will not volunteer if they think they are entering a political organization intent on serving the left, not the American people, and not the Constitution.
The best way to restore our military is to focus on capabilities like hypersonics, like nuclear deterrents, like ensuring we see Reagan's vision of space wars realized not to the benefit of the aggressor, but for our defensive capabilities so that we're not held hostage by some nuclear despot in the future.
Instead, far too much focus on the wokeism and on this hard turn.
And I think it's because the DOD is one of the last institutions the political left has not totally taken over until maybe recently.
When it comes to takeovers, I don't know that the squad has gotten quite everything out of the 117th Congress that they've wanted.
So I want to take a deep dive into some of these issues and personalities and how it's playing out.
So the mainstream media believes that Democrats are set to lose power in Washington following the midterm elections.
They'll do anything possible to shape coverage to see that not happen.
Just yesterday, on Meet the Press, Chuck Todd asked known race baiter Al Sharpton, who somehow has a show on MSNBC, what could be done to save the Democrats?
Take a listen.
Reverend Sharpton, our poll, it's interesting, and you heard the interview with Senator Sanders.
How do you fire up the left?
In an environment like this for the Democratic Party?
You've got to turn people on to turn them out.
And I think the issues that the left, that the African American or black community, Latinos and all, are concerned about are not really the issues that they can say that we've had deliverables on.
George Floyd Justice and Policing Act, John Lewis voting bill.
I think the president needs to do some executive orders.
I think that we need to start seeing some aggressive fighting in the trenches on a lot of these issues.
All of this trying to be moderate in tone and style as you are in politics is not gonna work.
Use executive power to push policies that the left does not have legislative support to pass into law.
And they call us the authoritarians.
The squad has been calling for this for some time.
But you can't help but notice how badly the Democrats have blown any kind of a legislative agenda.
So to the squad.
Like, at first, there were a mere four of you.
Then twice as many.
You weren't afraid to lose races or campaigns along the way so long as you won a few as well.
And at the start of this Congress, it was as if, despite your relatively small number in the squad, You had successfully proliferated your radical policies throughout the entire Democratic caucus.
At first the squad was four and then a few short months later the entire Democratic caucus was voting like the squad.
And I was initially quite impressed.
You won the argument with the energetic activists and everyone knew it.
But now it seems you've lost the war within your own party.
What does the squad really have to show for control over two branches of government for two years?
I mean, AOC inspires millions of millennials with her distinct taste on politics, yet she couldn't convert Instagram juice into moving Senator Kyrsten Sinema on the filibuster.
Representative Jamal Bowman, also a squad member, he led an important effort limiting presidential war powers during the appropriations process.
I actually supported his effort on that.
Now, where'd the anti-war squad go?
Now the Democratic majority leader, Steny Hoyer, tells us that we are already at war with Russia.
I don't remember voting on that.
And I don't remember Representative Bowman's retort or amendment or legislation to stop an inappropriate exercise of war powers by the executive.
At first, the squad was actually successful at linking infrastructure to reconciliation.
But as we know now, Build Back Better became Build Back Never.
And at first, Representative Cori Bush, also a squad member, had what was really one of the most successful displays of raw political power I've seen in quite some time in Washington.
She held a sleepover on the Capitol steps, and she rolled President Biden on the issue of canceling rent, which, by the way, is a terrible idea.
Then the courts, of course, overturned this Unconstitutional exercise of power, but just by a freshman lawmaker sleeping on the steps of the Capitol, having her a little sleepover there, she did roll Biden on his initial decision.
At first, you had the squad deconstructing gender and demanding anti-racism, whatever that is.
Now, Blue Virginia has a Republican governor and Woketopians are being swept off of school boards nationwide.
And Roe is going down.
So, like, the woke...
Anti-gun ATF nominee, remember him, David Chipman?
He failed too.
There goes the major part of the Democrats' gun agenda, such as there was an executive plan to seize people's firearms, which is a view that Joe Biden spoused a lot on the campaign trail and that we may hear reinvigorated now.
The plan to make Stacey Abrams like the new wizard of all elections at the federal level, to Stacey Abrams' eyes all of the elections, that failed.
H.R. 1 did not pass.
Biden won't even legalize weed.
It seems your legislative agenda, as far as the squad goes, was only going to go as far as Senator Manchin would allow.
All you got was a COVID cash dump that created the inflation now hanging around the political necks of every Democrat.
Oh, and you've got the $56 billion war, thrilling your newly befriended neocons.
Doesn't it seem like a stolen election should be worth more?
And it's not just legislative failures.
The squad cannot activate the executive branch out of Joe Biden's naptime presidency.
This tells me that in 2024, Republicans need to be high energy, not low energy.
And when Republicans retake the majority, we should see the folly of attempting to drive change through legislation principally.
If we do, in fact, take the majority in the House and the Senate, and if we only go as far as Mitt Romney, Ben Sasse, and Susan Collins will take us, then our voters will be disappointed too.
And despite the best efforts of the best pillowmaker, we won't control the executive branch until 2025. So we should use our majority differently.
We should target.
From the deep state to the shallow bureaucrats who harm Americans.
We should expose how the bad decisions of the Biden government have hurt people's savings, devalued their earnings, hurt wages, career opportunities, limited promotions, and it's created a skyrocketing cycle of costs and items that are not available for the American people.
What is this, Venezuela?
The American people quite literally need a rescue from the American Rescue Plan.
We should learn from the squad that working with the Uniparty is just a path to more wars abroad and less baby formula at home for Americans.
We hope to have some additional shows for you this week to give you an update on everything that's going to be going on in the Judiciary Committee regarding the abortion debate and everything that's going on on Capitol Hill to ensure that we ripen these issues that are in the forefront of the minds of our fellow Americans.
We don't always broadcast at the same time, so if you want the live show Whether you're watching on Twitter or Rumble or YouTube or Facebook or Instagram, probably others out there, hit those notifications.
That way you'll know when we go live.
If you're listening on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, give us that five-star rating, leave a review, let us know what you'd like to have us talking about on the show.
Thanks so much for joining us on Firebrand.
Roll the credits.
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