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Dec. 5, 2022 - Firebrand - Matt Gaetz
29:22
Episode 77 LIVE: Military Mandates – Firebrand with Matt Gaetz
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Thank you.
Matt Gaetz right now, he's a problem for the Democratic Party.
He can cause a lot of hiccups in passing applause.
So we're going to keep running those 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?
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.
We are live back on Firebrand.
Welcome back.
We're still in the Lame Duck Congress, but we are in a new office.
So if the show looks a little different, it's because we've got a new space and we're still moving in.
So you'll see the aesthetic continue to develop.
If you're listening to us, well, you may notice just a bit more of an echo because we are out of the attic of the Longworth office building.
And we're in our new home in the Rayburn building.
Room 2021. So it would be great to hear from Northwest Floridians.
As you make your trip to Washington, D.C., stop in.
It would be our honor to receive you here.
So everyone is interested in the upcoming January election for Speaker of the House.
I'm going to have updates on that.
And I'm also going to give critical information regarding the National Defense Authorization Act, military capabilities, tools that we need For deterrence and for the fight, and of course an update on military vaccine mandates.
But for now, what captivates the attention is indeed this race for Speaker of the House, and for good reason.
The vote for Speaker is the most important vote any member of Congress takes in a given term.
And oftentimes that's not really what we're remembered for.
We'll be remembered for whether or not we voted up or down on a tax bill or a spending bill or the debt limit.
But the direction of the institution is driven principally by the Speaker.
That's why it's important that the Speaker of the House not be compromised by the lobby corps.
It's why the Speaker of the House has to be responsive to the membership.
It's why they have to believe in a bottom-up theory of governing in the House of Representatives, the people's house, not just a circumstance where terms are dictated And there's an expectation that people just fall in line and abandon the true team that we are all on, and that is the team that we represent back in our great districts around the country.
So today, as we sit here, Kevin McCarthy does not have the votes to be Speaker of the House.
He requires 218 votes.
There are 222 Republicans, and there are five of us who have indicated that we do not intend to vote for him.
He has not been able to secure the requisite votes to be Speaker for years.
Why?
I discussed that very issue with Governor Mike Huckabee this weekend on his program on TBN. Take a listen.
I guess I'm asking, if you block him, then what happens?
Do the Democrats end up with enough votes that they can put a speaker in place?
That is a false narrative.
The Democrats have 212 votes.
They gotta have 218. It takes 218 and there are not six Republicans.
I don't think there's a single Republican.
Who's even expressed any willingness to vote for a Democrat.
So I think that is a threat that is constructed by a lot of the folks in the swamp of Washington that want a speaker beholden to the lobbyists.
You know what argument people make for Kevin McCarthy?
He is the LeBron James of special interest fundraising.
No one extracts more money from the lobbyists and special interests than Kevin McCarthy.
But I think that ought to be disqualifying, not qualifying.
I frankly think that federal lobbyists shouldn't even be able to donate to members of Congress.
Like, how is it that people who are paying to influence our vote then get to give us money, and then you act like that doesn't influence how members of Congress think about these?
Now, you do realize that if Kevin ends up being speaker after all, You'll be on the committee to monitor the quality of Girl Scout cookies for the rest of your term in Congress.
So there may be a price to be paid.
Well, look, you know, apostolate ain't easy.
Sometimes you gotta get in the fight.
And I see how our people feel let down by the folks who just play the game the same way.
I'm tired of watching Washington just serve as a geography where both sides are fighting over who gets to be the valet for the special interests.
And you know what?
This slim majority was disappointing to many, but it may give us an opportunity that even a large majority wouldn't have presented to actually upset the apple cart, to drain the swamp, and to not trust the biggest alligators there to do it.
This operates under a corrupt incentive system, and that's the case under both political parties.
And the only way we're going to be able to send a shock into the system of D.C. to actually get a member-driven process, not a lobbyist-driven process, is to change the way these leaders are selected.
And oftentimes, it's a direct result of who can provide the most money to people in their campaigns.
Now, there is a Complex within the beltway here, driven around keeping that status quo intact.
And there are some people, even people I often admire and agree with, who are now making arguments that I believe are frivolous.
And I'm going to demonstrate why.
The first argument that people make is that Democrats could actually join up with moderate Republicans and elect a moderate Republican rather than a Republican who represents the conservative center of the conference.
Now this weekend, just yesterday as a matter of fact, on ABC This Week with George Stephanopoulos, George Stephanopoulos had the opportunity to interview Hakeem Jeffries.
Hakeem Jeffries is the Brooklyn guy who's going to be the head of the Democrats in the 118th Congress.
And you can hear in this interview How Stephanopoulos does everything possible to try to get Hakeem Jeffries to say, you know what, it is possible.
We might work with moderate Republicans.
You know what, we would prefer someone who is perhaps one of the people who supported impeachment over Kevin McCarthy.
And you notice the labor as you listen to this.
Listen to the labor Hakeem Jeffries goes through to try to not in any way say the Democrats would work with Republicans to back a moderate speaker.
And here you have George Stephanopoulos, a Democrat, someone who worked in the Clinton White House, just trying to coax out of Hakeem Jeffries this possibility.
Listen to the Democratic leader throw cold water all over it.
Play the clip.
You expect that Kevin McCarthy is going to be Speaker?
Well, that's a question at the end of the day that the Republicans are going to have to work out.
He seems to be having a difficult time at this moment getting to 218, but we'll see what happens on January 3rd.
It may involve Democrats as well.
I've seen that some Republicans have suggested perhaps putting forward a moderate Republican as a challenger to Kevin McCarthy, hoping to draw Democratic votes.
Any chance that Democrats will cooperate with that?
Well, we have to organize on our side and be prepared to hit the ground running on January 3rd.
They have to organize on their side and we'll see what happens.
So it's a possibility?
I wouldn't say that it's a possibility.
Right now, Democrats are preparing to get ourselves ready as we transition temporarily from the majority into the minority.
Continuing to work with the Biden administration, with Democrats in the Senate, building upon the great work led by Speaker Pelosi and Stenyhori and Jim Clyburn that has been done over the last few Congresses when we've been in the majority.
And then let's see what happens on the other side of the aisle.
Well, but that's only part of it.
I'm going to press this one more time because you talk about Your main mission is finding a way to have bipartisan compromise.
If somehow Democrats and Republicans had come together to elect a Republican speaker who's willing to compromise, wouldn't that be good for Democrats?
Wouldn't that advance your mission?
Well, I think the question right now is what are the Republicans going to do?
From our standpoint, we know what our mission is.
You can obviously see there, Hakeem Jeffries does not want to be coaxed into some deal with Republicans.
I mean, think about it.
Democrats have a unique opportunity to cast their vote for historic choice, the first African American to lead a major political party in Congress.
And so I think that Democrats are going to vote for Hakeem Jeffries.
Now, some have said, well, if some of the Republicans vote for McCarthy and some of the Republicans vote for someone other than McCarthy, could Hakeem Jeffries have the votes then to assume the speakership himself?
And of course, that cannot happen because They have 212 votes.
It takes 218 to become Speaker of the House.
And so for that to occur, you'd have to believe the second theory that we'll debunk.
And that is that somehow Republicans are going to team up with Democrats and elect a Democrat Speaker.
Also on ABC this week with George Stephanopoulos, we had Republican Ohio Congressman Dave Joyce.
And Dave Joyce is a friend.
We've worked together on legislation, particularly in the cannabis space.
He is more in the center of our ideological spectrum probably than I am, but I understand the Republican Party is a big tent and we want people like Dave Joyce to be successful in the Congress and working with us in the upcoming term.
And so he was on and he was presented basically this second red herring theory that somehow Republicans would team up with Democrats.
And just like Hakeem Jeffries, he throws cold water all over it.
Take a listen.
Congressman Dave Joyce and George Stephanopoulos.
If they stay hard-nosed, and Kevin McCarthy simply can't get the 218 votes he needs for speaker, would you be behind this effort that some have talked about, I talked to Hakeem Jeffries about, put forward a moderate Republican that would attract Democratic votes?
But I think Hakeem was also straight in that he said they want to exact some things out of that.
And I just don't see anybody on our side willing to give up chairmanships or the opportunities that come with being in the majority.
So that would make it harder for anybody to actually get there.
That would probably be a perfect resolution to find somebody that everybody could agree on and so we could start moving forward.
But I just don't see it happening without, I think, the Democrats are going to vote for Democrats, Republicans will vote for Republicans, and I think at the end of the day, Kevin will be the next Speaker of the House.
Well, I wouldn't bet on the last part of that, but I do think you've now seen in this program, myself, Admittedly, probably on the right edge of our Republican conference, will not vote for Kevin, will not vote for a Democrat.
We have to get to somebody else.
Then you see Jeffries, leading the left, saying there is no coalition that he sees as likely or possible with Democrats and Republicans.
And then you have Dave Joyce, a guy who is pretty close to the center, saying this isn't going to happen.
He can't see it happening.
Republicans are going to vote for a Republican.
Democrats are going to vote for a Democrat.
What that means is that we are now in a process of elimination paradigm.
If there are five Republicans who don't want someone to be Speaker, then that person's not going to be Speaker.
And I believe, just speaking for myself, that there are...
There's 221 of the 222 members that I'm open-minded about, that I would be willing to hear presentations from.
If there are folks who want to balance budgets, if there are folks who want to have the types of policies that will liberate us from the just malaise of the Biden administration, then let's work together to achieve those ends.
But certainly a continuation of the way Washington has always worked is unacceptable to me and unacceptable to enough people that Kevin McCarthy is not going to be speaker.
So to avoid some sort of calamity on January 3rd, we ought to get to the business of reviewing other candidates, hearing other presentations.
It's my suggestion to House Conference Chair, Elise Stefanik, that she began holding conference meetings so that we can discuss possibilities for alternatives for other people in a world in which Kevin McCarthy will not be Speaker.
And you know what?
I've made very clear I would love to see Jim Jordan be Speaker.
But if there are five people who don't want Jim to be Speaker, I have to accept that just like they have to accept that there are now just a critical mass of members who are not going to accept a speakership from Kevin McCarthy.
There's also governing going on during the lame duck Congress.
And this week, the House of Representatives will vote on the National Defense Authorization Act.
Now, each year for more than six decades, Congress has passed a bill authorizing our military.
We've done it in Republican and Democrat administrations.
We've done it in unified and divided government.
It truly is a testament to the Congress, one of the few things that works, that we actually are able to historically put aside other ideological differences and to put our troops and our military families first.
And of course, authorizing our military is critical to provide that support to military families, to raise pay for troops, and to fund next-generation weapon systems that will secure our freedom.
But increasingly, folks have become frustrated and furious about Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and his efforts to woke-ify the military.
From critical race theory to an embrace of socialism pedagogy to vaccine mandates, our military today is almost unrecognizable from the military that used to win wars.
Thank God we still have America's most inspirational patriots willing to serve, and they indeed are the best among us.
But recruitment is down, undoubtedly in no small part due to wokification and mandates.
Secretary Austin, a known liar on everything from ally and enemy capabilities to hypersonics, has also lied about military wokeness.
Here's his testimony before the House Armed Services Committee in response to some of the criticism that I and others had leveled.
There are a very small handful of folks that don't understand service, that don't understand sacrifice, that attack and malign you and your service, somebody who has dedicated your entire life to service, who sometimes will compare our military to other militaries, call us woke, make up these contrived boogeymans of socialism, or pull out lectures at universities.
But I have known you for some time now, and I've seen the pride that you take in our servicemen and women.
And the pride that you take in this work and how you've put your entire life focused on this.
So could you just take, with the two minutes remaining, could you just paint a picture for this committee and for the American people about what makes you most proud of the men and women of our military and what life is like on a daily basis for the men and women that you lead?
I am incredibly proud of them.
Day in and day out, they volunteer to do Incredible things on behalf of this country.
And we owe them a debt of gratitude that we can probably never repay.
We owe their families a debt of gratitude as well.
But they are smart, they are fit, they are focused, and they spend 99 percent of their time focused on defending this country and developing additional capabilities That they'll need to be successful on the battlefield.
So any notion that they're woke or that our military is woke, you know, I take issue with that because it's just not true.
It's a false narrative and they deserve better than that.
Oh, a false narrative to suggest that anyone's pushing wokeness in our military.
Oh, he takes great exception to that.
He's offended by it.
It's a false narrative.
He's there to tell the truth about the military.
There's no wokeness.
Well, I have some breaking news.
This banner, the banner we're putting on the screen now, and for those of you listening, this was created by the Air Force Equal Opportunity Office, and it reads, quote, How to include others and be woke!
This image was sent to my office by someone working at the Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Arizona.
The banner was displayed at the entrance to the wing headquarters.
Literally, how to be woke.
In the face of that testimony from Lloyd Austin, this guy has no credibility before the Congress or really anyone.
De-wokifying the military is going to take time.
The good news is that Republicans are showing backbone and now, this week, demanding a repeal of the vaccine mandate in the military authorization bill.
Otherwise, votes might not be there to pass it.
Here's how the math works.
Two-thirds of the votes needed to pass the military authorization bill must come from Republicans because a sufficient number of Democrats don't really support our military.
They actually think the world would be a better place if our country were weaker.
Now, even some on the far left think the military is racist.
What a disgrace to our country those members of Congress are.
If during the lame duck Congress, though, with unified Democratic control, we can repeal the vaccine mandate, I am all for it.
Then when we Republicans take control, we must do even more.
We can't say that the issue is resolved.
We must restore our patriots back to full service with their rank restored, with back pay, and we must pay reparations to those lives we have destroyed by accepting Lloyd Austin's foolish vaccine mandate.
And we must root out all of this wokeness before its destruction takes hold any further.
The future of our country and the world undeniably depend on it.
In a similar vein, we must always make sure that we're moving our military forward, embracing the best American-made technology in the world.
Deterrence.
Now, in the modern global order, there is no force more so than deterrence Weakness invites attack.
Strength gives even the most ambitious madmen in the world reason to think twice about creating the wars which drive so much death and despair.
Deterrence keeps the evil in their sandboxes.
It limits their capability to do harm to the rest of us.
We used to be able to deter with tanks and mortar shells, but now it's tech.
And platforms in the air and on land and at sea to deliver the most precise lethality the world has ever known.
That's what keeps us safe.
Now this past year, we've seen that nuclear deterrence particularly is relevant and oftentimes dispositive.
America can never allow another nation to be able to deliver nuclear payloads farther, faster, faster.
Such a dynamic would turn us into the Uyghurs.
This past week, the Department of Defense unveiled the B-21 nuclear bomber.
Take a listen.
The United States Air Force has a new strategic long-range stealth bomber, and it's built in Palmdale.
The military says its destructive power is unmatched.
It was unveiled tonight in a ceremony that looked like a Hollywood production.
It has quite literally been shrouded in secrecy.
America's newest long-range stealthy strategic bomber, the B-21 Raider, unveiled at Northrop Grumman's Plant 42 in Palmdale.
Based on artists' renderings, it looks a lot like the B-2 it's replacing.
Like the B-2, it's meant to penetrate enemy defenses undetected, and it's capable of delivering nuclear weapons.
It's meant as a deterrent to make any potential adversary think twice about attacking America or its interests.
The B-21 Raider gets its name from the famous Doolittle Raiders of World War II, the daredevil mission to bomb Tokyo in April of 1942 that raised American morale in the months after Pearl Harbor and demonstrated America's ability to strike the Japanese mainland.
I love the connection to the Doolittle Raiders.
The Doolittle Raiders actually trained in my district in northwest Florida in preparation for their fateful mission.
So you should evaluate the B-21 through the lens of China deterrence specifically.
China is updating their nuclear program.
They are working to diversify their own launch capabilities and delivery systems.
You need to know that.
The B-21 should give them something to think about before taking action.
We couldn't end the show today without discussing the Twitter files.
Oh my gosh, this has had everyone really reflecting on the claims that President Trump made, the claims that we made leading up to the election, that there was direct election interference.
And now we have Elon Musk Detailing that censorship and suppression, providing the information that showed the interactions at Twitter.
And I thought Elon had a particularly interesting observation, might be telling, that when Twitter engages in censorship, that's certainly wrong.
That violates our mores of a free and open society able to exchange information and evaluate that information.
But when the government is involved in coaxing that censorship or encouraging it or incentivizing it or perhaps threatening if that censorship is not You see, that becomes a very serious violation of our Constitution.
That is not an appropriate power for government.
But what I have seen in my time in Congress is that there is this unity of purpose between big government, big media, and big tech.
And that was never operationalized more so than when this Hunter Biden laptop came out And demonstrated that the first family is compromised.
Joe Biden is compromised.
These are people who have made money out of selling access to some of the highest offices in our land.
And I don't think it's too much for conservatives, liberals, centrists, everyone alike, to expect that the people who are serving in these high roles, who've been president, vice president, that they should be acting in the interests of our country.
Not foreign countries.
That their children shouldn't be de facto foreign agents running around the world gallivanting and enriching themselves and their associates in the process.
And when that was discovered, man, did we see the wagons circle.
Whether it was people from the Department of Justice talking to Facebook, as Mark Zuckerberg said.
Whether it was this Twitter operation that we're still learning about.
Whether it was the effort to try to make sure that the New York Post story never saw the light of day.
This wasn't Russian disinformation.
This was an all-American operation that looked more and more like the tactics that we see in Russia.
And that is the true tell.
We'll be investigating big tech, the border, wokeness in our military.
We'll be pushing back against these mandates.
And to do so, we are going to get the type of leadership in the United States House of Representatives that our party, that our country, and that the world deserves.
Thanks so much for joining us on Firebrand.
Again, we're brand new here in the Rayburn building, and so you'll see a few different things as we continue to develop the show.
But hey, make sure you're subscribed, make sure you've got those notifications turned on, and we'll be back soon with more updates about what's going on in Congress.
Thanks for joining.
Roll the credits.
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