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Jan. 11, 2023 - Firebrand - Matt Gaetz
42:49
Episode 82 LIVE: Make Congress Work (feat. Rep. Eli Crane) – 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 could cause a lot of hiccups in passing the laws.
So we're going to keep running those stories to get hurt again.
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.
We're broadcasting live out of room 2021 in the Rayburn office building on the Capitol complex in Washington DC and I apologize for not putting a show out last week as you may have seen we had some other stuff going on but we have a great show today.
I've got big Eli Crane here One of our newest and most inspirational members of Congress from the great state of Arizona.
We're going to talk about how we're going to make Congress better and make it different.
What we continue to hear from our constituents, people all over the country, is that Congress has to change so that we actually meet the needs of the American people and stop this nation from going down a path of demise.
We deserve better than that.
So Congress is going to be different.
We've got to get the country to go in a different direction.
And what I can say with absolute certainty is that there is something different about Eli Crane.
He's become a leader in the freshman class, took a really nontraditional path to politics and to the Congress.
We're gonna get into that.
And Eli, I think you're the first member of Congress who also was involved in Shark Tank as an entrepreneur.
Is that right?
Yeah, I don't know if anybody has done that, but I don't know of anybody.
So that was a wild experience, Matt.
It was a total blessing because it happened.
We were actually on the set of Shark Tank while I was still in the military on terminal leave, and I didn't ask for permission on that one.
But it was just a blessing, and it gave me and my wife something to sink our teeth into as we were getting out, and I think that's one of the things that A lot of veterans struggle with when they get out of the military is just a new mission and something that they can actually sink their teeth into that's not just a job that provides healthcare and a paycheck.
And it was just so cool because we got to manufacture our products in the USA. We got to hire veterans and it gave me something to really fight for.
I've got the district in the country with the highest concentration of active duty military and veterans.
And it's so interesting to watch that transition because it seems to require a sense of purpose.
You have such purpose through wearing a uniform and serving in the most elite elements of our military.
But then a job can't just be a job.
You know, it has to be something more meaningful.
I want everyone to get a sense of Eli in that moment.
Pitch it on Shark Tank.
Take a listen.
Hi, Sharks.
My name is Eli Kring.
I'm his wife, Jen.
Our business is Bottle Breacher.
We are seeking $150,000 for 10% equity stake in our business.
At Bottle Breacher, we make the finest personalized 50 caliber bottle openers on the market.
You might be asking yourself, why would anybody want a.50 caliber bottle opener?
Short answer is, they're awesome.
As a former Navy SEAL, I knew I needed to figure out a way to provide for my family when I got out of the Navy.
Bottle Breacher has given us the ability to do that, and it's actually really simple.
Most guys like drinking beer.
Most guys think that large caliber bullets are very cool.
At Bottle Breacher, we've combined the two to create the ultimate manly gift.
We've managed to create a successful company, but we know with your help, we can breach this thing wide open.
You made a deal, you achieved success, and you know, Eli, people come to Congress frequently through military service, and they also come frequently through business work.
You seem to have had both I think that's going to inform your service greatly, but I gotta know, what was more pressure going on national television, on Shark Tank, in front of 10 million people, or the experience we just went through this last week to try to make Congress more responsive to the people?
You know, both were definitely, you know, a pressure cooker.
But last week, I think, was definitely more pressure.
As you know, Matt, I mean, I know you've been in a lot of fights up here.
That was definitely the, you know, first fight for me.
But when you're a freshman and you're trying to figure out where the bathroom is, and then you walk into that, It was intense, man.
I mean, think about it.
A lot of us, if you get five people in your circle surrounding you telling you, hey, you're on the wrong path.
We need you to reverse course here.
That's a lot of pressure, five people.
But when you're going up against 200 people on your own side of the aisle, then you've got a lot of the media heads talking about what an idiot you are and you don't know what you're doing.
And then you've got somebody that you and I both respect, President Trump.
You know, calling you and telling you, hey, you know, you need to get on board with this.
You know, that's tough.
But, you know, Matt, I just kept going back to what did my constituents want?
What did they tell me for the last year and a half?
And I know that I'm here to represent them.
And so I think as long as you never forget that, you'll be a good representative.
I mean, it's in the title, representative.
And I think so many of us forget that when we get to this town because it's built.
This swamp is built.
To, you know, influence you and take you away from representing your actual constituents.
We are live with Eli Crane and the live stream is fired up.
We got folks that are watching from Kentucky, Texas and even France on Facebook.
So all the way across the pond.
We talked about your military service and we've just got breaking news from the Department of Defense that they are going to cease all separations as a consequence of this very foolish and misguided vaccine mandate.
Talk about some of the feedback you've received from people from the SEAL community or the military community and how that vaccine mandate negatively affected people and your reaction to the separations being suspended now.
You know, I think it was extremely destructive and I do think it was foolish.
You know, my little brother was in the Marine.
He was a Cobra pilot in the Marine Corps.
He left the service at 19 years and I think eight months, four months shy of his retirement because he wouldn't take the vaccine.
I mean, everything that guy went through, all the deployments, he doesn't get his retirement now.
I think it's atrocious.
And I talked to a lot of, you know, veterans that I know, SEALs that I know that wouldn't take it.
They didn't, you know, they didn't trust it.
And it not only...
Did it really disenfranchise and hurt those individual members, but it hurt our military overall.
I mean, it hurt the readiness of the military.
And, you know, when you take those individuals who were not, you know, really susceptible for the most part to, you know, some of the adversity that came with, you know, folks that ended up getting COVID-19 just because of their age and their health,
etc., etc., It was really hard to watch because when you look at everything else going on in our military and how woke it's got and how the focus has turned from being the best fighting force in the world, you know, to a lot, are we the most inclusive group in the world?
You know, what are your pronouns?
I remember even before I got out, Matt, it was like, you know, we were taking, we were, half the time we couldn't even do our job as SEALs because we were taking some, you know, survey or some tests to make sure that, You know, we were up on our Navy knowledge online and just courses and so on and so forth that had nothing to do with our job.
And that's the direction of the military.
And I also know that's a passion of yours.
So, you know, I hope that, you know, we're able to work together to try and, you know, bring other members of Congress into making sure that this military is focused on the very real threats that we have around the world.
Undeniably.
We have got to get this guy a huge following online.
Make sure you follow him.
At Rep Eli Crane on Twitter, is that right?
Yeah, is that right, Zach?
That's how new I am here, Matt.
You know, I'm trying to figure it out, but I think that's right.
You know, the courage you showed this last week, I could tell...
My constituents, very candidly, I would not have had the courage to do that.
If I was in my first week, I would have probably been the guy wondering how to get my phones hooked up, and I would have wanted the safety of swimming with the school of the rest of the fish.
I doubt that.
I very seriously doubt that.
The seals are different, man.
You're different, and you stood up to it.
The SEAL community actually led on a lot of these vaccine issues.
Some of the early litigation and injunctions that were obtained were from Navy SEALs.
And I remember reading those lawsuits getting filed and the orders coming out and just thinking about the SEAL community, the best of the best, elite in mind and body.
And I thought back to the early, most virulent versions of COVID. You're always scared of the unknown.
It's human nature when you don't know the full impact of something to be concerned.
The day I, or the week, I guess, I became, like, way less afraid of COVID was when Chris Christie and legendary FSU coach, who I adore, Bobby, the late Bobby Bowden now, both survived COVID the same week.
And I thought, well, you know what?
If Chris Christie, who probably has, like, never driven past a donut stand without pulling in, and, like, Bobby Bowden, who was, like, over 90 years old, and, I mean...
The next step in human evolution, probably, Bobby Bowden as a knoll.
But when they both survived it, I thought, huh, maybe we shouldn't be forcing Navy SEALs of all people out of the military.
And what I was so offended by from some of these Pentagon officials is that they preached to us that they were doing the mandate for readiness.
And it was just the opposite.
Talk a little bit about the money and time and effort that goes into just training one Navy SEAL. Yeah, no, it's true.
I mean, they spend millions of dollars on you.
And by the time you start, if you go straight through at this point, you know, when I went through, it took a year.
If you went straight through, didn't get rolled back, didn't get hurt.
Now, when I got out, I think it was up to a year and six months.
So they spend a ton of time and money on these individuals.
And here's the thing, when you're in a SEAL platoon, you work with about a 20-man group.
And so you'll have different specialties within that group.
You'll have snipers, breachers, comm guys.
You know, et cetera, corpsmen, you know, medics, et cetera.
So if you lose one of those guys, I mean, you just lost a massive percent of your operational readiness.
And so it was really detrimental to the community.
And I know a lot of great guys got out because of it.
And to me, that's unsat, especially with how many threats that we have around the world.
Let's talk about those folks that were separated because...
If you're watching this and you're thinking, well, I'm glad the next round of Patriots isn't going to be forced out, but there are people who were coerced out of the military.
There were people who just left because they said, I don't want to go through this.
I feel like the Department of Defense isn't concerned about me anymore as much as they are kind of going along with the narrative.
I think it would be a huge mistake for Republicans in Congress to just declare victory on this issue and walk off the field.
I think that we need a real strategy to make reparations for the people whose lives were negatively affected by this mandate.
And we need aggressive outreach to get people back into service who are otherwise totally willing, able, ready to put that uniform on for our country.
I think that that's a job that we have to get our colleagues to understand this is not over.
Yeah, and I think one of the coolest things about this Congress in particular is we have a ton of veterans in this Congress, a lot of new ones as well.
And I've talked to several of them, and I know that a lot of them would support that type of legislation where we do try and make sure that these individuals don't get left behind, like my little brother, you know, that isn't going to get his retirement because he's shy four months.
And so I hope that we can join, you know, a bunch of us Get something like that over the finish line and try and make that wrong right.
Yeah, even people who didn't get their promotions because they were deemed not deployable or not able to participate in the activities where they have to check the boxes to move up.
So there are people in the military now who are negatively affected by this, who weren't separated but saw their careers negatively impacted.
There are people not in the military who should be, and we need to get those folks back in the fold.
And then there are people who left the military, went and did something else and don't want to come back, but I think we owe them something for having Put them through this without a basis.
And, you know, in order to address those challenges, I think you open up the envelope too about just the broader wokeism push at DOD, even beyond the vaccine mandates.
And it almost feels like there is an intentional purge to get people who think a certain way out of the institution.
Do you get that sense from some of your colleagues?
100%, Matt.
You know, I think that a lot of us used to, you know, look at a lot of these radical ideologies like the socialism, Marxism, communist nonsense, and we knew that it lived in a couple different verticals.
The college campus was one that had taken over.
I think many of us had given up on, which I'm glad guys like Charlie Kirk has said, no, we're not giving up on that one.
We're actually going to go attack it.
But there were a couple that I think were sacred cows that even us conservatives were like, oh, they'll never come after our kids.
Kids are off limits and our military is off limits.
Well, we've seen that there is nothing off limits to these individuals.
They want to destroy everything.
You know, so that's why it's going to be a fight.
I think that's why so many of us have jumped into, you know, politics somewhere we never wanted to be because we're like, hey, I'm going to go stand with Matt Gaetz.
I'm going to go stand with, you know, all these other guys that are out there willing to put themselves in that pressure cooker so that we can try and turn this country around and make sure that our kids and our grandkids get some of the freedom and opportunity that we grew up with.
Amen to that.
Well, in order to meet those challenges, we have to have a House of Representatives that is a fighting force, that can marshal that sense of duty that so many of the new members of Congress have, so many of our veterans who patriotically serve in Congress have, and we have to drive the necessary changes.
Gosh, a few weeks ago, I think we had fewer tools to drive those changes than we do now.
And you mentioned there might have been some talking heads in the media that questioned our tactics and our strategy, but they've come around for sure.
Take a listen to Fox News' Jason Chaffetz, certainly giving a great deal of adulation and congrats to our efforts to try to make this a more productive institution.
I want to put this up from the Washington Post, an opinion piece.
It says, the McCarthy Speaker Circus is a good argument for voting Democrat.
They say the Never Kevin rebels who oppose him have made it painfully apparent that no one will be able to impose and enforce the kind of discipline that Pelosi maintained on the Democratic side.
Jason.
Hallelujah!
That's a good thing.
The way Pelosi ran the House was awful.
Members couldn't offer amendments.
We didn't get single-issue bills.
The appropriations process, as it was laid out in the 1974 Budget Act, where you look at 12 individual appropriations, that never happened.
So I think people on both sides of the aisle are actually going to look back at this and say, hallelujah, these people stood up so that we could have a more normal process and every member, no matter where they are in the pecking order of seniority, can actually participate in the process.
Those are all really good things.
Hallelujah, says former Congressman Jason Chaffetz.
Fox had maybe taken a different editorial position before the result, but we often learn that, you know, failure is an orphan, but success has many fathers, right?
And now I want to get into some of the specific things that we fought for that were really important to us.
And I want to start with the border.
You're from Arizona, a border state.
It's not enough to just pass show me bills.
We have to actually get results that don't just involve finishing the wall.
That to me is the bare minimum now.
We need internal enforcement of our immigration laws because so many people have come to our country illegally.
Talk about how your district and your state think about this border crisis and particularly the concessions we got to get policy changes on internal enforcement of immigration laws.
yeah well everybody in arizona and anybody that lives in a border state you know knows how damaging this administration's border policies have been to the united states of america i mean it's you've got so much it's even hard to find a place to start from sex trafficking coming over the border all these illegal drugs fentanyl coming over the border ms-13 gang members You even, like last year alone, you had 18 members, I think, on the terrorist watch list come through that southern border.
And it's just mind-blowing how stupid and foolish, you know, this administration's policy.
But, Matt, I feel like I see this type of destructive leadership everywhere I look around the country.
It almost seems like you take, you know, the common sense approach, and these guys just do the opposite every time.
And so that's why I'm glad that I got to get up here when I did with the group that I'm with so that we can start affecting some of these changes.
But as you know, I mean, we don't have the Senate.
We don't have the executive branch.
And so, you know, you could make the argument that, you know, even though we will continue to play offense and we will continue to Be ready to throw down.
There's only so much we can do at this point, but I am looking forward to doing everything I can with all the reps from Arizona and from all over the country that are willing to actually throw down on this fight because it's affecting people's lives every single day.
Some of the members from Arizona are, I think, some of the best informed and most thorough on these policies.
And what Congressman Biggs has shared with me and Congressman Gosar has shared with me is that you can't trade amnesty for enforcement.
And there are a lot of more of our moderate colleagues and colleagues who maybe aren't from states physically on the border, though it feels like every state's a border state these days, they think, well...
Maybe we can get some asylum reform, but we need to do an amnesty in exchange for that.
What would be your reaction to that paradigm?
I think it would be destructive and I think first you just got to take this one step at a time.
I think it's irresponsible to talk about immigration reform before you actually shore up the border because I think that when you start talking about that before you take step one, it really encourages even more people to come over here before the gates are closed and the walls are up.
I think step one has to be, you know, we have to shore up that southern border.
And you were talking about a wall a second ago.
That's a big part of it.
You know, bringing back, you know, remaining in Mexico, you know, making sure that our border patrol agents, that we're not, you know, Trying to destroy them and disparage them on national TV talking about them whipping people when they're not it's just you know it's gonna take it's gonna take a lot of different things but I don't think incentivizing other people who want to come here even though I understand why they want to come here Matt they want a taste of the American dream they want a better life I get that as a human being I get that
but if you and start incentivizing that you know I think it's just going to increase the problem.
And so I agree with, you know, Congressman Biggs and Gosar, who were right there with us in that fight last week.
And I don't know what it is about us Arizona guys, man, but we were well represented in that fight.
Absolutely.
Arizona, there's no greater inverse of better members of Congress and worse election administration than the state of Arizona.
Our elections are a joke, man.
They really are.
That could be its own podcast.
Here's what I could tell you on the elections.
You don't have to live this way.
Florida used to be the laughingstock of the country on elections.
And then you fire the people who don't follow the law.
You have laws in place on ballot custody.
You have paper ballots so that you're able to assess that an actual human being intended to vote that ballot.
And it's actually not that difficult.
It almost seems like if you're not doing it the right way, maybe it's chaos on purpose.
And, you know, an area where we've had chaos has been in the federal budget and spending.
And I know like me, you heard from a lot of your constituents about the crushing impact of inflation on a family budget already.
We believe that government spending is a driver of inflation.
It's such an obvious statement, I can't even believe I have to say it out loud.
But this town will never balance a budget if we do not have to.
Because at the end of the day, some people want some stuff, other people want other stuff, and instead of having a zero-sum negotiation about that, we just end up doing all of it and printing more money, and individual programs don't get individual review.
When we began this fight at the beginning of last week, we had no guarantee of a balanced budget ever coming to the floor of the House of Representatives for a vote, and now we do.
Talk about the importance of getting that commitment for a balanced budget vote.
Well, I think it's huge, and I agree with you, Matt.
It is a main driver of inflation, and it blows my mind up here that we continue to print and spend money that we don't have.
It doesn't make any sense to me as a business owner, as a father who has personal finances.
And you're right.
It's like, if we don't force the issue up here, if a certain number of us don't force the issue up here, nothing will get done about it.
Because the sad truth is, many people campaign, they run as, you know, fiscally conservative, and then they get up here and it's just like, hey, show me the money.
Who's got the best deal for me?
It's transactional.
You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours.
And that's why we need some real fighters up here.
And that's why it was exciting to see 20 people stand against status quo, the establishment and the swamp last week.
And I'm pretty confident that that trajectory and those fighters are going to coalesce on the next one and the next one and the next one.
And I know you and I will be right there trying to turn this around and resume some fiscal responsibility back to this federal government.
These balanced budgets are going to require tough choices.
We're going to have to tackle entitlement spending.
It's not going to be okay to say that able-bodied people who could go to work but just choose not to should be able to get the largesse of the federal government for their entire lives and for multiple generations that get stuck in government dependence.
And so the Democrats and the media will, I'm sure, reinvigorate their tired old arguments that were pushing Granny off the That is not our objective.
Our objective is to make sure that every American realizes their full potential through work and contribution to our society.
And I think that doesn't only help on our budget issues, it helps with our workforce issues and so many of the small businesses that are struggling to keep workers because we're paying people to sit at home.
No, absolutely.
I've been a small business owner.
My wife and I sold our business this last year, but I have a lot of friends that are small business owners, and they tell me the same thing, that it's impossible for them to hire and find employees because so many Americans right now are incentivized to stay home, and that's not a good thing for small business, and it's not a good thing for individuals either.
When you don't have something to work for, work and Discipline, those are good things for all human beings.
And I think that there's a couple different buckets here, but it's sad to me because I know that in many cases, a lot of these tyrannical governments that sprout up with socialism, they want to get people on the federal teat, if you will.
And that's how they control them.
And I really hope we're not that foolish that we're going to go down that path.
But that looks like the trajectory that this country is on.
And it really is concerning to me, Matt.
And, you know, I've heard statistics that, you know, 55% of kids coming out of a university these days think that socialism is a great idea.
How scary is that, man?
It's like the most debunked economic idea of all time.
It's never worked.
Yeah, if socialism were this great opportunity, the island of Cuba would be a Caribbean paradise, not a hellscape.
Yeah, absolutely, man.
I mean, you know, there's a couple, you know, there's a couple, you know, I read Dinesh D'Souza's, one of his books, and he was talking about You know, one of the, you know, if you can look at a perfect experiment, East and West Germany, you know, one was one was capitalist, capitalistic, and one was socialistic.
And when you look at the outcomes of those two places, with the same people in the same region and the same timeframe, I mean, one did phenomenally better.
And I believe, you know, North and South Korea is the other example that he uses, but it's a perfect case study in which one works, which one, you know, imprisons people, you know, creates, you know, a totalitarian government that oppresses people, and which one actually, you know, enables its citizens to thrive.
And, you know, there you go.
There's a perfect science experiment right there for us to look at.
Well, and I think not only is that solution set correct in terms of driving toward capitalism, you correctly diagnose that we are on the wrong path right now.
And we need to be honest with people.
With the passage of this omnibus legislation that the lame duck Congress facilitated, You are on the march to socialism right here in the United States of America, and that's why our organizing principle last week to change the House of Representatives was to ensure that our rules would never permit another omnibus bill like that to ever be forced onto the American people.
Another thing we fought for, Eli, was term limits.
I have worked in the state legislature in Florida where we had term limits.
I've worked here where we don't.
And to me, it's like a basketball game with and without a shot clock.
When there's a shot clock in a basketball game, you gotta advance your objective, you gotta take your shot, and then the whole thing sort of resets on the next possession.
And sometimes I feel around here like people are just dribbling the ball around for a while.
Out in the country, term limits is like an 80% or higher issue with the American people, and it seems to only be unpopular here in Washington.
And while the American people support term limits, we don't even take votes on term limits.
So you can hear people out on the campaign trail pound the chest about how much they support it, but they never actually have to be accountable for that.
You and I demanded a vote on term limits.
What's the feedback you've gotten from people on that issue?
No, they love it.
And you're right, Matt.
So many people come up here and quickly, especially in Congress where you run every two years, the focus half the time is on just getting re-elected.
And I think if there was term limits and we had to actually go here, represent our constituents, and then go back to our regular lives, I think this place would look a lot different.
Because as you know, a lot of people come here and it becomes all about re-election and gaining power and power and power.
And so I'm...
I think it's great that we're actually going to force people to take a position on term limits because, like you said it, the American people know it's one of the biggest problems with our political system.
Yeah, and then you know what?
If your member of Congress doesn't vote for term limits, then you can maybe impose a term limit on them through our election process.
And the other thing I've noticed about term limits is it makes the institution younger.
And the 118th Congress is the third oldest Congress in American history.
Really?
And I just don't believe that the most powerful nation in the world can be governed by a gerontocracy where the people making the decisions might not be around to see the full impact of the decisions they make.
And our generation interfaces with the digital world differently.
We recognize the challenges with big tech maybe more than the boomer generation.
And so I think it's a unique challenge for us as two younger members here, but it also reinforces what changes are needed to kind of get out of the gerontocracy that we find ourselves in.
But to do all these things, to get it done, to see them through, we don't view last week as the end.
It is just the beginning.
And I want to talk to you a little bit about how you think about teamwork because as a SEAL, as a business owner, It's teamwork or death.
And Maggie Haberman, who absolutely loathes me, had some comments on that subject recently.
Take a listen.
Hey Maggie, and we heard Speaker McCarthy right there say that Donald Trump deserves a lot of credit.
Does he?
I don't know about a lot, considering that he had endorsed McCarthy and early in the week made a public push for him that he hadn't wanted to make.
He had to do it because he gave some mealy-mouthed comment to an NBC reporter, and that didn't do anything.
But he did matter at the end, in that very final motion to adjourn right before they voted in McCarthy.
He did make calls to people like Matt Gaetz, and he did have some influence there.
That's a problem for Kevin McCarthy, is that it's not just Scott Perry and the House Freedom Caucus.
It's this Matt Gaetz group, and Matt Gaetz kept his folks together, and he is now in a pretty strong position with McCarthy.
So Maggie Haverman assesses that it's a bad thing, that we stuck together, hung together.
It's not the Freedom Caucus you should be afraid of, it's the Gaetz group.
You know, I have found in life That the strongest relationships are forged by fire in business and politics and otherwise.
And I just wanted to give you a chance to talk about how you assess teamwork as a function of getting through this place with real results for our constituents.
Well, it is imperative.
And, you know, even when you look at just that isolated incident of the floor fight that we got in last week, there were, you know, unlike the Democrats, we actually have independent thinkers over here.
And there were, you know, how many conversations, phone calls, meetings were you and I in where, you know, there was a lot of debate and disagreement amongst ourselves.
But in the end, the only way we got to where we got was because we stuck together, you know, and not, you know, some people, you know, We didn't all move in complete unison, but at the same time, that's what I'm most excited about when I look at this Congress is the fact that there were at least 20 people who were willing to step up and stand up to the establishment.
But on that note, Matt, You do deserve a good amount of credit because you were as strong as anybody in that group.
And that was noted.
That was noted by many of us.
And, you know, it's like when you go into a situation like that, whether you're going into combat or whether you're going into something, a pressure cooker like that, that's on full display for everybody to see.
Courage is contagious.
And that's one thing I always noticed about you.
I noticed it with Andy Biggs, Matt Rosendale, Bob Good, and several other people who were just courageous and they were willing to put themselves out there.
They were willing to deal with the repercussions that might very well come our way.
And it made me feel, in many ways, like it reminded me of being back in an elite group of people that were willing to risk everything for something bigger than themselves.
And politics is a team sport.
People need to know that.
We all have different skills.
We have different contributions to the fight.
And we have different expertise on different subject matters and issues that will come before us.
And it's not a sign of weakness.
It's a sign of strength to say, hey, look, you know, is there something maybe, you know, you can help me learn more about or get a good frame on?
And is there something you've been through in life that can...
Allow me to serve my constituents better, and I have never been more optimistic about the teamwork atmosphere than what we went through, because it showed people's true mettle, and throughout life, it's just something you have to rely on and demand.
Do we have the photo of some of the floor action down there we can put up for our...
All right.
There we go.
There we go.
Some of the varied discussions you're talking about.
That's Big Eli Crane right in the middle.
And we're working with our friend Matt Rosendale from Montana, another solid conservative.
You know, Eli, I want to end on this note.
Through all of this past week and through all we worked on, there were tense moments, there were tough moments, but I did not see you perk up with a brightness on any matter more than when you were bragging about your constituents in Arizona.
And you talked about the communities that you serve, the enduring love of country that exists there, and I just wanted you to share with our viewers a little bit about your district and the type of people that you work for.
Yeah, so I represent an amazing district in Arizona.
It's the second congressional district.
So for those of you guys looking at a map, it's the rural area of northeastern Arizona.
But it's so big, Matt, it even comes down south of Phoenix.
And I mean, these are American communities.
A lot of them are blue-collar folks.
You've got ranchers.
You've got a lot of small business owners.
You've got a bunch of just amazing people who love this country, and they're tired of watching it be destroyed from within.
And I think that's why they sent a guy like me here that didn't have any history in politics.
I wore a ball cap most of my campaign.
I've got a lot of tattoos.
They were like, This guy might actually be crazy enough to go in there and actually fight for us.
And they picked somebody who looked completely different from most politicians.
And I'm honored to serve the people of Sedona, Flagstaff, Pine Top, Show Low, Flagstaff, Maricopa City, all of you guys.
And I want to I want to say this.
I heard you guys.
And that's why I took this stand that I did because I didn't want to be a guy that listened to you or acted like I listened to you and then came up here and then my vote was for special interests or lobbying or party leadership.
That's not what I'm going to do up here.
But hey, before we close, I do want to say this about Matt Gaetz because, you know, Matt, you are a firebrand and you kind of have like this, you know, this deal where, you know, a lot of people love you but there are people that hate you.
I want to say this about this guy, and I know most of you watching this love this guy, but I actually saw some behind the scenes baseball.
I actually saw a pretty generous side of you that a lot of people don't get to see.
And I saw a part of you that a lot of people don't get to see just out there in the media.
I saw you take some hits for other people.
I saw you being willing to sacrifice for other people.
I won't go into the specifics of it, but when there were six of us in a room and I saw you step up big time for another one of us, that meant something to me.
Because, you know, not everybody would have done that in that situation.
And I won't discuss the specifics of it, but that was really cool to be in a group where other members are willing to be selfless and lay down their own personal experiences.
You know, issues or beefs or even, you know, what you're trying to get at for somebody else.
So that was really cool.
I appreciate you saying so.
And one thing I know about Washington, sometimes it's not easy to draw people into the fight because it's easier to sort of be on the outskirts of things and to be a non-playing character.
Yep.
And when you invite people into the fight, you can never have them leave in worse shape than they came in.
And so I always want to make sure that when we go to battle, not for ourselves, but for the American people that we serve, that our constituents come out better as a consequence of us making a brave, bold decision.
And there are many fights ahead on these issues, on the budget, on the border, on term limits, on opening up the process in Congress.
We have a Senate, like you say, that is going to be An enemy combatant at times and we have an administration that we fear has been weaponized against our people and we're gonna have to check them as our Constitution demands and as duty requires and I believe as our oath requires and they're none better than Eli to be right alongside us in that fight and we're gonna be bringing more of these brave new members of Congress who I have such Hope and confidence that they are going to change this institution for
the better.
Thanks for joining me.
Make sure that you are following, supporting, and encouraging my friend Eli Crane.
They don't make him any better.
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We'll be back with more Firebrand.
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