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Feb. 28, 2023 - Firebrand - Matt Gaetz
24:23
Episode 90 LIVE: Lab Leak – Firebrand with Matt Gaetz
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The embattled Congressman Matt Gaetz.
Matt Gaetz was one of the very few members in the entire Congress who bothered to stand up against permanent Washington on behalf of his constituents.
Matt Gaetz right now, he's a problem in the Democratic Party.
He can cause a lot of hiccups in passing 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 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.
Here's something remarkable and upsetting.
On April 14th, Florida Republican Congressman Matt Gaetz claimed China's Wuhan Institute had, quote, birthed a monster.
Gaetz is a vigorous defender of the president.
He's been under investigation by the House Ethics Committee for allegedly threatening a witness against Mr. Trump.
And he led a protest to delay impeachment testimony.
The NIH gives this $3.7 million grant to the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
They then advertise that they need coronavirus researchers.
Following that, coronavirus erupts in Wuhan.
Is there a way to know that this virus, SARS-CoV-2, emerged from the wild into the human population, or has that not been proven yet?
Well, I'm a scientist and what I do is I look at the evidence around a hypothesis.
There is a huge amount of evidence that these viruses repeatedly emerge into people from wild animals in rural areas through things like hunting and eating wildlife.
There is zero evidence that this virus came out of a lab in China.
I've called on Secretary Azar to immediately halt this grant to the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
They have not been honest, and at worst, they've been negligent to the point of many, many deaths throughout the world.
Dishonest and negligent allegations have now ended EcoHealth's carefully reviewed research designed to stop pandemics.
This politicization of science is really damaging.
You know, the conspiracy theories out there have essentially closed down communication between scientists in China and scientists in the US. We need that communication in an outbreak to learn from them how they controlled it so we can control it better.
It's sad to say, but it will probably cost lives.
By sort of narrow-mindedly focusing in on ourselves or on labs or on a certain cultural politics, We miss the real enemy.
That clip is amazing every time I hear it.
That is garbage masquerading as journalism coming from the premier CBS news product, 60 Minutes.
But what you heard there was this Peter Daszek guy explaining to Scott Pelley that COVID Was through some animal transmission, maybe the Wuhan wet market, but certainly not the lab that the U.S. taxpayer had been funding, that Dashek had been benefiting from, and this great collaboration with China that they champion is certainly not something that is inured to the benefit of Americans.
We've got a million dead people as a result of us putting money behind the Wuhan Institute of Virology, and of course now, We're good to go.
Are undeniably this lab, this lab funded by the American taxpayer.
And so there weren't a whole lot of voices out there making this argument after 60 Minutes said it was conspiratorial and outlandish and dishonesty, that we were the ones politicizing science, when in fact it was Peter Daszek and the folks there, perverting science, engaged in gain-of-function research, and the consequences were tragic.
It's important to note that everything that we take as fact today was a discredited conspiracy theory.
And it would have gotten you banned from Twitter before Elon Musk bought it.
But it was the truth.
And that gain of function research Certainly was among the most dangerous research going on, and it also mirrors the State Department cables that showed back in 2018 that the United States had grave concerns about the lack of safety around that lab, but yet Peter Daszak is praised by Scott Pelley as heroic.
I wonder what he thinks now.
What's even more ironic is that this gain-of-function research was funded by the American taxpayer.
It was the National Institute of Health that got paid millions of dollars through NIH paying for a Chinese lab.
Resulting in one of the largest pandemics in recent human history.
I guess that explains why Dr. Fauci was so nervous at the beginning of the pandemic.
He probably knew exactly what COVID was and exactly where it came from.
$3.7 million grant, Wuhan Institute of Virology, signed by you, the American taxpayer.
And then COVID erupts in Wuhan.
And we all know the rest of the story.
How many Americans we lost, And there has to be accountability for it.
There is a COVID select committee that has been set up, and I hope that they do the diligent work to confirm this work by the U.S. Department of Energy.
And, like, where's the apology from Scott Pelley, who said that I had, quote, killed critical research funding?
Meanwhile, CBS was boosting and platforming corrupt scientists, deadly scientists, like Peter Daszak.
The damages done and the plethora of lies have been peddled to the American public, but we must hold this administration accountable and the corrupt industries that were intermediaries for this devastating lab leak and research.
I also want to share my thoughts on what's going on around the world.
Now, the Washington war machine is raging at full speed right now as the Biden administration continues to escalate the war in Ukraine.
It was Lincoln on Facebook who asked the question, why are we paying Ukrainian salaries and pension?
Not just salaries, but literally the U.S. taxpayer is funding pension taxes.
Liabilities for Ukrainian officials.
It's amazing right now.
They're also dabbling in Syria's mess, and I'm going to get to that in a moment.
But first, take a look at this clip.
This is United States Senator Dan Sullivan on Meet the Presque, and he is opining on the need to send Ukraine American F-16s.
Take a listen.
You know, Chuck, your interview actually highlighted one of the problems.
Jake Sullivan's talking about, well, we're not going to do F-16s today.
That's for another time.
Not right now.
That has been a pattern with this administration from the beginning, where they have slow-rolled critical military weapons systems.
You know it's a long list.
It's Patriots.
It's HIMARS. It's tanks.
And now it's F-16s.
And to me, that is a real blunder.
We need to get them what they need now.
And listen to the Ukrainians.
Not, as he said, the policymakers.
They've proven their ability to fight bravely.
And I think we need to do a much better job.
It took nine months to get them the patriots.
And I fear the same thing's happening right now with the F-16s.
You just saw it from the National Security Advisor.
Mark my word, they're getting ready to do the F-16s.
That's troubling.
That is not the posture that the U.S. should take.
That's not our role in this conflict.
Since the onset of this war in February, the United States has been the top contributor of military equipment and aid to Ukraine, sending over $110 billion of our money to We're hemorrhaging money to Ukraine right now.
And it's not only extended the brutality, but also piled up a lot more death.
Thousands of people have died, civilians and combatants, and it's terrible.
And thousands more will die if this war does not end.
We need to urge Ukraine and Russia to sit down at the table and negotiate for peace to stop the killing.
That's the only way out of this.
And it's exactly why 11 congressmen joined me in introducing my bill titled the Ukraine Fatigue Resolution, which halts USAID to Ukraine and urges the parties to negotiate an end to this conflict.
And we totally have the power to do this.
You know, we hear Jake Sullivan and so many others take the White House's message that only Ukraine can decide the future of Ukraine.
But that just totally rejects a realistic view of foreign policy where our relationships with our neighbors do, in a lot of ways, define our boundaries and the way we protect our boundaries.
In the United States' posture currently, you've got Mexico, a captive narco state, That is functioning as a turnstile for people all over the world to enter into our country illegally.
We pay less attention to that.
And in Ukraine, of course, the relationship with Russia is going to define who controls Crimea and different portions of the territories that even the Ukrainians called the ungoverned territories in eastern Ukraine.
One thing that shocked me Even China has a peace plan for Ukraine.
That's right.
China put out a peace plan while the United States just rejected it summarily.
Nope.
Can't do it.
Can't do a peace plan.
Send another several billion dollars in arms.
Ukraine didn't reject it.
And I found that interesting, that Ukraine, that Zelensky indicated that he wanted to meet with Xi.
And so while China is undeniably an adversary that seeks to dominate the world, You always hear from the hawks and the neocons that it puts America in a better posture to combat China and all of our adversaries if somehow we're the world's policemen.
But what if China sees that our involvement is extending the bloodshed and the conflict that I'm sure the people in this area would like to see come to an end?
And they swoop in with a peace deal and they look like the adult in the room while you've got U.S. policymakers just shilling for defense contractors.
That won't advance America's interests.
So we should be champions for peace, not extended forever wars.
And in a lot of ways right now, the United States is in a state of managed decline and we cannot continue to meddle in other countries' wars.
We need to put The needs of our country and our own people first before the wants and wars of other nations.
But if Ukraine isn't enough of a quagmire, we surely are making matters worse in Syria.
It was recently reported that there were four American troops and a working dog injured in Syria while chasing an ISIS leader during a partnered raid with the Syrian Democratic Forces.
Whoever they happen to be loyal to today.
As we know, in Syria, the alliances and allegiances often shift as frequently as the sand.
So since when are we at war in Syria?
This was Obama's war.
Why are we still doing this?
Congress has never authorized any kinetic participation of the U.S. Armed Forces in Syria.
And that is why I have recently introduced a War Powers Resolution to direct Joe Biden to remove our troops from this zone of hostilities.
Let us not forget, the Department of Defense has consistently lied about our involvement in Syria.
President Trump wanted our troops out, but the DOD always pushes back.
I'm glad in at least one case where you had folks out there, tens of Americans between armies of tens of thousands, we at least had the wherewithal to not be there igniting World War III. But here is the recent clip of Joe Biden claiming, we don't have any military in Syria.
Take a listen.
There's a significantly greater threat to the United States from Syria.
There's a significant greater threat from East Africa.
There's a significant greater threat to other places in the world than it is from the mountains of Afghanistan.
And we have maintained the ability to have an over-the-horizon capability to take them out.
We don't have military in Syria to make sure that we're going to be protected.
And you're confident we're going to have that in Afghanistan?
Yeah, I'm confident we're going to have the over-the-horizon capability.
So at the time of this statement, we had over 900 troops in Syria.
We clearly cannot trust the executive branch to act responsibly.
Whether the root cause is the military industrial complex making billions of dollars or the nation building pipe dreams of the Ivy League foreign policy regime, it is destabilizing to the world.
And we are wasting American tax dollars while our own people suffer, where they have real problems.
It's just not sustainable.
How many Afghanistans do we need before our leaders learn their lesson?
Do we need to turn Syria into another Iraq?
Maybe some will never learn, but it's the American people who will pay the price in the meantime.
And it's up to Congress to do its job by reigning in our military presence abroad.
Our founding fathers warned about us excessively entangling ourselves in foreign entrapments.
It has destroyed empires and it will destroy us if we are not careful.
We have no choice.
But to rein in these excesses and enter into an era of realism, America first, that is the principal policy option that will work.
But let me just tell you, there are a lot of folks in both parties right now who continue to be cheerleaders for war.
Whether it's U.S. involvement in Yemen, Syria, or Ukraine.
Some think we need to get back into Afghanistan.
What a mess.
And it's hard to see where these U.S.-funded, U.S.-led efforts are ultimately successful in accomplishing the objective of servicing our goals.
And so I think we need to be more realistic and do less.
Say less, as they say.
Do less, maybe.
So I want to talk a little bit also about what's going on at Project Veritas.
Project Veritas has long been at the tip of our spear, exposing corruption and fighting for truth and transparency, often in uncomfortable places, often with non-traditional features of journalism.
Now, we used to call the search for truth, even if it's uncomfortable, regardless of where it leads, we used to call that journalism.
But until James O'Keefe founded Project Veritas, it seemed dead as a doornail.
James O'Keefe single-handedly resurrected journalism from its swampy grave, and it hasn't been easy at times.
James has faced every challenge imaginable from trumped up charges to civil suits to FBI harassment and more.
And yet throughout these trials, he has managed to take on our biggest enemies.
The most powerful political institutions.
Some of the most powerful businesses.
And he exposes these people for the evil that they often manifest.
And he's never given up.
He's always stayed loyal to the cause.
And sadly it appears as though not all have stayed loyal to James O'Keefe.
You may be aware that he was recently forced out of Project Veritas after being indefinitely suspended by its board of directors.
The board Of Project Veritas, a company that James built, was claiming that James wasn't frugal enough to their liking.
But the best they could come up with was too many Ubers and an expensive Christmas party.
Give me a break.
Do you expect James O'Keefe to show up to a confrontation in a Chevy Malibu UberX?
Oftentimes, security is important, especially when you're holding the power to account.
People's physical safety can be in jeopardy, and having the right security posture, the right operational posture, makes whistleblowers and insiders safer, makes journalists safer.
And the expensive Christmas party.
This is so ridiculous.
They had an event at Miami Beach that was like a musical celebration of the journey of Project Veritas and all the courage that has to go into this type of guerrilla journalism.
And when you're out there trying to encourage people to be whistleblowers or insiders, you have to acknowledge that their life is going to change.
Especially if they're publicly making allegations against the powerful.
Oftentimes they lose friends.
They have family members disavow them.
Their housing situation can change if they have a recalcitrant or agitated roommate.
And so an important part of The Project Veritas experience is celebration.
And having a moment to celebrate the brave who came forward is the only way to perpetuate the system where more people will see that that risk in life is worth it and can lead to change and can be acknowledged by others.
And so bringing these folks together with policymakers and others was actually a really important thing for Project Veritas to be involved in.
And it was lovely.
I attended.
So when you look at the fact that it's like black cars and a Christmas party that undergird the allegations against O'Keefe, they kind of sound ridiculous.
And to O'Keefe's credits, he has the receipts.
He exposed this coup for what it really is.
And if you listen to him explain in his own words in his farewell speech, you'll see it too.
Take a listen.
There were tactical disagreements about the boldness of approaches soliciting donations.
I was told, and I'm paraphrasing, by asking for X dollars right now, you will prevent 10X dollars down the road.
That advice ran contrary to everything I knew to be true in my 13 years of fundraising.
But that conflict was even more fundamental.
And essentially, it boiled down to this, and my vision, I'm going to paraphrase Howard Rourke, the architect, quote, I don't build in order to have donors.
I have donors in order to build.
That's what I believed and I felt like we had a conflict of visions.
We measure our success in terms of what we produce, not just in terms of our wallets.
That was a pretty fundamental conflict, I felt.
The day prior, I had informed him in front of his colleagues that if he wasn't willing to follow my lead, he'd be shown the door.
I tried to deal with it privately, but I was unsuccessful, and the disagreement boiled over publicly in a staff meeting.
The next day, this individual refused to resign, so I fired him.
Later that same day, that's Thursday, February 2nd, a few days after the 50 million views visor videos, I was informed by a different officer of Project Veritas that he would go to the board in a few hours from that moment and have an emergency vote to restructure this company.
Receiving an agenda in my email while I was sitting on an airplane tarmac with the doors closing, the meeting was scheduled for the moment that my plane landed in Nashville.
It became clear to me in that moment I would be removed from my position at Project Veritas by the time I landed at my destination.
That was James O'Keefe.
And what's interesting to me is that James almost forecasted this eventuality on this podcast, on Firebrand.
There's a lot of love for James O'Keefe right now on the Insta feed.
One person calling me a QAnon conspiracy theorist, but a lot of love for James O'Keefe.
But take a listen.
This is an episode we did with James O'Keefe, February 3rd, 2022. I worry that the fact that your organization is the only organization in America that does what you do, it brings a certain frailty to it.
And that's what I fear most, is that something could happen to Project Veritas, and then there would almost be no way to get corruption out.
There would be no platform for whistleblowers.
And so I just wonder, what do you fear most?
As you wake up every day with the burden of managing this organization, inspiring these whistleblowers, What worries you?
Well, good question.
I don't think what worries me is what worries everyone else.
I mean, people ask these questions like, do you fear for your life and this sort of thing?
The question presupposes that one is afraid to begin with.
And I think it's the fear that is dangerous.
Like FDR said, the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.
Well, I think being a leader is hard.
Like Veritas has like 70 employees now and quite a budget that's given to all these, you know, by these generous people, thousands and thousands of people.
Just leadership.
It's hard being a leader.
It's hard, you know, it's hard commanding respect from, you know, Being in the office and running an organization, running a company, I've had to learn how to be a CEO. I've had to learn how to be an organizational entrepreneur.
That's probably the hardest thing about what I do.
Not so much the external battles.
It's really remarkable that quite some time ago, James realized that if something was going to hurt Project Veritas, it wasn't going to be a threat from the outside.
That internal leadership is so critical to the success of an organization like Project Veritas.
And this development sheds a light on what James told me.
I'm sure there's going to be more details to come.
But what I know for sure is that there is really no Project Veritas to even imagine or contemplate without James O'Keefe.
James O'Keefe is Project Veritas, and Project Veritas' supporters agree.
Since James O'Keefe's departure, Project Veritas has lost hundreds of thousands of followers on Twitter.
I didn't follow them once they weren't associated with James O'Keefe.
My official office account stopped following them.
I don't think Project Veritas survives without its leader.
If there's one person in our movement that deserves our loyalty, it's James O'Keefe.
And if anyone stabs him in the back, they're stabbing our movement in the back.
And they should know better.
Thank you guys so much for joining us today on Firebrain.
We hope to have other episodes this week.
Make sure you're subscribed.
Give us that five-star rating, especially if you're listening on Apple.
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We'll see you soon.
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