All Episodes
Previous Next
March 23, 2023 - Firebrand - Matt Gaetz
36:36
Episode 93 LIVE: Committee Fireworks – Firebrand with Matt Gaetz
| Copy link to current segment

Time Text
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 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?
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 are live broadcasting out of room 2021 of the Rayburn House Office Building here on the Capitol Complex in Washington, D.C. And it was a very busy day in committees.
We had a key oversight committee hearing on the ATF, what they're doing to gun owners.
How they are abusing their authority.
I can't wait to show you the exchange we had with one of the Democrat witnesses and those who are experts on things like the bracing rule where inadvertently a lot of Americans are about to be made felons by an unconstitutional illegal action by an entity that frankly we should probably abolish altogether, the ATF. So we're going to get to that.
Also, a big hearing on DEI in the military.
These Diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives are destroying our country.
They are destroying corporate boardrooms.
But where that pain is most intense and, frankly, most dangerous is in our military, where we need unit cohesion.
We need people working together.
Wait till you see what some of the leading officials, leading Biden administration officials are saying about DEI. Also, Africa might not be the place in the world where you are most focused when it comes to foreign policy analysis.
But I had an exchange today with the leader of AFRICOM, a four-star general, and it was the most remarkable exchange I think I've ever had with a witness in my going on seven years in the United States Congress.
You are not going to want to miss it.
But first, We've got to talk about the White House.
Name-checking me today.
Throwing a little shade.
Statement from the White House.
I'll read it for you today.
House Republicans who have called to abolish and defund federal law enforcement, including the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, are holding a political stunt as they undercut the ATF's work to keep our streets safe and reduce gun violence.
The latest stunt hearing comes as extreme MAGA members of the House Republican Caucus have proposed devastating cuts to law enforcement funding, according to a blueprint released by the House Freedom Caucus, which would make communities less safe by.
Let's see if you agree with these things.
1. Eliminating funding for 11,000 FBI personnel Including agents who investigate crimes and keep guns out of the hands of felons and domestic abusers.
Actually, what we're doing there is we've isolated the areas in the FBI where there is some of the most weaponization against gun owners.
And yeah, we don't think that being a gun owner is illegal.
Two, back to the Biden release today.
Forcing the ATF, which protects Americans from violent criminals, including firearms traffickers, and assists in identifying perpetrators of mass shootings to implement a hiring freeze and furloughs that would undermine these operations.
Yeah, what do you think about a hiring freeze at the ATF? We are $30 trillion in debt.
I would be for a federal hiring freeze on just about everything but DOD and VA. In VA, you could convince me that there are certain things we need to be doing outside the walls of government rather than inside.
Three, cutting federal support to 60 local law enforcement agencies, eliminating 400 local law enforcement positions, and slashing millions in law enforcement, crime prevention, and justice grants for state and local governments.
I am for law enforcement, but that is what our states are for constitutionally with the exercise of police power And that is what our local communities are for.
I do not need the federal government in Washington, D.C. hiring police in Northwest Florida.
We can actually do that ourselves.
And the more the federal government is involved in our education, in our law enforcement, the more woke and weaponized it seems to get, actually.
So they go on to quote in this Biden memo, Matt Gaetz, a member of the House Subcommittee on Crime, The federal government surveillance and co-hosting today's hearing says, we either get this government back on our side or we defund and get rid of.
Abolish the FBI, the CDC, ATF, DOJ, every last one of them if they do not come to heal.
Now would the Biden White House disagree with that?
Would the Biden White House disagree with the assessment that if we don't get government back on our side, we shouldn't continue to flood these corrupt agencies with authorities, resources, cash, more personnel, more hiring?
I actually think that, in a way, it's a cell phone for the White House to cite me here because it's as if they're saying they're happy fueling these entities even if they're not on the side of the people, which is what we are exposing each and every day.
So they seem to be really worked up over the ATF. They cite different statements from Congressman Andy Biggs, who we've had on firebrand, Congressman Marjorie Taylor Greene, who we've had on firebrand.
It was Gates, Biggs, and Greene who got singled out.
And we were doing the hard work today.
Working to hold the ATF accountable.
We had a hearing on the ATF's authorities, their violations of those authorities.
So, enjoy.
This was from today's joint meeting with the House Oversight Committee and the House Judiciary Committee.
Play the clip.
The Nonpartisan Government Accountability Office issues a report in June of 2016. Firearms data.
The ATF did not always comply with the Appropriations Act restriction And should better adhere to its policies.
Mr. Wilcox, you're the witness the Democrats have invited here today.
Are you familiar with that report?
I am.
And does the fact that the ATF broke the law concern you?
The report, I believe, supported ATF's action in cataloging records to stop crime.
I'll read from it.
It says, a technical defect allows ATF agents to access data, including purchaser data, beyond what ATF policy permits.
Do you take any umbrage with that conclusion?
ATF has been collected out-of-business records pursuant to a law signed by Ronald Reagan, and President Trump digitized more records than any other president.
I don't care who did it.
I'm just worried about the impact on my citizens, and I would acknowledge there may be Republican presidents who didn't do enough In the 80s to protect our gun rights.
But on this finding, the ATF had to delete 252 million records, didn't they?
So this is a tool that's helped solve 50% of crime cases.
Wait, wait, wait.
Did they have to delete 252 million records?
What I know about this tool is that it's a crime-fighting tool.
That's how I'm asking you.
Did they have to delete?
You said you're aware of the report.
Is that conclusion correct?
They had to delete 252 million records.
I'm not aware of that line, but what I'm aware of is the crime-fighting tool.
I'll represent to you that that's what had to happen.
The fact that the government collected 252 million records that was beyond the law, beyond policy, never approved according not to me, not to my fellow Republicans, but to the GAO, should that be concerning to us?
That scope of records being collected.
ATF's collection of out-of-business records was fully complying with the law.
That's not what the GAO said, so you disagree with the GAO report?
Well, there's two points they made.
One is the collection of out-of-business paper records that FFLs keep.
The second piece was the collection of electronic records that FFLs keep.
And what the GAO said was the electronic records were not being converted sufficiently.
And that's what ATF fixed to become in compliance with the law.
Right, so that's what they had to delete them.
Because they had illegally, because they had gone beyond their authority.
You see, that's the concern of my constituents.
When they go beyond their authority, and you may find those things virtuous, but no one elected you.
They elected us to make the laws, and when we make the laws and they don't follow them, then people's rights get diminished.
Another area is this issue of the arm braces.
Now, in Mr. Wilcox's testimony, he says that an arm brace makes a weapon more powerful.
Mr. Bosco, you know a lot about arm braces, don't you?
I do.
Do arm braces make firearms more powerful?
They do not.
They do not.
Does it concern you that the witness that the Democrats brought would make such a claim that is obviously disproven by any utilization of those arm braces?
I hope that my testimony today can help everyone here understand that the brace does nothing to make the weapon any more dangerous than it already is.
And so, when you've got the ATF going beyond their authority, collecting 252 million records that they have to destroy, well, that can just be explained because they're doing their best.
But when Americans get inadvertently converted to felons because the ATF has exceeded their authority, there is no such grace for them as their miswear.
That would seem to be the case under the recent policy change to zero tolerance.
Zero tolerance for our fellow Americans when they're trying to exercise their rights and protect their liberties, but all the tolerance in the world for a corrupt bureaucracy that is violating the law, exceeding their authority, and collecting records that they have no business collecting.
I would make this final observation.
I had the great privilege to spend two years on the House Judiciary Committee with the gentlelady from Missouri, and while she and I disagree strongly on this issue, her beliefs are sincere, and they are strong, and they are powerful, particularly when she expresses them.
And so when she says to people that she wants to defund the police, she means it.
And when she says in this committee meeting that gun violence is a public health emergency, well, she means that too.
And our fellow Americans know the impact of folks up here in Washington declaring everything and anything a public health emergency.
It means you're more likely to be locked in your homes, deprived of your freedoms, less healthy, less safe, less secure, and less able to live a truly American life.
So, know this.
When the left talks about this as a public health emergency, get ready to see those enhanced authorities abused by the ATF. And, Mr. Chairman, it is my sincere hope that in the very near future, we will have those very folks from the ATF here.
And I intend to be utilizing the new rules that we have in the House of Representatives to offer amendments to the Appropriations Act to zero out their salaries for breaking the law and abusing the liberties of our fellow Americans.
We are back live.
A lot of action on the live stream.
Sean Kelly pointing out the double standard on Getter that exists when Americans have any type of technical violation of some rule obscurely published.
There is zero tolerance from the ATF. They come after us but then when they break the law Oh, they want more authorities, more people, and the White House slams me and Andy Biggs and Marjorie Taylor Greene when we propose that maybe in some places we ought to have hiring freezes and furloughs.
A. Gregg, also on Getter, saying the ATF is out of control.
I agree with that.
And let me make some news.
I spoke with some of our committee leadership today, and in April...
Next month we plan to have the leadership of ATF before the committee and that is when we are going to start identifying the very bureaucrats whose salaries we will seek to zero out in the budgeting process.
So in April ATF leadership coming in a big part of the Republican oversight plan.
I want to thank my Walton County constituent who just Gave us a shout out on Rumble and said that we have the best law enforcement in Northwest Florida.
I could not agree more with that assessment.
But whether it's law enforcement or society at large or our military, we are seeing these DEI initiatives divide people and erode the meritocracy that is central to American life.
No matter where you come from, no matter what you believe, the essence of the American capitalist system and political system and social system is that if people do well, they will be able to move up.
And as leaders, we ought to be getting rid of the things that bar people's path to success.
No matter what their color is, no matter what their background is, people should have a right to follow the rules and achieve more and do better.
And I believe that these DEI initiatives, Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, They are often used to stovepipe people into being an oppressor or oppressed, into being privileged or frail or unworthy or unwilling or unable, and it is all so deeply racist at its core.
And yet, the military, the Department of Defense, has been embracing these DEI initiatives in their hiring, in their promotions.
You would think the military would be a place that we would actually want the meritocracy to drive the success of the mission.
You wouldn't want to leave whether or not America is the preeminent military force in the world to a DEI seminar.
But wait till you see the folks that we are leaving it to.
The people who've worked in the DEI leadership, people who are senior officials in the Biden administration, testifying today about DEI in the military.
This gets pretty hot.
Play the clip.
We'll talk about it.
I would like to go back to the tweets of the racist person that works for you.
What does caudacity mean?
I have no idea, Congressman.
You took six months to investigate one tweet?
You didn't even figure out what the words meant?
I didn't investigate the thing.
She's a DOD. Well, you said in the Fox News article that you were going to take 30 days and investigate, and it took you six months.
In a six-month investigation, you guys didn't learn what caudacity meant?
I think you know.
I think every person that's going to watch this exchange knows you know.
She's trying to lash audaciousness with someone being Caucasian, isn't she?
I have no idea, Congressman.
Wow, what an investigation.
Well, I will say I did not do the investigation.
She is a GS employee that's employed by Dodia.
Dodia conducted the investigation.
Gosh, the Pentagon told Fox News Digital that Gil Cisneros would provide a final decision in 30 days.
So someone at the Pentagon is throwing your name out there as being responsible for this, and now it looks foolish that you're suggesting you don't know what that means.
Well, I would say that quote did not come from me, but I don't know who that came from.
Let's go to this, Mr. Cisneros.
What's a PD session?
My guess would be personal development.
Personal development?
You don't think it's professional development?
Another open matter for the investigation that it didn't resolve.
So you don't know what caudacity means.
She's obviously talking about professional development there.
And like, when she says, I had to stop, or let's go to the next claim.
The caudacity to say that black people can be racist too.
Mr. Cisneros, can black people be racist too?
I've already stated, Congressman, that I didn't agree with her statements.
But I'm asking about that provision.
Can black people be racist?
This question is about me or my personal beliefs, but again...
You're the leading official over DEI. I don't agree.
A racist person who works for you puts out these tweets, and you won't say whether you agree or disagree.
I told you.
Mr. Chairman, I just want to remind members to observe standards of decorum.
This is decorum.
It's my time.
Can black people be racist?
I do not agree with that tweet.
Do you agree with that statement?
I'm asking you a statement.
Can black people be racist?
I'm not going to answer that, Congressman.
Why not?
Because you're asking me a personal opinion, and that's not what this is about.
Well, actually, I'm asking you, in your capacity, as a senior DOD official in the Biden administration, where we see recruiting falling off the table, whether or not the embrace of racist tweets, whether shuffling these people around rather than firing them, and whether this little exchange here is helping or hurting recruiting.
Let's go ahead and put up the recruiting.
I will tell you, we do not support racist tweets.
We do not support racism in the military.
Well, did you fire this lady?
You hired her.
I did not hire her.
As it was stated earlier, she's a DoDEA employee.
She's a GS employee.
The inquiry that was done said these tweets were done on a personal matter.
Oh, a personal matter.
How do you know it's a personal matter if you don't know that the PD could stand for professional development?
Mr. Cisneros, this is a professional development session where she attacked white colleagues and took the position that black people can't be racist.
Now, you can't answer basic questions about it, and here's what I would propose to you.
This is what we're looking at in recruiting right now.
It's falling off the table.
And when you have employees that you don't fire who do racist things and say racist things, then you really hurt the ability to recruit people who want to be part of an inclusive and diverse force.
I would say the data that we have is not, the recruiting is not falling off because of that.
But again, the Department of Defense, Dodia, does not agree with the tweets that she made.
It was at 3 o'clock during the workday.
You didn't fire her.
If someone puts out racist things, do you fire them or do you just move them around?
That was not an unofficial.
That was not an unofficial.
That's her own personal Twitter account.
Here's the problem with the double standard, Mr. Cisneros.
Caucasian members of the military post about the Second Amendment or supporting building the wall.
You all seem to be on a white supremacy snipe hunt.
You seem to take people's personal views and weaponize them against them.
And I've had people in my district who serve that wonder whether or not some joke that they forwarded or meme that they liked is going to result in the ruining of their careers.
But you have no such interest.
When it's a person like this.
You delayed the investigation.
Your own name was what DOD put out as conducting the investigation.
You delayed it.
This lady makes like $160,000 a year.
Do you really think today the taxpayer should be paying this lady that amount of money?
The investigation was not conducted by me.
That was never...
Well, why did the Pentagon say it was you?
I don't know who the Pentagon in that said that, but I will tell you it was a misstatement.
Mr. Chairman, I seek to enter...
The investigation was conducted by Dodia because she's a Dodia employee.
Well, if you just fired racist people, then maybe you wouldn't have to go through this.
But Mr. Chairman, I have a series of unanimous consent requests.
Without objection.
So, first is Pentagon drags out decision after probe into woke diversity chief accused of anti-white people's tweets.
The second is Wing selected as DODEA Chief of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, and that is from DODEA.edu.
The next is Everybody Can Be Racist.
DOD Chief Diversity Educator defends tweets targeted toward white educators.
With objections so ordered, the gentleman's time has expired.
I yield five minutes to Representative Houlihan.
I think that everyone can be racist and everyone can be the victim of racism and we should oppose racism in all of its forms and we should embrace what Martin Luther King Jr. put out that we have to judge each other not by the color of people's skin but on the content of character.
But that's not what DEI seeks to do.
It's all about judging based on the color of one's skin.
And that's what I think we effectively exposed there.
A lot of comments on the live stream.
Richard on YouTube says that I look like the Tin Man from The Wizard of Oz.
I don't even know if that is a compliment or not.
I actually think among The Wizard of Oz characters, the Tin Man was probably among the more handsome.
And he had the best heart, right?
He didn't have a heart, but he really had a heart.
That was the deal with the Tin Man.
What's the deal with AFRICOM? So, when we look at how our military has its force structure around the globe, there are different areas that fall under the commander of some of our most senior generals.
And the leader of AFRICON is General Langley, who you're about to see me question.
Now, you may be wondering, what's the US interest in Africa?
What's our goal?
How do we measure our objectives?
One of the things that we principally do is we send folks out to train and equip the militaries of other countries.
And I've had a number of constituents, actually a number of friends, who have been stationed at bases in northwest Florida and they end up in Niger or they end up in Somalia or they end up in some place where really failed states seem to dominate over stable governmental institutions.
And when we go and participate in the train and equip missions, what we tell ourselves to justify the intense cost in human life, remember in 2017, we had service members killed in action in Niger.
Also in dollars, the treasure of our country.
Is it being used wisely in Africa?
So today this four-star general, General Langley, comes to testify before the House Armed Services Committee and I had questions for him about the train and equip missions that my constituents are on and whether or not they are contributing to insurrections and coups.
This is truly The most remarkable five minutes I think I have ever had with a witness.
There were moments when I almost couldn't continue.
I was so stunned by the responses.
Take a listen.
Just ballpark in the last decade, how many Africans has the United States military trained and equipped?
Congressman, I don't have that figure.
I can get that figure for you.
Ballpark.
Just, you know, how many?
Congressman, it would be a wild guess.
Seems like something we should know, right?
Over the years, we have trained a substantial number, especially in the Gulf of Guinea states.
More than 10,000?
It is more than 10,000.
More than 50,000?
I'd say we're reaching around 50,000 at least.
And what percentage of the people we've trained End up participating in insurrections or coups against their own government.
Very small number, Congressman.
Very small number.
So what percentage do you think?
I'd say probably less than one percent.
But it does happen.
The IMET program is in force and we've pushed a number, a significant number through our schools across the military.
And what data sets do you track to arrive at the conclusion that less than one percent of the roughly 50,000 that we've trained Have participated in coups?
Because it would be like about 500, about 1% of 50,000.
Congressman, you may have that information.
I don't at this time.
Well, I know there are some, right?
Like in, go ahead and throw up that image.
This is Colonel Mamaday Dambuya, and this is a photo of him.
Did we train and equip him?
In Guinea?
By name, I cannot identify that.
Well, that guy in the middle with the big red hat, Colonel Mamaday Dumbuya, that's him with a bunch of U.S. service members outside of our embassy.
And just months after this photo was taken in 2021, he led a coup in Guinea and threw out the leader.
Does that concern you?
Congressman, core values is what we start off with in IMA programs.
Do we share core values with Colonel Dumbuya?
Core values.
I will repeat that.
Core values.
Respect for her.
Do we share those values with Colonel Dumbuya?
Absolutely, in our curriculum.
He led a coup?
We do.
Okay, that's a very telling answer.
In Burkina Faso, did we share core values with the leader that we trained there who led a coup?
It's in our curriculum.
We stress core values.
We request civilian-led governance.
Wait, wait, wait.
Hold on, hold on.
Is leading coups in our curriculum?
Absolutely not.
Civilian-led.
My question is, do we share core values with the coup leader in Burkina Faso Who we trained.
Holistically, we teach core values with respect for civilian governance, apolitical, and that's what sticks across a very high percentage in the 90, over 99 percentile.
But not everybody, right?
But not everybody.
And I wonder how many people it takes to plan a coup.
I mean, initially you didn't know how many we trained and equipped.
Then you said it was 1%.
You had no basis for that 1% number because there's no data set you tracked.
Mr. Chairman, I seek unanimous consent to enter into the record, another U.S. trained soldier stages a coup in West Africa by the intercept.
Without objection, so ordered.
And I further seek unanimous consent to enter into the record, U.S. forces trained the Guinean colonel behind the recent coup in West African country, and this is regard to Guinea.
Without objection, so ordered.
So I guess the question is, why should U.S. taxpayers be paying to train people who then lead coups in Africa?
Congressman, Congressman, our curriculum harvest this core values and also to be able to embolden these countries for a representative democracy.
But General, that democracy isn't what emerges.
The problem is, I know you may have great confidence in what you're teaching, But when two governments have been overthrown, I guess, how many governments have to be overthrown by people we train before you sort of get the message that our core values might not be sticking with everyone?
Is it five countries?
Ten?
We'll continue with our persistence in assuring that they harbor democratic norms, democratic values, apolitical.
Just a moment ago, you said we shared core values with Colonel Dumbuya.
You said that just moments ago in response to my question, and his core value seems to be leading a coup.
So I don't think it's stuck.
I think we should at least know how many countries we train the coup plotters in.
How many is too many?
Because clearly two is not too many, and I think we could use our resources far more effectively than doing this.
So we're back live.
That is not some low-level person in our military.
This is a four-star general that was just providing those inept responses, General Langley.
He is in charge of every U.S. service member on the continent of Africa.
He makes major contributions at the table with other senior defense leaders regarding our strategy and our tactics.
And he could not answer the most basic questions about whether or not the work we were doing in Africa actually works against our stated interests.
But if you just keep stating core values long enough maybe you can keep moving up the ladder.
Wild.
But Africa isn't the place where we're wasting the most money.
That place is, of course, Ukraine.
There was a moment in Congress today that I think really encapsulated the non-answer from the Biden administration that we're getting regarding some of the most frivolous spending that is going on in Ukraine.
As I have stated, our country has nearly $1.5 trillion in unfunded pension liability.
The squeeze on pensions in the United States is ever the more exacerbated by some of the banking challenges that we've seen.
When you raise interest rates dramatically, pension funds that are over-invested in long-term government bonds ultimately get squeezed.
And that has real-life consequences for teachers and firefighters and police.
But this government, the Biden administration, is actually paying for pensions in Ukraine.
A point that Congressman Tim Burchett made in the House Foreign Affairs Committee today.
Take a listen.
Are there U.S. sanctioned personnel in Ukraine?
If so, why are they receiving our tax dollars?
I'm sorry, U.S. sanctioned personnel?
Yes, sir.
In Ukraine?
I'm not aware of that.
I welcome any information you have.
Okay.
Four billion U.S. tax dollars have gone to Ukrainian pensions.
How is that any shape, form or fashion justifiable?
The program, Congressman of Assistance to Ukraine, has on the ground right now in our embassy about 47 personnel responsible solely for oversight.
We just had a report by the Inspector General's Office looking at the oversight of the taxpayers' funds in Ukraine.
The report was very positive in terms of the processes that are in place and the work that's being done to make sure that money is being spent appropriately as well as wisely.
At the same time, we have in place a process, for example, much of the funding that we provide, the taxpayers provide, to Ukraine goes through a World Bank program that only disperses money upon receipts for authorized expenditures.
And we have third-party validators to include Deloitte, which is working directly with the Ministry of Finance.
I appreciate all that, but when we can't fund Medicare and then we're funding Ukrainian pensions, I really think our priorities are out of whack.
Well, yeah, Congressman Birchett has a point there.
And it's so telling the way Blinken just avoids answering the question there.
The question was, why is it part of our stated policy to fund these pensions?
And then Blinken's answer as well, we're making sure that we're not funding things outside of our stated policy.
The problem is the underlying premise that American taxpayers ought to be underwriting Ukrainian pensions is deeply America last.
Thank you all so much for joining today.
As you can see, it was a wild one on Capitol Hill.
We want to make sure you're as informed as possible in real time so that you can have contact with your members of Congress so that your voice can be heard so that you can work with us to engage the Senate and the administration on important things that will help our fellow Americans lead better lives.
And so you have a homework assignment.
Make sure you are subscribed.
Make sure that you have our notifications turned on and do what you can to share this episode, share this content so that we can reveal some of the deepest, darkest things that are going on in this swamp and so that we can get America going back on the right track.
Thanks again.
Love having you on Firebrand.
Roll the credits.
▲
Export Selection