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April 25, 2023 - Firebrand - Matt Gaetz
33:26
Episode 100 LIVE: One Hundred Firebrands (feat. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene)– Firebrand with Matt…
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Thank you.
Matt Gaetz was one of the very few members in the entire Congress who bothered to stand up against permanent Washington on behalf of his constituents.
Matt Gaetz right now, he's a problem in the Democratic Party.
He can cause a lot of hiccups in passing applause.
So we're going to keep running those stories to get hurt again.
If you stand for the flag and kneel in prayer, if you want to build America up and not burn her to the ground, then welcome, my fellow patriots!
You are in the right place!
This is the movement for you!
You ever watch this guy on television?
Like a machine, Matt Gaetz.
I'm a canceled man in some corners of the internet.
Many days I'm a marked man in Congress, a wanted man by the deep state.
They aren't really coming for me.
They're coming for you.
I'm just in the way.
Welcome back to Firebrand Live.
This is our 100th episode.
And of course, here joining me, the person who helped us kick off this project, my good friend, Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene.
Going to get into a lot of information with MTG, the debt limit, what's going on with Ukraine.
The live stream is going crazy with reaction to the separation of Tucker Carlson from Fox News.
We love Tucker.
We stand with Tucker.
Can't wait to get into that and what it means for I'm going to get her reaction to that and share why I think it's very significant.
The Republican plan.
We're going to go through our reaction to that and really our concern about the debt.
But first, MTG, welcome.
And I want you to share with everyone, you've got a new podcast project about ready to launch.
Tell everybody about it and how they can get a hold of it.
Oh, I do.
But first, I want to say congratulations.
Thank you.
100 episodes on Firebrand.
That's amazing.
4.5 million plays on our audio platforms.
Our episode yesterday did over a quarter million views on Rumble, our favorite platform.
Had some go over millions, but all of our top episodes are our conversations, so everyone likes you the most.
How can folks follow your perspective day in, day out on what's going on here in Congress?
Well, I started a new podcast.
It's called Battleground MTG. And this podcast is so hot.
I've only had like one or two episodes out.
And I've already gotten a letter from Hunter Biden's legal team.
So I'm very excited about it.
Dylan Mulvaney is a little bit mad at me of some of my comments.
But, you know, it is what it is.
I'm going to be speaking the truth.
And how can folks find Battleground MTG? It's on all of my social media.
And when we're ready to put up a podcast, we go ahead and post and let everyone know.
We put the links there.
It's on my Rumble.
Of course, Rumble is fantastic.
They don't cancel people like YouTube does.
But no, we're getting these episodes out, and I'm very excited.
Make sure to follow, subscribe, and it's on your Rumble channel.
Folks can subscribe.
Yes, and it has its own web pages also, Battleground MTG. So, the big political news of today, Joe Biden, in whatever shape he's in, has announced that he is running for president in 2024. Honestly, I still don't really believe he's running.
I think he's just saying he's running.
I still think there's a chance this guy, they put him out to pasture before then.
But I was...
I guess not surprised, but I took note of the fact...
Wait, wait, I want to go back.
You just said put them out to pasture.
I think Republicans in the House should put them out to pasture through impeachment.
You know I'm a big fan of that.
I'm a big believer in it.
It's constitutional.
It's the right thing to do.
And I think we're going to be proving that with our oversight investigations.
And especially the work on the border.
To me, the clearest case for impeachment is the border.
You've always said that.
Because it is on purpose.
And it's not just that they're incompetent fools.
It's that they're doing it on purpose.
Yeah.
So Biden announces, and we get a starring role in his announcement video.
Sasha, play the portion of the Biden announcement clip that's got the Gates MTG cameos.
That's been the work of my first term.
To fight for our democracy.
This shouldn't be a red or blue issue.
To protect our rights.
To make sure that everyone in this country is treated equally.
And that everyone is given a fair shot at making it.
But you know, around the country, MAGA extremists are lining up to take on those bedrock freedoms.
Cutting Social Security that you've paid for your entire life while cutting taxes from the very wealthy.
Dictating what healthcare decisions women can make.
Banning books and telling people who they can love.
All while making it more difficult for you to be able to vote.
The live chat is Love and MTG. Peggy on Facebook says that she loves you, and Butch on Facebook says you better impeach before the draft.
The people think that darkness is coming with this Biden regime.
They see the evil in it, and actually a lot of times people in Washington don't.
I think they're worried about the Ukraine war.
Or actually, no, it's the proxy war with nuclear Russia.
It's terrifying.
Well, I'm honored to be on that ad.
Yes, so we've got to talk about this ad.
First of all, other than us, wasn't the ad pretty boring?
I couldn't even play the whole thing because I found myself...
I'm disinterested in kind of how sad and lame and just mid it was.
Yeah, I thought it was pretty boring.
It's kind of funny.
It's the only time I find out Republicans are supposedly cutting Social Security is when I listen to Joe Biden.
And, you know, that's why I called him a liar at the State of the Union.
We all called him a liar.
I don't know what the takeaway from that is.
I think the takeaway from that is that you look terrific in white.
Thank you.
And I'm grateful that at least it's only half of my fat face that they put in.
It's almost artistic, really, that they didn't get, like, my whole moon pie face.
They just got kind of half of it, so I looked like a Batman villain.
They only need half of your face.
Everybody knows your face.
Clearly.
But it...
It shows the American people actually who the fighters are.
President Trump, you know, certainly us.
And it's just quite something that Biden thinks that that's the way to unite his coalition rather than putting forward any kind of agenda.
I mean, what is the Biden agenda other than socialism and the Green New Deal?
Well, his agenda is the destroy America agenda, the America last agenda, kill American energy, wide open borders, crime, rampant crime in our cities, transitioning kids under the age of 18 before they're able to graduate from high school, mastectomies, hysterectomies, the trans agenda.
What is there to brag about?
So you responded to this ad with quite the tweet.
Throw the tweet up on the screen.
Joe Biden is running to stop extreme MAGA Republicans, so let's define what extreme MAGA Republican policies are.
Secure borders, low crime, good education, good economy, strong dollar, America first energy, low foreign aid, affordable food, world peace, strong military, two genders, This is where it gets dicey.
Protecting girls and girls sports, protecting our Second Amendment, rejecting globalism, making America great again, extremely great, free, wealthy, happy.
Extremely.
In every case, of course.
Of course!
So I feel like if they're going to attack us and call us extreme MAGA Republicans, we need to make sure that America knows exactly what extreme MAGA means.
So I took to my Twitter...
And typed out what our policies are.
And you know what's great about it?
It's unifying.
There's nothing divisive about that.
We're trying to encourage and protect and advance people because we actually care about them and their futures.
I mean, if we're going to make America great again, we might as well make it extremely great.
Right, right, as a positive feature.
So they know MTG is coming for them, and that's why she has really shaken Washington.
From the first press conference you gave, where I watched you torch the entire press corps, because you wouldn't let them define you, to this very moment where you are leading on a lot of the key investigations on the Oversight Committee.
On Homeland Security as well, but on Oversight, you have really dug in to a lot of important questions.
And there is this...
Fresh letter from the Hunter Biden legal team saying that accusing Marjorie Taylor Greene of conduct not reflecting credibly on the House.
The good news is I think they are subscribers to Battleground MTG because they do cite your episodes.
But the essential criticism...
The reason Hunter Biden's lawyers are trying to distract and feed Marjorie Taylor Greene to the Ethics Committee is because she's putting out true information and analysis coming directly off the Hunter Biden laptop.
So first, it was a conspiracy theory.
Then it was Russian disinformation.
Now it's true, but you're bringing discredit on the House by putting that information before the public.
Right, right.
It's not the president's son and the rest of his family that is bringing...
Shame or disrespect and making all of America look bad by the contents of the laptop.
But even more importantly, Matt, what we read in the Treasury Department on these financial statements that are called SARS, those are suspicious activity reports.
We read them with our own eyes.
I'm not making anything up.
This isn't conspiracy theories.
And you want to know why they're so upset?
Because they know they're not conspiracy theories, too.
And we have the bank records on the oversight committee that we've subpoenaed.
Jamie Comer is doing an amazing job.
Outstanding.
All of you are.
The whole committee.
The whole committee, the staff, and everyone.
I can't be more excited to be a part of the entire thing.
But they're talking about my behavior while trying to deflect away from Hunter Biden's behavior is...
It's really remarkable to me.
The other thing that I thought was funny is they were saying, since she was elected in 2020, I was like, well, promises made, promises kept, everyone.
I'm doing what I told my district I would do, and they're happy with it.
I also enjoyed seeing your name in the letter.
I did, so that people understand.
I get a shout-out in the letter We're good to go.
Where literally the House Ethics Committee is governing mean tweets.
Because if you do that, then every time someone gets their feelings hurt by a tweet, they're going to draw you in to that type of a refereeing enterprise.
And lo and behold, I'm entirely right.
Because the basis for jurisdiction that Hunter Biden's lawyers are claiming...
Is that, well, since the Ethics Committee said that Matt Gaetz sent mean tweets, they really should say that Marjorie Taylor Greene has said mean things about Hunter Biden, things that have hurt his feelings and that are concerning to him.
And here's what I think this tells.
Our friend Steve Bannon says, catch the signal, not the noise.
I do not believe that this is a sincere attempt to try to get the Ethics Committee to punish Marjorie Taylor Greene.
They are showcasing their fear.
Because they know that the day is coming when Hunter Biden will be a seated witness before the oversight committee, and the five minutes that they are worried about most are the five minutes where Hunter Biden has to answer questions from Marjorie Taylor Greene.
And so they are trying to use this as predicate.
I don't know if it's to try to say, oh, maybe you can't participate in the Hunter Biden hearing because of this letter or some pending matter.
But they're trying to use it to take you off your game.
Let folks know, is the day coming this Congress when you believe Hunter Biden will be sitting before the House Oversight Committee?
Absolutely.
And don't you think this means they know it too?
Oh, they know it.
They know his time.
Look, the whistleblowers.
We've got the IRS whistleblowers coming out.
We've got other whistleblowers coming out.
I mean, these are people that you've talked to on your committee's weaponization committee.
You are talking to these whistleblowers.
These attorneys are not stupid.
They know they have big problems.
They also are playing politics with you and I. That's why both of our names are in there.
We're the extreme MAGA Republicans that Joe Biden has to save the country from.
And again, what's wrong with making America extremely great?
Nothing.
Absolutely nothing.
Well, and I think, though, you have to look at how they come after some of our best.
And it's a different battleground that you face than a lot of Republicans do because they know that's going to be the searing moment and the searing questions.
A lot of folks really were left believing that there would be more out of investigations like the Benghazi investigation, the investigation into the origins of the Trump-Russia hoax.
And there's a lot of hope that because you guys are breaking ground, nobody's ever broken before, that it will be more successful.
And you mentioned those bank records.
I think people need to know what's key about how the Oversight Committee is doing this.
The Bidens always thought they could protect their own bank records, but they didn't count on the fact that you would get the bank records of the cutout fake business entities that move Chinese money into their accounts.
Just let folks know the methodology you're using in the investigation to go after those middlemen and cutouts to map out the whole corrupt regime.
Well, most importantly, let's tell Republicans all over the country, thank you for putting us in the majority in the House.
Because that gave us the gavel and that gave us subpoena power.
So because we have subpoena power and we're running this investigation, we're able to subpoena the bank records of the LLCs.
Now most people, if you have an LLC, you're running an actual company.
Where you're selling a product or providing a real service in exchange for payment.
That's not what the Biden family has been doing, along with their partners.
Now remember, they're not by themselves.
This isn't a Hunter Biden enterprise that he's running.
There's other people involved.
But these LLCs are like shell companies where money is wire transferred in from foreign countries like China, Ukraine, remember Burisma, other countries in Africa, all over the world.
Money gets wire transferred in to these LLCs.
And then there are direct payments out of the LLCs, the fake shell companies, to Biden family members.
And we are not at four or five Biden family members.
We are up to 12 now.
That's a lot of Bidens.
So this is not a small operation.
Think of Joe Biden at the center of this entire operation.
He is surrounded by a By basically money laundering, that's what it appears to be, that has come in through these fake LLCs and they're all getting it because of influence peddling with Joe Biden's power and position, whether it's Senator, Vice President, and now President of the United States.
Selling favors.
We vote a lot of bills, don't we?
We make policy.
That's what we do in Washington.
And if you can get paid doing it, well, then you get really rich, just like the Bidens.
Follow the money.
That's what the Oversight Committee is doing.
Larry on Rumble says the public needs to see accountability.
Right now, a lot of this investigative work, we're doing depositions, document reviews, and bringing it to light.
I think it's going to be really important, and I know you're going to be leading the way on that.
This week, one of the big topics is the debt limit plan, and whether or not we are going to be able to even engage Joe Biden in a productive discussion about how to go forward here.
Can anyone engage Joe Biden in a productive discussion?
He doesn't seem to be too eager about it.
The factors that we know, we have a four-seat majority.
And so if you have a number of people who have a disagreement with something that's coming to the floor, then it requires Democrat votes to pass.
On the debt limit recently, we heard our colleague Nancy Mace share her perspective against the McCarthy plan.
Take a listen.
So you haven't decided yet whether or not you're going to support this?
Correct.
Right.
I'm leaning against voting for it at this time because I just don't understand why we can't have a conversation about balancing the budget, cutting spending, and doing so over the next 10 years because inflation is still on the rise.
We need to grow the economy.
You've got to cut spending and cut taxes and rein some of that in in order to grow the economy at a rate that can overtake the debt that we've taken on in this country.
It's Monday.
This vote could happen as soon as Wednesday or Thursday.
I don't have to tell you that.
What does Kevin McCarthy need to do to change your mind about voting yes?
Or are you pretty firmly leaning no, you say?
We're still going through the plan.
I have other concerns, especially on green energy.
A state like South Carolina, we have a lot of solar farms and solar energy, both presidential and commercial.
I want to find out and figure out what kind of adverse impact it might have on the state of South Carolina before we finally make that decision.
And there are other concerns, and we're just still wading through it.
And the devil's always in the details.
Given you're not a yes yet, and McCarthy was saying yesterday he feels confident he has the votes.
Obviously, you know it's a razor-thin margin.
Is he wrong that he has the votes?
What have you heard from other Republicans?
I haven't been whipping the vote, so I don't know where others are.
I know that there are several that are going to be a yes that might be a surprise to some people, and there will be some surprise noes as well.
We'll see how it ends up in the next few days.
So I think when it comes to general concerns about spending, we would share some of those concerns.
We want to create the maximum amount of downward pressure on spending.
Nancy May says she's not ready to support this plan yet.
I'll be candid with the audience.
While I'm still engaging in good faith negotiations, I'm not there to a yes yet.
What's your perspective on how Republicans ought to think about the debt limit?
I basically think it's a tragedy and a failure of Washington, D.C. that we're all even having to face this vote.
And Matt, let's be honest, it's the last two years of spending over $7 trillion that has put us here.
True.
But I'll go even further.
I blame both parties, Republicans and Democrats, for decades now putting us in over $31 trillion in debt.
So here we are.
We've been handed a problem that we never wanted to have to deal with and none of us agree with.
None of us want to raise the debt ceiling.
I also believe the real fight is going to be in the budget and appropriations.
And I held my voting card up to our leadership just last week.
And I said, I'm going to fight like hell with my voting card on this budget and appropriations because that's where the real problems are.
And I won't vote a penny to the Ukraine war.
And I said, as a matter of fact, if any of you are starting to fund that stuff, it's in the NDAA. In the budget, anywhere we're seeing it, I will be working as hard as possible in whipping other members to vote against it.
That means that I'll be including the public and pulling in the American people to help battle this fight because I think it's so critical.
You and I have done this from the beginning, as well as Thomas Massey and a few others.
We have said no to the war in Ukraine because we're America first and we know the real consequences of the Ukraine war.
But you sold them to put that in this debt limit deal.
I was on the teleconference when a lot of our colleagues were talking about what ought to be in this offer, and you said unequivocally that a serious country would not approach its debt limit while funding the government of another country.
Absolutely.
And it's the most obvious and easiest place to cut.
So, like you, I'm disappointed that that's not in this deal.
I'm trying to judge the deal based on what's in it, not necessarily what's not in it.
Let's talk about what's in it.
Sure.
So, HR1. Very good.
Our energy plan, it's amazing.
Yes.
This is Trump policies for America First Energy.
It's the best thing for the country.
It's how we make America energy independent again, how we lower gas and diesel prices, how we protect natural gas from the Democrats trying to destroy it, so many other good things.
Okay, the next one is reeling in all the COVID cash that's sitting out there that we voted against.
Again, our voting records are so good, everybody.
So we voted against all that cash, COVID cash out there.
What's another?
The RAINS Act.
The RAINS Act.
The regulatory reform so that our small businesses aren't strangled by some unelected bureaucrat somewhere.
That's something we've really believed in.
Because we want to unhook the unholy union of corporate, corporations, and the government, everybody.
I'd love to even go further on that.
Small businesses have the right to compete and they need to be protected.
Yeah, so there's a lot of good stuff in this deal, and we don't mean to begrudge that.
Talked a lot about work requirements.
Work requirements.
I'm with you that a country just cannot continue to spend this way without downward pressure on spending, and I know we're working hard to get there.
I also wanted, but before I move on, I do think your points about separating Ukraine funding from the NDAA need to be noted.
I agree with you entirely.
They funded it last time.
Do you remember?
They did.
It was $47 billion?
I think it was around that number.
It was way too much.
It should not have been in the bill.
And I believe that it will be problematic in the passage of the National Defense Authorization Act.
If it is too flavored and tainted with continued U.S. entanglement in the Ukraine war.
Think how insulting that is.
It is.
Funding our own U.S. military, but including funding for defending another country's borders, well, they're not doing anything for our borders.
The Biden administration, the Pentagon, everybody running the military, they ignore the American border.
I think our military should be stacked at the southern border and the northern border.
I think we should be defending our country.
I think we should be fighting the cartels and not the Russians.
Yeah, I am far more concerned about the deaths caused to Americans from cartels than the deaths that would be caused to Americans from broken Russian tanks.
But we're also worried about the risk of nuclear war, and this administration might stumble us into a nuclear war without even knowing.
Two dangers with this war against Russia.
They're a nuclear superpower.
A world nuclear superpower.
Secondly, the sanctions.
Remember we voted no on those sanctions too.
The Biden administration and Nancy Pelosi, they put sanctions on Russia when this first started last year.
What did we all say?
We said this is going to push Russia into the arms of China.
Russia can't fund their war unless they're selling their oil and gas.
It happened exactly the way I said it would and the way we warned.
So Russia is selling their oil and gas to China, to all these countries all over the world, and now BRICS, this association of countries, what is it, Brazil, Russia, India, China, and the Saudis?
Saudis.
They've come together and they've made an agreement to sell energy to In their own currency.
That's the second greatest threat to us, Matt, outside of a nuclear holocaust.
Of course, that's the number one.
We're about to lose our dollar.
We're about to lose the dollar as the number one.
And then people will actually feel the pain from the debt.
Because the only reason people don't feel the pain from this debt day in and day out is the primacy of the dollar.
And so once you do that, you slaughter the goose that's laid the golden eggs.
That's right.
For this country.
And these women that are voting for their women's health care and these people voting for their student debt loans and these people voting because they think they're saving the planet with the Green New Deal and garbage like that and putting wind farms off the coast of Florida.
People that vote like that are going to suffer so greatly because the dollar will fall and it doesn't discriminate when it falls.
No, it won't care.
It'll savage this country.
We will all be broke.
And part of it is just getting these arguments out.
And one of the platforms you and I have used extensively is the Tucker Carlson Tonight program that sadly is no more on Fox.
And I thought back to some of the iconic moments you had on that show.
And you really broke through with the country when you took what you heard from moms out on the campaign trail and out on our rally tour.
And you brought that To millions of viewers each night.
No, you know, it's what Tucker Carlson did for me.
I'm not kidding you.
When I first got here and everybody canceled me, Matt, you know how badly they canceled me.
Tucker Carlson was the only one that would bring me on And actually talk to me and ask me questions.
He had me on his show on Fox Nation.
He brought me on Tucker Carlson tonight.
He was the only person that would talk to me.
That is how much I greatly respect Tucker Carlson.
Tucker was the one voice we had.
The best America First conservative voice.
And he challenged the system and he challenged everybody.
I think Tucker, we're not seeing him right now.
But I don't think it's over for Tucker Carlson.
Oh, absolutely not.
I think he's going to come back and it's going to be even bigger and more powerful.
And I can't wait for him.
Well, in a way, Tucker's just completing the sweep because I think he's been fired from PBS, CNN, and MSNBC. God bless him.
So to separate from, you know, maybe you just go independent and do your own thing.
And I know you and I'll be there to support Tucker no matter what he does.
Absolutely.
But do you worry about what it says about the direction of corporatized media and the ability to Of populous voices like ours to be able to break through?
Because I am worried about that.
Yeah, and I don't know how you feel about Fox News, but I'll go in on what I think.
What they've done is they cave to the woke mob.
They absolutely cave to the woke mob because all these lawsuits, they have the Dominion lawsuit, they have all these other lawsuits coming in.
And this is the left.
This is how we faced it.
We still face it.
We face it every day.
Oh, we're seeing it with the Hunter Biden lawyer letter trying to de-platform you.
Oh yeah.
This is what they do.
It's lawfare.
It's lawfare.
And remember, they tried to get me off the ballot.
Thank God for you.
To save democracy.
Yes.
To save democracy, they tried to get you off the ballot.
Right.
So to save democracy, they believe in canceling people and silencing their speech.
And that's what they think they're doing to Tucker Carlson.
And Fox News went along with it.
Fox News has no idea how badly they're hurting their company.
Everyone I've talked to has deleted the Fox News app on their phones.
People are canceling their Fox Nation subscriptions.
People are saying, I am done with Fox.
And then I heard this morning on Fox and Friends, I was watching it.
They never have me on anyway, so I can talk about them.
And I'm not afraid of that.
I'm not going to be controlled by, oh shoot, I might hurt.
No one should be.
Yeah, who cares?
So they were talking about the difference of, you know...
We need to give moderate Republicans a chance because, you know, it's the MAGA Republicans that may be the problem.
And that was the angle they were talking about on Fox and Friends.
And I was like, okay, you guys fired Tucker Carlson.
You guys did this.
You caved to the woke mob.
And then you want to turn on MAGA? See, what I don't get is when they use the term moderate as if they're more reasonable.
Oftentimes, the people who have the branding of the moderates in this town actually believe in nothing.
They're just sellouts who do whatever the lobbyists and special interests say.
If what makes us extreme is that we work for the people and the people alone, 100%.
And that is what I think they fear most.
And it might have been what very powerful entities feared from Tucker Carlson.
That he spoke the truth.
That he spoke truth to power.
That he wasn't controlled.
And I know he won't be in his next venture.
No one controls Marjorie Taylor Greene.
We're so glad we had her on this, our 100th episode.
Make sure you are subscribed to Battleground MTG that you're watching.
Give her a like.
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You're subscribed to Firebrand with your notifications turned on.
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