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April 28, 2023 - Firebrand - Matt Gaetz
34:26
Episode 102 LIVE: Ukraine Audits – Firebrand with Matt Gaetz
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Thank you.
cracking.etto 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 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 in dreary, rainy, disgusting Washington, D.C. on this Friday afternoon.
The House of Representatives has taken their final vote of the day.
That was on A key measure to institute tariffs against some of the entities that have stolen our solar intellectual property.
I'm going to show you the debate, pro and con, on that measure, final measure of the week.
Also, we've got reaction to the Democrat charge that the House plan to raise the debt limit but also do so with corresponding spending cuts, that that harms veterans.
That is a false charge.
We've got reaction to that from Congresswoman Luna.
Also, I had legislation before the House of Representatives regarding Ukraine and whether or not we would have an inquiry to the Biden administration with troop levels, where personnel are, What equipment is being used?
All the information they had regarding strategy and future plans.
That legislation moved through the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
I'm going to show you the debate on that.
It should be ready for the House floor.
Something my constituents clearly want is accountability when it comes to the assistance that's been provided to Ukraine.
We did something a little different today to start the show.
It is Friday.
I asked folks on Twitter...
What they wanted me to address at the top, and I got some interesting ones, so I'm gonna go through those first before we get to those main issues in the show.
First was Joe, who said he wanted to know what information I had on the next Tucker gig.
And here's the thing, Joe.
Your question presupposes that it is a gig or a job working for someone else.
And here's what I do know.
Tucker Carlson is not done.
Tucker Carlson will be an important voice in our ideology in our nation.
He's more than a talk show host.
He's a cultural figure, a phenomenon, someone I spoke to regularly about matters of war and peace, trade issues, immigration issues, how America interacted with countries through weapon sales and other intense diplomatic endeavors and negotiations.
Tucker Carlson is a brilliant person and he has inspired many folks who work on Capitol Hill today who make up the ranks of our activists all across the country and I don't think it'll be a gig, Joe.
I think it'll be something else, but I'm certainly going to let Tucker break his own news.
Another thing folks are concerned about, and with good reason, the congressional oversight on what's happening with the January 6th defendants.
You saw the trip that the Oversight Committee took to the D.C. jail.
You've seen the correspondence we've sent regarding deprivations of certain civil rights and really human rights regarding the care and confinement and at times even solitary confinement that J6 defendants have had to endure.
And we are working alongside the Oversight Committee.
Many members of the Oversight Committee are taking an appropriate lead on this issue.
But I think you're going to see some hearings coming up there in that committee.
And we may also be doing some field hearings that we'll be able to announce and certainly cover here on Firebrand.
We are interested in this.
We have not let this go.
And we know that the American people are interested in it as well for the sake of our trust in our justice system.
Was it weaponized?
Was information withheld?
Was there a recasting of events with a diminution in focus on some of the potential involvement with federal undercovers, confidential informants?
That's the stuff that really unlocks the truth about January 6th.
Some of the episodes of Firebrand that have been best watched, I would encourage you to check those out and ensure you're fully up to date as to some of those facts that I think give rise to legitimate concern.
Another piece of big news that got sent to me at the start of the show when I sent out that tweet.
Mandatory E-Verify passing the Florida legislature.
Bravo to my colleagues in Florida.
I know on the live stream we got a lot of folks watching from Florida, but E-Verify is essential to ensuring that we have a fair and legal workforce.
And if we can get it done in Florida, in Arizona, places with massive agriculture industry, then certainly we can do it nationally.
And there should be a national standard for E-Verify.
There is such an obvious interweaving of E-Verify and interstate commerce.
I believe there ought to be action from the Congress on this question.
And we passed E-Verify out of the House Judiciary Committee.
It should be ready for a floor vote in May.
That's right.
Next month, I expect a floor vote on E-Verify, asylum reform, remain in Mexico, how to ensure that people do not just get paroled into our country with the joke of an immigration system that Joe Biden and Mayorkas are currently overseeing.
We are going to have a vote on that in May.
And there is big-time momentum for this legislation.
And Florida passing mandatory E-Verify only accelerates that momentum.
I am proud of my Florida colleagues and am excited to see what that means for our workforce in the Sunshine State.
Another thing, folks want to know when the Trans Manifesto is coming out on the Tennessee shooter, the answer is, I don't know.
But here's my question for the FBI. Why haven't you released this?
You know, if this was a manifesto that espoused a vile form of white supremacy that we would certainly criticize and condemn, I mean, the FBI would have had that out within moments.
But if it's radical gender ideology, and let me be clear, I don't know what is in this thing, but if that is indeed what it is, then does the FBI see any tension in the disparate treatment of some of these writings based on the radicalized, condemnable ideologies of the shooter, of the killer?
Can they really say it impairs an ongoing investigation?
Are there other suspects in the Tennessee shooting case?
They obviously have the person who committed this act, and if there's information that I think the public would gather something from, draw conclusions from, If you would release it under one context, why would you not another?
It's a fair question.
And we're just getting news that we're getting a date for FBI Director Wray to come to the Judiciary Committee in the near future, and that may be something we ask.
I want to get now to this charge Democrats are making in media interviews and in social media that the Republican plan somehow harms veterans on the debt limit.
And let me be clear, I didn't vote for the Republican plan because I could not in good conscience gaslight $49 trillion in national debt on a bill where the final changes were being made at 2 o'clock the very morning of the vote.
That's not what regular order looks like to me.
But on the pure merits and substance, this Democrat claim is totally false addressed recently by veteran Florida woman Congresswoman Anna Paulina Luna.
Take a listen.
Hey guys, the White House just put out a statement claiming that House Republicans apparently in our budget proposal are trying to go after VA and cut funding, which is completely not true.
In fact, I'm looking at the limit on federal spending, the limits, right?
Look at this.
Do you guys see any cuts here?
There are literally no cuts.
That is completely false.
What the administration likes to do, what Democrats like to do, is they like to use veterans just like they did in the PAC Act, where they used burn pit victims, veterans, and put $400 billion in pork spending into a bill that didn't even go to vets.
Okay, so this is personal for me, obviously being a veteran, but don't be a part of the problem and circulate false information because clearly we would not do that.
But the fact that they're even trying to imply it because We actually came up with a proposed budget of which they wanted nothing to do with.
I mean, that is exactly the problem in politics.
So just know that that's false.
We are not cutting VA benefits.
We're not cutting anything with the VA. That's it.
That's Congresswoman Luna.
We are back live.
C. Spellnitz on Instagram tells me to stop gaslighting.
Well, Ms. Spelnitz, I think it's actually the Democrats that are gaslighting.
Here's the argument they're trying to make on the VA. That if we simply take overall budget growth and cap that, that somehow that would treat every agency the same.
You see, I don't believe in horizontal cuts across every agency regardless of which are performing their functions.
What I believe in are deep vertical cuts at places like the Department of Education and the Department of Labor and the Department of Energy and the EPA, the ATF. And if we did that, Then we would be able to accelerate the programs that are working for our veterans.
But what we shouldn't do is engage in a process by which every agency has spending that automatically escalates forever, and we're getting to the point where the payment on our national debt is going to exceed $400 billion.
We're going to get to the point...
$400 billion is where we are now.
We're going to get to the point soon where we're paying more on interest on the national debt than we do for our military.
And so I think to be honest and fulsome about the care that we have for people who do rely on government programs like seniors and veterans and the elderly and the disabled, we have to ensure that everyone isn't just getting fat and happy off of federal budgets that continue to explode.
I don't think that's gaslighting.
I think that's explaining where we are and offering a specific set of solutions to get there.
And you may disagree with that.
But it's what I believe.
It's what I think the voters in Northwest Florida sent me here for.
Okay, I want to get now to the debate on a Ukraine resolution that I introduced.
It moved out of the House Foreign Affairs Committee this week.
And I'll read from it directly.
It requires the DOD, the White House, to provide documents to the Congress indicating any plans for current or future military assistance to Ukraine and documents indicating whether any United States Armed Forces, including Special Operations Forces, are currently deployed in Ukraine.
So we've seen conflicting news reports about this.
We've seen news reports that have not paired neatly with the That debate went on in the House Foreign Affairs Committee,
and you're about to hear from some of my colleagues, Kathy Manning, Jerry Connolly, Corey Mills, and Daryl Issa.
Those are the members of Congress you're about to hear from if you are listening.
And you know what?
If you're listening, this is a good time to go ahead and give us a five-star rating.
But this was the debate on the Ukraine Resolution of Inquiry.
Take a listen.
I now call up House Resolution 300, a resolution of inquiry requesting that the President and directing the Secretary of Defense to transmit respectively to the House of Representatives copies of all documents indicating any plans for current or future military assistance to Ukraine and documents indicating whether any United States forces, including Special Operations Forces, are currently in Ukraine.
This political measure from the lead author of the Ukraine fatigue resolution is unnecessarily divisive and plays directly into Vladimir Putin's hands.
By seeking to force the disclosure of all current and future US military plans and documents related to US support to Ukraine, Including sensitive details on the presence of U.S. personnel in Ukraine, the sponsors of this measure played directly into Putin's hands and jeopardized the very lives of those with whom we are standing.
Let me read to you what Mr. Gates has said.
We must suspend all foreign aid for the war in Ukraine and demand that all combatants in this conflict reach a peace agreement immediately.
Apparently Mr. Gates has decided for the Ukrainians what is in their best interest.
And that means that the intent behind this motion is that...
All this is simply saying is, is that they're requesting information if we were to use any type of military force in Ukraine, current or future.
And so, we talk about oversight.
We talk about the ideas of not allowing continual mission creep, which I've been a part of, given the fact that I spent over seven years of my life in Iraq, over three years of my life in Afghanistan, Kosovo, Pakistan, northern Somalia, been blown up twice.
I can tell you, mission creep is something that does exist, and in many cases, the authorities, which Congress has under Article I, has sometimes surpassed, Because of the past AUMFs like 0102, but I would again just make the note that this is not preventing support to Ukraine.
This is not empowering Putin.
This is simply an inquiry.
for oversight by the President or I should say request by Congress for the President and the Secretary of Defense to provide a line of questioning or a reasonable amount of information on if we're deploying currently or in the future military forces.
This oversight is vital and must continue.
This committee is dedicated To the constant both public and private oversight of our monitoring of every single dollar and every weapon system.
U.S. support is enduring, but it is not without the strings of accountability.
The resolution of inquiry requests the administration to transmit relevant documents related to U.S. security assistance for Ukraine as well as United States Armed Forces in country.
The American taxpayer deserves to know how U.S. assistance is being spent.
I move that the committee report House Resolution 300 to the House with a favorable recommendation.
We are back live and that favorable recommendation was adopted.
Thank you.
That was Congressman Darrell Issa of California.
And even though Daryl and I probably don't share precisely the same view on Ukraine and the extent to which the U.S. should be involved at all, I'm glad that he sees the importance for the taxpayer to get the answers to these questions about the planning and the cost and the strategy and the troops. I'm glad that he sees the importance for the taxpayer Thank you, Congressman Issa.
And couldn't you tell from that video how much it just triggers Democrats that I'm the sponsor of the resolution?
You heard Congressman Issa and Congressman Mills speak to the substance of the resolution, what its operative effects are.
But what did you hear from Jerry Connolly and Representative Manning?
Oh, can you believe what Matt Gaetz has said?
He doesn't believe the United States should be in Ukraine.
So any question that Matt Gaetz asks about our troops or the cost or the strategy, it must all be for Vladimir Putin.
It is crazy to watch people who are elected to be the representatives of the United States behave more like lawmakers from Kyiv.
What about our country?
Our needs?
You know what?
You see it in the live stream.
Almost universal support for my Ukraine fatigue resolution on Getter, Tinkerbell, saying we got our own problems here at home that we should focus on.
And Patricia on Facebook says no more money for Ukraine.
Thank you for that feedback.
I will still fight for this country, and it is very telling who seems to put the foreign interests abroad first.
Now, one thing we can do for this country is ensure that we own our own innovation ecosystem and that it is not stolen from us and then replicated abroad, replacing the market space that should be dominated by our countrymen, by our businesses.
And we can dominate the world if American innovation is unleashed and then vigorously defended.
And that's actually something I don't think Congress has been serious enough about.
Look at what happened with solar.
Solar was a universally American enterprise.
A lot of that was here in this country and then the Chinese stole the tech, mass produced it overseas, and are now Totally replacing U.S. solar in the global marketplace, even in the marketplace here at home.
That's like your neighbor having the nerve to steal your sweater and then wear it in front of you.
That's how brazen the Chinese are and it's because we're not serious about protecting our intellectual property and that's not just going to foreign jurisdictions and foreign courts.
It also means protecting our intellectual property with tariffs on what they are sending us If it is ill-gotten.
And so we have legislation before the House of Representatives today regarding the trade policy we would have towards solar and particularly the solar that is coming in from places where we believe Americans were not put first and we believe in America first foreign policy.
So this was the bill that passed today.
I'm going to start by showing you the debate in favor of Of those tariffs.
And that's how I voted.
And this debate is led by Ways and Means Chairman Jason Smith, Congressman Greg Murphy, Congresswoman Claudia Tenney, Congressman Bob Latta, and Florida Man Congressman Bill Posey.
Take a listen.
The legislation before us today, House Joint Resolution 39 Congressional Review Act legislation on solar tariffs, will stop President Biden's proclamation that has given a free pass for two years to unfair solar imports from China that circumvent our trade laws.
The United States must maintain crucial protections for American workers and our economy as a whole.
We cannot surrender to China or any other country and put American workers at a disadvantage.
I asked for unanimous consent to submit for the record a statement from the Uyghur Human Rights Project in support of HJ Res 39. The statement highlights the close connection This is bipartisan consensus that these practices are unacceptable and must be stopped.
Without objection, so ordered.
In pursuit of everything green, the Biden administration has given a free pass for Chinese solar imports to flow into this country by all means using an emergency proclamation.
The last time a president used an emergency proclamation was for lumber in 1946 when American World War II veterans were returning home and they needed homes.
But today, President Biden, or whoever's running the White House, is using it to waive tariffs on Chinese solar panels coming from Cambodia, Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam for two years.
Helping war heroes is an emergency.
But speeding up total dependence on our greatest adversary is another.
President Biden's irresponsible proclamation is a slap in the face to American manufacturers.
It allows Chinese solar companies to flood our market with their products tariff-free, hurting American jobs.
It is the Green New Deal agenda at work.
President Biden's proclamation also sends the message to trade cheats everywhere that U.S. trade laws don't matter.
This invites even more cheating, and this is only the tip of the spear of the dangerous Green New Deal agenda.
We are a nation of laws.
It is not up to the President to determine which laws to enforce and which laws to ignore if they don't conform to that President's particular agenda.
If we allow Communist China to blatantly violate our trade laws with impunity, as the Commerce Department has concluded is occurring, how can we expect other nations to follow those laws and conduct business with us in a fair manner?
How good is this resolution?
As if the facts are not clear enough already, keep this in mind.
This is a policy that President Obama and President Trump both agreed on.
I know that's hard to believe, but you heard that right.
It's a policy that President Obama and President Trump both agreed on.
We are back live, so that set up the debate in favor of this that ultimately passed.
But you also deserve to know which members of Congress took the pro-China side of this debate, the anti-American energy, anti-American innovation side.
You're going to hear from Congressman Thompson, Congressman Don Beyer, Congressman Lloyd Doggett, Congressman Jimmy Panetta, Congressman Earl Blumenauer, all Democrats.
And if you're watching, and if you're subscribed on Rumble, and if you have your notifications turned on, which means clicking that little bell if you're watching on YouTube or Rumble, if that is how you are consuming this show, this show, you are going to get a special treat because Earl Blumenauer was wearing one of the strangest bow ties I've ever seen on the house floor today.
Watch the clip and enjoy.
Bye.
If this legislation were to become law, it would cost not create American jobs.
And in the long run, it would make it harder, not easier, for our country to become energy independent.
This bill would make it impossible to deploy solar energy quickly enough here in our country, here in the United States of America.
It will hurt the 33,000 American solar installers who will lose their jobs.
It will raise energy costs for families everywhere, but especially in this unbuilt.
It will hurt all Americans who hope to use the solar tax credit.
And it will hurt the energy companies, the businesses who built major solar installations in the last eight months, who will be subject to a retroactive tariff of 254 percent.
And it will harm our endangered planet.
It will handcuff us in our fight against climate change.
In Texas, we are already number two in the country among the states for solar capacity, creating thousands of new jobs in providing clean energy and lower energy bills to thousands of families.
Austinites know that solar power saves them on their energy bills and saves them when storms disrupt the grid.
Now of course we want to strategically decouple from China, I believe, especially with their solar pieces, parts, and equipment.
However, American solar companies need more time to adapt, to adjust, and to reduce Chinese inputs and solar panels.
I also realize that we need to do more to bolster our domestic solar manufacturing.
But that's why we recently made significant investments for domestic credits.
However, if we allow these retroactive tariffs to take place now, it would deprive our solar industry of the incentive to invest in our manufacturing projects at home.
What is being missed here is the reality that we are dependent on a supply chain in which China plays a key role.
We don't like it.
My Republican friends don't like it.
Unfortunately, they have undermined efforts that we have to try and reposition the supply chain.
The energy proposals that we have offered up are an opportunity to grow and strengthen America's capacity.
Just yesterday, they would repeal a number of those provisions.
Their proposal would impose over a billion dollars of retroactive tariffs on our solar industry at a time when we're trying to grow it.
We want to give the industry time to reorient the supply chain.
That takes time.
The reality is, in the past, we've allowed China to have a dominant position.
We don't want that.
We've offered up a variety of proposals that would strengthen, incentivize American business.
But this proposal, if enacted, would punish American workers, would punish American business, and set us back on our climate goals.
We are back live.
Can you hear in their voices just sometimes how compromised they are when they talk about the need to reorient the supply chain, but slowly, not too quickly, not in a way that would disrupt anything?
Just enough time, I guess, for China to come and buy our farmland and our factories.
Oh, and by the way, they're controlling the rare earth minerals that go into the production of so many of the things we need, especially battery technology, which is the essential feature of a solar system that allows you to actually use the energy in a reliable way.
Yeah, that's coming from a series of mines all over the world that China is controlling.
Keep that in mind.
So Sarah on Facebook says we've got to stop China from eating our lunch.
And yeah, when you let someone steal your stuff and then replicate it for cheap and then go and drive you out, that's the definition of eating our lunch at the global economic trade table.
Olga on Facebook says she's worried that we are starting to have a communist government.
Let's hope not.
We know how that ends and it's very ugly.
James on Getter says, Representative Gates, stand up for the Second Amendment.
James, my advice to you, go back and watch our last episode where we took the ATF director to task and we are working on legislation right now to really go after the ATF. I think they should be entirely abolished.
We're going to start targeting the specific bureaucrats who have exceeded their lawful authority and have weaponized this agency against gun owners.
Thank you for having an interest in it.
It is something we work on each and every day.
Thanks to everyone who participated in the live stream in today's show.
Thank you for your questions, thoughts, and suggestions.
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Roll the credits.
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