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May 9, 2023 - Firebrand - Matt Gaetz
34:26
Episode 104 LIVE: Homeland Insecurity (feat. Rep. Andy Biggs) – Firebrand with Matt Gaetz
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Thank you.
him can battle congressman 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?
Like a machine, Matt Gaetz.
I'm a canceled man in some corners of the internet.
Many days I'm a marked man in Congress, a wanted man by the deep state.
They aren't really coming for me.
They're coming for you.
I'm just in the way.
Welcome back to Firebrand.
We're broadcasting live out of room 2021 of the Rayburn House Office Building here on the Capitol Complex in Washington, D.C. And we are in the crucible.
We've got debt limit negotiations between Speaker McCarthy and President Biden starting in just hours.
My colleague Andy Biggs is here to break down how we see the debt limit, a little different than a lot of other Republicans.
Also, Title 42 going away.
We're getting real-time information from communities on the border, from Border Patrol agents, and there is a whole lot of signal coming out of the Biden administration.
Andy is one of the principal architects of the legislation the House of Representatives will be voting on this week to lay out our plan, our agenda, and certainly to restore the rule of law and our border.
Secretary of State Blinken in a little bit of trouble.
We're going to go over some challenges he's been having with politicizing intelligence, something we're always against.
And I wish I didn't have to do a military wokeness segment on every show, but we'll have one at the end.
So thanks for joining right now.
We've got folks from the state of Florida all the way to Washington State offering their comments on Getter.
We have someone from Texas says they're weary and waiting, Congressman Biggs.
Weary and waiting in Texas.
Should they be?
Yeah, you better watch out.
El Paso mayor has already declared an emergency, state of emergency there.
Title 42 is going away, but hundreds of thousands of people across the border waiting to come in.
The cartel is going to flood the zone.
You got DHS telling them, hey...
Don't come to El Paso because that's where we're going to do our operation to slow things down.
That means the other eight sectors just go anywhere there because we're going to have fewer people there.
That's the kind of DHS you have.
People need to understand this.
This is how you know that it's on purpose.
There are nine sectors on the border.
Congressman Biggs represents Arizona.
He's regularly brought members of Congress.
Offered to both parties, but only Republicans take him up on it usually.
Go down to the border, see these nine sectors.
So what has the Biden administration done?
They are surging force protection in just one of the nine, and you're getting feedback from folks in these other eight sectors saying, you know what, I wish they wouldn't have done anything because what they've done is they've gaslit a yellow brick road for the cartels to do their worst.
Yeah, that's exactly right.
Look, even the Border Patrol Agents Union knows this and has come out condemning Mayorkas for broadcasting to the cartels.
Essentially, the safe havens are everywhere else on the border.
It's absolutely ludicrous.
And you know what?
When you're in Texas, if you're in El Paso, they've already declared a state of emergency.
It's going to get overrun, but there's going to be a lot of federal assets there.
But not so much if you're in Yuma, Arizona, or a NACO, or Douglas, or if you're in McAllen, or if you're in even San Diego.
That's what you get.
Yeah, a lot of questions about what the state of Arizona is doing.
David on Facebook wants to know, can the state of Arizona do anything to prepare for this tidal wave?
Yeah, absolutely, except for we have a bad governor who is not only not prepared for the tidal wave, she's facilitated.
Remember, Matt, you've been down there.
You've seen the cargo containers used as fence.
She had those taken down.
So she's actually tearing down wall structure.
I mean, not the wall like we typically think, but a physical barrier that was actually putting some downward pressure on the flow.
She went and ripped it up.
Yeah, she took it out.
She also got rid of the DPS border, whatever they called their border security unit task force is what they called it.
They got rid of the border task force.
She's basically done everything she can to make Arizona less secure.
Geez.
Well, I was on Newsmax, the Right Squad, a new program they have at 9 o'clock, and Democrat political consultant Jason Nichols says, the border's closed.
Lay the cliff.
I think it's interesting.
We do have an issue on our border.
There's no question about that, but we need to be honest about what's actually happening right now.
As Title 42, which was a public health determination that was supposed to protect us during the COVID issue that we were having, and that was a global issue.
Right now, the border is basically closed.
You cannot get in right now.
What they've done is, if you...
Let me finish before interrupting.
What they've done is they've created this app where you can apply to get in, and you must look for asylum in countries before you actually get to the United States.
So that is actually the policy that's going on.
If you cross the border, there are going to be actual consequences, criminal consequences, for crossing the border, and those are the rules that are going to come.
This is not a problem that we're unable to solve.
There is no plan to deport the people of active deportation orders.
We have our bill that is up this month.
In the coming weeks, we'll pass it out of the House of Representatives.
Sorry for the crosstalk there.
We're still getting our rhythm down.
But Andy, shouldn't we be happy the border's been secured by an app?
Yeah, I mean, what a crock.
It's like saying we're sending 1,500 soldiers down.
So you've got these two narrative changers that they hope will change the narrative.
The app, just so you know, it's basically a pre-registration to be released more efficiently, more quickly into the United States.
And it's applying primarily to four countries that they're going to give 30,000 programs Paroles every month to in violation of our law.
That's what they're going to do, and those people are going to get a piece of paper.
They're going to be expedited, released into the country.
They're going to have two years to work with this document.
That ain't securing the border.
That's providing the incentive for more people to come.
Yeah, I wonder what the terms of service will be on the app.
Because maybe that'll mean more to people than the fact that they're breaking our law.
They are committing the criminal offense of unlawful entry when they come here.
But those are the discussions we are having in Washington.
We have a plan.
The Democrats' plan is to use an app as really a ticket master into the country.
But I do want to get to the Republican plan.
One of the key features is E-Verify.
Congressman Biggs, recently in the House Judiciary Committee, spoke to that.
Take a listen.
We've had E-Verify for every employer in the state since December 31st, 2007. 16 years.
And you know what?
Arizona's had one of the most vibrant, healthy economies in the country.
90% of the leafy green vegetables that you eat for seven months out of the year come from Yuma County, Arizona, and the growers who were scared to death that E-Verify was going to emasculate their ability to make a profit and survive now deal quite comfortably with E-Verify.
Because to actually run someone through an E-Verify system is a matter of seconds.
The bottom line is the E-Verify program in Arizona works, Our economy has not folded.
We've managed to continue to have a very huge impact on America's leafy greens.
Eat a salad, a mixed green salad, for seven, eight months out of the year.
It's coming from Arizona.
E-Verify is a unidirectional issue.
There's not a single jurisdiction that has adopted E-Verify and then subsequently repealed it.
Because as Congressman Biggs just pointed out there, it works.
Got a question from Getter, a question about how much big business is paying to try to block some of the immigration enforcement and border security measures that you and I support.
Well, I'm not seeing any direct, but what I would tell you is you've got groups and organizations that want to affect E-Verify, for instance.
They want to affect cheap labor.
They want the cheap labor.
There are groups in Washington that are set up as these white hat pro-business groups, when in reality, what they really want is to drive down wages and have people in our country illegally.
Yeah, that's exactly right.
And that's where we're seeing it.
We're not seeing direct, but you'll see it.
Look at your representative from Congress.
Check out who's donating to them, because that might give you an indication.
Always follow the money.
And they're attacking this bill.
And by the way, they're attacking the E-Verify portion of our bill as you and I sit here having this discussion today.
Yeah.
Well, I'm glad you defended it.
You laid out the case where even the growers, the farmers who are typically put out as the great opponents to E-Verify, you were pointing out how many had thrived.
And when you and I met with growers in Yuma, Arizona, they weren't worried about E-Verify.
They were worried about The contamination to their fields.
That was the real loss to them.
Now, there is a libertarian critique of the E-Verify system.
We've heard our colleague Thomas Massey recently put out that he's not going to be supportive of the overall bill if it includes E-Verify.
How would you respond to that criticism that government list building is bad?
I don't disagree with his notion.
And in fact, I was skeptical of that in Arizona when it first came about, because I was a policymaker then.
But I will just tell you, at some point you have to have the rule of law enforced.
And...
When you don't have the rule of law, you cannot have freedom.
You can't have a libertarian point of view.
And right now, we have no rule of law.
It's time to get hold of the rule of law.
How many votes do you think we'll get for this E-Verify bill that you've been a big part of putting together?
Not just E-Verify, the whole border security package.
Well, the whole border security package, it's going to be probably about 218. I think it's going to be right at the cusp.
218, 218. Right there.
I do.
I'll be voting for it.
So will you.
HR2 coming out of the House of Representatives this week.
Andy Biggs, one of the principal architects.
But, you know, I got a call.
Yesterday from our colleague Marjorie Taylor Greene, and she was so mad about this, these waves of people that are lining up to come in the country, and she said, Matt, why aren't you guys impeaching Mayorkas and the Judiciary Committee?
You know, and she was upset and frustrated that there had not been sufficient progress on that, and I had to tell her quite candidly that I don't think we have the votes in the Judiciary Committee to pass an impeachment.
Do you read it differently?
I mean, you have called for the impeachment of Mayorkas.
You've worked to build a political coalition, but it's certainly not a majority in the House of Representatives right now.
It might not even be a majority on the Judiciary Committee.
It's not a majority in the Judiciary Committee.
It's a majority of Republicans But that keeps us a plurality.
We need really every Republican on that Judiciary Committee to come around, but we don't have some, and there are some that I don't think will ever get there, because they view it as a political process.
And some of them have told me, well, we should be impeaching Biden.
I said, okay, we already have those articles.
Sign on!
Well, I mean, my point is, if you aren't willing to impeach Mayorkas for this...
Is the tool even accessible to a House of Representatives?
And maybe with this majority being the size it is, it isn't.
I do want to also reflect on the size of the majority in the context of these debt limit negotiations.
So I'm going to posit a hypothesis to you, and you're going to tell me if this is what's going to happen or what's not going to happen.
And everybody watching right now, save this clip, okay?
Okay.
The Senate is going to do everything they can to delay.
They're going to beat up the House plan, talk about how the House plan, that by the way neither of us voted for, is sending the widows and the orphans out in the streets, abandoning veterans, all kind of lies about the House plan.
And then, at the very end, there's going to be some veneer of, oh, well, we'll do spending cuts later, or we'll, you know, acknowledge a commission to look at the overall drivers of our debt, and the deal will be HR1, the house energy bill, which I don't oppose, but it'll be that in exchange for a clean or almost entirely clean increase in the debt limit.
Do you think that's going to happen or not?
I think you're right.
And if the Senate goes the way I think it goes, we'll be lucky to get H.R.1.
Do you think the final deal could be a clean debt limit?
It could be a clean debt limit.
I mean, they'll have to do some face-saving, but they want to do the least amount of face-saving that they need to do.
So I'm talking about for the Mitt Romneys and the Susan Collins and those guys.
What they're going to do is, if they can...
They want to do a clean debt ceiling with the promise of a commission to study.
Off to committee land.
Everybody knows that that's just a joke.
That's a way to try to fool the public about your sincere intentions for the country.
Yeah, and that's right.
I think even our House plan was...
I don't doubt the sincerity of everybody who's there.
I agree with the sincerity.
I think it was not a bad plan, but it was incremental.
And right now the ship is totally aground.
And we don't have time to be incremental.
We actually could bend the curve back down and go to 2019 spending levels.
And guess what?
We would actually not need to raise the debt ceiling at all.
But I'm just saying that's me.
That's just me.
Yeah, but see, I don't think the country has been told that story with that mathematical support.
Because all you hear on the mainstream media is that it's two options.
Raise the debt limit or plummet the global economy into catastrophe.
And there's actually a third option, which is to engage in deep vertical cuts.
I mean, you acknowledge that even in the legislation that you put together to not have to raise the debt limit, there are agencies that see 40% cuts, deeper cuts, foreign aid.
You take a meat cleaver to foreign aid.
But when the ship is aground, I think that's what you have to do.
Yeah, I mean, think about it.
We didn't even get an elimination of our participation in the World Health Organization.
We didn't even stop building a three and a half billion dollar FBI new Taj Mahal so they could surveil you and me and Americans.
And instead of getting $80 billion taken out of that IRS deal, we got $71 billion.
What happened to the other $9 billion that the Biden administration funded?
I don't even know.
These weaponized bureaucracies soak up this money like a sponge.
And it really is difficult to repatriate it.
We've got this meeting coming up at 4 o'clock today.
My hypothesis is afterwards McCarthy walks out, says we're still far apart, I believe in cutting spending, and I hope we can continue to talk.
How do you think it'll go?
That's his side, and I think Biden will talk about it.
We're going to keep talking, but we just think those guys are so unreasonable.
I think you've pegged the Speaker right on.
He doesn't have a lot of wiggle room here.
No.
The Speaker moved his plan without our votes.
He moved his plan off.
And if one person who had voted for that, if George Santos had voted no instead of yes, then there would be no Republican debt limit plan because we weren't real excited about raising the debt limit.
But my suspicion is Biden's going to try to run out the clock, Which, you know, you don't really run into a lot of 80-year-old men who are trying to run out the clock.
So it's, I guess...
He's playing with fire there, brother.
In that regard.
Okay, let's go to this breaking story on weaponization that we've learned about in the Judiciary Committee.
This Hunter Biden letter signed by 51 intelligence officials saying that the laptop was disinformation.
We now know, as a result of a Republican majority and our efforts on the House Judiciary Committee, that that was triggered by the current Secretary of State, Tony Blinken.
And the person he triggered to organize it was actually the one in the queue to be CIA Director until Democrat Senator Wyden didn't like some of the stuff that he'd done in yesteryear.
But these were the guys that saw their path to Secretary of State and CIA Director Being linked to the ability to create disinformation around politics.
I wanted your reaction to the trouble Secretary Blinken's in.
I think it's real trouble.
You did a great job describing it.
The way I viewed it is, here you have a guy Who is organizing, spying, and disinformation for political purposes.
And then he's organizing all these people with security clearance.
These guys, a lot of them still have national security clearance, Matt.
And to me, I look at it and say, this is why we can't have nice things.
You've got a guy, and he's basically running us out of town.
And he's doing it for political purposes.
And part of it is because he just wants power.
And when he gets to power, you have seen him.
He's perhaps the worst secretary of state.
And there's a lot of bad ones.
But he is so bad.
And this attack...
This attack by these 51 guys who just made this up, it ripples through.
You got the FBI suppressing that laptop.
And then they're basically given cover over that.
And then I suspect that if you trace this around, you're going to see a tie right into the attempt to impeach Donald Trump over that Ukraine phone call.
I think it all kinds of comes back to the same personnel.
And it is evidenced in the fact that their ideas seem to reemerge even when we try to squelch them and stop them.
Let's find that Boebert tweet if we can and put it up on the screen.
Congresswoman Boebert took note.
This is her tweet.
The Director of National Intelligence has just stated they'll be opening up a new office to oversee, quote, misinformation.
So they'll be trying for the third time to open their Ministry of Truth.
Well, I kind of like the first couple of attempts.
Time to kill this one, too.
She said she killed the first couple of attempts and wants to kill this one, too.
So we would certainly agree with Congresswoman Boebert, but she is highlighting the fact that even when you kill the Ministry of Truth at the Department of Homeland Security, then the Director of National Intelligence tries to reincarnate the enterprise.
Yeah, this is so Orwellian.
I mean, you're just continually fighting the same fight.
It's a Sisyphean type of effort.
We're rolling the rock up, and it keeps rolling back down on us.
And that tells me it's time to blow some of this stuff up.
Which goes back to the debt limit, because guess what?
Guess what?
Raising the debt limit is the fuel...
That propels all of this.
It really is.
Yes.
Well, look, you and I have a mutual friend here.
I love this guy, but he's always saying we need to stop funding the people who are trying to destroy the country.
Well, you know how you do that?
You don't give them a trillion and a half dollars debt ceiling increase.
You just say, no, we're going to go back to spending within our means.
And then we're going to just get rid of programs, eliminate agencies.
There's 1,200 agencies, programs, departments that we haven't even authorized that are receiving $500 billion a year, Matt.
That is insane!
Andy Biggs represents Arizona's 5th District.
Honored to have him here.
Also a musician, and so I did want your take.
Ed Sheeran gets a big win in court.
Turns out the terrific song, Thinking Out Loud, is not a ripoff of Marvin Gaye, Let's Get It On.
Your take.
Yeah, I thought that was the right verdict.
I was following that.
You know, you have four chords.
Each song is a four-chord song, although Ed also has a chorus in his.
The second chord of both I thought was significantly different, not to get into the music theory, but I just think you can't copyright...
A chord progression.
Otherwise, everything's going to be derivative.
Wait until AI can go and align all the chord progressions, and then the AI legal tools go and secure intellectual property rights over it.
There'll be nothing left for the humans.
And we're fast approaching that.
I don't know if you've seen this.
There are a lot of AI songs that are being developed right now.
If we have to submit to our robot overlords, I hope they at least play us good music on the way.
I have got a bone to pick with the five.
The five covered legislation that I've introduced with Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to stop members of Congress from trading individual stocks and see the bizarre way they discussed it.
Play the clip.
I smell a romantic comedy.
A beautiful left-wing communist in Congress, a dashing right-wing male fresh off a wrongful accusation of sexual misconduct.
They come together.
To fight one of the most corrupt practices in politics.
And they fall in love.
They can't help themselves.
She's got a French poodle.
He's got a strange hairline.
But somehow they're going to make it work.
And then they're going to leave politics and start their own business.
It'll be like a bakery.
A bakery.
A vegan bakery.
A vegan bakery for pets.
He's happily married.
No, he's going to leave her.
No, he's not.
He's married!
And don't ruin her!
And she's engaged!
Dude, this is not the worst scandal.
The real scandal is caused by politicians who vote for increased spending and increased printing of money, which is their method of self-preservation, which leads to inflation, which is a tax, expanding the money supply, which makes each single dollar worth less.
So...
We all get screwed because the prices go up instead of down, so it's a double whammy in a capitalist society.
This shouldn't happen.
You shouldn't have massive government spending.
So that's...
Everybody is guilty.
Every time they vote for spending or vote for printing money, they create more inflation.
That's a huge...
What am I doing?
I don't know.
I don't know, but in this story, can I marry them?
Yes, you will be married.
We'll all do cameos.
Well, I feel bad.
We have the number one show.
We should be doing cameos.
That is, in fact, the number one show in all of television.
And I want to thank Jesse Waters at the outset for noting that I am happily married and Jesse knows that because he was actually there with his lovely wife Emma on Ginger and my third date.
So just as we were getting to know one another and falling in love, Jesse was there So I'm glad he had my back in that endeavor.
And it does seem a little childish to me that the media always has to over-sexualize everything that AOC is involved with.
They wouldn't do that to men.
And two people can engage in serious legislation that's not renaming some post office, but trying to make our Congress more honest and more ethical without that type of, I think, very childish and immature commentary.
And then Judge Jeanine!
Judge Jeanine, who starts out saying, I am happily married...
Judge Jeanine, who was sitting at my table at Mar-a-Lago the night I proposed to my wife, by the end of the Greg Gutfeld rant, she's bailed and she's wanting to be the officiant for me in AOC. So shame on you, Judge Jeanine.
You know better than that.
You were there for my engagement.
You actually took the first picture of me and my then-fiancé, now-wife.
So be better.
Or as our lovely former first lady would say, be best.
I also wanted to deal with a military wokeness matter that emerged for us.
You will recall in my questions of the Secretary of Defense, I asked about these drag shows and drag performance, this embrace of drag in DOD. It certainly is very odd.
I wish we weren't talking about those things, but it seems like it's something the military has become low-key obsessed with.
And the Navy even hired one of these drag performers and promoted them as a digital ambassador.
So that you get the context, play the clip.
You know, drag queen story hours is not something that the department funds.
Wait a second.
That's actually not what the record seems to suggest.
You were going to fund one at Ramstein Air Force Base.
That one got cancelled, but that's DOD insignia.
That's a drag queen story hour for children.
I guess my question is, how much taxpayer money should go to fund drag queen story hours on military bases?
Listen, drag shows are not something that the Department of Defense supports or funds.
Active duty yeoman second class Joshua Kelly doubles as drag queen Harpy Daniels and now is the face of the Navy's recruitment drive as a digital ambassador.
I have a lot of sailors on here, including high-ranking people, including chiefs and people who are within the DOD and DON who do follow me.
So at this point, I'm going to call you out because I'm not here with the harass and I'm not here with the BS. I've already let my command know who you are.
Anybody who decides to harass me online, I let them know.
Do it.
I just showed you the evidence.
Why are they happening?
I will say again, this is not something that we support or fund.
Can we skip to the good part?
We are back live and China and Russia are laughing at us.
Mr. Pitter on Rumble says, Greg Gutfeld is not funny.
A view held by many of you watching now.
Andy, what is going on with our military?
Our military has been taken over by some of the wokest incompetents I've seen in the history of the United States.
You got Milley, you got Austin.
These are the same guys who orchestrated the failed Afghanistan retreat.
But they're also imposing this woke...
They've also tried to impose ESG and DEI on military contractors.
You cannot say that the left hasn't taken over every institution when you see how much they've taken over the military.
And you're right.
All you have to do is compare a recruiting ad of Russia Just take a look at how they recruit.
Take a look at a recruiting ad in China and compare it to what you just saw and say, oh, yeah, they're the real world, we're not.
And that's the problem that we have is the whole Biden regime on every issue, they're in some la-la land, while the rest of the real world has to deal with the fallout from that because there are real people, real bad actors, there are real adversaries, real opponents, And we're not prepared for them, whether it's a narco-terrorist cartel, or it's China, or it's Russia, or any other potential adversary.
A lot going on right now from the debt limit to the border to the military.
We will bring you all that information here on Firebrand.
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Thanks so much for joining me, Congressman Biggs.
You do a great job representing Arizona.
Proud to call you my friend.
Yeah, you're my good buddy, too.
Thanks.
Thanks, Matt.
Roll the credits.
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