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Oct. 13, 2023 - Firebrand - Matt Gaetz
39:19
Episode 120 LIVE: Speaker-Designate Jim Jordan – Firebrand with Matt Gaetz
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Thank you.
Matt Gaetz, the biggest firebrand inside of the House of Representatives.
You're not taking Matt Gaetz off the board, okay?
Because Matt Gaetz is an American patriot and Matt Gaetz is an American hero.
We will not continue to allow the Uniparty to run this town without a fight.
I want to thank you, Matt Gaetz, for holding the line.
Matt Gaetz is a courageous man.
If we had hundreds of Matt Gaetz in D.C., the country turns around.
It's that simple.
He's so tough, he's so strong, he's smart, and he loves this country.
Matt Gaetz.
It is the honor of my life to fight alongside each and every one of you.
We will save America!
It's choose your fighter time!
I'm sending the Firebrands.
Welcome back to Firebrands.
We are live and we are excited.
Simulcast streaming from Room 2021 of the Rayburn House Office Building here in the Capitol Complex on Washington, D.C., where we have been working to uproot the Uniparty, to squash the hopes of the special interests and lobbyists who run this town, and to put somebody in the chair for Speaker of the House who will deliver for the American people.
An America First agenda.
A rigorous oversight agenda.
And a plan on budgeting that ultimately can get us liberated from smushing everything together and on to single subject spending bills.
That is what we've been fighting for.
And frankly, Kevin McCarthy is who we've been fighting against for nine months.
His tenure as speaker is over.
And now we have the opportunity.
We're not there yet.
I'm going to walk you through all of it.
Still a lot of work to do.
Do not uncork the champagne.
But we have an opportunity, greater than ever before, to elect Congressman Jim Jordan of Ohio, Speaker of the House.
Just moments ago, in the House Republican Caucus, there was an election that occurred between Jim Jordan of Ohio and Austin Scott of Georgia.
They both did a great job in the candidate forum, and at the end of that, Jim Jordan got the most votes.
And Austin Scott, someone who's been very critical of me, who doesn't hold my view on every subject, was a complete class act.
He stood up immediately.
He endorsed Jim Jordan.
He asked the hundred or so members who'd voted for him to vote for Jim Jordan.
We had a subsequent vote where it was simply a question of acclaim to accept the will of the Republican Conference to make Jim Jordan the Speaker of the House.
And we're not there yet.
We're actually 55 votes short.
Even after Austin Scott of Georgia dropped out and endorsed Jim Jordan, there are 55 Republicans, and we don't know who all of them are, though we know some and we're going to talk about them, 55 Republicans saying that they will refuse to vote for Jim Jordan on the floor of the House of Representatives.
Here's my take.
Other than Donald Trump, Jim Jordan is the most popular Republican in America.
And I know what it takes to stand on that floor and to stand on principle and to vote against the Republican nominee.
I know the pressures that puts on.
I know how hard it is to hold a coalition together like that.
And it is not as easy said as it is done.
And so if we've got some moderate, squish, weak Republicans who will not vote for Jim Jordan...
They shouldn't be able to do that in some closed-door room in the basement of the Capitol.
We should be having public votes on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives as many times as it takes to elect Jim Jordan Speaker of the House.
And if these no-name, no-nothing members want to stand up and oppose Jim Jordan, my sense is that they're going to hear a lot from their Republican constituents who know Jim Jordan to be a good man and a fighter.
And a hero for the Republican cause.
I am so excited to go to that floor again and cast my vote for Jim Jordan.
We showed you in our last episode my nominating speech for Jim Jordan.
I believe Jim Jordan should have done it all along.
But we are at this moment now.
And he truly may be the last best hope to save this country and to bring our Republican majority into the posture of a fighting force.
I want to address some of the criticism.
Folks have said, oh, Matt Gaetz, you had no plan.
This was the plan.
Upgrade the position of Speaker of the House.
And by the way, I was so confident in the plan because there are so many options better than Kevin McCarthy.
Scalise would have been better than Kevin McCarthy.
A lot of people would be better than Kevin McCarthy.
But Jim Jordan represents a monumental upgrade.
One that I know...
Republican activists, conservatives, really Americans of all stripes should be very, very excited about.
But we've got work to do, and it's important to go into why there are 55 Republicans who don't want to vote for Jim Jordan.
Some are trying to keep their intentions clandestine, hidden.
Maybe they're working for A promotion in their committee assignment.
Maybe they want a leadership post.
Maybe they want some other feature of the kind of tapestries of public service that aren't sought by many but may be sought by some.
One member, Representative John Rutherford of Florida, said just moments ago publicly that he will not vote for Jim Jordan on the floor because he's angry with me.
Take a listen.
What do you need?
Oh yeah, so tell me where you are on Jim Jordan right now.
Okay, where I'm at right now is I'm, since the folks that want to follow the majority, which is the rule, we should follow the majority.
Kevin McCarthy had 96%.
4% took him out, joining with the Democrats.
Now we're in conference where the Democrats don't get the vote.
And I'm back with Kevin McCarthy.
Since he, out of all of the folks that have thrown their hat in the ring, he is head and shoulders above the rest in the majority that he's able to put together.
It was 96%.
And you're a no on Jordan on the floor right now.
I'm a no on allowing Matt Gaetz in the other seven to win by putting their individual in as speaker.
I've known John Rutherford for a long time.
I've known him to be a good man.
I've known him to be a man of patience, of good sensibility.
I know him to be a person who cares deeply about public service.
He was the sheriff in Duval County prior to being elected to Congress.
And in that role, I worked with him very closely because I had previously chaired the Criminal Justice Subcommittee of the Florida House of Representatives.
I know him to be a better person than what you just saw.
Because what you just saw from Congressman John Rutherford was selfish and bad for the country and childish.
It is beyond any type of rational explanation to say that because he's got a problem with me, he's not going to vote for Jim Jordan.
I'm not running for Speaker of the House.
And true public servants...
Would not use Jim Jordan as their whipping boy because they're mad at me for removing Kevin McCarthy.
We had nine months of the Kevin McCarthy experience.
It wasn't going anywhere.
Our budgeting process was a mess.
We hadn't even sent a subpoena to Hunter Biden.
And Kevin McCarthy could no longer be trusted because he had made multiple contradictory promises that he never intended to keep and couldn't possibly keep.
Those things don't infect a Jim Jordan speakership.
And John Rutherford should reconsider.
I know there are many Floridians who watch this program, and I would encourage you in the most polite and respectful way to find Congressman Rutherford's social media accounts and lay out why you believe he ought to be with the team, be with the Republicans, and be with Jim Jordan.
I hope you'll call his congressional office not to badger or to be crude in any way, But to help a good man like John Rutherford understand why supporting another good man, Jim Jordan, is the right choice.
There's also a fallacy in this 96% argument.
I've heard this before.
96% support Kevin McCarthy.
That fiction was burst in our Republican conference meeting by Kevin McCarthy.
You see, there was an effort by California Congressman Tom McClintock to deem the removal of Kevin McCarthy null and void, to sanction and condemn the folks who voted with me to remove Kevin McCarthy, and then to reinstate him as Speaker of the House.
And when Congressman McClintock made that motion, Kevin McCarthy stood up before the body and he said, you all need to know that it's not just eight who are against me.
Kevin McCarthy, to his credit, had the self-awareness to acknowledge that while eight did what had to be done in voting against him on the floor, the hard eight, that there are many others who would never vote for Kevin McCarthy again.
Now you may ask, why is that the case?
How come they didn't vote against him the time before?
Political courage is not exactly in abundance in this town.
I think a lot of you know that.
And once people saw that McCarthy was going to be removed, there were plenty who said, well, he's gone anyway.
I don't want my fingerprints on the political murder weapon, and so I will simply allow him to be removed in the absence of my vote to do it.
Some people did that out of comity.
Some people did that out of personal friendship with Kevin, even though they knew he had failed.
And a number of them did it.
Because while Kevin McCarthy has never been particularly popular with our party's activists, he certainly was popular with many of the special interest donors.
And if you want to keep a good relationship with the special interest donors, why vote against McCarthy if you don't have to in order to remove him?
So it's a little inside baseball bringing you in the room.
You should never believe the argument that 96% were ever...
For Kevin McCarthy, upon my motion to vacate, they were just willing to hide in the bushes as the hard eight did what had to be done.
And some of the people who didn't vote with us have heard a lot from their constituents about how popular removing McCarthy was, and there are some who regret the fact that they weren't with me.
And I know that because many of them have called me and said it to me in private.
And I will keep their confidence, but I also know we did the right thing and we are on the right path with Jim Jordan.
Matter of fact, I've known it for a while.
You see, back in 2021, the 14th episode of Firebrand was entitled Speaker Jordan, and I laid out the case with him that his vision and his trust factor would likely contribute to a very productive speakership if he chose to pursue the gavel.
Now, ultimately, he didn't, but see if you can catch any tells in the From episode 14 in November of 2021, Matt Gaetz and Jim Jordan, take a listen.
Is one reason people need to read, do what you said you would do, because you're going to be Speaker of the House one day, Jim?
No, I'm not.
I want to be chair of the Judiciary Committee, Matt Gaetz chair in one of the subcommittees, whichever one he wants.
I want to fight for the things I think the American people sent us here to fight for.
And first and foremost is their rights.
I mean, what's happened to Americans?
I mean, I remember in Florida with you and Ron DeSantis going from small town to small town in my district, you didn't have a speaker campaign with a great deal of corporate infrastructure, but people showed up with homemade signs.
And I'm going to put them on the screen.
They brought their homemade signs that said, Speaker Jordan.
I don't like that.
And I've never seen people react to a leadership race in our country the way they did that.
That was such a fun trip.
What was the day you realized you didn't want to be speaker anymore after that?
I never really did want to be speaker.
We just sort of had to run at that time.
But I still remember that was such a fun trip.
You had to run at that time.
Yeah, I don't want to run.
I didn't want to do it.
Didn't you know then?
I mean, you can look at...
I am pressing my dear friend Jim Jordan in that clip because I know he knows he's the man.
And sometimes we're called for jobs that we don't pursue or we don't want because you get the right person with the right skills and there is divine providence in all of this.
But if you notice there, I'm pressing Jordan and he's saying he doesn't want it as he's kind of looking down and looking away because he is so humble.
And so kind and so self-effacing.
I mean, you even look at that question and answer.
I'm asking a popular politician about their own political ambitions.
And he pivots it around to talk about what he wants to do to empower me.
That is the kind of guy Jim Jordan is.
If Jim Jordan were a basketball player, he's a wrestler, not a basketball player, but he'd be the guy on the team that didn't lead in scoring but led in assists because he's willing to dish the ball to someone else for them to be able to score, for them to be in a position to be successful.
It's one of my favorite clips, one of my favorite episodes that we've done in Firebrand, and certainly Jim Jordan is one of my favorite congressmen.
And one of your favorites as well, Joe on Facebook, says Jim Jordan's the man.
Benji, South Dakota, would love a speaker, Jim Jordan.
On Getter, Patricia says it's not about the speaker to her.
She wants no omnibus bills, no CRs.
And Holly on Facebook saying eight is enough.
John on Facebook, Jim Jordan is the person.
Oh wait, we got another one here.
On Rumble, There's a concern that Paul Ryan might return.
I promise you, we will not make Paul Ryan Speaker of the House again.
Just like Kevin McCarthy, we've seen enough of that particular brand of failure.
And we want to move away from the American Enterprise Institute vision of conservative public policy and toward the America First vision for public policy.
That's what I represent.
It's what President Trump represents.
And undeniably, it is what Jim Jordan represents.
The one thing I'll miss, though, if Jim's speaker, are these electric moments in committee where he is able to display a skill set that I admire, that admittedly I try to replicate.
One of my favorites, Jim Jordan torching Dr. Fauci.
Take a listen.
Dr. Fauci, over the last year, Americans' First Amendment rights have been completely attacked.
Your right to go to church, your right to assemble, your right to petition your government, freedom of the press, freedom of speech, have all been assaulted.
For a year now, Americans haven't been able to go to church.
Even today, when they go to church, they're limited in the size of worshipers who can meet.
Your right to assemble?
Oh my goodness.
We had a curfew last fall in Ohio.
You had to be in your home at 10. In Pennsylvania, you had to be in your home.
When you're in your home, you had to wear a mask.
In Vermont, when you're in your home, you didn't have to wear a mask, Dr. Fauci, because you weren't allowed to have people over to your house.
Yeah, Congressman Jordan.
Your ability to petition your government?
For a year, American citizens haven't been able to come to their capital to petition their government.
To talk to their representatives and freedom of the press.
These very pictures that Representative Scalise just showed you and talked about, guess what?
The press isn't allowed in those facilities.
The Biden administration will not let the press in there.
And certainly freedom of speech.
I mean, the governor of our third largest state meets with physicians and that video is censored because they dare to disagree with Dr. Fauci?
So I just want to know when do Americans get their First Amendment liberties back?
We're back live.
That was Jim Jordan showing some of the best skills in the House of Representatives questioning Dr. Fauci.
And you are asking about the mask at that time in the House of Representatives.
You were not even allowed to be recognized.
You surrendered your questioning if you did not wear a mask.
But I love the subtle act of defiance for Jim Jordan not pulling it over the nose.
He never pulled it over the nose.
Maybe that was a little bit of mask resistance.
There also is concern about the J6 tapes.
Julia just raised this point on Getter.
Is Jim Jordan going to be there to get these J6 tapes released?
That is something we still need to work on.
I plan to have a conversation with him about it, but...
With Jim Jordan, you're going to know where you stand.
With McCarthy, he made a promise.
He was derelict in the promise on the J6 tapes.
And you just can't have that.
I want to see the J6 tapes released.
And a release does not mean some curated hour at a terminal for a few television producers.
I'm glad Tucker and his team got to look at those tapes.
Jacob Chansley would be in a prison cell rotting right now.
If that had not occurred, we have to acknowledge that.
But it is not enough, and it is not what was promised.
And I'm hoping to speak with Speaker Designate Jordan about the importance of a timetable for the release of this information.
And I see no basis for delay.
None at all.
I think it would be a terrific thing to get that subpoena for Hunter Biden out in the first week of Jordan and to get these J6 tapes released at the outset of the Jordan speakership.
So thank you, Julia, for raising that important point.
One of the other great Jordan moments, his questioning of Robert Mueller.
Take a listen.
When the FBI interviewed him in February...
FBI interviews him in February when the special counsel's office interviewed Mifsud.
Did he lie to you guys too?
Can't get into that.
Did you interview Mifsud?
Can't get into that.
Is Mifsud Western intelligence or Russian intelligence?
Can't get into that.
A lot of things you can't get into.
What's interesting, you can charge 13 Russians no one's ever heard of, no one's ever seen, no one's ever going to hear of them, no one's ever going to see them.
You can charge them, you can charge all kinds of people who are around the president with false statements, But the guy who launches everything, the guy who puts this whole story in motion, you can't charge him.
I think that's amazing.
I'm not certain I agree with your characterizations.
Well, I'm reading from your report.
Mifsud told Papadopoulos, Papadopoulos tells the diplomat, the diplomat tells the FBI, the FBI opens the investigation July 31st, 2016, and here we are three years later, July of 2019, the country's been put through this, and the central figure who launches it all, Lies to us, and you guys don't hunt him down and interview him again, and you don't charge him with a crime.
Now, here's the good news.
Here's the good news.
The president was falsely accused of conspiracy.
The FBI does a 10-month investigation, and James Comey, when we deposed him a year ago, told us at that point they had nothing.
You do a 22-month investigation.
At the end of that 22 months, you find no conspiracy.
And what's the Democrats want to do?
They want to keep investigating.
They want to keep going.
Maybe a better course of action, maybe a better course of action is to figure out how the false accusation started.
Maybe it's to go back and actually figure out why Joseph Mipset was lying to the FBI. And here's the good news.
Here's the good news.
That's exactly what Bill Barr's doing.
And thank goodness for that.
That's exactly what the Attorney General and John Durham are doing.
They're going to find out why we went through this three-year saga and get to the bottom of it.
Clarity and purpose.
We're back live.
Megan on Facebook says, Jim Jordan is the guy who asks the questions...
That lead to more questions.
And that is the curiosity that our oversight has largely been lacking under Speaker McCarthy because we would get the subpoenas ready, we would want document requests to go out, we would want people in the witness chair, and there just seemed to be a bottleneck in the Speaker's office where we couldn't get things dislodged and moving and going toward an end that would reveal to the American people what's really going on in this government, affecting them.
What's going on with a compromised First family out there selling access and influence to foreigners who want to harm American interests so that they can get rich.
I've been to Jim Jordan's home.
I've stayed there.
I've stayed the night.
This is someone who knows his neighbors.
This is someone who, in his own community, people look to for a helping hand, for inspiration.
He served in the state legislature before coming to the United States Congress.
I did as well, and I think that is really important service to inform how we think about governance.
Because so much is broken here in Washington.
If you hadn't been in any other Lawmaking or policy or legislative body, you might come here and think this is the only way to do it.
But those of us who've come from good legislatures, like Ohio, like Arizona, like Florida, we've seen how budgets get balanced.
How the appropriations process can be used, even in a bipartisan way, to ensure that we're doing programmatic review of how your money is being spent.
So I think that's really going to inform how Jim Jordan asks questions, maybe not from that dais in the House Judiciary Committee, but maybe in the Speaker's office where we can get some real answers.
We had someone today at the meeting where we were debating Jordan's candidacy get up and say well they were concerned and undecided about voting for Jim because they see all this great work that I've been showing you from the Judiciary Committee and they wonder well if Jim's not there are we still going to have the same rigor and the same effort in judiciary and I can I will tell you exactly what I told that congressman with Mike Johnson and Chip Roy and
Dan Bishop and yours truly we have got a great team on the House Judiciary Committee and while there is no replacing a Jim Jordan we're going to do everything we can to make sure That we take the lessons we've learned from him about how to ask questions, how to move oversight forward, and we're going to do a good job for you.
I can tell you that with a very high confidence level with people like Mike Johnson, like Chip Roy, like Dan Bishop, we've got really, really a great team on that committee, and I look forward to being a part of it and to supporting our leadership there however we can to make sure that Jim's successful and that we're successful, and This committee's got to do really important work just beyond the January 6th tapes.
It was a point made by someone on Getter watching the show that it's about the political prisoners.
It's not just about the tapes.
It's about this wide array of civil rights violation that has occurred, whether it's public defenders who actually wanted their clients to get convicted, whether it's judges who gave draconian, crazy sentences.
Or whether it's an FBI that was out there harassing and targeting people who had no intention of ever committing a crime.
But in the This morass of just the protests and riots on January 6th may have crossed a line onto federal property that wasn't even marked, that wasn't delineated in any way.
So we still think about those folks every day.
We have to fight for them.
and we have to utilize the Judiciary Committee to deliver outcomes.
Process has failed us.
Outcomes, deliverables, that is what we all should be judged by.
That's what you should judge me by.
And I saw we weren't getting those outcomes with McCarthy, so we had to try something different.
And I knew we would get better than McCarthy.
But if we can move these 55 votes, we're going to do something very special and great for the country.
And it was even something President Trump noted, that we're moving in the right direction with Jim Jordan.
As we showed you on the program previously, President Trump endorsed Jim Jordan for speaker, and I think for very good reason.
And we couldn't possibly end the show without giving you some of the best Jim Jordan moments.
And that collection would be incomplete without his questioning of one of the most evil people on the planet Earth, Hillary Clinton.
Take a listen.
Heavily armed militants assaulted the compound and set fire to our buildings.
That's what it says.
Secretary Clinton.
That's all good, but you said you were trying to communicate to folks all over, all the folks you have around the Middle East, right?
Yes, I was trying to send a message, yes.
Okay, I got it.
But that's not what the experts said.
They said, don't conflate the events.
Tell the truth about Benghazi.
Talk about what happened there.
Other places where the video may have had an impact, fine, say that.
Why did you put them all together?
When you didn't do that privately, when you told your family about Benghazi, it was terrorists killed two of our people.
When you talk to the Libyan president, Ansar al-Saria did it, al-Qaeda did it.
When you talk to the Egyptian Prime Minister, we know it's not a film, we know it's not a protest, we know it's not a video, it's a terrorist attack.
Well, Congressman, I was working off the information that we had, which was that Ansar al-Sharia claimed responsibility.
And at that point, I did say that it was an al-Qaeda Madam Secretary, look at the difference in these two statements.
One says it wasn't a pre-planned attack.
That's Jay Carney talking publicly.
The other one says, from your experts in Libya, says it was a well-planned attack.
Now, they could not be further apart.
They could not be.
That's what I'm having a hard time figuring out.
And you know what's interesting?
The date of this, 9-14-12, 9-14-12.
You know what else happened on the 14th?
September 14th?
There's another document that's kind of important.
That's the same day that Ben Rhodes drafted his talking points memo.
Bullet point number two, to underscore that these protests are rooted in an internet video, not a broader failure of policy, because we couldn't have Libya, Mr. Roskam pointed out earlier, we couldn't have that fail.
Can't have that.
So the same day you got Jay Carney saying, This was no way a pre-planned attack, and the experts in Libya talking Greg Hicks and the Near Eastern Affairs people are saying it was a well-planned attack.
That same day, the talking points that get Susan Rice ready for the Sunday shows, make sure you focus on the video, not about a broader policy failure.
After all, we've got an election coming in 50-some days.
We are back live.
I want to get to some of the questions folks have been posting on our social media platforms.
Remember, if you are not subscribed, make sure you're subscribed either on our listening platforms or our viewing platforms, particularly Rumble.
And you've got to click the bell on either Rumble or YouTube to ensure that your notifications are turned on because just the very nature of the congressional calendar is such that we don't always go live at the same time.
So this is not...
Appointment, viewing, you've got to be on notice, ready, so that I can give you the information first.
So here's some of the questions people have.
First, will the motion to vacate still exist at a one-person threshold?
The answer to that question is yes, unless it is changed.
Now, a lot of Republicans have come to me and some of my colleagues saying, we want to negotiate an increase in the threshold on the motion to vacate.
And I'll tell you this.
I'm negotiable if, in exchange for increasing the threshold for maybe one person to three people or five people or more, we get other ethics reforms for accountability over the United States Congress.
I've partnered with Democrat Ro Khanna to lay out some of those reforms.
They include a ban on congressional stock trading, a ban on taking money from lobbyists and political action committees, a lifetime ban on members of Congress from becoming registered lobbyists or registered foreign agents, If we did those things, if we did all of them, if we did some combination of them, I really believe that your interests would not be left aside as people are valeting for the special interests and putting their needs first.
I really think that would be important.
So right now, if there's no change, Merely the replacement of McCarthy with Jordan would not change the motion to vacate threshold.
There may be an effort to change it.
I will only change it if I get substantial accountability and ethics reforms over Congress.
Would love your feedback on that.
If you've got other ethics ideas that ought to apply to members of Congress, leave them in the comments.
Send me a direct message.
Let me know what you're thinking on it.
Next question.
You guys want to know exactly the 55 names.
Someone says, I want to know the 55 names so that I can start working the phones to get these folks to vote for Jim Jordan.
Now, some of these 55 have self-identified.
We showed you Congressman John Rutherford, Republican from the Sunshine State of Florida, who said he right now will not vote for Jim Jordan.
He will vote for Kevin McCarthy in order to spite me.
But this was a secret ballot.
And there was a push among some in the room to say, we want a roll call.
We want to know who the 55 are.
And Jim Jordan said, let's not do that right here, right now.
If you're part of the 55, I want you to come to me.
I want to set up a conversation.
I want to set up some small group meetings.
I want to hear you out.
I don't want to put you on blast.
So I think there might have been some sense on the part of Jim Jordan that if we were to have like a public flogging of these people politically, that that could harden their Resistance to his candidacy rather than being more accommodating to hearing him out.
What he wants to do and where he wants to take the conference.
So I think that is very important.
And here's the thing.
One way or the other, you're going to know these names.
Because either Monday or Tuesday, depending on the progress Jim makes, we're going to the floor.
And we're taking these votes.
And it ain't going to be 55 at that time.
I think it'll be considerably lower.
And I think we'll be successful in getting Jim over the line.
Another question about the border.
Are we going to have a speaker who cares about the border?
I'll tell you this.
We just removed one who gave it a lot of lip service, but didn't do what was necessary.
We've got to tie border policies to the budget.
You cannot give the Biden administration an endless amount of debt that they can accrue, continuing resolutions, without forcing a closure of the border.
So it's a point of leverage.
On the Judiciary Committee, we have subject matter jurisdiction over this question.
And so I think Jim Jordan is uniquely poised to be able to bring this together.
HR2, our very best border bill that we passed and the Senate won't take up, And one of the principal architects of that bill was Jim Jordan.
So I think he's going to be great for us on the border.
And I got to say, there is a little nostalgia on the live stream for the Speaker Trump talk.
So let's just address that.
Some of you have said you really wanted to see President Trump or you really wanted to see me as a candidate for Speaker.
In our last episode, we went over the prospect of a Trump candidacy, the prospect of a Gates candidacy.
I went over why those things were less likely than the candidacy of someone like a Jim Jordan or a Steve Scalise.
Steve Scalise has now withdrawn.
He has backed Jim Jordan.
And it looks like we've really got the wind at our back.
Now, there's more to do.
My homework assignment for everybody watching Firebrand, listening to Firebrand, Keep your eyes out for folks who share the position of Congressman John Rutherford of Florida that they refuse to vote for Jim Jordan in a nice, polite, appropriate way.
I want you to encourage them to back Jordan and I trust you to be able to do it.
I trust all of us because we are the only institution in the U.S. government right now in the House of Representatives that Republicans can rely on to fight.
And I couldn't come to work here every day not fighting for you.
And Kevin McCarthy got in the way of that.
And I think we can do better.
On Rumble, Jax says that he used to believe in me, but not anymore because he does not think that Jim Jordan does anything but talk about stuff.
I could understand that perspective.
But here's what you should know.
Here's what you don't see.
All of the work we do to try to get subpoenas, to try to get accountability, to try to get Hunter Biden the witness chair, I believe, based on my experience on the Judiciary Committee, that the principal logjam for that was in the House Counsel's office and in the Speaker's office.
So Jim Jordan's efficacy was limited by Kevin McCarthy.
And with Jim in the Speaker's office, I think we're going to have a green light to get the facts, expose the truth, cut off the money to the corrupt entities in our government, and put downward pressure on spending.
So this is participatory.
You have a say in this.
You have agency in it.
I'm counting on you to get on the phone lines, to get on the internet, and do everything you can to help me elect Jim Jordan, the 56th Speaker of the House.
Thank you all so much.
Thank you for your support.
Look forward to chatting soon.
Roll the credits.
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