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Nov. 16, 2023 - Firebrand - Matt Gaetz
31:07
Episode 134 LIVE: Thanksgiving Inflation (feat. Sen. Jeff Brandes) – Firebrand with Matt Gaetz
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Thank you.
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.
Transcending the firebrands.
One thing.
I want my Republican colleagues to give me one thing.
One.
That I can go campaign on and say we did.
One.
Anybody sitting in the complex, if you want to come down to the floor and come explain to me one material, meaningful, significant thing the Republican majority has done besides, well, I guess it's not as bad as the Democrats.
Welcome back to Firebrand.
That was Firebrand Texas Congressman Chip Roy excoriating Republicans for having caved far too often for far too long, and he is 100% right.
We live in a country now where over 100,000 people have been poisoned by fentanyl.
We allow China to continue to eat our lunch.
In all kinds of respects, from their military advancements to even their cultural attacks and their poisoning of our fellow countrymen.
And if you look at the border and the economy, House Republicans have got to do more to deliver wins.
That's why we made a change in leadership.
And while House Speaker Johnson has got a little runway, it's not a forever runway.
He's got to get us back to the winning ways that Chip Roy is calling for.
And my advice to Speaker Johnson, take a lot of advice from that man, a great Texas congressman, someone I respect a lot, and someone who I think has identified some of the problems and challenges facing the country.
One of those notably, the Bidenomics-inducing inflation.
Now, Americans can expect to pay more this Thanksgiving for just about every aspect of their meal because President Biden and Bidenomics and Biden inflation are well above the Federal Reserve's target and certainly well above our ability to pay for it.
Since Joe Biden took office, overall food prices have risen over 17%.
Frozen vegetables are up almost 11%.
Uncooked beef steaks up almost 11%.
Even the sauces and gravies, you don't think about those being a major cost driver of Thanksgiving, but sauces and gravies are up 7.5%.
Uncooked turkey up about the same amount, 7.2%.
White bread up 7.1%.
And there are so many concerning facts about the Biden economy.
The Consumer Price Index, a key inflation indicator, rose at an increased annual rate of 3.2% in October.
And keep in mind, though the rate of inflation may be slowing, It is stacked.
So all the inflation we've already endured has not been remediated or diminished.
So when you hear the White House talk about less inflation, what they cannot tell you is that it is resulting in lower prices.
Lower prices.
That's what the American people want.
And the prices are artificially high, not as a function of some uncontrollable global feature, but the direct policy choices that Joe Biden and his government have made.
So according to a recent AP poll, about two thirds of adults say their household expenses have risen over the last year.
Describe the national economy as poor.
If 73% of the people are saying that the national economy is poor, I wouldn't be running on Bidenomics.
It's not working for three out of four Americans.
A recent study published by Bankrate shows that just 21% of Americans think that their financial situation has improved since Joe Biden became president.
Around one in five.
I feel like most people definitely that observe this program consider themselves part of the four of five who've had their conditions diminished as a consequence of Joe Biden.
And frankly, if you listen to Chip Roy, as a consequence of Republicans who have not been fighting hard enough.
So what should we be fighting for?
You've heard me say it a lot on this program that only single-subject spending bills will actually cut spending.
These continuing resolutions and omnibus bills, they are the path to more deficits and higher spending.
And we got this admission that my vision on single-subject spending bills will cut spending from no less than one of the progressive leaders of the Democratic Party, Ro Khanna of California.
He makes the admission on Joy Reid's MSNBC program.
Take a listen.
Most speakers last for years.
Matt Gaetz has literally said, essentially, Mike Johnson has seven months to reduce spending to each build everything one at a time, which is madness.
It's madness.
And it is reducing spending that is going to hurt working families.
Even our critics, even the people who have a different vision on governance and budgeting, admit that my vision will result in less spending.
And we've got to have it because that is what's driving the inflation.
And it harkens back to, remember that July 4th tweet that the Biden White House put out previously?
Oh yes, we've got it on the screen there.
Yes, a 16 cent decrease And the cost of all of those food, stuffs, and goods.
So, 16 cent decrease.
Not even true today.
We went through the numbers.
The numbers are all up.
And another area where the numbers are up and troubling, We break down the border numbers for you frequently on this program.
It is important that when discussing these matters, we don't do so in the abstract.
So month by month, year by year, we're here to lay out how bad the problem has gotten.
So let's look at the October numbers.
In October alone, There were 240,988 illegal immigrant encounters at the southern border.
It's a staggering number.
It is a 235% increase from October 2020. October was the 32nd straight month where monthly illegal immigrant encounters have been higher than the highest month ever seen under President Trump.
32 in a row.
In October, 12 individuals whose names appear on the terrorist watch list were stopped trying to cross into the United States from Mexico.
So far under Biden, 279 of these individuals whose names appear on the terror watch list were stopped trying to cross the southern border.
And you don't know how many gotaways were known terrorists, how many people we never even encountered were known terrorists.
But you know it ain't zero based on the hundreds that we have seen.
More than a dozen just this last month.
In fiscal year 2023, 169 people whose names were on the terrorist watch list were stopped trying to cross the southern border.
An all-time record.
This total is more than the encounters in all of fiscal year 17 to fiscal year 2022 combined.
Biden's far-left open border policies are precisely why we find ourselves in this crisis.
They must be reversed.
And we have to be willing to use every bit of leverage that we have to see that outcome come to fruition.
As we're chatting, President Xi has made his stops throughout the United States, notably in California.
And California Governor Gavin Newsom criticized for all the cleanup that California was willing to do, not for their own citizens, not for visitors from America, but from their bankers in China.
And responding to that criticism, here we have California Governor Gavin Newsom.
Take a listen.
I know folks say, oh, they're just cleaning up this place because all those fancy leaders are coming into town.
That's true.
Because it's true.
So they are willing to clean up California for the foreign communists, but she stays filthy and dirty for the homegrown communists.
Not exactly America first from my standpoint.
We had an important hearing this week in the House Armed Services Committee regarding hypersonics, and that really sets deterrence with China.
China and Russia have capabilities in hypersonics that exceed America's.
That is not an admission that I have any joy in sharing with you.
We ought to have the best, strongest, most lethal, survivable, and capable military in all of the world.
And when you have a delivery system, For a nuclear warhead, for another type of payload that can hit the target at a far higher rate of speed and with more accuracy than the other systems, that starts to inform almost all of the strategic thinking that your nation does in times of conflict or risk of escalation or accident.
So today we had Several folks who were really speaking to that strategic imperative and we talked about the United States being behind China and behind Russia on hypersonics.
I focus a lot on hypersonics here and so I was wondering what your perspective was on how our current hypersonic capabilities compared with these two near-peer adversaries was contributing to that sense of deterrence.
Well, sort of simply put, we're a little behind in terms of the development of our hypersonics capabilities.
Madeline is right.
We're behind, both countries, with regard to the hypersonic issue.
We've had tests, and I won't get into the details, but the bottom line is that we are behind where our two opponents are.
And what this means is that they have some capabilities with which they can threaten us.
And just to draw a finer point on it, Senator, When you say we are behind both countries in hypersonics, you are referring to China and Russia, right?
Mr. Chairman, Representative Gage, that's correct.
We are behind China and Russia, and we should be using the entire national security apparatus to catch up, to keep our country safe and secure.
But instead, we've been so distracted by nonsense at the DOD, at the CIA, at...
Even the National Security Agency, the NSA. The NSA has apparently been up to no good, but not in the usual sense.
Instead of spying on Americans without warrants, it seems the NSA has now shifted its focus to, you guessed it, diversity, equity, and inclusion.
The Possibly the most expansive glossary of DEI terms the world has ever seen.
And it begs the question, is the NSA running like the biggest PSYOP in American history?
Or are they too corrupted by the managerial HR culture that dominates every aspect of modern society?
Why is the NSA creating a glossary of woke terms?
The glossary itself states, The following is a glossary of terms and commonly used language in dialogue regarding diversity, equity, inclusion, and social justice to be used as a reference.
This glossary and its definitions provide a starting point for engaging in open and honest conversation and it's a tool meant to build shared language and understanding.
Sounds wonderful, doesn't it?
Feels so much better now.
Let's take a look at what this shared language and understanding actually sounds like.
These are the terms.
White fragility.
White privilege, white supremacy, even whiteness, which the report that the NSA put out defines as, quote, a broad social construction that embraces the white culture, history, ideology, radicalization, expressions, experiences, emotions, and behaviors, all in order to reap material, political, economic, and structural benefits for those socially deemed white.
Wow.
What does it mean to be socially deemed white?
I thought that the color of your skin was an immutable trait.
And why is it whenever white people are seeking some sort of advancement in the economy or culture or national security, it's all meant to reap the benefits for those who are culturally white.
No group of humans in all of human history has ever been without a series of pretty bad actions, right?
You get a group of humans together for long enough, we do bad things to one another.
That goes back to biblical times.
But white people...
We have built some of the most durable and inclusive civilizations that have ever existed, and of course mistakes have been made along the way, and that is why we strive to be a more perfect union that does not judge people based on their immutable traits like the color of their skin.
But now the NSA is putting reports together saying if you're deemed socially white, Anything you do has got to be viewed through this lens of the advancement of one group of people at the expense of another.
When the reality is the United States of America has been a platform for people of all kind and color and creed to advance.
So what the NSA is pushing is a load of insane bigoted nonsense.
And these are just a few of the 327 social justice terms listed in their glossary to blame white Europeans for engaging in settler colonialism.
Settler colonialism.
It's one of those terms that's gaining popularity with Hamas supporters.
Apparently, Jews and Israelis are the white colonizers now.
Welcome to the club, I guess.
Now, second to the Anti-white rhetoric in this NSA report, we get a bizarre transgender vernacular emerging.
The list that they have produced seems to make up every pronoun under the sun.
And every now and then, there's a little comic relief with terms like transmisogyny.
I had to look at that one a couple times.
Transmisogyny, they describe as the intersection of transphobia and misogyny.
The irrational fear of, aversion to, or discrimination against transgender people.
Trans misogyny is often directed at trans women in particular.
So after billions of dollars in funding, little oversight, the NSA has now taken it upon themselves to decide that men can now be misogynistic to other men.
What a breakthrough.
Your tax dollars at work.
Meanwhile, China and Russia beating us on hypersonics, but we've figured out that men can be misogynist to men.
Wow, what an advancement.
Just about the only thing that this report doesn't explain is what business the NSA has in cataloging and promoting any of this hysterical mentally ill lunacy.
Big Brother getting into CRT should concern us, and if we don't nip it in the bud right now, we're going to be paying for it.
Imagine the NSA intercepting your text messages and flagging any material deemed to support extremist beliefs like, there are only two genders, or men can't be misogynist to other men, or I'm not sorry that my ancestors created Western civilization.
Perhaps they're already doing this.
After all, we learn, oftentimes, after the fact of the NSA's violations of the law and our civil liberties.
What else would they be keeping a glossary like this for?
As insane as it is, it's dangerous, and the NSA owes the American people an explanation.
We can't let this continue.
History is fraught with mass hysteria like this, and sadly, the good guys don't always win.
We need to put an end to it before we figure out what it looks like when the CRT regime is lashed to the most exquisite spying and surveillance tools that have ever existed on the planet Earth.
There's sad news that we also must share with you today from Florida's 1st Congressional District.
I want to send out condolences to the family of U.S. Air Force Captain Nicholas Smog Brown.
Captain Brown was a pilot instructor for the 58th Fighter Squadron and a member of our Eglin Air Force Base family in northwest Florida.
Captain Brown tragically passed away on November 11, 2023, as a result of injuries sustained during a free dive incident near the East Destin Pass.
Captain Brown was described as a devoted father, husband, and beloved squadron mate.
Captain Brown's family has shared a GoFundMe page We'll be putting that information out on our social media platforms.
They've raised $141,000 with a goal of $158,000.
I will be donating and would encourage you to do so as well.
We had an interesting conversation recently that I want to let all of our viewers in on.
In Florida, there's a lot of discussion about how to drive down some of our incarceration and corrections costs, how to have better outcomes in the criminal justice space.
I'm a former state lawmaker.
I chaired our criminal justice subcommittee in the State House of Representatives, and I caught up with one of my former colleagues, former State Senator Jeff Brandes, to discuss what some of his policy visions are regarding Florida and veterans criminal justice.
Take a listen.
Jeff Brandes is a former member of the Florida Senate and Florida House of Representatives.
We served together in the legislature.
He now leads the Florida Policy Project and they are out with an interesting new report about the incarcerated population in Florida, particularly veterans who are getting older and Senator Brandes has some policy prescriptions.
So Jeff, thanks so much for joining me and tell me what you've learned about our veterans who are incarcerated in the Sunshine State.
Sure.
The Florida Policy Project is an organization dedicated to identifying best practices in the country on criminal justice, property insurance, transportation, and housing.
And right now, we just launched a report on veterans, which basically says we have about 4,000 veterans, we think that's underreported, that are incarcerated in the state of Florida, and we're not serving them at the level we think would be considered a best practice at all.
In fact, oftentimes, we aren't serving them at all in the prison system, other than putting them in veteran's dorms that we aren't monitoring.
What have we learned about their age and the risk that they would pose if there was some sort of re-entry opportunity?
So that's the thing.
Florida's veterans are largely serving very long sentences and they're getting old in prison.
And so we think that there is a We can provide more services.
We can provide more counseling to those that are incarcerated and provide them better reentry opportunities, connecting them to services on the outside and connecting to the VA services that are available while they're still incarcerated.
There are also a lot of federal benefits that our veterans would be able to access if they weren't incarcerated, and frankly, a lot of their health care that would be paid for not by Florida taxpayers, but by those who are contributing to federal programs.
And we've had this immersion of veterans' courts in Florida, where it's a specialized docket to review The different allegations and charges that are made and then to try to fashion a correction solution that might be unique to veterans.
What's been your perspective on the success of that program in Florida?
I think the Veterans Court has been incredibly effective at dealing with some of the, you know, those that are incarcerated for drug crimes or property crimes.
Unfortunately, you know, veterans have a higher incidence of sex crimes and that's largely why they're incarcerated or larger or violent crimes.
And so that typically is why you see veterans being incarcerated for longer periods of time.
But even that population, we can find solutions for.
And that's why, you know, the Floor Policy Project is calling for more investment in our veterans that are incarcerated.
Senator Brandes, you know, reentry more broadly beyond these specific populations we've talked about.
has proven to be an essential component to reduce recidivism and there are some folks in criminal justice thinking who just are of the lock them up throw away the key perspective and certainly for probably some defendants that's warranted but how should we think about re-entry as a concept and the investment we ought to make in it?
Well first of all I think we need to praise and recognize the success of the First Step Act and that the overwhelming data that we're getting back now that that I think the second thing is to recognize that there's two key indicators when we're re-entering people.
What kind of house or household are they going back into and are they available to get and keep a job?
And those are the two primary factors that I think the state of Florida and, frankly, every different corrections institution can do better at, is identifying best practices that help people reenter society, which means can they get an ID when they leave prison?
Can they get a bank account when they leave prison?
Those kind of key things that we don't even think about.
Transportation is often a major challenge for those leaving prison.
In Florida, they leave prison with 50 bucks and a bus pass.
Now, nobody will tell you that's a best practice.
And it's an area where we can do a lot more work for our veterans and just those that are not veterans that are leaving prison.
The key thing is, how do we get them to reenter society?
We're all focused on public safety.
But the best thing we can do is taking those people that are incarcerated and getting out, ensuring that they're successful when they get out.
No doubt.
I mean, what folks don't think about is that almost everyone in prison is going to get out one day.
And we know what that day is going to be, for the most part, from the government side.
And so we should be doing more To plan for the success of that individual, whether it's industry certification, education, whether it is, like you said, an IED or some sort of re-entry plan where folks are getting a job working.
And I think that can do a lot to reduce the number of victims of crimes that we ultimately have in this country.
Final question for you, Senator Brandes, what is next for the Florida Policy Project?
What issues are you going to be putting out reports on and where can folks follow that work and follow you?
So obviously one of the top challenges in Florida is property insurance and housing affordability.
And so we're going to be launching our Property insurance discussion and best practices in the coming days.
Then we have one on vouchers for housing affordability.
And then we're going to specifically look at women in prison.
I mean, I think that's one of the more challenging areas that we see in the country is best practices for dealing with that women are incarcerated.
They often come in with a lot of trauma.
They often are leaving their kids and they're often separated from their kids by hours and hours of travel.
And so I think it's an area that's under-researched and when we're going to spend some time looking at best practices.
And how can folks follow the group and follow you?
Sure.
You can go to floridapolicyproject.com and see all the great work we're doing.
And you can follow us on Twitter at Jeffrey Brandes or at Florida Policy Project.
Senator Jeff Brandes, head of the Florida Policy Project.
Thanks so much for joining me.
Great to see you, Matt.
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