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March 6, 2024 - Firebrand - Matt Gaetz
34:00
Episode 156 LIVE: Kiss Uncanceled (feat. Rep. Scott Perry) – Firebrand with Matt Gaetz
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Thank you.
Matt Gates, 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 Gates, for holding the line.
Matt Gates is a courageous man.
If we had hundreds of Matt Gates 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 Gates.
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.
and send in the Firebrands. - Welcome back to Firebrand.
We are broadcasting live out of Room 2021 of the Rayburn House Office Building here at the Capitol Complex in Washington, D.C. We've got the Uniparty moving massive spending bills with a ton of waste.
Can't wait to talk about that.
Also, out in California, if you can believe it, they're actually extending even more benefits to illegal aliens.
We've got great news in the state of Florida where our friend, State Representative Joel Rudman, is advancing sound Second Amendment policy so that Gun owners have the opportunity to purchase firearms lawfully in our state without these background checks in any way delaying that lawful access of rights.
And to talk about all of it, I've got my very good friend from Pennsylvania, Scott Perry, joining me.
Scott has been in Congress.
How many terms now?
I think five.
I think five.
Some days it feels like a minute, some days it feels like a lifetime.
Scott Perry is the former chairman of the House Freedom Caucus, someone who is a mentor of mine and always Can be found ensuring that we've got less spending.
He's been a true warrior to try to close the southern border and really to use leverage.
And that's what we're here to talk about.
Scott, you have led the Freedom Caucus.
A lot of the conservative-leaning members, both in and out of the Freedom Caucus, look to you for leadership.
And what we saw on the floor of the House today was an abomination.
A spending bill was moved with all the Democrats, with Majority of Republicans.
No debate.
No debate.
It had overwhelming support.
I don't think we got 100 no votes against it.
They worked it really hard to make sure that as many people voted for it as they could possibly get.
They worked it really hard.
How would you describe the spending bill that just passed?
Obscene.
Look, it's devastating to the country.
People might not realize it.
We're at about 100 days, 120 days.
We're spending a trillion additional dollars every 120 days.
It just keeps getting faster and faster.
We just went...
$34 trillion between December and January will be at $35 trillion by May.
People say, well, why should I care?
You know, you guys just print the money.
What does it matter?
Because if you can't afford your meals, if you can't afford gasoline, if you can't afford your credit card bills, your house payment, if you're trying to decide between insurance payments or electricity payments, it's all caused by what we just did today.
And unfortunately, there's a whole bunch of folks that will come to your town And run for office and say, if you vote for me, I'm going to end all that stuff.
And a whole bunch of them just voted for it.
And why?
I mean, the viewers to this program, the folks who get these updates, see what is happening to the country.
And they've seen the promises regarding the power of the purse.
What is the essential element that you think is lacking in our colleagues to push back against this excessive spending?
I would characterize it as two things.
One is courage.
The other is integrity.
So you always say, this is what I'm going to do.
This is the integrity part.
But there's always some reason.
Look, I got an earmark.
What, we had 6,000 earmarks in this half of the bill?
So earmarks used to be gone.
Well, they were here, then they were gone.
Now they're back again.
And so they're buying votes with earmarks.
Did you have a favorite earmark in this bill?
That was the stupidest, craziest thing that you could have imagined.
There's a lot to choose from.
That's a pretty big menu, Matt.
The one in Pennsylvania that Senator Casey, And Senator Fetterman originally supported was for some building where they were having, as I understand this, I don't know, gay sex parties.
And we're going to spend a million dollars on that.
And then they came out afterwards and said, whoa, hold on a second.
We don't support that.
So did that receive a lot of support from, like, the Pennsylvania Dutch community?
Like, where is the constituency in Pennsylvania for the public-funded erotica?
Is it a Senator Casey priority?
Is it a Senator Fetterman priority?
Well, it was one of their priorities until it wasn't one of their priorities.
So what this was, for those of you who are watching, there is some LGBTQ community center in Pennsylvania, and these senators sought an earmark to give them extra funding for their operations.
A million dollars.
And the Libs of TikTok account went and found what some of the planned activities were there, and they were...
EDSM activities and, you know, bring your handcuffs and whips and chains.
And we're not judges here.
We're not the bedroom police.
But if you want to do that stuff, you should do it on your own time and on your own dime.
And there should not be public funding for that.
The question is, is why is there federal funding for this?
And a whole range of earmarks, trails and roads and state things.
And they might be great projects, but what does it have to do with the federal government?
But they bought the votes with so.
So integrity.
There's always some programming.
I didn't want to vote for the whole thing, but this was in here.
I had to do it because I needed this one thing.
And then courage.
You know, the rest of the crew is going this way.
And if we don't do this, the only alternative is a shutdown.
We're going to be accused of shutting down the government.
Let's be clear here.
85% of the government operates even through a shutdown.
So we're talking about 15%.
Nobody came here, not Matt Gaetz, not Scott Perry, to shut down the government.
What we did come to do is save the republic.
And if Democrats, and I hate to say it, some of our friends on the Republican side of the aisle, if it's worth it to them to keep on bringing in illegal foreign nationals to kill and rape our children such that we don't shut down the government and have a conversation about it, then they should defend that.
But I'm certainly not going to.
The Chuck Schumer Center for Environmental Justice in New York.
Well, that's important, Matt.
That's a federal...
Can't you see the federal nexus?
I just don't understand how they're going to invest a million dollars in the Center for Environmental Justice without enhancing the carbon footprint of the Center of Environmental Justice.
Well, increasing the carbon footprint in pursuit of reducing carbon is always justified.
Yeah.
The Twin Lakes Reservoir Floating Solar Project.
$2 million for floating solar rafts.
Yeah, because we don't want to take up land space, so it's okay to take up water space.
In Florida, people might not know this everywhere, but electricity and water are a bad thing to mix.
Yeah, well, usually you don't like to mix those two.
Yes, put them on there.
So many earmarks.
You made mention of the funding of the VA. Right.
As a part of this program, and I know as a veteran, you care deeply about the VA. We actually want a veteran healthcare system that is the best in the world.
Focused on veterans, and the best healthcare.
It was designed originally to be the best healthcare on the planet for veterans.
That have said they will sacrifice their life for their country.
That's what it was designed or originally envisioned to be.
I know you know otherwise.
And your criticism of our funding of the VA includes a critique of us continuing to fund VAX mandates, right?
That's exactly right.
Who pleads their lives ought to be able to decide.
We understand if you've got to get a vaccine to go overseas to fight the enemy and make sure that the force is secure and safe in the combat zone.
We get that.
Here's what we don't get, forcing people that are willing to give up their lives to put something that's experimental in their bodies.
And then throw them out if they refuse to do it.
That's what we don't get.
And then for the VA, to force people that go to the VA or work at the VA to put something like that in their body so that they continue to go to the VA or work at the VA? Is this a communist country?
I thought it was America.
Yeah, but we have to fight back against that.
My frustration is that when we see the VA pushing these experimental VAX mandates on people, we should demand different in order to continue their operations.
And, you know, we've got people like Mike Bost who have oversight capability, chairman of the VA committee, and I haven't heard Mike Bost once.
We offer a substantive and leveraged criticism of the VA such that we could actually change the context.
You say we should push back and we should object to that.
Matt Gaetz and Scott Perry do, but you had the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee agreeing with the VAX requirements for service members and agreeing with throwing them out if they didn't do it.
He was for it.
Gosh, it's so frustrating.
So the VA has had quite a week.
We had the Assistant Undersecretary for Health Operations issue a memo that canceled the VJ Day kiss in Times Square.
So we are familiar with this iconic image of Of a U.S. service member coming home and getting the kiss of a lifetime.
And according to this memo, our evolving sensibilities around sexual assault should have prohibited the publication of the VJ Day Kiss.
Now, ultimately, this was reversed.
Karine Jean-Pierre having to eat crow ticklishment.
I want to be really, really clear.
The VA is not going to be banning this photo from VA facilities.
I just want to be super, super clear about that.
I know, as you just said, you described it as a kerfuffle.
There was obviously some reporting on that.
I can definitely say that the memo was not sanctioned, so it's not something that we were even aware of until you all started reporting on it.
But we are not banning that photo.
And I'm just going to be super clear about that.
Any specifics about the memo and the process over there, certainly I would refer to the VA. So what she didn't say is that we had every intention of doing that until we got caught, right?
And she said it was unsanctioned, which should lead you to believe the truth, which is all these people that work in the Biden administration do these things because that's what they do.
They don't have to look for approval.
They were hired to do this stuff and they do it of their own volition because that's what the administration wants them to do.
And finally, I don't know whether you knew that, that photograph was staged, right?
It wasn't like some guy just went on the street and found some random girl who wasn't interested in getting a kiss.
That was a time-life photo that was actually staged.
They have no clue.
These people have no clue what they're talking about or, quite honestly, the magnitude of the ending of the war with Japan on service members and the country.
Yeah, the...
The axiom personnel is policy really flourishes here.
Because the Biden administration, they go and find these people and promote these people that are total woketopians.
And then when you get a crazy decision by one of their employees like this, they do what they can to distance themselves.
Now, in my district, in Florida 1, post-deployment lust actually leads directly to family formation.
So we don't discourage post-deployment lust in Florida's 1st Congressional District, but it does dovetail into these very serious discussions we have about what kind of military we have right now.
And what kind of value proposition are we offering young people who made the decision you did to serve?
Talk a little bit about, like, why you signed up to serve in the military and kind of how you might see a young person going through that decision-making process today.
Well, for me, I didn't really have a plan coming out of high school.
You know, I kind of grew up like a weed because of my family situation.
I think a lot of people find themselves or you just don't know.
It's time to grow up and you don't know what you're going to do.
And I had an opportunity to enlist and I was always enamored by that service in uniform.
I found it to be very alluring to me.
And I will tell you, Matt, it was one of the seminal things in my life and my career that I did that changed the trajectory of my entire life.
And it was so great for me.
I got to do awesome things that people only dream about, right?
I really did.
But I will tell you, and I could never imagine wanting to retire.
I started out as an enlisted guy.
I went to officer candidate school.
I got to go to flight school.
I got to fly all kinds of stuff and do incredible things, deploy, lead troops in battle and all that stuff.
And I never thought about retiring.
I watched guys and gals retire and I thought, well, how could they leave what they're so...
You're the military.
It reflects you and you reflect it.
And they always said, well, you'll know when it's time.
When I got the order from my boss, I'm a one-star general at the time, and he says, one of your jobs, one of your duty is to enforce the gender reassignment policy.
It kind of took stock in my time in uniform, and I said, you know, I reflect it, and it reflects me, but it's not reflecting me anymore.
That's not what I stand for.
I'm not going to force...
um these people that accept that and uh and so when you can't take orders anymore it's time it's time to go and i look at the value proposition that young people i'm so happy that people are willing to join but i watched a service member in uniform self immolate in front of the israel embassy in washington in uniform um and then i we looked at his social media feed i don't want to serve next to a communist that hates our country And I think that
young people that are smart are looking at it and they say, yeah, I'm not going to pledge my life to serve with somebody that might shoot me in the back because they didn't agree with my political position.
I think that's the circumstance that we find ourselves in, and that's why recruiting and retention is very difficult right now.
And of course, the Army in its infinite wisdom, when you can't find people to meet the standards, they're just lowering the standard.
That's not a plan for success against a military like China, Or any of our other adversaries that are serious about defeating the United States of America.
Here's what I worry about.
When people kind of self-deport from the military, as you're describing, and as people of good virtue and patriotic spirit make other choices in their life, does that then create a self-fulfilling prophecy in the military where it veers even harder left?
I think it does because what you're left with as the pot boils down is a concentration of people where you might have different viewpoints when the pot's full, but as everybody that loves the country, that will give their life for the country and wants to serve in a merit-based system that is fighting for the ideals of America, when they all leave, What is left is those who won't, who don't believe in those.
That's all that's left.
And with all due respect to my colleagues here, they say we've got to buy more airplanes and ships and so on and so forth.
If we don't have the personnel that are willing to put themselves in them and go fight the enemy with their life, it doesn't matter how capable the machinery is or how many you have.
That doesn't matter.
An army and a military is based on its people and their beliefs.
And I guarantee you there's some 15-year-old boy in China who's putting a 50-pound pack on his back and going and marching 15 miles to impress his father.
That's who we're going to have to face, not people that come into our military and say, well, I've got a different standard of dress.
I don't like this whole uniform thing, so I've got to be me.
Sorry.
It's called the uniform service.
One form.
Uni.
You're going to change who you were and now you're going to accept this.
And if you don't want to, we're good with that.
We need car salesmen and insurance people.
But if you want to be in the military and potentially lose your life defending your country and making the other person die for their country, if you're not into that, then you don't belong here.
You talk about your own life and how the military enriched it so much and I see in my own family and I see in my community so many for whom that has been true and many for whom that is still true today and we can't ever let that flip where we're going into the military But I think we're on the way to being there.
I do worry that.
I agree with you, Matt.
I mean, you're a great defender of our military and you call the balls and strikes and some of our military leaders, like, just because they're wearing a uniform doesn't mean they're doing the right thing at the right time for the right reasons.
And that's why we have to.
Right.
That is the obligation that we feel because that lieutenant or that sergeant or that airman, they don't have the ability to question.
They deserve it.
It's our duty to do it because they can't, right?
As we say in the military, yours is not to question why.
Yours is just to do and die.
But that's not Matt Gaetz and Scott Perry wearing this uniform.
Ours is to question why.
That's right, and we will continue to do so.
We've also got troubling reports from the border and what the state of California is doing to draw more people across the border illegally.
This just in from our friends at the National Pulse.
California lawmakers are now proposing expanding the state's zero down home loan program to illegal aliens.
That's right, so Assembly Bill 1840 gives zero down home loans to illegal aliens.
It is a slap in the face to the Californians who are already struggling with some of the highest home prices in the nation, 97% higher than the national average.
Like originally the California dream for all shared appreciation loans was launched in 2023. They put $300 million into that.
The intent was to help first-generation and first-time home buyers, but the California politicians could not help themselves.
Their bleeding hearts and lack of brains prevailed in this case and in the filing of this bill.
California has already extended its taxpayer-funded healthcare programs to illegal aliens.
Right now, 40% of the people in California are on Cal Med, their Medicaid product.
That means every person who has a job who's paying for their own insurance is having to pay for like 80% of someone else's insurance as well.
And I would say there's not a single entitlement program now in California that somebody is not going to try to extend to illegal aliens.
All of this comes at a time when housing is unaffordable, younger generations are seeing Healthcare costs rise, more bankruptcy for the working class, and for the first time in America's history, future generations expect to be worse off than their parents.
Representative Perry, how do we deal with the fact that you've got states like California literally creating the pull factor across our border?
Well, I think I'm a big believer in states' rights.
That having been said, the federal government doesn't need to participate.
And so if California wants to continue to elect leadership that disrespects and has contempt for its citizens, I guess that's their business.
But the federal government should be...
Quite honestly, we shouldn't be spending a dime in California to make sure that these programs can continue.
If you've got enough money to give zero-down home loans to illegal aliens crowding out Americans and hardworking people, then you've got it so good, you probably don't need a single federal dollar for anything else.
Well, they do use federal dollars, and if they didn't have them, they wouldn't be able to do that.
But I imagine that California is trying to do whatever it can to...
To make up for the loss of people that are disgorging from California.
California is finally, unfortunately, losing population because citizens have had enough of being disrespected and they're leaving now in droves.
To Arizona.
People are leaving the most temperate climate, boundless natural resources, oceans, mountains, vineyards.
They're leaving that for the deserts of Arizona that were so inhospitable.
They were the last place that the US Army stopped hunting the Mormons.
And it is because of policies like this.
And it's a really sad thing.
You're from Pennsylvania.
I'm from Florida.
Different than California.
But we have patriotic Americans that live in every jurisdiction.
And I worry when we just look at a blue state and say, oh, well, a bunch of crazies are running that place.
We leave our brothers and sisters behind who want a good life and deserve it.
They do deserve it.
This experiment of 50 individual states will only work if we allow there to be accountability for each individual state.
While I don't like, I don't like, and I don't agree with what California is doing to its citizens, They keep electing those people.
And I can't fix that, right?
But what I can do or what I can try to do as a federal guy is make sure that Pennsylvania's hard-earned tax dollars don't go out to support that.
And quite honestly, neither do Florida.
As a matter of fact, I don't think anybody's hard-earned tax dollars.
California wants to be crazy.
God bless them.
But they should pay for it.
You and I are going to be getting together after the State of the Union.
We've got the State of the Union coming up tomorrow at 11.30 on Friday.
The day after the State of the Union, we're going to be breaking down all of the Biden blunders.
How can folks watch that and keep up with it?
It's going to be on the Rumble channel.
What's your Rumble channel?
This is your chance to pitch.
Rep Scott Perry at Rumble?
Oh my gosh, you're such a boomer sometimes.
On the Rumble app, if you follow the channel, at Rep Scott Perry.
I can do things you can't do, Matt Gaetz.
Like a push-up or a pull-up.
I can't do those things, but you still can.
So you're going to want to follow that.
You're going to want to subscribe and turn notifications on.
Scott Perry and I are going to be breaking it down.
What do you expect to hear from Joe Biden?
A lot of lying, a lot of complaining, a lot of blaming Matt Gaetz.
They were blaming you this morning on Morning Joe, by the way.
Yes, it's really my fan club on Morning Joe.
So I find it fascinating that they're telegraphing openly that President Biden's going to talk about a reset.
Does he not know that he's been president for three years?
So he wants to reset his own set?
And so I'll be happy to hear that because he's destroying the country financially.
He's projecting weakness internationally.
And if he wants to reset, I'm all ears, but I want to see what's actually going to change other than the rhetoric.
He's going to blame us, I'm sure.
He's going to blame President Trump for the border crisis.
Who knows what he'll blame you for.
But I want to know, and I think Americans, the people that I work for, the people that are struggling to pay their bills, they want to know what reset's going to happen that's actually going to make a difference in their ability to afford college or...
Well, I guess he's kind of already done that, right?
He's going to give...
But that's going to make college more expensive.
It's going to create a moral hazard where if you're just a hard-working Joe or Jill and you want to go to college, you're going to see that bureaucracy increase as a consequence of this and ultimately those costs get pushed.
Everything we subsidize costs more because the people that are being subsidized say, well, we're going to get this money first to raise the prices.
So it will be a lot of that.
I don't know that octogenarians are best positioned to sell resets.
Whenever someone over 80 says that something needs to be reset, they're usually going through some sort of cardiac conversion, not a series of policy changes.
But I do think that Biden understands that if this election is a referendum on his policies, that he will be packing soon.
They do.
He does clearly understand that and I think you know it as well, Matt.
I think America does.
So what I expect he's going to do is make it a contest between himself and people like us who he's going to characterize as destroying democracy.
And he's going to go back to that hallowed ground of January 6th that they can't seem to leave behind and blame all of us for that and try and reinvigorate that and put that in the forefront of everybody's minds.
I literally think he's going to invoke that in the speech and say, right now in this place, this is where it happened and these people did it.
I guess there are some Republicans and some Democrats who want to make every day January 6th.
I believe January 6th was a bad day for the country.
I don't feel the need to relive it every day.
And in your district and mine, people are more worried about their tomorrow than Joe Biden's January 6th.
But that's all they have to hang on.
What else are they going to...
What successes have they had?
Is it Afghanistan?
Is it energy policy?
Is it the Middle East?
Yeah.
Is it the economy and jobs?
What success have they had that he's going to go out and tell us that the state of the union is strong?
Meanwhile, all the 350 million Americans that are living in it are going, eh, I don't think so.
What they want to sell as their success are these bills that have spent all this money.
But what we have to do is connect that spending to the pain that people are feeling.
And by the way, I think that's why Joe Biden's underwater right now, because people are making that connection for themselves.
And maybe we don't do a great job.
Of course, you have the media, which is, you know, part of Joe Biden's operation, but they act like everything's fine, too.
But I know that the people I represent, and I suspect the same for you, they tell me, when I'm at the grocery store, like, ladies yell at me, I'm not paying $5 for eggs.
And you shouldn't have to, but there it is.
I'm not paying $7.50 for a gallon of milk, but there it is.
It didn't used to be that way.
And literally, you know, he's talking about, he's got Sesame Street talking about downsizing product.
Cookie Monster.
When you've lost Cookie Monster, the politics have really gone a negative direction.
Joe Biden losing Cookie Monster.
We have not lost our true north.
That is standing up for the constitutional principles that would constrain government, constrain its spending.
Scott Perry is one of the best in Congress, a true firebrand, a leader, a mentor, someone we're very grateful to have.
How can folks follow your work on social media?
Rep Scott Perry.
And your website?
What's your website?
Perry.house.gov?
Perry.house.gov.
All right, sign up for Scott Perry's newsletter.
Go to Perry.house.gov.
It's an honor to have my friend here.
I do want to update everyone on an important story in Florida.
You'll remember we had a recent field hearing regarding the abuses of ATF, and State Representative Joel Rudman, who comes from the Florida Panhandle, pitched his legislation to stop background checks from impairing people's constitutional rights.
Take a listen.
As was stated, this bill does not prohibit background checks, nor does it do away with any waiting periods.
We don't even remove the three-day waiting period that was added to long gun purchases back in 2018, although I could have.
I decided against pursuing that after talking to the families at Parkland back in October.
Historically, ladies and gentlemen, when the Brady Bill was passed back in 1993, the FBI was originally given five days to do background checks.
And that was considered an awfully long period of time back then because every inquiry resulted in a phone call.
Once the NICS national database came online, that federal policy changed to three business days, which it still remains.
In fact, technology has improved so much over the years that back in 2013, it was Democratic Senator Joe Manchin Who's suggesting lowering the federal requirement to one business day for background checks?
Now, I'm not even asking for that.
I'm not even adding a single piece of language to the statute.
My bill simply removes the one sentence that's causing the issue and allows FDLE to use the current three-day background checks procedures that are already in our statute.
That's right, according to existing statute, FDLE is supposed to give firearm purchases an answer, a decision in 24 working hours, three business days.
I repeat, it's already in statute.
My bill simply removes the one sentence that creates the ambiguity of the law.
Florida Statute 790.065, which I do not touch, says that after three business days, FDLE must say one of three things.
You're either approved, denied, or they have a third option.
FDLE can say, we haven't found anything on you in three business days, so you can receive your firearm, but we reserve the right to take it back.
And this is how the majority of states operate.
And this is not risky.
Only four conditional approvals out of every 10,000 background checks nationwide ends up being reversed.
And those firearms are retrieved by the ATF. Rep Eskamani asked me Friday and she mentioned today about the proper role of the ATF. Not only is it the job of the ATF to retrieve firearms from criminals who are disqualified from having them, but the ATF, in my opinion, should also do their job and prosecute them while they're at it because these individuals have committed a felony by lying on their background check.
That's how you do it.
Not by persecuting my law-abiding citizens in District 3 and making them wait six months for their legal purchase, but by aggressively going after the criminals who aren't supposed to have these guns in the first place.
You cannot delay the expression of someone's God-given rights when they've done nothing wrong.
A right delayed is a right denied.
Mr. Speaker, my idol may have said these famous words back in 1775, but they are no less true today.
I know not what course others may choose, Mr. Speaker, but as for me, give me liberty or give me death.
With that, I close.
The clerk will lock the machine and announce the vote.
78 yeas, 36 nays, Mr. Speaker.
Show the bill passes.
Read the next bill.
We are back live.
Congratulations to Representative Rudman for standing up for gun owners.
We encourage the Florida Senate to take up Representative Rudman's good bill and pass it for the good folks in the Sunshine State.
Just another thing I want to update you on.
There's this great project a friend of mine, Greg Struce, runs.
It's the Declaration of Independence project where people are able to recommit themselves to the principles of the Declaration of Independence.
I recently signed my declaration inside the U.S. Capitol.
Take a listen.
The Declaration of Independence is central to our nation's values, our liberty, our freedoms, and I am proud to support the Declaration of Independence project.
And I'm here on the Speaker of the House balcony in Washington, D.C., at our nation's capital, ready to sign my name.
Ready to fight?
Thank you so much for joining us today on Firebrand.
As always, the best way to consume the show is to download the Rumble app, turn your notifications on.
That way, you get notice each and every time we go live.
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