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Jan. 14, 2023 - Timcast IRL - Tim Pool

02:03:32

Timcast IRL - Matt Gaetz Joins, Discussing Biden Special Counsel and GOP Investigations

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ian crossland

14:50

luke rudkowski

17:06

matt gaetz

01:16:11

tim pool

11:40

Appearances

serge du preez

02:08

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Show episode speakers

Speaker	Time	Text
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		So that speaker vote in the house was something else.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		And, uh, we watched, I think McCarthy lose, what was it, 15 times?
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		Fourteen.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		Fourteen times.
		The 15th was when he won.
		So anyway, I'm losing my voice.
		I didn't do my normal morning segments and we're just going to jump into it and talk about what's going on with Congress because Matt Gaetz is here and he's already told us a whole bunch of crazy-ish that we're like, that can't be true.
		And he's like, yeah.
		And I'm like, okay, so let's just jump into the show.
		Smash the like button, subscribe to the channel, become a member at TimCast.com.
		We got everybody here.
		Let's do a quick run of introductions.
		We're hanging out with Matt Gaetz.
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		Good to see you guys.
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		Thanks for having me.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		I think everybody knows who you are, but brief introduction for those who maybe don't.
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		I represent Florida's 1st Congressional District, been in Congress since my election in 2016.
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		I'm on the Armed Services and Judiciary Committees.
unidentified		Well done.
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		For now.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		For now.
luke rudkowski ▲ ● ▼		Hey guys, my name's Zuckerdowski here of wearechanged.org.
		Today I'm wearing a very eloquent, polite statement perfect for dinner parties that says Joe and the blank got to go.
		A shirt that you can get on TheBestPoliticalShirts.com because you guys do that.
		That's why I am here.
		Thank you again so much for having me.
ian crossland ▲ ● ▼		I'm really glad you're here, man.
		An hour away from D.C.
		we are.
		This should be happening frequently to get the word of the people out from our representatives to the people.
		Let's keep using this tech.
		Anyway, let's keep going.
		Serge, what's happening?
serge du preez ▲ ● ▼		Hey, I'm Serge.com.
		What's up, guys?
		Stoked that you're here.
		It's going to be a good one.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		All right, let's just jump into it.
		So, Matt, you stood up to Kevin McCarthy, to the GOP establishment, several times as an understatement, and we watched for that week or so, and we were laughing the whole time.
		I am stoked that you're here because I think what you did was awesome, but I'm curious to learn about the details.
		I heard about this Shadow document.
		Apparently you and several others cut some kind of deal or finally got McCarthy to cave in and give you guys something.
		Then we heard there's going to be a floor vote to abolish the IRS.
		Just tell us what's going on because, you know, we're getting it all secondhand.
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		Look, we believed that Washington was broken.
		The normal system of selecting leadership in both parties is based on the redistribution of lobbyists and special interest money.
		If you want to be the leader of your party, you basically have to raise and redistribute North of $100 million.
		And Kevin McCarthy was so good at that, he raised and distributed about half a billion dollars over the course of the last election cycle.
		And so it creates a covenant that's not really built on trust or merit or vision, but trading money for political support.
		And we wanted to send a shock to that DC cartel system and say, no, guess what?
		There's gonna have to be a different way you get there.
		And the concessions we sought principally fell into like three buckets.
		Policy.
		We wanted specific bills coming to the floor.
		We wanted commitments on when they would come to the floor.
		We wanted adherence to specific spending levels with a budget resolution.
		And the organizing principle of our policy goals was really to make sure that we would never again get an omnibus bill.
		Like we had to vote on?
		That's just a total joke of a way of governing.
		Like, how can we sit here and honestly say that bills that are thousands of pages long that spend 1.7 trillion dollars and that you get 48 hours before having to cast a vote is really legislating?
		It's not.
		It devalues each individual member and it's insulting to our constituents to suggest that we even know what the hell we're doing when that's the way we run the railroad.
		So we had policy concessions.
		Second was procedure.
		You know, having those 72 hours to read the bill.
		Having open amendments.
		The youngest member of Congress was not yet born the last time the appropriations process went through regular order.
		And that just means, like, we should vote on the defense stuff separately, and then vote on, like, the education stuff, and then the health and human services stuff, and that it doesn't just all get mushed together so somebody can vote for a bunch of bullshit that you wouldn't otherwise approve, and then say, well, I had to vote for it to fund our troops, right?
		That's the game.
		That's what the cartel builds, and lobbyists make a gazillion dollars off of that.
		The final leg of the stool is personnel.
		Like, in order to enforce the deal that we got, we wanted specific people on specific committees, in specific leadership posts, and, you know, what's the saying?
		You rob the banks because that's where the money's at.
		Well, we wanted Far more representation on the Appropriations Committee because that's where the money is.
		And a lot of Americans don't know what the Rules Committee is or why that's important, but it totally governs what we get to vote on and what we don't get to vote on.
		And so we demanded specific people and specific representation on the Rules Committee.
		I think we're going to be in a lot stronger position as a result.
		I heard a few critiques during this process.
		One is like, this was chaos.
		You showed the country how rough and tumble this is and you should have done this behind closed doors.
		To hell with that, man.
		Behind closed doors is where the American people have been getting screwed.
		And so I wanted to level my complaint on the House floor specifically.
		I wanted to cite the people that I was objecting to and their ascension to leadership.
		And so I didn't, that didn't mind.
		And then like, it's like, oh, no, this took this, you burned your whole first week.
		There are days in Congress where the only thing we vote on is the renaming of one post office.
		There are days in Congress where the only thing we vote on are the rules that govern the next vote.
		And we take six weeks off every year for summer vacation where we do absolutely nothing.
		So to take four days to say, this is the policy, this is the procedure, this is the personnel that is going to drive the Republican team going forward seems like the best use of time since I've been there.
		So that was the general construct.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		I mean, that's amazing.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		Why was it only 20 members of Congress willing to stand up?
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		Well, I mean, first of all, the frontline members, even the frontline, and when I say the frontline members, I mean members that are in districts that are 51-49, maybe even districts that Joe Biden won by a substantial portion, right?
		They had a loyalty to Kevin and an argument that was something like this.
		Well, Matt, if a guy goes out there and spends, you know, four years Taking money from the lobbyists and giving that money to us, and then in the last minute you knife that person, no one will ever agree to be the valet for those people ever again.
		And we need that delivery system of resources, and so it's not about how much we like or don't like McCarthy, it's about a system that we rely on to resource our campaigns.
		And I mean, that's a pretty astonishing argument, but it at least has a logical construct.
		And then, you know, there are people who fear disrupting the system.
		They think, look, I got here to Congress.
		I've got a staff that tells me I'm always losing weight and that my jokes are funny.
		Like I go home and I'm the big cheese at the Rotary Club, and to every extent that I can have calm waters, the better, and anything that creates turbulence, I oppose.
		And that's actually a pretty big swath of the Republican conference and the Democrat conference.
		That is how the Uniparty gets to groupthink.
		And I hear all this time these geriatric senators talking about, like, oh, the importance of These great bipartisan achievements, but so often in my life, the greatest moments of unity have been the worst for the people.
		There was a shit ton of unity to pass the Patriot Act.
		We never thought it was actually going to be used against patriots.
		We thought it was going to be used against Arabs in faraway lands.
		There was a whole lot of unity over the Iraq War.
		Everybody was for that.
		There was a ton of unity for the COVID lockdowns.
		There was a ton of unity for just printing money and sending it to people that weren't working.
		And so, like, whenever they're the bills that are, like, the major bills that have 90-95% support, that's when you need to be most worried at times.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		You fear retaliation?
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		No, because we built the tools in that would allow us to have the accountability.
		I mean, Nancy Pelosi is going to go down in history as the last of the imperial speakers that centralized power and that then, you know, only doled out to members, oh, well, you can go rename a post office.
		You can go create a task force.
		Meanwhile, the macroeconomic decisions, the major cultural and policy decisions, all get centralized in the speaker's office.
		Where a lot of the staff all went to like Northeastern schools and are afraid of things like fried food and guns and, you know, people who enjoy those things, right?
		And Paul Ryan gave an interview on CNN yesterday that was really telling, where he even confessed, like, I had too much power as speaker.
		Like, way too many of those decisions were made without the people who had spent years analyzing policies, seeing which programs had varying levels of efficacy.
		And so While, you know, McCarthy, I think to his credit, at the end of the day was willing to devolve a lot of that power.
		We reinstituted the one-member motion to vacate the chair.
		So, for any reason, at any time, any member can go to the floor and call for a vote to remove the Speaker of the House, and if 218 people vote for that motion, then the Speaker is gone.
		Now, I don't want to use that, I don't intend to use that, but I think having it on the books is healthy for the institution so that there isn't fear of retaliation for doing what's right.
ian crossland ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, it is.
		The Speaker works for us, the people, and should be On a whim, taken out.
		I mean, I think that those people are there to represent us.
		If they're not representing us, they should be removed instantly.
		I love that idea.
		Thank you.
luke rudkowski ▲ ● ▼		I mean, they should at least read the bills, right?
unidentified		If you're going to pass a bill, if you're going to pass a law, read them, for freak's sakes.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		One of the things Ian's brought up is that it should be illegal to vote on a bill that you didn't read.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		What do you think about that?
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		Well, I mean, then we wouldn't be taking many votes.
		I mean, there was a moment during all of this where people were like, Well, Gates, if you and your 20 holdouts stay that way, then we won't even be able to organize!
		And I'm thinking, well, give us a lot of leverage on the debt limit, you know, if we didn't constitute the House.
		So yeah, maybe sometimes, like, you know, a reflexive legislative body isn't what's good for the country.
luke rudkowski ▲ ● ▼		Maybe less government is good, which I think historically that point is proven many times over and over again.
		But I think it's fair to say that there was also a lot of contention between you and a lot of other people.
		I know Donald Trump was also calling in specifically.
		Can you get into some of the contention that was happening there?
		Because it looked pretty intense.
		It looked pretty crazy.
		And there was also one specific photo of you sitting there, and there was a guy in your face.
		And it was a famous video and a famous picture that had the caption, Exist and you were kind of cool and standing your ground there.
		Can you tell us what was happening there behind the scenes?
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		Well, first of all, I don't get rattled when people yell at me in public because it happens like three times a week So for a lot of members of Congress like having your colleagues like upset at you or yelling at you like that's deeply uncomfortable and really that did not affect my week at all because what I knew is that our argument about how corrupt and how Flawed the decision-making is in Washington was getting out and that it was and that was breaking through I think the contention was overplayed because of the cameras.
		The late Don Young almost pulled a knife on me on the floor because I wouldn't vote for a bill that he had regarding sea lions or something like that.
		There are always contentious moments.
		But usually if you just have that one C-span camera angle and not the dynamic angles to
		see how people are interacting, you don't capture a lot of it. So look, any body where you've got 435
		people, you've got a variety of different alliances and opinions and grievances that change over time.
		I think that one of the interesting arguments for term limits, and I'm very glad we're getting an
		actual vote on term limits because everybody talks about it in their campaigns, but they
		never vote on it, is that the churn ensures that long-standing boomer grudges don't become
		a governing principle.
		Look, now, if somebody who's the lead person on financial services or on the Ways and Means Committee just hates you, you're not going to get your idea through, and they can just outlast you.
		Whereas in a term limits environment, those grudges dissolve every time the Congress turns over, the legislative body turns over.
ian crossland ▲ ● ▼		You mentioned the debt ceiling a little bit ago.
ian crossland ▲ ● ▼		You guys are about to vote on a debt ceiling?
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		In the next four months.
ian crossland ▲ ● ▼		So my whole life I've been watching them incrementally raise the debt ceiling over and over and over.
		And the thing is, from my point of view, it's supposed to be a ceiling.
		That you don't print more money than that, because that's the ceiling.
		So can we make a realistic debt ceiling of 1.4 quadrillion?
		Just say, we're going to get there eventually?
		We can survive this amount.
		We're going to print another $7,000 trillion.
		Because I think we are going to.
		I don't know.
		Do you think maybe we won't?
		What do you think about that idea?
		Is that just too far out?
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		Well, you're right that it's a joke because there is no real plan to ensure that we have a cap on that which we will borrow and spend.
		And I think the reason this continues to get worse on the books is because regular Americans don't feel the pain of the national debt in an approximate way.
		If an illegal immigrant runs over your family member, you feel that, right?
		If someone in your household loses their job, there's a direct impact you see.
		If the factory that your mom worked at goes to Chihuahua, Mexico, that is a traceable thing.
		But so long as we're the global reserve currency, we're able to sort of exist in this era of expanding debt.
		Now, we're starting to pay the price with rising inflation.
		But, you know, there is no real lobby or special interest for less spending in Washington.
		Like, that's the problem.
		Go on K Street, throw a rock, and you're going to hit someone who's paid a lot of money to get more spending in one way or the other.
		And so, like, the way we compromise is just by doing all of it.
		Whether it's defense, non-defense, discretionary, non-discretionary, mandatory.
		And that is how the Uniparty works.
		So the demand we put with the leverage we had in the Speaker's race was that the House of Representatives must pass a budget resolution at the 2022 spending levels.
		So roll this thing back a couple years.
		And it's similar to like in 2015 when they did cut, cap and balance.
		And so here, all of what we do has to go under those spending levels.
		And look, it's going to mean some cuts in areas that I support, like defense.
		But if we've got to cut defense, maybe we ought to cut all the money we spend defending other nations far away, like Ukraine.
luke rudkowski ▲ ● ▼		Hey, Pakistan needs their gender studies, okay?
		I think it's imperative for the world that we finance that, as well as, you know, beagle torture by Dr. Fauci.
		We need to finance that.
		Who else is going to do it unless we do it?
		So, I'm just being facetious here, but obviously there's a lot of wheeling and dealing in Washington, D.C., and we saw that through, of course, this larger vote for the Speaker of the House.
		You saw a lot of it.
		We saw a lot of people like MTG, also a lot of individuals like Thomas Macy, not really kind of join your cause there.
		Are you able to speak about some of the deals that were being made there and what was being negotiated behind the scenes?
		Because we know publicly there was a lot said, but there was also a lot of closed door meetings that we didn't get to see.
		Are you able to talk about those?
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		Sure, I mean Thomas Massey, while he voted for McCarthy on every ballot, he was there with us in the back rooms helping write a lot of the fiscal policy that ended up undergirding the agreement.
		And MTG, you know, she is an inspirational force.
		I consider her Probably my closest ally in all of Congress.
		And she deserves to be on committees.
		And what the Democrats did to her was so wrong and so egregious.
		And I think that she had an earlier understanding with Speaker McCarthy that she would get back on committees, that they would be meaningful committees, that they would tailor to her skill set.
		And I think that was sufficient for her to support him.
		We sought some broader structural changes.
		We achieved those.
		The changes and concessions we got out of McCarthy are only going to endure to the benefit of MTG because she's one of our more dynamic and fearless members.
ian crossland ▲ ● ▼		I like Kevin's behavior the last week.
ian crossland ▲ ● ▼		McCarthy.
luke rudkowski ▲ ● ▼		How would you rate him being Speaker of the House this week?
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		Well, one of the things that was not in the rules but was part of our addendum agreement was that the 14,000 hours had to be released of the footage from January 6th, and the Speaker has custodial oversight of a lot of those records and he made that
		commitment and then today he reaffirmed it publicly that that's exactly what we're going to do. So
		yeah, you know, trust is a series of promises kept and I believe that McCarthy
		deserves the opportunity to keep the promises he made and so far he's on the right track. Is
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		he going to have a grudge against you?
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		I don't know that I'm going to be on his Christmas card list, but you know, it doesn't like that.
		That's not really what it's about. You know, he...
		He knows very clearly what my objectives are and what it took to get us to go forward with a speaker, and he is performing to that expectation.
		It's not personal for me, it's business.
ian crossland ▲ ● ▼		I'd love to get you guys in together to debate live on the show.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		It'd be hot.
		What would the best outcome of that have been?
		Jim Jordan or Byron Donalds?
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		Look, I think that Jim Jordan is our most talented member.
		I think he's our hardest working member.
		He is one of my mentors.
		He inspires me.
		But, you know, it got to a point where there were six holdouts, where we didn't want to drive McCarthy into the arms of the Democrats, right?
		So once the margin gets that low, McCarthy could, in theory, have gone to the Democrats, gotten, you know, four, five, six of them to get instant COVID in exchange for draining our subpoena authority.
		And then he would have ascended to the speakership anyway.
		All of the features of our deal would have dissolved.
		And then every time we didn't send a subpoena to hold government accountable, he could have said, well, that's Matt Gaetz's fault.
		So we didn't want to put him in that position, the country in that position, the House in that position.
		And so that's why we crafted what we thought was a deal that was not reliant on trust, but that had clear enforcement triggers.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		Eric Swalwell, Adam Schiff, they're getting removed from their committees, right?
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		Yeah.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		Do you think that's a good thing?
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		Yeah.
		I think that the Democrats kind of, you know, crossed the Rubicon on this when they threw MTG and Gosar off committees without a basis.
		And there is sufficient basis with Schiff in particular.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		I agree.
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		And, you know, Swalwell.
		I don't think the grave Swalwell emergency is the Fang Fang thing.
		I think it's more the role he played in the Russia hoax.
		When you go out there and say there's evidence that the President of the United States is a Russian agent, and then you don't deliver on that, you shouldn't get to serve on the major committees that have access to the most sensitive intelligence on the planet Earth.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		I agree.
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		And Adam Schiff... But like the Fang Fang thing.
		Poor Fang Fang.
		Listen, listen, the Internet is not going to like what I have to say.
unidentified		Maybe.
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		But within the Republican conference, I am Swalwell's biggest defender on the Fang Fang thing, and here is why.
		He was a city councilman in the city of Dublin and some chick showed up with money wanting to hook up with him.
		You think that like he's a single guy like running around Southern or running around California and he's supposed to have like the defensive briefing to turn down some like hot Chinese chick that was wanting to like donate money and jump in bed with him.
		He wasn't a member of Congress.
		He didn't have access to intelligence.
		What most sensitive information he was working on was like the sewage system of the city of Dublin.
		Was he with Fang Fang while he was in Congress?
		give the guy a break for that, what you don't give him a break for is then coming here and
		weaving these whole lies onto half-truths to try to destabilize the presidency in the
		country.
		That's far more egregious than the Fang Fang thing.
ian crossland ▲ ● ▼		Was he with Fang Fang while he was in Congress?
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		No!
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		That was when he was on the city council somewhere in nowhere California.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		But there's also with Adam Schiff the release of phone records of private citizens and Nunes.
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, well Schiff is truly the worst member of Congress.
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		It's like looking into the eyes of evil with that guy.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		I was going to say, I think he's an evil man.
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		He has no reflection.
ian crossland ▲ ● ▼		What is going on?
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		And if you bring garlic around, his skin starts to burn.
ian crossland ▲ ● ▼		I haven't talked to him, but I think he's got that same mindset that he's like, these people are evil.
		And then other people are like, he's evil.
		Like, what is going on?
		Is this a breakdown in communication or something?
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		He held up an envelope on TV saying that it was proof Trump colluded with Russia or whatever, and that he couldn't show anybody.
		That's what happened.
		It's been a while.
unidentified		Yeah.
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		Well, and then he like made up.
		a construct of a transcript between Zelensky and Trump that just didn't happen.
		It was just willed into existence by his imagination.
		And I mean, he's done such damage to our intelligence community.
		And like, there is a place for the United States to like, know what's going on in the world.
		Usually knowledge is power, right?
		But the way he weaponized it, and it really started with a lot of the Obama people.
		Say what you will about Obama, the guy was good at vertically integrating personnel in a lot of these agencies where the bureaucracy would bend to their will.
		Like, if there's a fair critique of Trump, it's that, you know, he was this great visionary, but oftentimes the people that were two, three, four layers down were working against him, and he didn't roll into the presidency with this terrific Rolodex of people that could go and operate at that level.
		Whereas, you know, Schiff, Obama, like, these people were good at getting people in place to drive action, and we should learn from that.
ian crossland ▲ ● ▼		Is it because they were hooked up with the liberal economic order at the time, and, like, they just had all the backing of Right.
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		If you're part of the prevailing way of thinking, the national security state, the neoconservative worldview, there's an entire infrastructure there to build out your career.
		There are endowed professorships.
		There are think tanks that are ready to give you six-figure jobs.
		There's a career progression of jobs on the Hill.
		But if you think differently, you're kind of hunted.
		You're hunted, canceled.
		They do everything to compromise you.
		And if that doesn't work, they try to destroy you.
luke rudkowski ▲ ● ▼		There's a lot of compromise, especially in Washington, D.C., but how deep does the rabbit hole go?
		Because there's a lot of people talking about, you know, the deep state, the intelligence agencies having a lot of control, using a lot of extortion, special interest groups pulling the strings here.
		What's your understanding of how things really work in Washington, D.C., compared to what the average American kind of sees?
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		Well, I think the most corrupt foray into this is freshman orientation.
		Because you show up here, and I mean, imagine showing up from Northwest Arkansas, from Southern Mississippi, and you see the architecture of D.C.
		They take you out to the finest steakhouse, the best wine you've ever had, and co-located at your table are the lobbyists for the major special interests for the committees that you're interested that you want to serve on.
		So, like, I get here and they're like, oh, Gates, you want to be on the Armed Services Committee.
		Have you met these defense contractors?
		These are the key lobbyists that round up the defense money.
		And they put you with them from the very beginning.
		And you sort of get the joke that if you give your vote card to the leadership and your calendar to the lobby corps, you just kind of get enveloped into a system that's there to nurture you and protect you and keep you out of harm's way.
		And all it costs you is your own belief set.
		And I don't think that's compromise so much as selling out.
		Now, you know, so that is like step one.
		And that catches a whole lot of the people who get here.
		And then beyond that, if you kind of resist that system, then they do try to extort you, engage in anything they can do to compromise you, cancel you, find some joke that you liked on Instagram years ago that doesn't fit with the mores
		of this time. Find some email that you were on the forward chain of that's some basis to say that
		you're a white supremacist or you're some sort of unacceptable human that can't be in polite
		company. And then if that doesn't work, it's abject destruction through the political process where
		there are many, many dollars lined up solely for the extermination of those who push
		back against the narrative.
luke rudkowski ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, this is detailed extensively in books like The Economic Hitman that I think are definitely worth reading and checking out here.
luke rudkowski ▲ ● ▼		But talking to previous members of Congress, it's really kind of daunting to see what they have to go through, how much pressure they have to go through, how much agreement they have to agree to before even getting into some of those positions of power.
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		On the dues, it's money.
		I mean, there's specific dollar amounts.
		I mean, I remember, you know, going in and saying, well, I want to be on the Armed Services
		Committee and someone looked me dead in the eye and said, well, that'll be $75,000 that
		you owe to the leadership funds and to the Republican Congressional Committee.
		And so, you know, I go home and think, well, you know, part of you wants to say screw you
		or like, are you wearing a wire?
luke rudkowski ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, if I could ask you, and again, you don't have to answer this, but who do you think is more influential and powerful in Washington, D.C.?
luke rudkowski ▲ ● ▼		The lobbyists or the intelligence agencies?
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		Well, I mean, the answer to the question is yes, they're one and the same, because oftentimes they are fused with precisely the same personnel.
		Where people will roll out of DOJ and end up at, you know, the law firm that services the lobby corps and the very same clients.
		I mean, there's no better example of the fusion of that than when I learned through a whistleblower that the Perkins Coie law firm, which is the legal wing of the Democratic Party, has within it a secure information facility that is run by the FBI.
		So they literally have a place in their law firm where they can try to convert political dirt into intelligence investigations, counterintelligence investigations, criminal investigations, and the like.
luke rudkowski ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, and let's not forget all the Epstein tapes that they have, too.
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		And it's up and running today.
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		It's up and running today.
luke rudkowski ▲ ● ▼		And they have all the Epstein tapes, too, but that's another thing.
		Do you have any hope in the Jim Jordan new committee when it comes to investigating the weaponization of government?
		Do you think that's going to be akin to maybe a church committee?
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, that's our objective and the specific agreement we have with McCarthy is that that select committee will have the budget, resources, personnel, no less than the Democrats' January 6th committee.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		Well, what do you think?
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		Do you think it'll work out?
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		Look, it's hard to promise outcomes when we don't have the ability to throw handcuffs on anybody or put anybody in jail, right?
		All we can do is expose facts.
		And so it relies on other features of our system to kind of go end to end on that accountability. And so I don't
		want to promise people like, yeah, you know, you're gonna see
		Hunter Biden hauled off in cuffs, you're gonna see the Joe Biden, University of Penn, like China, money laundering
		stuff, and you know, because that may be out there, but it may not
		result in precisely what people would hope upon encountering the
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		Ian, do you want to ask about, you made that point about sometimes no investigation is better than an investigation.
ian crossland ▲ ● ▼		Oh, yeah, especially like with the NIST investigation for 9-11.
		I mean, there's so many holes in that thing, if you look at it objectively.
		Like, I'm concerned that they would put forth an investigation, but it ends up being a sham.
		And then they're like, Okay, we did it.
		Our investigation's over, everyone.
		We didn't find anything.
		Don't ask again.
		As opposed to no investigation.
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		This is the Saudis' playbook, right?
		I mean, the Saudis were able to avoid the responsibility that they have in the 9-11 attacks and in a terrorist attack in my district in Pensacola.
		Because they get a nice little report written that is sufficient to absolve them, and then they say, oh well, not nothing to see here.
		You don't need to come back and conduct any further inquiry.
ian crossland ▲ ● ▼		Do you fear or is that concern when creating committees of, I don't know, because I'm like, well, we need an independent committee, but who's deciding who's on the independent committee?
ian crossland ▲ ● ▼		How do you ensure that it isn't a sham?
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		Personnel.
		That's why we know that the people who will be on that committee will be people like Jim Jordan, Chip Roy, Thomas Massey.
		People who actually ask tough questions.
ian crossland ▲ ● ▼		What is the goal exactly?
		Are there specific directions that you guys are aiming at thus far?
		Have you decided what departments are going to be investigated or what specific things are being looked for?
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, you heard McCarthy in his speech single out the FBI, right?
		He did not talk about like a weaponized government in the abstract.
		When he spoke, he spoke specifically about politics at the FBI.
		So one of our first areas of inquiry is going to be This Timothy Tebalt guy who suppressed information that was derogatory to the Bidens and did not allow the normal process of criminal inquiry to continue there.
		And they do everything they can at the FBI to try to supercharge anything that I wonder how it is that, you know, Trump being a wealthy elite and all that stuff still ends up outside the big club.
		And then if it's the Bidens, they function as their defender
		and they suppress the derogatory information.
		So that'd probably be where we start.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		I wonder how it is that, you know, Trump being a wealthy elite and all that stuff still ends up outside the big club.
		That, you know, Joe Biden seems to get away with everything, but
		Donald Trump is the target of everything.
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		Do you think that it's a function of elitism?
		Or do you think it's a function of like Joe Biden just being of
		I mean, he is of this place.
		He chaired foreign affairs in the Senate, where you interact with a lot of the people who end up in powerful positions in the intelligence community.
		And Trump went in with a goal of reorganizing that and changing it.
		And that's, I think, why they kick back at him so hard.
ian crossland ▲ ● ▼		What I don't understand, though, is if Trump, or let's say Joe Biden is part of the liberal economic order that's, you know, we're evolving to a new world order.
		They say George Bush Sr.
		said that.
		Klaus Schwab's intimated that.
		Lots of people around the world are realizing we're globalizing.
		A new world order where it's not about American military bases everywhere anymore.
		Now we're going to have a new type of thing.
		But in that instance, I would think that the Americans would want the Russians on their side, not siding with China and the Chinese economic order.
		I don't understand why are people pushing Russia away if they're trying to create a new world?
		I'm concerned it would make America number three.
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		Well, I mean, what we're seeing right now is the leveraged buyout of Russia with a lot of Chinese cash.
		I mean, there are more Chinese with $2 million cash in their bank account right now, like US equivalent, than there are total Canadians.
		And so, yeah, you're seeing a lot of the farmland in Russia get just bought out by the Chinese, and it fuses those systems in a way that poses a real substantial threat to the United States, to the West at large.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		Aren't they buying our farmland as well?
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		Yeah.
ian crossland ▲ ● ▼		I thought that maybe we could propose some sort of peace deal between Russia and Ukraine because what they're doing, it looks like Putin's trying to take a land bridge to Crimea so that he has warm water access into the Black Sea.
		Russia, basically after the Soviet Union split up, they took it all away from Russia and they gave They gave it to Ukraine, that city.
		What's the big city there, right in Crimea?
		And I think what we need to do is establish... I don't think Russia's ever going to stop until they get a land bridge into Crimea and a warm water seaport.
		So has that come up in Congress?
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		You guys are like, can we... I've got a pretty cynical view on the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
		I've been voting against sending more weapons there.
		Hold on, let me get this cough drop.
ian crossland ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, dog.
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		I'll give you guys a...
unidentified		Well, the geopolitical situation, especially... You got an extra one of those?
luke rudkowski ▲ ● ▼		A lot of people in the comment section are saying this is coughcast unfolding right now.
luke rudkowski ▲ ● ▼		I think I'm the only one.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		I'm not coughing, I just lost my voice.
luke rudkowski ▲ ● ▼		Me and Ian are the only ones holding on here.
		But it is a very complex geopolitical situation that I think represents the larger proxy war between the East and the West.
		I think sending in more weapons prolongs this proxy conflict to make sure that, of course, it goes on forever.
		I think this war is meant to be continued and not won.
		There's also a lot of debates now about tanks.
		To me, do you think there's a possibility for any kind of peace deal?
		Because I think it's getting co-opted so many times, including by individuals like Boris Johnson, that literally go to Ukraine and say, no, you're not going to even sit at the table here with the Russians.
		Do you think One year from now, ten years from now, there's some kind of possibility for peace here, or is this just going to be a continued conflict forever?
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		Well, who makes money on a peace deal?
luke rudkowski ▲ ● ▼		That's true.
luke rudkowski ▲ ● ▼		Yep.
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		Right?
		I mean, peace is not nearly as profitable to those who are in the war business.
		I mean, to me, our involvement in Ukraine is directly linked to our diminished involvement in Afghanistan.
		Afghanistan was the money laundering capital of the world for a lot of our lifetime.
		A lot of that cash was run through Dubai and Abu Dhabi.
		And when that was not the corrupt country that we just decided to pour American cash on, we needed another historically corrupt country to go pour American military material and cash into.
luke rudkowski ▲ ● ▼		And gain-of-function research, too.
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		Ukraine fit the bill.
		And so I don't believe that anyone's really working toward peace.
		I think that there are very powerful interests that benefit if this is a long-term, low-yield war.
luke rudkowski ▲ ● ▼		Yes, CNN is even reporting right now that the United States is running low on some weapons and ammunition because they're transferring so much of it to Ukraine right now.
		So that's staggering and also dangerous for the United States to be in such a vulnerable spot as well.
		So I think you're absolutely right.
		There's a lot of bigger interest here.
		BlackRock just signed a deal with Ukraine that they're going to be rebuilding Ukraine, as of course BlackRock also has a lot of deals.
		Is there anything that we could do as people to bring awareness to this?
		military-industrial complex, you see the circle of life there kind of evolving there.
		Is there any way to kind of address this? Is there anything that we could do as people to
		bring awareness to this? Is there any way there could be some kind of peace here?
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		Well, the trend lines are coming in my direction when it comes to public perception on this.
		I mean, initially, like the American people were dying to send every American dollar, you know, to Ukraine.
		And increasingly, at least within the Republican Party, you've started to see that shift as our economic conditions are more in the forefront of people's minds.
		Like, we have laws that require end-to-end monitoring of materiel when we send it into a war zone.
		I am not convinced we are following them.
ian crossland ▲ ● ▼		Is it because we're not technically at war?
ian crossland ▲ ● ▼		The United States hasn't been technically at a war since World War II.
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		Well, we do have regs that define a conflict zone, and whenever we send stuff that kills into one of those places, we're supposed to know who has it.
		And we don't.
		And that is concerning to me.
		If that's like the new thing, is like, oh, well, you know, send the stuff, anything, what was it that Ben Sasse said when he was in the Senate?
		If it shoots, send it.
		And so we've been doing all of that, and I think that, in some ways, prolongs conflict.
		It doesn't bring us to a faster resolution to continue to pour cash and weapons into a historically corrupt country that is fighting.
ian crossland ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, Dave Smith would say, and has said, if you want to see who our next big enemy is going to be, look at who we're funding right now.
		And I'm concerned that the Nazis, I don't know if they're, technically, are they considered Nazis?
		Let's be, what is it?
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		Democrats thought so.
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		I mean, you had dozens of Democrats signing letters saying that the Azov battalion were a bunch of white supremacists, and while they want to call our own military, who are patriots, a bunch of white supremacists here, they got no problem draining the resources of our country to go and fund who they were just calling white supremacists, you know?
ian crossland ▲ ● ▼		A couple years ago.
ian crossland ▲ ● ▼		So if in six years the Azov start exterminating a race because they are happen to be genocidal or racist like then what is the American you gonna use that as evidence to go to war in Ukraine to fight the Azov and now we got more military bases in Ukraine protecting the Suez Canal?
unidentified		Yep.
luke rudkowski ▲ ● ▼		Well, there's a lot of Intel reports of a lot of advanced U.S.
		military hardware being sold on the black markets as well.
		And a lot of the weapons, even according to CBS News and Aid, not making it to its official destination.
		And I think that's such a travesty because there's so much human suffering in that country.
		There's so many people used as pawns.
		There's so many people hurt with this larger conflict.
		There's such a bigger immigration crisis here.
		How do you see all of this going?
		Because you have a lot of, you know, you're in Congress, you talk to a lot of people there.
		How do you see this kind of unfolding here with this never-ending war?
		Where are we going to be a couple years from now with this continuing the way it is?
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		What worries me is, like, you cannot overstate the gravity of some of the worst potential outcome sets here.
		I mean, you know, Russia, much like a Bond villain, sort of becomes more and more dangerous during its demise.
		It's a kleptocracy in a lot of ways.
		I mean, a lot of people have gotten out of Russia with whatever they could steal on their way out, right?
		To your point about the materiel and the black market.
		And so I think that for us to go and play a game of nuclear chicken over which guy in a tracksuit gets to run Crimea is foolish.
		And it's not how serious a serious country ought to behave.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		You think World War III could result from recklessness?
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		Of course.
		Of course.
		This is a tinderbox.
		And it's not Syria, right?
		It's Russia and Ukraine.
		It is a country that has enough nuclear power to end Earth multiple times over.
		And it's a leader who I don't think is making stable, rational decisions in Vladimir Putin.
		And, you know, to continue to send the Heimars there, to send the Bradleys there from the United States, seems provocative to me. Now, why isn't this Europe's
		problem? Right? You would think that Germany and the other powers in Europe would have the most
		at stake. But what they do, you know, as these European democracies face elections and as their
		reserves go down, like you're going to see them have a different posture towards Russia as their
		mandates expire and as they have to go back for elections. Plus, they rely on us for defense.
		Right.
		Well, I mean, that was one of the principal critiques that Trump made that I think got a lot of disaffected people to support him is when he said, I'm just tired of being like dead money at the world stage.
		Like being the world's policeman, being the world's piggy bank has not been good for the American middle class.
luke rudkowski ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, Trump also made sure that he sent lethal weapons to Ukraine, something Obama was even afraid to do.
		So, I mean, this conflict has been brewing for so long, since 2014, even before that, with the kind of revolution that's happening there.
		But to me, this is just such a sad thing to see humanity go through.
		I don't know.
		I just hope this kind of ends somehow.
		I don't think it is.
		I don't know if we should potentially even change topics.
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		What do you think when you see your leaders in Congress wear the American flag, Ukraine flag pin around?
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		Wasn't McCarthy doing that?
luke rudkowski ▲ ● ▼		Yep.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		I saw a photo.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		I don't know if it was real or not.
ian crossland ▲ ● ▼		It seems like they don't understand that Russia needs a warm water or wants a warm water port in the Black Sea.
		Like if that if that was understood and it's like, yo, this is about trade.
		This is about Russia.
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		You think it's just a real estate play?
ian crossland ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, I think he takes that.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		Energy, gas prom, natural gas, etc.
ian crossland ▲ ● ▼		It's real estate.
		Yeah, I think it is 100% real estate.
		And I don't know why there's not more American English media of Putin talking.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		Well, real estate, but energy, right?
ian crossland ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, transportation of oil and transportation.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		Gas ground controls a large portion of the natural gas from Russia into Europe.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		Western powers want to control it.
ian crossland ▲ ● ▼		Direct access to the Suez Canal, which is all of the Indian Ocean and things like that.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		Put some weights on Russia.
		Russia doesn't like it.
		Russia says, we're going to go and take the port back.
ian crossland ▲ ● ▼		I'm against war.
		I think that it's one of the reasons why I'm a little more dovish in my views.
		blockade their perception is being blockaded by emotions because it's always horrible to
		see someone get killed or to see a house get blown up or invasion or anything that's horrible.
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		I'm against war.
		You know, I mean, I think that it's one of the reasons why I'm a little more dovish in
		my views.
		I think oftentimes both sides lose.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		I wonder if like, you know, the World Economic Forum Davos group types have substantial influence when it comes to the wars we declare.
luke rudkowski ▲ ● ▼		Have you been asked?
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		Yeah.
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		Is that an open question in your mind?
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		No, I think they do.
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		Of course.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		What I mean is to what degree, right?
		Because obviously the goals they have, the actions we take align with them.
		So it's like the US has no reason to be involved in Ukraine.
		Like you said, it's Europe's problem.
		Yet for some reason we're acting like one body.
ian crossland ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, we're the military arm of the liberal economic order, the British Empire, basically.
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		That turned out well.
luke rudkowski ▲ ● ▼		Have you been asked to be a part of the World Economic Forum?
		I have not.
		And what kind of influence do you think they kind of have on the United States since Klaus Schwab openly brags about how he has half of the Canadian parliament being young members of the World Economic Forum?
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, no, I think that it's part of the, like, political-industrial complex.
		It's the finance wing of the political-industrial complex.
		And so, like, if what you need to keep your power and to win your elections is a super PAC that shows up with, you know, ten million dollars in dark money, like, who do you think cuts those checks?
		You think it's, like, some guy who's, like, a furniture tycoon in Oklahoma?
		It's not.
ian crossland ▲ ● ▼		Bank for International Settlements.
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		And everybody knows it.
		And everybody knows, and like, you know, this is an area where the populist right and the populist left need to work together on the way that we fund campaigns in this country, because it like, it always works to the benefit of the uniparty.
		And I don't get why people should be able to put unlimited money without disclosure into manipulating the viewpoints of Americans.
luke rudkowski ▲ ● ▼		Do you think politically there's going to be some kind of rift and change here?
		Because there does seem to be, obviously, the Democrats and the Republicans, but there also seems to be a bigger rift amongst the establishment and the anti-establishment.
		Totally.
		There's a lot of populists.
		There's also a lot of statists.
		There's a lot of rhinos.
		There's a lot of neocons.
		It's like a civil war within a civil war within a civil war, politically speaking, not violently speaking.
		Do you see the political landscape changing in the future?
		Because I think a lot of people are sick of these neocons, of these kind of rhinos, and they don't really represent the American people.
		We had enough of George W. Bush.
		He had his time.
		He ruined that time, and I think he spurred a situation where now the Democrats have a lot of power.
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		You know, when I first got elected to Congress, we could have a lot of collaboration between the populist right and the populist left on things like war powers, the surveillance state, political reforms that don't just empower kind of the PAC structure.
		And then January 6th happened, and those populist leftists would not talk to us.
		I mean, would not collaborate with us on bills, would not engage in any way.
		And it became such a point of personal trauma for some of them.
		And I don't think that was good for the country.
		I don't think that was good for kind of the anti-establishment unity that we need.
		I will say that since Republicans took the majority, they've been a lot nicer to us.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		We saw you talking with AOC during this whole process.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		Was that something relevant or that you can share?
unidentified		Sure.
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		I mean, I got caught on camera in conversations with AOC, Ilhan Omar, and Pramila Jayapal, like three people who folks have seen me disagree with more than agree with.
		With AOC, I was discussing whether or not the Democrats were going to leave the floor and cut a deal with McCarthy because that would have changed the math on the speaker vote.
		And so she was actually doing everything possible to make sure that they didn't.
unidentified		Wow.
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		And that there were 212 Democrats voting for Jeffries on every ballot.
		Wow.
		With Jayapal, we've worked together on legislation to break up big tech.
		And I was talking to her about the prospects in a Republican Congress and a
		Republican house of getting some bipartisan bicameral solutions to reshape a lot of
		these companies.
		And the Jayapal legislation from the 117th Congress, like was not, you know,
		taking immunities away and all that.
		It said, no, like Meta has to alienate their Instagram asset.
		Google has to alienate email from search and literally breaking up these companies.
		And then with Omar, we were actually talking about war powers.
		And I was teasing her a bit.
		I was like, you guys showed up here and said the military was racist.
		And before you were done being in the majority, you were voting for NATO.
		What went on there?
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		What did go on there?
		Hypocrisy?
		Tribalism?
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		I think that they got drafted into that establishment Democrat thinking.
		I don't think that the Squad really believes that like NATO is advancing the interests of their
		constituents on a day in day out basis, but yet they were still willing to vote for all these like
		NATO strengthening endeavors.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		Oh, go ahead.
luke rudkowski ▲ ● ▼		Are there some issues that could bridge the kind of populist left and the populist right
		together? Are there some things that we could actually agree upon that could bring this
		country back together? The first thing that comes to mind personally is the Epstein scandal. I think
		everyone on the left and right agrees on that. But are there some issues that you think could,
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		you guys could work together. How about abolishing Pfizer?
		Right?
		I mean, why wouldn't the populist right and populist left agree to take down some elements of the surveillance state?
		Yeah, absolutely.
ian crossland ▲ ● ▼		Another idea would be cleaning up the environment, like the atmosphere, pulling carbon out of the atmosphere.
ian crossland ▲ ● ▼		You can convert it into graphene.
luke rudkowski ▲ ● ▼		Here we go.
ian crossland ▲ ● ▼		Everyone drink directly.
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		No, I'm all about the carbon capture stuff.
		And also, this is a part of like the libertarian thing that I don't get.
		Like, why would we as Americans give carte blanche to a bunch of powerful
		businesses to pollute our air and our water. To me, America first means that you actually have to
		want this to be a beautiful place.
		And so I do think that making sure that we don't completely sell out to people to
		trash our nation would be important.
ian crossland ▲ ● ▼		Regarding using the government to protect us from corporations, you were talking about breaking up big tech earlier.
		I think a mistake that we should not make is what they did to Rockefeller with his Standard Oil.
		They broke it up into like seven or eight oil companies and then he made more money off of these new, so like breaking up Facebook into Facebook Prime, Facebook Messenger, Instagram, these different companies.
		Mark would still have the code.
		He'd still be able to run software like that.
		So I'm thinking we need to make them free their software code.
		So that other people can spin up versions of those websites, interlock them.
		My version of Facebook can interoperate with Mark Zuckerberg's version.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		Decentralization, I think.
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		The interoperability of data is really what you're talking about.
ian crossland ▲ ● ▼		Yes, force the companies.
ian crossland ▲ ● ▼		And it's sort of like breaking up Monopoly, but we're not actually breaking the company apart.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		But where I disagree is giving a proprietary code up is basically your intellectual property.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		But releasing the algorithmic code, how they manipulate the public with algorithms, I think is extremely important.
ian crossland ▲ ● ▼		I think that's the path for big tech.
		to heal the system with big tech as opposed to try and smash up companies
		and make them do what the government says they have to do like let them
		ban whoever they want but if they're not if they have bad terms of service in
		your version of the site as better terms of service they're gonna lose
unidentified		yeah go ahead. I got a different question so... I don't know about you but I
luke rudkowski ▲ ● ▼		think big tech had a huge influence in this latest midterm
		election I I think they're also essentially controlling what a lot of people see and think with their algorithms.
		They're becoming a huge, powerful entity that, of course, also now we're finding out through the Twitter files work for the private intelligence agencies.
		That curation, that ability to control what people see and listen to, that's a huge power.
		I personally think it had an effect on the election, and I think it's going to continue to have bigger effects on the election, especially in places that took a lot of the Zuckerbucks.
		Florida was one of the states that refused money from Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg, and their elections went totally different than a lot of states that did.
		Is there a solution to this?
		Is there a way to kind of rein in these intelligence agencies that are controlling big tech, that are essentially asserting their will on everyone else?
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		I think that on the election front, the specific algorithmic work to target certain types of voters to push registration, to push vote by mail, to push early voting, to do election day awareness, that is partisan.
		Based on who they are trying to target those messages to, right?
		And that should be transparent.
		And if it was transparent, I actually think the right enforcement tool is the Federal Elections Commission.
		Because, you know, when a when Facebook says, okay, well, like, we're going to target this exact population of people with this age range, and this zip code, that is a donation to a political party and a political movement and should be subject to the same caps that any other American would be subject to.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		I got a question for the audience.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		DeSantisGates2024?
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		2024? I'm for Trump. You're for Trump? Yeah, I'm for Trump.
		I think the world of DeSantis, I...
		Trump gates 2024. Well, I would do anything the president asked, but I think he's got better
		choices. I like what I'm doing now. You know, I was very involved in DeSantis' first campaign.
		I was his transition chairman when he came into the governorship in Florida. I helped him hire a
		lot of the folks that shaped the policy that make Florida the envy of the country right now.
		I think Ron DeSantis will be president one day, but in 2024, it's my hope and expectation it'll be Donald Trump.
luke rudkowski ▲ ● ▼		What do you think about Donald Trump still telling everyone to get vaccinated?
luke rudkowski ▲ ● ▼		That's been one of the core issues that kind of been a big kind of shock to a lot of people, especially a lot of his people.
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		Dude, the boomers love the vaccine.
unidentified		I mean, right now with the FDA and CDC... What was the Saturday Night Live thing where it was like, the boomers love the... If they're still around.
luke rudkowski ▲ ● ▼		But the FDA and CDC just came out and said that they're going to be investigating possible very serious side effects.
luke rudkowski ▲ ● ▼		That's an issue that is concerning to a lot of people, especially a lot of Trump supporters.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		Let's pull this up, actually.
		We have this from Politico.
		CDC, FDA see possible link between Pfizer's bivalent shot and strokes.
		The agency said the surveillance signal is very unlikely to represent a true clinical risk and said they will continue to recommend the vaccine.
		So this obviously has a lot of people worried.
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		You knew what the tell was.
		It was when the number one thing Republicans were lobbying for was were
		immunity protections and liability protections for the vaccine
		manufacturers.
		I mean, you knew at the very beginning this was going to be an issue because
		they had to they had to lay out all of their immunities and protection.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		And because YouTube was censoring anybody who brought that up.
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		How are you still on YouTube?
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		Like, you know, my thread.
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		I'm telling you, man.
ian crossland ▲ ● ▼		We argue with each other.
		If I say anything about COVID, for the most part, Tim will be like, no, no, no.
		And then we'll go at it.
		And we never make definitive claims.
		Very, very rarely make definitive claims about things we don't have proof of.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		It's basically just like, look, we're reading Politico here.
		You know what I mean?
		Hey man, if YouTube's got a problem with Politico, the BBC, CNN all reporting this, well then we're all effed.
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		Well, I mean, Marjorie Taylor Greene got zapped off of social media for saying that if you were really overweight, that was probably a bad idea vis-a-vis COVID and exercise would be helpful.
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		And then, you know, lo and behold, you later see CNN and the CDC accept those positions.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		Steven Crowder got a strike for citing the CDC.
luke rudkowski ▲ ● ▼		Yeah.
		But today's pretty big, especially with this FDA-CDC news that almost everyone in the corporate media is talking about.
		The British broadcasting company even had a cardiologist on that they're getting criticized for having on.
		A doctor, a mainline professional, that was talking about the larger concerns when it came to this, of course, shot and larger health effects that are being correlated here.
		I know Florida is investigating that right now under Ron DeSantis, but I see this as being...
		Yeah, but I see this as being a very key divisive issue, especially when it comes to the Republican primaries, especially when it comes to the possibility of DeSantis and Trump kind of heading, going at each other.
		How do you see that larger battle unfolding, and do you think there's going to be any accountability against Big Pharma for a lot of their kind of egregious actions and a lot of their data that they're hiding from the American people?
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		No.
		I mean, there are multiple big pharma lobbyists for every single member of Congress.
		You want to talk about a special interest that has a death grip on the political process, it is big pharma.
		And I don't know that the VAX mandate in the 2024 primaries will still be Like at the top of the issue matrix.
		I think this economy is about to go through a serious contraction.
		I think that people are going to see their 401ks experience real problems.
		I think that as interest rates rise, and that has such an impact on our nation's debt service, And how far the dollar can go.
		Purchasing power, business confidence, consumer confidence.
		I think, like, that's going to be the issue matrix along with the border in 2024.
		And a lot of places are getting rid of the vax mandate.
		I mean, I'm grateful that the Department of Defense is ditching the vax mandate.
		The fight's not over.
		We've got to reinstate people who saw their lives ruined.
luke rudkowski ▲ ● ▼		But I don't see it being a big... Yeah, you still need a vaccine to enter the United States if you're not a citizen.
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		You need one to get it.
		So tomorrow I'm on CNN.
		I'm on Smirkonish's show.
		So I was going to come into the studio, do the shtick there.
		And they're like, produce your vaccine, your booster.
		Were you triple boosted?
		Did you get a booster this morning?
		Do you have a negative test?
		And I'm like, I'm not doing any of that stuff.
		So I've got to shoot the segment remote.
		But then every time I see like my Republican colleagues now on set in the studio, I'm like, You know.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		We hit on the Krasensteins the other day.
		They're Democrats.
		And I asked them if they thought the economy was good, fairly good, bad, and they said somewhere between fairly bad and fairly good.
		And if you look at the polling, the majority, the plurality of people, the majority think it's fairly bad or worse.
		40% say very bad.
		So we got the story about Joe Biden and the documents in his garage.
		Meanwhile, it's like $9 in some places for a carton of eggs.
		You know, milk is really expensive.
		I think the average person, when it comes to the issue matrix like you're mentioning, is just sitting there wondering why cabbage costs $7.
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, I mean, I looked at the little head of cauliflower that we got at the grocery store, like the shrinkflation is real as well.
		And we were talking before we went live just about how silly I think like the archivist disputes are.
		Like I said in September, probably every one of these presidential, vice presidential libraries and think tanks in America is out of some sort of technical compliance with the Records Keeping Act.
		And For my constituents who have to drive a long way to work and are looking at gas prices, who, if you want to buy a used car today, I mean, good luck.
		I mean, I don't know if you want to drive them or bronze them after you get them based on how much you have to pay.
		The housing market, rent being up so high.
		I mean, already we've made it where millennials can barely afford to buy a house.
		So many are forced into rental life.
		And now what's happening with the cost of rent?
		Those are things that I think, like, people really think about.
		And you turn on cable news and it's all about like, there's an 11th document that they have found in Joe Biden's convertibles glove compartment.
		And we're supposed to clutch our pearls and act like that's like the biggest thing on the planet Earth.
ian crossland ▲ ● ▼		The 1.7 trillion omnibus that went through a couple was a month ago, three weeks ago, that changed the value of the dollar doing the math 1.7 trillion to our 31 trillion deficit is our debt is took the value of the dollar from $1 to 95 cents.
		Like, every dollar that you have is now worth 95 cents because that bill passed.
		Because that money was printed, I should say.
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, and you can go, you know, recap the value if you go to the gender studies courses in Pakistan.
luke rudkowski ▲ ● ▼		Exactly.
		And I think the financial problem is going to be very significant.
		I think a lot of people saw it during the beginning of COVID.
		I personally was calling it out, but we still haven't seen the full ramifications of it.
		There's going to be a lot of responsibility when it comes to printing so much money, spending so much money that we don't have.
		What are you seeing down the pipeline?
		How do you think this is going to unfold?
		Some people are saying in the corporate media that this is going to be just a little temporary recession.
		I don't think so myself.
		How do you see it unfolding?
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, it just, it seems as though we haven't yet paid the full price in jobs for what we've done to the dollar.
		And you're starting to see that with, you know, all the, what I call the hoodie layoffs, right?
		All the tech companies laying off people by the thousands, but now we're starting to see it in the productive sectors of the economy too, in manufacturing, In agriculture, stuff's just not creating the same investment confidence, it's not attracting the same degree of capital.
		Now, fortunately, a lot of other places in the world have it worse than we do, so the dollar has not bottomed out, but we cannot drive government spending to this extent.
		So then it becomes like, okay, in this world of divided government, what fight do you pick to try to resolve that?
		And we've got the debt limit coming up, and Republicans typically lose fights over the debt limit.
		If you just look politically, historically, because we're talking about some sort of economic algebra problem and the Democrats are like, yeah, well, your 401k will get cut in half if this doesn't happen, if the Republicans do brinksmanship.
		So as that comes up, what is the thing that we demand to spend less money on?
		represent that work requirements would be the right fight.
		We send so much money right now to able-bodied people who could work but choose not to. And
		we do it through state programs that access federal drawdowns. We do it through Medicaid
		expansion. We do it through different features of Obamacare, voluntary pre-care, all those
		different social service programs.
		And if you had work requirements in order to access those for able-bodied people,
		then I think that would be anti-inflationary.
		That would reduce some of the mandatory spending and the entitlement spending.
		And I think people could get that, right?
		As opposed to just like trying to walk everybody through an economics pie chart as the Democrats are accusing us of brinksmanship.
luke rudkowski ▲ ● ▼		So with the economy tanking, can you please give us some insider congressional trading tips, please?
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		By the way, another area where the populist right and populist left should work together.
		I do not believe that members of Congress should trade individual stocks.
		We have information that other people do not, and we have the ability to impact You're talking about big tech bills and potentially breaking up Facebook.
		authorize or that we pull.
		And so it's just crazy to me that that was ever allowed.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		You're talking about big tech bills and potentially breaking up Facebook.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		And just imagine if you're about to even vote on that and then you go and get put option
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		That's not a hypothetical.
		That happened.
		I mean, we had bills that were moving through the Judiciary Committee, that passed out of the Judiciary Committee, that broke up big tech.
		And we were all getting ready for them to come to the floor.
		And on the dip, Paul Pelosi bought a bunch of those stocks.
		And then guess what?
		Guess what, Tim?
		They never fucking came to the floor.
luke rudkowski ▲ ● ▼		Wow.
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		What a surprise.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		These people are evil.
unidentified		What?
ian crossland ▲ ● ▼		That's like what they did about Napoleon, the British, where they said Napoleon lost the war or won the war.
		Everyone sold their British stock.
		A bunch of rich British businessmen bought it up.
		And they're like, actually, he's still fighting.
luke rudkowski ▲ ● ▼		So you're saying go long or short on Tesla stocks?
luke rudkowski ▲ ● ▼		I'm taking notes here.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		Someone needs to clip that Paul Pelosi thing and put it on Twitter.
ian crossland ▲ ● ▼		Have you guys talked about defaulting on the Federal Reserve debt and just telling this quasi-private public company, we're not your bitch.
		You work for us, we allow you to exist, and we can't pay debt that we don't have.
		You borrow $10 trillion, you can't pay back $15, you only have $10.
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		We ain't got it.
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		Will you take a post-dated check?
ian crossland ▲ ● ▼		Where are we going to get the money for the debt ceiling thing?
ian crossland ▲ ● ▼		What about we just don't pay the Federal Reserve?
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		Do you know what?
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		The answer is I don't have it.
ian crossland ▲ ● ▼		I'm all about small business.
		But I do feel like it's like, how do I get this parasite out of my brain without killing myself?
		The Federal Reserve.
		It's in our system right now.
		It has been in control since 1913.
unidentified		And they had one job.
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		And it was not to let the economy overheat so that we got to this level of inflation.
ian crossland ▲ ● ▼		And they did it in 1928.
unidentified		Right.
ian crossland ▲ ● ▼		It happened in 28.
		I mean, the Great Depression was a direct result of these banksters, you know, deciding when and how we can run our lives.
		So does that ever come up?
		Do you guys talk a lot about the Federal Reserve and breaking it up or just Congress taking control of the monetary supply?
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		Well, in our lifetime, you've seen Congress devolve more power than it has claimed.
		And so in a lot of ways, it's a way for members of Congress to avoid a great deal of accountability for the economy, to just act as though it's a bunch of nerds with green eyeshades at the Fed that turn dials up or down that cause the economy to react in various ways.
		So the answer is no.
unidentified		Damn.
ian crossland ▲ ● ▼		And it's because they don't want to get stuck with the bag if and when the economy actually does crash.
ian crossland ▲ ● ▼		Well, I mean, I think that's reprehensible because that's one of the sole jobs of Congress is to protect the monetary supply.
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		Well, and instead, you get the $1.7 trillion Omni, which is why this fight we had this last week matters, because it's only ever going to be the way it's going to be until you force change and until you use the leverage you have.
		Think about it.
		If a Republican was president, I would have never been able to pull off what we pulled off because people would have said, You're getting in the way of the Trump agenda or the Bush agenda or whatever.
		But because Biden was there, Schumer was in the Senate, there wasn't this intense pressure to organize the House immediately.
		And we have the ability to be more deliberative and to get the structural concessions to stop
		that and to regain that power.
ian crossland ▲ ● ▼		You mentioned earlier how you guys were like kind of working, the populists were working
		together and then January 6th comes along and we talk about like, who let those people
		into that door?
		Like, who, who hit the magnetic unlock and like let those people walk in from the inside?
		And now we're seeing because of January 6th, the populist right and the populist left are
		at odds.
		It's as if division was sown.
		By whom?
		But for some reason, because of this event that happened where people were let into that freaking building by some people, now we have congressional division, which didn't seem similar with Occupy Wall Street.
		We were all there together.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		To elaborate on that, talk about the Fed's erection.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		You talked about this a year ago.
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		We already know, based on the whistleblower interviews that we've done, that there were federal agents and federal assets that were on the ground that day.
		And what we don't know is the extent to which any of those assets or agents increased the level of criminal acuity Coordinated with one another, or purposefully entrapped folks who were otherwise not wanting to hurt anyone or violate any law in some sort of technical violation of trespassing or crossing some barrier that had existed hours earlier, but that had been taken down.
		And it's noteworthy to me that it's been the Department of Justice fighting tooth and nail against the release of a lot of the documentary evidence that would answer these questions.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		And who is Ray Epps?
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		Ray Epstein is the only person involved in January 6th that Adam Kinzinger will continuously defend.
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		Isn't that something?
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		And why?
		I mean, I think a lot of people have assumptions.
		He's somehow connected with feds or he maybe testified or something.
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		Well, I just don't, there's no rational explanation for how this guy is sending out message saying he orchestrated the activity is at every critical point.
		He's like the Forrest Gump of the January 6th string of events, right?
		And then when you're able to isolate the people that are pulled off of the FBI's most wanted lists and the people who, you know, seem to be encouraging others and moving others that like, It's like Ray Epps did nothing.
		So they'll go and raid the home of some couple in Homer, Alaska because they think they have Nancy Pelosi's laptop.
		But this guy who was at the center of the action, it's like nothing to see here.
		So I am troubled by the disparate treatment that Epps gets compared to some grandmother that wandered past a barricade that then is facing some intense criminal process from DOJ.
ian crossland ▲ ● ▼		I'm concerned that those people in detention are becoming radicalized just by being forgotten and left to rot.
ian crossland ▲ ● ▼		Do you know what the status is of these people that have been in prison?
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		Well, we've gotten varying reports on that and not nearly enough information.
		A lot of them have been deprived of just like basic civil rights when it comes to the adversarial
		judicial process. One thing I'm investigating right now is the extent to which the public
		defenders that were assigned to a lot of these folks like hated them and wanted the book thrown
		at them and were posting on social media and texting their friends, you know, about the
		nature of those proceedings.
		So that's a big area of concern for me, how they were treated in prison and in jail, in the DC jail in particular.
		I went there, it was pretty crazy.
		I went there and they were like locked us out of being able to do an inspection.
		And that's unprecedented for a member of Congress to not have the ability to inspect a facility that is under the control of the federal government at some level.
ian crossland ▲ ● ▼		Could you go to Guantanamo when that was open?
ian crossland ▲ ● ▼		Is it still open?
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		Still could, yeah.
		If you got the plane, we could go tonight.
		That's hardcore.
		Get an authentic mojito.
ian crossland ▲ ● ▼		Oh, I'm so into it.
ian crossland ▲ ● ▼		Have you been there before?
luke rudkowski ▲ ● ▼		I don't want to go to Gitmo, you crazy?
unidentified		Are you insane, Ian?
luke rudkowski ▲ ● ▼		I'm not falling for that one status.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		You ever see the meme that said, waterboarding at Guantanamo Bay sounds really fun if you don't know what it is?
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, horrible.
luke rudkowski ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, no thank you.
luke rudkowski ▲ ● ▼		What are you trying to set me up here, Ian?
ian crossland ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, man, bring your camera.
ian crossland ▲ ● ▼		I don't know, are you allowed to bring a camera inside there?
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		There's a number of these cases where people were engaged in journalism and are facing charges that are more akin to insurrection.
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		Like people who are there trying to film and capture the event and then, you know, are getting multi-year prison sentences.
ian crossland ▲ ● ▼		Is this like patriotic stuff?
luke rudkowski ▲ ● ▼		There's been 950 people charged so far, but the DOJ is saying that the investigation is far from over.
luke rudkowski ▲ ● ▼		And recently, through a congressional bill, they even got more funding, and they're saying that they're going to be doubling the amount of people that they already arrested.
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		I had a whistleblower come to me and talk about how these specialized units that have FBI, CIA, that were targeted at extremism in Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, all over the world, that now Those very same teams and those very same tools and those very same national security authorities are exclusively being turned inward.
		Instead of finding somebody that's building a bomb to blow up an embassy abroad, they're analyzing what some guy who lives in his mom's basement is putting on his blog that's read by tens of people.
		And that now, after they were turned inward as a result of this omnibus spending legislation, they are flooded with cash.
		I mean, just so much money that is now in the hands of these people who wake up every day saying, you know, how can I go find a white supremacist extremist to hunt down?
		And, you know, if you create an industry of witch hunters, right, like you're going to find more witches, like even if they're not actually witches.
luke rudkowski ▲ ● ▼		And as you mentioned in the beginning of this broadcast, this was originally created, this industry was created by George W. Bush.
		It was created by the Republicans right after 9-11.
		Passing the Patriot Act, allowing Homeland Security to do whatever they want, allowing the TSA to touch you wherever they wanted to.
		And I think this is why there needs to be a bigger call out of this old Republican guard, of these neocons, that created this situation that's literally being turned around and used against the American people.
		The war on terror is now the war on America.
		And it's the intelligence agencies waging it against American citizens, which is crazy.
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		We have to have the guts to repeal those authorities.
		And the thing is, any time you get any momentum behind any effort to do that, You get the neoconservatives running in saying, well, you're going to be the reason there's another 9-11.
		And then people fold.
ian crossland ▲ ● ▼		Oh my gosh!
luke rudkowski ▲ ● ▼		Sounds like a threat more than anything else.
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, well, just it is a way to test people's will.
		And the will often does not rise to the occasion.
		That's why these authorities don't get curtailed.
ian crossland ▲ ● ▼		Purely because the people are afraid that they'll become... I mean, honestly, I could see why, because if something did happen, then they might feel guilt, but like... Alright, this is going to take another couple hours to talk about.
		I don't think we're going to be able to finish this one right now.
		Do you repeal the Patriot Act?
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		Well, do you have the power to actually put a stop to this J6 nonsense?
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		Unilaterally, no.
		The House won't have the power to do that.
		I do believe that substantial elements of the national security apparatus and these prosecutions need to be defunded.
		Do I think there's a critical mass of Republicans who are willing to shut down the government over it?
		No.
		But we have to go make our case.
		And the thing we've got to do is build the deterrent against it.
		A lot of these folks, for all their tough talk and for all they're willing to do when they have anonymity, when you drag them before the country and ask them tough questions, as I've done with some of the leading figures in the national security state before the Judiciary Committee, they don't like that too much.
		And when you do it to a few of them, the rest of them get adrift and see that.
		And that works to a point, but it pales When you compare it to these exquisite authorities that have been turned inward and then the extreme resourcing of them that we have just seen.
ian crossland ▲ ● ▼		So we need the population to speak up and start making noise about repealing the Patriot Act?
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		I think that the Patriot Act was a terrible mistake for our country and I would advocate for its repeal.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		It seems so esoteric.
		You know, how do you convince You know, I'll put it this way.
		We were talking earlier about how you mentioned, Ian, Dave Smith's thing that if you want to see who we're going to go up against next, look at who we're funding now.
		We fund Ukraine.
		We fund Azov.
		In 20 years, we may be fighting them like we did with the Mujahideen and then the Taliban, Al-Qaeda, etc., Afghanistan.
		But the kids who vote in favor of those wars, the people right now, the young people who are liberals who are voting for this policy, weren't alive when we were funding these groups.
		I think I was a baby when the Mujahideen stuff was happening.
		And so then I'm 20 years old, I vote, you know, I was 18, I don't know how old I was, I vote for Obama, and then he's just continuing this cycle of war against who we had just been funding.
		With Ukraine, give it 20 years, some young person's gonna be like, gotta vote Democrat, they're the ones who are fighting against these evil Nazis.
		The difference?
		They're the ones who funded it.
ian crossland ▲ ● ▼		That's the good thing, though, now is there's so much media on this that it may be unforgettable in the consciousness.
		I mean, obviously, there's manip it's being manipulated to show you one or the other, you know, way of looking at the situation.
		But people that are six may be very well aware of what's happening in Ukraine when they're 18.
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		Well, in the 90s there wasn't, I mean, other than maybe Pat Buchanan and a few of his buddies, there wasn't an anti-war segment of the political right with any actual power, right?
		And I think that it's because the millennial generation has grown weary of this.
		I mean, all of our lives, our country has been in some state of low-yield war, and we see the people come back with broken limbs and broken hearts and broken minds.
		We see the effect on marriages, the drug abuse, the suicide, and we start to see the real cost of it.
		And now, on the right, there are people willing to ask tough questions about these things, and that scrutiny just didn't exist on a lot of these other misadventures.
luke rudkowski ▲ ● ▼		If only we would have listened to Ron Paul.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		When you were younger, when like the Patriot Act was getting voted on and stuff, were you like a young conservative?
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, I think I adhered to a lot of the kind of Republican thinking on those things.
		I thought Bush was a great president initially.
		And then, you know, as I started to see in my heavily military community the impacts of these wars, I just thought like, man, like trading a bunch of sand dunes around in Iraq like isn't worth like Chris's dad not having legs.
unidentified		Wow.
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		You know, and you see that over and over and it impacts you.
luke rudkowski ▲ ● ▼		And not only that, these interventions also created more future conflicts.
luke rudkowski ▲ ● ▼		It not only allowed Iran to have more of a sphere of influence in the region, but because we went in there and overthrew the government, we created ISIS in so many different ways by incentivizing that group to start up there and to also hand over a lot of American military technology and weapons right directly into their hands, giving us a new enemy to fight and use them as pawns to overthrow One thing I told Trump is that no matter what the policy area was, it was always the neocons that stabbed him in the back first.
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		If you just wanted to take a crude way to triage the people that stabbed him in the back that were part of his own administration, it was always the neocons.
luke rudkowski ▲ ● ▼		Why do you think he kept coming to them asking them for hugs all the time and giving them all these lucrative positions of power?
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		I want to ask something for the audience.
		A lot of people are asking about the ATF passing a new rule on pistol braces.
		Do you see this, Luke?
luke rudkowski ▲ ● ▼		Yes, yes.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		They're saying they're NFA items now.
		Basically, they're banning them.
		I'm curious.
		Abolish the ATF?
		What do you think?
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, I mean, alcohol, tobacco, and firearms is just what we call a good Saturday night in my district.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		Or it should be the name of a store, not, you know, an agency.
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, no, I mean, there is a deep state at the ATF, I mean, no doubt.
		And during the Trump administration, it was actually pretty bad.
		A lot of the rules that they were passing were converting people into criminals who had no intention of violating the law whatsoever.
		I honestly don't even think that you should be able to seriously debate gun legislation if you're not from an SEC state.
		When I see the Northeasterners get all worked up and they don't know anything about firearms, they haven't used firearms, they haven't stored firearms, it's quite comical to see David Cicilline from Rhode Island.
		Thomas Massey asked Jerry Nadler of New York, what does the AR stand for, and AR-15, and Nadler said assault rifle.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		Oh no!
ian crossland ▲ ● ▼		What's SEC states?
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		Like the Southeastern Conference, you know, Georgia, Florida, Mississippi, Tennessee, Arkansas, Texas.
luke rudkowski ▲ ● ▼		Well, you got New Hampshire up there, too.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		West Virginia's constitutional carry.
ian crossland ▲ ● ▼		I don't know if it matters.
		It's 914.
		Did you want to keep going?
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		Honestly, I felt bad for the audience because I knew I was going to cough a bunch.
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		So I thought by now it would be full cough.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		I can barely explain.
ian crossland ▲ ● ▼		Sounds good to me.
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		If they'll hang with me, I'll hang with them.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		People are loving it.
		They're so excited.
		I don't know, Luke, if you saw any specific questions in the Super Chats.
luke rudkowski ▲ ● ▼		A lot of people are breaking up the ATF thing because essentially what they're calling for is going to make a lot of Americans felons, just like the kind of bump stock ban that passed through Donald Trump that was just ruled unconstitutional.
		So, other than the courts, is there any way to effectively lobby the ATF?
		Is there any way to stop them from essentially making legal law-abiding citizens felons overnight?
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		One tool that we got in these negotiations over the Speaker of the House is the reinstitution of something called the Hohmann Rule, where you can zero out the funding for a particular bureaucrat.
		So, like, imagine if you could have just isolated, like, Fauci's salary and zeroed it out and forced a vote on that.
		Couldn't do that before.
		You're now going to be able to do that.
		I suspect that some of us in the Second Amendment caucus will be visiting the bureaucrats at the ATF with that tool.
ian crossland ▲ ● ▼		What's the rule called?
ian crossland ▲ ● ▼		The Holman?
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		Holman rule.
ian crossland ▲ ● ▼		How do you spell that?
ian crossland ▲ ● ▼		H-O-L-M-A-N?
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		H-O-L-M-A-N.
ian crossland ▲ ● ▼		Holman.
		Oh man, we didn't even talk about Fauci.
		Is he well-loved in Congress?
		Is it divisive?
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		What's his next gig?
		University president?
		Big Pharma CEO?
		Podcaster?
luke rudkowski ▲ ● ▼		He's gonna be the CEO of Pfizer.
luke rudkowski ▲ ● ▼		How can he not, right?
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		Yep, something like that.
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		Would you hire Fauci if you knew that no matter what job it was, he was going to be spending like 20 hours a week in congressional depositions?
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		I think he got a deal.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		I'd be willing to bet like so many of these other officials who have this, you know, within this revolving door system, he probably cut a deal a long time ago that when he's out, they'll pick him up.
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		Speaking of the revolving door, another one of the like ethics things that I just don't understand how it's not the law now.
		If you are a member of Congress, you should never get to be a lobbyist or a registered foreign agent.
		But it is like two of the most frequent jobs that people get when they're done with the job I have is literally being a registered agent for a foreign government or influencing people for money.
		And I don't get why it's not like a total common sense thing to say, like, you've got to choose one path or the other.
		If you want to go be a foreign agent, if you want to get paid money to influence outcomes, then that means you don't get to be one of the lawmakers.
serge du preez ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, yeah.
luke rudkowski ▲ ● ▼		I believe it was Joe Rogan a couple months ago was interviewing someone that was making the claim that members of Congress were getting different kind of treatment for COVID than the rest of the general public was.
		Do you know if that's particularly true?
		I know we talked about this Yeah.
		Do you remember who the guest was?
		Because I can't remember that off the top of my head right now.
		But that was the accusation.
		Is that accusation true that Congress gets a different kind of health care system than the American people do when it came to COVID?
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		Nah, man.
		We're like, most of us are on the D.C.
		Obamacare exchange.
luke rudkowski ▲ ● ▼		So you got Obamacare.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		What's up with this?
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		I hear like members of Congress sleeping in their office.
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, more than 100 of the 435 members of Congress, when they're in Washington, DC, actually live inside of their office.
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		And I did that until I met my now wife, and she made it very clear that That was not an arrangement that she was going to be tolerant of.
ian crossland ▲ ● ▼		Just because they want to save money?
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		It's the money.
		I mean, a lot, you know, though no one should ever worry about members of Congress in our economic standing.
		I mean, people who have, you know, maybe a spouse that doesn't work that's raising a family, you know, maintaining two residences on a congressional salary is challenging for some people.
		I mostly like Airbnb it because I have the like Yasser Arafat theory that you never want to sleep in the same bed twice.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		What's this thing I'm hearing that y'all are getting a $34,000 raise?
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		Is that true?
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		No one's told me that.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		There was an article in the Daily Mail that said that one of the last things the Democrats did before the end of the last session was put in a raise of $34,000 from members of Congress.
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		I'm unaware of any raise, but if that's true, the margaritas are on me after the show.
luke rudkowski ▲ ● ▼		Elon Musk probably is going to like to hear that the members of Congress are sleeping in their own office.
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		There's a lot of rodent activity at night, too, because they're always working on that building.
		Wow.
		Pay bump.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		There you go, man.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		It just could give, could give.
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		Oh yeah, no, that's a per diem.
		Congress was like weirdly cut out of the GSA per diem.
		And so that would allow Congress to access the GSA per diem.
ian crossland ▲ ● ▼		Which is like while you're working away from home, that'll be your budget.
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		Right.
		So if I bring an employee from Pensacola up to Washington to work on a legislative issue for a week, they get a per diem, but we don't.
		So this would equalize it.
luke rudkowski ▲ ● ▼		I was going to ask you, what do you think about what Elon Musk is doing with Twitter and do you think there's going to be any kind of retribution against him since he did expose how essentially the intelligence agencies were pretty much running big tech social media?
		Is there going to be like some bureaucratic investigations?
		Are they going to try to take away some of his funding from some of his spaceships?
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		How do you think that's You already saw Chris Murphy call for reviews of the different foreign investors in the Musk Twitter deal.
		So it's not a question of if that will happen.
		That is happening now.
		It's just a question of the level of acuity of it.
		And you know, there's so many of my Republican colleagues that are like, Is this what we have to wait for?
		now, Elon bought Twitter, rah rah, you know, wave the pom poms for Elon and I'm glad he
		bought it. I'm glad Twitter's more of a democratized free speech space. But like, is this what
		we is this what we have to wait for? That we have to wait around for some like right
		wing billionaire to come buy stuff so that we can have a playground? I just don't want
		to live in a world where the terms of service on social media become more important than
		the values that undergird the Constitution.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		It's a cultural question though, right?
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		It just seems so low-key to sit around and cheer on Elon, while we are the board of directors of the most powerful country in the world and we do nothing, while the digital marketplace of ideas is zapped of any conservative thought.
ian crossland ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, I don't think relying on any one guy is the right move.
		It's Wade, because his emotions can change his behavior.
		He wouldn't let Alex Jones back on because he's like, no, I don't like what he said about kids, about Sandy Hook stuff.
		John Astor started Astoria, New York.
		I mean he just bought the entire, I don't know the exact history, but because of one billionaire or whatever he was worth, we have Astoria.
		And like we have communities, like one rich guy can build a community.
		It's a little culty, but it's kind of like the history of our species.
		I don't know if we need that.
		Like I think that we can legislate away the problem sometimes, but a lot of times I think it's in the private sector.
		I don't know.
		Like, government's really good. What I really love the government for is to tell us when
		something has gone too far and to stop it from happening, as opposed to making all these
		things happen all the time. Like, that's up for the populace to do.
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, but wouldn't you agree that these tech companies getting more power than most of
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		the governments that have ever existed in all of human history is that threshold where
ian crossland ▲ ● ▼		Yes.
		Yes.
		It's gone too far.
		It needs to be broken up in a way that I think needs to be novel.
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		And so then the dispute among some working on the issue is, do you use the force of law to break them up?
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		Or do you almost do what happened to the tobacco companies in the 90s, where you strip their immunities and then sick the trial lawyers on them?
luke rudkowski ▲ ● ▼		Well, they're still acting in the benefit of a lot of government agents, so I don't see them being put in check until they stop actually taking the orders from government and not doing what the government really wants them to do.
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		And the people who would be litigating against them in court want their next job to be at Big Tech.
		You know, I mean, the revolving door is kind of a consistent theme of our discussion today, but look at how many people go working from FBI, DOJ, CIA, NSA, and their next job is in Silicon Valley.
		It's a huge percentage.
ian crossland ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, if you remove the immunities of what they did in the tobacco companies, then you're thinking maybe, or what might happen is they won't prosecute properly because they want to get jobs there even if they don't have immunities.
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		What I've seen so far is that the folks at DOJ want to be like just enough of a parasite that never kills the host.
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		So, you know, they want to be just enough of a pain where they maximize their own economic value to then go and work for the big tech companies afterwards.
ian crossland ▲ ● ▼		Man, that's a good question.
ian crossland ▲ ● ▼		Would we use the government to break it up or just strip their immunity and let the law take its course?
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		And this is the issue that Jim Jordan and I disagree on.
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		Guy, as we've talked about, I have tremendous respect for, but he prefers more of a judicial route and I prefer more of a legislative route.
luke rudkowski ▲ ● ▼		I prefer the government stop controlling big tech social media and stop manipulating the platform for their own personal benefit.
		That's me.
		And I think if we stop that, and we also have to understand the government allowed these companies to have a monopoly on the market.
		There's no way to even compete against them because of the unfair advantage that they got from members of Congress.
		And whether it's tax incentives, whether it's Google Maps getting the data from the US military, There's so much of them just working hand-in-hand that I don't even see the big difference between Big Tech social media and the government sometimes, to be honest with you.
ian crossland ▲ ● ▼		Well, Big Tech is owned by someone.
ian crossland ▲ ● ▼		Government, at least, is we the people.
luke rudkowski ▲ ● ▼		But they're still acting like a vehicle for the private sector.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		Is it still we the people with government?
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		I think members of Congress should have to wear the patches of their PAC and lobbyist donors like NASCAR drivers have to wear their sponsors.
luke rudkowski ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, I think Bill Hicks made that joke originally and he was prophetic and I absolutely agree with him 100%.
ian crossland ▲ ● ▼		We should do like an augmented reality VR app or AR app where you put on the glasses and you can see like the augmented reality of all the donors on all their clothes.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		You can see the lobbyists standing behind them with their hands on their shoulders.
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		Like in an aura just like floating above you see like big pharma, big tech, defense contractors.
ian crossland ▲ ● ▼		That's actually a joke meme that came out, but is very, very, should be.
ian crossland ▲ ● ▼		Like, on their desk, you should see all the people that have donated to their behavior, because they're supposed to represent their 700,000 constituents.
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		Well, it's the most insulting thing when you go try to persuade someone to change their viewpoint or to develop their viewpoint, and they literally refer you to the lobbyists.
		Like I've had that happen with colleagues where I'm like, hey, look, I really want to talk to you about this insurance issue.
		And they're like, okay, great.
		As soon as I hear from the State Farm and all state lobbyists that like your change is an appropriate one, then I can be with you.
ian crossland ▲ ● ▼		That sounds like an application of power.
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		It's so insulting to the member.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		You mentioned before the show that people pay each other for sponsorship.
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		Well, I was discussing the dynamic on the House floor.
		So on the floor of the House of Representatives, members enjoy broad immunities as a consequence of the speech and debate clause, and giving each other political donations to campaigns is permissible on the floor.
		And so, I mean, you can observe dynamics where someone is In one sentence, soliciting your vote or co-sponsorship, and then in the very next sentence is handing you a check.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		So they don't directly say, like, hey, I'll give you money if you vote for me.
		They'll say, thanks for voting for me.
		By the way, here's $2,000.
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		Oh yeah, Tim, I'd really, really like you to consider co-sponsoring this legislation.
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		It's real important to me, and I know that you've got a fundraiser coming up tonight, so here, I wanted to just come right to the floor and give you a check for it.
ian crossland ▲ ● ▼		Oh, so they can't specifically say, this money is so that you vote for me?
		They can't do that specifically?
		But they can be like, thanks for voting for me, here's money?
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, it's always with a bit of a wink and a nod.
ian crossland ▲ ● ▼		Wow.
		Are we still in control?
		The government?
		The people?
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		What's your vibe, man?
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		That's what I'm saying.
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		What do you think we were doing this last week?
		You think it was the most comfortable thing in the world for 20 of us to try to send a shockwave through the DC cartel and say it's not just going to go the way it's always been?
		And we shouldn't just Move people forward in a system that, to its core, is fundamentally corrupt with both parties?
ian crossland ▲ ● ▼		No.
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		We wanted, we thought it should be about the policy, the procedure, and the personnel, not just the distribution of funds and the alliances that creates.
		And for that, we were called the Taliban 20.
		We were called the Insurgency Caucus.
		Terrorists.
		And that was members of our own party.
		That wasn't even what the other party was calling us.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		Outside of McCarthy, do you fear retaliation in any other sense?
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		Like, there's a machine at play and you're throwing a wrench in the spokes.
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		You know, I swim fine in turbulent waters.
		So, personally, I don't.
		But we all watch out for each other.
		You know, if someone were to retaliate against one of my colleagues who might have less notoriety, I would be there to have their back.
		And I would marshal every force that we have to ensure that that did not happen against the people that showed courage.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		But I don't even mean politically.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		I mean just politics can be a dirty game depending on how serious things get.
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		Tim, Google me.
		It's pretty hard to say worse things about me than they already have.
		And when you sort of have faced that down and taken their best shot, it builds calluses that become enduring and valuable in the next fight.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		I'm sure it actually kind of pissed you off and made you push ten times harder.
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		Liberating in a way.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		You know, when I was watching the McCarthy fight, my attitude was like, the more I heard these stories where he was just like smugly rejecting you guys, I'm like, that probably made him double down.
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		Well, we knew what we wanted.
		We knew what our goals were, and oftentimes there are people in Congress who just want to be in the fight for the sake of being in the fight as an end unto itself, but we knew we had to get out of this system a result that would prohibit the passage of another omnibus.
		And once we knew that, we were able to really direct a lot of our strategic decisions toward that goal.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		Didn't they, like, bring the omnibus, like, two years ago on, like, a wagon?
		They, like, wheeled it in.
		It was, like, 5,000 pages.
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		Nobody read that.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		That's crazy.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		And I'm like, who wrote it?
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		Well, I mean, the lobbyists wrote it.
ian crossland ▲ ● ▼		Literally, like, lawyers that work for Pfizer and things like that?
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		Who do you think writes this stuff?
		The lobbyists come and bring it to members.
		Members slap their name on it.
		It goes into the system.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		That should be illegal.
luke rudkowski ▲ ● ▼		And they never read it.
luke rudkowski ▲ ● ▼		They don't even know what's in the bill many times.
ian crossland ▲ ● ▼		Sometimes they try to read them.
luke rudkowski ▲ ● ▼		And there's many stories of people sneaking in stuff last minute and it becoming law as well.
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		We can't make it illegal to be a lobbyist because people have a First Amendment right to petition their government.
		But to write a bill for someone else.
		That is a function of petitioning your government.
		To me, what's so offensive is that, like, when you've got the former chairman of these committees who hired all the staff that then roll out of their chairmanship, go right to K Street, and then are lobbying the people they hired, we the people aren't in charge.
		The highest bidder is in charge in a system like that.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		Fair point, then.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		So what do we do?
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		I think we need broad ethics reforms.
		And the only way we get them is by uniting the populist right and the populist left.
		There's no reason why we shouldn't be working with the squad on a stock trading ban.
		There's no reason we shouldn't be working with leftists on banning members of Congress from becoming foreign agents or lobbyists.
		People have got to get over their egos.
		People have to know that they've got to Get over January 6th or whatever it takes, but to me, that's the path.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		Is it possible right now, you think?
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		It's never been more possible because we get individual votes on stuff.
		When you don't get individual votes, there's no accountability.
		Now by House rule, there have to be individual votes.
		And the other thing is that our amendments have to be made in order.
		If we go get 20% of the House to sign on to an amendment, and that amendment is germane
		to the bill, it gets a vote.
		And some little group of some College of Cardinals in the Rules Committee doesn't get to prohibit
		members from taking votes on those issues.
		And there are some who are in the very purple seats who are going to be uncomfortable about that, because they're going to have to take a lot more votes than they might want to take.
		But that is what the job requires.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		I want to go to Super Chats, but I asked the audience a poll.
		I said, is Matt Gaetz the best member of Congress?
		85% said yes.
		So there you go.
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		My mom wants the IP addresses of the other 15%.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		But Luke and Ian, do you guys want to read superchats?
luke rudkowski ▲ ● ▼		I don't have them pulled up.
luke rudkowski ▲ ● ▼		Ian, do you have them pulled up?
ian crossland ▲ ● ▼		I can go through just from the YouTube page itself, yeah.
		Let's start off with David Berg.
		This is from more recent to older, which is the reverse of what we normally do.
		But David said, David Berg from Destin, Florida.
		Could not be more proud of my congressman, Matt Gaetz.
		You did what we elected you to do.
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		It's great to hear from one of my actual bosses in Destin.
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		That's in my district.
ian crossland ▲ ● ▼		Thanks, David.
ian crossland ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, let's keep taking these.
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, I remember when I first got here, the leadership sat me down in one of these Dutch Uncle talks and said, well, Gates, you're just not a team player.
		And I said, no, I'm a great team player.
		It's just that you all are not my team.
		My team are the 750,000 people who sent me here from Florida.
luke rudkowski ▲ ● ▼		Serge, try to find one as well.
		I got one here from GOP Gamer who asks, can Congress label the ATF a state-sponsored terror organization?
		Dogs everywhere will thank you.
		So that's a super chat by GOP Gamer.
		And Serge, pick up the next one.
serge du preez ▲ ● ▼		Give me a second here.
luke rudkowski ▲ ● ▼		No, no, no, that's a question if anyone wants to answer.
luke rudkowski ▲ ● ▼		Can it be a state sponsor of terror?
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		Let's just defund it.
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		Let's just isolate the bureaucrats there that make the bad decisions, zero out their salaries, and take away their authorities.
ian crossland ▲ ● ▼		I like the isolate bureaucrats thing.
ian crossland ▲ ● ▼		It's kind of like sanctions on an opposing, on an enemy.
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		And think about it.
		You don't have to do it to all of them.
		You do it to a few, and it has a strong deterrent effect on the rest.
		That if they are promulgating some rule or advancing something that is indefensible, we're going to make them a star.
luke rudkowski ▲ ● ▼		Sloppy DMT Joe has a super chat that is asking, legalize DMT?
unidentified		What's DMT?
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		I've been for legalizing a lot, but I don't know.
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		What is that?
ian crossland ▲ ● ▼		Dimethyltryptamine is a chemical in your body that's basically kind of Responsible for the dream state that we live in, this whole dream of reality, and it's secreted in your body, plants, things.
		But people in modern culture will get it out of ayahuasca.
		Are you familiar with the ayahuasca vine?
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		Not personally.
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		I have friends who swear by it, but any drug that has a predicate that you vomit and shit yourself is really not the type of experience I sign up for.
ian crossland ▲ ● ▼		That's why you do fasting for a week beforehand, because you're really just purging crap.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		Here's the next important question.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		Should American citizens have the right to own nuclear weapons and biological weapons?
ian crossland ▲ ● ▼		No.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		You don't think so?
		I think they should.
		Well, should is the wrong answer.
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		Is that what that silo was that I walked by on the way here?
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		The two silos, you mean.
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		Oh, man.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		No, what I mean to say is not should, is that the Second Amendment says arms.
		If you don't think that's the case, then we've got to amend the Second Amendment.
		Because when they wrote it, Privateers existed and they had weapons of war to an extreme degree.
		They had, you know, frigates and man-of-war, privateers, corsairs, etc.
		So I don't see how we've decided at some point outside of the Constitution that certain weapons are off-limit to the people when they originally weren't.
		You see what I mean?
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, if there weren't nuclear weapons then.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		No, I get it.
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		I mean definitely if that were going to start it would be in Florida.
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		I mean, the Florida man would be the first.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		Wasn't there a guy who was taking Americium and he made a death ray?
		I think that was in Florida, wasn't it?
		I could be wrong.
luke rudkowski ▲ ● ▼		We got another super chat by Dana Costello, who's asking, what does Matt feel about auditing the Federal Reserve?
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		I'm for it.
		I'm on Massey's bill to do that.
		Massey picked that up from Ron Paul, and I support it.
		And actually, every Congress, we get more people on that bill.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		That's awesome.
luke rudkowski ▲ ● ▼		Serge, you got one?
serge du preez ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, I got one.
		Matt, what is being done to curtail the Federal Reserve's rapid march towards Weimar Germany-style inflation?
		What is America's breaking point?
		This is from Hyatsobo.
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, it's a great question because, you know, the Grover Norquist view of conservatism was that if we could just cut taxes enough, you could kind of starve the beast, right?
		And that has proven false because we've been pretty successful at stopping large-scale tax increases, but we've substituted Fed policy for it.
		And by the way, Mnuchin was one of the worst.
		Like, if you look at what happened during COVID and all of the different Fed policy that was constructed, then that is badly in need of audit and was undeniably abused in a number of cases.
		And so, yeah, I mean, I think that the Fed failed and it's one, one job.
serge du preez ▲ ● ▼		It's only directed.
unidentified		Yeah.
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		Of pushing against inflation.
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		And it's yet another institution that continues to have less and less trust.
luke rudkowski ▲ ● ▼		We got another $5 super chat from David Troutman.
		He says, Please don't cancel tomorrow.
		I'm driving up from Charlotte with guitars to play with for you guys.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		Tomorrow is not cancelled, but Luke and Ian are too lazy to get up on time.
luke rudkowski ▲ ● ▼		I feel assaulted at that early.
ian crossland ▲ ● ▼		Unnecessary.
luke rudkowski ▲ ● ▼		They're doing a meet-up tomorrow at 10 o'clock in the morning in Washington, D.C.
ian crossland ▲ ● ▼		I got one here from Kevin Malone.
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		Sounds like an insurrection.
ian crossland ▲ ● ▼		Insurrectingly good time.
ian crossland ▲ ● ▼		Will there be a zero-based balanced budget amendment?
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		we will have a budget that balances over 10 years that all members will have to vote on.
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		I think we should have the balanced budget amendment vote with that and we may.
ian crossland ▲ ● ▼		How do you balance a budget with inflation clawing up the back of our necks? Because I don't know
ian crossland ▲ ● ▼		what the, or I should say with the interest, with interest.
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		Right, right. But they're related, right? Because as you have the interest rates increase,
		that the cost of that debt service balloons, and then that eats up a greater and greater
		share of the budget, and it's not discretionary.
		You have to do it.
ian crossland ▲ ● ▼		But how do we pay off the interest to the Federal Reserve?
		Actually, this is a real question.
		How much of the debt that we owe to the Federal Reserve is interest?
		Was accrued by interest, and how much of it is base principal?
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		I used to know this, but I don't now.
		Because the rates have changed.
		Look, the drivers of the debt, the interest on the debt, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid.
		And so if you're not willing to attack Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid from an eligibility standpoint or a benefit standpoint, You're counting the number of angels on the head of a pin.
ian crossland ▲ ● ▼		I used to be like, you know, people are sick, pay for their health care.
		And now I'm like, I watch people just continually drink poison, eat poison.
		I'm like, I can't keep paying money to keep those people alive.
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		The thing that I don't get is why we subsidize the stuff that makes people sick.
		Like what we allow food stamps to pay for poisons people.
		And so we pay to get people into this diabetic state, then they get disabled, then we put them on SSID, then in the final six months of life, the curve on the cost on spending on their healthcare goes through the roof and we do it all over again.
		And you know why?
		Because sugar companies and candy confectioners and big food get in there and ensure that we never reduce the amount of unhealthy stuff that we pay for for poor people.
luke rudkowski ▲ ● ▼		As well as the subsidies for corn and soy, which help create seed oils.
		But that's another thing.
		We got another $20 Super Chat from AJ that is asking, aside from Fauci, the public would like to see an investigation by the House into Klaus Schwab, the World Economic Forum, Soros, and Gates.
		Make it happen, Matt.
		Winky face.
		That's the $20 Super Chat.
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		Well, let me flip that on you guys.
		I mean, you know, all right, the weaponization against the American people select subcommittee meets for the first meeting.
		Who's your first witness?
unidentified		What was the question again?
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		Elon Musk.
		That is a very popular choice right now among some Republicans.
		Now, the Dems then get to take their shots at him because we're not like the Liz Cheney, Bennie Thompson thing.
		We'll put actual Democrats on the committees because we want to have real debate.
		But Elon would be a stellar first witness.
unidentified		Wow.
luke rudkowski ▲ ● ▼		Witness for?
ian crossland ▲ ● ▼		I'm sorry, I was looking at the weaponization of media from the government.
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, I mean, because you get all of the features of the weaponization of our government through the Twitter files.
		You get the national security piece, you get the White House officials trying to get information, you know, either enhanced or diminished on Twitter.
		So you could open a lot of doors through that.
		You get the DOD.
		Think about that, how the DOD was involved in different like foreign policy narratives.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		I think he'd gladly do it.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		He'd be like, yup, tell me when to come talk.
serge du preez ▲ ● ▼		Yeah.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		That's a good one.
luke rudkowski ▲ ● ▼		Sean Young has a $50 Super Chat asking, why is it criminal to lie when testifying before Congress, but not criminal to lie when you are holding a seat in Congress?
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		Tradition, mostly.
serge du preez ▲ ● ▼		Huh, I see.
luke rudkowski ▲ ● ▼		We got another $10 Super Chat by Gunface11 saying, can you abolish the NFA?
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		We could.
		We won't.
		But I mean, we have the powers.
unidentified		Ian?
luke rudkowski ▲ ● ▼		Serge?
ian crossland ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, yeah, let's do this one.
		Oh, did I read this one?
		All right, here we go.
		This one's actually kind of nice, although it's sad.
		Divine interventions.
		Is there anything that can be done at all?
		Is there any hope?
		Sounds like we're just going to end up in a dystopian dictatorship like China by the end of the decade.
		I'm severely blackpilled.
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		Who was that?
ian crossland ▲ ● ▼		That's Divine Interventions.
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		Divine Interventions.
		Yeah, there's some tension between the name and the sentiment that's expressed there.
		You know, I encounter this actually pretty frequently at our town halls and rallies where people show up and say, you know, I came because I think you're fighting for us, but So there are some who think it's kind of all lost.
		And whenever I get down, you know, Jim Jordan is a guy who gives me comfort when he says, look, there's always a fight worth having in this place.
		I have a job in the United States Congress where there are dozens of files on my desk every morning where it's someone who relies on me to To pick up their cause and to go to battle for it.
		And if that can't get you up and that can't get you focused on being the best version of yourself, then nothing can.
		So that stops me from getting blackpailed because whether it's getting a little old lady your IRS check that she was supposed to get and they screwed her over, whether it's the guy who has 22 EPA agents show up because he wanted to expand his cattle pond and you're able to Get them off his back, or whether it's one of our service members that now we have to advocate for so that they can get their careers and their lives back after this foolish vaccine mandate was repealed.
		You know, there are still good things to do and good people that deserve us to be focused and not so diminished or discouraged that we don't get in the fight for them.
serge du preez ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, we got two real fast.
serge du preez ▲ ● ▼		We got Fat Bar Mujah, who says Matt Gaetz rocks, which is a good one.
luke rudkowski ▲ ● ▼		There's a lot of people congratulating you and thanking you, by the way, in the chat and the super chats as well.
serge du preez ▲ ● ▼		And then the second one, Matt, if the IRS abolishment fails, we need you to move to end all federal withholding.
		Make people realize the taxes they pay.
		End quarterly payments and make them pay once a year.
		This is the way to change things in regards to taxes in the IRS.
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		That's a key leverage point.
		The withholding absolutely is.
		Let me ask you guys this question.
		So the House gets in, our first bill, Abolish 87,000 IRS agents.
		But like, we know that that has no chance of a hearing in the Senate.
		It's never going to get signed by Joe Biden.
		And so how we use our floor time, like, I guess there is a role for those messaging bills that just lay out what our principles are.
		But like, there's a part of me that where there's like, a little disingenuousness to it, right?
		Where all my colleagues are putting out press releases and social media statements, you know, we We did it!
		you know, we abolished the 87,000 IRS agents.
		It's like, man, no, you didn't like be straight with your constituents that we are in divided government.
		And the way to be successful in divided government is you have
		to lay out a vision with one hand, but you have to use specific leverage points.
		And so what I've encouraged Republicans to do is develop a battle plan, right?
		On the debt limit, what is it that we are demanding in that fight?
		On the National Defense Authorization Act, is it the reinstatement of our military?
		Is it zeroing out the Ukraine funding?
		What is it that we're fighting for there?
		On the farm bill, what is it that is most critical there?
		Is it food stamp reform?
		You know, and so oftentimes we get into this legislation and everybody's after their disparate piece.
		But there's not really a clear vision of what victory looks like on those, you know, must-pass bills.
		And knowing that, I think, on the front end would get more buy-in, where we had more of a populist energy to these reforms.
luke rudkowski ▲ ● ▼		Fizzy Bear is asking, has there been any talk to pass a law that will prevent the US government from creating a central bank digital currency or at the very least require the government to always have a form of physical cash that cannot be traced?
unidentified		No.
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		Where do you guys fall on the crypto reg stuff?
ian crossland ▲ ● ▼		I think that we're in a new place.
		So if you get crypto rewards from a website, and then they're worth a dollar each, every token, but then they drop to 10 cents, the government, from what I can tell, wants to come in and tax you on each of those as if they're still worth a dollar, because that's what they were when you got them, which is unconscionable.
		So I think it should be either they tax at the current value or the lowest value it's
		been in the last year when they're taxing the value of your crypto tokens.
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		But not just the taxes, even the regulation of the marketplaces.
		Does FTX function as such a game changer that those marketplaces don't just become some
		offshore abyss?
ian crossland ▲ ● ▼		They will always be offshore.
		There's nothing we can do to stop.
		We can only hamper our own ability to create new currency if we start, because of Sam's
		horrible misuse of funds at FTX.
		What that guy did is worse than what Bernie Madoff did.
		That's not a reason to destroy the market.
		Although, this is the thing, man.
		We're talking about inflation.
		When you create a new cryptocurrency, that's adding to more inflation.
		We're making more and more money.
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		I can't tell some days whether I want to see, like, Sam Bankman freed in a jail cell or if we should just pardon him and put him in charge of Social Security.
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		Because, like, if we're going to run a Ponzi scheme, like, maybe we should find the guy that's the best at it.
luke rudkowski ▲ ● ▼		I mean, he wasn't that good.
		He kept doing a lot of different stuff and having a lot of different parties.
		We've got another Super Chat by K-Ben.
serge du preez ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, we got it from K-Ben really fast.
luke rudkowski ▲ ● ▼		That's the same one.
serge du preez ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, that's the same one.
serge du preez ▲ ● ▼		But yeah, Matt, who do you think Trump's VP pick should be?
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		Sarah Huckabee Sanders.
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		Assuming she does a good job as governor of Arkansas, which I believe she will.
serge du preez ▲ ● ▼		Is there a reason why?
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, I think the reason Trump won in 2016 is because a whole lot of women who didn't like him voted for him because they could not stand telling their daughters and granddaughters that Hillary Clinton was the first female president of the United States.
		And what I've said to President Trump is, like, you have to create a permission structure where women who do not like you vote for you again.
		And, like, you see the grit of a Sarah Huckabee Sanders.
		You see the directness, the efficacy, really bold steps.
		Her first days as governor, banning TikTok on a lot of the government devices there.
		She's the kind of person I'd look at.
		Kristi Noem, also, I think would be a pretty stellar pick.
luke rudkowski ▲ ● ▼		We got another $50 super chat by n7wolfarchive asking, I am a Brit.
		I want to live in the United States, but I am stopped by the VAX mandate.
		Is there a way Congress can stop it?
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		We want you to stay in Britain.
		We're tired of Britain being overrun.
		My God, I mean, you think about the way immigration has fundamentally changed the country.
		How is what has happened there not a more prescient warning sign?
		To our country.
serge du preez ▲ ● ▼		For real.
		I watch all the Lotus Eaters episodes.
		Shout out to the Lotus Eaters.
		I'm sure you're cool with that, Tim.
unidentified		Oh, yeah.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		Big fan.
		Carl Benjamin.
		Good friend.
serge du preez ▲ ● ▼		Yeah.
		And I watch all of it.
		I mean, I've lived all over the world my whole life, and it's unthinkable to me that you just open your borders.
ian crossland ▲ ● ▼		But, I mean, you know, not to look at us or anything like that, but... It's like a holdover from when we had very low population in the 1800s.
		It's like, yo, bring your tired, your hungry, and your poor.
		We need a population.
		Now we're like oversaturated population.
		We don't need more people.
		We need great people, but we don't need like masses of people.
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		Well, and I mean, it's, it's a misnomer to suggest that America has not increased unrestricted immigration throughout times in our history when it has suited us.
		And whenever we have had mass waves of immigration, it has come with times of strife and conflict.
		And we invite that now without a real appreciation for the consequence.
luke rudkowski ▲ ● ▼		Surge, can you go in the beginning, because there's a lot of Super Chats in the beginning, and I'm only seeing the latest ones.
luke rudkowski ▲ ● ▼		You're able to see all the ones from the beginning.
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		Is the Super Chat like the podcast version of when people pay the dueling pianos guy to play a certain song?
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		Yeah.
ian crossland ▲ ● ▼		I got one here from Ben Avalone.
		Says he's compromising my rule of never posting on YouTube for this Super Chat.
		Small tech business owner in Pensacola here.
		Didn't vote for Gates in recent midterm.
		Always vote third party as middle finger to the system as a matter of principle.
		Consider my mind changed, sir.
		Well done, sir.
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		I appreciate that very much.
ian crossland ▲ ● ▼		Ben Avalon.
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		I will be your middle finger, Ben.
ian crossland ▲ ● ▼		The appendage.
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		I assure you a vote from me will still send a middle finger to plenty.
luke rudkowski ▲ ● ▼		My promise to you.
		We got a $10 super chat by Wattman13 asking, how about a time on the floor to read bills longer than 50 pages?
		No one can leave until it's been read through.
serge du preez ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, that's a good one.
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		Oh, Massey does that sometimes.
		So it's usually by unanimous consent that the bill is not read aloud.
		And so Massey has gone down in times of frustration and required the reading of the bills, which really only punishes the clerk, right?
		Because members aren't there.
		How about a requirement that folks actually show up for debate?
		Because in the state legislature, your ass had to be in the seat.
		And you had to be there because we took votes when the debates occurred.
		And so you got the benefit of hearing the different sides of an argument.
		The way it works in Congress is all day, like, you know, two, three, five people go debate the issues on the floor.
		And then at night, we come in and take a series of votes on all those matters.
		And there's no real requirement that people even appreciate the subtleties and nuances of the policy choices.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		Marjorie was telling us that Typically on votes, people aren't even there at all, and it's like five people here and five people there, and they just go like, meh, and it's passed, and they bang the gavel.
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, which was really the mistake Pelosi made in taking Marjorie off committees, because then Marjorie was the warden of the floor.
		She would go down to the floor and demand votes and call the question, and I thought that was a pretty good thing for the process.
		If Pelosi were in charge again, she'd probably put Marjorie on all the committees.
serge du preez ▲ ● ▼		We've got a question from Ben D. It says, Mr. Gates, you say Congress shouldn't trade individual stocks.
serge du preez ▲ ● ▼		Does this also include options, futures, FX, and any other type of security or derivatives?
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, because we can impact the value of those things.
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		And we know when the value is changing based on the briefings we get that the rest of the American people don't get.
luke rudkowski ▲ ● ▼		A1 has a $20 super chat asking you, Matt Gaetz, does the USA need a third political party?
luke rudkowski ▲ ● ▼		What are your thoughts?
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		I don't know.
		I mean, what?
		The first two we have are so bad.
		We need a third one.
		I think we need capture of our existing parties by people who are at least ideologically informed.
		Because right now, There are times when it feels like it doesn't even matter which party wins the election, because all you're really deciding is who gets to be the lead valet for the same special interests.
		It's gut-wrenching to see, like, oh, well, we won!
		We've been promising the American people for four elections that we're going to repeal Obamacare, and then Paul Ryan goes and takes $14 million from HMOs in the nine weeks preceding the rollout of our health care bill, And guess what?
		It doesn't repeal Obamacare.
		It just repositions it in a way that protects the profits and the guaranteed revenue stream for health insurance companies and health management companies.
		And so, you know, I've seen the power change, but the bosses never really do.
ian crossland ▲ ● ▼		Did Paul Ryan pocket that money or any of that money?
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		Oh, it all went to his political fund.
		You know, the pressures on the presiding officers for fundraising are intense.
		You know, they got to raise like a million bucks a day, you know, when we are in legislative session.
		And Paul Ryan told me, yeah, you know, I have to go to three dinners every night, and every dinner has to do about $300,000.
ian crossland ▲ ● ▼		What are they raising money for?
ian crossland ▲ ● ▼		What's the point?
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		Campaigns.
ian crossland ▲ ● ▼		But what, just to spend money on people door knocking?
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		Well, in advertising.
		And what I sort of figured out is, well, I mean, there are these people who whore themselves out for donations from lobbyists and special interests, and then they use that money to go buy 30 seconds on the news programs.
		And so instead of doing all that, why not just go be on the news programs?
ian crossland ▲ ● ▼		Start a YouTube channel?
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		Exactly.
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		Well, yeah.
ian crossland ▲ ● ▼		Do you have a YouTube channel?
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		I do, actually.
unidentified		I do.
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		I got a podcast called Firebrand.
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		America's 57th favorite political podcast.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		That's great.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		But this could actually be a solution to a certain degree of getting money out of politics.
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		Yes.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		You can promote yourself.
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		Right.
		And why not just do the thing that you would otherwise spend the money on?
		And maybe if we didn't take such crappy positions and put the lobbyists in charge of the agenda, it wouldn't take $10 million to go win an election.
luke rudkowski ▲ ● ▼		Jay Lincoln has a $20 super chat asking, what do you think about Texas Pelosi walking back the terrorist claim?
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		Oh, man.
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		That is quite the moniker.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		That was good.
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		I am glad that Congressman Crenshaw clarified that he was using hyperbole when using the terrorism label.
		I know Dan Crenshaw doesn't think I'm a terrorist.
		I know they were frustrated with the tactics we used.
		They were hardball tactics.
		Sometimes that's what the job requires.
luke rudkowski ▲ ● ▼		Bonnie Svevlik asks, what are your thoughts on Texxik?
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		On what?
luke rudkowski ▲ ● ▼		Tex-It.
ian crossland ▲ ● ▼		Oh, Tex-It.
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		Oh, no, we are one country.
		I am not for this, like, secession stuff.
		I mean, I love this country, and I don't buy into any of that worldview.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		What about a new state in Northern California, Idaho, the state of Jefferson?
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		I haven't spent as much time up there.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		So these are areas like Eastern Oregon, Idaho, Northern California, which tend to be more conservative, and they want to be their own state separate from the dense liberal areas, because it's a very different group of people.
serge du preez ▲ ● ▼		Did you see how many of the recent counties just voted to actually vote on it and actually try to join?
		Jefferson?
		Yeah, not to join Jefferson, but to join Idaho, like the Greater Idaho Movement.
		It's like a lot of Eastern Oregon.
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		I didn't know Idaho was so hot right now.
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		As a Florida man, I live in the best state in the country, so I'm unfamiliar with these gripes.
luke rudkowski ▲ ● ▼		Ditto.
		Same.
		I'm a Florida man as well.
		I'm going back there in a few days.
		We got another great super chat by Brandon Hurt, and he's asking, when there's a hot issue in Congress, what is the best way to communicate with my representative?
		Email?
		Voicemail?
		What is it?
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		It's different for different members, and you need to know what that leverage point is or influential point is for members.
		I mean, I get on Twitter spaces at night.
		I'm real active at responding to comments on social media.
		But for some of my colleagues who are septuagenarians and octogenarians, they get Handwritten reports every day about who called the landline.
		And so, you know, it's important to get some intelligence.
		Part of political tradecraft is knowing what influences people.
		And what frustrates me is like when what influences them is, well, you know, Facebook hired Chuck Schumer's daughter.
		Do you think you're going to have like an honest conversation with Chuck Schumer about regulating meta?
serge du preez ▲ ● ▼		I got one from Patrick.
		He asked, Matt, I'm very curious to hear your thoughts on the current state of the military and the impact of woke ideologies on service academies in particular.
		What are your thoughts?
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		No, this is something not a lot of people are talking about, but the diminution in interest in even serving in the military and especially the service academies, it's palpable.
		When I first got this job, The coolest part of it was nominating young people to our service academies, because you get to see the best of your district.
		And so I had every valedictorian, salutatorian, club president, captain of the football team applying for these spots.
		And now the average test scores are lower, the average leadership positions are far fewer, the average GPA, class rank down, because the best of the best No longer want to go to West Point, the Naval Academy, the Air Force Academy.
		There are a few who do, but the gestation period for that consequence is pretty long, right?
		And we're going to be feeling the effects of this in decades because we weren't getting Patriotic, God-fearing Americans into those positions.
		And, you know, representing the district I do, it's heartbreaking to hear that I've got units that are having less live fire training, fewer jumps, capabilities reduced, and they're spending all their time in DEI.
		You know, sessions, and learning about what pronouns are acceptable and not acceptable.
		In the reserves, there are people reporting to me that you can't say mother and father.
unidentified		You just have to say parent, because it's just, you know, too binary.
luke rudkowski ▲ ● ▼		They're also walking around in heels in some instances, but that's another story.
		We got a $20 Super Chat by Smashing Random Keys asking, does the GOP plan on training ballot harvesters?
		If not, I fear the GOP won't win a majority for a while.
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		In some states, In California, there's more organized effort there in states that allow it.
		Florida does not allow ballot harvesting, so I don't think we should do things that are illegal.
		And by the way, everyone acts like this election integrity problem is unsolvable.
		How will we ever resolve this?
		And Florida used to be the laughingstock of the country.
		We had the hanging chads and the dimpled chads and the pimpled chads
		During the 2000 election and then we got our shit together and we had chain of custody requirements for the ballots
		and we had Transparency over how many people had voted in real time
		every eight minutes Every supervisor of election in Florida has to publish how
		many people have voted who those people are What their party affiliation is and then when you get to
		the end?
		there's not like an opportunity for a hundred fifty thousand ballots to be willed into existence or ten
		thousand ballots because you know along the And if they screw it up and aren't complying with those transparency laws you get instant access to an injunction in a courtroom where those
		Offices can be put in a state of receivership by the Secretary of State.
		So we're not going to get screwed over in Florida by this stuff.
		And if other states would model our laws, they would be more protected.
		Now, there are some who say, well, we need national laws on these things.
		And that is perilous.
		You know, you start nationalizing elections, it's not going to go the way you think it might go.
		Schumer and Biden and the like get their say in how states are doing electioneering.
ian crossland ▲ ● ▼		What do you think about federally legislating that companies using proprietary voting machines where the code is secret so you don't know what the programs are doing behind closed doors that we mandate that they use open source code?
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		I mean, the best open source code is a paper ballot.
		I mean, that's what we've done in Florida.
		Like, we don't need your source code if we can go and look at the paper ballots and compare them and do precinct level audits.
		Because you'll get the canary in the coal mine.
ian crossland ▲ ● ▼		I feel like with hundreds of thousands of pieces of paper that stuff just gets easily lost in the shuffle, literally.
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		Not if you have the right chain of custody requirements.
ian crossland ▲ ● ▼		Have you considered doing like a blockchain backup on top of everything?
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		There is a lot of talk about the use of blockchain for that very reason.
ian crossland ▲ ● ▼		If you do it, use a bunch of different blockchains, like a bunch of them, because one can get hijacked.
ian crossland ▲ ● ▼		So like all of them will verify.
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, that is the next level of election integrity.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		You guys want to try and find one more real good one?
serge du preez ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, I got one more from Rob Hess, the Rob Hess himself.
		Gates should have Ilhan Omar get together and put something forward to repeal the Patriot Act.
		How do you feel about that?
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		I would do it.
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		Ilhan, I'm ready when you are.
serge du preez ▲ ● ▼		Oh, great.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		Right on.
		All right, everybody, I can barely talk, but this has been an absolute blast.
		Matt, you're currently my favorite member of Congress after what went down with the Speaker vote because, you know, we had been talking about this for months, for the year before the midterms, that even if the Republicans win, we don't think we're going to see any real change.
		And despite the fact that McCarthy is still Speaker, I think you did a lot of good, so I got nowhere to go but down now.
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		I've got nothing to do but disappoint you, Tim.
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		I hope I don't.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		Well, you know, nah, I think it'll be alright.
		It is what it is.
		But smash the like button, subscribe to the channel, share the show with your friends.
		You can follow the show at TimCastIRL.
		You can follow me at TimCast.
		I am taking this weekend to rest my voice, obviously.
		But we will be in DC tomorrow at Freedom Plaza.
		I just probably won't be talking.
		Matt, do you want to shout anything out?
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		Give me a follow, at repmattgates, and check out my podcast Firebrand.
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		We'd love to have some cross-pollination of this terrific audience.
ian crossland ▲ ● ▼		Where's Firebrand?
ian crossland ▲ ● ▼		Where can people find it?
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		Anywhere you can listen to podcasts.
		We're pretty much everywhere.
		Most of our audience is Apple.
luke rudkowski ▲ ● ▼		And was that your Twitter account?
unidentified		And what was it again?
unidentified		Matt, thank you so much for coming here and answering our questions.
luke rudkowski ▲ ● ▼		Thank you so much for being here for two hours.
unidentified		Where is here?
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		Where am I?
luke rudkowski ▲ ● ▼		Middle of nowhere.
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		By the way, it was super weird that you made me put the blindfold on on the way here.
unidentified		I thought that was too much.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		Everyone does that.
ian crossland ▲ ● ▼		Was that a goat next to me?
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		All right.
luke rudkowski ▲ ● ▼		But a lot of people appreciated it, especially in the comment section, and thank you so much for doing it.
		I just started a new Rumble channel.
		It's on rumble.com forward slash we are change.
		I just posted one of my videos there from my members area, luconsensor.com, where you get to have a sneak peek at what the kind of videos I do there almost every single day.
		Rumble.com forward slash we are change.
		For the spicy videos that you guys could watch right now.
		Thanks for having me.
ian crossland ▲ ● ▼		Thanks for coming, man.
		More of these.
		This is fantastic.
		More Congress people coming to shows like this, speaking the word of the American people from the voice of the representative.
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		I'm bringing backup next time.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, bring your friends.
ian crossland ▲ ● ▼		We gotta bring Jim.
		I didn't know you guys were such good friends, but we should hear you and Jim go on Tech, talk about tech and how we gotta deal with big tech.
		That's really fascinating.
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		I'll make the pitch.
ian crossland ▲ ● ▼		Hell yeah, dawg.
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		Or Ilhan.
matt gaetz ▲ ● ▼		Maybe we'll bring Ilhan and talk War Powers.
unidentified		Sure.
luke rudkowski ▲ ● ▼		Absolutely.
ian crossland ▲ ● ▼		I'm Ian Crossland.
		Find me anywhere on the internet.
		Serge, talk me out.
serge du preez ▲ ● ▼		I am at Serge.com.
		Also find me anywhere on the internet.
		I appreciate your time.
		This is really, really cool.
		I also appreciate you nominating Donald Trump.
		I just love hearing the groan.
		It was just so hilarious.
		A little discussion in the den.
		It was just like, you can't make that up.
luke rudkowski ▲ ● ▼		The president vote was my favorite.
serge du preez ▲ ● ▼		Yeah.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		All right, everybody, become a member at TimCast.com if you want to support our work and get access to our uncensored members-only segments.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		Thanks for hanging out, and we will see you all tomorrow in DC at Freedom Plaza.
unidentified		10 a.m.

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