Florida Republican Congressman Matt Gaetz joins CNN's Dana Bashore to discuss the ongoing government shutdown and why he thinks it s time for the government to get back on track with funding for the Department of Homeland Security, defense, veterans, agriculture, and other priorities.
00:00:00.000Now, joining us, one of the people holding up an agreement to fund the government, Florida Republican Congressman Matt Gaetz.
00:00:08.400Congressman, thank you very much for being here this morning.
00:00:11.500Thank you. I'm glad I get to respond to your monologue, because if you're saying that I'm standing in the way of all the Republican wins, I'd love you to enumerate them.
00:00:19.000Watching my friend and mentor Jim Jordan, it was it was quite painful because he started by saying we should only pick one fight, the border.
00:00:25.780But then as the interview went on, he said, well, we should pick a second fight, Jack Smith.
00:00:29.500And by the time the interview rounded out, he was saying that we shouldn't be funding Ukraine without a plan.
00:00:33.940And yet the very continuing resolution that you and Jim Jordan seem to be for continues to have three hundred million dollars more for Ukraine.
00:00:40.580So I think we ought to fight on all fronts. I think the border is very important.
00:00:44.080And the best way for us to advance the Republican border policies is to pass the Department of Homeland Security appropriations bill.
00:00:50.500Do that along with veterans, defense, ag, state and foreign ops. We'll have 73 percent of the discretionary budget funded.
00:00:57.400And if, you know, the Department of Labor and education have to shut down for a few days as we get their appropriations in line, that's certainly not something that is is optimal.
00:01:06.700But I think it's better than continuing on the current path we are to America's financial ruin.
00:01:11.840Congressman, I understand. And that is why you are on this program this morning, because I want to give you a fair shot and I want to get you heard.
00:01:18.400So tell me why you are threatening Speaker McCarthy and trying to shut down this government at a time that the Republicans have finally gotten some upper hands here in terms of wins able to investigate President Biden on what looks like bribery.
00:01:35.460Yeah, we don't put our pencils down in the investigation of President Biden during a shutdown.
00:01:40.140So the premise is false. Second, if Kevin McCarthy was actually serious about pursuing the Bidens, he would have sent Hunter Biden a subpoena by now.
00:01:48.700That's how, you know, this is sort of failure theater that you're observing during the first year of Democrat control of the Congress.
00:01:54.460They brought in Donald Trump Jr. three times over nothing, over a nothing burger.
00:01:59.240And so we seem to be fundamentally unserious in our oversight.
00:02:02.460But what is serious is the fact that we are spending more than seven trillion dollars a year, bringing in around five trillion dollars a year.
00:02:09.160And I want to fund the government. I'm not pro shutdown.
00:02:12.380But the way to fund the government is not the same way we've been doing it since the mid 90s, where it's one up or down vote on the entire government all at once.
00:02:20.880We should have separate single subject spending bills.
00:02:23.840Kevin McCarthy promised that in January. He is in breach of that promise.
00:02:27.780So I'm not here to hold the government hostage. I'm here to hold Kevin McCarthy to his word.
00:02:33.380Are there Freedom Caucus members also out of compliance?
00:02:36.720They were also on the Appropriations Committee.
00:02:39.900Where is the responsibility for them? Are they also out of compliance?
00:02:44.640No, I'm not a member of the Freedom Caucus. I'll let them speak for themselves.
00:02:48.000But take, for example, the border. This issue you think is has great primacy.
00:02:51.600And I would agree with you. The Department of Homeland Security appropriations bill was passed out of the appropriations.
00:02:57.780Committee in June. And yet Kevin McCarthy hasn't put it on the floor in more than 100 days.
00:03:03.800That is not serious. You know why Kevin McCarthy didn't move our border appropriations bill?
00:03:09.480Because the lobbyists and the special interests who own Kevin McCarthy want to put us in this position where we're backed up against the wall facing shutdown politics.
00:03:18.720And what that does is it centralizes power to the people that they buy off with PAC donations and lobbyist donations.
00:03:25.680And then the membership doesn't get to make real, real, real contributions to that process.
00:03:34.740You just heard Jim Jordan say that they are efforting for bills this week, appropriations bills this week to get through.
00:03:41.820That would partially fund the government. The defense bill as well.
00:03:46.340You wanted the defense bill to move forward. Did you not?
00:03:50.060Yes. That's why I voted for it. And I voted for the rule to proceed on to it.
00:03:54.220And by the way, don't give Kevin McCarthy credit for the fact that we're moving on to these four appropriations bills.
00:03:59.560That was the deal that House conservatives foisted upon Kevin McCarthy when he couldn't just move the big spending bills without moving the bills that cut spending.
00:04:07.260We said, no, no, no. You have to move bills like the state and foreign ops bill, because we don't think we should be borrowing money from China to go fund gay pride parades in Prague or LGBTQ seminars in Indonesia.
00:04:20.240We don't think that that's a good use of our money. And the only way to do this, Maria, is line by line.
00:04:25.080Kevin wants it in one big up or down vote. Keep the government open. Shut it down.
00:04:29.040I'm saying single subject spending bills. It's the only way to break the fever and liberate ourselves from this out of control spending.
00:04:34.540Well, he's doing the four bills next week. So we're making him because we're making he's doing it.
00:04:39.780So to push now to blow up all of the wins that you all have had now, which wins, please enumerate them.
00:04:46.500Well, OK, well, how about the fact that he has set up a weaponization committee to investigate the DOJ, whether they're involved in a cover up?
00:05:10.260None of those things are deliverables. Those are steps in a process that setting up a committee is an end unto itself.
00:05:17.120Only in Washington, D.C. The American people demand results. Hold on.
00:05:21.080I'll let you talk. These committees have done nothing to reduce inflation.
00:05:26.020They've done nothing to actually constrain the Biden government.
00:05:28.840We can set up committees and have hearings and yell at people.
00:05:32.120But at the end of the day, if we still send the check to fund a weaponized government, having a weaponization subcommittee is little relief to the American people.
00:05:40.940And if any of this was serious, we would be sending out subpoenas and compelling process the way the January 6th committee did.
00:05:48.940We should be operating like them. Instead, we're playing patty cake with the Bidens.
00:05:53.440We're allowing them to get away with it and we're funding it.
00:05:56.360We're sending the money. If we were serious, use the power of the purse.
00:05:59.620The speaker joined me a week ago and told me that he will, in fact, subpoena Hunter Biden.
00:06:05.340He said at the appropriate time. But let's be clear.
00:06:07.980When do you think the appropriate time is? How many months do the American people have to wait before that subpoena is sent? You tell me.
00:06:14.920We would we would not know any anything that we know about the Biden family.
00:06:19.140One hundred and seventy six suspicious activity reports, 20 shell companies set up while he was vice president.
00:06:24.820The whistleblower testimony. We would not know any of this if not for those committees that he set up exposing all of this.
00:06:31.620We just heard from Merrick Garland last week.
00:06:33.820But you have to follow that to its natural conclusion.
00:06:35.940It's not enough to expose facts that get people angry and animated.
00:06:40.500You then have to follow those facts to a conclusion and to accountability.
00:06:44.600You see, that's what Republicans are bad at.
00:06:46.400We're great at having the hearings and putting on the performances.
00:06:49.440But if you're still going to underwrite Biden's debt, which is what Kevin McCarthy did joining with Democrats on the debt limit deal.
00:06:55.180And if you're going to join up with Democrats to still fund his government, Merrick Garland will sit there and he'll answer my tough questions and he'll smirk at me or he'll obfuscate.
00:07:03.540And then guess what? He goes back to the Justice Department and the coffers are full with money from the American taxpayer that gets turned against the brave patriots in this country.
00:07:26.220Maria, they are not available to anyone who wants to see them.
00:07:29.240That is a that is a factual misstatement.
00:07:31.400They have been curated for some people in the media and some defense attorneys.
00:07:35.600But any American cannot see any of the January six.
00:07:38.420Are you not right now indirectly working with Democrats because you are going to allow Chuck Schumer to come up with a continuing resolution next week to fund the government?
00:07:49.900That's why some people feel this is a personal vendetta you have against the speaker.
00:07:54.840No, my vendetta is against a Washington system that allows corruption to put the interests of lobbyists and PACs above the interests of the American people.
00:08:03.900Kevin McCarthy facilitates that system.
00:10:48.740And we're going to get to a second with what she said this morning.
00:10:52.640The key point is these appropriations bills.
00:10:55.560The only way you're going to close the gap from the seven trade to the five trade is actually go through each bill point by point, line by line.
00:11:05.680President Trump, a massive change overnight.
00:11:10.640I shouldn't say change, but President Trump came out last night on truth and threw down about as hard as you can get to support taking a hard line here on this, on the fake deadline of the government shutdown.
00:11:24.720The key thing is to get the is Russ vote and Gates and everybody keep talking, get into these individual appropriations bill and get out the woke and get out the weaponized and also start to make the massive cuts.
00:11:36.580CNN's got another great story up this morning.
00:11:38.360So this all gets down to cuts in federal spending.
00:12:13.140I tried yesterday to lay out the issues around the budget battle.
00:12:16.720Congressman Gaetz is a tax on the speaker and the GOP's reaction to Joe Biden's bad policies.
00:12:22.740In a nutshell, Matt Gaetz said we should have separate single subject spending bills.
00:12:27.700McCarthy is also pushing to get individual subject bills through through.
00:12:31.460But collectively, those bills add up to the same spending number that we were spending at the top of the covid emergency.
00:12:38.540Matt Gaetz is pushing for individual bills to come in with a cut in spending year over year.
00:12:42.620The way to fix this is to give all of those bills a major haircut.
00:12:46.980The problem is we knew this date was coming.
00:12:49.200Why weren't these bills done before this week?
00:12:51.620I still questioned why Republicans can't get on the same page.
00:12:55.200Why move to a government shutdown and attack the speaker of the House, blow up the House effectively, undermining the work that they've already done.
00:13:02.340But Congressman Gaetz came back saying we can't govern the way we have in the past.
00:13:06.580We are spending seven trillion dollars a year, but we're taking in just five trillion.
00:13:12.620He also questioned how serious Republicans are about investigating Joe Biden when, in fact, we still have yet to see a subpoena of Hunter Biden.
00:13:21.940I'm very proud of the interviews conducted this Sunday.
00:13:24.260I posed the right questions, tough questions to Matt Gaetz, who took on those questions and answer them with practical ideas.
00:13:31.100He did well, as did my other guests, Jim Jordan, Mark Levin, Mike Lee and Larry Elder.
00:13:36.440My priority was to give Matt Gaetz a fair shot.
00:13:39.100He's calling for action from Speaker McCarthy.
00:13:41.160He didn't seem to care if the government shut down or not.
00:13:43.860After all, this is the government, by the way, who gave the IRS bullets and the government, which has been weaponized against American citizens.
00:14:05.600And the best way for us to advance the Republican border policies is to pass the Department of Homeland Security appropriations bill.
00:14:11.780Do that along with veterans, defense, ag, state and foreign ops.
00:14:15.400We'll have 73 percent of the discretionary budget funded.
00:14:18.560And if, you know, the Department of Labor and education have to shut down for a few days as we get their appropriations in line, that's certainly not something that is is optimal.
00:14:27.740But I think it's better than continuing on the current path we are to America's financial ruin.
00:14:34.620Yes, it may seem like chaos at the end of the day, but lawmakers are trying to stop the Democrats wild spending, which has caused massive inflation.
00:14:42.840Some have specific priorities, such as no more money to government agencies who turn their ire against their political enemies.
00:14:48.560Like Jack Smith's investigation into President Trump.
00:14:51.760Others want to stop the money sent to Ukraine until the U.S. border is secure.
00:14:56.460And most want to ensure the Department of Defense is funded.
00:14:59.320Do you get the feeling that the unthinkable is going to happen soon?