In this episode of Firebrand, we discuss the latest in the ongoing saga of Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-GA) and his feud with the Deep State. We also hear from Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.J.) and reaction to the House of Representatives vote on tariffs and defense spending cuts. Finally, we hear from Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D, Gaetz's old stomping grounds) and reaction from Sen. Marco Rubio (R, R-Ohio) and Sen. Al Franken (D) on the Iran deal and the Iran nuclear deal. And we get to the bottom of Tucker Carlson's new gig. Firebrand is brought to you Live from Room 2021 of the Rayburn House Office Building in Washington, D.C., where we are broadcasting live from the building where the show is being produced. Thanks for listening and share the podcast with your fellow patriots! Tweet us with your thoughts, reactions, or thoughts on any of the topics covered on the show! and we'll get them on the next episode! Timestamps: 0:00:00 - What's the deal with Tucker Carlson? 6:30 - Is it a gig or something else? 7:20 - What is the deal? 8:40 - What will Tucker's next gig be? 9:15 - Who will be the next Tucker gig? 11:00- What's next for Tucker? 12:00 13:30- What are we're watching? 15: What's going to happen with Tucker's future? 16: What will happen with the January 6th? 17: What s the plan? 18:40- What do we need to do with J6? 19:15 21:30 22:40 23:15- What s going on with the J.V. 27:00 | What s our focus on? 26:15 | What do you think of Tucker's role? 29:10 - What does it mean? 31: What is our focus? 32:10 35:00 + 32: What can we expect from Tucker's story? 36:30 | What will we do? 37:10 | What does he do with the case? 39:40 | What should we do with this? 41:30 + 38:00 // 39:10 + 39:00
00:04:35.000cracking.etto Matt Gaetz was one of the very few members in the entire Congress who bothered to stand up against permanent Washington on behalf of his constituents.
00:04:59.000Matt Gaetz right now, he's a problem in the Democratic Party.
00:05:01.000He could cause a lot of hiccups in passing applause.
00:05:04.000So we're going to keep running those stories to keep hurting him.
00:05:08.000If you stand for the flag and kneel in prayer, if you want to build America up and not burn her to the ground, then welcome, my fellow patriots!
00:05:45.000We are live broadcasting out of room 2021 of the Rayburn House office building in dreary, rainy, disgusting Washington, D.C. on this Friday afternoon.
00:05:55.000The House of Representatives has taken their final vote of the day.
00:05:59.000That was on A key measure to institute tariffs against some of the entities that have stolen our solar intellectual property.
00:06:08.000I'm going to show you the debate, pro and con, on that measure, final measure of the week.
00:06:13.000Also, we've got reaction to the Democrat charge that the House plan to raise the debt limit but also do so with corresponding spending cuts, that that harms veterans.
00:06:26.000We've got reaction to that from Congresswoman Luna.
00:06:29.000Also, I had legislation before the House of Representatives regarding Ukraine and whether or not we would have an inquiry to the Biden administration with troop levels, where personnel are, What equipment is being used?
00:06:46.000All the information they had regarding strategy and future plans.
00:06:50.000That legislation moved through the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
00:06:53.000I'm going to show you the debate on that.
00:06:55.000It should be ready for the House floor.
00:06:57.000Something my constituents clearly want is accountability when it comes to the assistance that's been provided to Ukraine.
00:07:04.000We did something a little different today to start the show.
00:07:10.000What they wanted me to address at the top, and I got some interesting ones, so I'm gonna go through those first before we get to those main issues in the show.
00:07:19.000First was Joe, who said he wanted to know what information I had on the next Tucker gig.
00:07:51.000He's a cultural figure, a phenomenon, someone I spoke to regularly about matters of war and peace, trade issues, immigration issues, how America interacted with countries through weapon sales and other intense diplomatic endeavors and negotiations.
00:08:09.000Tucker Carlson is a brilliant person and he has inspired many folks who work on Capitol Hill today who make up the ranks of our activists all across the country and I don't think it'll be a gig, Joe.
00:08:24.000I think it'll be something else, but I'm certainly going to let Tucker break his own news.
00:08:28.000Another thing folks are concerned about, and with good reason, the congressional oversight on what's happening with the January 6th defendants.
00:08:35.000You saw the trip that the Oversight Committee took to the D.C. jail.
00:08:41.000You've seen the correspondence we've sent regarding deprivations of certain civil rights and really human rights regarding the care and confinement and at times even solitary confinement that J6 defendants have had to endure.
00:08:56.000And we are working alongside the Oversight Committee.
00:08:59.000Many members of the Oversight Committee are taking an appropriate lead on this issue.
00:09:03.000But I think you're going to see some hearings coming up there in that committee.
00:09:07.000And we may also be doing some field hearings that we'll be able to announce and certainly cover here on Firebrand.
00:09:29.000Was there a recasting of events with a diminution in focus on some of the potential involvement with federal undercovers, confidential informants?
00:09:41.000That's the stuff that really unlocks the truth about January 6th.
00:09:45.000Some of the episodes of Firebrand that have been best watched, I would encourage you to check those out and ensure you're fully up to date as to some of those facts that I think give rise to legitimate concern.
00:09:57.000Another piece of big news that got sent to me at the start of the show when I sent out that tweet.
00:10:03.000Mandatory E-Verify passing the Florida legislature.
00:10:09.000I know on the live stream we got a lot of folks watching from Florida, but E-Verify is essential to ensuring that we have a fair and legal workforce.
00:10:18.000And if we can get it done in Florida, in Arizona, places with massive agriculture industry, then certainly we can do it nationally.
00:10:27.000And there should be a national standard for E-Verify.
00:10:29.000There is such an obvious interweaving of E-Verify and interstate commerce.
00:10:33.000I believe there ought to be action from the Congress on this question.
00:10:38.000And we passed E-Verify out of the House Judiciary Committee.
00:10:41.000It should be ready for a floor vote in May.
00:10:46.000Next month, I expect a floor vote on E-Verify, asylum reform, remain in Mexico, how to ensure that people do not just get paroled into our country with the joke of an immigration system that Joe Biden and Mayorkas are currently overseeing.
00:11:03.000We are going to have a vote on that in May.
00:11:05.000And there is big-time momentum for this legislation.
00:11:09.000And Florida passing mandatory E-Verify only accelerates that momentum.
00:11:13.000I am proud of my Florida colleagues and am excited to see what that means for our workforce in the Sunshine State.
00:11:21.000Another thing, folks want to know when the Trans Manifesto is coming out on the Tennessee shooter, the answer is, I don't know.
00:11:29.000But here's my question for the FBI. Why haven't you released this?
00:11:35.000You know, if this was a manifesto that espoused a vile form of white supremacy that we would certainly criticize and condemn, I mean, the FBI would have had that out within moments.
00:11:49.000But if it's radical gender ideology, and let me be clear, I don't know what is in this thing, but if that is indeed what it is, then does the FBI see any tension in the disparate treatment of some of these writings based on the radicalized, condemnable ideologies of the shooter, of the killer?
00:12:14.000Can they really say it impairs an ongoing investigation?
00:12:17.000Are there other suspects in the Tennessee shooting case?
00:12:22.000They obviously have the person who committed this act, and if there's information that I think the public would gather something from, draw conclusions from, If you would release it under one context, why would you not another?
00:12:40.000And we're just getting news that we're getting a date for FBI Director Wray to come to the Judiciary Committee in the near future, and that may be something we ask.
00:12:52.000I want to get now to this charge Democrats are making in media interviews and in social media that the Republican plan somehow harms veterans on the debt limit.
00:13:03.000And let me be clear, I didn't vote for the Republican plan because I could not in good conscience gaslight $49 trillion in national debt on a bill where the final changes were being made at 2 o'clock the very morning of the vote.
00:13:18.000That's not what regular order looks like to me.
00:13:21.000But on the pure merits and substance, this Democrat claim is totally false addressed recently by veteran Florida woman Congresswoman Anna Paulina Luna.
00:13:36.000Hey guys, the White House just put out a statement claiming that House Republicans apparently in our budget proposal are trying to go after VA and cut funding, which is completely not true.
00:13:48.000In fact, I'm looking at the limit on federal spending, the limits, right?
00:13:58.000What the administration likes to do, what Democrats like to do, is they like to use veterans just like they did in the PAC Act, where they used burn pit victims, veterans, and put $400 billion in pork spending into a bill that didn't even go to vets.
00:14:11.000Okay, so this is personal for me, obviously being a veteran, but don't be a part of the problem and circulate false information because clearly we would not do that.
00:14:20.000But the fact that they're even trying to imply it because We actually came up with a proposed budget of which they wanted nothing to do with.
00:14:26.000I mean, that is exactly the problem in politics.
00:14:40.000C. Spellnitz on Instagram tells me to stop gaslighting.
00:14:45.000Well, Ms. Spelnitz, I think it's actually the Democrats that are gaslighting.
00:14:49.000Here's the argument they're trying to make on the VA. That if we simply take overall budget growth and cap that, that somehow that would treat every agency the same.
00:15:01.000You see, I don't believe in horizontal cuts across every agency regardless of which are performing their functions.
00:15:09.000What I believe in are deep vertical cuts at places like the Department of Education and the Department of Labor and the Department of Energy and the EPA, the ATF. And if we did that, Then we would be able to accelerate the programs that are working for our veterans.
00:15:30.000But what we shouldn't do is engage in a process by which every agency has spending that automatically escalates forever, and we're getting to the point where the payment on our national debt is going to exceed $400 billion.
00:15:47.000We're going to get to the point soon where we're paying more on interest on the national debt than we do for our military.
00:15:53.000And so I think to be honest and fulsome about the care that we have for people who do rely on government programs like seniors and veterans and the elderly and the disabled, we have to ensure that everyone isn't just getting fat and happy off of federal budgets that continue to explode.
00:16:38.000It requires the DOD, the White House, to provide documents to the Congress indicating any plans for current or future military assistance to Ukraine and documents indicating whether any United States Armed Forces, including Special Operations Forces, are currently deployed in Ukraine.
00:16:58.000So we've seen conflicting news reports about this.
00:17:02.000We've seen news reports that have not paired neatly with the That debate went on in the House Foreign Affairs Committee,
00:17:31.000and you're about to hear from some of my colleagues, Kathy Manning, Jerry Connolly, Corey Mills, and Daryl Issa.
00:17:40.000Those are the members of Congress you're about to hear from if you are listening.
00:17:55.000I now call up House Resolution 300, a resolution of inquiry requesting that the President and directing the Secretary of Defense to transmit respectively to the House of Representatives copies of all documents indicating any plans for current or future military assistance to Ukraine and documents indicating whether any United States forces, including Special Operations Forces, are currently in Ukraine.
00:18:23.000This political measure from the lead author of the Ukraine fatigue resolution is unnecessarily divisive and plays directly into Vladimir Putin's hands.
00:18:36.000By seeking to force the disclosure of all current and future US military plans and documents related to US support to Ukraine, Including sensitive details on the presence of U.S. personnel in Ukraine, the sponsors of this measure played directly into Putin's hands and jeopardized the very lives of those with whom we are standing.
00:18:59.000Let me read to you what Mr. Gates has said.
00:19:03.000We must suspend all foreign aid for the war in Ukraine and demand that all combatants in this conflict reach a peace agreement immediately.
00:19:14.000Apparently Mr. Gates has decided for the Ukrainians what is in their best interest.
00:19:21.000And that means that the intent behind this motion is that...
00:19:26.000All this is simply saying is, is that they're requesting information if we were to use any type of military force in Ukraine, current or future.
00:19:40.000We talk about the ideas of not allowing continual mission creep, which I've been a part of, given the fact that I spent over seven years of my life in Iraq, over three years of my life in Afghanistan, Kosovo, Pakistan, northern Somalia, been blown up twice.
00:19:55.000I can tell you, mission creep is something that does exist, and in many cases, the authorities, which Congress has under Article I, has sometimes surpassed, Because of the past AUMFs like 0102, but I would again just make the note that this is not preventing support to Ukraine.
00:20:19.000for oversight by the President or I should say request by Congress for the President and the Secretary of Defense to provide a line of questioning or a reasonable amount of information on if we're deploying currently or in the future military forces.
00:20:35.000This oversight is vital and must continue.
00:20:38.000This committee is dedicated To the constant both public and private oversight of our monitoring of every single dollar and every weapon system.
00:20:50.000U.S. support is enduring, but it is not without the strings of accountability.
00:20:56.000The resolution of inquiry requests the administration to transmit relevant documents related to U.S. security assistance for Ukraine as well as United States Armed Forces in country.
00:21:07.000The American taxpayer deserves to know how U.S. assistance is being spent.
00:21:13.000I move that the committee report House Resolution 300 to the House with a favorable recommendation.
00:21:22.000We are back live and that favorable recommendation was adopted.
00:21:27.000That was Congressman Darrell Issa of California.
00:21:29.000And even though Daryl and I probably don't share precisely the same view on Ukraine and the extent to which the U.S. should be involved at all, I'm glad that he sees the importance for the taxpayer to get the answers to these questions about the planning and the cost and the strategy and the troops. I'm glad that he sees the importance for the taxpayer Thank you, Congressman Issa.
00:21:49.000And couldn't you tell from that video how much it just triggers Democrats that I'm the sponsor of the resolution?
00:21:57.000You heard Congressman Issa and Congressman Mills speak to the substance of the resolution, what its operative effects are.
00:22:05.000But what did you hear from Jerry Connolly and Representative Manning?
00:22:08.000Oh, can you believe what Matt Gaetz has said?
00:22:10.000He doesn't believe the United States should be in Ukraine.
00:22:13.000So any question that Matt Gaetz asks about our troops or the cost or the strategy, it must all be for Vladimir Putin.
00:22:23.000It is crazy to watch people who are elected to be the representatives of the United States behave more like lawmakers from Kyiv.
00:22:38.000Almost universal support for my Ukraine fatigue resolution on Getter, Tinkerbell, saying we got our own problems here at home that we should focus on.
00:22:48.000And Patricia on Facebook says no more money for Ukraine.
00:22:55.000I will still fight for this country, and it is very telling who seems to put the foreign interests abroad first.
00:23:03.000Now, one thing we can do for this country is ensure that we own our own innovation ecosystem and that it is not stolen from us and then replicated abroad, replacing the market space that should be dominated by our countrymen, by our businesses.
00:23:21.000And we can dominate the world if American innovation is unleashed and then vigorously defended.
00:23:27.000And that's actually something I don't think Congress has been serious enough about.
00:23:35.000Solar was a universally American enterprise.
00:23:39.000A lot of that was here in this country and then the Chinese stole the tech, mass produced it overseas, and are now Totally replacing U.S. solar in the global marketplace, even in the marketplace here at home.
00:23:54.000That's like your neighbor having the nerve to steal your sweater and then wear it in front of you.
00:24:02.000That's how brazen the Chinese are and it's because we're not serious about protecting our intellectual property and that's not just going to foreign jurisdictions and foreign courts.
00:24:11.000It also means protecting our intellectual property with tariffs on what they are sending us If it is ill-gotten.
00:24:20.000And so we have legislation before the House of Representatives today regarding the trade policy we would have towards solar and particularly the solar that is coming in from places where we believe Americans were not put first and we believe in America first foreign policy.
00:24:38.000So this was the bill that passed today.
00:24:41.000I'm going to start by showing you the debate in favor of Of those tariffs.
00:24:49.000And this debate is led by Ways and Means Chairman Jason Smith, Congressman Greg Murphy, Congresswoman Claudia Tenney, Congressman Bob Latta, and Florida Man Congressman Bill Posey.
00:25:02.000The legislation before us today, House Joint Resolution 39 Congressional Review Act legislation on solar tariffs, will stop President Biden's proclamation that has given a free pass for two years to unfair solar imports from China that circumvent our trade laws.
00:25:21.000The United States must maintain crucial protections for American workers and our economy as a whole.
00:25:28.000We cannot surrender to China or any other country and put American workers at a disadvantage.
00:25:36.000I asked for unanimous consent to submit for the record a statement from the Uyghur Human Rights Project in support of HJ Res 39. The statement highlights the close connection This is bipartisan consensus that these practices are unacceptable and must be stopped.
00:26:07.000In pursuit of everything green, the Biden administration has given a free pass for Chinese solar imports to flow into this country by all means using an emergency proclamation.
00:26:19.000The last time a president used an emergency proclamation was for lumber in 1946 when American World War II veterans were returning home and they needed homes.
00:26:29.000But today, President Biden, or whoever's running the White House, is using it to waive tariffs on Chinese solar panels coming from Cambodia, Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam for two years.
00:27:22.000It is not up to the President to determine which laws to enforce and which laws to ignore if they don't conform to that President's particular agenda.
00:27:33.000If we allow Communist China to blatantly violate our trade laws with impunity, as the Commerce Department has concluded is occurring, how can we expect other nations to follow those laws and conduct business with us in a fair manner?
00:27:53.000As if the facts are not clear enough already, keep this in mind.
00:27:57.000This is a policy that President Obama and President Trump both agreed on.
00:28:03.000I know that's hard to believe, but you heard that right.
00:28:07.000It's a policy that President Obama and President Trump both agreed on.
00:28:14.000We are back live, so that set up the debate in favor of this that ultimately passed.
00:28:20.000But you also deserve to know which members of Congress took the pro-China side of this debate, the anti-American energy, anti-American innovation side.
00:28:32.000You're going to hear from Congressman Thompson, Congressman Don Beyer, Congressman Lloyd Doggett, Congressman Jimmy Panetta, Congressman Earl Blumenauer, all Democrats.
00:28:42.000And if you're watching, and if you're subscribed on Rumble, and if you have your notifications turned on, which means clicking that little bell if you're watching on YouTube or Rumble, if that is how you are consuming this show, this show, you are going to get a special treat because Earl Blumenauer was wearing one of the strangest bow ties I've ever seen on the house floor today.
00:29:04.000If this legislation were to become law, it would cost not create American jobs.
00:29:10.000And in the long run, it would make it harder, not easier, for our country to become energy independent.
00:29:18.000This bill would make it impossible to deploy solar energy quickly enough here in our country, here in the United States of America.
00:29:28.000It will hurt the 33,000 American solar installers who will lose their jobs.
00:29:33.000It will raise energy costs for families everywhere, but especially in this unbuilt.
00:29:37.000It will hurt all Americans who hope to use the solar tax credit.
00:29:42.000And it will hurt the energy companies, the businesses who built major solar installations in the last eight months, who will be subject to a retroactive tariff of 254 percent.
00:29:52.000And it will harm our endangered planet.
00:29:54.000It will handcuff us in our fight against climate change.
00:29:57.000In Texas, we are already number two in the country among the states for solar capacity, creating thousands of new jobs in providing clean energy and lower energy bills to thousands of families.
00:30:11.000Austinites know that solar power saves them on their energy bills and saves them when storms disrupt the grid.
00:30:18.000Now of course we want to strategically decouple from China, I believe, especially with their solar pieces, parts, and equipment.
00:30:26.000However, American solar companies need more time to adapt, to adjust, and to reduce Chinese inputs and solar panels.
00:30:33.000I also realize that we need to do more to bolster our domestic solar manufacturing.
00:30:38.000But that's why we recently made significant investments for domestic credits.
00:30:42.000However, if we allow these retroactive tariffs to take place now, it would deprive our solar industry of the incentive to invest in our manufacturing projects at home.
00:30:53.000What is being missed here is the reality that we are dependent on a supply chain in which China plays a key role.
00:32:15.000Can you hear in their voices just sometimes how compromised they are when they talk about the need to reorient the supply chain, but slowly, not too quickly, not in a way that would disrupt anything?
00:32:28.000Just enough time, I guess, for China to come and buy our farmland and our factories.
00:32:33.000Oh, and by the way, they're controlling the rare earth minerals that go into the production of so many of the things we need, especially battery technology, which is the essential feature of a solar system that allows you to actually use the energy in a reliable way.
00:32:49.000Yeah, that's coming from a series of mines all over the world that China is controlling.
00:32:57.000So Sarah on Facebook says we've got to stop China from eating our lunch.
00:33:01.000And yeah, when you let someone steal your stuff and then replicate it for cheap and then go and drive you out, that's the definition of eating our lunch at the global economic trade table.
00:33:14.000Olga on Facebook says she's worried that we are starting to have a communist government.
00:33:20.000We know how that ends and it's very ugly.
00:33:22.000James on Getter says, Representative Gates, stand up for the Second Amendment.
00:33:27.000James, my advice to you, go back and watch our last episode where we took the ATF director to task and we are working on legislation right now to really go after the ATF. I think they should be entirely abolished.
00:33:42.000We're going to start targeting the specific bureaucrats who have exceeded their lawful authority and have weaponized this agency against gun owners.
00:33:50.000Thank you for having an interest in it.
00:33:52.000It is something we work on each and every day.
00:33:54.000Thanks to everyone who participated in the live stream in today's show.
00:33:58.000Thank you for your questions, thoughts, and suggestions.
00:34:02.000This is our congressional newsletter that we offer to you.
00:34:05.000But the way you can help advance the cause, advance the message, share our episodes with someone who may find the content interesting, and make sure you are subscribed.