Learn English with Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-GAetz). He is a freshman Congressman from Florida who has been a thorn in the side of the establishment in Washington, D.C. and a voice for the forgotten people of his district. In this episode, he talks about the ongoing Russia investigation, the deep state, and why he believes the Deep State is out to get him. He also talks about why he thinks the FBI should have been involved in the Hillary Clinton investigation and why they should be held accountable for what they found out about it. He also discusses why he doesn t think the FBI s involvement in the Russia investigation is good or bad, and what he would do if he was in charge of the investigation. He's a firebrand in Congress and has been in office for less than a year and a half, but he's already proving to be a force to be reckoned with in the fight against establishment Washington. Listen to the full episode and tweet me if you like it! with any thoughts, opinions or thoughts on the episode. Tweet Me! or to let me know what you thought or if you have any thoughts or opinions on any of the topics covered in the episode! . Tweet me ! and let us know what your thoughts, thoughts, or opinions you'd like to have us feature in the next episode of the podcast! on the podcast. or tweet us in your feed! Timestim :) Timestamps: 4:00 - What's your favorite part of the episode? 5: What did you think of it? 6:30 - How do you think the episode was better? 7:15 - What do you like the most? 8:00 9:20 - What are you looking forward to hear from President Trump's response? 11:40 - What is your thoughts on what you would do next? 13:00 | What s your biggest takeaway from the episode of The Office? 16:30 17: What s going to be the most important part of this episode? / 16: What would you want me to do in the podcast? 18:30 | What are your thoughts? 19:15 - What s a good day? 21:15 | What do I think you're going to do? 22:40 | What's the biggest thing you're most excited about?
00:00:03.000Matt 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.
00:00:10.000Matt Gaetz right now, he's a problem in the Democratic Party.
00:00:13.000He can cause a lot of hiccups in passing the laws.
00:00:16.000So we're going to keep running the stories to keep hurting him.
00:00:20.000If 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!
00:02:08.000Politicians give money to Planned Parenthood.
00:02:11.000Give it back to politicians at election time who get elected.
00:02:16.000We'll give it back to Planned Parenthood.
00:02:18.000We'll give it back to politicians who get elected and the game plays on.
00:02:21.000If you had the government working with one campaign to dress up a fake news National Enquirer garbage report, to dress it up as intelligence, take it to the FISA court to get a warrant to spy on the other campaign, that should not happen in this country.
00:02:37.000It's the most important issue in front of the country the last six weeks.
00:02:40.000You don't know who's heading up the case, who the lead investigator is.
00:02:43.000At this juncture, no, I did not know who did.
00:02:44.000You get that information to us, we'd like to know.
00:02:46.000We'd like to know how many people you've assigned to look into this situation.
00:03:16.000That's the directive from the OG firebrand, Congress's most talented member, Congress's hardest working member, someone I look up to, someone who has really inspired a generation of fighters in the Congress.
00:03:29.000My good friend, Jim Jordan, also the title of the upcoming book from my friend.
00:03:35.000And I think it informs on a lot of important issues facing the Congress, facing the country.
00:03:40.000And Jim, you know, the title really, I think, begs the question, what is it that we have to say we are going to do to the country to earn the trust of our constituents and to strengthen the institution of Congress?
00:03:55.000First of all, I'm not the most talented you are, and you are a friend, and I appreciate your leadership and your willingness to fight for what you told the constituents in Florida that you would fight for when they elected you.
00:04:06.000I always say we make this job way too complicated.
00:04:08.000What did you tell them you were going to do when you put your name on the ballot and you went out and talked to the folks in your district and they gave you the privilege to go serve in the United States Congress, which is a privilege only about 12,000 people have ever had in the history of our great country.
00:04:19.000What did you tell them you were going to do?
00:04:21.000Even if your own party's against you, no matter who's against you, go do what you said.
00:04:24.000You have done that, and that's why you're a friend and someone I so respect.
00:04:28.000What we told them we were going to do is the things they care about.
00:04:31.000Make sure we defend the sanctity of human life.
00:04:34.000Make sure we don't spend this country into the debt that we now see.
00:04:37.000Make sure we stand up for the Constitution and stop this assault that we've seen over the last year on their First Amendment liberties.
00:04:44.000This is the part that bothers me the most as two guys who sit on the Judiciary Committee, the committee that's supposed to protect the Bill of Rights, the Constitution, and your liberties under the First Amendment, the Fourth Amendment, the Second Amendment.
00:04:54.000That's what we've got to make sure we do.
00:04:57.000If we get the majority, that's what we've got to focus on.
00:05:00.000Jim, all over America right now in Republican primaries, people are working to define themselves as Jim Jordan Republicans in a lot of ways because you and Mark Meadows and many of our other colleagues started the Freedom Caucus to be a rudder for the body, to provide a sense of direction in the A town that can often be so corrupt and tumultuous.
00:05:25.000Walk us through kind of the scenes of the book where you start the Freedom Caucus, where you decide that this has to be an organization to inspire people and to draw people in.
00:05:35.000And it's an organization that's inspiring campaigns throughout America today.
00:05:40.000In the introduction, I talk about the day Mark Meadows filed the motion to vacate the chair, something that hasn't been done over 90 years in this country, where it's the equivalent of filing a vote of no confidence in a parliamentary form of government.
00:05:52.000And I will always remember this, and they can read this in the introduction, but it's A moment that has stuck with me.
00:06:32.000And it wasn't a smile that said, we're gonna get John Boehner.
00:06:37.000It was just a smile that said, here we go.
00:06:39.000We're gonna do something that hasn't been done in almost a century.
00:06:43.000And with signing that document, filing that motion, within a few months, something that has never happened in American history, the Speaker of the House steps down midterm with no health concern and no scandal.
00:06:56.000He stepped down because he didn't have the votes to stay in power.
00:06:59.000Because he wasn't doing what the people elected us to do.
00:07:02.000And we start with that and we talk about that a lot through the book.
00:07:05.000We talk a lot about Matt Gaetz, particularly one of my favorite things in my time in Congress was when you and Steve Scalise and a bunch of our colleagues stormed the bunker in the basement.
00:07:16.000And frankly, and I know your viewers know this, but that would not have happened but for your leadership.
00:07:22.000And you joined those of us in there who were doing the depositions.
00:07:49.000Where with your leadership, our conference came together.
00:07:52.000And remember at the time, The conventional wisdom was that the Democrats were all going to vote to impeach President Trump, the best president we've had.
00:08:01.000They were all going to vote to impeach him just 13 months before an election and they thought a bunch of Republicans were going to jump on their side.
00:08:07.000And what happened because of what you did and so many people come together and the good staff we had and all the fighting we did, what happened is no, every Republican voted not to impeach President Trump and Democrats came our way and one of them even switched parties.
00:08:22.000I really don't believe it does if you don't take the action you did.
00:08:26.000And the country is better off because of what you did and a number of other of our colleges stood strong.
00:08:32.000Well, those were times when a lot of people in our party believed that we ought to just fold our hands and hope that Donald Trump hadn't done anything illegal or criminal.
00:08:41.000And they were unwilling to challenge the basis for these investigations, whether it was the Ukraine sequel or the Russia hoax at the outset.
00:08:50.000And, you know, you talk about your role in history, dislodging John Boehner and really setting the right on a new course and a better course.
00:08:58.000But it hasn't been a course without some rough seas.
00:09:03.000I mean, we went from Boehner to Paul Ryan.
00:09:06.000The title of your book is Do What You Said You Would Do.
00:09:10.000And what we said to our voters in election after election was that if they trusted us, we would repeal Obamacare.
00:09:17.000And then Paul Ryan took like $14 million from HMOs in the weeks leading up to dropping legislation that they told us repealed Obamacare, but they didn't repeal Obamacare.
00:09:30.000And so talk about being in that position and the pressure that the Freedom Caucus was under to inform the entire movement and the entire body that to do what we said we had to do, we couldn't turn the product over to the lobby corps.
00:09:48.000And the legislative strategy we embarked on was maybe the dumbest in history, because if you remember, Paul Ryan talked about three buckets, like we were going to do something now, something later, then have the Dr. Price, who was head of HHS, Health and Human Services, do something on his own, which sort of begged the question, well, if he can do it on his own, why doesn't he do it now?
00:10:07.000Why does he have to wait until we pass?
00:10:08.000It was just a crazy legislative strategy.
00:10:11.000We should have just passed what we had passed before.
00:10:14.000The Congress before President Trump got here and had it on his desk?
00:10:18.000Because President Trump would have signed that on January 20, 2017. So your concept is put the same bill on Trump's desk that we had put on Obama's desk.
00:10:25.000But is there a greater example during your time in Congress of people not doing what they said they would do than the Republicans who were willing to vote for an Obamacare repeal when they knew Obama would veto it, but then who weren't willing to vote for the same bill in the whip checks when it was President That's a great point, and you're exactly right.
00:10:49.000You remember when we first got here, we'd go to the White House, and in the West Wing, they'd have on the board that big whiteboard, and they wrote down every single promise they made to the American people.
00:10:58.000And then when they did it, they checked it off.
00:11:00.000That's the kind of leadership we had under President Trump.
00:11:03.000And we go back to when they started the lies about President Trump.
00:11:30.000We said, something doesn't make sense here.
00:11:32.000We were close enough to the Trump campaign to know that it was impossible for that group to collude with Russia because we were a traveling carnival.
00:11:40.000We were just so happy to be on to the next city to bring positivity and an America first spirit.
00:11:46.000Never violence, never destruction, always love of country, reverence for our military and our law enforcement colluding with Russia.
00:11:53.000We could barely collude with the next venue location.
00:11:55.000You know, and so we knew that it was such a joke at the outset.
00:11:59.000And it was an effort to destabilize the presidency because they couldn't deal with the results.
00:12:04.000So, you know, in this next kind of period for Congress, you know, what is that thing that you think particularly the Judiciary Committee can have a role in delivering on it?
00:12:14.000No secret, you're the Republican lead on the Judiciary Committee.
00:12:17.000If we take the majority, you will likely be the first chair of that committee to not be a member of the bar in the history of the committee.
00:12:26.000So walk us through the Jim Jordan vision.
00:12:37.000You think about some of the people who've led that committee.
00:12:40.000A storied history of defending the Bill of Rights, the American people's fundamental liberties and freedoms.
00:12:47.000And right now what we have is a committee that's doing just the opposite.
00:12:51.000So what we're going to have to do is, one, we're going to have to do the investigations that need done.
00:12:56.000I mean, this idea that the IRS released thousands of people's tax returns, now that'll probably be, you know, led over in the ways it means we have an investigation.
00:13:06.000We need to look into the IRS situation.
00:13:09.000We need to look into what's happening with this Justice Department going after parents, this issue that we're focused on right now, and school board meetings, what they're doing, the political nature of our Justice Department right now.
00:13:26.000I always say, the five liberties we have under the First Amendment, your right to practice your faith, the right to assemble, right to petition your government, freedom of press, freedom of speech.
00:14:54.000So you get rid of the liability protection in Section 230, and you create an expedited path to get that to the Supreme Court so it can happen.
00:15:03.000And it does take 100 years for this to break them up because we ain't got that amount of time.
00:15:07.000What you describe is not dissimilar to the way that we went after tobacco companies at the state level in a lot of ways.
00:15:14.000Strip these entities of their defenses and declare open season on them and stick the trial lawyers on them.
00:15:19.000But then the remedy does not emanate from the legislative branch of government.
00:15:24.000It emanates out of the judicial branch in your vision.
00:15:30.000I'm nervous about giving more power to the bureaucracy, particularly the bureaucracy controlled by the Biden administration.
00:15:37.000And I guess exhibit number one would be, look at the Justice Department controlled by the Biden administration, what we've seen there.
00:15:43.000So that makes me nervous, because I actually think...
00:15:46.000Big tech and big government collude to further stick it to conservatives.
00:15:50.000So let's make sure we get after big tech, but let's do it in a way that doesn't combine the all-powerful big government with the all-powerful big tech.
00:15:59.000Both those entities want to censor Matt Gaetz and Jim Jordan.
00:16:04.000I still remember the day that you called me up because you're much better at all this tech stuff than me and how to handle it and the tweet and the post and everything.
00:16:12.000You called me up just a few summers ago and you said, Jim, Twitter is shadow banning us.
00:16:18.000And I think you related that I said something like, well, that sounds terrible, Matt, but what's shadow banning?
00:16:24.000And then you explained it to me, and we figured out, and you were 100% right.
00:16:28.000They were doing that, and it was interesting.
00:16:48.000So this is why we've got to get a remedy to this.
00:16:51.000I think that a judiciary committee that is laser focused on vindicating the liberty interests of our fellow Americans, where we have seen them so abridged by tyrants at every level of government, would really rally people and expand our movement to the very types of people we see rising up and becoming hyperpolitical in places like Loudoun County, Virginia.
00:17:13.000And so, you know, I do think that that's a way to expand the movement.
00:17:16.000I would go further with legislative power.
00:17:19.000I think that, you know, we can go beyond using legislative power to strip immunities.
00:17:24.000We could use it to literally reshape these companies.
00:17:26.000But I think the ultimate result is one that would democratize access to the digital world for people, regardless of their politics.
00:17:35.000I mean, access to the digital world is central to the American experience.
00:17:39.000And the terms of service on Twitter can't be more important than the rights that undergird the Constitution of our country, for sure.
00:17:48.000So some of our colleagues, Jim, have impeachment fever.
00:17:52.000And I want to talk to you about this because you and I have spent a great deal of our time in Congress and we've deployed a great deal of our credibility to defend the presidency and the institution of the presidency against frivolous and politically motivated impeachments.
00:18:11.000And while I do think Joe Biden is worthy of impeachment, and particularly where they seem to be failing on purpose on the border, I worry about impeachment by reflex.
00:18:21.000And I worry that if everything is a basis for impeachment, not just purposeful wrongdoing, Then any time you have a president and a Congress that are in different parties, part of the ceremonial exchange of power will be an impeachment.
00:18:37.000I don't want the country to look that way.
00:18:40.000Do you also worry about impeachment by reflex?
00:19:07.000And certainly what the Democrats have made it and what they did to President Trump.
00:19:10.000I mean, they tried to kick him out of office before he got there.
00:19:12.000That's when they started the Trump-Russia investigation.
00:19:14.000They tried to kick him out while he was there.
00:19:15.000And then once he'd left, they tried to kick him out even though he'd already left.
00:19:19.000And he had the greatest presidency, I think, certainly in our lifetimes, but maybe in the history of this great country.
00:19:25.000And yet the Democrats were so obsessed because this guy came here and turned this town around, took on the bureaucracy, took on all the Democrats, took on all the mainstream press, and he had to take on some of the Republicans too.
00:19:42.000Because when we had good ideas, we could get them right to the forefront of power in our government when everything in Washington is driven to try to constrain innovation and creative thinking and actually valuing the people who sent us who, you know, we owe, I think, a tribute of fidelity.
00:20:56.000These are people who've served in our military, who've been members of military families, and they did not send me to Washington to play defense.
00:21:02.000I believe I represent the best district.
00:21:05.000You didn't have a speaker campaign with a great deal of corporate infrastructure, but people showed up with homemade signs.
00:21:13.000And I'm going to put them on the screen.
00:21:14.000They brought their homemade signs that said Speaker Jordan.
00:21:17.000And I've never seen people react to a leadership race in our country the way they did that.
00:21:23.000What was the day you realized you didn't want to be speaker?
00:21:26.000I never really did want to be speaker.
00:21:28.000You just sort of had to run at that time.
00:21:31.000But I still remember that was such a fun trip.
00:21:52.000And, of course, Ron running for government.
00:21:54.000It was one of the most fun campaign kind of things I've ever done.
00:21:58.000And then we got to hang out in your fine town.
00:22:00.000And now we get to be a part of the Ron DeSantis fan club as he takes these values that we fight for, you know, often tilting against windmills in Washington.
00:22:09.000And he goes and puts them to work for people.
00:22:12.000A lot of the liberty agenda that a chairman, Jim Jordan, would pursue in the Judiciary Committee, we are seeing play out in the great state of Florida every day.
00:22:20.000I liked when he said, my job is not to protect business.
00:22:24.000My job is to protect the citizens of my state, their liberty.
00:22:47.000It's the upcoming book by Congressman Jim Jordan.
00:22:49.000And if you read it, you'll be able to see the future because you will be able to see the agenda that we are going to fight for in the House Judiciary Committee on behalf of our fellow Americans.
00:23:02.000Thanks for inspiring a generation to try to serve in Congress in a way that is worthy of, I think, the great platform you and Mark Meadows have created.