Learn English with the President of the United States, Donald Trump. President Trump is back in Washington, D.C. for a live show from Room 2021 at the Rayburn House Office Building at the Capitol Complex in Washington. He is joined by Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-GAetz) and Vice President Mike Pence (D-VA) as they discuss the border crisis, the ongoing budget crisis, and the need for more illegal immigrants in their districts. He also talks about the dangers of human trafficking and calls for an end to mass suffrage in order to keep or limit the political power of others in debates in Congress and the debate over the future of the country's future in the light of the 21st century. Tweet Me! with your favorite moment from Firebrand and we'll have it on the next episode of Firebrand. Timestamps: 1:00:00 - What's going on at the border? 4:30 - Why we need more illegal aliens in our districts 6:15 - How many illegal aliens should be in your district? 7:00 8:20 - What should we do to deal with the immigration crisis? 9:40 - What would you like to see in 2020? 11:15 12:10 - How should we deal with immigration reform? 13:30 14:40 15:20 16:00- What do you want in the future? 17:30- What are your priorities? 18:20- How do you need more people in your districts? 19: What are you looking for? 21:40- What should you want? 22:30: What is your dream for the country? 26: How do I need? 27:10- How should I vote for in the next election? 29: What kind of country do I want to see? 30:00 + 32:10 35:30 What are my goals for the future in 2024? 36:30 Is it possible to have more immigrants? 31:00 Is there a country that has enough people in my district for me? 32:00 Do you want me to vote for you? 33:00 Can I have more immigration? 34:00 How much money I would like to have in my congressional district? 35:00 What is my dream? 39:00 My thoughts on the future I would love to have?
00:05:39.000It's 2024. We're here broadcasting live out of room 2021 of the Rayburn House Office Building at the Capitol Complex in Washington, D.C. And I see already from the comments, several of you have missed me.
00:05:53.000Over the holidays, we give our team a little bit of a break, but there have been a lot of negotiations.
00:05:57.000We've been down to the border to continue to observe the disaster there, and so really this is a catch-up episode for everybody regarding what's going on at the border, these budget and...
00:06:08.000Government spending negotiations, the investigations into the Bidens and hunters showing up in the circus-like atmosphere, and also what we see going on around the world and with our Defense Department.
00:06:46.000We have to use the power of the purse, the power of the subpoena, and we've got to have the will to endure a little bit of political pain to deliver on what is...
00:06:56.000Necessary at this stage of the game to reverse the decline of the country, and there's no disputing that.
00:07:03.000I went to Eagle Pass, Texas recently, a place that's been overrun by migrants, migrants, illegal aliens, migrants, what they call them, but really they're illegal aliens coming into our country.
00:07:14.000And here in this video you're seeing right now, you're actually watching Customs and Border Patrol cut the fencing and We're good to go.
00:08:06.000According to one Democrat congresswoman, the situation in New York has gotten very dire.
00:08:12.000You see their facilities being overrun, their social services being strained, and it is beyond the pale that this is Democrat congresswoman Representative Clark of New York saying what we really need are more illegal aliens.
00:08:31.000She's calling for more illegal aliens from New York.
00:08:39.000We have a diaspora that can absorb a significant number of these migrants.
00:08:45.000And when I hear colleagues talk about the doors of the inn being closed, no room in the inn, I'm saying, I need more people in my district just for redistricting purposes.
00:09:00.000And those members could clearly fit here.
00:09:09.000All that matters to some of these people in Congress is what's going to preserve my political power.
00:09:15.000She's talking about needing illegal immigrants in her district for the purpose of redistricting, because if you're able to demonstrate larger people, then you get more congressional districts.
00:09:27.000And throughout America's history, there's always been a time where people have tried to create some mass suffrage or deprive mass suffrage in order to keep or limit political power of others.
00:09:40.000Great debates in the Congress over these questions in the time that America was grappling with the offals of slavery and how to count various slaves for the purpose of apportioning congressional districts.
00:09:52.000And here you have these people who oftentimes are in the slave trade because they're part of a human trafficking pipeline that ends up in a place like Chicago or Detroit or New York or Miami.
00:10:04.000And here you have Congresswoman Clark saying, we can absorb them.
00:10:13.000We've got a report from James Madison High School where children are no longer allowed to attend class in person because the very process of absorbing illegal immigrants that you just heard from Representative Clark isn't really going so well.
00:10:30.000Students at a Brooklyn High School had to learn remotely today after thousands of migrants were relocated to their high school because of the storm.
00:10:37.000CBS2's Natalie Dudridge live in Midwood, Brooklyn at James Madison High School with more.
00:10:43.000Outraged parents and some Midwood community members argued students' classes at James Madison High School should never have been moved online to make room for migrants to temporarily shelter in their gym and auditorium during Tuesday night's storm.
00:10:56.000What I'm talking about, the human issue here.
00:10:58.000It's inexcusable to do this to the students of New York City high schools, especially after all they've been through with COVID. They have to come up with another solution.
00:11:06.000They cannot do this to the school kids.
00:11:07.000Tuesday, city officials announced nearly 2,000 migrants would be bussed from their tent shelters at Floyd Bennett Field to James Madison High School due to concerns over the tent's ability to stand up to severe weather.
00:11:18.000We are doing this out of an abundance of caution because of the high winds.
00:11:22.000Officials said migrant families were bussed back to Floyd Bennett Field at 4.15 Wednesday morning.
00:11:27.000A timing decision New York State Assemblymember Michael Novikov also questions, along with the costs, staffing and planning required to move hundreds of people.
00:11:46.000The school is closed anyway, so they could have stayed here until 6 or 7 a.m.
00:11:50.000Elected officials and community leaders say they can give the city a list of empty buildings much better suited to house migrants during the next storm than a high school would be.
00:12:00.000Meanwhile, we are told this high school is being cleaned and sports practices, they're still canceled today.
00:12:09.000Mike on Facebook says this all really began when Ronald Reagan engaged in a mass amnesty and there's certainly a fair critique of the Reagan amnesty to be had and levied.
00:12:20.000And Alan on Getter with a critique of me saying, Matt, why didn't you grow a spine and become Speaker of the House?
00:12:28.000The answer to that question is that I would not have been able to even garner double-digit votes for such an endeavor.
00:12:35.000On this podcast, we have laid out extensively that I'm not a particularly popular person among House Republicans.
00:12:41.000It's not because I'm not conservative.
00:12:43.000It's because I think that we have to change this system in order to save the country and They just want to run the system.
00:12:49.000That's all that matters to a lot of my colleagues, just being in the majority so that it can be our hand on the wheel.
00:12:54.000But if our hand is on the wheel as we're driving over the cliff, that isn't exactly the win that some of them think it is.
00:13:01.000But appreciate, hey, maybe Alan will run for Congress and vote for me for Speaker one day.
00:13:36.000You have highly effective water teams there that could establish a deterrent.
00:13:41.000You have guardsmen who have volunteered for the opportunity to go there.
00:13:44.000I met one Florida Highway Patrolman from South Florida.
00:13:46.000He said, when I heard that there was a chance To go to the border and to try to help defend my country, I signed up right then and there.
00:13:54.000And this was a young man of Hispanic descent who really viewed it as part of his obligation for safety and security to volunteer for this mission.
00:14:01.000And I didn't want to end my report on the border without giving great tribute to those from all over the country who have the patriotism in their heart to do this job if we will simply allow them to do it.
00:14:14.000And that's what ought to happen and it's what Biden's blocking.
00:14:18.000Now we go to a segment we like to call Around the World.
00:14:28.000Today we address the evolving circumstances in Ecuador...
00:14:34.000And while there is all kind of media attention regarding the conflicts that are oceans away and continents away, right here in the sphere of influence that we considered the American sphere of influence in the Marshall Plan, we have a destabilized government, armed gunmen, taking over a national communications asset, their television station.
00:14:59.000Tonight, this is the chilling moment armed men storm the set of a public TV channel in Ecuador, firing off guns and waving apparent explosives during a live broadcast.
00:15:10.000The studio crew taken hostage for at least 15 minutes on air as the country watched.
00:15:18.000Police later surrounding the station, arresting several suspects.
00:15:23.000And across Ecuador, fiery blasts rocking multiple cities, this one engulfing a police car.
00:15:29.000The wave of violence beginning just hours after Ecuador's president declared a state of emergency following a prison escape by notorious Los Choneros gang leader Adolfo Macias.
00:15:40.000The government battling with what they say are at least 22 different criminal groups angered by that state of emergency.
00:15:47.000Tonight, authorities say at least seven police officers have been kidnapped.
00:15:50.000Ecuador, once known as one of South America's most peaceful countries, seeing an explosion in recent years of organized crime-related violence linked to Mexican drug cartels.
00:16:03.000We are back live and I want to talk about how to think about this destabilization in Ecuador.
00:16:08.000There's one theory of the case that it's a dangerous country and gangs rise up, a little bit of violence, but ultimately this is something where the government will prevail.
00:16:17.000There's another line of thinking that we are now entering an era where the drug cartels have been given such a permissive environment.
00:16:26.000In Mexico, that they are now able to export their malign influence and destabilizing assets.
00:16:31.000So the cartels, having been given that home base in the Sinaloa Mountains throughout Mexico, now they're able to say, all right, our most permissive environment to operate is where you have weak nation states, weak borders, and then as people or drugs or weapons are moving around, there aren't a lot of barriers to that illicit movement.
00:16:55.000And when you have those strong nation states, it's problematic and they try to go topple them.
00:16:59.000In a way, it's the most devious iteration of the Banana Republic corporatization of governments in Latin America that we saw in the 70s and 80s.
00:17:14.000It kind of goes over how these companies like United Fruit Company and Standard Fruit Company that are now Chiquita and Dole, they would...
00:17:23.000Do everything they could to get a captive government to allow them to do whatever they wanted with banana plantations, to drive people off their land, to be able to access various growing contracts and growing rights.
00:17:35.000And so you'd have these fruit companies warring with each other over who got to install their puppet government.
00:17:41.000Well, take away the fruit companies and insert Mexican cartels.
00:17:45.000Because that seems to be pretty obviously what's going on right here.
00:17:49.000The cartels want access to the thoroughfares and the infrastructure.
00:17:54.000And they don't want a legitimate government to stand in their way.
00:17:57.000And when one does and has a state of emergency to try to counteract that malign influence, this is the reaction to retaliation you see.
00:18:05.000I've also got experts on my team who've briefed me that this could also be part of what you see with exporting more and more malign influence from Venezuela.
00:18:14.000You've seen Maduro make the argument about why Venezuela has a claim to like two-thirds of the country of Guyana and the Esequibo region.
00:18:21.000We covered that last year on Firebrand.
00:18:24.000So this could be another outgrowth of that effort at Venezuelan, South American hegemony.
00:18:30.000These things should concern us more than which guy in a sweatsuit is running Crimea.
00:18:38.000Because whether or not we have stable, legitimate governments in our neighborhood affects quality of life here.
00:18:47.000The connection is far more tenuous in places where we seem to be a lot more interested.
00:18:56.000I want to talk about is this latest scandal with Secretary Lloyd Austin and Breitbart picks up our call for a hearing to determine how the Defense Department, after losing billions of dollars worth of assets in Afghanistan, after failing every financial audit that they've been put through, can literally lose the Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin was incapacitated.
00:19:24.000The reports are that he has prostate cancer.
00:19:26.000He had a procedure associated with that prostate cancer.
00:19:28.000We, of course, want the best for him in his short and long-term health.
00:19:32.000But he was incapacitated for five days.
00:19:35.000And his deputy, Kathleen Hicks, didn't think enough of being the acting Secretary of Defense for those days to terminate her vacation in Puerto Rico.
00:19:49.000Like, our military was being run by a lady on vacation in Puerto Rico and they didn't even tell the White House.
00:19:58.000Is Joe Biden so out of it and himself incapacitated that when other people are incapacitated, they don't even feel the need to, I don't know, let somebody know that somebody else should be running the military?
00:20:08.000Who was in charge of the force protection posture in Iraq where we're getting these one-directional drone strikes coming from Iranian-backed proxies?
00:20:19.000The Red Sea is like on fire right now with Houthis engaged in naval exercises against energy shipments.
00:20:27.000This is the time to not tell your boss you're going to be out for five days?
00:20:31.000There could be something else going on here.
00:20:33.000There could be a total breakdown in communication between the Pentagon and the White House, and this could just be one iteration of it.
00:20:42.000We have to explore this, and it's why I've called for hearings, and I'll be giving you updates regarding how the Chairman of the Armed Services Committee plans to proceed.
00:20:50.000I can tell you that there has been a joint expression of concern from Chairman Rogers and from the lead Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, who we've had on the program, Adam Smith.
00:21:01.000Also, the Pentagon Inspector General will probe the Lloyd Austin hospitalization.
00:21:06.000This is news just coming in from a Bloomberg government And that, I think, is certainly an appropriate next action, but we shouldn't outsource that to the Inspector General.
00:21:16.000We've got to have the hearings in the United States Congress as well.
00:21:21.000We've also got a report regarding some of these really...
00:21:26.000Nasty and negative efforts from the January 6th committee to go and goose criminal prosecutions of President Trump.
00:21:34.000The goal of a congressional committee is not to try to create a yellow brick road for a prosecution.
00:21:45.000Some of you might think all we ought to be doing is setting up to get handcuffs on people and anything short of that is insufficient oversight.
00:22:06.000But in this particular case, we've got a report from Politico, and I'll read from it.
00:22:10.000In the spring of 2022, the committee staff, and remember, this is the committee staff handpicked by Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, They didn't just run through the typical Capitol Hill types.
00:22:21.000They went and got people out of CIA, FBI, state attorneys, attorneys general.
00:22:25.000They really assembled a legal dream team.
00:22:28.000They helped Fulton County prosecutors prepare for interviews with key witnesses.
00:22:32.000Georgia prosecutors probing Donald Trump's effort to subvert the 2020 election Got an early boost in the spring of 2022. It came from another set of investigators who were way ahead of them, the House January 6th Select Committee.
00:22:46.000Committee staff met quietly with lawyers and agents working for Fulton County District Attorney Fannie Willis in mid-April 2022 just as she prepared to convene a special grand jury investigation.
00:22:59.000This is an improper use of This is a corrupt collusion between Benny Thompson and Liz Cheney and Fannie Willis.
00:23:11.000This reporting is something that we could have gotten to a lot quicker if former Speaker McCarthy would have done as many of us demanded and as many of you on the live stream supported.
00:23:21.000And that is, use the January 6th committee for our purposes.
00:23:31.000Find the truth out about this stuff, and we would have gotten to this a lot faster, but it took some smart reporters at Politico to get the job done, and thus we now know, and we have to take action as a result of this to shut down the corrupt, illegitimately produced, and invigorated prosecution of Trump from Fannie Willis emanating from the January 6th committee.
00:23:59.000Now let's talk about Hunter Biden a little bit.
00:24:05.000Both the House Oversight Committee and the House Judiciary Committee, upon which I serve, have passed resolutions of contempt against Hunter Biden for not agreeing to answer our questions.
00:24:16.000This was Hunter Biden on the Hill getting a question I don't think he was expecting.
00:24:22.000Would you please, I'll answer your question if you'd be quiet and let me make a statement, okay?
00:24:27.000How of crack do you normally smoke, Mr. Biden?
00:24:30.000Hunter, what's your favorite type of crack?
00:24:56.000So he wasn't expecting those questions.
00:24:58.000And certainly it's concerning the way he's treated the Congress and the subpoenas that finally we got out the door directed to him and his interests and his records.
00:25:09.000If Hunter Biden would have shown up To a committee I was chairing to clown me, I'd have told him to step behind that microphone, I'd have waved the rules, sworn him in, and I'd have asked him this question first.
00:25:21.000Did you facilitate bribes to your father?
00:25:24.000He's either going to admit that he did, he's either going to deny it, which will function as a complete and total waiver of any executive privilege he would have, or any Fifth Amendment privilege he would have, or any other privilege he could conjure up, Because he would have denied it.
00:25:39.000So then he's opened the door to every follow-up question.
00:26:05.000A year into the Republican control, and so far, the closest we've gotten Hunter Biden to the witness chair is sitting in the first row of the audience.
00:27:02.000The facts in this case are crystal clear.
00:27:04.000This committee used and issued a lawful subpoena to Hunter Biden, a critical witness in this committee's investigation into Biden family corruption.
00:27:12.000Hunter Biden and his lawyers did not claim privilege of any kind because clearly he has none.
00:27:17.000They didn't contest the legitimacy of our reasons for issuing the subpoena, no reasons, because they clearly are legitimate.
00:27:52.000I believe that Hunter Biden should be held completely in contempt.
00:27:56.000I think he should be hauled off to jail right now.
00:27:58.000Because it wasn't long ago, too, my friends on the other side of the aisle, that you also believed in the power of a congressional subpoena.
00:29:31.000I think it's clear and obvious for everyone watching this hearing today that Hunter Biden is terrified of strong conservative Republican women because he can't even face my words as I was about to speak to him.
00:29:49.000A coward indeed, certainly proud of the efforts of Congresswoman Green and Congresswoman Mace.
00:29:54.000I do think we've got to turn up the heat, and I don't think we can allow these guys to walk out of the room.
00:29:58.000If we've got to send the House Sergeant-at-Arms to go and enforce congressional contempt with imprisonment, well then that's what we should do, because we've got questions that are central to whether or not our government's been sold out, and we should get answers to those questions.
00:30:13.000I want to now talk about where we are with budget negotiations and with the spending talks going on with Speaker Johnson, Chuck Schumer, Joe Biden, all the rest of us.
00:30:25.000But we have to set the stage here for why this matters.
00:30:30.000The inflation, the increasing price for almost everything that you are seeing is a direct consequence of government deficit spending.
00:30:40.000We are about to run $2.5 trillion annual deficits.
00:31:16.000Consumer prices rose at an even faster pace in December.
00:31:20.000Inflation accelerated more in December, marking the 33rd consecutive month with annual prices rising significantly faster than the 2% target set as healthy by the Federal Reserve.
00:31:34.000The Consumer Price Index rose 3.4 in December from a year earlier.
00:32:45.000Then, on top of the FRA spending number, McCarthy does $50 billion in secret side deals that he doesn't tell us, that he doesn't tell you, that he doesn't even tell other members of the House leadership team.
00:33:11.000And Johnson successfully takes $20 billion-ish out of the $50 billion-plus in side deals and claws that back.
00:33:21.000It takes another fairly big bite out of the IRS. So you've got conservative economists like Stephen Moore, who we have a very high opinion of in this office and on this program.
00:34:07.000Okay, if we'd have gone to Kevin McCarthy and said, it's $20 billion and your side deals are your head, he'd have probably done the same thing.
00:34:14.000We need transformational change about how we think about the budget and continuing to trip along, continuing resolution to omnibus with exploding caps and supplementals that fund Ukraine or other foreign nations.
00:34:29.000That is what has put us in this position where you're paying 10% more for beef or 20% more for auto insurance.
00:34:38.000It's linked back to the devaluation of the American currency that is driven out of Washington, D.C. That's why we're trying to change it.
00:34:46.000So here's what a few of us said to the Speaker, and we had a relatively large group of members.
00:34:53.000Folks, you know, Byron Donalds, Cat Kamek, Scott Perry, Bob Good, Chip Roy, Marjorie Taylor Greene, we all went and met with Speaker Johnson.
00:35:03.000And I felt the consensus coming out of that discussion is that House conservatives are not going to tolerate a government funding bill while the border is open.
00:35:14.000You have to shut down the border or we will shut down the government.
00:35:18.000And I don't say that with any twinkle in my eye or any joy or any celebration for a shutdown.
00:35:25.000I know some of you on the live stream want to shut down.
00:35:27.000But I live in a district with a whole lot of troops, a whole lot of government contractors who are not at fault for this.
00:35:38.000Who are actually following the law, who care and love our nation, they did not do this, but they will have to disproportionately shoulder the burden of a shutdown.
00:35:47.000And I don't think some airman abroad or some sailor on the high seas should have to disproportionately shoulder that.
00:37:01.000It's going to lead us to being overrun.
00:37:03.000And so we've got to build a reservoir of courage with House Republicans to fight on the border and to cut spending and to go after the Bidens and to go after the bureaucrats.
00:37:14.000If we do these things, victory is in sight.
00:37:16.000But if we do this Schumer deal, I won't be speaking to you next Congress from the position of a member of the House majority.
00:37:25.000If we do this deal that Chuck Schumer is applauding, we will be out of the majority because our own voters will look at us and say, what have the House Republicans done for me?