Firebrand - Matt Gaetz - Episode 155 LIVE: McHat Trick: McConnell To Step Down – Firebrand with Matt Gaetz

Mitch McConnell is stepping down as the Republican leader in the U.S. Senate. In his farewell speech, he said, "I m not going anywhere anytime soon. However, I ll complete my job my colleagues have given me until we select a new leader in November, and they take over the helm next January. I ll finish the job the people of Kentucky hired me to do as well, albeit from a different seat. And I m actually looking forward to that." Mitch McConnell's real legacy is that he was missing in action when we needed him most and spent a lot of his time in the Senate putting special interests above American interests. Mitch McConnell has finally encountered a situation that he cannot manipulate. And if you can t get past Mitch McConnell, what are the goals of the new Republican majority on the floor of the Senate? And if the new majority doesn t agree with Mitch McConnell s leadership plan, what is the plan for the future of the Republican majority? That s who Mitch McConnell brung him into the swamp, and who s going to step up to the plate in place of him? the swamp. Firebrand: A conservative voice in Washington, D.C. that fights for conservative principles and fights for America First. Join us in the Firebrand Firebrand's Firebrand Revolution! and join our FB group . to join the movement to elect the next generation of conservative leadership in the United States Senate Majority Leader, and defeat Mitch McConnell in the mid-term elections. . . . and to elect a new generation of America First Senators! and to replace him in the next election, in November 2020. . . and a new America First Senate majority in 2020. And we'll talk about why the writing is better than the old Mitch McConnell. , not the new Mitch McConnell! , and why it's time for a new, better, and why he's going to be the next Mitch McConnell? and why you should vote for someone better than him. ...and why he needs to go back to the Swamp Dweller, not the Swamp, not me! ... and why the swamp is not going to get any better than me, and what he should do with the new guy who s got it better than I can do it better, not you know who he s got the job he s running for him in 2020, right here in the White House, right in the House of Washington, in 2020!

00:00:00.000 Thank you.

00:01:56.000 You're not taking Matt Gaetz off the board, okay?

00:01:58.000 Because Matt Gaetz is an American patriot and Matt Gaetz is an American hero.

00:02:03.000 We will not continue to allow the Uniparty to run this town without a fight. 1.00

00:02:08.000 I want to thank you, Matt Gaetz, for holding the line.

00:02:12.000 Matt Gaetz is a courageous man.

00:02:15.000 If we had hundreds of Matt Gaetz in D.C., the country turns around.

00:02:19.000 It's that simple.

00:02:20.000 He's so tough, he's so strong, he's smart, and he loves this country.

00:02:24.000 Matt Gaetz.

00:02:27.000 It is the honor of my life to fight alongside each and every one of you.

00:02:31.000 We will save America!

00:02:34.000 It's choose your fighter time!

00:02:35.000 and send in the firebrands. - One of life's most underappreciated talents is to know when it's time to move on to life's next chapter.

00:02:53.000 chapter.

00:02:55.000 So I stand before you today, Mr. President and my colleagues, to say this will be my last term as Republican Leader of the Senate.

00:03:05.000 I'm not going anywhere anytime soon.

00:03:10.000 However, I'll complete my job my colleagues have given me until we select a new leader in November and they take the helm next January.

00:03:23.000 I'll finish the job the people of Kentucky hired me to do as well.

00:03:28.000 Albeit from a different seat.

00:03:32.000 And I'm actually looking forward to that.

00:03:38.000 Welcome back to Firebrand.

00:03:39.000 We are live.

00:03:40.000 Thank you so much for joining us.

00:03:41.000 We are simulcast streaming out of room 2021 of the Rayburn House Office Building here at the Capitol Complex in Washington, D.C. A lot going on Capitol Hill today.

00:03:50.000 We had Secretary Lloyd Austin before the Armed Services Committee.

00:03:54.000 Our exchange got a lot of attention online and throughout the halls of the Pentagon and Congress.

00:03:59.000 And we also had debate on a continuing resolution that ultimately passed.

00:04:04.000 That's deeply disappointing.

00:04:07.000 But that was the farewell speech of the Republican leader in the United States Senate, Mitch McConnell, and I guess we could say RIP to the leadership tenure of Mitch McConnell in the Senate.

00:04:19.000 Mitch McConnell has finally encountered a situation that he cannot manipulate.

00:04:23.000 Time!

00:04:24.000 Many Republicans are quick to preach Mitch McConnell into heaven citing his procedural victories like confirming Trump's judicial nominees and passing the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.

00:04:35.000 That was a policy win and I say fair enough.

00:04:37.000 I suppose if you've been in the Senate since 1985 you probably know your way around I think that's doing the bare minimum as a Republican leader.

00:04:47.000 Mitch McConnell's real legacy is that he was missing in action when we needed him most and spent a lot of his time in the Senate putting special interests above American interests.

00:04:58.000 Real good at sloshing that special interest money around.

00:05:01.000 Totally different question leading us to the policy choices that are necessary.

00:05:05.000 Now McConnell spared no expense, reaming through billions and billions of dollars for Ukraine without so much as a plan of action or a definition of victory.

00:05:13.000 Seems to be for a lot of the wars in the absence of some clear, definable objective.

00:05:19.000 So where was Mitch McConnell when our own borders were being overrun?

00:05:22.000 And frankly, where is he now?

00:05:24.000 Last time we saw him work on a legislative product, it was the Langford Amnesty Bill.

00:05:30.000 It was backstabbing to the people who want a secure border.

00:05:32.000 Fortunately, we put that to death.

00:05:35.000 Now, McConnell justifies Ukraine aid in perpetuity because the vast majority of the money is going to American defense contractors, according to his argument.

00:05:46.000 Now, I don't even know if that's true, but how unmasking regarding the influence the military-industrial complex has, particularly over the legislative leadership.

00:05:56.000 Where was Mitch McConnell when American patriots were being rounded up by a corrupt FBI for petty misdemeanors involving January 6th protests?

00:06:05.000 He was criticizing President Trump, actually.

00:06:08.000 And he was pointing the finger at Republican voters.

00:06:11.000 Now, we are lucky enough that father time isn't the only entity opposing Mitch McConnell.

00:06:17.000 Republican voters and America First senators and representatives, we've all been fighting him when he abandons Republican principles.

00:06:24.000 And without that work, Mitch McConnell would have probably been okay impeaching Donald Trump, and he'd still be working to defend Ukraine's borders at the expense of our own.

00:06:36.000 Mitch knows this.

00:06:37.000 It's why he undermined America First Senate candidates throughout his tenure as leader.

00:06:43.000 And there's a reason Mitch is leaving this post in November.

00:06:46.000 He doesn't want a new Republican Senate majority in January to elect a new leader.

00:06:53.000 So he's going out like he came in, dancing with the one who brung him the swamp.

00:06:59.000 That's who Mitch McConnell served.

00:07:00.000 So the writing is on the wall.

00:07:02.000 Time for new conservative leadership in the Senate.

00:07:05.000 And really, I was talking to some senators today.

00:07:08.000 It's about what the Senate intends to actually do.

00:07:12.000 What are the goals of the Senate?

00:07:13.000 What is the battle plan?

00:07:16.000 And if you can get our Republican majority to agree on that, the leadership questions actually fall into place quite nicely.

00:07:22.000 Now it's time for leadership in the Senate that reflects the will of the American people, the voters who send them there.

00:07:28.000 And those who will work with President Trump, I think, will be the ones who ought to rise to the top.

00:07:35.000 I don't know.

00:07:36.000 It's a pretty swampy system over there.

00:07:38.000 Swampiest nursing home in America.

00:07:40.000 At this stage of the game, we've ousted McCarthy, McDaniel, and now McConnell.

00:07:46.000 And my advice going forward is that the Republican leadership doesn't need to pick one of the Johns.

00:07:52.000 John Thune, John Cornyn, John Barrasso, they are all Expected to make runs for leader.

00:07:59.000 Cornyn already announcing that.

00:08:01.000 He's the current whip.

00:08:02.000 And I think that there are going to be better options than the Johns. 1.00

00:08:06.000 And I look forward to seeing those emerge very quickly.

00:08:10.000 So, also wanted to update you on the Hunter Biden deposition.

00:08:14.000 That occurred this week.

00:08:16.000 I gave my perspective walking out.

00:08:18.000 Take a listen.

00:08:21.000 There were a number of interesting moments, but perhaps none more interesting than when Hunter Biden told us that he joined the Burisma board to counter Russian aggression.

00:08:31.000 I hadn't heard that one before, that thank goodness we had Hunter Biden on the Burisma board because that was central to his strategy to stand up to Vladimir Putin.

00:08:39.000 Has he taken the fifth at all?

00:08:40.000 No, he's been responsive to questions.

00:08:43.000 Has he told you exactly what value he brought to any of these wars, any of these companies yet?

00:08:48.000 Have you guys asked him that?

00:08:49.000 We've asked those questions and there is an illusory value.

00:08:53.000 It is a mirage to believe that Hunter Biden was engaged in international business.

00:08:58.000 This was a bribe masquerading as an international business transaction.

00:09:07.000 I believe that you can actually bribe someone by paying their family members.

00:09:11.000 Like, I don't get this construct that unless Joe Biden himself received cash, that he somehow wasn't involved in the bribery operation.

00:09:19.000 Joe Biden was doing the bidding of Burisma, he was doing the bidding of Chinese communists, and his family was getting enriched as a consequence. 0.95

00:09:27.000 To me, that's a pretty strong case for bribery.

00:09:31.000 We're back live, and I'm going through my notes from the Hunter Biden deposition, and let me distill all of it for you.

00:09:38.000 So, if Hunter Biden was getting paid, right, if there were wire transfers coming in from foreign oligarchs, foreign companies, corrupt foreign businesses, Well, that money was coming to him because he is a brilliant lawyer and a financial wizard and a connector,

00:10:00.000 man about town in Washington, and was just a high-performing, awesome guy who deserved every bit of the millions from China, the million bucks a year to serve on the Burisma board.

00:10:12.000 He was earning that money due to his merit, competence, diligence, and focus.

00:10:19.000 But if he was asking for money, and remember, when he was asking for money, that's when you saw the threats, the shakedowns, the references to his father.

00:10:31.000 That's when you saw the money laundering. 1.00

00:10:34.000 If he was asking for money, he was just a drug-addled fool. 0.99

00:10:38.000 So getting paid, highly competent, effective, trying to get paid, well, you know, that was the crack talking. 0.98

00:10:45.000 And so I asked Hunter Biden, and you'll see the transcript released either tonight or pretty soon tomorrow, like, when are we supposed to know in these messages that you're sending and in these correspondence that you're engaged in when you're high and when you're not?

00:10:59.000 And he said, for me to even ask that question means I don't understand the fundamentals of addiction and that he ought to be able to absolve himself of any connection to the truth if he claims he was high and But if he was getting paid, we're all just supposed to believe that wasn't a bribe.

00:11:17.000 But indeed, we know it was.

00:11:19.000 And while I don't believe this is going to manifest in some sort of impeachment of Joe Biden on these bribery charges in the House of Representatives, that is because there is a difference of opinion among some Republicans as to what constitutes a bribe.

00:11:33.000 Again, to me, as I just said in that clip, If you want to influence some guy in their 70s or 80s, giving them the cash isn't necessarily the best way to even bribe them.

00:11:46.000 In a lot of cases, they're thinking that a lot of that money is going to end up going to the government in some sort of estate tax.

00:11:53.000 And so the movement of money to people's family members and children to try to shape their actions in government is clearly a bribe to me.

00:12:05.000 It's so clear we put it in the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

00:12:08.000 Now, the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, that governs what Americans can do to try to shape governmental decisions elsewhere. 0.98

00:12:14.000 And so we say to our own citizens, you can't go bribe someone's crack-addicted kid or their ne'er-do-well spouse.

00:12:22.000 You can't go pay them to get a government official abroad to alter their behavior.

00:12:28.000 But we allow that here apparently.

00:12:30.000 Or we may without an impeachment because we have some Republicans who, if the money isn't going directly to Joe, They're not going to be there on the vote.

00:12:38.000 So I'm telling you the truth.

00:12:40.000 He deserves impeachment.

00:12:41.000 These were bribes, but they were bribes through family members.

00:12:45.000 And that threshold is going to be insufficient for some of my Republican colleagues.

00:12:50.000 And we will, of course, get no Democrat votes on these questions.

00:12:54.000 Today in the House Armed Services Committee, we had Secretary Lloyd Austin.

00:12:58.000 Now you'll remember...

00:12:59.000 Some time ago, Lloyd Austin just went AWOL and didn't tell the President of the United States or really even the broader national security apparatus of his incapacitation because some cancer treatment that he had received had gone poorly.

00:13:16.000 He was bleeding.

00:13:16.000 He goes to the hospital.

00:13:17.000 He's incapacitated.

00:13:19.000 His military aides around him, with no civilian oversight, transfer his authorities to the deputy.

00:13:27.000 He wasn't even involved in that decision.

00:13:29.000 And we add him before the House Armed Services Committee today to answer questions.

00:13:32.000 Here's Armed Services Chairman Mike Rogers framing up the issue quite nicely.

00:13:39.000 Mr. Secretary, the reason we've asked you here today is not to discuss your health.

00:13:44.000 We're here today to determine why the President was not immediately informed of your incapacitation.

00:13:52.000 The timeline, as we understand it, is this.

00:13:56.000 On the evening of January 1st, Secretary Austin was transported to the hospital via ambulance for complications stemming from a surgical procedure he had on December 22nd.

00:14:07.000 On the afternoon of January 2nd, the Secretary's authorities were transferred to Deputy Secretary Hicks Without her even being informed as to why.

00:14:19.000 On January 4th, three days after the Secretary's hospitalization, Deputy Secretary Hicks and the President were first informed that Secretary Austin was in the hospital.

00:14:28.000 On January 5th, Congress was informed of the Secretary's hospitalization.

00:14:35.000 It's totally unacceptable that it took three days to inform the President of the United States That the Secretary of Defense was in the hospital and not in control of the Pentagon.

00:14:47.000 Wars were raging in Ukraine and Israel, our ships were under fire in the Red Sea, and our bases were bracing for attack in Syria and Iraq.

00:14:59.000 But the Commander-in-Chief did not know that his Secretary of Defense was out of action.

00:15:06.000 Even the Deputy Secretary, the person to whom your powers were transferred, didn't know that you were in the hospital.

00:15:14.000 Our forces conducted a pre-authorized strike on Iranian-backed militia in Iraq during this period.

00:15:21.000 Had something gone wrong with the strike, or worse, if there was an attack on the United States, precious time would have been wasted while the President sought in vain to find his Secretary of Defense.

00:15:34.000 The chain of command doesn't work when the Commander in Chief doesn't know who to call.

00:15:40.000 That's why we want to know who made the decision to withhold that information from the President.

00:15:49.000 And although you publicly stated you are solely responsible, you've also informed this committee that it wasn't you who decided to withhold the information from the President.

00:16:05.000 We were led to believe your 30-day internal review would shed light on that matter, but it includes no explanation of why the President and his staff were left in the dark.

00:16:19.000 It makes no recommendations to improve communication with the White House, and unsurprisingly, it holds nobody accountable.

00:16:29.000 We appreciate your desire to protect your subordinates, but it's important in democracy That public officials are held accountable when mistakes are made.

00:16:39.000 This administration has gone to great lengths to avoid accountability whenever possible.

00:16:45.000 But this is a matter of national security and someone needs to be held accountable.

00:16:52.000 Furthermore, I find it very concerning that the Secretary could be hospitalized for three days without anyone else in the administration even noticing That suggests Secretary Austin's advice is not salt or heated in the White House, even while military operations were ongoing in the Middle East.

00:17:14.000 It also implies that the White House politicals, not seasoned defense professionals, are in the driver's seat on matters of national security, which is very disturbing.

00:17:27.000 Finally, beyond the immediate need to inform the President Congress also has a right to know of secretarial absence or transfer of authority.

00:17:38.000 Ironically enough, none of this would have come to the attention if the White House hadn't demanded that the Department come clean to Congress and the public.

00:17:48.000 Ultimately, our goal today is to understand how and why this happened so we can ensure it never happens again.

00:17:59.000 We're back live.

00:17:59.000 Jim on Facebook says he's a Trump supporter and we need to leave Lloyd Austin alone.

00:18:04.000 He's battling cancer.

00:18:06.000 There was no harm.

00:18:07.000 We should have just had a quick meeting and dealt with it that way in the absence of bringing in for this testimony.

00:18:13.000 And I'm going to explain why I took a different tack than Jim on Facebook might suggest.

00:18:18.000 So my staff pulls up for me this memo that Lloyd Austin writes...

00:18:23.000 March 4th, 2021. And it sets up the questions that I'm going to ask Lloyd Austin that I'll show you in just a moment.

00:18:29.000 And it says in this memo, DOD leaders at every level will be responsible for building a safe environment for our people and guaranteeing that we show swift and clear accountability.

00:18:41.000 To anyone who does not act within the highest standards of the department.

00:18:46.000 And so while I hope Lloyd Austin is successful in his battle against cancer, and I'm not overly nosy about people's private health circumstances, there was a hypocrisy here regarding Lloyd Austin's actions that have destroyed lives, careers, families, marriages, in my community in Florida One.

00:19:07.000 There was a hypocrisy that I had to point out.

00:19:10.000 Take a listen.

00:19:12.000 You didn't tell the president that you had cancer, that you were being treated for cancer, or that the treatment for that cancer had gone wrong, because you saw it as personal and medical.

00:19:23.000 And I think a lot of us have empathy for you in that regard.

00:19:26.000 But now that you see how personal medical decisions are, will you call for the re-recruitment Restoration of full rank and back pay for the 8,600 service members who were VAX mandated out of the military.

00:19:44.000 No, I won't.

00:19:46.000 So, on March 4th, In 2021, you authored a memo.

00:19:50.000 It was entitled, Message to the Force.

00:19:52.000 And in that memo, you said that there would be clear and swift accountability for anyone who didn't meet the highest standards of the Department of Defense.

00:20:02.000 Now, however this worked out, we all acknowledge that what you did here didn't meet the highest standards, right?

00:20:07.000 You made a mistake.

00:20:08.000 I admitted to...

00:20:10.000 Yeah, okay, so we got that.

00:20:11.000 So then the question is, what becomes the clear and swift accountability?

00:20:16.000 Now, you're not going to be Discharged, right?

00:20:20.000 No?

00:20:21.000 That's right.

00:20:21.000 Okay, you're not going to be suspended, you're not going to be demoted, and you're not going to have your pay cut.

00:20:26.000 None of those things are going to happen to you, right?

00:20:27.000 That's right.

00:20:28.000 Okay, so you come here seeking some grace and some forgiveness.

00:20:34.000 And I want you to know that one of the service members, who you vax-mandated out of the military, sent me the parable of the unforgiving debtor.

00:20:42.000 And it's in the book of Matthew, verses 21 to 35.

00:20:46.000 The man fell down before his king and begged him, please be patient with me and I will pay all the debt.

00:20:53.000 Then his master filled with pity for him, released him and forgave him of his debt.

00:21:00.000 But when the man left the king, he went to a fellow servant who owed him a few thousand dollars.

00:21:05.000 He grabbed him by the throat and demanded payment.

00:21:09.000 His fellow servant sat down and begged him for a little more time.

00:21:12.000 Be patient with me and I will pay it, he pleaded.

00:21:14.000 But his creditor would not wait.

00:21:16.000 He had the man arrested and put in prison until the debt could be paid in full.

00:21:22.000 When some of the other servants saw this, they were very upset.

00:21:24.000 They went to the king and told him everything that had happened.

00:21:26.000 And the king called the man who had been forgiven and said, You evil servant, I forgave you that tremendous debt because you pleaded with me.

00:21:34.000 Shouldn't you have mercy on your fellow servant just as I had mercy on you?

00:21:40.000 Then the angry king sent the man to prison to be tortured.

00:21:44.000 Until he had paid his entire debt.

00:21:46.000 Mr. Secretary, you come to us seeking forgiveness, but you offer none.

00:21:52.000 And it seems as though the pattern is repeated.

00:21:55.000 You make a mistake, like on the vax mandate and here regarding your notification, then you get busted.

00:22:03.000 President Biden had to sign something into law reversing your vax mandate.

00:22:08.000 You got busted here, not because you came forward, but because We learned of this through other means.

00:22:13.000 And then after you get busted making a mistake, you want that benefit, but you don't want to extend it to others.

00:22:20.000 This isn't swift or clear.

00:22:22.000 You're not meeting your own standards that you set for yourself.

00:22:26.000 And you say that the DOD is a learning organization.

00:22:32.000 Haven't you learned yet that the military is weaker, not stronger, with the 8600 people that you vax mandated out of the military?

00:22:41.000 Just one point, Congressman.

00:22:43.000 The reason I'm here is because the Chairman requested that I appear to talk about The circumstances surrounding my hospitalization.

00:22:53.000 But don't you see the hypocrisy in it?

00:22:55.000 Because you screwed up, we fixed your screw-up, and now you want grace, but these people who sought religious exemptions, they got no such grace. 0.87

00:23:03.000 And also, I just think it's ridiculous that we're in three wars, you went AWOL for three days, and we get two hours with you.

00:23:09.000 If you can't spend more than two hours answering these questions, I don't know how you really operate in all these wars.

00:23:17.000 That was the House Armed Services Committee.

00:23:18.000 We also had debate and vote on the floor regarding yet another continuing resolution.

00:23:24.000 And frequent listeners to this program will know how much I loathe this.

00:23:29.000 I loathe it to my bones.

00:23:30.000 I know that That the entire ecosystem that the corrupt swamp thrives off of demands that we just take one up or down vote on extending the funding of government or not.

00:23:43.000 And that's why we put things in the rules like 72-hour provision to review single subject.

00:23:50.000 And you know what they did today?

00:23:52.000 They passed a continuing resolution that By suspending the rules.

00:23:58.000 All of them.

00:23:59.000 Just suspending the rules and putting it on the floor.

00:24:01.000 And they were able to do it because the uniparty allowed it. 0.58

00:24:04.000 Because the two-thirds, if you have two-thirds, if you have all the Democrats and a bunch of sellout Republicans, then you know what?

00:24:11.000 You can do a whole lot.

00:24:12.000 You can blow through the rules that we're trying to put in place.

00:24:15.000 I debated against this continuing resolution on the floor today.

00:24:18.000 Take a listen.

00:24:20.000 Watching House Republicans is like watching a football team whose best play is the punt and the block.

00:24:29.000 I've tried to throw a few Hail Marys along the way, and I'm glad that we blocked the bad Langford amnesty bill, but we punted on needed FISA reforms.

00:24:39.000 We blocked the McConnell supplemental for now, but we punt yet again on needed spending cuts.

00:24:46.000 We blocked additional aid and additional U.S. involvement in this war in Ukraine, and indeed we punted Kevin McCarthy, who authorized $115 billion to Ukraine, but here we gather to punt yet again.

00:25:00.000 Last I checked, the Republicans actually have a majority in the House of Representatives, but you wouldn't know it if you looked at our checkbook, because we are all too willing To continue the policy choices of Joe Biden and the spending levels of Nancy Pelosi instead of showing the will and the courage to say that this woke and weaponized government has to be defanged.

00:25:22.000 It has to be attacked.

00:25:23.000 It has to see reductions in spending.

00:25:25.000 And while many Americans have lived most of their lives not actually paying a price for the national debt, Because we are 34 trillion in debt, because we are on our way to 50 trillion in debt, the Americans who work hard all over this country are seeing higher gas prices, higher grocery prices, higher interest rates, and all we seem to offer is low energy and low tea in the face of those mounting challenges.

00:25:50.000 We ought to be rejecting this CR, we ought to pass single subject spending bills, and we ought to vote for the spending cuts that this country desperately needs.

00:25:58.000 I yield back.

00:26:01.000 We're back live.

00:26:02.000 We won that debate, but lost the vote overwhelmingly.

00:26:04.000 I don't even think we got a hundred Republicans voting against it, which, you know, when you got 200 plus, you have to start by getting a majority of the majority.

00:26:13.000 And today, a majority of the majority voted For yet another continuing resolution, continuing the Pelosi-Biden spending levels, the Pelosi-Biden policy choices.

00:26:25.000 People worked hard for this House majority and we are not utilizing the leverage sufficient to meet the needs and to stop some of the march to perdition that the Pelosi-Biden plan will take us down.

00:26:40.000 There's been much discussion all over the country regarding the tragic death of Lakin Riley.

00:26:44.000 This is someone who was murdered by an illegal immigrant who never should have been in this country. 1.00

00:26:51.000 I was moved when I saw the vigil today for Lakin Riley and the outpouring of support from folks who understand that this loss of life is absolutely preventable.

00:27:03.000 It's preventable if we stop the illegal immigration and people are waking up to it. 0.89

00:27:08.000 They're seeing in districts all over this country from this community in Athens to my community where on this podcast we covered our constituent who was murdered, well, who was killed on a motorcycle because an illegal immigrant was driving drunk and that ended the life of someone who should still be with us today.

00:27:28.000 It is Ripening this question.

00:27:32.000 It is drawing from the deep amount of pain that the American people feel related to illegal immigration.

00:27:40.000 And when the Athens-Clarke County mayor, Mayor Gertz, addressed this issue, he got a sense of some of that anger.

00:27:49.000 Take a listen.

00:27:52.000 I've received many calls, many emails, many queries from the press in recent days about this notion of a sanctuary city and so I want to lay some things to rest here today.

00:28:03.000 This term sanctuary city doesn't have a sole legal or procedural definition.

00:28:08.000 You can look in Georgia statute and you can find a clear definition for a unified government.

00:28:13.000 You can look in contractual language and you can find out exactly what it means to be an SEC institution.

00:28:18.000 Sanctuary city doesn't track with either of those.

00:28:22.000 And so that term means different things to different people depending on the context of the discussion.

00:28:27.000 We know what it means.

00:28:29.000 Many of the elements. 0.99

00:28:30.000 Liar! 0.99

00:28:34.000 We are here to listen. 1.00

00:28:36.000 Liar! 1.00

00:28:37.000 You're a liar! 1.00

00:28:38.000 We are here to listen. 1.00

00:28:39.000 Liar! 1.00

00:28:39.000 You're a liar! 1.00

00:28:41.000 You are guilty and got blood on your hands for this murder, sir. 1.00

00:28:45.000 Many of the aspects that are ascribed to sanctuary cities, Are things that are disallowed by Georgia law.

00:28:55.000 And we contribute a document every year to the Georgia Department of Audits indicating that we do not correspond to these definitions under state law.

00:29:07.000 And no policies have been adopted by the mayor and commission that have created sanctuary city status in Athens.

00:29:14.000 One protocol that sometimes arises Yeah it turns out people don't like it when you adopt sanctuary policies in drag. 0.92

00:29:30.000 You had this mayor defending some of the worst impulses of local governments to put their own citizens at risk and he got an earful from some of those very citizens.

00:29:40.000 I want to give you an update now regarding some really bad stuff going on at the FCC. Now you might not think daily about the Federal Communications Commission but They have a really important role regulating America's airwaves and the entire information battle space that is so critical to get good decisions to the forefront in a representative republic.

00:30:00.000 And we took note of a recent action by the FCC and the strong dissent from a conservative FCC commissioner, Brendan Carr.

00:30:09.000 So Brendan Carr is objecting to this rule that the FCC has repeatedly tried to put into place that It takes DEI policies to a dangerous extreme.

00:30:21.000 And I'm reading now from the dissent of Commissioner Carr on the adoption of this rule.

00:30:26.000 Today's FCC order takes two separate actions.

00:30:29.000 First, it reinstates the federal requirement that broadcasters file a document every year with the FCC that lists the race and gender of their employees.

00:30:40.000 In particular, the second part of today's order, the FCC decides that it will take this form with demographic data and publish it on a station-by-station basis, Meaning that the FCC will now post a race and gender scorecard for every TV and radio broadcast station in the country.

00:30:58.000 In doing so, the FCC caves to the demands of activist groups that have worked for years across different industries to persuade the federal government to obtain the most important to obtain this data and publish it.

00:31:12.000 This type of data about individual businesses truly does not belong on the internet.

00:31:17.000 And it's there as a precursor to the Chinese social credit score.

00:31:22.000 They want to give the corporate social credit score to every TV broadcast station and every radio broadcast station and make them list the race and gender of their employees?

00:31:33.000 This is crazy.

00:31:35.000 This is not the public purpose of our airwaves, and we are incredibly proud of this dissent.

00:31:39.000 The courts have struck down this attempted rule repeatedly, and we would encourage them to do so.

00:31:45.000 Again, it's unconstitutional, un-American, and certainly deprives many Americans of equal protection if they're running these broadcast stations and then being treated differently as a consequence of racial or gender-based makeup.

00:32:02.000 The Vice President of the United States is always prone for some embarrassing comments that seem untethered from reality.

00:32:09.000 We heard one such comment regarding students being paid to engage in politics by the government.

00:32:16.000 Take a listen.

00:32:18.000 Under the federal work-study program now allows students to get paid Through federal work study to register people and to be nonpartisan poll workers.

00:32:32.000 As we know, this is important for a number of reasons.

00:32:35.000 One, to engage our young leaders in this process and activate them.

00:32:43.000 You know, it always worries me when people in the government are paying folks to, I don't know, I just get the sense this is the modern incarnation of ACORN. You remember ACORN when they went and used a bunch of public money, ran it through a bunch of private entities, and then they were trying to achieve a political outcome on the other end.

00:33:05.000 And it's just got that kind of flavor of it to me.

00:33:09.000 I'm often on Twitter spaces.

00:33:11.000 You can follow me at Matt Gates and you'll be notified when we go on those.

00:33:16.000 It's usually in the evening and there were just a couple comments I want to close the show out with.

00:33:20.000 Texas Trucker gave an update on Twitter spaces regarding these boycotts of loads into and out of New York based on the crazy Letitia James effort to bankrupt President Trump seizes assets and deprive him of due process and really any process when what he was doing yielded no victim. 1.00

00:33:41.000 But the truckers have certainly reacted.

00:33:45.000 Take a listen.

00:33:48.000 Talk to me about how this boycott of deliveries and pickups in New York City came to be.

00:33:55.000 How did you become aware of it?

00:33:57.000 How did it come together?

00:33:59.000 Give us a sense of how many people you think are participating and what the impact will be.

00:34:04.000 Because it's very interesting.

00:34:06.000 Yes, sir.

00:34:07.000 I can't tell you how many people are participating.

00:34:10.000 Here's what I can tell you.

00:34:12.000 I'm on the load board every day.

00:34:13.000 I am a small carrier.

00:34:14.000 I am an owner-operator.

00:34:15.000 I'm on the road every day.

00:34:17.000 I work every day and I run specifically spot freight.

00:34:22.000 This come out last week.

00:34:24.000 There was a bunch of truckers in a truck stop talking in Chicago.

00:34:27.000 One Ray come out with it.

00:34:29.000 If you ain't following that account, follow his account.

00:34:31.000 You have the real trucker, Jake.

00:34:34.000 You have the disrespected trucker, Taylor Built. 0.98

00:34:38.000 Myself and others that have been pushing this and putting information out that this is what we're doing.

00:34:45.000 How big it gets, I don't know.

00:34:47.000 I know we've had impact because I was sitting in Laredo, Texas on Thursday.

00:34:53.000 I key in on the load board because I run specifically spot freight, day of spot.

00:34:59.000 Well, I've been seeing loads to New York from Laredo running about $4,500 a load.

00:35:05.000 Well, after this was announced in a couple days in, I've seen the rates jump from $4,500 to $6,500 a load.

00:35:13.000 So you know you're having some impact.

00:35:15.000 You see that in supply and demand.

00:35:17.000 The supply and demand affects the price of the loads.

00:35:21.000 So I've seen that, but also we have access to tools on our load boards to see how many Trucks are posted in the area and how many loads are posted in the area.

00:35:33.000 So when we started pushing this, what we've seen in New York and Specifically, it was a cold blue.

00:35:40.000 It's got a scale that's blue to red.

00:35:43.000 Blue being cold, red being hot, of course.

00:35:47.000 Well, after a few days in, we started seeing New York go to an orange color, which means it's relatively hot.

00:35:55.000 I've seen 6,100 trucks there in New York area, and there was 28,000 loads.

00:36:01.000 So that tells a tale.

00:36:02.000 They can push back, they can do what they want to, But the tools we have and us being professionals out here about what we do and businessmen, we see it and they can say what they want to.

00:36:13.000 What we see is the truth because we're out here working.

00:36:16.000 But you know, we could use the help getting this out because it has not been walked back.

00:36:20.000 We're moving on forward and we're talking about DC as well and other places.

00:36:25.000 I mean, you know, the truckers are tired.

00:36:26.000 We're tired of it out here, man.

00:36:28.000 And we have the power if we unite.

00:36:30.000 To be able to be very impactful in this fight that we're all in.

00:36:34.000 So y'all keep that in mind.

00:36:35.000 I see my good friend Mr. Stevenson down there.

00:36:39.000 Punchbowl, I see truth.

00:36:40.000 Not fiction mattered.

00:36:41.000 My boy.

00:36:42.000 Great space man and I'm gonna kick back and if you got questions I'll answer them.

00:36:47.000 There's no way we can know right now how impactful this is going to be but the louder we get and the more support we get for this the more of an impact it will have and I'll park it there.

00:36:56.000 Thank y'all.

00:36:58.000 Thank you.

00:37:01.000 We love our truckers.

00:37:02.000 We're proud of them.

00:37:03.000 We appreciate their activism.

00:37:05.000 Apple Acres on X says, if you can't define what a woman is, how can you list a gender? 0.94

00:37:10.000 Good question.

00:37:11.000 411 True Solution on Getter says that quotas are anti-American.

00:37:15.000 I fully agree with that.

00:37:16.000 And Bruce on YouTube disagrees with Jim on Facebook.

00:37:19.000 Says Lloyd Austin undeniably has to be held accountable.

00:37:22.000 Before we get out of here, I do want you to hear a little bit of the reaction we got from Florida One on X basis.

00:37:27.000 Take a listen.

00:37:30.000 And the last thing I'll say, which I love you, Matt Gaetz, you don't know this, but I have a house in Pensacola and I support you as much as I possibly can.

00:37:37.000 I put my signs in my yard.

00:37:39.000 I don't care if renters are living in my house.

00:37:41.000 They always have a Matt Gaetz sign in front of it.

00:37:43.000 So listen, what we really want and what we're really seeing is the exposure of who's on our side that isn't on our side.

00:37:49.000 And it's happening.

00:37:51.000 And that is what is most important to me is really exposing the people that aren't on your side that act like they are.

00:37:58.000 Actually, this is the season for that.

00:37:59.000 And first of all, thank you for the Pensacola love.

00:38:03.000 Nothing matters more to me than the viewpoint of my true and actual bosses, the people I work for, the people who pay taxes here and pay my salary.

00:38:11.000 So thank you for that.

00:38:14.000 Follow me at MattGates on X and hey, you can ask a question directly when we get on the spaces.

00:38:20.000 You'll get notification.

00:38:21.000 Also, the best way to get notification regarding our Firebrand updates, download the Rumble app, turn the notifications on, allow that push notification to come through.

00:38:30.000 You'll get the very first update.

00:38:32.000 You'll get the news as it's happening from right here at our nation's capital in Washington, D.C. Thank you all so much for joining us today.

00:38:39.000 Thank you for having my back.

00:38:40.000 Roll the credits.

Firebrand - Matt Gaetz - February 29, 2024

Episode 155 LIVE: McHat Trick: McConnell To Step Down – Firebrand with Matt Gaetz

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