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!
00:03:41.000We 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.
00:03:50.000We had Secretary Lloyd Austin before the Armed Services Committee.
00:03:54.000Our exchange got a lot of attention online and throughout the halls of the Pentagon and Congress.
00:03:59.000And we also had debate on a continuing resolution that ultimately passed.
00:04:07.000But 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.
00:04:19.000Mitch McConnell has finally encountered a situation that he cannot manipulate.
00:04:24.000Many 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.
00:04:35.000That was a policy win and I say fair enough.
00:04:37.000I 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.
00:04:47.000Mitch 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.
00:04:58.000Real good at sloshing that special interest money around.
00:05:01.000Totally different question leading us to the policy choices that are necessary.
00:05:05.000Now 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.
00:05:13.000Seems to be for a lot of the wars in the absence of some clear, definable objective.
00:05:19.000So where was Mitch McConnell when our own borders were being overrun?
00:05:35.000Now, McConnell justifies Ukraine aid in perpetuity because the vast majority of the money is going to American defense contractors, according to his argument.
00:05:46.000Now, 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.
00:05:56.000Where was Mitch McConnell when American patriots were being rounded up by a corrupt FBI for petty misdemeanors involving January 6th protests?
00:06:05.000He was criticizing President Trump, actually.
00:06:08.000And he was pointing the finger at Republican voters.
00:06:11.000Now, we are lucky enough that father time isn't the only entity opposing Mitch McConnell.
00:06:17.000Republican voters and America First senators and representatives, we've all been fighting him when he abandons Republican principles.
00:06:24.000And 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.
00:08:21.000There 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.
00:08:31.000I 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.
00:08:49.000We've asked those questions and there is an illusory value.
00:08:53.000It is a mirage to believe that Hunter Biden was engaged in international business.
00:08:58.000This was a bribe masquerading as an international business transaction.
00:09:07.000I believe that you can actually bribe someone by paying their family members.
00:09:11.000Like, I don't get this construct that unless Joe Biden himself received cash, that he somehow wasn't involved in the bribery operation.
00:09:19.000Joe Biden was doing the bidding of Burisma, he was doing the bidding of Chinese communists, and his family was getting enriched as a consequence.
00:09:27.000To me, that's a pretty strong case for bribery.
00:09:31.000We're back live, and I'm going through my notes from the Hunter Biden deposition, and let me distill all of it for you.
00:09:38.000So, 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,
00:10:00.000man 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.
00:10:12.000He was earning that money due to his merit, competence, diligence, and focus.
00:10:19.000But 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.
00:10:31.000That's when you saw the money laundering.
00:10:34.000If he was asking for money, he was just a drug-addled fool.
00:10:38.000So getting paid, highly competent, effective, trying to get paid, well, you know, that was the crack talking.
00:10:45.000And 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?
00:10:59.000And 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.
00:11:19.000And 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.
00:11:33.000Again, 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.
00:11:46.000In 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.
00:11:53.000And 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.
00:12:05.000It's so clear we put it in the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.
00:12:08.000Now, the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, that governs what Americans can do to try to shape governmental decisions elsewhere.
00:12:14.000And so we say to our own citizens, you can't go bribe someone's crack-addicted kid or their ne'er-do-well spouse.
00:12:22.000You can't go pay them to get a government official abroad to alter their behavior.
00:12:30.000Or 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.
00:12:59.000Some 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.
00:13:19.000His military aides around him, with no civilian oversight, transfer his authorities to the deputy.
00:13:27.000He wasn't even involved in that decision.
00:13:29.000And we add him before the House Armed Services Committee today to answer questions.
00:13:32.000Here's Armed Services Chairman Mike Rogers framing up the issue quite nicely.
00:13:39.000Mr. Secretary, the reason we've asked you here today is not to discuss your health.
00:13:44.000We're here today to determine why the President was not immediately informed of your incapacitation.
00:13:52.000The timeline, as we understand it, is this.
00:13:56.000On 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.
00:14:07.000On the afternoon of January 2nd, the Secretary's authorities were transferred to Deputy Secretary Hicks Without her even being informed as to why.
00:14:19.000On 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.
00:14:28.000On January 5th, Congress was informed of the Secretary's hospitalization.
00:14:35.000It'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.
00:14:47.000Wars 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.
00:14:59.000But the Commander-in-Chief did not know that his Secretary of Defense was out of action.
00:15:06.000Even the Deputy Secretary, the person to whom your powers were transferred, didn't know that you were in the hospital.
00:15:14.000Our forces conducted a pre-authorized strike on Iranian-backed militia in Iraq during this period.
00:15:21.000Had 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.
00:15:34.000The chain of command doesn't work when the Commander in Chief doesn't know who to call.
00:15:40.000That's why we want to know who made the decision to withhold that information from the President.
00:15:49.000And 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.
00:16:05.000We 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.
00:16:19.000It makes no recommendations to improve communication with the White House, and unsurprisingly, it holds nobody accountable.
00:16:29.000We appreciate your desire to protect your subordinates, but it's important in democracy That public officials are held accountable when mistakes are made.
00:16:39.000This administration has gone to great lengths to avoid accountability whenever possible.
00:16:45.000But this is a matter of national security and someone needs to be held accountable.
00:16:52.000Furthermore, 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.
00:17:14.000It 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.
00:17:27.000Finally, beyond the immediate need to inform the President Congress also has a right to know of secretarial absence or transfer of authority.
00:17:38.000Ironically 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.
00:17:48.000Ultimately, our goal today is to understand how and why this happened so we can ensure it never happens again.
00:18:07.000We should have just had a quick meeting and dealt with it that way in the absence of bringing in for this testimony.
00:18:13.000And I'm going to explain why I took a different tack than Jim on Facebook might suggest.
00:18:18.000So my staff pulls up for me this memo that Lloyd Austin writes...
00:18:23.000March 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.
00:18:29.000And 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.
00:18:41.000To anyone who does not act within the highest standards of the department.
00:18:46.000And 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.
00:19:07.000There was a hypocrisy that I had to point out.
00:19:12.000You 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.
00:19:23.000And I think a lot of us have empathy for you in that regard.
00:19:26.000But 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.
00:19:46.000So, on March 4th, In 2021, you authored a memo.
00:19:50.000It was entitled, Message to the Force.
00:19:52.000And 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.
00:20:02.000Now, however this worked out, we all acknowledge that what you did here didn't meet the highest standards, right?
00:20:28.000Okay, so you come here seeking some grace and some forgiveness.
00:20:34.000And 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.
00:20:42.000And it's in the book of Matthew, verses 21 to 35.
00:20:46.000The man fell down before his king and begged him, please be patient with me and I will pay all the debt.
00:20:53.000Then his master filled with pity for him, released him and forgave him of his debt.
00:21:00.000But when the man left the king, he went to a fellow servant who owed him a few thousand dollars.
00:21:05.000He grabbed him by the throat and demanded payment.
00:21:09.000His fellow servant sat down and begged him for a little more time.
00:21:12.000Be patient with me and I will pay it, he pleaded.
00:21:16.000He had the man arrested and put in prison until the debt could be paid in full.
00:21:22.000When some of the other servants saw this, they were very upset.
00:21:24.000They went to the king and told him everything that had happened.
00:21:26.000And 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.
00:21:34.000Shouldn't you have mercy on your fellow servant just as I had mercy on you?
00:21:40.000Then the angry king sent the man to prison to be tortured.
00:22:43.000The reason I'm here is because the Chairman requested that I appear to talk about The circumstances surrounding my hospitalization.
00:22:53.000But don't you see the hypocrisy in it?
00:22:55.000Because 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.
00:23:03.000And 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.
00:23:09.000If you can't spend more than two hours answering these questions, I don't know how you really operate in all these wars.
00:23:17.000That was the House Armed Services Committee.
00:23:18.000We also had debate and vote on the floor regarding yet another continuing resolution.
00:23:24.000And frequent listeners to this program will know how much I loathe this.
00:23:30.000I 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.
00:23:43.000And that's why we put things in the rules like 72-hour provision to review single subject.
00:24:20.000Watching House Republicans is like watching a football team whose best play is the punt and the block.
00:24:29.000I'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.
00:24:39.000We blocked the McConnell supplemental for now, but we punt yet again on needed spending cuts.
00:24:46.000We 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.
00:25:00.000Last 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.
00:25:25.000And 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.
00:25:50.000We 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.
00:26:02.000We won that debate, but lost the vote overwhelmingly.
00:26:04.000I 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.
00:26:13.000And today, a majority of the majority voted For yet another continuing resolution, continuing the Pelosi-Biden spending levels, the Pelosi-Biden policy choices.
00:26:25.000People 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.
00:26:40.000There's been much discussion all over the country regarding the tragic death of Lakin Riley.
00:26:44.000This is someone who was murdered by an illegal immigrant who never should have been in this country.
00:26:51.000I 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.
00:27:03.000It's preventable if we stop the illegal immigration and people are waking up to it.
00:27:08.000They'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.
00:27:52.000I'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.
00:28:03.000This term sanctuary city doesn't have a sole legal or procedural definition.
00:28:08.000You can look in Georgia statute and you can find a clear definition for a unified government.
00:28:13.000You can look in contractual language and you can find out exactly what it means to be an SEC institution.
00:28:18.000Sanctuary city doesn't track with either of those.
00:28:22.000And so that term means different things to different people depending on the context of the discussion.
00:28:41.000You are guilty and got blood on your hands for this murder, sir.
00:28:45.000Many of the aspects that are ascribed to sanctuary cities, Are things that are disallowed by Georgia law.
00:28:55.000And we contribute a document every year to the Georgia Department of Audits indicating that we do not correspond to these definitions under state law.
00:29:07.000And no policies have been adopted by the mayor and commission that have created sanctuary city status in Athens.
00:29:14.000One protocol that sometimes arises Yeah it turns out people don't like it when you adopt sanctuary policies in drag.
00:29:30.000You 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.
00:29:40.000I 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.
00:30:00.000And we took note of a recent action by the FCC and the strong dissent from a conservative FCC commissioner, Brendan Carr.
00:30:09.000So 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.
00:30:21.000And I'm reading now from the dissent of Commissioner Carr on the adoption of this rule.
00:30:26.000Today's FCC order takes two separate actions.
00:30:29.000First, it reinstates the federal requirement that broadcasters file a document every year with the FCC that lists the race and gender of their employees.
00:30:40.000In 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.
00:30:58.000In 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.
00:31:12.000This type of data about individual businesses truly does not belong on the internet.
00:31:17.000And it's there as a precursor to the Chinese social credit score.
00:31:22.000They 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?
00:31:35.000This is not the public purpose of our airwaves, and we are incredibly proud of this dissent.
00:31:39.000The courts have struck down this attempted rule repeatedly, and we would encourage them to do so.
00:31:45.000Again, 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.
00:32:02.000The Vice President of the United States is always prone for some embarrassing comments that seem untethered from reality.
00:32:09.000We heard one such comment regarding students being paid to engage in politics by the government.
00:32:18.000Under the federal work-study program now allows students to get paid Through federal work study to register people and to be nonpartisan poll workers.
00:32:32.000As we know, this is important for a number of reasons.
00:32:35.000One, to engage our young leaders in this process and activate them.
00:32:43.000You 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.
00:33:05.000And it's just got that kind of flavor of it to me.
00:33:11.000You can follow me at Matt Gates and you'll be notified when we go on those.
00:33:16.000It's usually in the evening and there were just a couple comments I want to close the show out with.
00:33:20.000Texas 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.
00:33:41.000But the truckers have certainly reacted.
00:35:17.000The supply and demand affects the price of the loads.
00:35:21.000So 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.
00:35:33.000So when we started pushing this, what we've seen in New York and Specifically, it was a cold blue.
00:36:02.000They 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.
00:36:13.000What we see is the truth because we're out here working.
00:36:16.000But you know, we could use the help getting this out because it has not been walked back.
00:36:20.000We're moving on forward and we're talking about DC as well and other places.
00:36:25.000I mean, you know, the truckers are tired.
00:36:42.000Great space man and I'm gonna kick back and if you got questions I'll answer them.
00:36:47.000There'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.
00:37:30.000And 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.
00:37:51.000And that is what is most important to me is really exposing the people that aren't on your side that act like they are.
00:37:58.000Actually, this is the season for that.
00:37:59.000And first of all, thank you for the Pensacola love.
00:38:03.000Nothing 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.
00:38:21.000Also, 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.
00:38:32.000You'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.