Former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows speaks with Rep. Matt Gaetz about the FBI's handling of death threats against him and other conservative members of Congress, and why the DOJ has a double standard when it comes to dealing with threats against conservative politicians and why they are treated differently than threats against other groups of Americans. Also, former Vice President Joe Biden and former Attorney General Michael Chertoff have been accused of a cover-up in order to cover up the fact that they are both responsible for the death of Rep. Steve Scalise, R-La., who was shot at a congressional baseball practice by a crazed Bernie Sanders supporter on June 14th, 2019. The charge has been dismissed by the Department of Justice as a "non-threat" and no charges will be brought against either of them, despite the evidence and the overwhelming likelihood that the threat was made by the Deep State and Joe Biden's handiwork to smear Rep. Gaetz and others as "anti-American" and "pro-Israelites." Join the conversation on social media by using the hashtag , and join the conversation using and on to help spread the word! about this firebrand conservative firebrand! Tweet Me! to let us know what you thought of this episode and what you think of it! and how you think about it in the comments section below! . Timestamps: 4:00 - Do you agree with this episode? 5: What do you agree or disagree with it? 6: Does it matter? 7:30 - Is it matters? 8:15 - What does it matter to you? 9:40 - How do you think it matters to you more? 11: Is it a good or bad? 14:00 15:00 | How should the FBI deal with these threats? 16: What is the difference between them? 17:10 - Is there a difference between a threat? 18:30 | What are they getting away with it or not? 19:10 | What do they should do with the evidence? 21:15 | What should they do with this information? 22: What would you do next? 25:10: What are you looking for? 26:40 | What is your response? 27:00 -- Is it possible to do about this? 29:30 -- Is this a crime?
00:00:03.000Matt Gaetz was one of the very few members in the entire Congress who bothered to stand up against permanent Washington on behalf of his constituents.
00:00:10.000Matt Gaetz right now, he's a problem in the Democratic Party.
00:00:13.000He could cause a lot of hiccups in passing applause.
00:00:16.000So we're going to keep running those stories to keep hurting him.
00:00:20.000If you stand for the flag and kneel in prayer, if you want to build America up and not burn her to the ground, then welcome, my fellow patriots!
00:01:10.000It ensures that you'll be here, part of the conversation for each and every episode.
00:01:15.000Today, we have an exclusive, explosive interview with President Trump's former Chief of Staff, Mark Meadows, who also served in the United States Congress and has some very strong views about how Republicans need to address the fight we are currently in against the Democrats, against the Biden regime, the media.
00:01:35.000And even some of those folks over at the Department of Justice who have been weaponized against those they don't agree with politically.
00:01:43.000But first, it's always interesting to expose the double standards that exist, particularly when it comes to the safety of members of Congress.
00:01:53.000Steve Scalise, my fellow congressman, was shot at congressional baseball practice by a mentally ill, CNN-obsessed Bernie Sanders supporter.
00:02:04.000His recovery has been miraculous and inspiring.
00:02:08.000A Democrat, Gabby Giffords, was nearly killed by a deranged lunatic before Steve.
00:02:13.000We oppose political violence in the United States, regardless of the politics of the target.
00:02:18.000It shouldn't happen to Scalise, AOC, Ted Cruz, or even Ilhan Omar.
00:02:24.000But when death threats happen to Republicans, when they happened to me, they are often treated differently by a politicized Department of Justice.
00:02:35.000To the DOJ, America First conservatives are second-class citizens, political dissidents, insurrectionists, the enemy.
00:03:53.000I received word late last week that the U.S. Attorney's Office, where this individual lived, had reviewed the information and had deemed these messages, and I'm quoting directly, a non-threat.
00:04:05.000It's obviously a crime, a federal crime, to make these types of threats against any federal official This year, we're on, not this Congress, I should say, we're on record for 10,000 threats against members of Congress.
00:04:19.000And I condemn them, whether they're against Republicans, Democrats, liberals, conservatives, you know, this is just no way to operate within our country.
00:04:28.000I just wonder, like, is it the fact that I've been a critic of some of the senior officials at the FBI that maybe leads to different treatment for the people who threaten me, as opposed to the people who actually get arrested, who have threatened Eric Swalwell, you know, Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib.
00:04:44.000Those people actually get arrested, whereas when people threaten conservatives, I hope there's not a double standard.
00:04:50.000But, I mean, you heard the messages, and there were even other messages where they threatened my family, Tucker.
00:05:11.00018 U.S. Code Section 115A1B states, That whoever threatens to assault, kidnap, or murder a United States official, a United States judge, a federal law enforcement officer, or an official whose killing would be a crime under such section with the intent to impede,
00:05:28.000intimidate, or interfere with such official judge or law enforcement officer while engaged in the performance of official duties or with intent to retaliate against such official judge or law enforcement officer on account of the performance of official duties.
00:05:45.000Shall be punished as provided in subsection B. Killing me would of course be a crime.
00:05:52.000But the threat itself is also a separate distinct violation of federal criminal law.
00:05:59.000The Department of Justice simply doesn't seem to care.
00:06:03.000I bet they would care if I were a prominent Democrat.
00:06:06.000He didn't intend to actually kill you, deemed the U.S. Attorney's Office run by David Anderson in the Northern District of California.
00:06:15.000I guess the US Attorney can read minds.
00:06:17.000But nevertheless, he did intend to threaten me.
00:06:22.000And that should have been the dispositive legal analysis.
00:06:26.000Unless, of course, the target of the criminal threat is a critic of the Department of Justice.
00:06:36.000Whether it's Capitol protesters being held without bail or Republican congressmen being treated differently than their counterparts across the aisle, podcasters being indicted, or unequal enforcement of the law, we see these as norms today.
00:06:51.000The DOJ actually stopped the arrest of another person who threatened to kill me even after the Capitol Police recommended his arrest.
00:07:01.000I explained it on the floor of the House of Representatives here.
00:07:06.000I thank the gentleman for yielding because I think someone may be trying to kill me.
00:07:10.000And if they are successful, I would like my constituents and my family to know who stopped their arrest.
00:07:16.000Madam Speaker, on October 8th, 2021, a Twitter handle styled CIA Bob is at your door tweeted to at Rep Matt Gaetz.
00:07:36.000Following this tweet, this individual traveled to Washington, D.C., and the Capitol Police recommended his arrest.
00:07:44.000That's information that was just shared with me by the Investigations and Threat Assessment section of the Protective Services Bureau, and specifically George DeCesso.
00:07:56.000And George shared with me that the Capitol Police recommended the arrest of this individual, and that the Department of Justice Refuse to do so.
00:08:05.000And on the eve of the Attorney General testifying before the Judiciary Committee tomorrow, it is just yet another example of the Department of Justice having a double standard.
00:08:15.000If my name weren't Gates, if it were Omar or Tlaib, you bet this person would have been arrested because that's what the Capitol Police recommended.
00:08:24.000But the Department of Justice doesn't seem to care so much when it's Republicans.
00:08:29.000Adam Colbreth apparently has seen this podcast, the Welcome to the Woketopia episode.
00:08:34.000You should actually go back and watch it.
00:08:36.000It was the foundation of this tweet that he sent threatening to kill me and exclaiming that a contract had been issued on my life following that very episode.
00:08:48.000Adam Colbreth traveled from Georgia to Washington, D.C. after threatening to kill me.
00:08:55.000Capitol Police recommended his arrest.
00:08:58.000They intercepted him, but they were blocked by Assistant Attorney General Greg Rosen.
00:09:04.000Rosen told Capitol Police that Culbreth was just mentally ill.
00:09:09.000Guess he wasn't worried that those people could ever be radicalized to violence?
00:09:13.000Oh wait, that's exactly what happened to Steve Scalise.
00:09:16.000Washington Correspondents that the president and the vice president have now been informed of what have happened and you can see here What looks like, that looks like a member of Congress that I recognize, but we'll wait for confirmation.
00:09:31.000We've told her the congressman who was shot in the hip has been identified as Steve Scalise.
00:09:35.000He is the Republican House majority whip.
00:09:39.000And as you can see there, it appears that they are medevac-ing him.
00:09:45.000The Alexandria Fire Department and first responders are medevac-ing him to get And the shooting happened in the dugout of the baseball field.
00:09:54.000And as of this time, we do not know the name of the shooter and his motive or intent.
00:09:59.000A 2010 publication of Time magazine stated, quote, Some historians argue that the goal of the program was to create a mind control system by which the CIA could program people to conduct assassinations.
00:10:13.000Now, we don't endorse the idea that such a program existed.
00:10:19.000But it's worth noting that Time magazine is hardly part of what Hillary Clinton called the vast right-wing conspiracy.
00:10:26.000And if the CIA was using people to commit assassinations, they probably wouldn't exclude from recruitment those who were mentally ill or unstable.
00:10:37.000Andrew Culbreth then left D.C. after his arrest was blocked by Mr. Rosen at the Department of Justice, and he found himself in Langley, Virginia.
00:10:49.000I wonder what he was doing in Langley?
00:10:51.000Not a lot of people are just casually hanging out in Langley, Virginia.
00:11:36.000The FBI actually arrested a man named Eugene Ewellsman.
00:11:39.000He's a five-time Emmy-nominated cameraman who has worked for the likes of CNN, ABC, and NBC. He threatened to kill me and told me to watch my kids.
00:11:53.000Just a typical mainstream media weirdo and a dangerous one at that.
00:11:59.000It's almost like they needed to show that they would arrest some people who threatened to kill me, but not Adam Culbreth, the mentally ill person with CIA and his Twitter handle who scurried off to Langley after being intercepted by Capitol Police in D.C. and being relieved of culpability by a politicized Department of Justice.
00:12:21.000Unequal application of justice, depending on politics, or far worse.
00:12:29.000And now, please enjoy this interview with President Trump's former Chief of Staff and my good friend, Mark Meadows.
00:12:39.000I'm here with the chief's chief himself, my good friend Mark Meadows, reacting to all the exciting news about his upcoming book, The Chief's Chief.
00:12:56.000And I think for you and I, who got to see the president up close and personal, we got to see that side of him that, quite frankly, the cameras never pick.
00:13:06.000But when you look at it, I've got one scene in there where he's got a whole bunch of his advisors sitting in front of the resolute desk.
00:13:15.000You know, he essentially takes one person and he says, what's your opinion on that?
00:13:54.000He sits back and just watches the fight.
00:13:56.000And you've been one that has been a friction.
00:14:01.000You know, we talk about firebrand, but you've been the one who's created friction in the Oval.
00:14:07.000To many of the advisors, you know, when I was serving as the chief, many times they didn't want to see Matt Gaetz there because Matt Gaetz would tell the president the truth.
00:14:18.000And so that conflict goes back and forth.
00:14:21.000We share how that works out, and then the president makes a decision.
00:14:25.000He says, based on this information, let's make this decision, let's get it done, and let's get it done today.
00:14:30.000And so that Trump-time kind of decision-making, and what I call creative chaos, because he creates a chaos and then makes order out of it, is something that was a thing to behold.
00:14:44.000I think people will actually learn about management styles from your book, The Chief's Chief, because you really see in President Trump a leader who did not like sources of information to be constrained.
00:14:57.000And other people who served as Chief of Staff to the President thought that their job was to manage the inputs and ensure that he only got the interactions or exposures that they curated for him.
00:15:08.000And you had seemingly the exact opposite view.
00:15:11.000You wanted to open up the president to different thoughts, perspectives, interpretations, because you knew he was really the central note of the government, right?
00:15:19.000Well, he is, and he was the one that was elected the 45th president of the United States, and you and I were not.
00:15:25.000And so when you look at that, you know, I can remember One of those times where you called and you said, you know, listen, the president needs to weigh in on this particular issue.
00:15:35.000It was, you know, a legislative issue that was coming up.
00:15:37.000I said, well, why don't you come over and tell the president?
00:15:40.000And the interesting thing is people are not used to that, you know, where you have members of Congress where you've got direct input.
00:15:55.000So he actually wanted to hear that perspective directly.
00:15:59.000In fact, if he thought you were going around him to try to manage his expectations, he could smell that a mile away.
00:16:10.000Your relationship with President Trump wasn't all roses.
00:16:13.000I remember when I first got here, you actually were leading the opposition against a very bad healthcare bill.
00:16:21.000Jim Jordan called Paul Ryan's strategy the dumbest legislative strategy in history, and you actually had to serve as a ballast against some of the special interest influences in that bill.
00:16:34.000How do you go from being somebody very opposed to the President on one particular matter to being quite literally his most trusted advisor?
00:16:49.000I can remember being tweeted at, you know, and when you're tweeted at by the President of the United States, it makes you Twitter famous, but not necessarily in a good way.
00:17:00.000And so, yeah, it was a tough time, but I think that goes back to your first question, Matt, is the way that President Trump gets information, he wants you to shoot straight with him.
00:17:13.000And what he respected is the fact that we had a particular position, We were willing to go against Paul Ryan.
00:17:20.000We were willing to go against the Speaker of the House.
00:17:22.000We were willing to say that Paul Ryan was leading him astray.
00:17:26.000I've got one scene there in the book because it talks about that relationship.
00:17:30.000Bucket one, bucket two, and bucket three.
00:17:32.000You remember that because he says, well, in bucket one, we're going to pass these things that Paul Ryan did.
00:17:37.000Bucket two was going to be the administrative fixes that the Secretary of HHS. And bucket three was going to be all those things we were going to be able to negotiate with the Democrats and get done.
00:17:49.000But that's where the real savings came.
00:17:51.000And I remember telling me, there's something in bucket three, but it isn't health care.
00:17:55.000And calling it like it is, he appreciates that.
00:18:00.000And when you disagree with him, to let him know that.
00:18:04.000But my disagreements with him oftentimes were in the privacy of a one-on-one conversation, not going out, leaking it to the Washington Post or whomever.
00:18:14.000Mark, it really was interesting to many people that this brash New York business person could get along with this, like, genteels, you know, Highlands, North Carolina, Cashers, North Carolina, Southern gentleman.
00:18:27.000But I think that the essence of your relationship is that you both understood real estate.
00:19:49.000And I tell you, it's not something that I can change.
00:19:52.000So what you're going to do is just have to manage around that.
00:19:54.000I'm sure it's not your only immutable trait that you'll have to apologize for.
00:19:57.000You know, Mark, when you took this job as chief of staff, I think you were largely set up to come in and Build on the great economic successes of this presidency and this legislation on taxes, on deregulation that you helped craft in the Congress and you found a job that was very different than that which you likely expected because you take over right as this pandemic is being birthed onto the world from China.
00:20:24.000How did the administration think of the pandemic in the early days and perhaps are there some unsung heroes Some folks that really were clarion voices that we should look back to now and say, gosh, that was a really patriotic and valuable contribution to the country.
00:20:38.000You know, it's interesting because early on, I thought we were going to just cruise.
00:20:43.000We had, listen, this China virus was a thing that, you know, is going to be beaten in a couple of weeks.
00:20:48.000And even though the president had made some critical decisions in January before I took the job, you know, it was one of those, well, gosh, 15 days to slow the spread.
00:20:58.000I can remember when I said, listen, if we close it for 15 days, how do we ever get it back open?
00:21:04.000You know, over a year later, still trying to figure out how we can open up parts of our economy.
00:21:11.000And yet there were some decisions that were made with Secretary Mnuchin and candidly, more importantly, the President of the United States that people don't realize.
00:21:22.000There was about 21 days when the economy had been shut down.
00:21:28.000That key decisions that were made by the President and by the Secretary of Treasury stopped us from being in a depression that we would still be in today.
00:21:43.000It's Steve Mnuchin who got all the flexibility to create all the Fed policy he wanted for big business while a lot of folks on Main Street are suffering.
00:21:50.000With all of that, let me push back just a little bit.
00:21:53.000But what I'm saying there is that for 21 days, he was able to allow for policy that allowed that V-shaped recovery that we're talking about.
00:22:03.000Now, in doing that, it couldn't be anything that was permanent.
00:22:07.000It couldn't be anything that, quite frankly, we shouldn't be doing.
00:22:12.000But flexibility at that particular point was the key aspect.
00:22:17.000But the unsung hero, if you really want to look at it in real detail, You may have recalled early on they were talking about little pigs being killed and it was a little footnote.
00:22:32.000If somebody Googles it today, they can find it.
00:22:35.000But we have two different supply chains here in the country.
00:22:38.000We have a supply chain that actually Supports restaurants and a supply chain that actually supports grocery stores.
00:22:47.000I didn't know that until we have this crisis where we're going to run out of chicken and pork and all of the proteins where we're going to have this.
00:22:58.000Mark, if that's going to be a problem, get them all on the phone.
00:23:01.000Literally had the head of every single group on the phone negotiating in real time saying, we'll give you protection here, we'll give you protection there.
00:23:08.000So the unsung hero throughout the entire process was a president that continued to make decisions based on information from other people.
00:23:18.000The two unsung heroes, Donald Trump and Steve Mnuchin.
00:23:22.000What about folks in the administration that maybe had a different type of impact?
00:23:26.000As we have the benefit now of time, and you were right there in the room as these decisions were being made, are there people in the administration that polluted the thinking with bad advice or bad tactics?
00:23:38.000I think you hit on this a little bit earlier.
00:23:41.000What happens is there was a lot of people that really had a West Wing address that didn't really have the President's best interest at heart.
00:23:51.000And by that, that's what I was most surprised about.
00:23:55.000You know, if people ask me, what are you most surprised about?
00:23:57.000I was most surprised that people would run to the press to leak things that one were not accurate but two even if they were accurate shouldn't be shared with the press should have been shared with the president of the United States but then the other part of that Matt that was was key when you start looking at some of these individuals it was all about their resume not about the president's accomplishments not about what we could get done it was about their resume and what job they would get done or get next and
00:24:27.000so Wouldn't it have been easier to just tell everybody in the Trump administration, if you had any association with Trump, that the woke big corporations wouldn't hire you anyway, so you might as well use the time.
00:24:37.000You might as well go ahead and use it to the benefit of the American people, because that was, in essence, what was happening.
00:24:43.000You know, when I took the job as Chief of Staff...
00:24:46.000So was Dr. Fauci a positive or a negative impact?
00:24:49.000Was Dr. Birch a positive or negative impact?
00:24:52.000So they were negative impacts when it came to actually accomplishing.
00:24:55.000I can remember getting a call from one governor that we happen to know.
00:24:59.000And that governor called me and said, listen, I don't want any more help from Washington, D.C. on handling the coronavirus because the things that they're saying are not based in science and they're not based on what we're seeing in real time on the ground here in our state.
00:25:17.000And said, please, keep your health in Washington, D.C. The book is The Chief's Chief, but I also hope that you reflect a little on your time in Congress.
00:25:26.000You know, in Congress, I always said you were the best strategist at understanding where the puck was going, how we could meet the needs of the country.
00:25:35.000What grade would you give Republican leadership in Congress now in combating the Biden administration?
00:25:42.000They're not skating to where the puck is, and so I would give them a grade of a D. We might have Bidenflation, but there's no grade inflation from Mark Meadows.
00:26:45.000I mean, it was really hard for me to vote against the NDAA. Of course it is!
00:26:50.000When you have a base there in your home district and you love the military and you defend them.
00:26:55.000You've defended them at times when I wouldn't even defend them and you were willing to do that, Matt.
00:27:00.000But here's the thing is, when you're willing to put the interests of the American people first, And you're willing to vote and take a tough vote.
00:27:08.000Listen, everybody can come up here and make easy votes, but when you take a tough vote, I mean, you need to take a tough vote for the right reason going forward.
00:27:17.000And honestly, those 13 Republicans didn't do that.
00:27:20.000And you have called for them to lose their positions of leadership.
00:27:24.000And what shocked me after you made that announcement, I heard from almost every member of the Republican conference, folks' hair was on fire, but I was shocked at how many of the 13 hold positions of Oh yeah, of course.
00:27:36.000They're the who's who of the establishment.
00:28:32.000If you're going to be the Speaker of the House, you've got to be able to control those members, and those members with particular positions of authority, and big money that comes from the NRCC, and I know you can't talk about that because we're here in your official capacity, but I'll talk about it.
00:28:48.000When that money comes in, there shouldn't be a dime's worth of money going to those individuals if they're going to vote like Democrats.
00:29:20.000But now we're starting to see Democrats, I think, try to escape their legislative failures by weaponizing the Department of Justice.
00:29:30.000And one thing I noticed, when you were Chief of Staff, there was a liaison from the White House to the Department of Justice that was thrown out of the building.
00:29:38.000And I continue to hear folks at the DOJ and their supporters say, well, the DOJ should be independent.
00:29:44.000And, you know, I remember in high school I learned the three branches of government and I sort of thought the Department of Justice was a part of the executive branch of government, not its own fourth branch of government.
00:29:55.000And so in the broadest possible terms, how should Americans think about the Department of Justice as an independent, runaway trained entity or as part of the executive branch?
00:30:06.000Listen, it needs to be part of the executive branch.
00:30:10.000Civics 102, 103, all of them would say that, and yet we somehow have a different definition.
00:30:17.000Part of that was born out of what you and I worked on early on, this whole Russia hoax and what happened with the FBI and DOJ at that point.
00:30:29.000They didn't think they worked for anybody under the Trump administration.
00:30:32.000Everybody says, well, you know, now you've got Garland and it's a different thing.
00:30:36.000But it sort of seems like maybe a different person is the attorney general.
00:30:39.000But the operation of the Department of Justice in many ways has really never been part of the pull of gravity of the executive branch of government since Donald Trump won the nomination.
00:30:52.000I think the other thing is there's a lot of fine people that work at the FBI and DOJ, career people that have done an outstanding job.
00:31:01.000And what we've allowed is the media and a few people at the very top to pervert the way that we look at DOJ and FBI, but also the way that it And so we've got to make sure that the rule of law is exactly that, that Lady Justice has a blindfold on and that she's not peeking out from underneath that blindfold to figure out who's guilty or innocent.
00:31:26.000Yeah, the only people wearing the blindfold these days are counting the ballots.
00:31:29.000But look, the book is The Chief's Chief.
00:31:32.000It is going to give folks not only a view of the Trump presidency you haven't seen before, but a view of leadership.
00:31:37.000And I think that is precisely the type of leadership that we need to be able to access and mobilize for the benefit of our people.