In this episode, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-GAZETTE) is joined by Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) and Eli Crane (D -Ariz.) to discuss the latest in the Kamala Harris-Kamala Harris fight for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination and why she's a bad idea. Also, an Arizona sheriff takes aim at open borders and calls for the creation of a border wall along the U.S. southern border with Mexico. Rep. Eli Crane, D-Ariz. joins the show to discuss why he thinks border walls are racist and why they should be built along the southern border, not along the northern border, and why border walls should not be built in the first place. Rep. Cummings and Rep. Gaetz are the latest firebrands to join forces to take on the Democratic presidential field and take a swing at Sen. Kamala's campaign. Join the conversation by using the hashtag , and find us on social media using the hashtags and on the trending topics, and remember to tag us in your stories! if you have a story you d like to be featured on the next episode of Firebrand or , tweet us ! and we'll get a shoutout! in the comments section below! Thank you so much for your support and your support! Timestamps: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. Intro Music: Intro Song: "Goodbye" Music: "I'll See You Soon" by Jeff Perla (feat. ) & "I'm With You, My Name is And This Is My Name? (featuring: Andrea Thomas ( ) & Other Music: Chacho ( ) & Other Things ( ) - "Good Morning, My Music Is My Music: My Music is By: "Mr. John" by Mr. Boudreporco ( ) ( ) and His Music Is ( ) is Recorded In The Morning ( ) And This Will Be My Song ( ) by Ms. ( ) . & His Music is
00:01:22.000Kamala said she supports a mandatory gun buyback and wants your semi-automatic rifles.
00:01:27.000We have to have a buyback program and I support a mandatory buyback program.
00:01:31.000But we do need an assault weapons ban.
00:01:33.000She even wants to enter your home to make sure you're complying.
00:01:37.000To legally possess a gun in the safety of your locked home doesn't mean that we're not going to walk into that home and check to see if you're being responsible.
00:01:46.000The truth is Kamala's already told us her policy plans, and they're radical.
00:01:54.000bad for the country. - Welcome back to "Firebrand." I'm Congressman Matt Gaetz.
00:02:05.000We're broadcasting live from Room 2021 of the Rayburn House Office Building here at the Capitol Complex in Washington, D.C. Kamala Harris is the sitting vice president.
00:02:13.000Her policies, she's championed as a senator and really a D.A. throughout her time in public life, indeed, are harmful to the country now.
00:02:23.000This is fair game of a sitting office holder advancing policies that we know would diminish the American experience.
00:02:30.000And while we talk about the policies here, we also do note when there's an occasional moment of pop culture that emerges out of our politics that is interesting, and leave it to Trump.
00:02:43.000To make a statement in the debate and launch an avalanche of memes and takeaways and autotunes.
00:05:16.000I said, why do you believe they're racist?
00:05:19.000You said in your written testimony, and certain policies smack of racism.
00:05:24.000For example, a law was never suggested for the Canadian border.
00:05:29.000Well, yeah, the Canadian border is known as generally a white population, whereas the southwestern border is generally a brown population, so it smacks of racism.
00:05:41.000And Title 42 was never aggressively enforced on the Canadian border.
00:05:45.000Sheriff, do you think that if the mass majority of illegal immigration coming into the United States of America was coming from the northern border, that Americans would demand the same thing?
00:07:30.000I'm broadcasting right now out of my office just a few feet away from this desk where I'm speaking to you.
00:07:36.000I had a senior Homeland Security official come and give me troubling news between the first assassination attempt and the second assassination attempt.
00:07:47.000I shared that news with John Solomon as he was hosting Human Events, the Jack Posobiec show.
00:07:56.000It also requires coordination of a lot of these different agencies, Department of Homeland Security, the FBI, Secret Service, even Border Patrol in this case.
00:08:04.000And we oftentimes find that it's the brass that is stonewalling or creating the clog in the machine, I suppose.
00:08:28.000I had a senior official from the Department of Homeland Security in my office before the second assassination attempt saying that what he has assessed is that there are five known Assassination teams in the United States, three inspired by other governments, two that are here that are known domestic assassination teams.
00:08:51.000And with that, this individual was coming to me concerned that the force protection around President Trump, even prior to that second assassination attempt, was not sufficient for what it needed to be.
00:09:03.000And the coordination at that level, at the dignitary protection level, is like The bare minimum that we have to do to keep our presidents, our presidential candidates safe while they're on the trail.
00:09:15.000So there are five, I just want to follow up, five assassination teams?
00:09:21.000No, I should have been clear about that.
00:09:23.000Five teams that we know are targeting Trump.
00:09:25.000And so that raises real questions about why certain teams were being pulled off of the Trump team.
00:09:33.000We don't want anything bad to happen to Jill Biden, but at the same time, the threat envelope for her was substantially different than the threat envelope around President Trump, and it would not have necessitated pulling assets away from the Trump detail for the Jill Biden detail or the John Bolton detail or any other details that were beefed up at the same time the requests from the Trump detail and from the Trump campaign for more security were going unanswered.
00:10:05.000I have subsequently revealed that this disclosure made to me indicated that there was a team tied to Ukraine, a team tied to Pakistan, A team tied to Iran and then two teams that organically emerged domestically.
00:10:20.000And again, those were the known teams.
00:10:22.000I want to be clear, they may have been neutralized by now.
00:10:26.000They may have been limited in their capability.
00:10:29.000There may be more teams now that we know about because the air of invincibility around the Secret Service seems to be diminishing with the proximity that attempted assassins are able to achieve to the former president and to the current I've got to tell you,
00:10:49.000when I learned that the second attempted assassin was rhetorically and proverbially wrapped in the Ukrainian flag, It did strike quite a note with me because I had just been told days prior that there was a Ukraine connection to one of these teams.
00:11:08.000So I don't know if this particular individual was in any way connected to what Homeland Security and the rest of the intelligence community was watching as it relates to potential assassins.
00:11:20.000But what I do know is that some very smart people at Customs and Border Patrol actually encountered Routh.
00:11:29.000They encountered him with this fantastical story about how he was recruiting freedom fighters all over the world and that his wife was paying for it.
00:11:38.000That seemed a little fishy to Customs and Border Patrol, and so they made a referral to Homeland Security Investigations.
00:12:15.000I would have to defer any questions as to the on-the-ground Operational activity in Butler to the Secret Service.
00:12:24.000But I'm asking about your people, because the problem we're having, and Republicans and Democrats have noted, is we're not getting really forthright answers from the Secret Service in a timely way.
00:12:33.000And your agency, you had 16 people there, and those people either participated in a morning muster meeting, which is the protocol to make sure everyone's on the same page, has the same comms, that all the duties are correctly assigned and prepared to be executed.
00:13:18.000I recently, just this morning, learned there was an article that he was, when he entered back into the country from overseas, CBP had contacted HSI, and I read all of the items,
00:13:35.000the things that he was stating, and basically as a U.S. citizen returning to our country from Ukraine is a freedom fighter, based on the information that I read there would not have been any reason to immediately take him into custody.
00:13:54.000He had not made any threats, for instance, against the President or former President Trump.
00:14:01.000HSI responds to port of entry calls, hundreds of responses, probably daily.
00:14:07.000Just because a person isn't taken into custody immediately doesn't mean that they're not subject to a longer-term investigation.
00:14:14.000But you can confirm the Just the News reporting That the suspected Trump attempted assassin was flagged by CBP and was referred to HSI. Can you confirm that?
00:14:44.000But if recruiting for a foreign military was somehow improper, then that would necessitate some need for investigation, I would think.
00:14:55.000And here's the story that CBP picked up when they referred it to HSI. They say in their memo, suspect is a U.S. citizen who traveled to Kyiv Ukraine for three months to help recruit soldiers from Afghanistan, Moldova, and Taiwan to fight in the Ukrainian war against Russia.
00:15:13.000Subject stated that he does not get paid for his recruiting efforts and all his work for the Ukrainian government is strictly volunteer work.
00:15:19.000The subject stated that he obtains money from his wife to help fund his trips to Ukraine.
00:15:25.000And so when this guy shows up with a business card and this story about how he's recruiting fighters in Ukraine and his wife's paying for it, CBP says this is a little odd, and then they send it to HSI. HSI declines to further investigate.
00:15:42.000And what you're saying is, you think based on the facts that you're aware of now, that was the right decision by HSI? No, if I may sir, the statements that day would not rise to the level to take him into immediate custody.
00:15:58.000But what about just like to investigate?
00:15:59.000Because sometimes investigations proceed without a subject being taken into custody.
00:16:14.000When CBP refers this to HSI, what I believe happened is HSI declined not only to incarcerate this person, but to further investigate the person.
00:16:25.000Are you saying that They declined to investigate or that that investigation went forward and the attempted assassination occurred during the pendency of that investigation.
00:16:36.000I would have to look into that a little bit further, sir.
00:16:39.000Yeah, I think that's going to be a really important second thing for you to get back to us on, is whether or not HSI made an active decision in real time to decline further investigation of this person.
00:16:50.000And frankly, I mean, you know, this isn't someone who, like, Was jaywalking.
00:16:55.000They tried to kill the leading, I mean, they tried to kill the leading Republican candidate for president and the former president of the United States, and so I really think it's important to get those answers.
00:17:26.000I want to bring you to some of the work going on now in the House Armed Services Committee.
00:17:30.000We're going to be following up with HSI to get the answers to those questions and certainly I will let you know here on Firebrand or on the Gates Network.
00:17:39.000But in the Armed Services Committee, you've got to see this.
00:17:42.000So the United States Army has an anti-terrorism training exercise that they go through.
00:17:51.000They have a slideshow to warn the Army who might be a terrorist.
00:17:57.000And included in that slideshow is a characterization of national right to life and a pro-life license plate and any other, like, signification of association with the pro-life movement as potential terrorism.
00:18:16.000This has been going on, this training in the United States Army, for seven years.
00:18:20.000More than 10,000 troops have been subjected to this training, so I'm grateful that Chairman Jim Banks in the Military Personnel Subcommittee, a really outstanding committee chairman, he brought in some of these folks from the Army to explain themselves.
00:18:40.000So, General Matlock, after years of the Army wrongly telling over 10,000 soldiers that someone having a pro-life license plate might make them a terrorist, was anybody fired?
00:18:56.000Representative, again, the chain of command is the responsible agent for adverse actions or personnel actions and I'm not going to comment on what they've done or not done.
00:19:09.000That resides with the chain of command.
00:19:12.000Well, don't you think that has failed?
00:19:14.000Because wasn't the obligation to stop this nonsense also with the chain of command?
00:19:20.000The chain of command took immediate, upon receiving the report of the poorly developed training materials, the chain of command took immediate action.
00:19:27.000I tell you, in the United States Army, eight years might be immediate, but it doesn't seem all that immediate to me.
00:19:32.000I mean, does years and years of doing this seem like the chain of command was immediately responsive to this errant action to you?
00:19:39.000Representative, we recognize that that is a very long period of time.
00:19:43.000Okay, so we'll dispense with the media then.
00:19:45.000Okay, so you're kind of playing games.
00:19:47.000I mean, I think the Congress deserves to know, after you all screwed up with 10,000 soldiers, whether you fired anyone, whether you suspended anyone, whether anyone got a demotion in rank, Or what the consequence was?
00:20:04.000Like, you don't get to just say it's our chain of command and it's not Congress's business when you screw up to this magnitude.
00:20:11.000Like, does that not register with you?
00:20:31.000We don't believe that your chain of command approach is going to be sufficient to deal with this if you play hide the ball on what the consequence was.
00:20:40.000And it sort of seems to be a DOD-wide problem that People who express policy or scripture aligned with Christian faith get demonized and attacked.
00:20:55.000I mean, we saw that in the United States Navy when the SEALs wanted to have an exception for the vaccine and then your own Inspector General had to say that they were improperly treated.
00:21:08.000When someone posted a Bible verse and was then subjected to disciplinary action, and now here in the Army, I mean, Mr. Chairman, I'm at a loss because they won't even tell us what they've done.
00:21:46.000Well, here's what I'd do, Mr. Chairman.
00:21:47.000I would demand answers to the questions that we're asking.
00:21:53.000I don't even know how to use my last minute and a half of time, because they're not going to answer the question on what consequence.
00:21:57.000And if the consequence isn't public, it doesn't function as a sufficient deterrent.
00:22:02.000Like, what you guys do when you allow this to happen for years with no consequence, and then eight years later, or whatever, when you're called out on it, you say, well, there's a consequence, but we won't tell you what it is, then you increase the recidivism of this type of behavior.
00:22:18.000And, not for nothing, but it's one of the reasons why in some of the key demographic areas that the Army is traditionally drawn from to fill its ranks, you're struggling right now.
00:22:27.000So I think we're owed answers to these questions, and frankly, I would start fencing money at the United States Army until we get those answers.
00:22:38.000We are back live, and so while the Army and other features of the Department of Defense are frustratingly focused on demonizing Christians, demonizing on the right in some of these trainings that we are working to get Extricated out of our military.
00:22:56.000There is important work that I think isn't happening at the Department of Defense.
00:23:00.000We did some fact finding on some of these questions recently and I want to bring that to everybody in the audience.
00:23:08.000We had a field hearing out in Silicon Valley and we had before us a number of the innovative contractors who are doing work in Ukraine.
00:23:18.000And what I don't think That the pro-Ukraine war members of the committee were expecting is that one of the witnesses they hand-selected talked about billions of dollars just lying around unused.
00:23:38.000You made mention of the amount of U.S. equipment in Ukraine that is not being used on the battlefield because the Ukrainians don't think it works.
00:23:47.000Do you have an assessment as to how much money that is?
00:23:54.000And so US taxpayers are paying for the inflation to send stuff to Ukraine that doesn't even work, and it's magnitudes more than on the stuff we're spending for ourselves that does work.
00:24:31.000Another question about the national defense strategy.
00:24:33.000So we heard on Monday of this week that there are billions of dollars of materiel, U.S. materiel, sitting around in Ukraine that will never be used, that the Ukrainians will not deploy in the fight.
00:24:45.000We heard that from the contractor that we curated to come give us testimony in California.
00:24:50.000And we also know from testimony given before this committee that the Inspector General cannot attest To end-use monitoring of that very equipment.
00:25:00.000So you've got a combination of billions of dollars of equipment and then non-legally compliant end-use monitoring.
00:25:08.000Does the combination of those factors necessitate us contemplating the risk of a lot of these weapons making their way to the black market and having a national defense strategy that will respond to it?
00:25:20.000Well, I think it's very important to track the material that's sent into Ukraine or any other war theater funded by the United States.
00:25:27.000I would note that most of the expenditure for equipment goes to U.S. manufacturers.
00:25:49.000I'm also, having been to Ukraine twice this year, including last week, very impressed with what the Ukrainians are able to do on their own and the equipment that they're able to produce.
00:25:58.000I'd love them to do a little more on their own.
00:26:02.000Irene on Facebook says, they should have all the answers by now.
00:26:07.000But until there is a financial consequence, you're going to continue to get the obfuscating and the lying.
00:26:14.000And that's why, one of the reasons why I'm not voting for these continuing resolutions.
00:26:17.000Because every time you vote for a continuing resolution, you create a permission structure for them to just stiff-arm you, not answer your questions, and they still get the check.
00:26:29.000The government continues to grow and they continue to have all of their power.
00:26:33.000So the woman you were just hearing from in that last clip is former Representative Harmon, former Democrat representative, but she's on this committee that was established to review the national security strategy and to make recommendations about that strategy.
00:26:45.000So obviously one of the reasonable questions I just asked that you heard was, well, I mean, does the strategy contemplate that we got all this stuff and we got no appropriate monitoring of it And it's in the money laundering capital of the world.
00:27:03.000But I asked a different question of her at another point in her testimony.
00:27:08.000We make all these systems and we get this answer back from her commission that says, well, there are a lot of these legacy systems, these older systems that we need less of.
00:27:55.000I think we need a careful inventory of what hardware platforms are resilient and can be adapted with additional software to deter and fight future wars.
00:28:08.000I don't have a list- Terrific answer just not to the question I asked.
00:28:11.000Name a system- You asked- That we need less of.
00:29:17.000And I think this committee has tried to make good decisions, and I remember when I served on it, we tried to make good decisions, and we got overruled often, not always.
00:29:26.000It takes, you know, it takes a lot of work in this building to get things to happen.
00:29:34.000It's corrupt because we're buying stuff we know doesn't work, and then what the appropriators did was they took that money out of what this committee prioritized, which was Child care for our military families.
00:29:46.000But it does not advance our case when the people who are sent to critique it then don't come back and say, yeah, here's our assessment.
00:29:55.000The F-35 doesn't work, we buy too much of them, and that should go into tech, into the tech that's going to help us.
00:30:00.000And I think that's your call, and I'm glad that you made it.
00:30:03.000I don't think that was our call as the writers of this commission report.
00:30:12.000She doesn't think it's the people writing the report on the national defense strategy to say whether or not this program we've sunk billions and billions of dollars into works or not.
00:30:26.000I think with some of these people in the national defense community, they want to be invited to all the cocktail parties, all the dinner parties.
00:30:37.000They want to get consulting contracts.
00:30:41.000I don't know anything about what Rep Harmon does, former Rep Harmon, but it just seems to be an ethic that encapsulates some of these failing programs from criticism.
00:30:54.000Because the people who have the ethos to lodge that criticism are either afraid or too gutless to do so.
00:31:09.000Military to be able to vanquish any foe, to fight tonight.
00:31:13.000I think we have to make the sacrifices as a country to ensure that that is the case.
00:31:18.000But while we're focused on whether or not pro-lifers are terrorists, and while we're building $100 million F-35s that are not operationally capable, We're missing out on hypersonics.
00:31:30.000And when China gets ahead of us in hypersonics, it changes the whole calculus on deterrence because they're able to deliver a payload and shorten the decision-making space for an American response.
00:31:43.000And that has a way to shape the way you think about an adversary.
00:31:49.000So take a listen to how basic the analysis can be on the Chinese advancements on hypersonics relative to the United States.
00:32:00.000Do you contemplate in your critique of the national defense strategy the risk of the fact that China can hit a moving target with a hypersonic weapon and we can't?
00:33:11.000So just for quick math, President Biden requested 68 new F-35s to purchase.
00:33:18.000Today, in America, 29% of the F-35s are fully operationally capable.
00:33:25.000Now, I don't know much about warfare like my colleagues, but I do know if something costs $100 million, it should definitely work more than 29% of the time.
00:33:35.000Especially if you're telling us it's the past.
00:33:37.000So we, I think, responsibly as the authorizers, we cut 10 off the block and said you've got to make more of these things work.
00:33:44.000And then the Appropriations Committee not only restored the 10 that we cut, they went and added 10 more.
00:34:00.000What you're up against is a corrupt system where principally five companies distribute hundreds of millions of dollars in campaign donations and hire former staffers and hire former lawmakers to be able to influence the process for them.
00:34:12.000And I bet you didn't have me citing Elizabeth Warren on your bingo card today, but she released a 2003 report entitled Pentagon Alchemy, How Defense Officials...
00:34:22.000Pass through the revolving door and peddle brass for gold.
00:34:25.000And the key findings of Senator Warren's report are that top defense contractors hire hundreds of former government officials, mostly as lobbyists.
00:34:33.000The defense industry consolidation increases the risk for big corporations to abuse the powers of the revolving door.
00:34:40.000And the big defense contractors hired the most revolving door lobbyists and stocked their board with the most former government officials.
00:34:48.000So to all of you great innovators who are describing the future of warfare to us, do you think it's a fair fight?
00:34:53.000Like, do you actually think that if you come up with a better mousetrap, that that's going to result in rapid acquisition?
00:34:58.000Or is it just about who gives out that, let's see, let's see, in the last two decades, defense contractors have given out $285 million in campaign contributions and have spent $2.5 billion in lobbying.
00:35:16.000I'd say no, it's not a fair playing field by firepower.
00:35:20.000You know, small companies, let's say, cannot match the firepower of big primes.
00:35:24.000I would like to see competition on the battlefield or the pre-battlefield and actually comparing technologies and choosing a winner.
00:35:31.000As a commercial citizen, we are very competitive, and we're happy to go ahead with any other technology to prove that one's better than the other.
00:35:37.000No, having a bake-off would be lovely, Mr. Jenkins, but I don't think you're going to get that opportunity based on the rigged system we have.
00:35:44.000And the fact that we're buying 10 more F-35s for billions of dollars that don't work when Mr. Seng says, you guys are spending less than $100 million on that, which is going to win the future on AI and autonomous systems, is the fundamental critique.
00:35:57.000So the GAO does this big report, and they say, look, we've got to have these lobbying reforms where you can't have people rolling right into influencing the very systems that they were a part of, and they apply that to lobbying.
00:36:07.000And we, to our credit, passed that in the 2018 NDAA. But then DOD started interpreting that to say, well, that's just registered lobbying.
00:36:37.000Do any of you challenge the premise that the acquisition process is corrupted when the senior Pentagon officials and the senior generals involved in these programs then go work for the big five companies?
00:36:51.000Do any of you say, no, that's not corrupt?
00:37:21.000Florida man and Florida woman are facing quite a lot of activity right now in the Gulf of Mexico.
00:37:26.000And so make sure if you're in the Sunshine State, you're following at FLSERT. That's our State Emergency Management.
00:37:34.000You can also follow at GovRonDeSantis.
00:37:37.000Governor is On the scene, he's calling the shots and giving important information regarding people with disabilities and how they can get evacuation assistance, where we're expecting the storm surge and flooding, and also just helpful tips to make sure you and your family stay safe, not only during the storm, but also after the storm.
00:37:55.000Remember, this is a storm that could make landfall as a Category 3 or stronger based on some of the predictions in the warm water in the Gulf and the current Coriolis trajectory.
00:38:06.000Remember, in most cases, There is a higher death count after the storm than during the storm.
00:38:13.000And so make sure you're being responsible with your electricity, with your generators, that you've got the right ventilation, and that if there's someone who's vulnerable, who's in your family, in your area, in your church group, that you're caring for them, that you're watching out for them and providing them We always say a prayer for the terrific men and women who are out on the line crews restoring power,
00:38:41.000making sure that our hospitals and critical infrastructure are supported.
00:38:44.000You are heroes in the Sunshine State, and I'm incredibly grateful for you.
00:38:48.000And to the rest of the country, we will always accept your prayers as this one seems to bear down on us and may indeed get stronger.
00:38:56.000Here in Washington now, but my heart's in Florida and my sincere hope is that we're able to weather this and that it's able to go to an area of the least potential impact on our vulnerable citizens.
00:39:08.000Thanks so much for joining me for Firebrand.
00:39:11.000It's going to be an interesting few days here in Washington.