Firebrand - Matt Gaetz - Episode 20: Naturally Infected (feat. Rep. Thomas Massie) – Firebrand with Matt Gaetz

00:00:01.000 The embattled Congressman Matt Gaetz.

00:00:03.000 Matt 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.

00:00:10.000 Matt Gaetz right now, he's a problem in the Democratic Party.

00:00:13.000 He could cause a lot of hiccups in passing applause.

00:00:16.000 So we're going to keep running those stories to keep hurting him.

00:00:20.000 If 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!

00:00:29.000 You are in the right place!

00:00:30.000 This is the movement for you!

00:00:32.000 You ever watch this guy on television?

00:00:35.000 It's like a machine.

00:00:36.000 Matt Gaetz.

00:00:37.000 I'm a canceled man in some corners of the internet.

00:00:41.000 Many days I'm a marked man in Congress, a wanted man by the deep state.

00:00:45.000 They aren't really coming for me.

00:00:47.000 They're coming for you.

00:00:49.000 I'm just in the way.

00:00:54.000 Welcome to Firebrand.

00:00:55.000 Upcoming in this episode, we've got an interview with Congressman Thomas Massey regarding natural immunity.

00:01:01.000 We'll dive into the opioid crisis and ensure that we give you the best update regarding the oversight that has to happen for the House of Representatives to be worthy of the great people of this country again.

00:01:13.000 Now, I don't ask for much.

00:01:14.000 There's no advertisement that you have to endure as a part of this podcast, but we really would appreciate it, especially if you're on a listening platform.

00:01:23.000 Give us that five-star rating.

00:01:24.000 It helps our content reach more folks.

00:01:27.000 So first, recently in the House Judiciary Committee, Congressman Jim Jordan tried to bring up a resolution to address the deep concerns we have over the counterterrorism division at the FBI placing threat tags on people who are attending school board meetings.

00:01:43.000 Here's how that went.

00:01:44.000 Here's what the October 4th memo said.

00:01:47.000 Quote, I'm directing the FBI to convene meetings with local leaders.

00:01:50.000 These meetings will open dedicated lines of communication for threat reporting.

00:01:56.000 Dedicated lines of communication for threat reporting.

00:01:59.000 A snitch line on parents.

00:02:02.000 Started five days after a left-wing political organization asked for it.

00:02:08.000 That's not political.

00:02:09.000 I don't know what is.

00:02:11.000 And remember, these important questions asked by Representative Mike Johnson of Louisiana to Attorney General Merrick Garland.

00:02:19.000 It also concerns us that your actions may have been motivated by your family's financial stake in this issue.

00:02:25.000 Published reports show that your son-in-law co-founded a company called Panorama Education.

00:02:30.000 We now know that that company publishes and sells critical race theory and so-called anti-racism materials to schools across the country.

00:02:38.000 And it works with school districts nationwide to obtain and analyze data on students, often without parental consent.

00:02:45.000 My first question is this.

00:02:46.000 Are you familiar with Title V of the Code of Federal Regulations, which addresses the rules of impartiality for executive branch employees and officials?

00:02:56.000 I am very familiar with it and I want to be clear once again that there's nothing in this memorandum which has any effect on the kinds of curriculums that are taught or the ability of parents to complain about the kinds of...

00:03:12.000 I understand your position on the free speech of parents.

00:03:14.000 Not a position...

00:03:15.000 Wait just a minute.

00:03:16.000 The question is, the question is, The thing that is concerned many of those parents that are showing up at these school board meetings, the very basis of their objection and their vigorous debate, as you mentioned earlier, is the curricula, the very curricula that your son-in-law is selling.

00:03:32.000 This memorandum is aimed at violence and threats of violence.

00:03:36.000 I understand that, but did you, excuse me, did you seek ethics counsel before you issued a letter that directly relates to the financial interest of your family?

00:03:45.000 Yes or no?

00:03:46.000 This memorandum does not relate to the financial interests of anyone.

00:03:51.000 It's against...

00:03:52.000 I take that as a no.

00:03:53.000 I take that as a no.

00:03:54.000 Instead of dealing with this seriously troubling matter, House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler brought up legislation by Representative Eric Swalwell to address cold cases.

00:04:07.000 We chose cold case legislation over the very hot matter of political targeting and lies from the Department of Justice.

00:04:14.000 I wasn't quite done making the point and had a little debate with Representative Scanlon of Pennsylvania.

00:04:20.000 Take a listen.

00:04:22.000 I would just seek unanimous consent to introduce a USA Today article dated November 29th, 2021. Fact check.

00:04:31.000 The FBI is not using threat tags on parents who protest at school board meetings.

00:04:36.000 The good news is the American people aren't falling for it.

00:04:39.000 The bad news is we don't know how many.

00:04:42.000 That's my question.

00:04:43.000 How many people who showed up to school board meetings, who sent an email, who made a phone call, who expressed their First Amendment rights, how many of those people right now are under any tag or designation or supervision.

00:04:56.000 If you threaten their children, and we've seen all of those things happen, we've seen property damage at people's homes, unpaid positions by community volunteers, and they're being targeted and threatened, then somebody has got to look at that.

00:05:12.000 If there's a threat to violence in communities, there's no attestation or evidence that law enforcement in local communities can't deal with that.

00:05:23.000 This isn't a threat.

00:05:24.000 This is threat construction.

00:05:26.000 Everyone knows what's going on here.

00:05:28.000 The House Judiciary Committee should be investigating these things, and what we'll find in that investigation is when the FBI and the Department of Justice want to go after people, want to go after Trump, want to go after political opponents, want to go after organizing parents and communities, they seed a lie, and they get that lie retold, and then they use it to target people.

00:05:50.000 What a shame.

00:05:50.000 I yield back.

00:05:52.000 oversight is coming.

00:05:54.000 They're terrified because they know it.

00:05:56.000 I set the frame at a recent press conference with Marjorie Taylor Greene.

00:06:01.000 This report must be a guidepost for ongoing Republican oversight effort in the Congress, because we are going to take power after this next election.

00:06:12.000 And when we do, it's not going to be the days of Paul Ryan and Trey Gowdy and no real oversight and no real subpoenas.

00:06:20.000 It's going to be the days of Jim Jordan and Marjorie Taylor Greene and Dr. Gosar and myself doing everything to get the answers to these questions.

00:06:30.000 So what I have laid out is a new way of thinking about the role of Republicans in Congress.

00:06:35.000 This was observed by Steve Bannon on The War Room Podcast.

00:06:40.000 If Republicans need to know how to be led in an effort of rigorous, dogged, fair, but determined oversight, I'll show them how to do it.

00:06:48.000 So will Marjorie Taylor Greene.

00:06:50.000 What we are not going to do is go back to the days of, you know, I would say kind of the George W. Bush era of Republicanism, where there was just this exasperated surrender to the frame that they set.

00:07:03.000 This is a theory of governing, right?

00:07:05.000 And it's fresh and it's new.

00:07:06.000 This is Trumpism in power.

00:07:09.000 That's why we went to the 4,000 shock troops we have to have that's going to man the government and get them ready now, right?

00:07:17.000 We're going to hit the beach.

00:07:19.000 You have the landing teams and the beachhead teams, all that nomenclature they use when President Trump wins again in 2024 or before.

00:07:27.000 Dogged, fair, robust oversight of the Biden regime.

00:07:32.000 This must be our focus to save the country.

00:07:35.000 And it's coming.

00:07:38.000 It seems like almost every week in Congress we addressed opioid legislation.

00:07:43.000 In fact, since 2013, members of Congress have introduced over 500 opioid research awareness or prevention bills.

00:07:51.000 In recent years, opioid appropriations have spanned the bureaucracy, including HHS, the Office of National Drug Control Policy, the DOJ, Veterans Affairs, Homeland Security, the Department of Labor.

00:08:03.000 The Department of Health and Human Services alone has spent over $9 billion in recent years on these very issues.

00:08:11.000 Through these useless bills and crazy appropriations, we've created task forces, we've mandated studies, we've sent countless tax dollars to continue pretending that lawmakers are actually looking for a solution to the problem.

00:08:26.000 Maybe it's the lawmakers who are the problem.

00:08:28.000 Because here we are.

00:08:30.000 Our nation only grows sicker, more addicted.

00:08:34.000 Tens of thousands of people die every year.

00:08:38.000 Meanwhile, Congress is just chasing the dragon of failure.

00:08:43.000 But the drug Congress is hooked on most is the most powerful known to mankind.

00:08:48.000 Of all the drugs under God's blue heaven, there is one that is my absolute favorite.

00:08:54.000 I'm talking about this.

00:08:57.000 Corruption.

00:08:58.000 Follow the money.

00:08:59.000 The opioid market is big business, and Congress gets its taste.

00:09:03.000 Congress paved the way for the opioid crisis to attack our families and communities.

00:09:08.000 Here's how.

00:09:09.000 In 1914, the Harrison Narcotics Act regulated and taxed opiates, and that raised the cost of entry to the market and extraneously created the cartel-esque opioid manufacturers.

00:09:21.000 This is essentially the turn-of-the-century precursors to the Sackler family.

00:09:26.000 In 1970, the Controlled Substances Act clarified specific drugs into five categories.

00:09:32.000 Notably, making marijuana and other psychedelics more illegal than hard drugs, such as the lethal opioid-based drug heroin.

00:09:40.000 In 1986, the Anti-Drug Abuse Act established penalties for controlled substances, including mandatory minimums for opiates.

00:09:49.000 This raised the black market value of heroin for prescription-starved pain relief patients.

00:09:56.000 Through all this time, the federal government was authorizing and building a wall around opioid production.

00:10:02.000 In this past decade, they've abruptly cut the supply with well-intentioned legislation that has caused a transitory opioid addiction crisis to fentanyl and heroin.

00:10:15.000 Patients that have been over-prescribed and addicted to their pain relief prescriptions then became the targets of the heroin dealers of Mexico and others in the black market who have all become very rich during these changes in U.S. policy, by the way.

00:10:30.000 If only the U.S. government weren't prohibited from researching the pain relief efficacy of marijuana for the last hundred years.

00:10:39.000 So that brings us to like the mid-90s, the early 2000s regime, where encouraging and allowing patients unlimited access to opioids exploded this crisis.

00:10:50.000 And Purdue Pharma, they were at the center of it.

00:10:52.000 They owned and operated this system that really was the modern-day cartel of opioids.

00:11:00.000 It was run by the Sackler family.

00:11:02.000 They were once listed as the 19th richest family in the world by Forbes.

00:11:05.000 They developed OxyContin.

00:11:07.000 And, often corruptly, they convinced doctors and regulators that it was not addictive.

00:11:13.000 Purdue Pharma used its widespread influence on K Street to keep perpetuating this crisis.

00:11:19.000 I'm currently at 1,200 milligrams of long-acting oxycodone.

00:11:25.000 The brand name is OxyContin.

00:11:28.000 Most people, when they hear that, think, my God, you must just lay around in bed all day, really zoned out, you can't do anything, you can't function.

00:11:38.000 Now, this medication does not turn you into a zombie.

00:11:41.000 It has turned me into an active person again.

00:11:44.000 I look completely different.

00:11:46.000 I feel different.

00:11:47.000 Life is wonderful again.

00:11:49.000 I have found life again and it's worth living now and I'm so grateful.

00:11:54.000 The fact remains that the main area that we can improve on and the approach that's available to every doctor with a prescription pad is just for us to do a better job of prescribing strong pain medications and I mean opioids.

00:12:12.000 The politicians cashed the checks, and the regulators got pharma-funded golden parachutes.

00:12:19.000 A knee-jerk reaction has now, of course, occurred, making things even worse.

00:12:24.000 Government regulation, prohibition, and other top-down approaches to controlling human behavior have always failed to control human behavior.

00:12:32.000 As of last year, the overall opioid prescribing rate had fallen 48% since 2012. You'd think that's good, right?

00:12:39.000 But during the same period, opioid-related deaths more than tripled.

00:12:45.000 Last year, about 83% of those deaths involved illicit fentanyl.

00:12:50.000 So you can see people making the transition as a result of lower prescribing, but with no therapy to transition to, they're going to the black market and they're dying.

00:13:00.000 Since the beginning of time, illicit markets always responded to consumer demands.

00:13:06.000 In fact, roughly 80% of the people who use street heroin first misused prescription opioids.

00:13:13.000 80%?

00:13:14.000 It's staggering.

00:13:15.000 Increasing the FDA's presence in regulating doctors and scaring them from losing their licenses and ensuring that they don't give opioids to patients in need or don't present therapy alternatives, they're clearly not solving the problem.

00:13:30.000 Additionally, increasing the DEA or the activist DOJ's war on drugs initiatives are not going to work.

00:13:38.000 I made it clear to then-President Trump's acting head of the DEA in this hearing all the way back in 2018. Take a listen.

00:13:47.000 Opioids are prescribed principally as a chronic pain solution, right?

00:13:51.000 Correct.

00:13:52.000 The National Academy of Sciences issued a report in 2017 entitled The Health Effects of Cannabis and Cannabinoids.

00:13:58.000 Are you familiar with that work product?

00:14:00.000 No, sir.

00:14:01.000 I'll quote from it.

00:14:03.000 It says, there is conclusive or substantial evidence that cannabis or cannabinoids are effective for treatment of chronic pain in adults.

00:14:12.000 Do you have any basis scientifically or from any evidentiary standpoint to disagree with that conclusion?

00:14:18.000 Again, this is why I think we always talk about the research of the benefits of marijuana.

00:14:24.000 So you support research into medical marijuana?

00:14:26.000 We've said that all along, that we support the research of marijuana.

00:14:29.000 And after you implemented a rule in August of 2016 pushing the Department of Justice to create more research-based cannabis, they haven't issued any more of those permits, have they?

00:14:40.000 Or haven't granted any?

00:14:41.000 So they haven't been granted, but I think there's an important distinction that has to be understood.

00:14:46.000 So when we put that rule out, it was in the efforts to help the research community.

00:14:53.000 But if none of the research permits have been granted, how has it helped them?

00:14:56.000 Because there is an issue with how we put that solicitation out or that rule out.

00:15:01.000 So you're the acting administrator of the DEA. You cannot cite a single study that indicates that medical marijuana creates a greater challenge with opioids, and you're unaware of the studies, including studies from the National Academy of Sciences, that demonstrate that medical marijuana can be an acceptable alternative to opioids.

00:15:20.000 Is that what I'm understanding?

00:15:22.000 Yes.

00:15:23.000 You see, Democrats have this opportunity right now to pass responsible marijuana reform and liberate this as an opportunity to address pain at a lower acuity.

00:15:36.000 Instead, 57 bills fixated on opioids have been introduced in the 117th Congress, but we can't move a marijuana bill successfully.

00:15:46.000 While I don't call on the extinction of this opioid analgesic drug in hospitals for surgeries and relief from cancer-related pain, it is long past time to 1. Cut off the quality-of-life motivated prescriptions, And two, dedicate real resources to researching non-addictive alternatives.

00:16:07.000 A Quinnipiac University national poll shows that nearly 90% of Americans support medical marijuana.

00:16:14.000 A Pew poll finds that two-thirds of Americans support the full legalization of marijuana.

00:16:19.000 Every Congress, there are countless bills introduced to end the federal prohibition on marijuana.

00:16:24.000 Why is it still a Schedule I drug making it more illegal than opioids?

00:16:29.000 The Democrats, particularly the Congressional Black Caucus.

00:16:33.000 I think it's important that we support this bill by beginning to deschedule marijuana, working on these initiatives to make sure that the bill will add equity to minority communities and ensuring that they have a voice in the growing industry as well.

00:16:54.000 What I have also seen is that we have a tale of two Americas.

00:16:58.000 On the one hand, we have a wealthy white business America that dominates the medical cannabis, especially in Florida.

00:17:05.000 We have found that to be true.

00:17:07.000 But on the other hand, black and brown citizens of my community are suffering the consequences of these one-sided laws.

00:17:14.000 But in Florida, since the gentlelady mentioned it, we actually thought we were so concerned that communities of color may have been locked out of access to large-scale agricultural operations to be able to meet the need that we required in the state of Florida that licenses at some point had to go to black farmers who were members of the Pigford class in a class-action lawsuit brought by sharecroppers.

00:17:39.000 And so again, the charge That the state of Florida has only helped rich white people in the marijuana industry is unsupported by the evidence.

00:17:48.000 It is belied by the fact that the very first license in Florida went to Costa Farms, a minority owned business.

00:17:55.000 And it is further disproven by the fact that by taking an approach that has been signified by Representative Buck to go one step at a time, You actually can get to the restorative justice and minority access precisely as we've done in the state of Florida.

00:18:11.000 I yield back to the gentleman from Colorado.

00:18:13.000 Just recently, the House passed apologetic feel-good legislation regarding the government's role in solving the opioid crisis, the ID Verifications for Opioid Prescriptions Act, and the Opioid Abuse Awareness Campaign Act.

00:18:26.000 Yes, an awareness campaign.

00:18:29.000 The 90s called, and they want their drug policy back.

00:18:32.000 These are okay-sounding bills, I guess, sent to assure the American people that everything will be okay because the government is A, stepping in to regulate prescription distribution even more, and B, the government will authorize the use of your tax dollars to lead a campaign to warn against the use of fentanyl, the drug that the U.S. government is responsible for protecting and distributing.

00:18:55.000 Instead of continuing Congress's addiction to failure and new programs, we should acknowledge that the federal government has totally screwed up drug policy in America, and we should use the federalist system to save the lives of our people.

00:19:10.000 Pass the States Act.

00:19:14.000 As you'll see, Thomas Massey is one of the smartest folks in Congress.

00:19:17.000 I pulled him aside after a recent hearing in the House Judiciary Committee to talk about natural infection immunity and some other items.

00:19:24.000 I hope you enjoy.

00:19:28.000 I'm here with one of Congress's most brilliant members, Thomas Massey of Kentucky.

00:19:33.000 Thomas, I know you don't like to talk about this too much, but where'd you go to school?

00:19:36.000 A little trade school down the river from the art school in Massachusetts, MIT. Though we've been colleagues and worked together on a number of issues, I recently learned about your academic record there.

00:19:48.000 How many B's did you get at MIT? I got two.

00:19:53.000 What classes?

00:19:54.000 This is the hard questions on Firebrand.

00:19:57.000 Okay, one was the intermediate microeconomics and one was digital processing.

00:20:06.000 Any C's?

00:20:07.000 No, no, no.

00:20:08.000 So what was it like when you were there on the oversight committee questioning John Kerry and he, instead of responding to specific scientific data points, said you were not a serious person, said that you lacked sort of an understanding of science and data.

00:20:27.000 Did that strike you as a bit condescending coming from You know, a politician who essentially married wealthy in order to get a claim that, like, otherwise would never append a person like John Kerry?

00:20:38.000 You know what?

00:20:39.000 I wasn't personally offended, but his opening statements, he said when President Trump decides to listen to educated adults, then he might understand.

00:20:48.000 And so that's when I looked into John Kerry's credentials and found out that he was indeed a scientist.

00:20:53.000 He had a science degree.

00:20:55.000 And so I asked him about it.

00:20:57.000 Isn't it true you have a science degree from Yale?

00:21:02.000 What's that?

00:21:02.000 Bachelor of Arts degree.

00:21:04.000 Is it a political science degree?

00:21:06.000 Yes, political science.

00:21:07.000 So how do you get a Bachelor of Arts in a science?

00:21:11.000 Well, it's liberal arts education and degree.

00:21:15.000 It's a bachelor.

00:21:16.000 Okay, so it's not really science.

00:21:18.000 So I think it's somewhat appropriate that somebody with a pseudoscience degree is here pushing pseudoscience in front of our committee today.

00:21:26.000 Well, Thomas, I bring it up because it seems that the body doesn't always quite know how to deal with you because you are a data first person.

00:21:33.000 You are on the front end of a lot of scientific issues that arise in the country.

00:21:38.000 You served on the science committee where you focused on a lot of that stuff.

00:21:42.000 And when COVID really started to become central to American consciousness, I remember very early, you were one of the first to seek out an antibodies test because you wanted the data as to your own person and your own health.

00:21:56.000 Do you mind sharing sort of how you made that decision and how you've lived as a consequence of that result?

00:22:03.000 Oh, sure.

00:22:04.000 Well, first of all, I ask people who get the vaccine because they want to save grandma and, you know, stop the spread of the disease.

00:22:10.000 Did you go get an antibody test after you got the vaccine?

00:22:13.000 Like if you're relying on this to save people's lives, did you spend the other 50 bucks to see if it worked?

00:22:18.000 And of course, almost nobody does that.

00:22:22.000 But I had an antibody test 18 months ago that came back positive with high levels of antibodies.

00:22:29.000 And so I've been interested personally as to whether the vaccine improves on that immunity and how durable and long-lasting is that immunity.

00:22:38.000 And so when the vaccines were first approved by the FDA and then the CDC published a short little blurb, I noticed there was a typo in there.

00:22:52.000 Of course, I characterized it as a typo.

00:22:54.000 This is December of last year.

00:22:56.000 We're a year later.

00:22:58.000 And they said that the vaccine was 92% efficacious for those with evidence of prior infection.

00:23:04.000 And I'm, whoa, that's a pretty tall claim.

00:23:08.000 Let me go look at the data.

00:23:09.000 And I looked at the data and it showed that it was minus 7% efficacious for those.

00:23:14.000 And where did you find that data?

00:23:16.000 From the FDA. So not some private group, not some obscure website, but from the federal government's own collected data.

00:23:23.000 Yes, it's still there.

00:23:25.000 The data's still there.

00:23:27.000 You can go see.

00:23:28.000 The remarkable thing is they really didn't have much data.

00:23:31.000 There were 1,200 or 1,300 of the 30,000 who participated who had evidence of prior infection.

00:23:38.000 And so they split almost evenly, showing that the vaccine really didn't have much of an effect at all for those people.

00:23:46.000 And so I called up the CDC, the director here in Washington, D.C., and I said, I think I found a typo.

00:23:52.000 I didn't say you all are lying SOBs.

00:23:56.000 And she said, let me get our top scientists on the line with us. 0.86

00:23:59.000 And she came on the line and she said, we're going to start calling you Eagle Eye Massey.

00:24:04.000 We went over this study and we just never found this mistake.

00:24:08.000 But it's right here in the thing.

00:24:10.000 And I'm like, oh, so you'll fix it, right?

00:24:12.000 Oh, yeah, don't worry.

00:24:13.000 So I, by the way, I recorded six phone calls with the CDC because I anticipated this might happen.

00:24:19.000 The point of that sentence was to suggest that you don't need to test your antibodies before you get vaccinated.

00:24:26.000 Right.

00:24:27.000 It doesn't.

00:24:29.000 It's in the wash.

00:24:30.000 Right.

00:24:30.000 Yeah, it's wash.

00:24:32.000 So, but we did, the word was taken out and literally nobody had picked up on it, including us.

00:24:40.000 When we read the version that was published.

00:24:44.000 Hopefully I was somewhat helpful.

00:24:47.000 We really appreciate it.

00:24:50.000 We know we can't be perfect.

00:24:51.000 We know we're going to miss things.

00:24:54.000 We're glad that this one doesn't seem to be doing anyone any harm.

00:24:58.000 But it gave us a smile that you found it.

00:25:03.000 It was very impressive.

00:25:06.000 Yeah, it's interesting how recordings can be an instant cure to selective amnesia in 100% of cases.

00:25:13.000 Right.

00:25:14.000 Well, and so they said they would change it.

00:25:17.000 By the way, you got to remember the vaccines were just rolling out.

00:25:20.000 This is December of last year, coming into January.

00:25:22.000 They were in limited supply.

00:25:24.000 And the reason this question was important was who do we prioritize?

00:25:28.000 In a period when the vaccines are limited, should we be giving them to 25-year-olds who've already had COVID and recovered who work in the accounting department at a big hospital, or should we be giving them to nursing home patients or 60-year-old retirees or whatever?

00:25:45.000 Because in Kentucky, they were in short supply.

00:25:47.000 And a month later, the vaccines came out and they had refused to change it on their website.

00:25:54.000 I challenged them on it again.

00:25:56.000 They changed it to something vague.

00:25:59.000 Well, Thomas, give me the motive.

00:26:00.000 Explain to viewers why the federal government would purposefully maintain false information on their website that you have pointed out to them and which they have admitted as false.

00:26:13.000 In the beginning, I tried to impart the best motives possible to them.

00:26:18.000 Maybe they thought that people would think they already had COVID and without getting a test.

00:26:25.000 But why wouldn't they just fix something that's wrong on their website that they acknowledged was wrong and found by Eagle Eye Massey? 1.00

00:26:31.000 Because their basic assumption is that Americans are stupid and that they are the science. 0.98

00:26:37.000 And that there are such things as noble lies and they I mean, COVID, if it's anything, the government's response to COVID is a series of noble lies that have been reversed multiple times. 1.00

00:26:51.000 Well, I think that's a very charitable characterization.

00:26:54.000 I'm trying to be charitable, but my charity ran out.

00:26:57.000 And they have caused people to die early on when there were limited numbers of vaccines available.

00:27:05.000 And now because they refuse to recognize natural immunity, they're putting people at risk who don't need to be put at risk because any extra benefit that might come to somebody who's already been infected and recovered from the vaccine In most cases, I believe, does not outweigh the risk that that person faces.

00:27:27.000 Well, let's drill down into that.

00:27:29.000 What is your best analysis just of the data when you look at the effect of natural infection immunity versus the immunities that append to a regimen of vaccine?

00:27:40.000 Well, you can go back and look at the original Pfizer data and the Moderna data, which is published, and then the Cleveland Clinic study, which has 50,000.

00:27:48.000 I'm like, wow, do they even have 50,000 employees?

00:27:50.000 How can this be true?

00:27:51.000 And it's true. 0.56

00:27:52.000 They have 50,000 employees in their network.

00:27:54.000 And they showed that it was As durable or more durable.

00:27:59.000 And then you've got the whole nation of Israel as a study, and they've shown that it's more durable in Israel.

00:28:08.000 Is there a single study that you're aware of, that you've read and reviewed, that shows that vaccination provides longer lasting, stronger immunity than natural infection immunity?

00:28:21.000 No peer-reviewed studies.

00:28:23.000 There are a couple of contrived studies the CDC has done.

00:28:26.000 There's one that has 53 authors.

00:28:30.000 It's like six or eight pages long and it has 53 authors.

00:28:33.000 Those are 53 people that want funding from the federal government who have volunteered the imprimatur of their degrees and their education and their background to put toward this another noble lie.

00:28:45.000 Do you believe that Big Pharma has corrupted the way we think about vaccines versus natural immunity?

00:28:52.000 Well, so I was the first to expose.

00:28:55.000 By the way, this was when factcheck.org came after me.

00:28:59.000 I was like, well, let's go find out who's funding the factcheck.org vaccine program.

00:29:03.000 And there it is, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

00:29:07.000 The Johnson in there is Johnson& Johnson.

00:29:12.000 We don't always recognize it when we just see one Johnson. 0.70

00:29:15.000 Right.

00:29:17.000 And so I'm like, well, okay, just because the same person was involved, that doesn't...

00:29:21.000 So I look, they've got $2 billion of Johnson& Johnson stock in the portfolio of this institution.

00:29:30.000 And they're the ones funding the fact check that's trying to fact check me.

00:29:34.000 So there is a very specific example.

00:29:37.000 You can go to the financial disclosures.

00:29:40.000 You can look all this up.

00:29:41.000 It's not a conspiracy.

00:29:41.000 It's true.

00:29:42.000 You and I made a movie about corruption in this town and the way that Political donations and kind of member management gets people to behave and vote different ways than they otherwise would.

00:29:56.000 And frankly, they promised their constituents and that's a bipartisan critique you and I have at the institution.

00:30:01.000 It's called The Swamp on HBO. Everybody should check it out.

00:30:03.000 You get a free trial, not even have to pay.

00:30:05.000 But Thomas, I wonder if that dynamic Of money and swampy corruption doesn't just influence the elected leaders, but also influences a lot of these bureaucrats like Dr. Fauci, like people at NIH who want to leave government service and then go work for the pharmaceutical industry.

00:30:27.000 And so now they're essentially carrying the water of Big Pharma.

00:30:30.000 I don't want to put words in your mouth.

00:30:32.000 That's my assessment of what's going on.

00:30:34.000 But do you think that that's incorrect or too judgmental on my part?

00:30:39.000 First of all, there's no national immunity lobby here in Washington.

00:30:43.000 Well, that's the key, right?

00:30:44.000 If there were...

00:30:46.000 We'd be recognizing natural immunity, but it doesn't exist.

00:30:49.000 But one hire that's really paid off for Pfizer is to hire Scott Gottlieb, who's the former FDA director, to be on their board.

00:31:00.000 And guess what?

00:31:01.000 They are the only one.

00:31:02.000 This is another thing that's not a conspiracy because you can go find it.

00:31:06.000 It's on the CDC's website.

00:31:08.000 But they're the only one who have full FDA approval.

00:31:11.000 By the way, that vaccine is not available in the United States according to CDC's website.

00:31:16.000 But I think that really is the big grift here.

00:31:20.000 We have so many influences from big pharma, and no one has figured out how to make money off of natural infection immunity.

00:31:28.000 If natural infection immunity resulted in some windfall profit to some industry, wouldn't it be more part of the discussion here in Washington?

00:31:36.000 It would be.

00:31:37.000 By the way, I talked to the CEO and some scientists of a company that has a conventional killed virus type vaccine.

00:31:46.000 130 million doses of this have been given in India.

00:31:51.000 They're trying to get the FDA to approve their vaccine in the United States, and they're not having much luck.

00:31:57.000 I said, maybe you should hire a former FDA director.

00:32:01.000 It seems to have worked out for Pfizer.

00:32:04.000 And, you know, Derna has some link to it.

00:32:06.000 Certainly worked out for them.

00:32:07.000 You and I have constituents who are going to be driven out of the workforce, going to be driven out of military service.

00:32:14.000 Already are.

00:32:14.000 I mean, you are not on the Armed Services Committee, but you were really putting pedal to the metal on legislation to help our service members.

00:32:23.000 Walk me through your thought process on the military, natural immunity, and vaccine.

00:32:28.000 Thank you.

00:32:29.000 HR 3860. I introduced it when vaccine mandates were a conspiracy.

00:32:35.000 Joe Biden was saying, we're not going to do that.

00:32:38.000 Wouldn't be our place.

00:32:41.000 No, I don't think it should be mandatory.

00:32:43.000 I wouldn't demand to be mandatory, but I would do everything in my power.

00:32:46.000 Just like I don't think masks have to be made mandatory nationwide.

00:32:50.000 Jen Psaki was saying, no, we don't have the power.

00:32:53.000 Can we mandate vaccines across the country?

00:32:55.000 No, that's not a role that the federal government, I think, even has the power to make.

00:33:00.000 And I was getting reports from constituents who are in the military.

00:33:03.000 This is coming down.

00:33:04.000 We know this is coming down.

00:33:05.000 So I introduced HR 3860. Thank you for being one of the first co-sponsors of that.

00:33:10.000 We're up to 50 co-sponsors now.

00:33:12.000 And it just basically says that you can't force members of the military to take the COVID vaccine.

00:33:18.000 People, they love to point to George Washington, General George Washington, before he was president.

00:33:23.000 They say, well, he mandated the inoculation for smallpox.

00:33:28.000 So I got to looking at that.

00:33:29.000 I went back and found the documents.

00:33:31.000 There are two documents where he says it's for the people who haven't already had smallpox.

00:33:38.000 Even General George Washington recognized natural immunity.

00:33:41.000 So I got to wondering, did he take the inoculation?

00:33:45.000 So I called Mount Vernon, the repository for all of his records.

00:33:50.000 And it was amazingly efficient to get to the person.

00:33:53.000 Within 30 seconds, they put the person on the line who knew everything about George Washington.

00:33:58.000 And we asked her, we were like, did George Washington take this smallpox inoculation?

00:34:02.000 She goes, why would he?

00:34:04.000 Why would he?

00:34:05.000 He had had smallpox as a teenager.

00:34:07.000 There was no need for him to take it.

00:34:09.000 Of course he wouldn't take it.

00:34:10.000 So the George Washington is opposed to natural infection immunity in favor of vaccines is actually just another fable.

00:34:18.000 It's fake as all get out.

00:34:20.000 Wow.

00:34:22.000 Remember how compelling that legislation was to my constituents.

00:34:27.000 And so during the National Defense Authorization markup, I took the framework of your legislation and I introduced it as an amendment to protect our military families.

00:34:36.000 And I expected the Democrats to fight me.

00:34:40.000 What I didn't expect is that the leading Republican on the Armed Services Committee, Congressman Mike Rogers of Alabama, would lead the debate against the amendment that you crafted that I introduced.

00:34:53.000 How should we think about Republicans who are going along with the narrative from Dr. Fauci and the Biden regime and really big pharma that 100% vaccination ought to always be the goal and we ought to limit exemptions to the greatest degree possible?

00:35:10.000 Well, you shouldn't really trust them with your life or your vote, in my opinion.

00:35:16.000 We forced this vote in other committees.

00:35:19.000 Well, the Judiciary Committee, we had a vote on this to defund vaccine mandates, and we had a vote in Transportation Committee to defund vaccine passports.

00:35:30.000 And mandates.

00:35:31.000 In every single instance, the Democrats voted effectively for the mandates or the passports.

00:35:38.000 I can't remember who.

00:35:40.000 We had one or two defectors in there on the Republican side.

00:35:43.000 But let me go a little bit further.

00:35:45.000 How did Biden seek to promulgate and enforce?

00:35:49.000 Who was his army going to be for the three vaccine mandates that have been ruled out by the courts?

00:35:54.000 He was going to weaponize the OSHA, right?

00:35:59.000 In other agencies within the government, the federal contracting process, he was going to weaponize that.

00:36:06.000 He was going to weaponize CMS. And so anybody who thinks that we can pet the rattlesnake when we're in the majority and feed it, which are these agencies, that they will be kind to us if we feed them.

00:36:20.000 OK, better remember that nobody at those agencies told Joe Biden, hey, you're asking us to do something that's unconstitutional and illegal on its face.

00:36:30.000 They just complied, and they were gleefully and happily going to subjugate the American people and make them lose their jobs, and a lot of people already have. 0.63

00:36:38.000 Well, and I'm concerned that that problem is actually getting worse because I know people who are liberty-minded, constitutionally oriented, who serve in these agencies, who are having to leave federal service as a consequence of not complying with a vaccine mandate.

00:36:53.000 People who believe that as a consequence of their natural infection immunity, the vaccine presents only risk for them.

00:36:59.000 And so I worry that the administrative state is becoming more monolithic, not less, and becoming more threatening to our liberties.

00:37:07.000 And on that point, Thomas, there was a moment in your time in Congress that was behind closed doors, that was with our colleagues, that I remember...

00:37:17.000 And it was so true. 0.92

00:37:18.000 You stood up when a group of people in our party were trying to drive you out of Congress, were trying to support other candidates against you.

00:37:25.000 And you said, there are a lot of Americans who wouldn't be Republicans if I wasn't a member of the Republican conference.

00:37:34.000 And it's because you embody, I think, a traditional embrace of constitutional principles that people are attracted to, even if they aren't Republicans.

00:37:45.000 Could you explain that sentiment, the notion that you bring something to the party that we wouldn't be able to sort of claim as our space in the absence of your contribution?

00:37:55.000 I feel like what I bring is a mirror and I try to hold it up to everybody and say, okay, look at yourselves.

00:38:02.000 What did you campaign on and what are you doing here?

00:38:05.000 And if the American people could see what we're doing here behind closed doors, would they vote for your reelection?

00:38:12.000 That's the question you need to ask yourself.

00:38:15.000 I remember a moment on the floor of the House where one of our Republican colleagues came down and was just berating Marjorie Taylor Greene.

00:38:23.000 For asking for a vote, for having the audacity to put things on record.

00:38:29.000 And he said, I know you're trying to do the right thing, but you need to consider this.

00:38:35.000 And I interrupted and I said, if your constituents could see what you're doing right here, they would be highly upset.

00:38:42.000 And he went off on me.

00:38:44.000 He said, I'll worry about my district.

00:38:45.000 You worry about yours.

00:38:46.000 I said, well, what you're telling Marjorie, go down to the microphone and say it for the world to hear and see how that works out for you.

00:38:54.000 Yeah, we always get more candid conversations sometimes off the mics than on them, but that's what we change here on Firebrand.

00:39:01.000 The controversy you've been in recently is about something like a Christmas card.

00:39:06.000 And here's what I think a lot of folks don't know.

00:39:09.000 You did not originally have the intention to have a firearm Christmas card.

00:39:14.000 But the Massey family actually has firearms around.

00:39:18.000 You live in a rural part of Kentucky.

00:39:20.000 Firearms are sort of a part of life.

00:39:22.000 So maybe just tell us, how does the Massey family think about firearms?

00:39:26.000 And do you view them as solely this tool of destruction?

00:39:29.000 Or is there maybe just a more Modest approach to this type of life that a lot of Americans wouldn't understand.

00:39:36.000 Well, first of all, we live in a place where there are like three sheriff's deputies to cover hundreds of square miles.

00:39:42.000 Everything's been adjudicated by the time the police show up, okay?

00:39:45.000 So you got to keep that in mind.

00:39:47.000 They're not...

00:39:48.000 Minutes away.

00:39:50.000 They are an hour away.

00:39:52.000 But also it's just a tradition of owning guns for all the reasons.

00:39:58.000 Not to hunt, not for this or that.

00:40:01.000 And here's how the Christmas card picture happened.

00:40:03.000 I didn't mean to trigger every leftist on every continent in the United States.

00:40:08.000 With this Christmas card.

00:40:09.000 With this Christmas card.

00:40:09.000 So we took Christmas card pictures of us doing something.

00:40:14.000 Also like to do, which is playing music.

00:40:16.000 So we're all holding musical instruments in the actual Christmas card.

00:40:20.000 And my mail vendor said, all right, you need to send me that card.

00:40:23.000 We got to get these out by Christmas.

00:40:24.000 So this weekend, I'm going through that file folder and I found this little gem where we just decided to pick up all the guns and pose.

00:40:33.000 And I was like, wow, the world's not going to see this.

00:40:36.000 Be kind of fun just to share it.

00:40:38.000 And I shared it and I didn't just kick the hornet's nest.

00:40:42.000 I agitated every hornet on the planet.

00:40:45.000 BBC was running specials on the Thomas Massey Christmas card.

00:40:49.000 The Archbishop of Canterbury weighed in.

00:40:52.000 And I mean, shouldn't he be making like those chocolate eggs right now?

00:40:55.000 Right, right.

00:40:56.000 I'm hungry just when you mentioned Canterbury.

00:40:58.000 That made me want one of those chocolate eggs.

00:41:00.000 But I think what a lot of people in my district saw through that is that firearms are not, in and of themselves, some deeply offensive thing to other people.

00:41:11.000 A family that is well-versed on firearm safety and on the The basic practices that allow you to protect your property, protect your home, that those things are not viewed as confrontational in rural America, whereas I really think in some of these ivory towers of elitism, they thought that you meant some offense by that.

00:41:35.000 No.

00:41:35.000 And here's what I take objection to, is this idea that you should be ashamed that you have guns.

00:41:42.000 Right.

00:41:43.000 Look, you can see in the picture we're all exercising excellent trigger discipline.

00:41:50.000 Everybody in the family knows how to use those, how to shoot them safely, and knows what the consequences of using one are.

00:41:57.000 It's just, it's part of our culture and we shouldn't be drummed out of society for having this as part of our culture.

00:42:04.000 And no, gun owners don't mean harm to others simply by owning guns.

00:42:08.000 I think that's what a lot of folks misunderstand.

00:42:10.000 We're preventing harm.

00:42:12.000 Great point.

00:42:13.000 So, in retrospect, I tried to figure out what was it about this picture that triggered so many people?

00:42:19.000 And I realized in Ghostbusters, they say, don't cross the streams.

00:42:23.000 There's three streams.

00:42:24.000 And what happened is I had family, guns, and Christmas all in one picture.

00:42:31.000 And it just, any of the two might have been okay, but the three is an explosive cocktail for liberals.

00:42:36.000 Well, if you want more of those explosive cocktails, definitely follow Thomas on social media.

00:42:41.000 He provides some of the most candid, honest, and I think breakthrough assessments of what's going on in the body.

00:42:47.000 How can folks stay up to date with you on your social media?

00:42:51.000 Don't forget my hashtag, Sassy with Massey.

00:42:53.000 We'll put it up.

00:42:54.000 If you can't say something nice, have the decency to be sassy.

00:42:59.000 How can folks follow you?

00:43:01.000 Look for hashtag Sassy with Massey or you can go to RepThomasMassey on Twitter or RepThomasMassey on Facebook.

00:43:08.000 I'm not yet banned.

00:43:09.000 I have been suspended for a couple tweets.

00:43:11.000 This may be the episode that gets Firebrand pulled off of YouTube.

00:43:15.000 We're principally a rumble and anchor system, but this could be the one.

00:43:19.000 But I tell you what, it shouldn't be threatening or frightening to people to simply look at data regarding what the government is telling us to ensure that that matches with what they've told us previously.

00:43:30.000 And I'm sure glad to fight alongside you for folks who simply want the science that informs natural immunity to be part of our public policy approach to combating this virus.

00:43:42.000 Appreciate what you do, and I hope you're driving the Republican message and our ideology for quite some time.

00:43:49.000 Amen.

00:43:49.000 That's what I'll do, and I'll keep the party honest, just like you.

00:43:52.000 Thanks.

00:43:55.000 I recently joined my congressional colleagues Marjorie Taylor Greene, Louie Gohmert, and Paul Gosar at a press conference to share a report regarding the condition of the January 6th detainees.

00:44:05.000 It's titled Unusually Cruel, and you can find it on my congressional website.

00:44:09.000 Unusually cruel walks through the conditions in the D.C. jail.

00:44:12.000 These are the political prisoners of 6th January.

00:44:14.000 The January 6th detainees have been subjected to a version of American justice that is different and worse and unfair.

00:44:24.000 And that's what we stand against.

00:44:26.000 I'm nobody's lawyer.

00:44:27.000 I'm nobody's defender.

00:44:28.000 I defend the Constitution and our principles of justice.

00:44:31.000 And when I see people unable to access medical care, which has happened, people unable to access counsel, which has happened, people unable to access evidence.

00:44:43.000 And also spiritual guidance and the religious practices.

00:44:46.000 Sure, religious services.

00:44:47.000 I mean, dietary needs.

00:44:49.000 Just basic things that you wouldn't want deprived of any American accused of a crime.

00:44:54.000 We made clear that we were not acting as any one person's defender or lawyer and that we oppose political violence.

00:45:01.000 Whether we agree, disagree, and I can tell you right now, I completely disagree and am very against the violence that happened on January 6th at the Capitol.

00:45:11.000 We should all, all disagree with how these people are being treated.

00:45:15.000 Look, I was known as a law and order judge and chief justice, and I believe in punishing people for their wrongdoing, and there was wrongdoing on that day.

00:45:25.000 I've repeatedly called for all individuals arrested for illegal acts on January 6th to be treated fairly.

00:45:31.000 They are deserving of equal justice under the law.

00:45:35.000 What we do believe is that every American should be treated fairly under our Constitution and that there shouldn't be special punishment, confinement, or torture based on politics.

00:45:46.000 They have been beaten by the guards.

00:45:49.000 They are called white supremacists.

00:45:51.000 They're denied time with their attorneys.

00:45:53.000 They are denied the ability to even see their families and have their families visit there.

00:45:59.000 When they're being force-fed gluten food and they have celiac disease, and so the food that they eat makes them sick every single day to the point where they will go without days.

00:46:11.000 Go days, I'm sorry, days without eating in order to just feel better because they are not given better food.

00:46:18.000 I think we can clearly see that there is serious abuse happening here.

00:46:22.000 They are being denied the right to attend chapel in a religious service.

00:46:25.000 They aren't even allowed communion.

00:46:27.000 Many have described having to burn their hair by utilizing harsh chemicals to even trim.

00:46:33.000 Others have no access to toilets.

00:46:35.000 And many share horrible stories of lacking adequate medical treatment.

00:46:40.000 They're keeping this elderly gentleman in jail.

00:46:44.000 You look at his hand, and it's obviously dark.

00:46:50.000 Looks like it's going toward gray or black.

00:46:53.000 You know, that's normally leading toward amputation when it gets that bad.

00:46:59.000 But they haven't given him proper medical care.

00:47:03.000 Another inmate had his finger going just sideways at the last joint.

00:47:08.000 He said it was broken by one of the guards and they won't allow him to get medical care for that.

00:47:15.000 There are just all kinds of things there.

00:47:17.000 And to be clear, it's not just the inmates that have suffered.

00:47:23.000 As Marjorie and I toured the DC jail, some of the conditions were so astounding, I asked more than one guard Have you ever worked in a facility that had these kind of problems?

00:47:39.000 And quietly they would say, never, no. 0.99

00:47:43.000 Leave it to the political activists masquerading as news anchors at CNN to miss this point in the most spectacularly stupid of ways. 0.83

00:47:53.000 Matt Gaetz, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert, Paul Gosar, among those who had a press conference, they wanted to defend the people charged in the insurrection, saying they were being treated unfairly. 0.76

00:48:04.000 And at that event, Congressman Gaetz went on to say that he still likes the idea of Donald Trump as speaker, if the Republicans were the majority.

00:48:11.000 So they poke their own leadership, and they just say things that, forgive me, are not American, not patriotic, about defending people who stormed the Capitol building. 0.99

00:48:19.000 That was CNN's John King, and he is clearly an imbecile. 0.99

00:48:23.000 I didn't even bring up Trump as Speaker. 0.99

00:48:26.000 A reporter asked me about it, and I responded honestly.

00:48:29.000 And frankly, Speaker Trump has a great ring to it.

00:48:32.000 And you see that it just triggers them into these frantic false allegations.

00:48:38.000 Like that we are unpatriotic.

00:48:42.000 Pardon me, but I don't take lectures on patriotism from a network that peddled the Russia hoax for years, only to then hire some of the greatest affront to patriotism in our time, Andrew McCabe and James Clapper.

00:48:55.000 Andrew McCabe repeatedly told lies about his media leaks and political activity when he was questioned by the Department of Justice's Inspector General.

00:49:04.000 That's against the law.

00:49:06.000 In fact, the greatest threats to our nation, liars like Clapper and McCabe, they benefit directly, financially, from the corrupt, unpatriotic revolving door between the deep state and CNN. CNN says we are unpatriotic for demanding the fair application of constitutional rights to all Americans, regardless of politics.

00:49:31.000 Nothing could be more patriotic than that.

Firebrand - Matt Gaetz - December 16, 2021

Episode 20: Naturally Infected (feat. Rep. Thomas Massie) – Firebrand with Matt Gaetz

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