On this episode of Firebrand Live, we have a special guest on the show, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) joins us to talk about her trip to the border with Rep. Matt Gaetz. We also hear from Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and her reaction to Joe Biden's trip to Eagle Pass. And we have an update on the latest on what's going on in Panama with our friend, Ben Berkwam. Don't miss it! Subscribe to our new podcast, Firebrand Radio, wherever you get your shows, and don't miss out on our new segments Firebrand Life and The Firebrand Report every Monday morning. Don't forget to Subscribe and Retweet to stay up to date with the latest Firebrand News and discuss all things Firebrand! We'll be posting new episodes every Sunday morning. Subscribe, Retweet, and Share on all social media platforms so you can be notified when we deconstruct the latest breaking news and discuss the latest in politics, culture, entertainment, and politics! Stay tuned for new episodes coming soon! Logo by KEVIN CRUDELL. Music by PSOVOD and tyops. Enjoy & Retweet! -The Crew at PodulpOD and Shoutout to the Crew at and -Jon Sorrentino on . & from our new album, . . . and we hope you like it. and share it on your social media accounts! & Insta: @ , We are looking forward to covering more of your responses to this and other social media links and posts in the coming weeks! , and we will be posting them on the next episode of coming soon ! as well! Thank you for all your support! and your continued support and your support is so much appreciated! Love ya'll! -Jonah & Jonah Jonah and Jonah s Love you all! - Jonah's Music: -Espa Tweet Me Out! @ Jonah & - Thank You'll Hear Me Out & , Jonah Outro - Elle :) Thanks Jonah And His Music: "Maggie Outtro: , Ben Berkowski -Josie ( )
00:04:18.000Gaetz was one of the very few members in the entire Congress who bothered to stand up against permanent Washington on behalf of his constituents.
00:04:26.000Matt Gaetz right now, he's a problem for the Democratic Party.
00:04:29.000He can cause a lot of hiccups in passing applause.
00:04:32.000But we're going to keep running those stories to get running.
00:04:35.000If you stand for the If you want to build America up and not burn her to the ground, then welcome, my fellow patriots!
00:05:41.000From Christy Porter Knapp, tell us what is going on with MTG! Only her district should be allowed to keep her off the ballot.
00:05:49.000We're going to break down that hearing and everything in just a moment, but Congresswoman, you have just returned from the border, and I want you to give our viewers and listeners the direct report what you saw at Eagle Pass on your trip that you're literally just landing back in Washington from.
00:06:06.000Well, I'm just going to say it's far worse than people realize.
00:08:05.000They're basically the welcoming committee.
00:08:07.000They're forced to be the welcoming committee and it's a slap in their face because that's not what they were trained to do.
00:08:12.000That's not why they have the jobs they have.
00:08:15.000As a matter of fact, it's the opposite.
00:08:16.000Then they take them in, they process them, and ICE gives them not an ankle bracelet, Matt, but a free cell phone, courtesy of Joe Biden.
00:08:24.000Barack Obama gave out cell phones for votes.
00:08:27.000Well, we got Joe Biden gives you a cell phone when you invade our country illegally.
00:08:31.000Well, we are going to cover a great deal more of that in the coming week.
00:08:34.000Alexander Mayorkas has a number of appearances before Congress.
00:08:38.000We're going to be bringing folks the clips from that, the highlights, frankly, a lot of the lowlights.
00:08:44.000One lowlight for the Republic occurred during this last congressional work period where a bizarre administrative process in Georgia Had you giving testimony for like five hours on whether or not you're an insurrectionist.
00:08:59.000And what I really appreciated kind of looking back on it and having been there to observe it is that this is like a lot of kind of the anti-MTG attacks.
00:09:07.000They think that if they treat you worse than everyone else and subject you to unspeakable things that no one else has to go through, that that will weaken you.
00:09:17.000And what they never expect is that it will make you stronger.
00:09:20.000They did that when they stripped you from committees.
00:09:22.000Then you got oversight on all committees.
00:10:17.000They cannot affect our ability to vote for us.
00:10:19.000Well, they're standing up for themselves.
00:10:20.000No one cares about their right to vote.
00:10:23.000In Georgia, there's a lot going on right now that would lend some people to believe that their vote is not precious.
00:10:28.000Because you have a Secretary of State and you have an election administration system in Fulton County that dilutes the votes with fraudulent activity and And then their vote isn't even precious enough for them to be able to give it to you, according to some group of people, I bet, largely funded outside the state of Georgia.
00:11:21.000One of them happens to be the Democrat chairwoman for our district.
00:11:26.000So everyone knows what's going on here.
00:11:30.000You know, at the end of the Civil War, there was a concern that former Confederate officers would run for Congress and be elected and then take action That wasn't in service of the Union or reconciliation or reunification of our country, but instead would continue to be in service of the Confederacy.
00:11:46.000So these novel features of state law have laid dormant since the era after the Civil War.
00:11:54.000And now you have partisan, well-funded groups doing everything they can to try to exercise these novel elements of state law, particularly against Madison Cawthorn, Andy Biggs, Paul Gosar, and you.
00:12:07.000And here's the thing, in the matter of Biggs and Gosar in Arizona, in the matter of Cawthorn in North Carolina, federal courts stepped in and they issued injunctions against that bizarre state process.
00:12:22.000But in your case, didn't the federal judge have some weird nexus to the mainstream media?
00:12:28.000Well, it happened to be related to a certain person that works for NPR, her sister.
00:12:41.000But you can have somebody, you know, with this familial relationship with NPR, who I'm sure they've said some pretty nasty things about you.
00:12:53.000Was really one of the most bizarre things I'd ever seen in a courtroom in my life was when they tried to accuse you of calling for bloodshed and violence by referencing the year 1776. Right.
00:13:41.000I don't know how the court could possibly rule that a reference to 1776 was coded insurrection, while 1776 is literally hanging over the judge's head in the courtroom.
00:13:55.000Interesting thing about that lawyer questioning you, he had a tremendous amount of cat hair on his suit, which was my favorite thing about him.
00:14:02.000But what do we know about the folks that are funding that nonsense?
00:14:06.000Well, I know they're not from Georgia, that's for sure, because they don't quite understand how we feel about 1776, that we're proud of our freedoms and our country's founding, so much so that we have it on our state seal.
00:14:18.000And by his definition and the way he was framing everything or trying to frame and lie about me, that very courtroom would be guilty of trying to wage an insurrection because the seal is hanging on the wall behind the judge and it says 1776. I just wonder if that irony smacked him in the face as he was staring at the seal with 1776. There are moments, like, as a lawyer in a courtroom where you know this is not going well.
00:14:43.000And that was particularly a courtroom riddled with those moments from the petitioner.
00:14:48.000Any word on when we expect a decision?
00:15:01.000Rests in the fragile and shaky hands of Brad Raffensperger on this one, but what's the window of time for the judge to issue findings of fact and conclusions of law?
00:15:24.000They don't care about my district's vote.
00:15:26.000They don't care about free speech as a matter.
00:15:28.000They're trying to silence my district's speech by ripping me off the ballot, taking away my district's ability to vote for me when I've done absolutely nothing wrong.
00:15:56.000The views that they hold, the policies that they want, the laws that they want in place in our country, are things like they want illegals to vote.
00:16:24.000With what happened on January 6th because we all know and they know and everyone knows all we did was object.
00:16:30.000But this has everything to do with pursuing the radical left's policy and pushing their policies and they have to remove people like me, people like you, the strongest fighters in Congress to do it.
00:16:42.000Well, I know how proud your district was of you, and certainly as your colleague, I was proud of you because you handled that effort with, I think, a tremendous amount of grace, and I would not have been so graceful.
00:16:55.000So I give you all the credit in the world, and a lot of folks right now giving credit to Elon Musk for putting his money where his mouth is on Twitter.
00:17:23.000I was supposedly banned for COVID misinformation.
00:17:26.000But, you know, a lot of people don't understand.
00:17:28.000They're like, well, she is on Twitter because of her RepMTG account.
00:17:31.000But that's not necessarily true, as you know.
00:17:34.000As members of Congress, we have rules about what we can and can't say on our congressional social media platforms where we have our free speech on our personal accounts.
00:17:46.000And so my personal account is permanently banned.
00:17:50.000For what Twitter said was COVID misinformation, but there was not misinformation there.
00:17:55.000It was my opinion, free speech, and then quoted information.
00:17:58.000You were telling people that they would be more resilient against COVID if they lived healthier lives and lost weight and went to the gym, which started as misinformation and then ended up being medical doctrine.
00:18:13.000If you are not reinstated, what does that tell us about the Musk era of Twitter?
00:18:18.000If my personal account is not reinstated, which I can't imagine it not being reinstated, Dr. Robert Malone, I saw he had his account back today, and he was taken off permanently banned for...
00:18:57.000And really what we stand for is free speech.
00:19:00.000Just the notion that in a world in which people are confronted with challenging information, that they can review sources, that they can be critical of arguments.
00:19:09.000I believe in an America that is strong enough to face disinformation without the Twitter overlords, like being the arbiters of truth.
00:19:18.000People are smart enough to figure it out.
00:19:21.000Well, one thing that I think a lot of folks are figuring out is what's going on currently in GOP leadership.
00:19:27.000And it was much the talk of the Sunday shows of the mainstream media, comments attributed to Kevin McCarthy, comments made by Kevin McCarthy.
00:19:38.000The New York Times originally publishing the article that I guess McCarthy held the view that Donald Trump should resign, and then after that we saw Kevin McCarthy issue a pretty unequivocal denial, denying the veracity of those things, and after that denial we heard the words of Kevin McCarthy.
00:20:06.000When we were talking about the 25th Amendment resolution, and you asked what happens if it gets there after he's gone, is there any chance, are you hearing, that he might resign?
00:20:18.000Is there any reason to think that might happen?
00:21:45.000He's still not quitting on behalf of the American people and the changes we need.
00:21:49.000And there's always a problem when you ever have leadership express a viewpoint that is wildly out of touch with where the majority of the conference is.
00:21:57.000And I could tell you there was never a moment where you had a critical mass of Republicans believing that Donald Trump either would or should resign.
00:22:06.000But the second problem is that you have McCarthy making this very specific denial followed by audio that seems to contradict that denial.
00:22:17.000And so that then doesn't become about the truth of the matter asserted.
00:22:21.000It comes to bear around whether or not someone's statements are reliable in the future going forward.
00:22:29.000We heard this from Kevin McCarthy when pressed on that specific subject in the last several days.
00:22:37.000Congressman, have you spoken with President Trump recently?
00:23:16.000I never asked the president to resign.
00:23:19.000So I guess the spin there is that Leader McCarthy believed that Trump should resign, but never said to Trump that he should resign, even though he was telling other members of the leadership team that he was going to say that to President Trump.
00:23:36.000Well, I was just, when I was thinking about it, I was remembering when all that happened, I think, I remember just boldly defending President Trump because I know that's how the people felt.
00:23:48.000And I remember you were doing the same thing.
00:23:50.000There was only a few of us that jumped out like right in front right away because we knew he didn't plan it.
00:24:39.000The people were, I mean, still are solidly behind President Trump.
00:24:45.000And I remember we were boldly saying that, and there were, you know, folks here that were just falling apart because they were being pressed by the media.
00:24:58.000But by us boldly saying how much we support President Trump, we're standing with him, and all of this, and fighting impeachment, well, there was a turnaround, wasn't there?
00:25:29.000And I am concerned, and we haven't had any tapes on this, I am concerned of reports that Leader McCarthy would say that people like Lauren Boebert need to be removed from Twitter.
00:25:39.000I worry about that greatly, but I don't just believe anything written in the New York Times.
00:25:44.000So on the issue of whether or not he called for other people to be removed from Twitter, if he says that didn't happen, you know, it's his word against the New York Times, and I don't believe the New York Times.
00:25:56.000I will very seriously say I would hope that no one in leadership in our party or in our party period would call for another member of Congress to be removed from social media.
00:26:07.000What would be the consequences if that's true?
00:26:09.000That is a complete violation of our freedom of speech.
00:26:13.000Would it be disqualifying for a leader of our conference?
00:26:15.000Well, I'll tell you why I have a particular concern.
00:26:17.000I hope that none of that is true because I lost my Twitter account and I don't think it was COVID misinformation, Matt.
00:26:25.000Well, I think it's that it was probably too much truth you were saying that some people didn't like.
00:26:31.000Some people didn't like it, but I sure don't want to think that anybody here in this place has anything to do with anyone losing their social media accounts because our job is to protect the First Amendment.
00:26:44.000I don't even want the Democrats to lose their social media accounts.
00:27:24.000I don't think it's going to be consequential in the long term.
00:27:27.000McCarthy has very strong ties among most of the elements of the Republican conference.
00:27:33.000There may be a few dissidents, the sort of Matt Geitz, Marjorie Taylor Greene wing of the party, which seems to consist of basically two people.
00:27:41.000But I don't think this is going to be a significant blip.
00:27:46.000He needs Trump in order to become Speaker of the House.
00:27:49.000And he's afraid of turning off his base.
00:27:53.000I think the real part of that conversation that came out this week that we should all be talking about is what he said about his members.
00:28:00.000He said they should be taking off social media.
00:28:03.000Now, I don't know what the prosecutor will say about that, but I can tell you what the partisan political person will say about that.
00:28:08.000Tell me that, you know, Matt Gaetz and Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert and others are not upset that Kevin McCarthy insinuated that they should be, you know, taken off Twitter and Facebook.
00:28:22.000And right after that, Chris Christie reflected that, well, he didn't need our votes anyway.
00:28:27.000Do you think that there's a coalition That can lead a Republican conference and a Republican majority that is able to just ignore and cast aside those of us who are a little more outspoken on things.
00:28:44.000Karl Rove's wing of the party is the failure part of our party.
00:28:48.000They're very much the operating component that led us into never-ending foreign wars.
00:28:57.000That killed American soldiers, brought them home missing limbs, gave them PTSD, gave them addiction to narcotics and medications that led to addiction to meth, that led to addiction to heroin, that just destroyed people's lives.
00:29:12.000Their wing of the party led us to this massive debt the American people are in.
00:29:17.000Their wing of the party sent our jobs overseas.
00:29:19.000Their wing of the party is the complete failure that exists here in this town, Matt.
00:29:24.000And nobody cares what Karl Rove has to say.
00:29:26.000Everyone cares about what you have to say.
00:29:30.000People care about what Donald J. Trump, the 45th President of the United States, has to say.
00:29:35.000People care about our wing of the party, but you want to know why?
00:29:38.000Our voters are our wing of the party, the vast majority of them.
00:29:42.000So Karl Rove can go kiss my ass, because I could care less what he has to say about any of us, and he's dead wrong.
00:29:49.000He's disconnected, and shame on Fox News for constantly having him on there.
00:29:53.000Well, I do not believe that there is a single Republican running in a single primary in America that would rather stand on stage with Karl Rove or Chris Christie than Marjorie Taylor Greene and Matt Gaetz.
00:30:29.000Well, and I think more importantly, the shaping of our party is not just a difference in style.
00:30:36.000And I think that the Chris Christie's and Karl Rove would say, well, because we have stylistic differences than the traditional ways of Washington, we should be ignored.
00:30:45.000But the reality is, on the policies that you just laid out, with a more focused foreign policy, with a view of the American worker that is an ambitious one and a supportive one, the border...
00:30:58.000I mean, we are in a position that a lot of these rhinos are not.
00:31:03.000And I think that the energy is with us.
00:31:06.000There might be more of them inside the beltway of Washington, D.C., but there's more of them that are like us, that are going to be voting in these primaries that run from now through September.
00:31:15.000So the proof will be in the pudding, and it's my expectation that we'll continue to have a great way to shape that discussion.
00:31:21.000One discussion that you led, you were the first one, was on the Fire-Fauci Act.
00:31:26.000And I was struck It was perfectly logical for the CDC to say, wait a minute, we were planning on ending this mandate on a certain date.
00:31:43.000Let's wait a period of time until May 3rd, which was a very sound public health decision.
00:31:50.000So for a court to come in and interfere in that is really unfortunate.
00:31:55.000It's unfortunate because it's against public health principles, number one.
00:31:59.000And number two is because that's no place for the courts to do that.
00:32:03.000This is a CDC decision, and that's very bad precedent when you have courts making a decision and looking at what the basis of the decision was.
00:32:14.000So it goes, Fauci, God, and then somewhere below that, the courts.
00:32:18.000So we live in a world where they're trying to use the courts to kick you off the ballot and not allow your voters the opportunity to choose you or to choose a different candidate, and yet they think that the courts have no role in reviewing something so long as the great wizards of public health decide that that's what the control is that they want to have over us.
00:32:41.000Shouldn't Americans be more worried about someone with this much power just blatantly expressing a view that is neo-fascist?
00:32:48.000Everyone is worried and that's why they hate him.
00:32:51.000You know, he talks about a court intervening.
00:32:54.000You know who intervened and ruined people's lives?
00:32:58.000Our government intervened with their tyrannical shutdowns that ruined our children's education for two years.
00:33:04.000That killed our grandparents in nursing homes, caused people to die alone without their family, caused my father not to go to the doctor and get a cancer diagnosis because he and my mom were afraid to go out of the house because of the dreaded COVID-19 that Dr. Fauci's gain of function research led to creating.
00:33:23.000You know, Dr. Fauci has a lot of nerve saying something like that right there, especially after he led the effort That shut down small businesses.
00:33:32.000That pushed people at home into depression and suicide by themselves.
00:34:24.000So these people who want to cast us in the role of these, like, dangerous authoritarians are trying to throw you off the ballot despite the wishes of your voters.
00:34:33.000And they're trying to say that Anthony Fauci somehow rests in some place above the U.S. judicial system so long as there's a public health nexus to the government's desire to get power.
00:35:14.000You can see a lot of my bills there, a lot of my work.
00:35:16.000You can also read the report that is on my website about the January 6th pre-trial defendants.
00:35:24.000And it is still shocking and we are still working on getting a date, waiting on Mayor Muriel Bowser-Matt to give us a date to go take our trip back to the D.C. jail and go Check on conditions there in the pre-trial January 6th defendants that are rotting away.
00:35:40.000While Antifa BLM rioters enjoy freedom and still enjoy that fact that Kamala Harris and Ilhan Omar bailed them out of jail by sharing the Minnesota Freedom Fund link.