Firebrand - Matt Gaetz - Episode 46 LIVE: Dark Days Ahead – Firebrand with Matt Gaetz

A report on Military Wokeness, an exclusive report from the Wall Street Journal on Ukraine, and a report from CNN's Fareed Zakaria on the Biden administration's failure to deliver on foreign policy goals under President Joe Biden, and why we should all be worried about the coming mid-term elections and the possible resurgence of the pro-Russia wing of the party of the deep state. All this and much more on today's Firebrand. Subscribe to our new show on Apple Podcasts! Subscribe, Like, and Share for exclusive lessons on how to be, become, and live as a Firebrand, and take control of your future. Firebrand is a conservative political commentary podcast produced by Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) and the Firebrand Project, a group dedicated to taking on permanent Washington, D.C. and all the things it stands for. Subscribe today using our podcast s promo code: "WEAPONS" to receive 20% off your first month with discount code "FIREbrand" at checkout. To find a list of our sponsors and show-related promo codes, go to gimlet.fm/OurAdvertisers. Use the discount code: CRIMINALS at checkout to receive $10 off your purchase of $50 or more, and receive 10% off of your total bill plus free shipping, plus a free copy of the latest issue of Firebrand's new book, Firebrand will be available on Amazon Prime and Vimeo. Thank you for supporting our new ad-free version of our new book "The Firebrand Guide to help you get the most firebranding your best listening experience. and access all of the best deals in the best listening and social media tools, including the most powerful podcast spots in the most affordable places in the world. You won't want to miss it! and we'll get a discount on our newest episode on the best vlogs, too! and more! FREE shipping throughout the U.S. listening experience, coming soon! Thanks for listening and sharing it anywhere you get a chance to watch us on Audible, subscribe to our social media platforms, and share it on your favorite podcasting platform, and most importantly, we'll be spreading the word out there! You'll get access to our newest episodes, too get the best of our best posts, the most authentic and the most influential podcasting opportunities throughout the world, and more.

00:00:00.000 Thank you.

00:04:43.000 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.

00:04:50.000 Matt Gaetz right now, he's a problem for the Democratic Party.

00:04:53.000 He can cause a lot of hiccups in passing the laws.

00:04:56.000 So we're going to keep running for a story is to keep hurting him.

00:05:00.000 If you want to stand for the flag and kneel in prayer and you want to build America up and not burn her to the ground, then welcome, my fellow patriots!

00:05:09.000 You are in the right place!

00:05:10.000 This is the movement for you!

00:05:12.000 You ever watch this guy on television?

00:05:15.000 It's like a machine.

00:05:16.000 Matt Gaetz.

00:05:17.000 I'm a canceled man in some corners of the internet.

00:05:21.000 Many days I'm a marked man in Congress, a wanted man by the deep state.

00:05:25.000 They aren't really coming for me.

00:05:27.000 They're coming for you.

00:05:29.000 I'm just in the way.

00:05:33.000 Welcome back to Firebrand.

00:05:35.000 Usually we do these episodes out of our congressional office in Washington, D.C. But we are on location today in the beautiful Sunshine State in Pensacola, Florida.

00:05:44.000 There's so much going on.

00:05:46.000 We've got a report on military wokeness.

00:05:49.000 We've got stunning admissions from members of the Biden administration, even a former member of the Obama administration, about the total failures of these policies and the ascendancy of America first as a consequence of what our country has been going through under the presidency of Joe Biden.

00:06:06.000 A report on this crazy agreement with the World Health Organization to surrender American sovereignty.

00:06:13.000 But of course, we began in Ukraine.

00:06:16.000 I've been telling the American people that the regime is just so thirsty for direct kinetic conflict with Russia, war with Russia.

00:06:25.000 We even heard Majority Leader Steny Hoyer talk about the fact that we are at war with Russia.

00:06:31.000 Well now, an exclusive report from the Wall Street Journal.

00:06:35.000 Pentagon weighs deploying special forces to guard Kiev embassy.

00:06:41.000 You'd think that they would have learned their lesson from Afghanistan that having a small force of marines trying to protect an impossible diplomatic mission in the middle of a hot war zone that we have no control over is insane and it already cost American lives but here Here we see it.

00:07:00.000 Quoting now directly from the Wall Street Journal article, quote, Some U.S. military officials would like to return to Ukraine the special forces and other troops that were conducting train and advise operations for the Ukrainian military.

00:07:16.000 It always starts with the train and equip missions, the train and advise missions.

00:07:21.000 Remember, the United States' involvement in the civil war in Syria began when Obama decided he wanted 40 advisors.

00:07:30.000 But as we know, it can get far more deadly, it can get a lot more bloody going beyond that.

00:07:36.000 Back to the Wall Street Journal article, quote, On May 8, Kristina Kievan, the senior diplomat in the U.S. mission to Ukraine and a small group of U.S. diplomats, temporarily based in Poland, returned to the U.S. embassy complex in Kiev to commemorate Victory in Europe Day with Ukrainian officials.

00:07:56.000 Here's the important part.

00:07:58.000 They were escorted by U.S. Special Forces assigned from the Joint Special Operations Command in Fort Bragg, North Carolina, who provided for their security.

00:08:08.000 The first known instance in which American forces entered the country since invasion.

00:08:15.000 But that date, May 8th, really calls into question whether or not these special forces were also providing security for the Pelosi visit, for the Mitch McConnell visit.

00:08:27.000 Are we really at a point where photo op foreign policy risks the lives of American service members, risks starting World War III? We are now in a circumstance where people in Washington, D.C. are advocating directly for a reinsertion of U.S. troops into the conflict in Ukraine.

00:08:48.000 And they were lying to you when they told you they didn't want boots on the ground.

00:08:52.000 How many times did we hear from Joe Biden?

00:08:54.000 Oh, we're not going to put, you know, boots on the ground.

00:08:57.000 We're not going to have...

00:08:59.000 This air combat engagement over the skies of Ukraine.

00:09:03.000 But now we see the very initial steps of getting into precisely that dynamic.

00:09:09.000 And it's something that I am definitely against.

00:09:12.000 The foreign policy elites.

00:09:14.000 Are doing everything they can right now to plow U.S. arms, materiel, and cash into Ukraine.

00:09:23.000 And the reason they are rushing to do it now is because they believe following the midterm elections, there will be more America first voices that inform on U.S. foreign policy.

00:09:36.000 And we know this Because a member of the foreign policy elite told us.

00:09:41.000 Just this past Sunday, Charles Kupchan, former NSC official for European affairs under the Obama administration, he gave an interview on Fareed Zakaria's program on CNN, and this is what he said about the America First movement.

00:09:58.000 I'm very worried that as we head to the midterms, the America First wing of the Republican Party is going to get stronger and stronger.

00:10:06.000 We've seen primary candidates, J.D. Vance in Ohio.

00:10:09.000 He won that primary.

00:10:11.000 What was his policy toward Ukraine?

00:10:13.000 I don't care what happens on the border between Ukraine and Russia.

00:10:19.000 And you know what?

00:10:20.000 Charles Kupchak is right.

00:10:21.000 We are the movement winning elections, and we will be putting people in the government to assure that we do not just spoil American blood or American treasure everywhere in the world, that there happens to be a conflict that the war lobby and the defense industrial complex want to be able to profit off of.

00:10:41.000 And you know what?

00:10:41.000 They're going to do very well as a result of this $40 billion package, but it is not a good thing for the American people.

00:10:49.000 Just this past week I had a telephone town hall meeting among Northwest Floridians and we talked about this $40 billion aid package and like 75% somewhere around that range of the people in my district on this call were opposed to that.

00:11:05.000 I mean, this is a very conservative part of the country.

00:11:07.000 This is an area with a lot of military and veterans, and gun control was actually more popular than the $40 billion to Ukraine.

00:11:17.000 So I know that's not a scientific survey, but it is reflective of where the people are who will join a congressional telephone town hall.

00:11:26.000 It is reflective of where I think a majority of the people are who are paying attention.

00:11:31.000 It is not for your benefit that they want to send America's bravest and America's dollars to a place that is not prepared to deal with it.

00:11:40.000 And this could potentially extend a conflict that I know all of us want to end, and we want the conflict to end on Ukraine's terms, but continuing to plow cash and arms into this particular conflict.

00:11:54.000 Very, very dangerous.

00:11:55.000 The American people see it, and the blowback Will be an ascendancy of America first in the Congress.

00:12:02.000 That's what the national security apparatus is telling you.

00:12:04.000 And if our military is not making poor decisions regarding the conflict in Ukraine, they are advancing a level of wokeness that is completely crazy.

00:12:15.000 Let me explain.

00:12:17.000 We should assign people to our bases and our installations based on their skills and based on the needs of America's security.

00:12:28.000 Not based on wokeism.

00:12:29.000 Now we do have policies to provide for family members.

00:12:33.000 Gosh, if we had a member of our military who could have a family member that could only receive a certain type of medical treatment at a specific place, we would do everything we could to accommodate them.

00:12:43.000 And our military has policies to do that.

00:12:46.000 But we have now heard reports that those compassionate care policies are being tortured and perverted into a basis to not have military service members in states like Florida and Texas that have sensible laws reflecting the values of our communities.

00:13:05.000 Everybody in the national media went crazy over what they called the Florida don't say gay law.

00:13:10.000 Matter of fact, the law didn't say that at all.

00:13:13.000 Nonetheless, the publicity, the narrative formation could potentially lead to service members saying, well, I have a trans family member.

00:13:23.000 I have a gay service member, so I don't want to go to the state of Florida.

00:13:27.000 I don't want to serve at one of those installations.

00:13:30.000 Maybe someone doesn't want to go to Texas because they're offended that they believe that they don't like Texas' view on abortion rights.

00:13:39.000 And I asked the Secretary of the Air Force, Frank Kendall, about whether these policies were affecting our military, whether they were being used in this way.

00:13:49.000 Take a listen.

00:13:51.000 That if a service member has a transsexual family member, or a family member who might one day want to become a transsexual person, that the Air Force might not send that service member to a state like Florida or a state like Texas based on our laws?

00:14:12.000 What we do, and we've been doing this for a very long time, is whenever anybody comes up for assignment, they go through a questionnaire about their family and their medical needs and special education, things like that.

00:14:22.000 And based on that questionnaire, we examine whether in the region they might be assigned to, there might be some issue with providing them with what they need.

00:14:31.000 And then if that's the case, we don't assign them there.

00:14:33.000 We find something else someplace else where then we go.

00:14:36.000 There are about 35,000 servicemen that are under that program right now and about 55,000 people that are affected by it.

00:14:43.000 So it has a lot of broad applicability.

00:14:45.000 But usually we would think about this exceptional family member program like, If a service member had a child with a specific heart disease and they could only get treatment at Johns Hopkins, you might not send them to a place where they wouldn't be able to access that treatment.

00:14:58.000 What I think is new is that you're now applying that to transsexuals and people who might want to be transsexuals.

00:15:03.000 So again, I want to ask the question very directly.

00:15:06.000 Is it the position of the Air Force That if someone has a transsexual family member and they don't want to go to a state like Florida or Texas, that you will accommodate their request to not go to Florida or Texas based on the gender issues of a family member.

00:15:21.000 If a service member is under treatment for a recognized medical condition, such as gender dysphoria, and they cannot get that treatment in the state to which they might be assigned, then they could be assigned to another state.

00:15:33.000 And it's not just if they're under treatment.

00:15:36.000 Captain Donna Donsworth told the Washington Post, family members receiving gender-affirming treatment, or likely to receive such treatment, So, isn't it true?

00:15:48.000 Did Captain Downsworth misstate that?

00:15:52.000 I'd have to expect the exact wording of how the program is set up.

00:15:56.000 But there has to be an identified actual need for medical treatment, not just the potential for one.

00:16:03.000 It has to be more than that.

00:16:04.000 That's my understanding.

00:16:06.000 A family member choosing to change their gender would qualify, is what you're saying. 0.69

00:16:09.000 I'm sorry?

00:16:10.000 So, I mean, a family member choosing to change their gender would alter The options you have for where you could put that service member. 0.81

00:16:19.000 I think more would be required.

00:16:21.000 There would have to be a medical need that needs to be met.

00:16:24.000 Just that decision by itself probably wouldn't be enough, but I don't know.

00:16:27.000 And I'm concerned that it's going beyond medical needs in some of the statements of some of the folks who work for you.

00:16:32.000 I'm now quoting from Under Secretary Gina Ortiz, who said, we are closely tracking state laws and legislation to ensure we're prepared to mitigate effects to our airmen, guardsmen, and families.

00:16:43.000 And again, this is dealing with the A transsexual issue with the Exceptional Family Member Program. 0.99

00:16:47.000 So which state laws and local laws are you particularly concerned about?

00:16:53.000 We have people in our major installations who track local conditions, including state laws, all the time.

00:16:59.000 Which ones?

00:16:59.000 That's what they do.

00:17:00.000 All of them.

00:17:01.000 If there's a change in divorce laws just occurred in one of the states, it could affect our members.

00:17:05.000 So our people have to be aware of that so they can provide counseling to people if they need it.

00:17:11.000 And now we get the whole story.

00:17:13.000 This report from the Daily Wire.

00:17:16.000 U.S. Army considering letting soldiers change base if local laws offend their choice of gender.

00:17:24.000 I mean, this is explicitly a way to punish the military mission in Florida, punish the military mission in Texas, and it's going to hurt readiness.

00:17:34.000 This is quoting from the Daily Wire piece, quote, And they are citing a report from Military.com.

00:17:56.000 This is going to hurt America's readiness and it also is going to deprive us of access to key investments that we've made for our military capabilities.

00:18:05.000 I mean, if we now live in a world where DOD has gone so woke that they want to punish the military mission in Florida, in Texas, in Oklahoma, in Arizona and other states, well then, The investments we made in the Gulf test range, in other weapon systems, in our supply chain and where we build things to be able to ensure that our military is capable of victory.

00:18:29.000 All of that will take second fiddle to wokeism coming out of the Pentagon.

00:18:35.000 And it's crazy.

00:18:37.000 And so I asked the Secretary of the Air Force about it.

00:18:39.000 Now we see it evolving in the Army.

00:18:42.000 This is what we'll fight for.

00:18:43.000 We'll fight for a military that is prepared, that is capable, that is lethal, that is survivable, and that is unwoke.

00:18:53.000 Because that is what the patriotism of our service members and that is what the security of our country demands.

00:19:03.000 The crisis on our border continues to escalate and get worse.

00:19:08.000 I know there's been a lot of news about Title 42 and a judge recently ruling that the Biden administration couldn't revoke it under our current conditions.

00:19:17.000 But the reality is that Title 42 is already long gone in the practical procedures being deployed on our border.

00:19:27.000 Border agents, border patrol, they need to get ahead of the wave, they tell us.

00:19:31.000 And so they're already cycling people into the country and not deporting them as a consequence of Title 42 or really any other law like Remain in Mexico, like Save Third Country.

00:19:42.000 These laws that the Trump administration put in place to protect us are not being used by the Biden administration and it's on purpose.

00:19:51.000 We've also got a new report.

00:19:53.000 Joe Biden has appointed five new immigration judges, one of whom is Romy L. Leonard, and she was on the board of a total left-wing anti-borders group called the Detention Watch Network.

00:20:07.000 And the stated purpose of the organization that the latest Joe Biden appointee to one of these judgeships held was to stop deportations.

00:20:19.000 Not limit them, not focus them on criminals, not ensure that it's the worst of the worst that we deport to stop them, to just straight up stop deportations.

00:20:28.000 Now, how fair is that for our country, for our fellow Americans, to have the person that is supposed to adjudicate asylum claims holding the view and associating with the position that no one should be deported at all?

00:20:43.000 You see, they're trying to rush all this through as fast as they can to get people across our border, To erode voter ID and then ultimately to have these illegal aliens voting in our elections and reshaping our country unfairly and undemocratically. 0.91

00:20:58.000 And they say we are the threat to American democracy.

00:21:01.000 This is the threat to American democracy.

00:21:04.000 An open border and elections that are unsecure.

00:21:07.000 That is the problem.

00:21:08.000 And this Romy Leonard appointment is certainly an example of that. 0.98

00:21:13.000 And of course we see the immigration crisis accelerating under the failed leadership of Department of Homeland Security Secretary Ali Mayorkas, who really is a sociopathic liar. 0.97

00:21:25.000 That's what he is. 0.94

00:21:26.000 He has the ability to stone-cold lie in the face of facts that are just readily apparent to any American.

00:21:36.000 And so take a look at the statements of Ali Mayorkas and figure out whether or not you believe him or your own lying eyes.

00:21:47.000 The bottom line is that U.S. borders are not open.

00:21:52.000 The immigration situation here in Del Rio has never been this bad.

00:21:56.000 Just yesterday alone they apprehended more than 900 migrants in total.

00:22:00.000 The restrictions at our southwest border have not changed.

00:22:04.000 Border Patrol here completely overwhelmed, overstretched.

00:22:07.000 They can't be everywhere at once.

00:22:12.000 This was a human smuggling stash house that was busted in Alton, Texas yesterday.

00:22:16.000 More than 100 migrants being kept there by those human smugglers.

00:22:20.000 The United States continues to enforce its immigration laws.

00:22:24.000 We are prepared.

00:22:26.000 These migrants continue to show up by the hundreds pretty much every single hour. 1.00

00:22:32.000 The number of migrants under that bridge has now swelled to more than 14,000.

00:22:38.000 Individuals and families continue to be sent back.

00:22:42.000 But that's mostly single men being sent back.

00:22:44.000 A lot of the women, children and family units will be able to stay.

00:22:47.000 they'll be processed and released into the U.S. Consistent with enforcing our laws.

00:22:53.000 Do you have a message for U.S. President Joe Biden?

00:22:55.000 Yeah, I have a message for Joe Biden.

00:22:58.000 We see what he's doing in the whole body watch.

00:23:01.000 Where are you from?

00:23:02.000 Ghana.

00:23:03.000 You're from Ghana.

00:23:04.000 You're from Haiti.

00:23:05.000 Where are you from?

00:23:06.000 Venezuela.

00:23:08.000 Venezuela.

00:23:09.000 We all appreciate him because he's very good man, very humble.

00:23:13.000 He's a man of people.

00:23:14.000 The federal government has apparently been moving illegal immigrants all around the country in the dark.

00:23:19.000 Hey, where are you from?

00:23:20.000 What city?

00:23:21.000 Donde?

00:23:23.000 The bottom line is that U.S. borders are not open.

00:23:27.000 Dr. Jason Furman is a former economic advisor to President Obama and Now he's a professor at Harvard and he was on Face the Nation to discuss the state of the economy and how it's affecting people.

00:23:47.000 Take a listen.

00:23:49.000 Look, I'd put some perspective on what we're going through right now.

00:23:52.000 The market is not the same as the economy.

00:23:55.000 When you look at the economy, you see a 3.6% unemployment rate.

00:23:59.000 You see 500,000 jobs being created a month.

00:24:03.000 You see consumer spending quite strongly.

00:24:07.000 Our economy is heading to darker times right now because you have far too many dollars chasing far too few goods.

00:24:16.000 Part of that is a consequence of Joe Biden's failures with the supply chain.

00:24:20.000 But of course, what has exacerbated this dynamic the most is expansionist Fed policy and massive government spending.

00:24:28.000 Those two things always were going to create an inflationary cycle, and now it's a cycle that people are getting absolutely crushed in.

00:24:37.000 The American Rescue Plan was to be the signature legislative achievement of the Biden era.

00:24:42.000 It would be almost the only thing Democrats would be able to run on.

00:24:46.000 But even Jason Furman acknowledges that the American Rescue Plan exacerbated the problems that really are driving the concerns of many Americans today.

00:24:58.000 Take a listen.

00:24:59.000 Look, in March of 2021, the president signed the American Rescue Plan into law.

00:25:06.000 That's part of why the United States has had a faster recovery than any other economy, but it's also part of why we have incredibly high inflation.

00:25:14.000 I wished at the time that he did something smaller.

00:25:17.000 I think it was larger than it needed to be, but it's good that something happened.

00:25:23.000 Even Liberal Vox acknowledges in their May 12th article that in fact Biden's American Rescue Plan worsened inflation.

00:25:31.000 The question is how much?

00:25:33.000 So this is the connection people have to make.

00:25:36.000 Inflation isn't occurring because of Vladimir Putin.

00:25:40.000 It's not occurring because of some uncontrollable foreign dynamic in the global economy that we can have No effect on or no say in.

00:25:48.000 The reality is it's the policies of Joe Biden that have created this inflation and that are projected to continue to do so.

00:25:55.000 I mean, we are not going to see 2% inflation for a while.

00:25:59.000 Next year, best case scenario, perhaps 3% inflation.

00:26:02.000 But that still, year over year, will be something that will be of tremendous concern to many families throughout our country and to many family budgets.

00:26:14.000 Many Americans have expressed concern to our office regarding Joe Biden's attempt to surrender American sovereignty and American decision making to the World Health Organization.

00:26:25.000 So I wanted to go into this issue with more detail.

00:26:27.000 The WHO is seeking a new instrument to be able to rapidly effectuate change in the member states to an agreement that they would oversee, that they would staff and that would limit our flexibility to have decisions like we saw in the that they would staff and that would limit our flexibility to have decisions like we saw in the state of Florida They are seeking international health regulations and take a listen to how they want to do it.

00:26:55.000 They want an emergency committee to assess health threats and outbreaks and recommend responses.

00:27:02.000 They want a country review mechanism and they want to expand the power of the WHO to declare really almost anything An outbreak or a pandemic.

00:27:13.000 This would go well beyond just a respiratory virus.

00:27:17.000 It would give them vast sweeping powers over American life.

00:27:21.000 They would have a regional group of directors that would potentially have the ability to constrain the United States to like the views of Latin America.

00:27:31.000 We certainly wouldn't want that.

00:27:33.000 And they would have investigatory powers.

00:27:36.000 They would have border closure powers.

00:27:39.000 They would have travel restriction powers.

00:27:42.000 They would have the powers to institute lockdowns or change employment conditions.

00:27:48.000 And certainly masks, vaccinations.

00:27:52.000 They could essentially commandeer and involve non-state actors.

00:27:56.000 And they could impose censorship through restriction of information as a disinformation or misinformation.

00:28:02.000 And of course, CNN is all in, publishing an op-ed recently.

00:28:07.000 We need the Global Pandemic Treaty. 0.52

00:28:10.000 This is as America lasts as it gets.

00:28:13.000 I do not believe in the WHO to not just be a continued tool of the Chinese Communist Party.

00:28:20.000 The WHO blew it in the coronavirus pandemic.

00:28:23.000 They are the last people we should be turning to for future decision making.

00:28:27.000 And I believe that the left right now understands that they're going to have less control after the next elections.

00:28:34.000 After the midterms, the House, the Senate, potentially both, out of the hands of the Democrats.

00:28:39.000 And so they are trying to surrender as much of your power and your liberty and your decision making to this global entity as they can before they lose the opportunity to do so.

00:28:52.000 We need massive communication to people who are in the decision making in the United States Senate.

00:28:58.000 We need to reach out to Republicans, Democrats, all lawmakers to oppose this surrender of American sovereignty.

00:29:04.000 It's as serious as it gets and it will not end at true health pandemics.

00:29:09.000 They'll declare climate change a pandemic.

00:29:11.000 They'll declare gun violence a pandemic.

00:29:14.000 They'll declare anything that will give them the power to institute these lockdowns with greater frequency.

00:29:20.000 They will speak that into World Health Organization speak and pandemic speak, and we must be extremely resistant to that on all fronts.

00:29:32.000 Pegasus is a spying technology developed by Israel.

00:29:36.000 We told you about its capabilities and threats in a prior episode.

00:29:40.000 Take a listen.

00:29:42.000 Pegasus is the name of a Trojan horse spyware program created by the Israeli cybercrime company NSO Group.

00:29:50.000 And as of 2022, Pegasus was capable of reading texts, tracking calls, collecting passwords, location tracking.

00:29:58.000 Accessing, targeting a device's microphone and camera, and harvesting information from apps.

00:30:05.000 WhatsApp, Signal, even peer-to-peer.

00:30:08.000 Essentially, once they're in, they have total control of your phone.

00:30:12.000 And getting in no longer even requires human error or even human action by the target.

00:30:18.000 This would be the end of phishing exploits.

00:30:21.000 Well, thank goodness this technology wasn't just like created by our greatest ally, Israel, right? 0.99

00:30:28.000 Not so fast.

00:30:29.000 NSO Group has sold this technology to countless state actors and even local police forces all over the world, from Mexico to Saudi Arabia.

00:30:39.000 And recently, it has been confirmed that our own FBI paid $5 million for the Pegasus software.

00:30:48.000 It's even likely that Mexican drug cartels are using Pegasus through their corrupt collusions with Mexican government officials.

00:30:56.000 And these are just the customers that we know about.

00:30:59.000 There's probably non-state actors too.

00:31:02.000 We questioned the FBI cyber chief about the FBI's interest in Pegasus, its use, how it intended to apply the license that it had acquired for $5 million.

00:31:13.000 Here's the FBI cyber chief on March 29th giving his explanation for the FBI's interaction with the software.

00:31:22.000 Are you aware of a piece of software named Pegasus that's provided by NSO Group, Israeli software company?

00:31:31.000 Yes, sir.

00:31:31.000 Does the FBI use this program?

00:31:34.000 It looks like they had a license to it for five million dollars.

00:31:38.000 So, the FBI has not and did not ever use the NSO products operationally or in any investigation.

00:31:47.000 We did buy a limited license for testing and evaluation.

00:31:51.000 Those limited licenses are part of our normal exploratory process to understand what other technologies are out there.

00:32:00.000 But again, we have never purchased it for use operationally or in an ongoing investigation.

00:32:06.000 So your division hasn't used this spyware domestically?

00:32:10.000 No, sir.

00:32:11.000 Have you detected the use of this software domestically?

00:32:16.000 Sir, there's reporting in the media about Apple filing a lawsuit against NSO and there's a lot of information in that article.

00:32:25.000 I can't comment further on your question truly due to classification, but if that is of interest to you we could consider a background briefing.

00:32:34.000 Does the FBI itself exploit the SF7 flaw to access cell phone contents?

00:32:42.000 Sir, I'm not in a position to answer that question.

00:32:44.000 I don't know the answer.

00:32:46.000 Previously, Congressmember Massey asked you about a briefing.

00:32:51.000 I just want to make sure, will you commit to a bipartisan briefing classified on Pegasus and the NSO group and the SF7 issue?

00:32:59.000 Sir, yes and if I can expand.

00:33:02.000 I mean it's very important for me personally as a representative for the cyber program at the FBI to keep that as an open invitation in both directions between all of you and me and from me to all of you that whatever information that you would want access to we would try to facilitate that.

00:33:19.000 But now, we are getting information reported by the New York Times that seems to suggest that the FBI had a far more thorough interest in Pegasus than merely looking under the hood.

00:33:32.000 Remember, in that March 29th briefing, the FBI cyber chief wants you to believe that the US taxpayer paid $5 million for Pegasus just to see what its capabilities were.

00:33:44.000 No real interest in ever using it as part of operations or investigations.

00:33:50.000 Here's the headline from the New York Times.

00:33:53.000 FBI told Israel it wanted Pegasus hacking tool for investigations.

00:33:59.000 Here's the lead.

00:34:00.000 The FBI informed the Israeli government in a 2018 letter that it had purchased Pegasus, the notorious hacking tool to collect data from mobile phones to aid in ongoing investigations.

00:34:15.000 Still on the FBI story from the New York Times.

00:34:18.000 Quote, the FBI's description of its intended use of Pegasus came in a letter from a top FBI official to Israel's Ministry of Defense.

00:34:28.000 It continues, the 2018 letter written by an official in the FBI's operational technology division stated that the bureau intended to use Pegasus, quote, for the collection of data Right there.

00:34:49.000 No limited look.

00:34:51.000 So was the FBI lying to Congress or was the FBI lying to the government of Israel?

00:34:58.000 My guess is they're probably far more willing to lie to Congress than the government of Israel.

00:35:02.000 Like, why would we go to the lengths in 2018 Telling the government of Israel, not that we had acquired a limited look, but that we had in fact purchased Pegasus and that we were intending to use it in investigations.

00:35:18.000 Now, on that March 29th date, we had the hearing that resulted in a commitment from the FBI Cyber Chief to give members of Congress a classified briefing on the use of Pegasus.

00:35:30.000 Was Hunter Biden a target?

00:35:32.000 Was Joe Biden a target?

00:35:33.000 Was Donald Trump a target?

00:35:35.000 Were there any members of Congress who were targeted by Pegasus?

00:35:39.000 We want answers.

00:35:41.000 And to this date, the FBI has been recalcitrant in agreeing To the hearing, to the briefing that they had promised Congressman Ted Lieu of California, a Democrat who doesn't like me very much, and Thomas Massey, a Republican of Kentucky.

00:35:56.000 So we need to have that understanding.

00:35:59.000 We need to have that briefing.

00:36:00.000 And the FBI cannot continue to hide behind their contradictory statements to Congress and to the Israeli government.

00:36:11.000 Thanks so much for joining our report from here in the beautiful Sunshine State.

00:36:16.000 Make sure that you are subscribed.

00:36:17.000 Make sure you have your notifications turned on.

00:36:20.000 That way you'll always have the information first when we go live.

00:36:24.000 Give us that five-star rating or review if you're listening on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

00:36:29.000 And join us soon for more Firebrand.

Firebrand - Matt Gaetz - May 26, 2022

Episode 46 LIVE: Dark Days Ahead – Firebrand with Matt Gaetz

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