The MAGA Gang is here, and pretty soon, they may be in control of the Republican Party. That's the thesis of a new piece by Time Magazine's Molly Ball on the growing influence of the so-called "firebrand" conservative wing of the pro-Trump congressional faction known as the " MAGA Squad." And as the primary season heats up across the country, they're looking to pad their numbers by recruiting likeminded firebrands in red districts, endorsing and campaigning for fellow insurgents in intraparty contests, and even running against their own colleagues. And if that doesn't do the job, they'll have a problem on their hands, because the Democratic Party is going to have a hard time keeping them out of power in the midterms. Today's After Show is hosted by Rep. Steve Israel (R-ID) and Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), both of whom are joined by CNN's Senior Political Commentator and Senior Congressional Correspondent Alex Castellanos (D - NY) to discuss all of this and much, much more. In this episode, we talk about: - The rise of the "Firebrand" faction in Congress - what it means for the future of the party - and why it matters - and what it can do for the country - and how to deal with it. - and its impact on the mid-term elections - and the upcoming midterms - and beyond. - Part 2 of this episode will air on CNN's "After Show with Adam Schiff and Adam Schiff on Tuesday Night with Alex Blumbergerts. Subscribe to the After Show to get the latest news and analysis on all things going on Capitol Hill and the rest of the political world - including who's winning and who's losing the midterm elections and what's going to win in 2020! Subscribe on Apple Podcasts! Subscribe on iTunes Learn more about your ad choices. Rate/subscribe on Podchances and become a supporter of our new show! Subscribe for exclusive VIP access to our upcoming episodes! and much more! Learn more at The FiveThirtyEight's newest podcast, FiveThirtyeight's New Year's Eve special featuring the world's most listened to podcast, Six Sigma's New York Times bestselling author, John Rocha! - Subscribe to our new music and more! Subscribe to FiveThirtynine's newest music video series, Six Degrees of Greatness? Subscribe and review our newest episode on the Fourcast!
00:04:49.000Matt Gaetz was one of the very few members in the entire Congress who bothered to stand up against permanent Washington on behalf of his constituents.
00:04:56.000Matt Gaetz right now, he's a problem in the Democratic Party.
00:04:59.000He can cause a lot of hiccups in passing applause.
00:05:02.000So we're going to keep running those stories to get hurt again.
00:05:06.000If you stand for the flag and kneel in prayer, if you want to build America up and not burn her to the ground, then welcome, my fellow patriots!
00:06:19.000We're broadcasting live from the Longworth House Office building in my congressional office on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. And the MAGA gang that Joe Biden talks about We are in charge of the Republican Party.
00:06:33.000That is the thesis in a huge piece just published by Time Magazine this morning.
00:06:40.000Molly Ball has the byline, How the MAGA Squad is Building Power to Control the Next Congress.
00:06:47.000The piece features the role of this very show, Firebrand, in driving policy and perception on Capitol Hill.
00:06:57.000Torching the news cycle is what Gates and Green love to do.
00:07:01.000Gates and Green are the ringleaders of the GOP's most hardcore pro-Trump congressional faction.
00:07:07.000The MAGA squad, as you might call them, is not a formal caucus, but its numbers are growing.
00:07:14.000There have long been rabble-rousing right-wingers in Congress, but this group makes the Freedom Caucus seem tame.
00:07:21.000Democrats and many Republicans deride the group as gadflies, irrelevant to the serious business of lawmaking.
00:07:28.000But in fact, the MAGA squad has been cannily building leverage and clout in the halls of Congress.
00:07:36.000Now with the primary season in full swing across the country, they're looking to pad their numbers Recruit like-minded firebrands in red districts, endorsing and campaigning for fellow insurgents in intraparty contests, and even in some cases, campaigning against their own colleagues.
00:08:08.000It's Time Magazine, so of course there's going to be stuff there that's editorialized and not particularly true.
00:08:14.000But nonetheless, I think the central thesis is one that is controlling We are those who are carrying the torch of the America First policy agenda.
00:08:26.000And if there's anything that Molly Ball's piece, I think, underserves, it's those very policy objectives, those goals, to ensure that we have focused, effective foreign policy, that we aren't dithering all over the world in forever wars, that we actually have trade and economic nationalism values, In our country and trade policies that build up the American worker instead of building up the economies of other countries.
00:08:53.000And we believe in restricted immigration.
00:08:56.000I wish that would have been more central.
00:08:58.000But these are the issues that are animating people all over the campaign trail.
00:09:03.000That ultimately informs who gets to Congress and what drives the agenda.
00:09:07.000And it is true, I expect Republicans to be in control, and I'm doing everything I can to make sure that we are worthy of the trust that our constituents place in us.
00:09:18.000I don't want to win this thing by default.
00:09:21.000We're going to go over in the show today a number of Joe Biden failures at home, abroad, where he's missing the mark on the economy and the utilization of American force in other countries.
00:09:32.000But I don't want to just win this election because he is just in this precipitous decline and bringing our country into decline.
00:09:40.000I want to have a mandate to actually govern around the ideas and the policies that led to an economic boom for our country and pride around the world.
00:09:51.000And if that means the MAGA squad has to be the tiller in the water for the Republican caucus, so be it.
00:09:59.000I'm ready to serve and I look forward to getting more backup and adding to our growing ranks.
00:10:05.000So Joe Biden understands that right now the American economy is failing.
00:10:10.000It's failed on a number of fronts and he sees how this is a drag on Democrats.
00:10:15.000The White House knows that Joe Biden has to look at least engaged or informed on some sort of domestic economic agenda.
00:10:25.000Seems like lately when you see Joe Biden talking it's about China or about his global trips or about Ukraine and Russia.
00:10:34.000And the American people, rather reasonably, are feeling like we're not even a priority to the American president.
00:10:41.000And so he makes this big trip out to Long Beach, California, the port of Long Beach that I personally observed backed up for miles with an utter failure of the American economy while he was subsidizing people to stay at home and not work.
00:11:18.000When I first started talking about the supply chain when I came here well over a year ago, the American people understand and we wondered, supply chain, that's not a usual part of their jargon every day.
00:11:35.000So it wasn't that Joe Biden didn't understand how his policies of printing a ton of money and providing a bunch of stuff for free, like, that caused inflation.
00:11:46.000He thinks that because you don't understand the supply chain, because it wasn't part of your jargon, that, you know, this was something that was just unavoidable.
00:11:55.000When making a major domestic economic speech, of course, any American president would have to spend about half the time blaming, guess who?
00:13:04.000How many times do you see on stuff in your house made in Russia?
00:13:09.000But of course, the sanctions that Joe Biden championed, without any backup plan, without any real understanding how different elements of the economy would be impacted, did impact the price of the food you buy and the energy that you use for your home and the fuel that you put in your car.
00:13:27.000We covered that when we had, you know, the great episode that looked at the war on America's farmers.
00:13:34.000We actually went out and talked to folks in northwest Florida Working on those razor-thin margins, and they wish Joe Biden actually had a plan to deal with Putin, but the Putin plan is a politics plan.
00:13:45.000So when things go wrong in Joe Biden's economy, when his own Secretary of the Treasury, Janet Yellen, says, gosh, I really blew that inflation call, well now they reframe that and say, it's the Putin tax.
00:13:58.000But when Joe Biden's not blaming Putin, you know who he's blaming.
00:15:01.000Because inflation is excessively regressive.
00:15:04.000In the way that it impacts the American economy.
00:15:07.000Gary on Facebook says their plan is to put us under their control.
00:15:12.000And in a lot of ways, this failing Biden economy makes the American people more susceptible to that control, to the false promises of socialism that have failed in so many other lands.
00:15:27.000Maybe we should blame the America Last policies of the establishment for these failures rather than MAGA. You know, the policies that offshored making things that we need in our country.
00:15:39.000Of course, the elites grifted off of that.
00:15:42.000They financially benefited off of that globalist system.
00:15:48.000Not MAGA, who led to this offshoring and to a lot of these bad trade policies that mean that the American people are at risk because so much of what we need is made elsewhere.
00:16:01.000Joe Biden himself said the quiet part out loud in Long Beach.
00:16:07.000People at home trying to make it, you know, paycheck to paycheck are wondering, like, what in God's name do nine, understand, nine shipping companies have to do with it?
00:16:17.000Well, almost everything you're doing, everything from what you're eating to what you're having to drive to what you're, what you need in your home, it relates to supply chains and what's coming from abroad.
00:16:33.000We are back broadcasting live out of the House office building, room 1721 in Longworth in Washington, D.C. And there you have it.
00:16:43.000Joe Biden saying, well, gosh, everything that you need is somewhere else.
00:16:47.000So when things go wrong, that's really tough and he feels your pain.
00:16:54.000Our vision for economic nationalism ensures that we are more resilient against the fragility of a supply chain that seems to put the American people under the thumb of the Chinese Communist Party.
00:17:07.000Who do you think runs all these transit enterprises that have privileges at Chinese ports?
00:17:14.000You think those are the good folks in China?
00:17:16.000Those are the people with government connections because government is fused with business in that economic system.
00:17:23.000And frankly, that's increasingly what the left wants to see in our country.
00:17:30.000is American independence, whether it's the stuff we make or the energy we use.
00:17:36.000Joe Biden doesn't at all understand how the energy economy works and how rising energy prices create compounding inflation at different levels of the economy.
00:17:47.000What he thinks is that American companies just need to drill more despite the things that Joe Biden himself has said.
00:18:50.000As a candidate, say that you want to put people out of business, and then when your president and your policies put the country in a jam, become exasperated that they're not willing to make the capital investment.
00:19:04.000Don't buy into this notion that all of this is just happening globally and there's nothing that America can do to escape a dim fate.
00:19:13.000They did this to us, and that's why MAGA exists in Congress, to ensure that they're unable to continue to do so if you give us the power of oversight.
00:19:24.000One specter of policy where the Biden administration is utterly failing is foreign policy.
00:19:32.000So let's look at a global perspective.
00:19:34.000Under this disoriented foreign policy of Joe Biden and the just ghoulish establishment experts that he's assembled, America is pursuing many of the neoconservative interventionist policies abroad that failed our country during the George W. Bush era.
00:19:53.000Many of those policies are continuing to fail today under Joe Biden.
00:19:57.000We spent 20 years in Iraq and Afghanistan, despite President Trump's attempt to disentangle America from these foreign failures.
00:20:04.000But now, Joe Biden has sent our troops right back into the fray, increasing American troop presence in the paradises of Syria, Somalia, and of course, and most notably, Ukraine.
00:20:21.000And like the $40 billion we sent to Ukraine, we support all these endeavors with your tax dollars.
00:20:28.000What do we get out of these massive shipments of U.S. materiel and cash and personnel overseas?
00:20:39.000When pressed, most of the regime's apologists just ramble on about protecting democracy abroad or countering some obscure Islamist organization that, like when we destroy it, ultimately fractures into a hundred more different cells.
00:20:58.000We go topple these strong men and then we plunge their countries into civil war and sectarian violence.
00:21:04.000You're welcome for all the liberty and freedom.
00:21:06.000Look at what's happening in Iraq right now.
00:21:09.000There was a very interesting piece that came out where Muqtad al-Sadr is actually withdrawing many of his political representatives and the people in his political coalition and his party from the parliament in Iraq.
00:21:25.000Now do you think Muqtad al-Sadr Stopped caring about politics?
00:21:29.000No, he's given up on the parliamentary political system in Iraq.
00:21:34.000So, trust me, mark my words, things are about to get a lot worse in Iraq as they fail to be able to use the scaffolding of a fledgling democracy to stop blood from spilling in their streets.
00:21:48.000The Wall Street Journal recently published a searing critique of U.S. interventionist policies in Africa.
00:22:08.000Are these African nations really like nation states the way we would think about them?
00:22:13.000But we go do all these train and equip missions and seldom does it end well.
00:22:18.000In Mali and Burkina Faso and Guinea and Sudan and in many more places, there are armies that we've worked with Who've decided that they don't like their civilian governments anymore and they overthrow them.
00:22:37.000Often the officers and soldiers we train are engaged in the very animation of that violence and that work.
00:22:46.000Are there better uses for the US military than like training the next generation of African warlords to become more capable in executing their coup d'etat?
00:22:54.000It's not like this was an impossible outcome to predict.
00:22:57.000Third world generals, or warlords, they get training, funding, and weapons, and then they decide to seize power.
00:23:06.000Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and General Milley have admitted that they don't have the ability to assess another military's will to fight.
00:23:51.000It is really unwise for us to be training future African coup leaders, sometimes even at West Point.
00:23:59.000And it's probably more going on than you even know about.
00:24:04.000Many of the American patriots who spend time away from their families training Africans in Africa are actually my constituents stationed at Eglin and Hurlburt Air Force bases specifically.
00:24:15.000Rear Admiral Jamie Sands, commander of U.S. Special Operations in Africa, said, quote, There's no one more surprised or disappointed when partners that we're working with or have been working with for a while in some cases decide to overthrow their government.
00:24:34.000Yeah, I would say that would probably be surprising and disappointing.
00:24:37.000Is it really surprising anymore, though?
00:24:39.000But as the Wall Street Journal piece points out, when it happens over and over, Maybe we shouldn't be so surprised.
00:24:46.000If the guy in charge of training African militaries doesn't and can't tell when our African counterparts are planning to overthrow their government, then who can?
00:24:59.000Now, all of this alone is enough cause for concern.
00:25:03.000But when we have been distracted abroad, training African warlords to be coup-proficient, trouble is brewing here in our own backyard.
00:25:14.000Russia and China and Iran are taking serious provocative steps in our geopolitical neighborhood.
00:25:21.000We are so busy mowing the grass of the folks down the street.
00:25:25.000We forgot to pull the weeds in our own backyard.
00:25:28.000Recently, the Washington Post has reported that Nicaragua has authorized the entry of Russian troops, planes, and ships into its territory for the purpose of training and law enforcement and emergency response.
00:25:41.000Russia being in the region seems to be the freaking emergency.
00:25:45.000You might also remember that President Ortega of Nicaragua spent days as the president of the Marxist Sandinista Junta of the National Reconstruction.
00:25:58.000Venezuela just signed a 20-year cooperation plan with Iran.
00:26:03.000The plan includes oil cooperation, petrochemicals, defense, agriculture, tourism, and culture.
00:26:10.000It even includes the repair of Venezuelan refineries.
00:26:15.000It seems that our sanctions have actually driven Venezuela right into the hands of our enemies.
00:26:22.000Do we even have a long-term plan here?
00:26:25.000Surely strengthening the bonds between our enemies was not, like, top of the list for foreign policy objectives, but it's exactly what we have allowed to have happen in Nicaragua and Venezuela.
00:26:34.000And the big winners are Russia and Iran!
00:26:38.000Well, we gotta spend $40 billion in Ukraine to counter Russia.
00:26:45.000Reuters has published a great piece about China's domination of South America.
00:26:50.000Under President Biden's watch, and with the exception of Mexico, our largest trading partner, China has overtaken the United States in Latin America, and the gap is widening every day.
00:27:02.000Proust's former ambassador to China, Juan Carlos Cupanye, has admitted to Reuters that China is, quote, the most important commercial, economic, and technological partner with Latin America.
00:27:14.000With economic dependency comes political reliance and domination.
00:27:20.000Chinese investment through its Belt and Road Initiative has exposed the endgame for China.
00:27:26.000Through trade and investment capital and infrastructure projects, China will expand until entire continents are under its control.
00:27:36.000And while the United States piddles around in Somalia and Ukraine, China is setting the stage for the creation of puppet regimes just a few hours from our southern border, a short boat ride away in Venezuela's case.
00:27:52.000A serious nation would confront the bears and dragons at our doorstep.
00:27:59.000Instead, Joe Biden would have America treed by the world's chihuahuas.
00:28:07.000The United States now more than ever desperately needs a new foreign policy aimed at securing our interests at home and protecting our neighbors and allies from Chinese expansionism.
00:28:19.000This is our neck of the woods, and we can't afford to tolerate another Cold War in South America.
00:28:25.000Sometimes modern problems require tested and tried solutions.
00:28:30.000If we want to win the future, we need a new Monroe Doctrine.
00:28:34.000It's time to get serious before it's too late.
00:28:37.000It's time to protect our geopolitical home court.
00:28:41.000That would be a responsible behavior from a real superpower.
00:28:47.000But no, instead, on Capitol Hill, we're not focused on combating Russia and China and the Western Hemisphere.
00:28:53.000We've got the January 6th hearings going on.
00:28:59.000I don't think you should watch all these hearings.
00:29:02.000They are largely contrived performances.
00:29:05.000And so I'm not going to break down every allegation made.
00:29:09.000I think that's what the left and their Republican puppets want.
00:29:13.000I think they want all of us so focused on, you know, tweezing through their lies and distortions in these hearings that we're not out there actually talking about the real things going on that can impact American quality of life.
00:29:26.000So in these J6 hearings, there are all these performances.
00:29:29.000And one thing that just caught me They are engaged in a process that would never be allowed in a court of law.
00:29:52.000My name is Marcus Childress, and I'm an investigative counsel for the select committee to investigate the January 6th attack on the United States Capitol.
00:29:59.000On December 19th, President Trump tweeted about the January 6th rally and told attendees, be there, we'll be wild.
00:30:07.000Many of the witnesses that we interviewed were inspired by the president's call and came to D.C. for January 6th.
00:30:15.000So think about what you're watching there.
00:30:17.000A hired staff member reading off of a teleprompter, In a committee room, edited by an ABC producer, played on primetime.
00:30:28.000Did they even hire the investigators because of their investigation skills?
00:30:32.000Or did they hire these people based on how well they would read a teleprompter and perform?
00:30:38.000Did you have to try out to be a staffer on the January 6th committee by seeing how good your teleprompter skills were?
00:30:45.000How good you were on camera retelling other people's stories?
00:30:51.000And there's a reason why courts don't allow this type of hearsay, because it's unreliable.
00:30:56.000It necessarily flows through the biases and the lens of the person telling the story, not the person who actually witnessed direct events or can offer specific evidence regarding a specific allegation.
00:31:11.000So I just was deeply, deeply struck by that and how There's another element of these hearings that just demands a debunking.
00:31:25.000The obsession with linking Donald Trump to the Proud Boys.
00:31:48.000With the potential for a lot more eventually.
00:31:53.000So the argument here is that Donald Trump was out there purposefully dog-whistling to the Proud Boys in a presidential debate in order to swell their numbers so that they would have a force that could overtake the Capitol Police and the Capitol and keep Trump in power.
00:32:42.000Are you willing tonight to condemn white supremacists and militia groups and to say that they need to stand down and not add to the violence in a number of these cities as we saw in Kenosha and as we've seen in Portland?
00:33:23.000So you can clearly see there that Chris Wallace is trying to bait Trump and bait the Proud Boys.
00:33:29.000And it in fact was Chris Wallace invoking them that likely led to a rise in their membership.
00:33:34.000Of course, when an organization gets mentioned on a nationally televised, internationally televised presidential debate, They're going to get more attention.
00:33:42.000More people would take a look at them.
00:33:44.000But that is not at the feet of Donald Trump as the committee would have you believe.
00:33:49.000We are broadcasting live out of the United States Capitol Complex.
00:33:53.000Tim on Facebook says the whole purpose of the January 6th committee is to stop President Trump's 2024 run.
00:34:01.000A lot of people are talking about that and that very well may be the objective.
00:34:06.000I think the American people see what's happening with great clarity.
00:34:11.000We also have some breaking news about Twitter.
00:34:15.000We all know this because of the constant gaslighting that they engage in.
00:34:20.000So here's some material for your next argument.
00:34:24.000Look at this screenshot of Twitter employees discussing how they, quote, successfully deplatformed Trump.
00:34:32.000But banning libs of TikTok may not be in line with their, quote, fiduciary interests.
00:34:39.000They even admit banning libs of TikTok might erode trust given that users already think that they are irredeemably biased against conservatives.
00:34:49.000Twitter suffers from the same disease as the federal government.
00:34:53.000Thousands of people working in the HR wokeism sector.
00:35:00.000And as we can see, the Twitter employees spend their time conspiring to undermine conservatives, probably because they aren't doing anything else particularly helpful to improve the platform.
00:35:14.000Idle hands may be the devil's workshop.
00:36:00.000We'll just take a look at their content conveniently located for your viewing pleasure at Libs of TikTok.
00:36:07.000Thanks so much everyone for joining us.
00:36:09.000We're going to have a lot of reports coming your way this week as the left continues their advance against freedom.
00:36:15.000We have major reports on our work to protect the Second Amendment, to oppose the gun control that I think too many Republicans are willing to sign up for.
00:36:25.000So we'll have a lot more on that tomorrow.
00:36:27.000We'll be kicking off around noon Eastern, 11 o'clock Central.
00:36:31.000Make sure you subscribe, that you've got your notifications turned on, and that you'll join us soon for more Firebrand.