Firebrand - Matt Gaetz - Episode 73 LIVE: Inappropriations (feat. Mike Robertson) – Firebrand with Matt Gaetz

In this episode of Firebrand, we discuss the continuing resolution that passed the House of Representatives with a bare hand, and how Joe Biden's press secretary is obsessed with Matt Gaetz. We also discuss the White House's response to the continued government funding crisis, and why it's time to rise up against the Deep State. Firebrand is a production of the Firebrand Podcast Network. New episodes released every Tuesday. See all the links below for preferred Testo pricing and shipping links. Thank you for listening and share the podcast with your friends, family, and colleagues. Tweet Me! if you like the podcast and/or have any suggestions for future episodes, please tweet me and we'll get them on the show. Timestamps: 3:00 - What's your favorite part about Joe Biden? 4:30 - Why Joe Biden has been the worst president in my lifetime for energy 6:00 - Why the deep state has a problem 7:15 - Joe Biden needs to go 8:20 - What are the real priorities of the Biden administration 9:40 - What do you think of the new press secretary for Joe Biden 11:00 | Joe Biden s lack of self awareness or factual awareness 12:15 | What's the real problem Joe Biden is trying to do 13:30 | What s going on with food insecurity 14:30 15:40 | What do we need to do? 16:40 17:10 | Who are the most important thing Joe Biden does to do to fight food insecurity? 17 - What s the most? 18:00 Joe Biden should do to help the country? 19: What are we fighting for the country ? 21:10 22: Is Joe Biden really fighting for food insecurity in Washington, what s going to happen to food insecurity and food insecurity ? 21 - What does Joe Biden working for the people? 26:15 27:00 +16:10 - Who do we have a chance to do more than that? 25: What's going to Joe Biden do we get to do the most in the job? #1: What does he do with our food insecurity, and what does he need to get more of that in the process of food insecurity?? 24:00 -- What are you gonna do with it?

00:00:00.000 Thank you.

00:04:07.000 In battle Congressman Matt Gates.

00:04:21.000 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.

00:04:28.000 Matt Gaetz right now, he's a problem in the Democratic Party.

00:04:31.000 He can cause a lot of hiccups in passing applause.

00:04:34.000 So we're going to keep running the stories to keep hurting him.

00:04:38.000 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!

00:04:47.000 You are in the right place!

00:04:48.000 This is the movement for you!

00:04:51.000 You ever watch this guy on television?

00:04:53.000 It's like a machine.

00:04:54.000 Matt Gaetz.

00:04:55.000 I'm a cancelled man in some corners of the internet.

00:04:59.000 Many days I'm a marked man in Congress, a wanted man by the deep state.

00:05:03.000 They aren't really coming for me.

00:05:05.000 They're coming for you.

00:05:07.000 I'm just in the way.

00:05:13.000 Welcome back to Firebrand.

00:05:14.000 We are live in room 1721 of the Longworth office building here in the Capitol complex in Washington DC. I've got very important information that you need regarding a government funding bill that Nancy Pelosi was able to pass with a lot of Republican support.

00:05:32.000 Shameful, really bad for the country, going to exacerbate the border crisis, the inflation crisis, and It's even going to allow Nancy Pelosi to rule with a dead hand after she's no longer likely to be Speaker of the House.

00:05:47.000 My Legislative Director Mike Robertson will be joining us in just a moment to go over that and to go into some of the real bad funding decisions that are reflected in the continuing resolution that was passed in the Congress today.

00:05:59.000 We're also going to talk about some of the anti-big tech legislation that we also were able to pass.

00:06:05.000 I voted for that.

00:06:06.000 I think these large technology platforms have too much power, should not be able to engage in some of the mergers and acquisitions that give them the ability to stifle thought and speech.

00:06:17.000 Certainly something critically important.

00:06:19.000 We're on Twitch now.

00:06:21.000 That's new news.

00:06:23.000 A lot of folks are commenting.

00:06:25.000 I look caloric on Twitch, gives a shout out to the MAGA nation and says that it is time to rise up, rise up indeed.

00:06:33.000 I kind of think this new press secretary for Joe Biden is obsessed with me.

00:06:38.000 She keeps tweeting at me.

00:06:40.000 Go ahead and put up this tweet, guys.

00:06:42.000 Here's Corrine Jean-Pierre tweeting, While we're focused on Hurricane Ian, at GOP leader, just said his top priority is repealing the Inflation Reduction Act.

00:06:53.000 Meaning that it's a commitment to raising drug prices, hiking energy bills, a tax giveaway for corporations.

00:07:00.000 And then she writes, even Matt Gaetz says it's about helping lobbyists.

00:07:06.000 No.

00:07:06.000 What I said is that when you engage in a legislative agenda that is not driven by the needs of the people, but by the needs of the donor class inside of Washington, D.C., that that inevitably benefits those lobbying groups It gives them more power.

00:07:24.000 It gives them more access.

00:07:25.000 That's why I've opposed it.

00:07:27.000 But to hear Karine Jean-Pierre lecture us about hiking energy bills The Joe Biden presidency has been the worst presidency for energy consumption, certainly in my lifetime, probably going all the way back to Jimmy Carter.

00:07:45.000 So to be lectured by the Biden administration on energy is quite something.

00:07:51.000 And when they talk about tax giveaways for corporations, give me a break.

00:07:55.000 When we passed the Trump tax cuts, we were able to repatriate dollars back to our country.

00:08:01.000 You see, The complicated tax system that offshores money, that's not available for regular working class people. 0.81

00:08:09.000 That's something that the powerful use to avoid paying their fair share.

00:08:13.000 Well, when Trump lowered those rates, then actually we got more taxes.

00:08:18.000 Lower rates, more taxes, and more taxpayers because it was an invitation for broader participation in the American economy.

00:08:25.000 Lifting people out of poverty, giving people opportunities for jobs, careers, and better lives.

00:08:31.000 You know, Karine Jean-Pierre, obsessed as she is.

00:08:35.000 And I guess I understand why it's a challenging time to work at the White House right now.

00:08:40.000 Joe Biden this week demonstrated just such a bizarre lack of self-awareness or factual awareness.

00:08:50.000 Take a look.

00:08:54.000 I want to thank all of you here for including bipartisan elected officials like Representative Governer, Senator Braun, Senator Booker, Representative Jackie, are you here?

00:09:05.000 Where's Jackie?

00:09:06.000 I didn't think she was going to be here.

00:09:08.000 What happened in the Hunger event today?

00:09:10.000 The President appeared to look around the room for an audience member, a member of Congress who passed away last month, and seemed to indicate she might be in the room.

00:09:18.000 So the President was, as you all know, you guys were watching today's event, a very important event on food insecurity.

00:09:26.000 The President was naming the congressional champions on this issue and was acknowledging her incredible work.

00:09:33.000 He had already planned to welcome The Congresswoman's family to the White House on Friday.

00:09:40.000 There will be a bill signing in her honor this coming Friday.

00:09:43.000 So, of course, she was on his mind.

00:09:46.000 She was of top of mind for the President. 0.97

00:09:49.000 He very much looks forward to discussing her remarkable legacy of public service with them when he sees her family this coming Friday.

00:09:58.000 Jackie, are you here?

00:09:59.000 Where's Jackie?

00:10:00.000 She must not be here.

00:10:01.000 No, I totally understand.

00:10:03.000 I just explained.

00:10:04.000 She was on top of mind.

00:10:09.000 What we were able to witness today and what the President was able to lift up at this conference, at this event, was how her focus on wanting to Deal with, combat food insecurity in America.

00:10:27.000 And this is something that he was lifting up and honoring.

00:10:30.000 And, again, he knows that he's going to see her family this coming Friday.

00:10:34.000 There's a bill signing that's going to happen in renaming a VA clinic in Indiana after the late Congresswoman.

00:10:42.000 He knows that he is going to see her family, and she was at top of mind.

00:10:49.000 If you ever look up second-hand embarrassment, I think that's probably what you would get.

00:10:55.000 It is painful to watch Corrine Jean-Pierre have to explain that when Joe Biden was asking whether or not someone who had tragically and very publicly passed away months earlier when he was calling that person's name and asking if they were there, she is now trying to spin that as to some sort of recognition as to what's on the top of Joe Biden's mind.

00:11:17.000 I mean, is it a mind left at all, one has to ask at this point, with Joe Biden often not knowing where he is, where he's going, who he's talking to, or even who is dead or alive in the United States Congress?

00:11:35.000 It just should have been acknowledged.

00:11:37.000 Like, you know, everybody can make an embarrassing mistake behind a microphone a time or two.

00:11:42.000 But when you do that, you should just say, oh, look, that was a really embarrassing mistake.

00:11:45.000 I'm sorry, and I'll try to be more focused next time.

00:11:49.000 But instead, he sends out the press secretary to act as though, like, oh, just top of mind.

00:11:57.000 Very strange.

00:11:58.000 That brings us to a segment we like to call Today in Congress.

00:12:02.000 Music Today in Congress.

00:12:12.000 Today in Congress we reflect on the passage of critical legislation regarding big tech.

00:12:17.000 That's right, we passed a bill that was sponsored by Ken Buck and David Cicilline that gives us the chance to raise filing fees on mergers over a billion dollars.

00:12:27.000 Doing that will limit the ability of big tech to engage in the anti-competitive practices where if there is a potential competitor, if there is another technology, if there is another vector or plug-in, they just go and gobble them up and acquire them.

00:12:42.000 And you know how we know that?

00:12:43.000 In the House Judiciary Committee, we conducted a two-year bipartisan investigation into big tech, and we saw the emails and the messages and the strategy slides where Mark Zuckerberg himself is directing these acquisitions explicitly to harm the marketplace and to limit consumer choice.

00:13:02.000 And when that power concentrates in big tech, we see the results.

00:13:07.000 Censorship, shadow banning conservatives, Getting to a world in which the terms of service on Twitter feel like they're more important than the values that undergird the United States Constitution.

00:13:20.000 Of our antitrust laws.

00:13:21.000 And to engage in that enforcement, we are going to raise filing fees on the 13% of mergers and acquisitions that occur over a billion dollars each and every year.

00:13:31.000 So this is not companies with an acquisition, a merger valued at less than a billion dollars.

00:13:37.000 That's 87% of them.

00:13:39.000 And actually for those, we are able to lower the filing fees.

00:13:44.000 This is something that big tech lobbied heavily against.

00:13:48.000 There were some who said, oh, well, this isn't really anti-big tech.

00:13:51.000 It might help big tech.

00:13:52.000 But the reality is big tech descended their lobbyists on Capitol Hill like a swarm of locusts to try to kill these bills.

00:14:02.000 And the reality is we got them passed anyway.

00:14:04.000 We also passed legislation that will allow every attorney general in America to be a part of the infrastructure legally to hold Big Tech accountable.

00:14:15.000 Used to be Big Tech could always get home venue in California where they're likely to get friendly judges, friendly juries.

00:14:24.000 Now, with the venue bills that we passed, big tech operating everywhere can be sued everywhere.

00:14:30.000 And I hope that we get some really bright, aggressive attorneys general who are able to assemble the human talent to build the cases that these companies are committing fraud in some circumstances, violating their own terms of service.

00:14:44.000 They may be involved in RICO in some events with predicate criminal acts.

00:14:50.000 So I'm glad that that power is now being vested in the states where it should be.

00:14:55.000 One thing that did happen in Congress today was also the passage of legislation that harms our federalist system, deprives states of the ability to innovate, and it continues the failures of the federal government on a continuing resolution into December.

00:15:09.000 Now, why December?

00:15:12.000 Well, everyone expects the Democrats are going to lose the House in November.

00:15:16.000 And so after losing the House, Nancy Pelosi still wants the opportunity to dictate budget terms into potential Republican control. 1.00

00:15:27.000 And some Republicans were so dumb, they went along with this. 0.98

00:15:31.000 And it's not just that it empowers Nancy Pelosi, it includes bad policy as well. 0.99

00:15:35.000 Joining me now is my Legislative Director, Mike Robertson.

00:15:38.000 And Mike, you have been going through this continuing resolution.

00:15:41.000 Share with folks what's in it that's got you concerned.

00:15:45.000 You've got to get the mic right up to you.

00:15:47.000 Right up here.

00:15:47.000 Well, first with the December 16th, this is a symptom of what are our legislators on the right side of the aisle actually here for?

00:15:54.000 We can't meet today, by the way, you know, 930, September 30th is the end of the fiscal quarter, end of the fiscal year, and by kicking the can down the road, We are not really making any progress as a party or as a country because we're allowing the same exact appropriators that couldn't meet a deadline on September 30th to get another strike at this.

00:16:13.000 And a lot of these members are retiring, they've got their coffers lined up for some earmarks, and they've got everything lined up on this.

00:16:20.000 Another thing to look at, let's begin, this was conducted on a shell bill for a price control on insulin.

00:16:25.000 This isn't a standalone budget bill, and that's just a symptom of some people on the right and a lot of people on the left are of this doctrine of price controls and evading the traditional budget process in this country.

00:16:37.000 We're supposed to have 12 separate appropriations bills.

00:16:40.000 We thought we were close.

00:16:41.000 We have six of the twelve passed.

00:16:43.000 But instead, we're going to buy some time.

00:16:45.000 And the reality is it's more than buying time and keeping funding levels the same.

00:16:49.000 We've got all sorts of bad spending tucked into here, starting with Ukraine.

00:16:53.000 Over $12 billion of more funding for Ukraine.

00:16:56.000 And it's ironic because I thought we were trying to fund the United States government.

00:17:00.000 Of this $12 plus billion, we have $4.5 billion for economic assistance to support government operations in Ukraine.

00:17:08.000 So that's a little suspect to me.

00:17:11.000 So we can't fund our own government, but we've got broad bipartisan agreement to fund Ukrainians.

00:17:16.000 No problem.

00:17:17.000 Everybody always says in a $100 billion European war, it's always the last $12 billion that wins it for you.

00:17:23.000 Yeah, it really kicks in the door is what I heard.

00:17:25.000 So, well, again, CR, in the minority, it's really not a bad idea to keep...

00:17:30.000 Stringing along to stop all this excessive spending, but conservatives and Democrats alike have polluted this process by upping the spending in the billions of dollars.

00:17:40.000 And then on top of the $12 billion for another country, we've got $1.8 billion to keep the borders, the refugee assistance open in this country.

00:17:48.000 It's really going to backfire.

00:17:49.000 This is basically the federal government's human trafficking fund.

00:17:52.000 Yeah, essentially it is, to the HHS. That's what people have to realize.

00:17:55.000 When your members of Congress, when your senators vote for this continuing resolution, they are voting to fund the infrastructure that is turning our border into a turnstile.

00:18:06.000 that is not just releasing people in our country, but quite literally drawing them from across our border to the United States and then giving them transportation, education, health care, cell phone, you name it, all at the expense of the American taxpayer.

00:18:22.000 So I really think, for me, the continuing failure at the border would be reason alone to vote against this $1.8 billion.

00:18:32.000 So $12 billion for Ukraine, $1.8 billion to continue the Biden administration's failures on the border.

00:18:39.000 What else is in here?

00:18:40.000 Yeah, that's just scratching the surface.

00:18:41.000 So those are the main moving items in terms of dollars and cents.

00:18:44.000 But I just have to keep going back to this as a continuing resolution.

00:18:47.000 We're supposed to, in an emergency situation, we didn't have a full year to pass a budget.

00:18:52.000 We're going to keep spending where it is, resume in December 16th.

00:18:56.000 We've got a half a billion dollar increase on the cap for Social Security spending because the Democrats and some Republicans don't really want to fix that problem that's continually...

00:19:04.000 Just keep kicking the can down the road.

00:19:06.000 Let the economy worsen.

00:19:08.000 And they're just pointing on having some solution I haven't heard from leadership myself.

00:19:12.000 One thing that really we must take note of is there are not a lot of people calling for balanced budgets anymore.

00:19:19.000 We used to at least have the stalwarts who would beat the table and demand balanced budgets.

00:19:26.000 Now it is just about how far out you want to kick the can down the road, not even toward A resolution of these critical entitlement funds.

00:19:37.000 That's right.

00:19:37.000 And I noticed that this extension kicking down the can happens to extend past election season before November.

00:19:45.000 And, you know, everybody's out of pocket for November because it's really a symptom that a lot of politicians care more about getting reelected than a balanced budget in this country where we can be sustainable.

00:19:55.000 Well, and they love to have the budget run out in December.

00:19:59.000 Oh, yeah.

00:20:00.000 Because members of Congress always have their Christmas travel plans, their Christmas family plans, and the lobbyists and the swamp monsters in this town can get anything they want out of Congress when Congress is backed up against a Christmas break.

00:20:14.000 And I mean, you know, it's shameful, really, because you think about...

00:20:18.000 George Washington crossing the Delaware River, you know, at a time when the German Hessians were celebrating holiday and having festivity, and it was that, like, raw patriotism that carved our country out of wilderness and won our freedoms.

00:20:32.000 And now you have a Congress that can't be bothered to actually go through appropriations, but that just sets up this cliff around Christmas that we all know will result in more of the same, more failure and more empowering the Biden administration.

00:20:47.000 Right, and in my heart, I don't think that George Washington would be very proud to say we're spending our December doubling the allocations for agriculture and FDA, suicide hotlines, and other things that may sound great in principle, and we do rely on those things, but this is not to be tucked away in an extension deadline, Bill.

00:21:06.000 That's for the budget, which we don't have yet.

00:21:07.000 So it's bad process.

00:21:09.000 You have to understand what Mike said.

00:21:11.000 This was a piece of legislation regarding insulin prices.

00:21:15.000 And they attached the entire funding of our government and Ukraine's to that bill so that these programs and these policy choices would not be subject to committee review and to hearings and to markups and amendments Because they don't want you to be able to amend what's part of their deal that enriches them at the expense of the people in this country.

00:21:38.000 And we have to do better.

00:21:41.000 We as Republicans have to be willing to grind this corrupt place to a halt if necessary to deliver wins for our people.

00:21:49.000 And here's one that I've been discussing with some of my colleagues, Mike.

00:21:52.000 Shutting it down over work requirements.

00:21:54.000 You want to talk about something that unites Republican, Democrat, independent business owners, people out in the workforce?

00:22:02.000 It's the notion that we shouldn't be paying people not to work if you've got a bunch of able-bodied, childless adults getting a whole lot of welfare programs.

00:22:08.000 So I actually think that we could unify a Republican caucus around the theory that we don't fund these entitlement programs anymore without work requirements for able-bodied, childless adults.

00:22:20.000 100% agree and maybe we wouldn't run out of money so quickly if people were back to work in this country. 0.91

00:22:25.000 Amen to that.

00:22:26.000 Well, thank you so much for that briefing about what's in the legislation, Mike.

00:22:29.000 And now we watch as Hurricane Ian barrels down on the Carolinas, having ripped across Florida.

00:22:35.000 We have got a lot of folks still out of power.

00:22:38.000 Remember that you got to take notice of what local officials are putting out regarding boil notices for water.

00:22:45.000 We want to make sure if people are using generators that they've got the right ventilation.

00:22:49.000 We never want to see loss of life.

00:22:51.000 And There's a lot of trees falling.

00:22:54.000 There's a lot of debris around.

00:22:56.000 And there'll be a lot of chainsaws getting fired up in the state of Florida over the next 48 to 72 hours.

00:23:02.000 So please, please be safe.

00:23:04.000 After major hurricanes like this, we always end up with folks in our emergency rooms who were fine during the storm, but who experienced some challenge or had some malady thereafter when working to rebuild.

00:23:15.000 And we do note that there is something special about Florida where we've got the muscle memory for this.

00:23:22.000 We're tough for hurricanes.

00:23:23.000 We are innovative.

00:23:24.000 We know how to take what is around us and put it to our uses to make sure we can still get the job done.

00:23:30.000 No better example of that than this local news anchor reporting during Hurricane Ian describing how she keeps her microphone operational.

00:23:41.000 Take a listen. - A lot of people are asking, what is on my microphone?

00:23:47.000 It is what you think it is.

00:23:48.000 It's a condom.

00:23:49.000 It helps protect the gear.

00:23:51.000 We can't get these mics wet.

00:23:52.000 There's a lot of wind.

00:23:53.000 There's a lot of rain.

00:23:54.000 So we gotta do what we gotta do.

00:23:56.000 And that is put a condom on the microphone. 1.00

00:24:02.000 There's always a little MacGyver element to everything that Florida man or Florida woman does and you know what I'm proud of Floridians for being tough and resolute and for helping each other in this time of need and there'll be a lot of folks who do need help rebuilding getting their lives back together and we always want to be gracious and lend that helping hand to our fellow Floridians and to our fellow Americans.

00:24:24.000 Thank you so much for listening, for joining us today.

00:24:26.000 If you're listening on Apple iTunes, please do me a favor.

00:24:29.000 Give us that five-star rating.

00:24:31.000 Make sure you're subscribed.

00:24:32.000 And the only way you know every time we go live is if you hit that little bell, turn your notifications on, and join us each and every day for Firebrand.

00:24:42.000 Let's roll the credits.

Firebrand - Matt Gaetz - September 30, 2022

Episode 73 LIVE: Inappropriations (feat. Mike Robertson) – Firebrand with Matt Gaetz

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