In this episode, I go over some agenda items that have been discussed among different members of the Republican Conference, from moderates, centrists, MAGA, and even some Libertarians, that could unite the Republican Party behind an agenda that is 80/20 issues that can unite all of us around a common agenda. I also talk about Mitch McConnell and why he should go, and why the party should have rules that open up the legislative process for new members to work with the majority party in the House of Representatives. And I talk about why I think Mitch McConnell is a sellout and why you should vote for Rick Scott to challenge Mitch McConnell in the upcoming primary battle against Ronna McDaniel and challenge him in the primary challenge against Sen. Joe Manchin of New Jersey and why I would vote for him to defeat Mitch McConnell to become the next President of the United States of America. Firebrand is a conservative political podcast produced in Washington, D.C. and focuses on the politics of politics, economics, and culture in the modern era. Hosted by John Rocha and Matt, and produced by Alex Castellanos. Subscribe to Firebrand to get immediate access to all the latest breaking news and analysis from Firebrand's social media accounts, and stay up to date on all things going on in politics, culture, and events happening around the country. including the latest in the world of politics and culture. Tweet Me! to let me know what you thought of this episode and what you would like to be featured on future episodes of Firebrand. or your thoughts on the next week's episode of the show. . Tweet me if you have any questions or thoughts on anything I should be answered in the next episode? or any other podcast you d like me to tweet me or other things I should know about the future of the movement? or a question you dm me about the movement in a question or topic I d like to hear about it! or anything else I should I should cover in a future episode and what s going on? I d love to hear from you guys are getting a shoutout! Timestamps: - Firebrand: - John Ralden - - , @ Tim : & . . . - Tim : @ , @ . , , or ?
00:04:42.000Matt 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.
00:04:49.000Matt Gaetz right now, he's a problem in the Democratic Party.
00:04:52.000He can cause a lot of hiccups in passing the laws.
00:04:55.000So we're going to keep running the stories to keep hurting him.
00:04:58.000If 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!
00:05:35.000We are live broadcasting out of the Longworth office building on the Capitol Complex in Washington, D.C. And the best way to know when we're going live, have those notifications turned on.
00:05:45.000That makes you the first person to get the news, to get the tea on what's going on in the Capitol.
00:05:52.000In this episode, I'm going to be going over some agenda items that have been discussed among different members of the Republican Conference, from moderates, centrists, MAGA, America First, Libertarian, different things that we're all talking about that are 80-20 issues, that could unite different things that we're all talking about that are 80-20 issues, that could unite Republicans in a very But if you want to change the game, you've got to change the rules of the game.
00:06:18.000And in the swamp of Washington, D.C., far too often those rules reward the corrupt and the sellouts.
00:06:25.000And I've got some ideas how we can work across the aisle, across the ideological spectrum, work with our fellow Republicans in the majority to have rules that open up the legislative process and see what you think about them.
00:06:38.000So make sure you hang in there for that.
00:06:40.000But what everyone is talking about during this lame duck Congress, during this session after the election, but before the swearing in of new members, leadership races.
00:06:52.000Most major news organizations have called the midterm elections in the House of Representatives for the Republicans.
00:06:58.000And it looks like we may have a three, four seat majority that we will have to nurse through the legislative process.
00:07:05.000And what that functionally means is that any five people Can veto a Republican Speaker of the House nominee.
00:07:13.000Now, I'm not pretending that me and my four best friends in the America First movement have a veto that's any stronger than maybe three people that voted for impeachment and two centrist Republicans who are less inclined to support the Trump agenda or the America First agenda.
00:07:30.000If we act as though the America First members can just force someone down the throat of the moderates, they can block us just like we can block them.
00:07:39.000So we're kind of all in the same canoe right now, but certainly There is building momentum against those who are running things right now, really enterprise-wide in the Republican movement, whether it's Ronna McDaniel getting a challenge at the RNC, which she definitely should get that challenge, or Mitch McConnell in the Senate being challenged by Senator Scott, or the big vote yesterday in the House of Representatives, 36 House Republicans voting against Kevin McCarthy as the Speaker nominee.
00:08:09.000We'll get to that, but first to the Senate.
00:08:15.000And it's not just a consequence of outcomes in the election.
00:08:19.000It's outcomes in the legislative process.
00:08:21.000You got a bipartisan infrastructure, massive spending bill, because Mitch McConnell sold out.
00:08:30.000That was the yellow brick road to the reconciliation legislation, the so-called Inflation Reduction Act, which was really just sort of a repackaged Build Back Better.
00:08:41.000That happened because Mitch McConnell created the space fort in the United States Senate by doing the infrastructure deal.
00:08:47.000It was principally the same coalition that got there on the legislation that they called the Inflation Reduction Act, but will actually increase inflation because it will massively increase the major driver of inflation right now, which is government spending alongside a green energy policy that doesn't do much for the environment, but which is government spending alongside a green energy policy that doesn't do much for the Senator Rick Scott of Florida has stepped up to challenge McConnell's, I see that Senator Braun is supporting Rick Scott.
00:09:16.000I saw that Senator Hawley of Missouri said he was not voting for Mitch McConnell.
00:09:20.000So, you know what they say, same people, same lot.
00:09:23.000If I were a senator, I would be voting for Rick Scott.
00:09:27.000And that brings us to the House of Representatives, where we had a big vote yesterday.
00:09:33.000188 people voted for Kevin McCarthy and 36 people voted for someone else.
00:09:39.000Now, that doesn't exactly add up to the size of the Republican majority, but there are people like Mr. Duarte in California who got to cast a vote in the Republican election, even though his race has not been called yet.
00:09:50.000And we certainly hope that he wins that race.
00:09:52.000But it is a feature now of the Republican system where Even members who have not won their races and are not members-elect presumptively have the ability to vote in these leadership elections.
00:10:03.000So that's not anything other than how you should look at some of this math.
00:10:08.000But I mean, Kevin McCarthy couldn't get 218 votes.
00:10:16.000So to believe that Kevin McCarthy is going to be speaker, you have to believe that somehow he's going to get dozens of votes in the next six or seven weeks that he hasn't gotten in the last six years.
00:10:27.000And I can tell you, I've had conversations with a lot of these people.
00:11:05.000He endorsed against one of our fellow Republican members, Mary Miller.
00:11:09.000And as a consequence, Bob Good says he's not voting for Kevin McCarthy.
00:11:13.000You've heard me say on this program, I'm not voting for Kevin McCarthy.
00:11:17.000And the breaking news literally was happening just as we were coming on the air Congressman Matt Rosendale of Montana has just announced that he too will not vote for Kevin McCarthy.
00:11:31.000So remember the process of elimination paradigm.
00:11:34.000Anyone who five people vote against can't get there by the math.
00:11:38.000And so, Gates, Good, Rosendale, that's three and that number will climb.
00:11:45.000Meanwhile, McCarthy's number, I think, His floor and his ceiling are pretty close to one another.
00:11:51.000So it would be wise for Republicans to acknowledge that the votes are not there for Kevin McCarthy to be speaker, and let's resolve who can be.
00:11:59.000We did resolve some other leadership elections yesterday, and we'll get back to the speaker's race in a moment, but I do want to make note that we elected Steve Scalise to be our majority leader.
00:12:10.000I remember when I first came into Congress and I received the news early one morning that Steve Scalise had been shot at Republican baseball practice.
00:12:19.000We later learned that it was One of these very dangerous and radicalized ideological liberals who thought that it was their duty to kill Republicans.
00:12:29.000And he went there with a list of Republicans to kill at our baseball practice.
00:12:35.000And fortunately, by the grace of God, no one was killed.
00:12:54.000He was just so strident to get the most out of every single day.
00:12:58.000And probably the best moment in the House of Representatives, the most uplifting, in a place that often drags you down, was Steve Scalise's return to the House of Representatives after his medical leave, after having been shot.
00:13:18.000Look, we all know the United States is the leader of the free world.
00:13:21.000It's something that we've frankly had the honor as a country to hold as a distinction for generations.
00:13:28.000And yet, when you look at that title, what it really means is that there are people all around the world that want freedom, maybe that have freedom, but they know the United States being strong is critical to the rest of the world having the opportunity for freedom.
00:14:02.000back, because as we're fighting through the issues of the day, let's just keep in mind that we rise above the challenges of the day and understand that it's not just us and our constituents and the country.
00:14:18.000the United States, that's counting on us being successful.
00:14:21.000People all around the world that believe in freedom are counting on us as well.
00:15:26.000For the Republicans, this is the person that counts the votes, that provides feedback up to the leadership team, really viewed as a central figure in the leadership team.
00:15:36.000Steve Scalise had been the whip prior to now this election as the majority leader elect.
00:15:42.000And there was a race between Drew Ferguson of Georgia, Jim Banks of Indiana, and Tom Emmer of Minnesota.
00:15:49.000And interestingly, in the first ballot, Jim Banks actually had the most votes, but he did not have 50% plus one.
00:15:56.000And so that meant that all the votes that it Had been cast for Mr. Ferguson, he would be falling off the ballot for the next round.
00:16:04.000We had a subsequent vote, and it looks like a lot of the votes from Drew Ferguson went to Tom Emmer.
00:16:09.000And so Tom Emmer will be the whip of the House.
00:16:11.000I can honestly say he spends time with and communicates with the moderates, the centrists, the Freedom Caucus, the Libertarians, and don't always see eye to eye on everything, but can honestly say that Tom Emmer is free to share his viewpoint and is someone who listens to the viewpoints of people that he doesn't always agree with.
00:16:29.000And that is a key core competency for the whip.
00:16:33.000Tom Emmer's had some of his own spicy moments on the floor of the House of Representatives.
00:16:37.000Here is your incoming Republican whip.
00:16:42.000I rise in opposition to the previous question so that we can immediately consider H.R. 5586. This bill will kill a Biden administration proposal that would allow IRS agents to comb through the bank accounts of any American who spends more than $10,000 a year.
00:16:59.000To put that in perspective, $10,000 a year equates to just $28 a day, $850 a month, or half of the average Minnesota household mortgage payment.
00:17:13.000In other words, the Biden administration wants the IRS to be able to spy on tens of millions of Americans.
00:17:20.000This proposal does not just target the 1%, as the President sometimes likes to claim.
00:17:25.000Instead, it is pointed directly at working American families.
00:17:29.000Today, I led a letter with more than 200 of my colleagues urging Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen to scrap this proposal to spy on American citizens.
00:17:40.000We must protect Americans' right to privacy and stop this proposed intrusive, unnecessary Biden financial reporting requirements, and I yield back.
00:17:51.000Give me more of that energy as whip, Tom Emmer.
00:17:54.000It's absolutely right that elements of the Biden government have been weaponized against us.
00:17:59.000That is eroding privacy rights, constitutional rights, political association rights, First Amendment rights.
00:18:05.000And so if Tom Emmer is going to take the fight to these bureaucratic agencies, then he'll have a friend in me and I'll work right alongside him to get that job done.
00:18:14.000We're not China, but increasingly these liberals and woketopians want all of us to have a social credit score.
00:18:20.000Whether it's for the loan we want to get for our business, whether it's for the Facebook page or social media site we want to set up, or whether it's even the commerce we want to engage in, increasingly that is being strangled by woke leftism.
00:18:36.000Tom Emmer seems to get the absolute We are in those remarks, and I look forward to working with him.
00:19:29.000Are you going to solicit or accept the votes of Democrats in pursuit of the speaker's gavel?
00:19:34.000And he, unequivocally to his credit, said he never had, he never would.
00:19:39.000And now, in Politico, the school newspaper, we see that McCarthy allies are reportedly out there trying to get Democrats to change parties.
00:20:06.000He actually thinks people who are not here legally should be deported.
00:20:09.000He understands that not every person who claims that they're in fear as they break our laws and enter into our country is a legitimate asylum seeker.
00:20:56.000And on that day, Kevin McCarthy is not going to have the votes to be Speaker.
00:21:01.000But it's not just a question of what person is in the position.
00:21:05.000It's also about the rules of Congress that are so fundamentally broken.
00:21:10.000And by the way, a lot of members of Congress, Republicans and Democrats, realize that this is a system perfectly created to empower the few at the expense of The representatives at large, who in turn are there to be a voice for the people of our country.
00:21:28.000And so recently at a FreedomWorks forum hosted by Congressman Andy Biggs, I made the case for bipartisan reforms to our rules so that we had more open, honest, ethical government.
00:21:41.000And what you'll notice is, right after that, President Trump, in his announcement speech last night, well, I'll let you listen to his remarks after hearing mine and wonder whether or not maybe we had a little influence on the content of that policy.
00:22:01.000I believe that no member of Congress, by House rule, should be allowed to accept a donation for their campaign from a federal lobbyist or a federal political action committee.
00:22:11.000And I will ask for a permanent ban on taxpayer funding of campaigns.
00:22:16.000The second thing I would suggest is that if someone is a member of Congress, they should be prohibited from lobbying for life.
00:22:22.000Why is it so hard to say that you should choose one side or the other to be on?
00:22:27.000You're either in the lawmaking game or you're in the influence peddling game.
00:22:31.000A lifetime ban on lobbying by former members of Congress and cabinet members.
00:22:37.000I will also introduce an amendment to have a ban on members of Congress trading individual stocks.
00:22:43.000How can we say that that is not something that dilutes our trust in markets and in governance when people are essentially able to bet on the outcomes that they have an ability to somewhat control?
00:22:55.000We want a ban on members of Congress getting rich by trading stocks with insider information.
00:23:04.000And many of our great members agree with that.
00:23:41.000I think he just announced for a different job and said he was not interested in the nomination, but I very much tried to convince him otherwise.
00:23:47.000Edward Snowden for speaker was a suggestion that I had not seen before today.
00:23:52.000A lot of love for Lauren Boebert on the Rumble Rants.
00:23:56.000And a few of you think that I might be a good speaker choice.
00:23:59.000Let me say I have no interest in the speaker's gavel.
00:24:32.000Paul Ryan was backing Kevin McCarthy too before he became Speaker.
00:24:36.000But there's sort of a moment in the progression of Kevin McCarthy Speaker campaigns where everyone realizes that he's not going to have the votes to get there.
00:24:43.000And usually then someone emerges out of the McCarthy camp that is more broadly acceptable.
00:25:04.000I probably wouldn't get very many votes.
00:25:06.000I don't have a lot of friends around here, but I'm OK with that because I'm on the team for Northwest Floridians who send me here.
00:25:13.000And for my fellow Americans who feel like we actually need patriotic service that puts the people of our country first, not the lobbyists, not the special interests, not the leadership, and certainly not Mark Levin.
00:25:26.000To do these things, we also have to think about an agenda, and that's what I want to focus on for this next segment of our show today.
00:25:33.000So look, just as we saw Joe Manchin function as a limiting factor on what Chuck Schumer could do, Any group of five in the House is going to be able to function as a limiting factor on just about anything.
00:25:48.000So during this last week, I have worked very hard to reach out to more moderate and more centrist members of our caucus and ask them, like, what are your ideas?
00:25:58.000What are the things that if there was no Freedom Caucus, if there was no Massey Gates libertarian wing, if there was no Marjorie Taylor Greene led America First wing of our conference, what would some of the moderates and centrists want to do?
00:26:12.000And I've just pulled together kind of an amalgamation of those ideas.
00:26:15.000Go ahead and put them up on the screen right now.
00:26:17.000So just think about a Congress where these are the first 10 bills we pass in no particular order.
00:26:26.000Codifying the Heller decision, giving a major, major win to gun owners.
00:26:56.000Ensure that we support free speech on college campuses, challenge big tech by eliminating their immunities, and then creating reasonable work requirements.
00:27:07.000We hear from so many of our small businesses that getting people to work is increasingly difficult while the American government is paying able-bodied people to sit at home.
00:27:19.000If these were the first 10 things we did, if we geared up for the big spending fights later, because we're totally going to get screwed during this lame duck Congress by Mitch McConnell, Nancy Pelosi, and Chuck Schumer, so we probably won't have a big spending fight for the first year on an appropriations package.
00:27:36.000This could be HR 1 through HR 10. And if we did that, we would actually move the ball forward for the American people.
00:27:47.000We would conduct a parallel series of investigations around the origins of COVID, the weaponization of our government, the politicization of the DOJ and the FBI. But those are investigations.
00:28:00.000That's not necessarily a vote on the House floor.
00:28:03.000That is showcasing to the American people How the pain they are feeling is directly connected to the corrupt actions of the Biden government.
00:28:11.000So we're going to have really a wide array of members joining me on the show.
00:28:15.000I want to get some of these new members elect who are going to be in Congress on the show in the coming weeks because they've got a perspective that will be very important.
00:28:23.000They're very close to the voters having just won their first races in many circumstances.
00:28:28.000And when we do that, we're going to change the rules.
00:28:33.000We're going to conduct the investigations.
00:28:35.000And we are going to endeavor on the public policies that will improve the lives of our fellow Americans and the prosperity and the productivity and the success.