On this episode of Firebrand, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-GA) and Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) join me to discuss the controversy surrounding the words, "The Pledge of Allegiance" and why it should be recited at the beginning of every committee meeting. Plus, a look at the new Republican majority in the House Judiciary Committee, and how they voted down a Democratic amendment that would have required members of Congress to stand for the pledge of allegiance at the start of every meeting. Firebrand is a production of the National Council of the United States and is produced by Riley Braydon and the Firebrand Project. Firebrand Radio is produced in partnership with WMM Radio and WMMU, and is available on most major podcast directories including Podcoin, The Huffington Post, and The Hill. Please consider becoming a patron patron and/or a supporter of the show by clicking the patron link below. Thank you so much for your support, we appreciate it greatly. If you like what we do, please consider pledging a small monthly or annual contribution of $1, $5, $10, $15, $20, $50, $60, or $100, and we'll send you a free copy of our newest issue of our new book, Firebrand: A Call From The Nation. coming out on Nov. 21st! Thank you for listening and supporting the show! -Your support is so appreciated, we'll see you next week with a new episode on the next Friday. - Tom Steineman and we're looking forward to the next episode on Firebranding the podcast next Friday, November 21st and 22nd! -- Thank you. -- Tom's new book: Firebrand. Tom's book is out now! and the book will be out in the next issue of the podcast is out next Friday! Tom and the podcast will be on all the way back on November 1st, so don't miss it! Thanks, Tom, Tom's review of the new book "Firebrand" is out on Tuesday, November 22nd and 23rd, so make sure to check out the book "The Dark Side of the Deep State." Tom s review and review it out! . . . Tom s new book is out in paperback now! -- Tom s book, The Devil Next Door is available in hardcover, and it's coming out soon!
00:04:45.000Welcome to the National Council of the United States.
00:04:47.000Matt 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.
00:04:54.000Matt Gaetz right now, he's a problem for the Democratic Party.
00:04:57.000He can cause a lot of hiccups in passing the laws.
00:05:00.000So we're going to keep running those stories to keep hurting him.
00:05:04.000If 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.
00:05:41.000We are broadcasting live out of room 2021 of the Rayburn House Office Building on the Capitol Complex here in our nation's capital, Washington, D.C., and this episode gives us a deep dive into big tech, what the problems are, what the various things we can do to fight back might be.
00:06:26.000Two years ago, when the Democrats were in control, I thought it might be a nice, unifying thing to put into our Judiciary Committee rules a Pledge of Allegiance at the beginning of every committee meeting.
00:06:40.000And two years ago when the Democrats were in charge, this is how that went.
00:06:48.000I want to extend a welcome to the new committee members.
00:06:51.000I'm grateful to be back on this august committee.
00:06:54.000I understand and appreciate the significance and importance of the work that we do.
00:07:00.000I just think it would be nice if, in the spirit of national unity and national pride, which I know we all aspire to do to a greater extent, that at the beginning of each meeting, the chair or one of the designees of the chair would have the opportunity to lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance.
00:07:15.000We're all aware that in these times it's important for the country to see members of Congress working together on some things, and while I know that we can deal with divisive issues in the committee, it would be my hope that we could start every committee with a great, unifying, patriotic moment.
00:08:47.000Here on the august Judiciary Committee, we are charged with vindicating the constitutional rights of our fellow Americans, and our Pledge of Allegiance is a national symbol of pride and unity, and it was a great honor to be able to invite one of my constituents this morning to offer the Pledge of Allegiance, and so my amendment gives the committee the opportunity to begin each of its meetings with the Pledge of Allegiance.
00:09:12.000It gives our members the ability to I thank the gentleman for his amendment.
00:10:00.000We should be saying the pledge every single day, every single morning, and every single committee.
00:10:07.000Because when I was in elementary school, that's what I did.
00:10:10.000And I worked my butt off to be sitting here right now in this room, and the least we can do is to pay homage to the sacrifice of those that come before us to say, you know what?
00:10:21.000Democrat or Republican, we are in this together.
00:10:24.000That flag is the one thing that unites us.
00:10:27.000Let's just take 30 seconds to put all of our differences aside and say we can agree that this country is wonderful, this country has done outstanding things, and that brave men and women were willing to die for it.
00:10:38.000And that's what sets us apart from every other country in the entire world.
00:10:42.000Every generation stands up to die and fight for that flag.
00:10:45.000The least we can do is send the Pledge of Allegiance.
00:10:51.000That was Congressman Wes Hunt, new member of Congress, but a rising star already.
00:10:56.000And I think it's quite something that Jerry Nadler spoke against my amendment today.
00:11:02.000Wes Hunt gave that speech, and then subsequently, Jerry Nadler and every single other Democrat on the committee ended up voting with us because they were properly shamed into doing the right and patriotic thing.
00:11:16.000And speaking of right and patriotic, it was such an honor today.
00:11:21.000To invite, to give the first Pledge of Allegiance in the House Judiciary Committee for the 118th Congress, one of Northwest Florida's own, Staff Sergeant Beekman, joined me.
00:11:31.000We had a great time, a great patriotic time.
00:11:35.000Take a little listen and watch on this video of our experience.
00:11:39.000It is my pleasure and distinct honor to introduce to the committee Staff Sergeant Corey Ryan Beekman, an American hero and a constituent of mine residing in Pensacola, Florida, and I request that he be an American hero and a constituent of mine residing in Pensacola, Florida, and I request that he be permitted It's not objection.
00:12:00.000I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
00:12:17.000Patriotism to me is summed up to one thing.
00:12:20.000It's men and women that have decided to write a check to the American people, which is redeemable up into their entire life.
00:12:31.000Just like my fellow team leader back in Iraq.
00:12:35.000We don't get along left and right side of the aisle, but we need to remember we're all Americans and get back to the core beliefs of what we were and not so divisive, but think of what as a whole.
00:12:50.000We're going to disagree, but we need to find the middle ground as Americans.
00:12:58.000I could not have said it better myself, and we are always, always honored to be able to highlight the distinct and elite patriotism, especially of our fellow Northwest Floridians.
00:13:09.000Great comment from Joe on Rumble says, If Wes Hunt were a stock, I'm buying a bag.
00:13:15.000And I totally agree with that assessment.
00:13:17.000But if we want to protect the true values that undergird our Constitution for free speech, we are going to have to take on big tech.
00:13:24.000Now, one of the people who is at the forefront of that fight is Congressman Ken Buck of Colorado.
00:13:30.000He stopped by Firebrand just moments ago for a discussion.
00:14:01.000Tonight, we're gathered to call attention to a shocking coordinated attempt by progressives in business and government to suppress dissent, stifle debate, and threaten free speech.
00:14:17.000You just heard from one of the greatest advocates for free speech in our country, certainly the best in the House of Representatives.
00:14:24.000My colleague from Colorado would not want to mix those up, Ken Buck.
00:14:30.000And last evening, that was Representative Buck leading an hour of debate on a critical issue regarding telecommunications companies and what they're doing to limit access to programming based on viewpoint.
00:14:42.000Ken Buck also wrote a great book, Crushed.
00:15:10.000AT&T and DirecTV took One American News off, and it is clearly an attempt by the left to silence the right.
00:15:18.000We had two sitting members of the United States Congress, members of the Energy and Commerce Committee, who demanded that three networks, Newsmax, One American News, and Fox News, be taken off the air because of their radical positions.
00:15:35.000When we, as members of Congress, start to silence the other side, we've got real problems.
00:15:41.000I'm not opposed to any viewpoints on the other side.
00:15:44.000I think the more they talk, the dumber they look, and the more we gain.
00:15:48.000But to try to silence the other side is just wrong.
00:15:52.000Well, and it's very important that you understand that fact pattern.
00:15:55.000You had Democrat members of Congress who...
00:15:58.000Don't like the views that they see on Newsmax, One American News, probably Real America's Voice, and any other conservative-leaning channel.
00:16:05.000And so they sent a threat, an explicit threat, to AT&T Direct TV to try to get these channels canceled.
00:16:15.000It worked as to OAN, and now we see that very same negative action directed toward Newsmax.
00:16:21.000And do you think that's part of a broader play that you talk about in your book, Crushed?
00:16:26.000I do, but Matt, one of the important things is, and I failed to mention it earlier, is that Energy and Commerce has oversight over the Federal Communications Commission, which makes a lot of these decisions.
00:16:37.000And so, really, they're putting pressure on companies to take off conservative speech, or the Biden administration will act in concert and make sure they're punished.
00:16:49.000And do you think these companies really feel that pressure is a negative thing, or is it more that the members of Congress basically gaslight a permission structure for these woke corporations to do what they want to do anyway, and that is to limit a conservative viewpoint from being proliferated?
00:17:06.000Well, you and I will never know because we don't go to Davos.
00:17:09.000But the folks that go to Davos, that rub elbows, that make these kinds of decisions, they all get together behind closed doors.
00:17:15.000I don't know who initiates the conversation, but the result is the same.
00:17:33.000I remember when I was in school, it was always the liberals, the classical liberals that wanted this robust marketplace of ideas and it was a few conservatives who didn't want you to see certain things or look at certain things or read certain things.
00:17:49.000And now it's like totally flipped the script because they have such a low view of our fellow Americans.
00:17:57.000The Energy and Commerce Committee should be holding hearings on this.
00:18:00.000The Department of Justice antitrust entities should be looking into whether or not this is too much of a concentration of power and entities like AT&T and DirecTV that are stifling Newsmax and One American News and even Google's Terrible work to try to demonetize the Federalist.
00:18:19.000And I also believe that in the House Judiciary Committee we should ask these questions seriously and encourage the Department of Justice to take action.
00:18:29.000Congressman Ken Buck is my colleague on the House Judiciary Committee, and we've worked very closely to try to stop this cartel of big tech.
00:18:48.000They control over 90% of the buy side.
00:18:50.00090% of the sell side and they bought DoubleClick, which is the auction house.
00:18:55.000If you can imagine, they own the referees, they own the league office, they own both teams playing the football game and you and I are supposed to go to Vegas and place a wager It's absolutely absurd to think that one company can have that type of power in digital advertising if Congress did the right thing and adopted a bill that you and I supported last year, and Mike Lee and many others support on the Senate side.
00:19:23.000We would actually have a fair digital advertising.
00:19:27.000It would reduce costs to consumers and be really positive.
00:19:30.000And let me be straight with our viewers.
00:19:32.000Ken and I are opposite many of our fellow Republicans often on these issues of antitrust because there is a libertarian streak among some Republicans that would say, gosh, if you don't like what these companies are doing, just don't use them.
00:20:28.000They are fully engaged in political patronage, hiring the family members of elected leaders, making targeted political donations to the campaigns of critical members of Congress, buying off various Washington, D.C. think tanks, academic centers, and advocacy groups.
00:20:44.000And then you cite Meta, the company that owns Facebook, spent $20 million on lobbying in 2021. Amazon spent more than $19 million.
00:20:52.000The only public company that spent more on lobbying was Blue Cross Blue Shield.
00:20:58.000Which members of Congress do you think are compromised because their family members have jobs with big tech?
00:21:05.000Well, I mentioned in the book that Zoe Lofgren's daughter works for, I believe it was Amazon.
00:21:11.000And Zoe Lofgren is a Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee from California.
00:21:14.000Not only is she a Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee from California, she represents Silicon Valley, but also when we had a markup on six antitrust bills, she offered at least one poison pill amendment for every bill that we had.
00:21:29.000She voted against every bill that we had, and she was working every single caucus on the Democrat side trying to get them to oppose our bills.
00:21:38.000And I don't know if she still does, but even Chuck Schumer's daughter worked for Facebook.
00:21:46.000One works for Facebook, one works for Amazon.
00:21:49.000We also know that Nancy Pelosi's husband invests in these companies.
00:21:53.000And it just so happens that before Google was sued last week by the U.S. Department of Justice, two weeks earlier, her husband had sold the Google stock that they owned.
00:22:07.000And when the American people want to understand why there isn't progress made on these issues that, frankly, should be broadly supported, should be overwhelmingly bipartisan, you see these vectors of influence that are just outright corrupt.
00:22:22.000You are a constitutional conservative, you're a student of history, and you took some time in the book to talk about how our founders thought about the creative class.
00:22:34.000Well, it's clear that our founders valued private property rights almost above all other rights, and they recognized that prosperity is directly linked to private property rights.
00:22:48.000And so they set up very clearly in the Constitution a system for patents, but they also had debates, vigorous debates, about monopolies because of the East India Company and other examples of monopolies that they saw, which were really state-sanctioned monopolies.
00:23:05.000And they said in an exchange between Madison and Jefferson, oh, this could never happen in a country like America that we're setting up.
00:23:17.000The people would, you know, rise up against it.
00:23:19.000Little did they foresee, one, the Industrial Revolution, but also the revolution that we're going through in our economy now.
00:23:28.000And in a lot of ways those monopolies are preserved because we've wrapped the apparatus of big government around big tech.
00:23:34.000And at times it's hard to tell where big government ends and big tech begins because so many of the officials in the FCC and the Department of Justice and the FBI end up going to work for big tech.
00:23:46.000And so they never want to anger them too much.
00:23:47.000They always want to be very accommodating because in a lot of cases it's their future employer.
00:23:53.000And it's clear that if big tech were to actually be challenged, many of the folks would have to go out and earn a real living somehow.
00:24:03.000Amazon also gets treatment in the book regarding their self-dealing and the way that they vertically integrate to crush small businesses and entrepreneurs.
00:24:55.000So they are using their platform in an anti-competitive way.
00:25:01.000They're using their platform to identify a successful product and then make sure that they punish the innovator of that product, punish the investors in that product, and take every last cent that they can out of the market for their own product.
00:25:17.000And Jeff Bezos' response to that was, well, people like Amazon.
00:25:20.000Matter of fact, they like Amazon a lot more than they like Congress.
00:25:23.000Why shouldn't we just submit to our big tech overlords?
00:25:26.000If over 80% of people are saying that they believe that Amazon would do the right thing, and certainly Congress does not reach that threshold, who are we to critique them?
00:25:36.000We're individuals that understand that at some point China catches up.
00:25:41.000And China catches up because they have low labor rates, they have very low environmental regulations, and so low energy costs.
00:25:48.000And the only way we stay ahead of China and others in the world economy is to out-innovate.
00:25:53.000And if you take the incentive to innovate away, if you take the investment in innovation away, we lose.
00:26:00.000You're very critical of Apple in the book as well.
00:26:03.000You've got all kinds of interesting fruit puns.
00:26:05.000But you talk about the app marketplace.
00:26:09.000And Elon Musk has described this app marketplace that Apple controls as a functional tax on the internet.
00:26:17.000You know, a 30% tax on all things that people are using to interface with the digital world.
00:26:22.000How should people think about the app marketplace in antitrust terms or in government power terms?
00:26:29.000Well, if you look at Spotify, Spotify is paying a 30% surcharge because Apple has a product that competes with Spotify, Apple Music, on the App Store.
00:26:43.000And so if you dare to compete with an Apple product on their platform, they are going to charge you.
00:26:49.000So Spotify costs $12 on the App Store.
00:26:53.000Apple Music chart costs $9 a month and actually people are still choosing Spotify because it's a better product even at that cost.
00:27:03.000But Apple is going to make money off of that better product because they're on the App Store.
00:27:08.000Now one great example of what happens with Apple is Parler.
00:27:12.000After the January 6th ride in the United States Capitol, the next day Apple took Parler off the App Store.
00:27:21.000Within two days, Amazon Web Services refuses to service the web contract with Parler, and Parler is basically shut down.
00:27:30.000It's shut down because it is a conservative voice in the Twitter sphere.
00:27:35.000And so we know that people were using Facebook on January 6th.
00:27:40.000We know that people were using Twitter.
00:27:49.000The author is Congressman Ken Buck and he really takes a lot of these big tech companies to task.
00:27:54.000He calls Twitter an ideologically driven cartel.
00:27:58.000Now obviously we're seeing some changes at Twitter now.
00:28:00.000Those changes were probably happening in real time as you were writing the book.
00:28:04.000How do you assess the Twitter environment?
00:28:07.000Today, I assess it as a positive move and actually pressure on these other companies.
00:28:13.000The great thing of what Elon Musk has done is he's really brought back the curtain and exposed the mindset of these wokesters in Silicon Valley.
00:28:26.000Okay, Woketopians, I'll adopt your phrase.
00:28:30.000They are people who just disagree with our point of view.
00:28:34.000And what's so beautiful about this monopoly, Matt, is that on the one hand, they have a monopoly in the business marketplace, and they use the same tactics...
00:28:45.000To try to have a monopoly in the marketplace of ideas.
00:28:49.000They don't want you buying someone else's product, so they actually destroy the competition.
00:28:53.000They don't want you believing someone else's ideology, so they try to destroy that ideology.
00:29:00.000The information we learned from the Twitter files about how government tried to manipulate viewpoint and content, how internal executives and internal entities were set up to silence conservatives, to limit certain viewpoints.
00:29:17.000How pervasive do you think that is across all of these major tech companies, or do you think there's something different and unique about Twitter?
00:29:24.000No, I don't think there's something different, unique.
00:29:26.000I think it's often the same people that are moving between companies that are helping to form the culture in those companies.
00:29:33.000Every one of these companies, I give examples in the book about how They all have suppressed speech.
00:29:40.000Jim Banks from Indiana criticized Time Magazine for giving the Woman of the Year Award to a biological male, and they took him off the platform.
00:30:13.000Shelby Steele had a documentary, What Killed Michael Brown?
00:30:17.000And that documentary was taken off of the Amazon site as a result of it being Black History Month, and it didn't fall in the examples of black history that Amazon wanted to promote.
00:30:33.000So every one of these companies has engaged in this same type of censorship because The speech disagrees with their view of the world.
00:30:43.000It's a tremendous diagnosis of the problem we have, how we got here, how it is fundamentally anti-American when we look at the values and principles that Really organized our concept of freedom and speech and expression.
00:31:18.000Through Article I powers, we will be able to reach some sort of vindication for free speech, or is the system so corrupted by money and influence and compromise that that is less likely?
00:31:31.000Well, if we could back up just a second.
00:31:33.000There's a problem when monopolies control steel and oil and banks.
00:31:40.000There's a bigger problem when they control information.
00:31:43.000When they control information, we're talking about a threat to our democracy.
00:31:46.000Obviously, the control of steel means that steel prices will go up and we may have a lower quality steel.
00:31:54.000When they control information, we really have to be concerned about them putting their thumb on the scale in an election.
00:32:01.000So first of all, I think it's critical that we talk about a monopoly over information.
00:32:06.000But secondly, the idea that somehow we could pass a law in the 1800s and we could pass a law, the Clayton Act in 1913, and then Congress steps back and we say, you know, the courts can fix all of this.
00:32:22.000We'll just let them develop the case law for antitrust.
00:32:26.000That's now what the Constitution says.
00:32:48.000We had the capability in the Industrial Revolution, and I believe we have the capability now.
00:32:53.000I believe what we have to do is to make sure that we give information, just as I'm trying to do in this book, and just as you and I tried to do in the Judiciary Committee and on the floor, we give information to people and hope that That they ask the right questions and come up with the right answers.
00:33:44.000I actually think that Big tech has become more powerful than any government that has ever existed in all of human history, and the power they have over the United States Congress is sickening and debasing and ultimately debilitating to a lot of our common sense legislative efforts.
00:34:03.000I also want to talk about opportunities that exist sort of through Article II powers and the executive.
00:34:11.000I mean, should Joe Biden be doing more on this?
00:34:14.000What could a visionary administration or president do in the absence of Congress as a helpful hand?
00:34:21.000Well, I love the fact that Joe Biden has the Democrats in control of the House, in control of the Senate, obviously, in control of the executive branch for two years.
00:34:32.000And within weeks after that control ended, he writes an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal calling on Republicans and Democrats to work together to solve this big tech antitrust issue.
00:34:44.000If he wanted it solved, he had the ability to ask Speaker Pelosi, Leader Schumer, to get it solved.
00:34:51.000Well, I mean, he has blood on his hands on a lot of these issues because it was members of the Biden administration that were trying to manipulate viewpoints on big tech during the coronavirus pandemic.
00:35:00.000So they don't want to divorce big government from big tech.
00:35:04.000They actually want to meld the two to a greater extent, which actually kind of sounds a lot like China to me and not the United States.
00:35:43.000Now, it takes a period of time to make that happen, but the Federal Trade Commission and the Antitrust Division both engaged in those lawsuits.
00:35:51.000I think in the next couple of years, we're going to see dramatic Supreme Court decisions that are going to strike these companies.
00:35:59.000Yeah, leading right into my next question about the role of the courts in this, oftentimes litigation around these issues does not get very far because there are special immunities that the United States Congress has given these technology companies that shield them from the very same liability that would append to,
00:36:15.000you know, Fox News or CNN or any website or local news channel or local newspaper, some believe that stripping those immunities will be sufficient, not just necessary but sufficient to resolve the issue because then trial lawyers will feast on the carcasses of big tech and bring them to heel.
00:36:38.000Do you believe that repealing Section 230 would be sufficient to achieve that objective?
00:36:49.000Antitrust, Section 230, and privacy laws.
00:36:52.000All three have to be used to accomplish our goals.
00:36:55.000But Section 230 is a good place to start.
00:36:59.000These companies are using the phrase otherwise objectionable as a shield to hide behind and in a way to punish people whose views they disagree with.
00:37:08.000The real issue you mentioned, you know, CNN and Fox News and others, we don't object when CNN comes up with a story with a particular viewpoint.
00:37:19.000Because we have Fox, we have Newsmax, we have One American News and so many others that can offer a differing viewpoint.
00:37:27.000We don't object when the Washington Post and the New York Times has a particular viewpoint.
00:37:31.000Because the Wall Street Journal, the New York Post will have a different viewpoint and in the marketplace of ideas will have competition.
00:37:38.000When Google controls 94% of searches in America and changes its algorithm to punish conservatives and specifically Donald Trump in June of 2020 and benefit Joe Biden, that hurts because we don't have competition.
00:37:54.000We don't have five Googles and seven Facebooks to allow the American public, the consumer, Power over freedom is one of the themes we see throughout the book, and it's precisely reflected in that.
00:38:08.000And we have the power to do something about it.
00:38:10.000Now, there was legislation that was passed to deal with some of these issues.
00:38:15.000There were other bills that you and I supported that did not pass the House.
00:38:19.000So talk about the legislation that did get through the House and what effect you think that will have on the conditions you describe in Crushed.
00:38:27.000There were three bills that passed the House.
00:38:29.000One was a bill that allowed state attorney generals to file a lawsuit against Big Tech, an antitrust lawsuit against Big Tech, and keep that lawsuit in their home state.
00:38:42.000A lot of these lawsuits are getting moved to the Northern District of California because they, quote unquote, have a special expertise in big tech.
00:38:50.000What they have is the backyard of big tech.
00:38:53.000The Northern District of California, Silicon Valley is in that district, jury pool.
00:38:58.000It works for many of these companies, drawn from that area.
00:39:03.000Home field advantage, as one might call it.
00:39:05.000I think that's an appropriate way to call it.
00:39:07.000So we passed a bill that said that if you sue somebody in Texas because they do business in Texas, that lawsuit can stay in Texas.
00:39:15.000The second bill that we passed was a bill that actually gives more resources to the Antitrust Division and the Federal Trade Commission.
00:39:22.000And the third bill was a bill that was sort of added on To get some support in the Senate, it was a bill from Senator Hawley that basically said that if a company has a tie to Communist China, that tie has to be disclosed at the time that a merger is being reviewed.
00:39:41.000And one of the critiques that some of our colleagues make of our efforts is, well, you know, if you don't want Amazon to be the biggest, baddest, most vertically integrated innovation quashing company on the planet Earth, do you want Alibaba to win?
00:39:53.000You know, do you want these Chinese companies to supplant U.S. technology?
00:40:01.000Well, they will most assuredly win if we don't encourage competition in the American marketplace, because American companies will get big, fat, and lazy, and we will lose ultimately in the marketplace.
00:40:13.000The way to beat China is not to look more like China, and that's the problem with this...
00:40:18.000Big tech enterprise and a captive government, in a lot of ways, to that enterprise.
00:40:23.000If that's the winning model, China's going to do it better than we are.
00:40:28.000And so we have to have a model that allows innovation, that allows development of ideas, and that doesn't permit these companies to engage in anti-competitive behavior.
00:40:36.000I do not have confidence in the Congress to be able to address these issues to the degree that is necessary, given the rising power of big tech.
00:40:45.000I see an executive branch right now that is not only not helpful, they're in on the grift.
00:40:51.000And you describe a court system that previously they were able to play to this geographic advantage.
00:40:58.000And then similarly, you know, we have these immunities that still exist.
00:41:03.000So, I mean, people need to understand the diagnosis there.
00:41:06.000And it brings us to sort of, I think, the fourth leg of the stool, and that's consumer choice.
00:41:22.000You don't utilize these companies in your daily activities.
00:41:27.000To what extent is consumer choice a powerful tool to drive change?
00:41:32.000Ask the civil rights leaders of the 50s, 60s, and 70s how powerful it is to boycott racist businesses.
00:41:40.000Ask people just how powerful it is in their neighborhood when they identify a wrong and they engage in an economic boycott.
00:41:49.000It is very powerful, and it's really what we can do.
00:41:53.000If nothing else, it makes you feel good.
00:41:55.000You know, when you don't use Google and you use DuckDuckGo or some other search engine, it may take an extra couple seconds to get the result that you want, but it feels good.
00:42:04.000And when you don't order your toilet paper for overnight delivery, you drive to a store or you wait two or three days, It feels good and folks can turn off the tracking devices on their phone and drive these companies crazy.
00:42:19.000If you're not using Waze or Google Maps to go someplace, turn the tracking device off and you will deny them of information that they absolutely need that they sell to advertisers.
00:42:37.000Speaker McCarthy has talked at some length about data privacy and data portability.
00:42:43.000He seems to understand the issue intellectually, that the more of our own information we get control over, the more we have agency in the digital world.
00:42:55.000How do you assess the role of some of those data bills and privacy bills, likely to go through the Energy and Commerce Committee, not our Judiciary Committee, but do you think they can make a dent?
00:43:05.000I do, and let's just describe what data portability is.
00:43:09.000In 1996, when the Telecommunications Act passed Congress, Congress gave consumers the ability to take their cell phone number From AT&T to Verizon or Verizon to T-Mobile.
00:43:22.000And that opened up the marketplace where people weren't concerned about changing and looking for a better plan and a less expensive plan.
00:43:31.000What we're talking about is when you search for something on Google, you own that information and you can take that information to another search engine and you can get paid for that information As the owner of that information, and that portability is essential to opening up the marketplace and allowing competition in this area.
00:43:49.000I think that the Speaker understands that.
00:43:53.000I think a lot of other Republicans understand it, and hopefully we can move some of that legislation.
00:43:58.000And from a structural standpoint, it converts the user from the product to the client.
00:44:16.000Data is being extracted from you, sold elsewhere, and we've even heard liberal commentators like John Oliver talk about the importance of data privacy and Limiting the extent to which all of our searches and all of our places we go for barbecue can't be just stripped and then placed into the marketplace without not only not our consent, not even our knowledge.
00:44:41.000And these executives at these companies have said publicly, on the record, I can tell you what you're going to think before you even think it.
00:44:50.000That kind of arrogance is scary, but it's accurate.
00:44:53.000And we need to make sure that as consumers, we're getting a benefit for that information.
00:44:59.000So I got to know, are you selling Crushed on Amazon?
00:45:11.000If Amazon wants to promote this book, I'm all in favor of having them promote the book and having people read about what an evil company Amazon is.
00:45:20.000Yeah, I don't know that they'll be promoting it, and I don't know that their algorithm is going to drive people to your book, but it is an interesting commentary on the market power that a company like Amazon has.
00:45:31.000I mean, if anybody writes a book, you're going to get about 75% to 85% of your sales through Amazon.
00:45:37.000That's how people purchase this type of material to learn more.
00:45:41.000So even as we're critiquing Amazon now, It is hard to unwind from it as you and I are having this discussion.
00:45:47.000It is being live streamed over many of the companies that you're dictating.
00:45:51.000And so I believe that the development of alternate pathways and tools, DuckDuckGo, we really promote Rumble as a way for folks to get video content.
00:46:03.000You almost have to stay on multiple battlefields so that the argument can hopefully get through to some extent given the tremendous headwinds we face.
00:46:13.000Well, we can't get off the grid and try to convince a majority of Americans that we're right.
00:46:17.000And I also have an iPhone because I really don't have too much choice outside of the two major phone manufacturers to make that decision.
00:46:28.000So I think there are things that we have to do practically.
00:46:32.000But when we have a choice, we should absolutely make that choice.