Firebrand - Matt Gaetz - April 05, 2023


Episode 96 LIVE: Trump In Manhattan (feat. Gavin Wax) – Firebrand with Matt Gaetz

Hosted by
Matt Gaetz
Guests
Gavin Wax
Mentioned
Donald Trump Alvin Bragg Gavin Wax Kevin McCarthy Eric Adams Marjorie Taylor Greene Anna Paulina Luna Jack Posobiec Hunter Biden Bukele Orban Representative Massey Jumaane Williams Jamal Bowman Thomas Kniff Vince Bera Harvard Law Potato Head Andy Biggs Jack Smith and 5 more
Episode 95 LIVE: Military Misadventures (feat. Rep. Anna Paulina Luna) – Firebrand with Matt Gaetz Episode 97 LIVE: Leftist Violence Again – Firebrand with Matt Gaetz

Episode Stats


Length

39 minutes

Words per minute

156.55

Word count

6,223

Sentence count

356

Harmful content

Misogyny

3

sentences flagged

Toxicity

9

sentences flagged

Hate speech

2

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

On this episode of Firebrand, I sit down with the president of the New York Young Republican Club, Gavin Wax, to talk about the current events happening in Manhattan, including Mayor Bill de Blasio s call for a "Gag Order" on President Trump, and why it's a ridiculous idea. I also talk about why the deep state is terrified of people having a voice and why they want to gag all of us out of the public eye. And I give you an inside look into what it means to be a Young Republican in the 21st century, and how to get involved in the movement. Firebrand is produced and hosted by Jack Posobiec and edited by Jack Dorsey. Our theme song is Come Alone by Suneaters, courtesy of Lotuspool Records. Our ad music is by Haley Shaw. Special thanks to our sponsor, Zapsplat Records, for making great sound quality and providing us with the best sound quality on this episode. Firebrand is a production of the Firebrand Podcast. Thanks for listening and supporting Firebrand. We are always grateful for your support and your continued support. Tweet us with any feedback, questions or suggestions. Timestamps: 5:00 - What do you think of this episode? 6:30 - What would you like to see more of this? 7:15 - What's your favorite moment from Firebrand? 8:00 9:10 - What are you looking forward to see in the future of the show? 11: What are your favorite part of the podcast? 13: What is your biggest takeaway from this week? 16:00: What does it mean to you're going to do in 2020? 17:00 | What s your biggest challenge? 18:00 -- How do you plan for the future? 19:30 -- What s going to happen next? 21:30 | What's the most important thing you're looking for? 22:00-- What s the biggest thing that you're most excited about in the next episode? ? 25:40 -- What's going to make you most effective? 26:00 // 25: What's next for you? 27:00 & 30:00 +30: What kind of action should you re going to get you most impact you re looking for in 2020 & 27:10 28:30-- What do u need to do next?

Transcript

Transcripts from "Firebrand - Matt Gaetz" are sourced from the Knowledge Fight Interactive Search Tool. Explore them interactively here.
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00.000 Thank you.
00:04:44.000 In battle, Congressman Matt Gaetz.
00:04:47.000 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.
00:04:54.000 Matt Gaetz right now, he's a problem in the Democratic Party.
00:04:57.000 He could cause a lot of hiccups in passing the laws.
00:05:00.000 So we're going to keep running those stories to get hurt again.
00:05:04.000 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.
00:05:13.000 You are in the right place.
00:05:14.000 This is the movement for you.
00:05:17.000 You ever watch this guy on television?
00:05:19.000 It's like a machine.
00:05:20.000 Matt Gaetz.
00:05:21.000 I'm a canceled man in some corners of the internet.
00:05:25.000 Many days I'm a marked man in Congress, a wanted man by the deep state.
00:05:29.000 They aren't really coming for me.
00:05:31.000 They're coming for you.
00:05:33.000 I'm just in the way.
00:05:39.000 To the Mayor Adams, as you can see, I'm CDQ peacefully protesting, but you called me out by name.
00:05:48.000 While you allow crime in your streets and you send your henchmen down here to commit assault against people by making loud noises, assault against police officers who are doing their job.
00:06:00.000 They're terrified of A lot of voters, they're terrified of people having a voice, and that's why they're trying to put a gag order on President Donald John Trump.
00:06:11.000 Have you heard that, a gag order?
00:06:13.000 Well, you know what I say to Elvin Bragg and his gag order?
00:06:16.000 Boo! 0.83
00:06:18.000 Boo! 0.83
00:06:20.000 And you know something?
00:06:21.000 to Vince Barra, to Gavin Wax, to all the New Yorkers and the free Americans who stand here with me today.
00:06:28.000 They can gag Donald Trump, but they can't gag all of us, and they will not gag all of us.
00:06:35.000 Our voices will be heard, and we will not stop.
00:06:39.000 I just want the law to be applied equally.
00:06:42.000 And if you're going to go after people on these pretty trivial things, then do it equally. 0.56
00:06:45.000 But if you're only going to do it on trivial things on one side, then yeah, I think that's ridiculous.
00:06:49.000 And if there's a crime committed, then absolutely.
00:06:52.000 I mean, we've seen the news of Hunter Biden.
00:06:54.000 He's on, you know, he's on photos committing crimes, you know, Whether it's narcotics or with prostitutes or whatever it is, no one's going after that.
00:07:01.000 And you can understand that as this continues to happen, you know, respect for the justice system, respect for our institutions, faith in the rule of law is going to continue to deteriorate.
00:07:10.000 So it's a problem for society as a whole.
00:07:15.000 We are live.
00:07:15.000 Thanks for joining us back on Firebrand.
00:07:17.000 We are broadcasting from Room 2021 of the Rayburn House Office Building on the Capitol Complex in Washington, D.C., and that was New York Young Republican Club President Gavin Wax, who will join us in just a moment to give the granular view of what was happening in Manhattan on the ground, how this is being perceived and who are some of these political players that have gone from features of New York governance to now international villains, I would say, in the case of Alvin Bragg.
00:07:46.000 I also want to let you know in the final segment of the show today, we are going to be showing a film created by the Heritage Foundation called The 20.
00:07:55.000 And it's about 10 minutes long I'm going to show to you at the end of the show because it really walks through the vision of people like Chip Roy and Eli Crane, Anna Paulina Luna, Andy Biggs, and myself as we were fighting to change the House of Representatives So I want to give you an inside look.
00:08:12.000 And they did this great documentary that brings you in the room to see exactly what we were fighting for and why the tactics we used were effective in that regard.
00:08:21.000 So, joining me now...
00:08:23.000 To talk about everything going on in Manhattan, president of the New York Young Republican Club, Gavin Wax.
00:08:28.000 And I say frequently, the New York Young Republican Club is the premier activism organization within young Republican politics.
00:08:38.000 Really, if you look at Republican politics broadly, because it's not about coming together for I want to get into all the Trump stuff, having MTG there, having Jack Posobiec on the ground.
00:09:02.000 But first, just as president of your organization, what has made the New York Young Republican Club so different in terms of its attractiveness to people who really see politics as an enterprise of activity, not just an enterprise of thinking?
00:09:19.000 Well, thank you, Congressman, for having me and all the kind words.
00:09:22.000 And I think you make a great point there that this institution is about action.
00:09:27.000 It's about getting out there.
00:09:29.000 It's about knocking on doors.
00:09:30.000 It's about It's about organizing rallies.
00:09:32.000 It's about engaging potential voters, growing the party, and fighting even deep behind enemy lines in a place like New York City to achieve some serious political ends, which we have started to see in many local races that we have been involved in.
00:09:46.000 But we were not content To continue the long-standing Republican tradition of cocktail parties and just, you know, talking a big game but not actually getting out there and fighting the battles that need to be waged.
00:10:01.000 We are willing to roll our sleeves up, get into the streets, go into Lower Manhattan and protest and let our voices be heard for our conservative beliefs and principles.
00:10:12.000 So we see many other organizations that would much rather stay on the sidelines and, you know, We're good to snark and make snide remarks and say the end is near and be nihilistic and defeat us.
00:10:24.000 But we're looking forward to continuing to fight to take this country back.
00:10:29.000 One block at a time, even behind enemy lines in the belly of the beast in New York City.
00:10:33.000 We are not going to tweet our way to victory against the left.
00:10:38.000 It is going to require showing up and then bringing people into our movement with activities, ideas, and with a sense of focus and drive that I certainly see in the New York Young Republican Club.
00:10:49.000 So take me to the decision you guys made to reach out to NYPD to get a secure space for those who support President Trump.
00:10:58.000 To have their voices heard in New York and then obviously great to see MTG, Posobiec and others there with you.
00:11:06.000 But what about being there was important for your organization?
00:11:12.000 Absolutely.
00:11:13.000 So two weeks ago we had our beta launch of this rally.
00:11:17.000 This was before the indictment was official but it was just leaked and President Trump called for protest.
00:11:23.000 We were the first organization to answer that call and we did it right here in Manhattan outside the courthouse.
00:11:29.000 We did Collect Pond which has a long history of being a swamp and then later the center of the Five Points which was originally New York's red light district.
00:11:37.000 So it's always been a center of corruption.
00:11:39.000 And swampiness.
00:11:41.000 And it continues to this day.
00:11:42.000 But we chose that spot.
00:11:43.000 We did a smaller protest that was confined.
00:11:46.000 We vetted everyone.
00:11:47.000 And why did we do that?
00:11:48.000 Because the narrative, not just on the left, but also on the right, was that Republicans and conservatives can no longer protest.
00:11:54.000 They can no longer rally.
00:11:55.000 They can no longer exercise their First Amendment rights.
00:11:58.000 And we absolutely wanted to dispute that argument and show that even in New York City, Republicans, conservatives, MAGA supporters can and should We had several days to
00:12:29.000 promote it.
00:12:30.000 And this entire park that we occupied is a full city block.
00:12:33.000 And you can see from some of the photos that you're showing, we had this block This park filled corner to corner, edge to edge, entrance to entrance with Trump supporters.
00:12:44.000 It was a beautiful sight to behold.
00:12:46.000 You could see them as far out as the eye could see.
00:12:49.000 It was a sea of people.
00:12:51.000 And of course, there was a lot of press.
00:12:52.000 There was international press, domestic press.
00:12:55.000 But it was important that we let our voices be heard in a peaceful way to show the media, to show the leftist establishment in New York City That we are not the deplorables that they paint us to be, that we are actually the civil side.
00:13:08.000 We are the side that can, you know, speak to the issues.
00:13:11.000 And it's the other side, the side that has to blow whistles and bang drums and screech hysterical things that has no idea what they're talking about.
00:13:18.000 So it was an honor to host the Congresswoman down here in New York, or up here in New York, rather, for her.
00:13:24.000 And let the entire New York City political establishment know that there is a strong base of support in New York City for their hometown hero, President Donald J. Trump.
00:13:34.000 You certainly got the attention of New York City Mayor Eric Adams who took note of your upcoming event, made mention of it.
00:13:42.000 And I spoke with Marjorie Taylor Greene yesterday and she was concerned that the reason Eric Adams put that statement out was to try to gaslight violence against those of you who had no intention of harming anyone or engaging in anything other than First Amendment protected activity.
00:14:00.000 Do you think Mayor Adams called you out In hopes that people would have come there to do you harm?
00:14:06.000 Absolutely.
00:14:07.000 I think this was all part of a narrative formation scheme by the mayor and his lackeys to try to paint the congresswoman in a certain light, try to paint the club in a certain light, and obviously try to paint Trump and his supporters in a certain light.
00:14:20.000 They were basically projecting what they wished to happen.
00:14:23.000 And in fact, I have friends on the city council and in city government who Who let me know before our last protest that they had an all-hands-on-deck meeting with every elected official in the city from the city council all up to Congress, the mayor, all the commissioners, everyone.
00:14:37.000 And they were basically describing the event as the next January 6th.
00:14:41.000 They were talking about snipers on roofs, all these sorts of things.
00:14:44.000 So they were definitely trying to put things out into the ecosystem to sort of cajole a certain response from their left-wing compatriots.
00:14:53.000 And to that end, they did have some success.
00:14:55.000 The biggest hecklers of the congresswoman and of our and of our rally were actually elected officials.
00:15:01.000 You had a colleague of yours, Jamal Bowman, who is yelling at the congresswoman, telling her to go back to her own district when I don't think the congressman knows exactly where he is because he wasn't in his own district either in lower Manhattan.
00:15:13.000 And then, of course, you had perpetual activist Jumaane Williams, who is the public advocate of the city of New York.
00:15:19.000 And then you had a local city council person.
00:15:21.000 I'm going to say person because I'm not sure this individual's gender.
00:15:24.000 Chi Osei, who was handing out whistles.
00:15:28.000 Of course, they can't hear our arguments.
00:15:30.000 They can't hear our side.
00:15:31.000 They just want to drown us out.
00:15:33.000 But despite that, we outnumbered them 10 to 1. And when the press was there and they were trying to ask, you know, well, is this a good showing?
00:15:40.000 I would say absolutely.
00:15:41.000 Having a thousand people in a park is a great showing and outnumbering The local leftists 10 to 1 in a borough that votes 85-90% Democrat is a great turnout for Republicans and conservatives.
00:15:53.000 So again, to the rest of the country, to the rest of the conservative nation, if we could do it here in New York, you could do it wherever you are.
00:15:59.000 And when you look at the body politic and the shape of various political groups...
00:16:07.000 I think there's an awakening now on the right that I saw reflected in who you were able to draw to your event.
00:16:14.000 I want to shift gears a little bit and talk about Alvin Bragg.
00:16:17.000 Alvin Bragg has stitched together an indictment that is... 0.78
00:16:22.000 Legal foolishness. 0.97
00:16:25.000 It's legal voodoo. 0.94
00:16:26.000 You would never bootstrap these misdemeanors to a federal election matter in order to try to cascade some 34 felonies on a single agreement to settle a private dispute.
00:16:39.000 But help me understand this guy as a political figure, as a New Yorker.
00:16:45.000 You understand the politics there.
00:16:47.000 How did Alvin Bragg go from being The editor of the Civil Rights Journal at Harvard Law Review to having this major role as the Manhattan DA. It's a great question.
00:16:59.000 I mean, Alvin Bragg is the product of all the American institutions that we once held in high regard.
00:17:07.000 You know, Harvard, Harvard Law.
00:17:08.000 I mean, this is a gentleman with his pedigree.
00:17:11.000 You would expect a completely different person, someone who could actually articulate His point of view rather than just reading off a piece of paper at a press conference.
00:17:20.000 I mean he represents the nihilistic globalist worldview of the American elite, particularly of the New York elite.
00:17:28.000 I mean he has no idea what he's doing.
00:17:30.000 Is he smart?
00:17:31.000 Is he smart?
00:17:31.000 Because you leave that press conference he did the other day wondering if this is a highly capable individual.
00:17:39.000 Or is he one of these machine candidates?
00:17:41.000 I know the way politics works on the left in Manhattan, you don't just show up on the scene and get somewhere.
00:17:48.000 You've got to be part of this vertically integrated system they have.
00:17:52.000 Does he come out of that?
00:17:54.000 Certainly not an outsider.
00:17:56.000 I don't know.
00:17:57.000 Absolutely.
00:17:57.000 You raise a good point.
00:17:58.000 I mean, the election of DAs and judges and most Our offices in New York is not determined in the general election.
00:18:05.000 We are a one-party town, but it is determined through the Democrat machine political process, which doesn't even start at the primary.
00:18:13.000 It starts well before the primary and back rooms.
00:18:16.000 It starts through a feeder system that goes all the way down to the county committee, the district leader spots.
00:18:20.000 And he is a product of that system, and so is Mayor Adams.
00:18:23.000 Mayor Adams is a product of Of the Brooklyn Democrat machine.
00:18:25.000 So he was elected overwhelmingly.
00:18:28.000 Our club endorsed and supported a member of our club, Thomas Kniff, against him.
00:18:34.000 And we handed out literature.
00:18:35.000 We campaigned the old school way here in New York.
00:18:37.000 But this is a post-political borough in many ways, so our valiant efforts and the valiant efforts of Alvin Bragg's challenger in that race were largely fruitless.
00:18:49.000 But at the end of the day, he is simply an extension of the popular will of Manhattan, which is largely this nihilistic worldview that puts the criminal above the victim, and he has made a name for himself.
00:19:01.000 As district attorney in his refusal to prosecute a whole wide range of violent offenses, from assaults to burglaries to even rapes against people with long rap sheets.
00:19:11.000 And he seems to hold victims with a particular type of disdain, particularly victims that had the audacity to defend themselves, such as Jose Alba, where it took him close to a month to drop charges.
00:19:24.000 He was a bodega worker, as you may recall, who was nearly stabbed to death and was able to Fight off his attacker.
00:19:31.000 And just this past week during this entire media circus around the Trump indictment there was a garage attendant here in Manhattan who miraculously also survived an attempted murder when he was able to steal the gun of the perpetrator and use it against him and kill that perpetrator.
00:19:48.000 And what happened to this gentleman?
00:19:50.000 Well of course he was charged and he was held in handcuffs and it was only due to public pressure But it's a virtue signal, right?
00:20:06.000 I mean, and if you're virtue signaling like Alvin Bragg's doing, The only reason you would put your own constituents, the people who elected you, at risk for the sake of these woke policies is because you believe that that's going to ingratiate yourself to the elite in some way, and that that will create upward political mobility.
00:20:24.000 And so, in a way, the incentive structure you're describing, Gavin, would suggest that Alvin Brack can even win for losing.
00:20:31.000 If a court were to dispose of this matter either directly or on appeal through a motion to dismiss by saying that as a matter of law you cannot lash these things together like disparate parts of a Mr. Potato Head doll to evade a statute of limitations regardless of what the facts are.
00:20:50.000 If a court were to say that Alvin Bragg would be able to Lean into the incentive structure you just described, saying, well, I went after Trump.
00:20:59.000 I did all I could.
00:21:00.000 I was there dragging him before a court to be arraigned and be forced back into our jurisdiction.
00:21:09.000 Is this a guy running for something else?
00:21:11.000 Because you almost look at it and say, Alvin Bragg was a nobody 20 minutes ago, and now he's this internationally known name because he's taken this action against our country, against a lot of the constitutional principles that we've held dear through the Republican and Democrat administration.
00:21:29.000 So what do you think the long game is for this guy?
00:21:32.000 Oh, absolutely.
00:21:33.000 I think he's getting fast-tracked to some sort of position, maybe at the state level, maybe even I mean, he's going to be the darling of the elite leftist circles in this country.
00:21:44.000 I mean, he is answering to them because he represents a constituency that is post-political.
00:21:48.000 He's not answering to the whims of his constituents who are largely, you know, apathetic and apolitical or not really involved.
00:21:55.000 He's answering to his donors.
00:21:56.000 He's answering to the political machine leaders that put him there to begin with.
00:22:00.000 So you make a very, you make a solid point there that that's his incentive structure.
00:22:04.000 That's his incentive structure for completely embarrassing himself Uh, by even just completely bipartisan standards, just with the merits of this indictment in this case.
00:22:13.000 I mean, he has, he's citing penal code, I think one, seven, five, 10, which is a classy felony, uh, which basically states that the fraud needs to be in furtherance of another crime of an underlying crime, but he never cites what that crime is.
00:22:25.000 I mean, this entire copy and pasted indictment.
00:22:28.000 Uh, is a complete joke and it's a complete slap in the face, uh, to the American judicial system.
00:22:33.000 But he operates with impunity because he knows he can operate with impunity.
00:22:37.000 And, and, and a part of me respects, uh, the left, uh, and the elites, uh, just shamelessness and, and their, uh, and how blunt and blatant they are in their corruption and their politicization of our institutions.
00:22:50.000 I mean, you have to almost admire it from a power politics perspective that they're so just cavalier in terms of how they go about Their political warfare.
00:22:59.000 And I only wish we had, you know, Republican leaders, more Republican leaders such as yourself and Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, who could counter that kind of mentality and that kind of chutzpah in New York speak.
00:23:12.000 With an equal vigor to push back against these injustices and this obscene abuse of power.
00:23:18.000 It's clear Trump sees it as you do, part of a series, part of a broader plan.
00:23:24.000 I took note that in his remarks last night at Mar-a-Lago, President Trump didn't localize his critique to Alvin Bragg.
00:23:31.000 He talked about how there is this interwoven effort with a Fulton County prosecutor with Jack Smith to get Trump at any cost and by any means.
00:23:43.000 You, in your role as president of the New York Young Republican Club, also talk to a number of right and center-right leaders around the world.
00:23:52.000 Political groups, young people make their way through New York a lot.
00:23:55.000 I've been at your club where you've had folks from Europe in, understanding our politics and sharing ideas about what's going on elsewhere.
00:24:04.000 How do you think this plays globally?
00:24:06.000 What is the global verdict on the United States crossing the Rubicon and indicting a former president on the flimsiest of charges?
00:24:15.000 I think it makes us look like a bigger joke than we've already demonstrated over the last few months, few years of the Biden administration.
00:24:25.000 I think they look at it like the downfall of the United States.
00:24:29.000 I mean, you have President Bukele in El Salvador coming out and boldly proclaiming that the United States is no longer in a position to lecture anyone on human rights, on civil rights and all the rest.
00:24:39.000 And I think it's actually doing a big disservice to the neoconservative talking point of being, you know, this...
00:24:45.000 This doer of good on the world stage, on this nation that's simply working to advance these beautiful ideals of democracy and human rights and all that.
00:24:54.000 I mean, we are just showing ourselves to be the emperor with no clothes on the world stage, that we don't practice what we preach.
00:25:01.000 I mean, we are entering into the ranks of such notable nations such as Uganda and Ukraine and Bolivia and Nicaragua who have jailed their opposition leaders.
00:25:10.000 This is something that simply doesn't happen In a first-world civilized nation with respect for the rule of law and civil rights, this is the kind of action that a tin-pot dictatorship takes.
00:25:23.000 So I think it's an embarrassing step for our country, and I think people are viewing it as such, and they're viewing it as the continued decline of the American empire, the American global hegemony.
00:25:37.000 And it just goes to show that we are a declining empire, and the world is noticing, and we're Rapidly entering into a state of a multipolar world order with the likes of China and Russia and India and whatever else rising up and, you know, replacing us economically, politically, militarily and otherwise.
00:25:55.000 And, you know, they're switching their currencies.
00:25:57.000 They're switching how they do trade.
00:25:58.000 I mean, we are a nation that refuses to accept where we're heading and where we are currently and we're operating as if this is still, you know, the end of the Cold War.
00:26:09.000 We are, you know, Pax Americana.
00:26:11.000 But those days are long gone.
00:26:13.000 He knows the world.
00:26:14.000 He knows New York.
00:26:15.000 President of the New York Young Republican Club.
00:26:18.000 At Gavin Wax.
00:26:19.000 Follow him.
00:26:20.000 And Gavin, where else are you publishing right now?
00:26:22.000 You put out some pretty provocative prose now and again.
00:26:26.000 Let folks know where they can follow you.
00:26:29.000 Well, thank you again for having me on, Congressman.
00:26:31.000 And yes, you could follow me and my writing.
00:26:33.000 I write for American Greatness, Town Hall, Newsmax, a few other conservative outlets.
00:26:39.000 A piece recently I wrote, There is No Trumpism Without Trump, was shared by President Donald J. Trump.
00:26:45.000 I was very honored by that.
00:26:47.000 I also write occasionally in Newsweek about the great work that President Bukele is doing down in El Salvador and the great work President Orban Prime Minister Orban is doing in Hungary and where we can look to emulate conservative policies and leadership abroad and maybe bring it back home.
00:27:03.000 I mean, that just goes to show on to our last point that we have to now look abroad in some respects to see leadership and success because we have so little of it here at home.
00:27:13.000 Gavin Wax, always one of my favorite people to talk to about what's going on in politics and policy and global affairs.
00:27:20.000 Thanks for joining us on Firebrand, my friend.
00:27:22.000 Thank you, sir.
00:27:23.000 Have a good one.
00:27:24.000 Thank you.
00:27:25.000 So, a lot of folks have asked serious questions about the goals and objectives of the group of members who participated in the speaker's contest in a non-traditional way.
00:27:36.000 And the Heritage Foundation recently put together a terrific little film on what we were fighting for and how we were choosing to lower our shoulders and weigh in.
00:27:46.000 Make sure to go to the Heritage Foundation's page, give them a follow, subscribe, so that you can see more of this great content that they put out.
00:27:54.000 But since I participated in the project, I felt licensed to be able to share it with you.
00:27:59.000 Enjoy.
00:28:00.000 Take a listen.
00:28:02.000 The reading clerk will now call the roll.
00:28:07.000 Bibbs.
00:28:08.000 It's money and power that control this town.
00:28:12.000 Bishop of North Carolina.
00:28:13.000 All we're talking about chaos and dysfunction in Washington because Republicans didn't sit down like Democrats do.
00:28:20.000 Crane.
00:28:21.000 It's like this cul-de-sac of greed and corruption and it just keeps going around and around.
00:28:27.000 Gates.
00:28:27.000 I felt like it doesn't even matter which party wins the majority because both sides are working for the same lobbyists.
00:28:34.000 Luna.
00:28:35.000 I had a reporter that basically accosted me in the hallway saying really vile stuff.
00:28:41.000 Perry.
00:28:42.000 One member came up to me and said, your presence disgusts me.
00:28:46.000 Roy.
00:28:47.000 So maybe the American people need to know the truth.
00:28:49.000 And it's extraordinary what happens when you tell the truth in this town.
00:28:52.000 People go, what the hell are you doing?
00:28:54.000 Why would you do that?
00:28:55.000 The fact is, we won.
00:28:56.000 because we were telling the truth.
00:28:58.000 Well, I think what we are fighting for was change.
00:29:24.000 Everybody knows this town is broken.
00:29:26.000 When people talk about the swamp or the establishment, I think another word I like better is the cartel, the uniparty cartel.
00:29:34.000 I think of various aspects, bureaucracies, the lobbyists, this media cartel.
00:29:39.000 All of these have produced interlocking relationships, which is why I call it a cartel.
00:29:43.000 And it doesn't matter who's in power.
00:29:45.000 Washington's a fundamentally corrupt place.
00:29:47.000 Far too often, the The way that people get leadership positions or committee assignments or even have their legislation considered is all based on money.
00:29:57.000 This establishment, this swamp, is designed to protect itself.
00:30:00.000 The most corrupt time in this place is freshman orientation.
00:30:05.000 Because during freshman orientation, you get the best steak you've ever eaten, the finest wine you've ever had, and they literally sit you down at tables with the lobbyists who lobby the committees that they know you want to serve on.
00:30:18.000 And from day one, before you're even sworn in, they're convincing you that your path to prosperity in this town runs through the corrupt redistribution of special interest funds.
00:30:29.000 It has been abundantly clear for a long time That only a handful of people decide what bills get to the floor, how they get to the floor, what the rules are, and how they are debated on the floor, whether members can amend on the floor.
00:30:41.000 When I came up here, really one of the first things that I realized, and it was shocking to me, that I couldn't just, as a representative, bring a bill to the floor.
00:30:49.000 That it had to go through something called the Rules Committee, and there were certain members that were a part of that Rules Committee, but it was a very small fraction.
00:30:56.000 And that if they didn't like your legislation or your proposed legislation, that that wouldn't be brought to the House floor.
00:31:01.000 I remember when I first came to Congress and I wanted to serve on the Armed Services Committee because my district has such a high concentration of active duty military and I was told by a member of our leadership that if I wanted to serve on that committee that I need to furnish $75,000 in the next 10 days.
00:31:18.000 to the political fund for Republicans in the House of Representatives.
00:31:22.000 And at first I was like, is anybody here wearing a wire?
00:31:25.000 It struck me as a shakedown.
00:31:27.000 But I learned that that happens every day.
00:31:29.000 Because we didn't get the red wave that everybody thought we were going to get, which turned out to be a blessing in disguise, conservatives actually had a chance To push this party back towards, you know, its conservative roots.
00:31:43.000 The whole debate about the speaker was important on a host of different levels.
00:31:47.000 First of all, you've got to go back to why it even happened.
00:31:50.000 All the way back to last summer, before we knew what the majority breakdown was going to be.
00:31:55.000 Was it going to be a 5-seat majority, a 20-seat majority, whatever.
00:31:58.000 And we said, look, this is an opportunity to change the culture, change the way things were done in Washington, D.C. We were all sitting down saying, what do we need to change about this place in terms of how the rules work?
00:32:09.000 Both in the Republican conference and the House rules.
00:32:12.000 To take away some of the power and authority that has been, over the last couple years, isolated more towards the top at leadership, And push that back down towards the members, which in turn pushes that back towards their voters or their constituents.
00:32:27.000 So I went to leadership.
00:32:28.000 We started out with a simple set of rules.
00:32:31.000 We wrote them up and said, here's the problem with our current rules.
00:32:34.000 I want to talk about some spending, talk about committee assignments, not for us personally, but just to have a look across the conference and make sure all voices were heard.
00:32:44.000 We're completely dismissed.
00:32:45.000 That morning on the 3rd, we had a conference.
00:32:48.000 There was a lot of discord in the room, and one of the gentlemen, high-ranking official in the Congress, a person with a lot of levers of power, goes to the microphone and tells everybody, if you don't vote a certain way, you're going to be removed of all your committees.
00:33:04.000 It'd be nice to wipe from the history books.
00:33:06.000 It was extraordinarily Hostile.
00:33:10.000 And that fried a lot of feelings.
00:33:12.000 It left people in not exactly a state of mind to resolve anything.
00:33:16.000 When we started going through the process and we were putting another name out for consideration for speaker, and the first number was 19, we had three votes at 19 and then it went to 20. We realized in the middle of that that we suddenly had an opportunity to speak to the entire House of Representatives, all 435 of us.
00:33:35.000 Right now Kevin McCarthy does not have the votes.
00:33:38.000 He just made history, not in a good way, as being the first, in 100 years, the first man to lose the speakership in the first round.
00:33:46.000 The House stands adjourned until noon tomorrow.
00:33:50.000 Now, within the conference, sure, there were some hard feelings.
00:33:53.000 People didn't like the process.
00:33:54.000 I was contacted by a female member of Congress, and she basically said that me and the other members that voted against Leader McCarthy would be made examples of.
00:34:02.000 I mean, it was a pretty wild phone call.
00:34:03.000 Here's what's interesting.
00:34:04.000 The court of public opinion The conservative apparatus in Washington, right?
00:34:10.000 All the smart ones.
00:34:11.000 All the blue checkmark Republicans.
00:34:13.000 These guys are, you know, risking the speaker.
00:34:16.000 They're going to turn the speakership over to the Democrats.
00:34:18.000 My phone was blowing up by a whole lot of supporters.
00:34:22.000 But a pretty good vocal minority of detractors.
00:34:25.000 Chip, what are you doing? 1.00
00:34:26.000 You look crazy. 1.00
00:34:29.000 You're going to ruin it for Republicans. 1.00
00:34:30.000 We're not going to choose a speaker.
00:34:32.000 We look disorganized. 0.94
00:34:33.000 I had big donors call me up, yelling and screaming, saying, this is a clown show. 0.90
00:34:38.000 And I'm like, how is it a clown show?
00:34:40.000 People standing up, offering debates, and going back and forth.
00:34:44.000 That's not a clown show.
00:34:45.000 That's the way a constitutional republic works.
00:34:48.000 We are getting hit from the left, from the right.
00:34:51.000 I mean, people that we thought were our allies in conservative media were calling us extortionists.
00:34:56.000 They were saying that we were terrorists.
00:34:57.000 They were using the media to pressure our constituents into thinking that we were somehow single-handedly by debating ideas in Congress, we were somehow destroying the country.
00:35:07.000 Let's face it, the media coverage always revels in any discord or perceived discord whatsoever in the Republican conference.
00:35:14.000 The vast majority of the media is left-leaning and supportive of the left, if not just running the ball for them on every occasion.
00:35:21.000 And it took a while before everybody knew we were serious, but they finally got it.
00:35:26.000 And we were willing to go to the table.
00:35:28.000 We always were.
00:35:29.000 And it's kind of funny when people realize you're serious, then they take you seriously.
00:35:34.000 Suddenly everybody was saying, wait, these guys and gals are fighting for something.
00:35:38.000 Some of my best friends in conservative media were sharply criticizing me by name frequently.
00:35:45.000 As soon as they saw the result, they couldn't wait to pick up the pom-poms and start waving them.
00:35:53.000 There was one point, we're in the middle of this heated debate.
00:35:55.000 First thing in the morning, it was like 7 o'clock, 8 o'clock in the morning.
00:35:58.000 Representative Massey, who was voting for Speaker McCarthy, runs in, out of breath, cars in the middle of the street.
00:36:04.000 He's like, if you guys can pull this off, you will be able to bring the institutional change that I've been trying to get for like the last like 12 years.
00:36:10.000 That's all he said, then he left.
00:36:12.000 I think it was about, what, the 13th vote or something like that.
00:36:15.000 We were in negotiations the day previously, late into the evening and even into the next morning, and we had felt relatively comfortable that we had a framework.
00:36:25.000 So that last day, Friday, we were furiously working.
00:36:28.000 Right before we went back on the floor that evening, we met with the speaker with The definitive agreement, and he indicated his agreement to it.
00:36:37.000 So that's the time you saw kind of the damn break, and there was a large number of members that were previously not voting for Speaker McCarthy that suddenly said, I will, and if you remember when I stood up, I said, in good faith, Kevin McCarthy.
00:36:52.000 Therefore, the Honorable Kevin McCarthy of the State of California, having received a majority of the votes cast, is duly elected Speaker of the House of Representatives. 0.96
00:37:08.000 And now, the hard work begins.
00:37:11.000 We will hold the swamp accountable.
00:37:13.000 From the withdrawal of Afghanistan, to the origins of COVID, and to the weaponization of the FBI. The most important thing we got out of this was fundamentally changing the balance of power. 0.56
00:37:29.000 First time ever in Congress a single-subject rule.
00:37:32.000 So bills that come through have a single subject.
00:37:35.000 If they don't, we don't take them up or we divide them.
00:37:38.000 Key provisions like a 72 hours to be able to read bills, the ability to offer amendments that are germane, you know, they're relevant to the actual underlying text of the bill.
00:37:46.000 Just stop spending money we don't have.
00:37:48.000 We never wanted to legislate by omnibus ever again.
00:37:52.000 The diversification of members that are conservative on very important committees to include oversight in judiciary and house rules and appropriations.
00:38:01.000 We're going to have a strong weaponization committee attached to judiciary to go after the woke weaponized government disrupting our freedom. 1.00
00:38:07.000 The power to ensure the speaker honors his commitments by making sure we maintain the ability to vacate if we have to use it, which you never really want to do.
00:38:15.000 Those are all things that people said Wait a minute.
00:38:17.000 They're fighting for us.
00:38:19.000 The reason that I did what I did and voted the way I did for 14 or 15 rounds was because that's what I heard from my voters for a year and a half.
00:38:26.000 If you go out, walk out of my office and look on the sign on the door, it says Representative.
00:38:32.000 My job is to represent what they want.
00:38:35.000 They hired me to come to Washington to fight to change the town for them.
00:38:39.000 But how do you go out and negotiate if you don't have some people willing to say, you can't just count on my vote?
00:38:45.000 Thank you again to the Heritage Foundation for putting that documentary film together.
00:38:57.000 Follow them at DailySignal.
00:38:59.000 And thank you to my colleagues who worked to ensure that we had the tools to change Washington.
00:39:05.000 Remember, our focus is on borders and budgets and bureaucrats.
00:39:10.000 But if we do not use those tools to force change, then we have achieved nothing in that speaker contest process.
00:39:18.000 But we'll have those flashpoints coming forward on the debt limit.
00:39:22.000 On major legislation in April on the border.
00:39:25.000 And we will be here to hold the House of Representatives to account.
00:39:29.000 Make sure you're here for each and every Firebrand Live by subscribing and having your notifications turned on.
00:39:35.000 That means you click the little bell on Rumble or on YouTube if you're watching.
00:39:39.000 And if you're listening, do us a favor, give us a five-star rating, leave a review, let us know how much you like the show.
00:39:45.000 Thanks so much.