Firebrand - Matt Gaetz - April 20, 2023


Episode 98 LIVE: Court Rules Against Bragg – Firebrand with Matt Gaetz

Topics
work requirements work requirements debate work requirements hypersonic defense investment leak of classified information
Hosted by
Matt Gaetz
Mentioned
Donald Trump Jim Jordan Joe Biden Mark Pomerantz McConville Hillary Clinton Dave Dunwoody John Smith Speaker Austin Kevin McCarthy Newt Gingrich Stephen Deep Joe Manchin Wormuth Barbara Milley Getter Quote Mike and 1 more
Episode 97 LIVE: Leftist Violence Again – Firebrand with Matt Gaetz Episode 99 LIVE: Team Tucker – Firebrand with Matt Gaetz

Episode Stats


Length

44 minutes

Words per minute

138.6

Word count

6,126

Sentence count

363

Harmful content

Misogyny

6

sentences flagged

Toxicity

1

sentences flagged

Hate speech

16

sentences flagged


Summary

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

In this episode, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-GAZETTE) speaks to the Chief of Staff of the Army, Gen. McConville, and Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel. They answer questions from the House Armed Services Committee about the use of showers in the military, and the controversial issue of transgender soldiers using showers. Rep. Gaetz also talks about China and the debt ceiling, and why he believes the government should be doing more to combat the deep state. Listen to this live from Room 2021 of the Rayburn House Office Building in the Capitol Complex in Washington, D.C. to catch up on what's going on in the world of military and politics today. Tweet Me! with any thoughts on this episode or any other stories you think we should know about. Timestamps: 3:00 - What's up with the shower controversy? 4:30 - Should the U.S. Army allow women to shower in the shower with other soldiers? 5:15 - What are the benefits of showering with other people? 6:20 - What should the Army do about transgender soldiers 7:00 Does the Department of Defense Department have a policy on showering? 8:40 - Is it a good or bad thing? 9:20 10:00- What is the best way to recruit? 11:15- Is the Army transgender soldiers allowed to shower? 12:20- Should the Army be allowed to use showers? 13:30- Is there a female genitalia? 14: What should be the definition of a woman in the bathroom? 15:40- What does the Army consider when it s a female hygiene kit? 16:50 - Does the Army have a female sex change? 17:30 18:10 - What is a woman s place in the Army s role? 19:10- What's the role of women in uniform? 21:10 22:40 Do you have an open locker room? 23:00: Does the military have a shower or showering facility? 26:00 Is there an open vagina? 27:00 Do you need to be a female member of the military service member in the army? or male genitalia ? or a female service member? Or a female part of the service member who identifies as female in the female sex reassignment?

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 .
Topics generated with Qwen2.5-3B-Instruct.
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00.000 Thank you.
00:04:53.000 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.
00:05:00.000 Matt Gaetz right now, he's a problem in the Democratic Party.
00:05:03.000 He could cause a lot of hiccups in passing applause.
00:05:06.000 So we're going to keep running those stories to get hurt again.
00:05:10.000 If you want to 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.
00:05:19.000 You are in the right place.
00:05:20.000 This is the movement for you.
00:05:22.000 You ever watch this guy on television?
00:05:25.000 It's like a machine.
00:05:26.000 Matt Gaetz.
00:05:27.000 I'm a canceled man in some corners of the internet.
00:05:31.000 Many days, I'm a marked man in Congress, a wanted man by the deep state.
00:05:35.000 They aren't really coming for me.
00:05:37.000 They're coming for you.
00:05:39.000 I'm just in the way.
00:05:45.000 Welcome back to Firebrand.
00:05:46.000 This is Congressman Matt Gaetz broadcasting live out of room 2021 of the Rayburn House Office Building here in the Capitol Complex in Washington, D.C.
00:05:55.000 And you will not leave the program today without a full update as to what's going on in major litigation regarding D.A. Alvin Bragg and the House Judiciary Committee on which I serve.
00:06:08.000 Jim Jordan and I have been working hard reviewing the briefs and the rulings, and I'm going to get you all caught up to date on that.
00:06:15.000 Also, there have been very serious negotiations ongoing regarding the debt limit.
00:06:20.000 A lot of people think we shouldn't raise the debt limit, that we should have cuts.
00:06:23.000 Some folks believing we should send a blended plan to the United States Senate that has cuts and an increase in the debt limit.
00:06:31.000 I'm going to go through where those negotiations currently stand to get something potentially off the floor of the House of Representatives next week.
00:06:39.000 Remember, they said it couldn't be done.
00:06:40.000 We'll see, and I'll show you the key deal points.
00:06:44.000 Also, there is a lot of discussion on the Hill regarding what's going on with China right now.
00:06:49.000 And that's because some of the leaked information that was put out on Discord and other social media platforms contained key analysis regarding how we view the China hypersonic capability.
00:07:03.000 I asked about that in committee, had a very interesting exchange with some of the lead uniformed military leaders in the Indo-Pacific theater.
00:07:11.000 You will want to get that update.
00:07:14.000 Work requirements.
00:07:15.000 I'm going to be going over that, how that fits into the budget and the debt limit.
00:07:19.000 But first, all of you know, those of you watching today and thank you for tuning in from New York to Arizona, Georgia, Florida, even viewers from Colorado today.
00:07:30.000 What you know about my work is that I'm not afraid to ask tough questions of the generals who come before the Armed Services Committee.
00:07:39.000 And that is because I admire and respect our military so much.
00:07:44.000 And I want the decision makers to be worthy of the patriotism reflected by our troops.
00:07:51.000 So it boils my blood when we see a Department of Defense leaning into these diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives that do nothing but divide and exclude.
00:08:04.000 And sometimes I feel like they all think I'm crazy and I think they're crazy because there is this disconnect between the recruiting challenges, the retention challenges we face, and the embrace of woke ideologies.
00:08:18.000 And that was on full display during my questioning of Army leadership.
00:08:24.000 Now what you're going to see in this clip is my questioning of the lead civilian, the Secretary of the Army, And the Chief of Staff of the Army.
00:08:32.000 So the lady is a senior Biden administration official.
00:08:35.000 The gentleman is the general who is the Chief of Staff of the Army, General McConville.
00:08:40.000 So take a watch.
00:08:42.000 We'll talk about it on the other side.
00:08:45.000 When Secretary Austin was here, neither he nor General Milley could defend some of the bizarre DEI activities that were going on at DDOA, and then promptly, after my questioning, they shut down the DEI entity at DDOA. It's like, maybe we can make similar progress today.
00:09:02.000 Ms. Wormuth, do you acknowledge that some of the strange manifestations of this DEI embrace have put negative pressures on the Army's recruiting?
00:09:14.000 Congressman, I'm not sure exactly what specifically you're referring to, but when we've done surveys...
00:09:18.000 Okay, so if you could put that slide up on the screen.
00:09:20.000 I'll give you one.
00:09:21.000 I thought that might be where this was going.
00:09:25.000 So this is a vignette aid.
00:09:27.000 It's an army training, and it's regarding the use of showers.
00:09:30.000 The vignette reads, a soldier transition from male to female, as indicated in DEERS. The soldier did not have sex reassignment surgery.
00:09:39.000 The transgender service member is using the female showers and has expressed privacy concerns regarding the open bay shower configuration.
00:09:47.000 Similarly, other soldiers have expressed discomfort showering with a female who has male genitalia.
00:09:54.000 And then if you look over at Subpart 3 regarding the considerations, it just says, all soldiers will use the billeting, bathroom, and shower facilities associated with their gender marker in DEERS. What's your reaction to that?
00:10:09.000 My reaction, Congressman, is we're focused on building cohesive teams that are trained, disciplined, and fit.
00:10:15.000 General McConville, I'll give you the next chance.
00:10:17.000 Do you think that it builds cohesive teams to have biological males showering with women? 1.00
00:10:22.000 I think we need to respect the privacy of our soldiers and have an environment where everyone can thrive.
00:10:30.000 Well, of course, but that's not an answer to my question.
00:10:33.000 You and I spent a good amount of productive time yesterday talking about cohesive team building.
00:10:37.000 We did.
00:10:38.000 Does this advance cohesive team building in your best military opinion?
00:10:43.000 Well, I think the fact we're talking about this and not talking about warfighting is problematic.
00:10:49.000 Well, but that's what the Army does, General.
00:10:51.000 I'm looking here.
00:10:52.000 Army policy on transgender military service where you guys require training on this stuff.
00:10:57.000 So don't you think that when you require training on how to deal with men and women's shower stalls, And when you have these mandatory trainings on transgender service members, that that takes away from our focus on warfighting? 0.99
00:11:11.000 Yeah, I think what, you know, again, from Chief Staff of the Army, my focus is very clear.
00:11:16.000 I talk to every commander, every sergeant mayor in the Army.
00:11:19.000 I do it every single month.
00:11:20.000 And what I talk about is our job is build cohesive teams that are highly trained, they're disciplined, they're fit, and they're ready to fight and win.
00:11:29.000 And that's where I'm at.
00:11:30.000 Right, but I am positing That when there is a focus on how biological men are going to shower with women and on unconscious bias training, which you require, and on mandatory gender sensitivity training, that the call is coming from inside the house.
00:11:50.000 At DOD on some of these problems.
00:11:53.000 And the proof's in the pudding.
00:11:54.000 There seems to be a cognitive dissidence between your recruiting nightmare that we are living through, the nation's recruiting nightmare at the Army, and this kind of stuff.
00:12:04.000 Because I don't think it's going to be a big, like, positive recruiting pitch to women that when someone shows up with male genitalia in their shower stall, that we tell them that we're trying to build a cohesive team. 0.79
00:12:16.000 I would posit to you that that probably makes the team a little less cohesive.
00:12:21.000 Will you allow for even that possibility?
00:12:25.000 Congressman, what we've seen in our surveys is that basically women are more worried about being sexually harassed in the Army than they are about the kinds of things that you're bringing up.
00:12:34.000 Well, don't you think that someone might get sexually harassed if they're showering with a biological male?
00:12:38.000 Don't you think that that environment could potentially increase the likelihood of that?
00:12:41.000 We're all concerned about sexual harassment. 0.94
00:12:43.000 We've grappled with these challenges about how to have it in the chain of command or outside the chain of command, but it seems a little silly to sit here and have discussions about the flowchart of a sexual harassment You know, complaint when you've got people with male genitalia showering with your female soldiers. 0.57
00:13:00.000 I want to recruit talented women. 1.00
00:13:03.000 And I'm concerned that this weird stuff that you guys are doing is not going to make it more likely that those people are going to sign up.
00:13:10.000 General McConville, you and I spoke yesterday about the fact that the Army has to recruit extensively men from the American South, that that makes up a wide variety of who's coming into the United States Army.
00:13:24.000 You think you're going to recruit more of them with this kind of stuff?
00:13:27.000 Probably not.
00:13:29.000 And that's the point.
00:13:30.000 And I appreciate the honesty.
00:13:31.000 And I know that in August you conclude a storied career.
00:13:35.000 And we thank you both for your service.
00:13:37.000 And we did get somewhere with this last time with Secretary Austin.
00:13:41.000 And I hope you all will reflect on the damage that this embrace of DEI is doing to the military.
00:13:49.000 We are back live.
00:13:51.000 Probably not, General McConville says, when asked whether or not the embrace of women showering with biological men would result in more women wanting to join the Army.
00:14:01.000 Can you imagine that recruiting pitch?
00:14:03.000 Can you imagine going to tell American families, well, your daughter wants to be a soldier.
00:14:09.000 She'll be showering with biological males. 1.00
00:14:11.000 And the nerve of the Secretary of the Army to suggest that the way to combat sexual harassment Is with your multi-gender shower scenario?
00:14:23.000 Give me a break.
00:14:25.000 These people do not get it.
00:14:27.000 And it's why we are facing some of the recruiting challenges we are.
00:14:30.000 And it's actually why the Army is facing some of the largest deficits between their recruiting goals and what we need to be signing up and what we are, in fact, signing up.
00:14:41.000 We'll stay on them.
00:14:42.000 And we've got upcoming legislation in the National Defense Authorization Act to root out these vectors of wokeness and get them out of our military. 1.00
00:14:51.000 So now I want to talk a little bit about where we are with the debt limit and work requirements, something that I've been fighting to get in the legislation.
00:15:00.000 So here's what I'm going to do.
00:15:02.000 I've just come out of several meetings with Republicans from the cross-section of our conference, and here is how We're good to go.
00:15:28.000 There is a 10-year budget window that saves $3.6 trillion by rolling back spending to pre-COVID levels and then only allowing 1% growth in that budget during that 10-year window.
00:15:45.000 So that $3.6 trillion savings is a limitation on federal spending.
00:15:51.000 Now, I wouldn't call it a cut, except that the weird way Washington works, there's always these automatic escalators for inflation and the like.
00:16:00.000 And so this is not 1% on top of inflation.
00:16:03.000 This is 1% growth, period.
00:16:05.000 That would be the strongest cap we've had on federal spending, certainly in the last decade, maybe even before that.
00:16:12.000 So the second thing is areas of savings.
00:16:17.000 First, clawing back unspent COVID funds.
00:16:20.000 The budget estimation is that that's still about $50 to $60 billion, but frankly, it'll be less by the end of this podcast because entities know that we're interested in COVID clawbacks now that the national emergency has been ended, and they're obligating these funds as fast as they can.
00:16:35.000 So that might not be as big a savings as we expect.
00:16:39.000 Next bullet point.
00:16:40.000 Defund Biden's IRS army.
00:16:42.000 You'll remember that House Republicans stood united against the 87,000 IRS agents weaponizing this government against fellow Americans.
00:16:51.000 I would suspect against conservatives.
00:16:53.000 That's what they did the last time they weaponized the IRS. They came after Tea Party groups.
00:16:58.000 So getting rid of those 87,000 IRS agents...
00:17:01.000 A condition to this deal.
00:17:03.000 Also a repeal of all of the Green New Deal tax credits that are in the IRA. That could range anywhere between $271 billion and $1.2 trillion over the budget window.
00:17:18.000 And that's because there's been this crazy over-utilization of some of those credits.
00:17:23.000 And even Joe Manchin has come out and said that the Inflation Reduction Act, aptly named, inaptly named, It's not being implemented in accordance with legislative intent.
00:17:35.000 So he's already saying that, so that's why there's such a big delta in the potential budgetary impact of the repealing of those Green New Deal tax credits.
00:17:44.000 We would also prohibit Joe Biden's student loan giveaway.
00:17:50.000 $465 billion savings we get a whole heck of a lot of in the first year.
00:17:56.000 And also, we're working hard On ensuring that there's another bite at the apple here.
00:18:05.000 As I've said, I have no problem using the debt limit to negotiate to get less spending.
00:18:12.000 And if the debt limit comes up again more frequently, that gives us another opportunity to create downward pressure on spending.
00:18:21.000 And so under this plan, the debt limit would not be raised $2 trillion.
00:18:25.000 It would be raised $1.5 trillion.
00:18:28.000 Or March 31st, 2024, whichever comes sooner.
00:18:33.000 So if they do stuff like give Obamacare to illegal aliens, they're going to burn through that cash faster, and we're going to be right back at the table demanding even deeper spending cuts. 0.69
00:18:45.000 There are also provisions here to grow the economy, lower energy costs, HR1, we've talked about that, unleashing American energy, giving America power over the rare earth materials that will define who wins the future.
00:19:00.000 Also, the RAINS Act.
00:19:02.000 R-E-I-N-S, the REINS Act.
00:19:04.000 Now, I authored and passed the version of the REINS Act in Florida.
00:19:09.000 And what it does is it limits any regulatory action that has compliance costs over a specific threshold.
00:19:15.000 So it's really a way to rein in the bureaucrats.
00:19:18.000 If you think about the mandate of the Republican majority in Congress right now, it's really the budgets, the bureaucrats, and I think that It's reflected in the RAINS Act, certainly.
00:19:35.000 That if you have a legislative action, regulatory action, springing out of legislative action where the bureaucrats are far exceeding the authority and it's costing taxpayers money, then there's an accelerated opportunity for someone impacted by those regulatory costs to demand a more responsive government.
00:19:54.000 So that is a key piece of legislation.
00:19:57.000 It's something Republicans in Congress have been fighting for for some time.
00:20:01.000 But as we sit here now, what is being most intensely negotiated?
00:20:08.000 Work requirements.
00:20:09.000 I am a strong believer in work requirements.
00:20:12.000 I believe they should apply in TANF, in SNAP, in certain circumstances, in Medicaid.
00:20:17.000 Certainly for able-bodied people, Who could make a contribution and choose not to?
00:20:24.000 I have been fighting for work requirements so long, even when I was first elected in 2017. I'm going to give you a throwback clip from five years ago.
00:20:34.000 Here was my take on WUWF interviewed by Dave Dunwoody, March of 2017. Play the clip.
00:20:44.000 On Thursday, the House gets to vote on the Obamacare replacement bill.
00:20:48.000 Talk a little bit about the bill, what you see in it.
00:20:51.000 Well, Dave, the bill is getting better every hour.
00:20:54.000 In the moments before I called you, I was on the phone with Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, and I was stressing again that to make this legislation better, there need to be work requirements for able-bodied, childless adults.
00:21:08.000 There needs to be an end to Medicaid expansion. 0.89
00:21:11.000 You know, some of those states have one in every three of their Citizens on Medicaid.
00:21:15.000 Florida has been more responsible, one in every six.
00:21:18.000 And we also need to make sure that we've got a tax credit system that really works for people and is going to create a competitive marketplace to drive down costs.
00:21:29.000 So I was debating for work requirements with the Obamacare universe back in 2017. That very same universe exists right now.
00:21:38.000 And I just think if people want the rest of us to pay for their health care and they could work, that they ought to.
00:21:43.000 And you can even meet a work requirement with job training, with volunteering at a non-profit or at one of our cities or counties or local parks.
00:21:55.000 It's something I care about so much we even talked about it in September of last year on Firebrand.
00:22:01.000 Take a listen.
00:22:03.000 We as Republicans have to be willing to grind this corrupt place to a halt if necessary to deliver wins for our people.
00:22:11.000 And here's one that I've been discussing with some of my colleagues, Mike.
00:22:15.000 Shutting it down over work requirements.
00:22:17.000 You want to talk about something that unites Republican, Democrat, independent business owners, people out in the workforce?
00:22:24.000 It's the notion that we shouldn't be paying people not to work if you've got a bunch of able-bodied, childless adults getting a whole lot of welfare programs.
00:22:31.000 So I actually think that we could unify a Republican caucus around the theory that we don't fund these entitlement programs anymore without work requirements for able-bodied, childless adults.
00:22:43.000 100% agree, and maybe we wouldn't run out of money so quickly if people were back to work in this country. 0.90
00:22:50.000 Work requirements or bust.
00:22:52.000 Work requirements or shutdowns.
00:22:54.000 A lot of support for it on the live chat.
00:22:56.000 Stephen Deep on Getter says we need a list of bureaucrats that need to be replaced. 1.00
00:23:01.000 And you know what?
00:23:02.000 The rules we fought for...
00:23:05.000 At the beginning of the year during the speaker contest, allow us to go and defund the salaries of specific bureaucrats.
00:23:11.000 I wish we could have forced that on Fauci, but when you look at some of these people at the ATF, you look at some of these people pushing the wokeness at DOD, I believe we can take specific action against them.
00:23:23.000 And that is a power that Congress has not had and wouldn't have had had we not stood up and demanded it as a consequence of the resolution of the speaker contest.
00:23:32.000 So we will be on that very good piece of advice that you've given us on the live chat.
00:23:38.000 As to these work requirements, even my critics acknowledge that before this debt limit debate, there wasn't really a thrust for work requirements as part of the discussion, and I demanded it.
00:23:51.000 So I'm putting it up on the screen right now for those watching on Rumble, and we hope you subscribe and turn your notifications on regardless of how you're watching or listening.
00:24:00.000 This is from The New Republic, March 23rd.
00:24:03.000 Matt Gaetz's brilliant idea for the debt ceiling crisis.
00:24:07.000 Medicaid work requirements.
00:24:09.000 Now, I'll give you a little notice that they don't actually think it's a brilliant idea.
00:24:14.000 They're quite critical of the idea.
00:24:16.000 But I thought it was really important Why is this a source of negotiation at this point?
00:24:42.000 The work requirements that my Republican colleagues are currently advocating for are 20 hours a week.
00:24:48.000 I just tend to think that we can be a little more rigorous.
00:24:52.000 I would love to see a 40 hour a week work requirement, but certainly a 30 hour a week work requirement, something higher than 20. 20 hours a week to get other people to pay for your health care, your cash payments, I just don't think that that is something that is unreasonable to ask for.
00:25:17.000 And so we're pushing for stronger work requirements than just 20 hours a week.
00:25:22.000 Some of my Republican colleagues want to keep it at 20 hours a week.
00:25:24.000 The good news is we're all talking about work requirements.
00:25:28.000 I was making the case just yesterday on the House floor.
00:25:32.000 Take a listen.
00:25:34.000 Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
00:25:36.000 I rise to vindicate the most American of values.
00:25:40.000 And that is work.
00:25:42.000 When John Smith landed at Jamestown, he said, he who does not work, neither shall he eat.
00:25:48.000 And we have drifted so far away of that, creating a social safety net that has been converted into a multi-generational hammock for far too many Americans. 0.95
00:25:57.000 And so as we reach America's credit card limit, I am proud to stand with my many House Republican colleagues who believe there should be no increase in this debt limit absent rigorous work requirements.
00:26:10.000 If you could see President Clinton and Newt Gingrich coming together for work requirements in the 90s, there's no reason we cannot do that in divided government now to cut spending where it is wasteful and to grow this economy where it is necessary.
00:26:24.000 Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
00:26:25.000 I yield back.
00:26:28.000 Suze on Rumble weighs in and says there are a lot of seniors on this program and that's an important clarification for me to make.
00:26:34.000 The work requirements would be for those from 18 to 55. So seniors would largely not be impacted by these work requirements.
00:26:44.000 Hey, some thought that the work requirements should go all the way up to 65. Initially, when this plan was drafted, I can tell you they were at 49, and so we got them raised to 55. I think someone who's 51 or 52 or 53 can be able to work.
00:26:59.000 And we need workers in our economy.
00:27:01.000 Right now, a lot of our small businesses tell us that each and every day, and so we'll stay on it.
00:27:06.000 Also, I note that Barbara on Facebook says she wants 40-hour-a-week work requirements. 0.99
00:27:11.000 Kathy on Facebook says at least 30 hours a week.
00:27:14.000 So keep chiming in.
00:27:16.000 Love getting the feedback.
00:27:18.000 Now we travel from the very near term and here at home and our domestic economic situation to the major pacing challenge that we face abroad, and that's China.
00:27:29.000 Through my role in the Armed Services Committee, I regularly get to ask questions to people in command of different theaters.
00:27:35.000 You saw my questioning of some of the leadership of the AFRICOM area of responsibility or Central Command, where we see a lot of the focus on the Middle East.
00:27:46.000 I got to ask questions this week of the leadership of the Indo-Pacific Theater.
00:27:51.000 And I got to ask specifically about this leak that came out and what it tells us about whether or not we are ahead or behind, whether or not we can successfully deter China. 0.80
00:28:03.000 I am not one who believes we should be a nation eager to start war with anyone.
00:28:09.000 But make no mistake, China seeks to dominate us. 0.99
00:28:12.000 And rather than have a war with China, I prefer that we deter China. 0.93
00:28:17.000 But the only way to have effective deterrence is to have the most effective capability, hard power.
00:28:24.000 No one is going to be deterred by our economy alone or our diplomacy alone.
00:28:30.000 That's why I think we need to have the most badass military capable of delivering lethality anywhere, anytime, if necessary, to protect the American people.
00:28:41.000 Not foreign interests abroad, the American people.
00:28:44.000 And we are impacted by this pacing challenge, by this adversary China. 0.96
00:28:49.000 And we call them a near-peer adversary, but sometimes I wonder whether they're ahead or we are in some important areas.
00:28:57.000 You've seen my questioning in this on AI, where I think China's ahead. 0.89
00:29:02.000 But I've constantly grappled with some of our leaders on this issue of hypersonics, hypersonics because a hypersonic delivery system that can send a nuclear warhead across continents in a matter of minutes is something very different regarding the decisions that leaders have to make in the event of direct kinetic conflict.
00:29:22.000 Now, if global affairs isn't your thing, I think most folks would at least understand If you're in a race with someone, it's really important to understand during that race whether or not you are ahead or behind.
00:29:37.000 You run the race differently if you're ahead than if you know you have to catch up.
00:29:44.000 I think on the area of hypersonics, we need to catch up.
00:29:48.000 And I think our leaders need to stop trying to mislead and obfuscate that fact.
00:29:54.000 You'll see it on full display here.
00:29:56.000 Indo-Pacific questioning House Armed Services Committee this week.
00:30:00.000 Play the clip.
00:30:03.000 Days ago in the Washington Post and Washington military planners are realizing that China has surpassed the United States in hypersonic military technology.
00:30:13.000 Does anyone seated at the table disagree with that assessment?
00:30:19.000 Congressman, I think in terms of assessments, we should probably take that to a classified discussion.
00:30:24.000 Well, it's been sort of unclassified without our consent.
00:30:28.000 We had this leak that showed that China could launch one of these hypersonic glide capabilities 2,100 kilometers, that it could get there in 12 minutes.
00:30:39.000 And I actually don't think it's, that can't be too classified because it was a year ago, Admiral, that you were before the Senate Armed Services Committee, and you seem to be giving the warning at that time that we saw manifest in this leak.
00:30:53.000 You said, quote, The hypersonic glide vehicle threat poses a serious threat to the U.S. and allied forces in the region, and we require a near-term initial defense capability to meet this challenge.
00:31:06.000 I read in between the lines of that to say you require the capability in the near term because you didn't have the capability when you gave this testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee, not in a classified setting.
00:31:18.000 But in open hearing.
00:31:20.000 So I guess my question to you, because I sense you are the truth teller on a lot of these things, have you acquired the capability since this testimony?
00:31:29.000 The department is working on the ability to do hypersonic defense, Congressman.
00:31:36.000 Again, I stand by what I said.
00:31:38.000 I am concerned about it.
00:31:39.000 And it's still true today.
00:31:40.000 That statement that you made to the Senate Armed Services Committee in 2021, you wouldn't revise that or change that?
00:31:45.000 That is true as we sit here today?
00:31:47.000 It is.
00:31:48.000 And so what I observe about our posture in Indopaycom is that for the last 30 years, the United States has been building aircraft carriers that will never get into the fight.
00:32:00.000 And we've spent years building littoral combat ships, Mr. Smith, that will never get into the fight.
00:32:08.000 And while you have been giving us the accurate information, you gave it to us now, you gave it to the Senate a year ago, the truth is we have not made a sufficient investment in hypersonic defense in order to ensure that we have this credible deterrent threat.
00:32:22.000 Isn't that right, Admiral?
00:32:25.000 Sir, if you look at the report as it applies to our Guam defense system, we have identified the need for that capability.
00:32:32.000 Right.
00:32:33.000 And so, I guess, how do our littoral combat ships ever get into the fight in a China-Taiwan scenario?
00:32:40.000 Well, again, I think that'd be better in a classified setting.
00:32:43.000 I do think it's not going to happen.
00:32:44.000 I think it's whether it's classified or not classified.
00:32:47.000 Can we hit a moving target with our hypersonic offense?
00:32:53.000 Again, sir, I think we ought to take those capabilities discussion into a closed setting.
00:32:56.000 Well, okay, so if I represent to you that China can hit a moving target and we can't hit a moving target, Do you have any basis in this setting that you can share with me to rebut that assertion?
00:33:08.000 I disagree that we can't hit a moving target.
00:33:11.000 Oh, you think with our hypersonic capability?
00:33:14.000 I didn't say with a hypersonic capability.
00:33:16.000 Okay, but that's what I'm talking about, because of course we can hit moving targets, but with a hypersonic capability, it changes the deterrence analysis, because the time window shortens considerably, as this leak of classified information tells us, kind of as you told us a year ago.
00:33:32.000 And so I know that there'll be great bloodlust to go after the leaker of this information.
00:33:38.000 It is never okay to leak classified information, especially when it could potentially put people at risk.
00:33:45.000 But what I wonder is, who's going to be punished more?
00:33:48.000 The knucklehead who leaked this information? 0.55
00:33:52.000 Or the generals and admirals and so-called experts who have sat before this committee and the Senate for decades saying that these capabilities that we were funding with gajillions of dollars were going to sufficiently deter China.
00:34:08.000 And what you said last year, what you've confirmed now, is that We need a capability in the near term that we do not have.
00:34:16.000 What this leak shows is that China has it, and we don't. 0.99
00:34:21.000 And yet, we continue to build ships that'll never get in the fight.
00:34:25.000 We continue to support these endeavors that don't enhance deterrence, but if the right senator or congressman or lobbyist is for them, we do them.
00:34:35.000 And I think that's, while it is never okay to leak classified information, I think that's what animates the concern Among some of our even youngest and most inexperienced service members that we are not really positioning to win this fight.
00:34:51.000 We got too many grifters who roll in and out of the Pentagon, two defense contractors, and some of them even become Secretary of Defense thereafter. 0.56
00:35:00.000 And I think it is disgraceful and it's not worthy of a true Pacific power like the United States. 0.98
00:35:08.000 We are back live and I want to give you important updates regarding the litigation ongoing between Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg and the United States House of Representatives, specifically the House Judiciary Committee on which I serve, and Chairman Jim Jordan.
00:35:24.000 So let me start by updating you regarding the procedural posture.
00:35:27.000 As you know, Alvin Bragg indicts President Donald Trump.
00:35:31.000 That ignites from the House Judiciary Committee an investigation into Alvin Bragg regarding his use of federal funds and potential misuse of those federal funds in an illegal effort to try to disrupt the 2024 presidential election because Donald Trump is a leading candidate.
00:35:50.000 And Joe Biden is running again.
00:35:52.000 And Alvin Bragg would probably prefer that Donald Trump lose and Joe Biden win.
00:35:57.000 And we know that Bragg has this anti-Trump bias because he said so to get elected to the position of Manhattan District Attorney.
00:36:06.000 So, Jordan announces that investigation.
00:36:08.000 And one element of that investigation is that we would like to take the deposition of a man named Mark Pomerantz.
00:36:17.000 Mark Pomerantz was one of these super impressive, glitzy New York lawyers.
00:36:23.000 Strong relationship with Hillary Clinton.
00:36:26.000 Strong relationship with the political left.
00:36:30.000 Wildly against Donald Trump.
00:36:32.000 And this guy leaves tremendous opportunity, tremendous earning capability in the private sector to volunteer to go and help the Manhattan DA develop evidence against President Trump and to try to create a case against President Trump And it's the classic circumstance that we try to avoid with a constitutional system of jurisprudence.
00:36:57.000 This is, show me the man and I'll show you the crime.
00:37:01.000 It is not what we are promised with Lady Justice blind, weighing the scales equally for everyone.
00:37:09.000 So Pomerantz goes and volunteers to do this for free.
00:37:12.000 Then...
00:37:13.000 He leaves the DA's office, writes a book about his work investigating Donald Trump, And we'd like to take his deposition.
00:37:23.000 We'd like to ask him questions.
00:37:24.000 And so we served him a subpoena.
00:37:26.000 Now, Pomerantz did not object to that subpoena.
00:37:30.000 Instead, Alvin Bragg, in his role as the Manhattan DA, went into a federal court and sued for a temporary injunction to stop Jim Jordan and me and the House Judiciary Committee from taking this deposition of Mark Pomerantz, who had already written a book, We have serious concerns about the use of these federal funds in such an improper and political way.
00:37:58.000 So, Bragg files this lawsuit.
00:38:04.000 And we get a ruling that just absolutely hammers him.
00:38:10.000 Hammers Bragg, demands that Pomerantz show up.
00:38:13.000 Thereafter, Bragg files some appeal, I think it was like 280 some odd pages, And the Second Circuit, which sits over this Article III district court, issued a temporary stay Of the requirement that Pomerantz show up for a deposition while they take appellate review.
00:38:32.000 So right now, what governs is a stay, but all of the legal determinations and legal calculus laid forth by this U.S. district judge is the first time a judge has really laid claim to this historic event where you've got a DA, a local DA, Pursuing a former president under a novel theory lashing a business records misdemeanor to a federal election felony.
00:39:01.000 And then on top of that, a congressional committee investigating that very DA. So the opinion starts, Mr. Pomerantz, this was the guy who volunteered, got out, wrote the book, must appear for the congressional deposition.
00:39:16.000 And trust me, I'll be there to take it.
00:39:19.000 No one is above the law.
00:39:21.000 I love, I love the judge ever so delicately putting that in there.
00:39:28.000 No one is above the law.
00:39:29.000 Because, see, they use that, they misuse that saying, always to target President Trump.
00:39:33.000 But here the judge throws it right back in their face.
00:39:36.000 And she notes right away in the decision that this book, written by Pomerantz, Is noteworthy to the investigation that Jim Jordan and I are working on, even citing, quote, the Trump investigation should have been handled by the U.S. Department of Justice rather than the Manhattan District Attorney's Office as one of the arguments made in the book.
00:39:59.000 So in the book, Pomerantz is saying, you know what, it really shouldn't even be the Manhattan DA. It should be the U.S. Department of Justice.
00:40:06.000 And so that seems to be directly relevant to the separation of powers questions we have and the resource utilization questions we have regarding our investigation.
00:40:16.000 The judge blasts Alvin Bragg.
00:40:20.000 Quote, the first 35 pages of the complaint, this is Bragg's complaint, have little to do with the subpoena at issue and are nothing short of a public relations tirade against former president and current presidential candidate Donald Trump.
00:40:37.000 For Alvin Bragg to catch that much shade, for a federal judge to be calling his pleadings, the first 35 pages, nothing more than a public relations tirade is quite something.
00:40:50.000 You don't see decisions like this often.
00:40:52.000 She continues, the reality is that as framed, this action, the Bragg action, is merely a motion to quash a subpoena dressed up as a lawsuit.
00:41:03.000 We argued in our memo that Alvin Bragg can't establish a substantial likelihood of success on the merits, which is one of the elements to obtain temporary injunctive relief.
00:41:15.000 And we argued that the permissibility of investigating these federal forfeiture funds that were used to investigate Trump is a logical step.
00:41:27.000 Pomerantz, interestingly, is just allowing Bragg to speak for him.
00:41:32.000 Here's more shade that the judge threw at Alvin Bragg's reply brief.
00:41:37.000 The reply brief was accompanied by a supplemental declaration attaching 16 largely irrelevant exhibits consisting of a hodgepodge of social media posts, news articles, television interviews, pleadings from unrelated lawsuits, and a transcript from the arraignment in the Trump prosecution.
00:41:59.000 The judge doesn't even have to opine as to the effectiveness or persuasiveness of these exhibits, but she goes out of her way to call them irrelevant, a hodgepodge, and unrelated.
00:42:14.000 Unbelievable.
00:42:16.000 Want to get to some other quotes from the opinion?
00:42:20.000 Quote, The court is further unmoved by Bragg's purported concern for the prospect of, quote, injecting partisan passions into a forum where they do not belong.
00:42:31.000 This is what the judge says.
00:42:33.000 By bringing this action, Bragg is engaged in precisely the type of political theater he claims to fear.
00:42:41.000 That is a call-out for hypocrisy, unlike I've probably ever seen in a federal order like this.
00:42:49.000 Quote, She continues,
00:43:11.000 Quote, Brad cannot seriously claim that any information already published in Pomerantz's book and discussed on primetime television in front of millions of people is protected from disclosure as attorney-client work product or otherwise.
00:43:26.000 So bottom line is she retains jurisdiction.
00:43:29.000 She requires a status report from the parties within 30 days.
00:43:33.000 I think that is a signal for To brag in Pomerantz that this deposition better occur within the next 30 days.
00:43:41.000 Second Circuit has review of this decision.
00:43:43.000 They ought to affirm it as fast as possible.
00:43:47.000 It really is a classic for all ages.
00:43:50.000 Thanks so much for joining us on this episode of Firebrand.
00:43:53.000 Do me a favor and share it with someone who might not be as engaged in politics or someone who might prefer an in-depth, behind-the-scenes review of what's going on in the courtroom and in the halls of Congress.
00:44:06.000 Subscribe, turn the notifications on, write us a review, and join us next time for Firebrand.
00:44:11.000 Roll the credits.