The Anchormen Show with Matt Gaetz - May 11, 2023


Episode 105 LIVE： Washington In Scandal – Firebrand with Matt Gaetz


Episode Stats


Length

25 minutes

Words per minute

155.04019

Word count

3,902

Sentence count

226

Harmful content

Toxicity

3

sentences flagged

Hate speech

3

sentences flagged


Summary

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

On today's show we have the latest from the George Santos Indictment, and a new report from the House Oversight Committee. We also have a major scandal out of the CIA and a possible cover-up by big tech and big media.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:01.000 The embattled Congressman Matt Gaetz.
00:00:03.000 Matt Gaetz was one of the very few members in the entire Congress
00:00:06.000 who bothered to stand up against permanent Washington on behalf of his constituents.
00:00:10.000 Matt Gaetz right now, he's a problem for the Democratic Party.
00:00:13.000 And he could cause a lot of hiccups in passing applause.
00:00:16.000 So we're gonna keep running those stories to get hurt again.
00:00:20.000 If you stand for the flag and kneel in prayer,
00:00:23.000 if you want to build America up and not burn her to the ground,
00:00:26.000 then welcome, my fellow patriots.
00:00:29.000 You are in the right place.
00:00:31.000 This is the movement for you.
00:00:33.000 You ever watch this guy on television?
00:00:35.000 It's like a machine, Matt Gaetz.
00:00:38.000 I'm a canceled man in some corners of the internet.
00:00:41.000 Many days I'm a marked man in Congress, a wanted man by the deep state.
00:00:46.000 They aren't really coming for me.
00:00:48.000 They're coming for you.
00:00:50.000 I'm just in the way.
00:00:55.000 Welcome back to Firebrand.
00:00:57.000 We are live broadcasting out of room 2021 of the Rayburn house office building here at the Capitol complex in Washington, D.C.
00:01:04.000 And Washington is embroiled in scandal today.
00:01:07.000 I've got the latest news from the George Santos indictment, the George Santos press conference.
00:01:13.000 There was a big reveal about the various financial webs that tied the Biden family to corrupt enterprises overseas.
00:01:22.000 Jamie Comer gave a briefing on that.
00:01:24.000 I'll have the latest from Chairman Comer and the House Oversight Committee.
00:01:28.000 We also had a major scandal out of the CIA break, and that's where I would like to begin our discussion right now.
00:01:36.000 The CIA for quite some time has been all about controlling the shape of leader selection abroad.
00:01:46.000 Right?
00:01:47.000 They have been involved in coups abroad.
00:01:50.000 They have been involved in election interference abroad.
00:01:54.000 And sadly, those capabilities have been brought home to our country.
00:02:01.000 The House Judiciary Committee, led by Chairman Jim Jordan, upon which I serve, released a report just today that laid out the problems with what the CIA was doing and the nature of their election interference in the 2020 campaign.
00:02:17.000 That's right. I am explicitly asserting, as this report does, that the CIA was involved in interfering in the 2020 election.
00:02:26.000 Here's how we know that to be the case.
00:02:29.000 One in six of the people who voted for Joe Biden said they would have not done so if they were aware of the corruption erupting out of Hunter Biden's laptop.
00:02:42.000 But you see, the American people didn't get that information in time for the election.
00:02:47.000 Why?
00:02:48.000 Well, because 51 senior national security folks, people who had retired from some of the top positions in FBI, CIA, Department of Homeland Security, NSA,
00:03:00.000 these 51 people signed a letter saying that the Hunter Biden laptop was Russian disinformation.
00:03:07.000 And that letter was then used by big tech and big media to censor the reporting from the New York Post that laid out those foreign contacts and those foreign connections.
00:03:21.000 And so you might ask yourself, why did 51 people put their reputation on the line, their name on the line, their security clearance on the line to sign that which we know today to be false?
00:03:36.000 And the conclusion in this report is that they were prodded and triggered to do so by the current Secretary of State, Tony Blinken, who at the time was a senior Biden campaign official.
00:03:49.000 And then they were coerced in at least one circumstance by folks who were at that time working for the CIA.
00:03:56.860 The CIA was working to coerce people to sign a letter that then government and media and tech would all use to try to stop the American people from seeing something that undeniably would have been dispositive on this election had it impacted the perspective of one in every six voters.
00:04:17.960 Now, how did that coercion occur?
00:04:20.860 When someone in one of these senior intelligence organizations wants to, following their employment, write a book or a manuscript,
00:04:31.420 they have to get approval of the agency where they worked.
00:04:36.600 They have to get approval to see that no national security information is being released, that it is an appropriate disclosure.
00:04:42.920 And these approvals are typically given so long as there's not a release of information that might be classified, sensitive, or otherwise protected.
00:04:51.920 Well, one of the 51 people told the House Judiciary Committee that he was only going to get his book approved by the CIA if he signed the Hunter Biden letter.
00:05:04.020 Isn't that amazing?
00:05:06.020 Using the power of the most exquisite intelligence agency in the world to coerce someone that if they did not do what they were being told to provide this tool for Biden in the debates,
00:05:21.080 for big tech, for big media to censor, if they did not do that, they could not publish their book.
00:05:25.720 That is the weaponization of government that we are reporting on.
00:05:30.840 The live feed is fired up, and there's a lot of folks saying, where's the action?
00:05:36.900 Tired of talk, where's the action?
00:05:38.280 Let me lay out some level setting here for you.
00:05:42.000 The United States Congress has no ability to throw anyone in jail or put handcuffs on folks, issue arrests.
00:05:48.920 That's probably for good reason if you think about it.
00:05:52.440 We have the power, though, to expose, and we have to use the power of the subpoena and the power of the purse.
00:05:59.940 I believe that what we are learning about a weaponized government ought to be the principal driver of how we think about every budgetary fight,
00:06:10.020 every authorization to spend, every nickel, even the debt limit.
00:06:14.020 If this government is weaponized, why would we willy-nilly go raise the debt limit to provide a ton more cash for it to continue to operate in a way that has turned on the people?
00:06:24.680 We shouldn't, but yet we do.
00:06:26.840 And so don't judge House Republicans based on whether or not anyone goes to jail.
00:06:30.620 Why? We can't throw anyone in jail.
00:06:32.260 And oh, by the way, the folks who are at the Department of Justice right now don't really think that they're going to move up in their career if they go after Joe Biden.
00:06:41.320 So when the appropriations process comes, when the budget is before us, we ought to use the tools that I fought so hard for during the speaker contest,
00:06:54.440 defunding the salaries of these bureaucrats, deep vertical cuts into these agencies, strip them of their authorities and their cash and the veneer that they use to lie.
00:07:04.880 That is the action that we ought to perform in the House of Representatives and divided government.
00:07:10.080 And no, it probably doesn't give these people the ultimate accountability that they deserve, but it sets us on the correct trajectory to save the country and our future and our values.
00:07:23.580 And I care about that even more than I care about any bloodlust or vengeance against any particular individual.
00:07:29.080 I want to set it right, because if we do not, these corrupt cultures will continue to re-manifest throughout the national security apparatus and the enterprise of government entirely.
00:07:40.860 So there was the other major news today on the debt limit.
00:07:45.960 I want to get to that.
00:07:47.360 President Biden had a press conference where he discussed his desire to have unchecked continuous spending with no downward pressure,
00:07:56.920 no limitation on the growth of this government and all that it is doing to borrow against the future of our fellow Americans.
00:08:04.040 Take a listen to President Biden.
00:08:04.980 So let me tell you a story about what's going on.
00:08:11.240 There's a very extreme wing in the Republican Party and the House of Representatives referred to themselves now.
00:08:16.820 I've been calling this for a while, but now they refer to themselves as the MAGA Republicans.
00:08:20.940 And they've taken control of the House.
00:08:24.160 They've taken control.
00:08:25.120 They have a speaker who has his job because he yielded to the, quote, MAGA element of the party.
00:08:31.620 They're doing, to the best of my knowledge, what no other political party has done in the nation's history.
00:08:36.580 They're literally, not figuratively, holding the economy hostage by threatening to default on our nation's debt that we've already incurred.
00:08:46.140 We've already incurred over the last couple hundred years, unless we give in to the threats and demands as to what they think we should be doing with regard to the budget.
00:08:54.720 This would be incredibly damaging.
00:08:56.200 So let's fact check a few of those claims.
00:09:02.060 First of all, Joe Biden is not the first person who started calling me and others MAGA Republicans.
00:09:07.400 We were MAGA Republicans before Joe Biden.
00:09:10.220 I think we give President Trump credit for that and credit he is most certainly due.
00:09:15.320 Second, he says that McCarthy was only able to assume the speakership because of concessions that he made to us, the MAGA Republicans. 0.57
00:09:22.460 And on that, Joe Biden gets a ding, ding, ding, totally true, accurate rating on that judgment.
00:09:29.740 But it's good for the country.
00:09:31.120 It's not bad for the country that McCarthy had to make concessions on spending in order to secure the speakership.
00:09:36.840 And those very concessions that McCarthy had to make to folks like Chip Roy and Dan Bishop and Scott Perry, good friends of mine, great conservatives, folks who've joined us on Firebrand,
00:09:46.680 those concessions are reflected in the House Freedom Caucus debt limit architecture that the House passed.
00:09:54.660 Now, I didn't think it went far enough for the very reasons that many of you are firing off about on the live stream that we have to stop funding this corrupt government.
00:10:03.080 And even what Joe Biden calls extreme would gaslight up to $49 trillion in debt over the next 10 years,
00:10:10.400 something that Congressman Burchett and I discussed on a previous episode of Firebrand.
00:10:15.080 Final response to President Biden. 1.00
00:10:18.300 What a hypocrite. 1.00
00:10:20.180 When you were a senator, there were times when you refused to vote against raising the debt limit 1.00
00:10:24.700 because you said there was not another feature of the deal that reduced spending and the deficits.
00:10:30.140 When you did vote to raise the debt limit, you often cited the fact that it included something on deficit reduction.
00:10:36.980 But you're not interested in it now, Mr. President, because you are totally captured by the woke left
00:10:45.140 that actually doesn't mind the borrowing and the inflation, the harm to the U.S. dollar,
00:10:52.140 because they don't think a lot of America in the first place.
00:10:55.140 They actually think that the path to socialism that leads to all of our fellow Americans being poor
00:11:01.760 is the right thing because that will destroy the country and that's their ultimate goal.
00:11:06.520 That's what they think would make the world a more just and more kind place.
00:11:11.200 And Joe Biden is their employee.
00:11:14.200 Joe Biden is just who they allow to wander around in the Rose Garden.
00:11:18.320 I guess in a way, Biden accuses McCarthy of being our captive,
00:11:25.920 but that's just being captive to a theory of economics that is consistent with reality,
00:11:34.080 that you cannot keep printing money and remain the strongest country in the world
00:11:38.040 with government spending that doesn't have any relationship to revenue.
00:11:44.060 And who's Joe Biden captive to?
00:11:46.540 The people who would have no upper limit on spending,
00:11:50.720 who would leave the American people abandoned economically and under attack culturally
00:11:59.100 because that's what they've done.
00:12:01.440 Joe Biden on the debt limit.
00:12:02.960 There'll be a lot more on that for sure.
00:12:06.340 Other big news in Washington, D.C. surrounds Congressman George Santos.
00:12:11.080 Congressman Santos has been indicted by the federal government,
00:12:14.560 and I've been asked with some frequency my perspective on that issue,
00:12:18.740 and here it is.
00:12:21.120 Senator Menendez faced a 14-count indictment,
00:12:25.680 including eight counts of alleged bribery.
00:12:29.400 He's a Democrat senator from New Jersey,
00:12:31.320 but one hung jury later after his indictment,
00:12:35.580 he is now the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
00:12:39.100 So like every American, whether you like him or not, 0.86
00:12:43.680 whether you believe him or not,
00:12:45.380 whether you think he should be in Congress or not,
00:12:47.480 George Santos is innocent until proven guilty.
00:12:51.040 That's my perspective on the matter.
00:12:53.360 And I think we've got a clip to go to.
00:12:56.140 Ah, yes.
00:12:56.960 This is an interview I actually did while co-hosting for Steve Bannon on Warham.
00:13:01.520 So a big part of this Santos indictment surrounds campaign finance issues
00:13:06.660 and then derivative offenses alleged as a result of those campaign finance issues.
00:13:13.300 And so when I had the opportunity to ask George Santos about that question directly,
00:13:17.100 I did.
00:13:17.880 Here was that exchange on The War Room.
00:13:21.420 One of the principal critiques I've heard is that a lot of money
00:13:24.300 was donated to your campaign by you.
00:13:27.280 $700,000, I believe.
00:13:28.880 Where did it come from?
00:13:29.660 Well, I'll tell you where it didn't come from.
00:13:31.080 It didn't come from China, Ukraine, or Burisma.
00:13:33.540 How about that?
00:13:34.960 Well, that is an answer.
00:13:39.300 So as I understand it now,
00:13:41.440 Congressman Santos' defense will be that he earned this money
00:13:44.720 and that upon earning it was able to invest it in his campaign.
00:13:49.000 He revised and extended those remarks at a truly New York press conference
00:13:56.240 earlier today following his indictment.
00:13:58.220 Take a listen to the congressman.
00:13:59.660 We have an indictment.
00:14:02.600 We have all we have the information that the government wants to come after me on.
00:14:07.020 And I'm going to comply.
00:14:08.540 I've been complying throughout this entire process.
00:14:10.860 I have no desire not to comply at this point.
00:14:13.480 They've been gracious in there.
00:14:15.140 Now I'm going to have to go and fight to defend myself.
00:14:17.700 The reality is, is it's a witch hunt because it makes no sense that in four months, four months, five months, I'm indicted.
00:14:27.800 You have Joe Biden's entire family receiving deposits from nine family members receiving money from foreign destinations into their bank accounts.
00:14:40.760 It's been years of exposing.
00:14:42.640 A lot of you here have reported on them.
00:14:44.980 And yet no investigation is launched into them.
00:14:47.820 I'm going to fight.
00:14:49.760 I'm getting back to that.
00:14:51.920 I'm going to fight my battle.
00:14:53.380 I'm going to deliver.
00:14:54.680 I'm going to fight the witch hunt. 0.60
00:14:55.940 I'm going to take care of clearing my name.
00:14:57.960 And I look forward to doing that.
00:15:02.220 That was not a man on defense, George Santos, answering questions at a press conference following turning himself in federal charges, largely dealing with campaign finance issues.
00:15:15.140 We will certainly follow up on that and provide information in this very, very slim Republican majority in the House.
00:15:22.020 Every single member is significant, and we're going to follow that story and make sure we get to the bottom of it.
00:15:28.600 JoJo on Getter on the live stream says that it's an interesting coincidence in timing that the Santos indictment seems to happen the same day that Congressman James Comer, the chairman of the House Oversight Committee, holds a press conference on the information discovered regarding Hunter Biden.
00:15:48.440 Here's the deal.
00:15:49.120 Hunter Biden and his family designed an exquisite system of shell companies and LLCs.
00:15:56.540 They look like businesses on paper, but they don't actually do any business.
00:16:01.120 They're just in the business of moving foreign cash into the accounts of members of the Biden family.
00:16:07.120 We learned today it's over $10 million to members of the Biden family, to brothers, to grandchildren, to children, to their spouses, to their former spouses.
00:16:20.740 Take a listen to Chairman Comer.
00:16:22.400 The committee has reviewed thousands of bank records from individuals and companies affiliated with the Bidens and their associates.
00:16:30.980 It has received these bank records pursuant to four subpoenas I've issued to different banks.
00:16:37.560 These were targeted and specific subpoenas, and each was different based on the information we believed the banks possessed.
00:16:46.820 Every one of those subpoenas returned valuable information that had been unreported and that contributed to this committee's understanding of how the Bidens conducted their businesses.
00:16:56.820 The committee is concerned by the complicated, suspicious network of over 20 companies we have identified the Bidens and their associates used to enrich themselves.
00:17:10.100 Most of these companies were limited liability companies formed during Joe Biden's vice presidency.
00:17:17.580 The bank records show the Biden family, their associates, and their companies received over $10 million from foreign nationals and their companies.
00:17:29.060 Some of that money came from a Chinese company and went to Hunter Biden's company.
00:17:33.880 Other transfers occurred with the help of Rob Walker, who then sent it on to different Biden family members.
00:17:40.100 This is not how lawful businesses operate.
00:17:45.660 Chinese nationals affiliated with the Bidens created limited liability companies in the United States,
00:17:50.840 and then in a short period of time transferred their interest to a Chinese company that sent money to the Bidens.
00:17:59.060 This is not normal.
00:18:01.560 Hunter Biden and his associates courted business in countries that correlated directly with Joe Biden's work as vice president.
00:18:08.380 We are back live and low pro Kyle says on the live stream, we are in a constitutional crisis on several fronts.
00:18:19.400 I could not agree more.
00:18:20.960 And having a compromised first family is no way to run a serious country.
00:18:25.680 We are showing that compromise.
00:18:27.040 And what Congressman Comer is unveiling very well could end up being the strongest basis for the impeachment of Joe Biden that we've seen just yet.
00:18:36.900 Still a lot of work to do.
00:18:38.280 Still a lot of investigating.
00:18:40.160 But we're going to pull those strings.
00:18:41.960 And my expectation is they're all leading back to Joe.
00:18:45.520 We are in police week currently, and you would think that would be a bipartisan moment for Republicans and Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee to come together and celebrate police.
00:18:58.040 Congressman Troy Nels is the first of my colleagues that you're about to see in the House Judiciary Committee introduce what I thought would be a pretty non-controversial resolution.
00:19:07.200 A resolution that would simply honor our police, honor police week, say that we appreciate them, the sacrifice that they make as first responders.
00:19:16.900 And then you're going to hear a bunch of Democrats work themselves into an absolute lather over the defund the police movement.
00:19:26.980 Whether they're for it, whether they're against it, whether they've previously been for it, whether they're for it, but it doesn't really mean defund the police.
00:19:33.680 You're going to love it.
00:19:35.560 I could not resist when my colleague Mike Johnson pointed out that a very prominent Democrat has been leading the fight to defund the police, and she has a prominent role as a House Judiciary Committee member.
00:19:48.840 Take a listen.
00:19:52.100 Today, I offer my support of the resolution recognizing National Police Week.
00:19:57.000 My colleagues and I are committed to recognizing the valor, dignity, and integrity of police officers across the nation and express our sincere support for those who defend our communities against criminals and lawlessness.
00:20:10.060 The far left has pushed for defunding the police for far too long.
00:20:13.960 Ironically, the same folks that have advocated for and voted to slash the police budgets have armed security surrounding them daily.
00:20:21.260 First, I must disagree with Mr. Niels, with whom I agree on the bill, but I must disagree with him when he says that the Democrats seek to defund the police.
00:20:32.600 We do not.
00:20:33.540 My Republican colleagues are using Police Week to promote cheap talking points and largely meaningless legislation designed to distract and divide communities, not make them safer.
00:20:45.100 Let me just give you a sampling of some of their comments, because it's been said here that these are, quote-unquote, cheap talking points.
00:20:51.240 I'll just start with the calls from Chairman Jerry Nadler.
00:20:55.880 He publicly agreed with reducing the New York Police Department budget, which I think was cut by, I don't know, something like a billion dollars or something.
00:21:03.340 He said, quote, there should be substantial cuts to the police budget and a reallocation of those funds to where we need them, unquote.
00:21:11.700 So Representative Cori Bush, boy, she has pages and pages of this, but she said, and by the way, she was vice chair of the Crime Subcommittee in the last Congress.
00:21:21.240 She tweeted, it's not a slogan, it's a mandate for keeping our people alive.
00:21:26.800 Defund the police, in all caps.
00:21:29.100 Then she said that defunding the police is not the problem, that's the solution, and we have to do that to invest in our communities.
00:21:37.040 I'll keep going, because I've got some more time.
00:21:39.760 AOC, Congressman.
00:21:40.640 Will the gentleman yield?
00:21:41.500 I'll have to yield.
00:21:42.980 The gentleman just reflected that the person that House Democrats chose to chair the Crime Subcommittee.
00:21:51.660 You heard that right.
00:21:52.180 said that it was a mandate to defund the police, and now, on Police Week, when the majority is seeking to simply pass a resolution honoring the police,
00:22:04.780 we are being accused of taking cheap shots at Democrats when, not any Democrat, literally the person they put in charge of the Crime Subcommittee.
00:22:14.120 Is that what I'm to understand?
00:22:15.180 I did indeed say that we should defund the police, when what I meant was, and what was done, was that we should reallocate some of the resources to mental health.
00:22:28.860 When you're at risk of robbery or a battery or a stabbing, you don't need a therapist.
00:22:40.180 You need a cop, the very cops that these Democrats can't quite figure out whether or not they're willing to support or not.
00:22:46.740 It was quite a day.
00:22:48.040 Bruce of Fur 85 on Instagram says, I should shave my head.
00:22:51.880 I am not doing that, because then who would have the best hair in Congress?
00:22:57.140 And Neff 2020 says, what does the future hold?
00:23:00.360 And it may very well be with these things that we're talking about, with a compromised first family, with a border that's open that many of you are deeply concerned about for good reason,
00:23:10.780 with a weaponized government with debt that is out of control, a dollar that is spiraling, that it may get worse before it gets better.
00:23:18.700 But I know one thing, it can turn around quickly.
00:23:22.220 How is a young man coming out of law school looking for professional opportunities when Barack Obama was president?
00:23:30.220 And there was such a sense of national demise.
00:23:35.780 It wasn't the national malaise of the Carter years.
00:23:39.100 We were in a state of demise under Obama.
00:23:41.740 And I saw how quickly an energetic executive, a great leader like President Trump, could turn it around.
00:23:49.360 And we did turn it around.
00:23:50.680 President Trump built a roaring economy in this country, one that lifted up the people who liked him and the people who didn't.
00:23:58.380 That is what the future could hold.
00:24:00.720 We just have to ensure that the right policies are enacted, because we don't have to reinvent the wheel.
00:24:06.580 We know how it was done, and I believe we can do it again.
00:24:10.400 Thanks so much, everyone, for joining us this evening on Firebrand.
00:24:13.260 As you see, it's different times in the day based on our vote schedule and committee hearings when I'm able to give you the direct update right as it's happening from the United States Congress.
00:24:23.900 If you enjoy learning that information, please make sure you're subscribed with your notifications turned on.
00:24:30.120 And do me a favor, if you're listening on a podcast, give me that five-star rating, help us get to 5,000 reviews.
00:24:37.000 Much appreciated.
00:24:38.320 Join us again soon.
00:24:39.540 Roll the credits.
00:24:40.080 We'll see you next time.