The Anchormen Show with Matt Gaetz - May 26, 2020


Episode 11 - Kayleigh McEnany v. Chris Wallace, Pompeo Slams Unhinged Iranian Leader, Trump Tackles FISA Abuse


Episode Stats


Length

26 minutes

Words per minute

168.1108

Word count

4,443

Sentence count

234

Harmful content

Misogyny

2

sentences flagged

Toxicity

11

sentences flagged

Hate speech

10

sentences flagged


Summary

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

Chris Wallace reacts to White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany's aggressive approach to the press. Congressman Matt Gaetz takes aim at the media's double standards. And the House votes on whether or not to reauthorize the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
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 .
00:00:00.000 Welcome to Hot Takes. This is Congressman Matt Gaetz. Let's talk about the news.
00:00:20.040 McEnany, who has been in the White House for a few weeks, started lecturing reporters, telling reporters who have been covering politics for many years what questions they should be asking, in this case, about Michael Flynn.
00:00:37.740 If Kayleigh McEnany had told Sam Donaldson and me what questions we should ask, that would not have gone well.
00:00:45.280 Would not have gone well. That's Fox News Sunday's Chris Wallace, clearly triggered at White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany's aggressive approach to the press.
00:00:56.780 And I'm team Kayleigh on this one. I mean, if you think about that combative environment where the administration is trying to get information for the American people,
00:01:06.300 and it is all just packaged in a way to sensationalize and demonize the work that the president and his team are doing, I get it.
00:01:15.300 I mean, just take a listen to how the press has treated some of the president's press secretaries during this first term of the administration.
00:01:23.020 You can't say, I'm not done. You cannot say, you cannot say.
00:01:29.240 I think this question has been asked and answered, Jim, because it's interesting how you jump to all of these conclusions.
00:01:35.620 Sean! Sean! Sean! Sean! Sean! Sean! Come on, Sean! Sean! Sean! Sean!
00:01:43.940 And so that is the workplace for Kayleigh. 1.00
00:01:47.620 And frankly, I'm glad that time and again, when you see the press's hypocrisy and their double standards covering coronavirus,
00:01:57.300 not covering things like the Michael Flynn setup with great rigor, it's easy to get frustrated.
00:02:03.840 It's easy to bring the heat. And I'm glad Kayleigh's done it.
00:02:08.160 You know, I think that one of the reasons that she's seeing this criticism is that she had one of the greatest, like, minutes of a press secretary
00:02:15.940 that I have ever seen when she pointed out these double standards from the press in their coverage of coronavirus.
00:02:22.600 Play that clip.
00:02:23.220 Kayleigh, in a previous life, before you were press secretary, you worked for the campaign.
00:02:27.920 And you made a comment, I believe, on Fox, in which you said President Trump will not allow the coronavirus to come to this country.
00:02:35.220 Given what has happened since then, obviously, would you like to take that back?
00:02:39.860 Well, first, let me note, I was asked a question on Fox Business about the president's travel restrictions.
00:02:47.180 I noted what was the intent behind those travel restrictions, which is, we will not see the coronavirus come here.
00:02:52.700 We will not see terrorism come here, referring to an earlier set of travel restrictions.
00:02:56.780 I guess I would turn the question back on the media and ask similar questions.
00:03:00.580 Does Vox want to take back that they proclaim that the coronavirus would not be a deadly pandemic?
00:03:05.760 Does the Washington Post want to take back that they told Americans to get a grip the flu is bigger than the coronavirus?
00:03:12.480 Does the Washington Post, likewise, want to take back that our brains are causing us to exaggerate the threat of the coronavirus?
00:03:19.300 Does the New York Times want to take back that fear of the virus may be spreading faster than the virus itself?
00:03:25.960 Does NPR want to take back that the flu was a much bigger threat than the coronavirus?
00:03:29.240 And finally, once again, the Washington Post, would they like to take back that the government should not respond aggressively to the coronavirus?
00:03:36.840 I'll leave you with those questions, and maybe you'll have some answers in a few days.
00:03:40.700 I think that's the reason.
00:03:42.020 I think when Kayleigh just absolutely torched the press over their poor coverage in those circumstances, 1.00
00:03:49.900 they were looking for any reason to try to come back and be critical of her.
00:03:53.180 And so Chris Wallace is clutching his pearls that a press secretary would dare suggest that the media ask questions regarding the Michael Flynn setup
00:04:03.220 and what needs to be done to ensure that that never happens to another American.
00:04:07.120 So we're proud of you, Kayleigh. Stay after him.
00:04:12.720 This week, the House of Representatives will vote on whether or not to reauthorize authorities within the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA.
00:04:21.720 A lot of Americans became aware of FISA and the FISA process as a consequence of the Russia hoax,
00:04:29.660 because as you had the FBI and the Mueller team engaged in this false predication of a collusion narrative or theory against President Trump and his campaign,
00:04:41.460 they utilized this secret court to get a warrant to spy on Dr. Carter Page,
00:04:47.860 who they believed would be close to the Trump campaign and might be talking to Russians.
00:04:52.560 And since that warrant was authorized and then reauthorized repeatedly,
00:04:59.300 we have come to really question whether or not this secret court process is a legitimate one.
00:05:05.240 And we have seen some of the authorities in FISA expire because they haven't been reauthorized.
00:05:10.600 And so this week, the Senate will send over legislation that will institute some reforms.
00:05:16.000 And so I want to break down what are the reforms that are in the bill?
00:05:20.380 What are the reforms we're trying to get in the bill?
00:05:22.920 Who's fighting for what?
00:05:24.460 So what really sets up the content of the Senate bill that is sent over is the perspective that the president took.
00:05:33.220 Last Tuesday, the president was with the Senate lunch, and he reflected on what he thought his role and the majority leader's role would be in FISA reform.
00:05:42.340 Here's the president of the United States.
00:05:43.440 A lot of views on FISA.
00:05:44.760 I didn't get involved.
00:05:46.100 I purposely said to Mitch, you go do what you want.
00:05:48.720 We'll take a look.
00:05:49.340 We're going to look at FISA.
00:05:50.360 But nobody's been abused by FISA like the president of the United States because what the Democrats did and the dirty cops, the dirty cops, the FBI people are great. 0.97
00:05:59.440 I'll bet you go in there, they like Donald Trump, but the top of the FBI, they were dirty cops. 0.96
00:06:04.800 They were crooked, bad people, and nobody's been abused more than Trump. 0.98
00:06:09.620 But you look at General Flynn, you look at so many others, not just us. 0.91
00:06:14.320 Take a look at so many others.
00:06:15.680 Look at what they've done, how they've abused FISA.
00:06:18.160 So I'm going to be studying it very much.
00:06:21.460 But the FISA process has gone awry.
00:06:24.200 It was used by very dishonest people.
00:06:26.180 It was used illegally.
00:06:27.220 And frankly, the judges on the FISA court should do something about it.
00:06:31.660 The president's right.
00:06:32.340 FISA judges should do something, but they're not going to.
00:06:36.120 I mean, the FISA court has been aware that evidence was changed by a government lawyer without a public defender, without an amicus or some other person there to check it.
00:06:47.780 The evidence was changed because they wanted the outcome that they wanted.
00:06:51.200 And has that person faced contempt of court or some sanction by the court?
00:06:55.640 Not that I'm aware of.
00:06:56.640 And then what about these FISA applications signed by, you know, McCabe, Rosenstein?
00:07:03.480 I think that those signatures really, I think, were on documents that were fraudulent before the court.
00:07:08.920 And the people that offered those signatures should have accountability.
00:07:12.980 Here's my questioning of Rod Rosenstein.
00:07:15.760 This was back in 2018.
00:07:17.200 I'm with Rod Rosenstein in the Judiciary Committee, and I'm trying to highlight the importance of his signature on this FISA application.
00:07:24.200 Did you read the FISA application before you signed it?
00:07:26.300 I'm not going to comment about any FISA application.
00:07:28.160 So you won't say to this committee whether or not you even read the document you signed that authorized spying on people associated with the Trump campaign.
00:07:36.640 Well, I dispute your characterization of what that FISA is about, sir.
00:07:41.260 Did you read it or did you not read it?
00:07:42.580 I'll be happy to review.
00:07:43.840 I'll be happy to discuss the details with you.
00:07:46.420 You signed it.
00:07:47.220 So you could tell just from that line of questioning that something was up, that he did not want to own up to all that was in that document.
00:07:57.780 And I think that tells us all we need to know about how important it is to reform the FISA process.
00:08:02.720 So let me break down the life cycle of this reform endeavor.
00:08:06.900 So it's a few months ago.
00:08:09.180 COVID had not really, you know, captivated the nation to the same degree.
00:08:13.260 Mick Mulvaney was still the chief of staff for the president.
00:08:15.620 And House Freedom Caucus chairman Andy Biggs organizes a meeting at the White House where a few of us on the Judiciary Committee and a few others who deeply care about reforming the FISA process went over to get the Trump administration's perspective on what they wanted.
00:08:31.040 And, you know, honestly, there were a basket of reforms talked about.
00:08:35.520 First, there is a desire to have a probable cause standard here.
00:08:39.940 I mean, a probable cause standard, a standard that would apply for the acquisition of a warrant is a standard that has suited the American system of justice well.
00:08:49.540 It's, you know, not perfect, but it's probably the best system of justice that exists in all of humankind on the planet Earth.
00:08:56.480 And so why are we deviating from it?
00:08:58.640 You know, that that really has been a central theme of our effort for reform.
00:09:02.820 Also, just like the desire to have another lawyer there that is not the government lawyer that can ask questions and see documents and probe the basis for the claims that are made and the evidence that supports it.
00:09:17.380 That didn't exist for the president's benefit when this process was used to screw him.
00:09:22.200 And so I think for all Americans going forward, it should be an adversarial process.
00:09:26.200 And then, you know, there is the punishment for the people who break the law and cheat.
00:09:30.900 And frankly, you know, I'm not sure that we need more laws on the punishment.
00:09:34.560 I think we need to enforce the existing laws we have.
00:09:37.080 And that's why I think the president was correct in his analysis that the FISA court really should have held people in contempt.
00:09:42.380 It's a shame and it's a disgrace that the FISA court let these people off the hook because it will mean that people will think they can get away perpetrating additional fraud on the court.
00:09:53.780 And it has a real consequence on the liberties and lives of Americans.
00:09:57.560 But all kind of stuff has been talked about around this issue.
00:10:00.880 You know, having protections against targeting political campaigns, having rolling inspections, reporting of the utilization of these different data collection tools,
00:10:12.240 publishing the decisions of FISA courts over time, having the judges confirmed before the Senate so that their ideology can be tested and reviewed before they're given this secret power that, you know, that we all don't get to observe utilized in real time.
00:10:29.120 And so we're having this discussion at the White House.
00:10:31.120 And I got to say, I mean, the Trump administration just was fantastic all the way through.
00:10:35.520 Mick Mulvaney said, you know, get all you can.
00:10:37.920 I mean, get all the reforms you possibly can.
00:10:39.940 The president wants to see this reformed in a way that allows us to keep Americans safe, but also not at the expense of the liberties that make us special as Americans.
00:10:51.640 And so that brings us then to the version of this reauthorization that passes the House of Representatives.
00:10:58.040 And frankly, the House version, you know, it had very modest reforms.
00:11:03.240 It did increase the punishment.
00:11:05.460 It passes the House 278 to 136.
00:11:08.860 Interestingly, I don't get a vote on this bill because I was in Florida on a 14-day quarantine, recommended quarantine, after I'd been notified that I had been in very close contact with someone who tested positive for coronavirus.
00:11:23.040 So I didn't cast a vote.
00:11:24.120 I would have voted no had I been there.
00:11:26.580 So then that goes to the Senate.
00:11:28.340 And in the Senate, they're able to get one good amendment on and then not get another good amendment on.
00:11:33.840 And let's talk about those.
00:11:34.780 So the amendment that does get onto the bill is the Lee Leahy Amendment.
00:11:39.220 Senator Lee, someone who really, I think, understands the Constitution at every level, not at the granular level, but also in terms of the important macro value sets that are reflected in the rights that we hold and in the government's limitations on their ability to inspect our person, our property, our correspondence.
00:11:59.240 So Lee Leahy get an enhancement to the adversarial nature of the process.
00:12:06.160 An amicus must be appointed. 0.99
00:12:08.140 They can raise any issue appropriate to the court.
00:12:10.580 They get access to the full documents.
00:12:13.200 I believe that if the Lee Leahy Amendment had been law when they were trying to target President Trump, that the Russia hoax would have never gotten off the ground.
00:12:23.160 It would have just been vanquished instantly because any reasonable amicus would have asked questions about the subsourcing on Steele, on the footnoting on Steele's lies and contradictory statements before other courts.
00:12:38.680 The fact that he had to be terminated, you know, all this information that really was glossed over because the traditions of justice that we have, that it should be adversarial, were abandoned when these FISA courts were set up.
00:12:54.120 So that got on.
00:12:55.360 It made the bill better.
00:12:56.520 Another amendment didn't, though.
00:12:58.040 And this is this goes right to the heart of the issue of probable cause.
00:13:01.480 So the Daines-Wyden Amendment, again, Lee Leahy, Republican Democrat, Daines-Wyden, Republican Democrat.
00:13:08.760 One thing that's interesting about the FISA debate is that it does not separate on party lines.
00:13:13.320 You got Republicans and Democrats on both sides.
00:13:16.160 So Daines-Wyden would apply the probable cause standard, would require a warrant in these circumstances where the government wants to see your browser history, see your web searches,
00:13:27.760 that they can't merely snoop out of suspicion, but there has to be a standard that would be the same if they wanted to come into your home or access your person in any other way.
00:13:39.680 And this amendment failed by one vote.
00:13:42.980 Daines-Wyden did.
00:13:44.760 But, but, Lamar Alexander was not there to vote.
00:13:49.540 And had he been there, he said he would have voted yes for Daines-Wyden.
00:13:52.580 And Patty Murray was not there to record a vote.
00:13:55.580 And she said she would be a yes on Daines-Wyden.
00:13:58.960 So if we can get that language on the bill in the House of Representatives this week, it'll pass the Senate.
00:14:04.940 The votes are there.
00:14:06.480 Ultimately, the legislation passed the Senate 80 to 16.
00:14:10.060 Interestingly, I think the only two Republicans to vote no were Richard Burr, who we've covered a lot, and Rand Paul.
00:14:17.180 And, and so I guess Burr votes no because he thinks that any change to FISA, you know, is bad.
00:14:23.480 It should just, nothing to see here.
00:14:25.340 Everything was fine.
00:14:26.620 And Rand Paul voting no because I think he would prefer more aggressive reforms.
00:14:32.520 So, here's my hot take.
00:14:34.920 If the Daines-Wyden language, which will be offered by Warren Davidson and Zoe Lofgren, is not added to the FISA reform legislation in the House of Representatives, I'm not going to vote for it.
00:14:48.760 I'm not voting to reauthorize a system that was weaponized against our president.
00:14:53.840 I think that it should have far more significant reforms.
00:14:58.460 I do think the probable cause standard is necessary, and if we do not embrace the Constitution, if we do not cherish that which makes us Americans in our work to protect America, shame on us.
00:15:12.920 It's our duty to do so.
00:15:14.660 This will put me out of step with some in my party and even some of my dear friends in my party.
00:15:19.540 But I am strident in my belief that the FISA system was abused and that the current version of the bill doesn't do enough to ensure that what happened to President Trump doesn't happen to any president ever again and does not happen to any American ever again.
00:15:39.240 Ronald Reagan told us to trust but verify.
00:15:41.880 Well, when I look at the Inspector General report, we tried to verify that the FISA process had been cleaned up after it had been used in such a treacherous way against our president.
00:15:53.340 And the reality is that we didn't have a rational basis for that trust.
00:15:58.700 There were major problems with almost all the files that had been opened.
00:16:03.220 The Woods procedures, which are supposed to detail out how the government is following the book, weren't even present in some of the files.
00:16:10.340 And so I'm calling for bolder reform.
00:16:13.120 I'm calling for better work at the FBI.
00:16:15.820 And speaking of the FBI, George Papadopoulos, he tweeted out recently to some acclaim, Rick Grinnell for FBI director.
00:16:24.980 You know what, George?
00:16:25.960 Don't be so sure that that suggestion hasn't been made by some to the big guy.
00:16:32.100 I think that there might be other people that are whispering that in a few years in and around Washington, D.C., in and around the White House.
00:16:40.820 We'll see.
00:16:41.760 We've got an FBI director now, but Rick Grinnell, great patriot.
00:16:45.620 He's probably enjoying private life, but I know that America is in Rick Grinnell's debt for the tremendous work he did as the acting director of national intelligence to get the truth before the American people.
00:16:58.020 And whoever it is, we need folks over at the FBI who are going to get out the truth because we've been waiting for too long.
00:17:05.880 Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif are in a Twitter war.
00:17:11.900 Of course, we're going to talk about it.
00:17:13.440 So, Iran apparently needs to work on their meme game to commemorate this key moment in the Islamic faith.
00:17:22.700 Iran decides to throw up a meme recognizing the struggle of the people in Palestine while using the phrase final solution,
00:17:30.420 which is not something you want to do when your stated government policy is that you want to wipe Israel off the map.
00:17:36.120 So, Germany condemns it, the United States condemns it, then Zarif comes back and says,
00:17:40.800 no, the final solution is a referendum for the people of Palestine, and the U.S. is at fault,
00:17:47.840 and Germany is the great scourge of the earth because of what they did to the Jewish people in the past. 0.93
00:17:53.720 So, we get into this, and for a moment, before we get into the substance, can we just ask ourselves the question,
00:18:01.320 like, is this how diplomats are going to be trained in the future?
00:18:03.460 Are there going to be the Georgetown School of Foreign Service classes on, like, how to troll and meme foreign diplomats into the right policy perspective?
00:18:15.020 Like, if I was President of the United States for a day, I would make Donald Trump Jr. my Secretary of State under these terms
00:18:21.460 because there is nobody in the world who out-memes my buddy Donald Trump Jr.
00:18:27.240 Like, Donald Trump Jr. would be out there trolling the terrorists, Instagramming the money launderers and human traffickers,
00:18:35.140 Twitter criticizing the cartels. It would be great.
00:18:38.480 Now, the one thing you could tell substantively here is that Zarif doesn't give a damn about the Palestinian people,
00:18:44.640 and in a way, it's kind of sad.
00:18:46.460 I mean, Iran is in a state of great domestic economic crisis now, and so they're using every opportunity to try to deflect away from their own failures 0.92
00:18:58.340 the way that they've boxed their own people into a corner, and they want to, like, use the Palestinian people as some tool 0.98
00:19:05.400 to try to distract and disorient from the horrible lies they've told their country
00:19:13.300 and from the ways in which they've used this great treasure that they sit upon to try to destabilize the region. 0.50
00:19:20.480 So, they don't care about the Palestinians, and it is sad and it is sickening in a way that they would utilize this moment in the Muslim faith 1.00
00:19:30.780 to try to stoke that type of conflict in an attempt to kind of move away from their own bad choices.
00:19:40.320 You know, the other thing is that, clearly, when you evaluate Israel's role in the Middle East,
00:19:46.860 where they have retreated, regressed, where they have, you know, allowed more self-governance, like in Gaza,
00:19:54.020 it turns into a hellhole.
00:19:55.580 You know, I've been over to Ramallah. I've been to Jerusalem. It's not comparable.
00:19:59.620 The places where you've got, I think, the Israelis in charge of the security and political situation, 1.00
00:20:05.880 the people are just living better lives, and there's not a lot to dispute about that.
00:20:09.220 But, unfortunately, the Palestinian people are not able to, I think, have a government that governs them.
00:20:18.300 I mean, they have not been able to legitimize a lot of their own leadership to be able to go and make peace
00:20:26.200 because they are non-responsive in a lot of ways to their own leadership.
00:20:31.160 And, frankly, given the corruption of the leadership in, you know, the Palestinian Authority,
00:20:36.920 I could see why there's that crisis of confidence, but it's something they've got to resolve.
00:20:40.360 I mean, it's not going to be resolved by some outside force.
00:20:43.180 So that conflict is likely to go on as it has,
00:20:46.960 and I'm appreciative for the work of the Trump administration to make things better.
00:20:50.920 But in the middle of this Twitter war between Trump and Zarif,
00:20:53.660 Foreign Policy Magazine decides to tweet out again essentially their neocon critique of the Trump Middle East policy.
00:21:03.320 And I'll just tell you, I'm a fan of the Trump Middle East policy.
00:21:05.920 I think that Trump understands that this is a region of the world in large part run by bullies. 0.99
00:21:12.580 And the way you deal with bullies is you punch them in the nose.
00:21:16.880 You let them know you're going to respond to them.
00:21:18.700 But you don't then move into the home of the bully for 20 years to try to get them to adopt your worldview.
00:21:28.020 You know, you pop the bully in the face.
00:21:30.120 You give them every reason to think about any bad action that they engaged in if they wanted to repeat it.
00:21:37.040 You set deterrents where people are aware of the consequences.
00:21:41.340 But that does not require what I think the folks at Foreign Policy Magazine would prefer,
00:21:46.420 and that is that, you know, we continue to sort of have an Iraq-first or Syria-first foreign policy
00:21:52.280 as opposed to an America-first foreign policy.
00:21:54.740 So the title of this critique they send out is
00:21:57.300 Donald Trump will do irreparable harm to the Middle East and the world order.
00:22:01.480 And I'm just thinking to myself, like, when you see Middle East and order in the same sentence,
00:22:07.260 that in and of itself is odd.
00:22:09.380 You know, the reality is this is a part of the world where order is pretty hard to come by.
00:22:13.760 And the folks at Foreign Policy would want you to believe that behind every dictatorship
00:22:18.460 is some, you know, stirring democracy just ready to be awakened.
00:22:22.480 But the reality is we've often seen where we do engage militarily,
00:22:26.440 where we do the things that they call for in this piece,
00:22:29.120 we oftentimes find sectarian violence, more terrorism, slave markets, and failed governments.
00:22:35.420 And really, I think the most egregious part of the critique is where they write that
00:22:41.440 Trump has derailed 40 years of success in the Middle East.
00:22:47.020 I don't even know how someone would write that with a straight face.
00:22:49.860 I am 38 years old.
00:22:51.400 We have essentially been at war in the Middle East on and off my entire life.
00:22:55.580 We've spent $6 trillion in the Middle East.
00:22:58.640 You know, that is more than the market cap of like, you know, Facebook, Apple and Google
00:23:04.800 and Microsoft combined.
00:23:06.720 We could pay off all of America's student loan debt and credit card debt
00:23:10.680 for what we have spent in the Middle East.
00:23:13.660 And by the way, like, what has it gotten us, right?
00:23:16.800 In Afghanistan, we're ultimately going to have to depart there on terms that we hope will work 1.00
00:23:23.140 between the Afghan government and the Taliban.
00:23:25.280 But there's no guarantee of that.
00:23:28.580 And, you know, in Iraq, what have we spent?
00:23:30.900 $4 trillion in Iraq.
00:23:33.220 And they now are as influenced by Iran as they are us. 0.89
00:23:37.020 And so I think that this desire to stay, you know, forever in a cycle of trading the same 0.88
00:23:43.960 villages and sand dunes back and forth with a bunch of Bedouins in the Middle East is ludicrous. 1.00
00:23:48.980 And if the folks at foreign policy would raise their gaze, 0.65
00:23:53.500 they would see that the real threat that we face is China.
00:23:57.200 And as I've detailed on this podcast in a number of episodes,
00:24:00.180 we have to get ourself in a position to confront China.
00:24:03.060 And we erode our ability to do that when we're, you know,
00:24:07.520 spilling the blood of our bravest patriots and the treasure of our fellow Americans
00:24:13.400 in these never ending Middle East wars that they would like to continue 1.00
00:24:17.960 under the banner of enduring success.
00:24:20.700 Donald Trump is the first president in my lifetime not to start a new war.
00:24:26.160 And he's functionally ended our involvement in the Syria civil war, you know, protecting the oil,
00:24:32.420 but not getting involved in where you got these armies of tens of thousands who've been
00:24:36.600 fighting each other for more than a hundred years.
00:24:38.500 And you got tens of Americans stuck between them.
00:24:41.300 The president Trump did the right thing,
00:24:42.860 not allowing U.S. involvement to be some sort of catalyst for broader conflict in Syria.
00:24:51.200 And so I'm grateful that the president sees the Middle East for what it is.
00:24:56.320 And that has been a drain on the United States,
00:24:58.700 that instead, if we invest in our own development of energy,
00:25:02.760 if we build strong partnerships,
00:25:05.140 if we ensure that Israel has the qualitative military edge that will allow them to defend
00:25:11.780 themselves, then we don't have to be, you know, the block captain of the Middle East 0.87
00:25:17.240 for the next 40 years while clowns like these guys at foreign policy try to call it success. 0.94
00:25:23.320 It isn't success. 0.96
00:25:24.140 It hasn't been success for a generation.
00:25:25.760 It's created generational malaise.
00:25:27.900 And I am glad that President Trump knows how to deal with a bully,
00:25:32.840 but then doesn't want to move in and live in the bully's house for 20 years.
00:25:37.540 If you're enjoying Hot Takes with Matt Gaetz,
00:25:39.780 make sure to subscribe, leave us a five-star rating and review,
00:25:43.680 and tune in tomorrow for more Hot Takes.
00:25:55.760 Thank you.