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.
00:00:00.000Welcome to Hot Takes. This is Congressman Matt Gaetz. Let's talk about the news.
00:00:20.040McEnany, 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.
00:00:37.740If Kayleigh McEnany had told Sam Donaldson and me what questions we should ask, that would not have gone well.
00:00:45.280Would 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.
00:00:56.780And 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,
00:01:06.300and 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.
00:01:15.300I 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.
00:01:23.020You can't say, I'm not done. You cannot say, you cannot say.
00:01:29.240I think this question has been asked and answered, Jim, because it's interesting how you jump to all of these conclusions.
00:01:35.620Sean! Sean! Sean! Sean! Sean! Sean! Come on, Sean! Sean! Sean! Sean!
00:01:43.940And so that is the workplace for Kayleigh.
00:01:47.620And frankly, I'm glad that time and again, when you see the press's hypocrisy and their double standards covering coronavirus,
00:01:57.300not covering things like the Michael Flynn setup with great rigor, it's easy to get frustrated.
00:02:03.840It's easy to bring the heat. And I'm glad Kayleigh's done it.
00:02:08.160You 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
00:02:15.940that I have ever seen when she pointed out these double standards from the press in their coverage of coronavirus.
00:02:23.220Kayleigh, in a previous life, before you were press secretary, you worked for the campaign.
00:02:27.920And you made a comment, I believe, on Fox, in which you said President Trump will not allow the coronavirus to come to this country.
00:02:35.220Given what has happened since then, obviously, would you like to take that back?
00:02:39.860Well, first, let me note, I was asked a question on Fox Business about the president's travel restrictions.
00:02:47.180I noted what was the intent behind those travel restrictions, which is, we will not see the coronavirus come here.
00:02:52.700We will not see terrorism come here, referring to an earlier set of travel restrictions.
00:02:56.780I guess I would turn the question back on the media and ask similar questions.
00:03:00.580Does Vox want to take back that they proclaim that the coronavirus would not be a deadly pandemic?
00:03:05.760Does the Washington Post want to take back that they told Americans to get a grip the flu is bigger than the coronavirus?
00:03:12.480Does the Washington Post, likewise, want to take back that our brains are causing us to exaggerate the threat of the coronavirus?
00:03:19.300Does the New York Times want to take back that fear of the virus may be spreading faster than the virus itself?
00:03:25.960Does NPR want to take back that the flu was a much bigger threat than the coronavirus?
00:03:29.240And finally, once again, the Washington Post, would they like to take back that the government should not respond aggressively to the coronavirus?
00:03:36.840I'll leave you with those questions, and maybe you'll have some answers in a few days.
00:03:42.020I think when Kayleigh just absolutely torched the press over their poor coverage in those circumstances,
00:03:49.900they were looking for any reason to try to come back and be critical of her.
00:03:53.180And so Chris Wallace is clutching his pearls that a press secretary would dare suggest that the media ask questions regarding the Michael Flynn setup
00:04:03.220and what needs to be done to ensure that that never happens to another American.
00:04:07.120So we're proud of you, Kayleigh. Stay after him.
00:04:12.720This week, the House of Representatives will vote on whether or not to reauthorize authorities within the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA.
00:04:21.720A lot of Americans became aware of FISA and the FISA process as a consequence of the Russia hoax,
00:04:29.660because 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,
00:04:41.460they utilized this secret court to get a warrant to spy on Dr. Carter Page,
00:04:47.860who they believed would be close to the Trump campaign and might be talking to Russians.
00:04:52.560And since that warrant was authorized and then reauthorized repeatedly,
00:04:59.300we have come to really question whether or not this secret court process is a legitimate one.
00:05:05.240And we have seen some of the authorities in FISA expire because they haven't been reauthorized.
00:05:10.600And so this week, the Senate will send over legislation that will institute some reforms.
00:05:16.000And so I want to break down what are the reforms that are in the bill?
00:05:20.380What are the reforms we're trying to get in the bill?
00:05:24.460So what really sets up the content of the Senate bill that is sent over is the perspective that the president took.
00:05:33.220Last 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.
00:05:42.340Here's the president of the United States.
00:05:50.360But 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.
00:05:59.440I'll bet you go in there, they like Donald Trump, but the top of the FBI, they were dirty cops.
00:06:04.800They were crooked, bad people, and nobody's been abused more than Trump.
00:06:09.620But you look at General Flynn, you look at so many others, not just us.
00:06:32.340FISA judges should do something, but they're not going to.
00:06:36.120I 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.
00:06:47.780The evidence was changed because they wanted the outcome that they wanted.
00:06:51.200And has that person faced contempt of court or some sanction by the court?
00:07:17.200I'm with Rod Rosenstein in the Judiciary Committee, and I'm trying to highlight the importance of his signature on this FISA application.
00:07:24.200Did you read the FISA application before you signed it?
00:07:26.300I'm not going to comment about any FISA application.
00:07:28.160So 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.
00:07:36.640Well, I dispute your characterization of what that FISA is about, sir.
00:07:41.260Did you read it or did you not read it?
00:07:47.220So 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.
00:07:57.780And I think that tells us all we need to know about how important it is to reform the FISA process.
00:08:02.720So let me break down the life cycle of this reform endeavor.
00:08:09.180COVID had not really, you know, captivated the nation to the same degree.
00:08:13.260Mick Mulvaney was still the chief of staff for the president.
00:08:15.620And 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.
00:08:31.040And, you know, honestly, there were a basket of reforms talked about.
00:08:35.520First, there is a desire to have a probable cause standard here.
00:08:39.940I 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.
00:08:49.540It's, you know, not perfect, but it's probably the best system of justice that exists in all of humankind on the planet Earth.
00:08:58.640You know, that that really has been a central theme of our effort for reform.
00:09:02.820Also, 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.
00:09:17.380That didn't exist for the president's benefit when this process was used to screw him.
00:09:22.200And so I think for all Americans going forward, it should be an adversarial process.
00:09:26.200And then, you know, there is the punishment for the people who break the law and cheat.
00:09:30.900And frankly, you know, I'm not sure that we need more laws on the punishment.
00:09:34.560I think we need to enforce the existing laws we have.
00:09:37.080And that's why I think the president was correct in his analysis that the FISA court really should have held people in contempt.
00:09:42.380It'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.
00:09:53.780And it has a real consequence on the liberties and lives of Americans.
00:09:57.560But all kind of stuff has been talked about around this issue.
00:10:00.880You know, having protections against targeting political campaigns, having rolling inspections, reporting of the utilization of these different data collection tools,
00:10:12.240publishing 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.
00:10:29.120And so we're having this discussion at the White House.
00:10:31.120And I got to say, I mean, the Trump administration just was fantastic all the way through.
00:10:35.520Mick Mulvaney said, you know, get all you can.
00:10:37.920I mean, get all the reforms you possibly can.
00:10:39.940The 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.
00:10:51.640And so that brings us then to the version of this reauthorization that passes the House of Representatives.
00:10:58.040And frankly, the House version, you know, it had very modest reforms.
00:11:08.860Interestingly, 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.
00:11:34.780So the amendment that does get onto the bill is the Lee Leahy Amendment.
00:11:39.220Senator 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.
00:11:59.240So Lee Leahy get an enhancement to the adversarial nature of the process.
00:12:08.140They can raise any issue appropriate to the court.
00:12:10.580They get access to the full documents.
00:12:13.200I 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.
00:12:23.160It 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.
00:12:38.680The 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.
00:12:58.040And this is this goes right to the heart of the issue of probable cause.
00:13:01.480So the Daines-Wyden Amendment, again, Lee Leahy, Republican Democrat, Daines-Wyden, Republican Democrat.
00:13:08.760One thing that's interesting about the FISA debate is that it does not separate on party lines.
00:13:13.320You got Republicans and Democrats on both sides.
00:13:16.160So 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,
00:13:27.760that 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.
00:13:39.680And this amendment failed by one vote.
00:14:34.920If 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.
00:14:48.760I'm not voting to reauthorize a system that was weaponized against our president.
00:14:53.840I think that it should have far more significant reforms.
00:14:58.460I 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.
00:15:14.660This will put me out of step with some in my party and even some of my dear friends in my party.
00:15:19.540But 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.
00:15:39.240Ronald Reagan told us to trust but verify.
00:15:41.880Well, 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.
00:15:53.340And the reality is that we didn't have a rational basis for that trust.
00:15:58.700There were major problems with almost all the files that had been opened.
00:16:03.220The Woods procedures, which are supposed to detail out how the government is following the book, weren't even present in some of the files.
00:16:25.960Don't be so sure that that suggestion hasn't been made by some to the big guy.
00:16:32.100I 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.
00:16:41.760We've got an FBI director now, but Rick Grinnell, great patriot.
00:16:45.620He'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.
00:16:58.020And 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.
00:17:05.880Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif are in a Twitter war.
00:17:11.900Of course, we're going to talk about it.
00:17:13.440So, Iran apparently needs to work on their meme game to commemorate this key moment in the Islamic faith.
00:17:22.700Iran decides to throw up a meme recognizing the struggle of the people in Palestine while using the phrase final solution,
00:17:30.420which is not something you want to do when your stated government policy is that you want to wipe Israel off the map.
00:17:36.120So, Germany condemns it, the United States condemns it, then Zarif comes back and says,
00:17:40.800no, the final solution is a referendum for the people of Palestine, and the U.S. is at fault,
00:17:47.840and Germany is the great scourge of the earth because of what they did to the Jewish people in the past.
00:17:53.720So, we get into this, and for a moment, before we get into the substance, can we just ask ourselves the question,
00:18:01.320like, is this how diplomats are going to be trained in the future?
00:18:03.460Are 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?
00:18:15.020Like, if I was President of the United States for a day, I would make Donald Trump Jr. my Secretary of State under these terms
00:18:21.460because there is nobody in the world who out-memes my buddy Donald Trump Jr.
00:18:27.240Like, Donald Trump Jr. would be out there trolling the terrorists, Instagramming the money launderers and human traffickers,
00:18:35.140Twitter criticizing the cartels. It would be great.
00:18:38.480Now, the one thing you could tell substantively here is that Zarif doesn't give a damn about the Palestinian people,
00:18:46.460I 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
00:18:58.340the way that they've boxed their own people into a corner, and they want to, like, use the Palestinian people as some tool
00:19:05.400to try to distract and disorient from the horrible lies they've told their country
00:19:13.300and from the ways in which they've used this great treasure that they sit upon to try to destabilize the region.
00:19:20.480So, 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
00:19:30.780to try to stoke that type of conflict in an attempt to kind of move away from their own bad choices.
00:19:40.320You know, the other thing is that, clearly, when you evaluate Israel's role in the Middle East,
00:19:46.860where they have retreated, regressed, where they have, you know, allowed more self-governance, like in Gaza,