The Anchormen Show with Matt Gaetz - November 13, 2023


Episode 131 LIVE： The Ladder CR – Firebrand with Matt Gaetz


Episode Stats

Length

28 minutes

Words per Minute

153.60976

Word Count

4,432

Sentence Count

281

Misogynist Sentences

1

Hate Speech Sentences

2


Summary

In this episode, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-GA) and Rep. Steve Israel (D-NJ) join me in the Rayburn House Office Building to discuss the ongoing government funding crisis and how to fix it.


Transcript

00:00:00.000 Matt Gaetz, the biggest firebrand inside of the House of Representatives.
00:00:07.460 You're not taking Matt Gaetz off the board, okay?
00:00:09.860 Because Matt Gaetz is an American patriot and Matt Gaetz is an American hero.
00:00:14.600 We will not continue to allow the Uniparty to run this town without a fight.
00:00:20.180 I want to thank you, Matt Gaetz, for holding the line.
00:00:24.280 Matt Gaetz is a courageous man.
00:00:26.300 If we had hundreds of Matt Gaetz in D.C., the country turns around.
00:00:31.060 It's that simple.
00:00:31.880 He's so tough. He's so strong.
00:00:33.900 He's smart, and he loves this country.
00:00:36.260 Matt Gaetz.
00:00:37.960 It is the honor of my life to fight alongside each and every one of you.
00:00:43.180 We will save America.
00:00:45.280 It's choose your fighter time.
00:00:47.060 Send in the firebrands.
00:00:48.560 Welcome back to Firebrand.
00:00:56.240 We are broadcasting from a chilly room 2021 in the Rayburn House office building here in our Capitol complex in Washington, D.C.
00:01:03.780 It is not like my beloved Florida up here.
00:01:07.000 But we've got a lot to discuss government funding.
00:01:09.420 There's been an injunction issued against the pistol brace rule, and Washington, D.C. has gotten so crazy, even the Secret Service is having to endure the scourge of crime and carjackings because there are no consequences in Washington for criminal behavior.
00:01:25.680 But first, let's get to this concept of the latter CR.
00:01:29.060 You may have heard House Speaker Mike Johnson talk about it.
00:01:32.060 Folks report on it.
00:01:33.240 What does it mean?
00:01:34.240 What's coming to the floor?
00:01:35.360 What are we like?
00:01:36.040 What are we not like?
00:01:36.820 So, for context, House Speaker Johnson has been on the job for a few weeks, and government funding runs out in a few days.
00:01:45.360 So, right now, he's asking for support for a CR, or continuing resolution.
00:01:50.700 Now, we oppose continuing resolutions.
00:01:54.040 Each agency of government should get itemized review.
00:01:57.820 Spending cannot be cut if we advance all of the government's various and sundry programs all at once for the same duration of time.
00:02:05.580 So, Speaker Johnson's latter CR fails to meet the mark in this respect.
00:02:12.260 It doesn't cut spending.
00:02:13.940 It doesn't set the Republican-controlled House up for a win or even to engage in a single policy fight.
00:02:20.940 It's more of Pelosi's policies and Biden's spending.
00:02:23.940 It also lashes the important but totally unrelated farm bill extender to the funding legislation for the rest of government.
00:02:36.160 And it does the farm bill extender through the end of September.
00:02:40.080 Now, I think we need a farm bill.
00:02:42.480 I think that farmers and food security create national security.
00:02:47.120 They give us the ability for national self-determination.
00:02:49.680 Economic nationalists should be for America's farmers.
00:02:54.320 But if there's money we're spending on the farm bill, it should be offset with spending reductions elsewhere.
00:03:01.800 Now, it's just not right to slap an extender for the farm bill onto this continuing resolution.
00:03:09.520 That's the bad in the latter CR.
00:03:13.580 And it's dispositively bad.
00:03:15.860 But there is some creativity in the latter concept that I do support, as I explained to CNN here.
00:03:27.880 On the CR, are you comfortable?
00:03:30.120 I presume you support this laddered CR approach.
00:03:34.180 Is that right?
00:03:35.120 If the speaker goes a different route, what would you do?
00:03:37.340 So, the concept that we discussed today with the speaker is exciting because it breaks us from this theory that you have to take one vote on all of government to extend every agency for precisely the same duration of time.
00:03:52.040 I think we can be more specific in the timelines and in the approaches.
00:03:55.920 That's why I'm for single-subject spending bills.
00:03:58.200 If we're able to get these bills we're working on this week passed, you're looking at around 80 percent of the federal budget that the House has approved funding for.
00:04:08.960 But the Senate wants to always take up everything all at once for the same duration of time.
00:04:13.940 The laddered approach that Speaker Johnson was socializing with members today, I think, gives us a lot of innovative opportunity to put downward pressure on spending.
00:04:23.420 If it goes with a clean CR, then what?
00:04:25.400 I'm not voting for a clean CR.
00:04:26.580 We'll hurt him, though.
00:04:27.780 Will it cost him the speakership if he does that?
00:04:29.940 Well, he never promised me he would, unlike the last guy.
00:04:32.720 And remember, there's a big difference, right?
00:04:34.480 Kevin McCarthy never wanted to get to single-subject spending bills.
00:04:38.160 You know how your viewers can take great confidence in that?
00:04:40.860 He only passed one in the first seven months.
00:04:43.500 Mike Johnson passed one in the first, like, 36 hours, and we've been rolling through them.
00:04:48.200 So I think there is a willingness to give a little more grace to Speaker Johnson than to Speaker McCarthy because he was fiddling as Rome was burning.
00:04:57.540 I think Mike Johnson is trying to build us on a path to more fiscal sanity, and we want to support him in those efforts.
00:05:02.940 We are back live, and the overwhelming sentiment from the comments on the live stream is that we should not have a government funding bill that does not secure the border.
00:05:15.600 It should be either secure the border or shut down the government according to the overwhelming sentiment that we are receiving.
00:05:23.680 But follow me here on the latter concept.
00:05:26.120 So a latter concept that is clean is a bad idea because it doesn't sufficiently do the border work that we've been talking about, and it doesn't sufficiently cut spending.
00:05:35.000 But the latter itself isn't bad.
00:05:39.680 You see, the concept that we are fighting against is this notion that all of government gets voted on all at once for one big up-or-down vote to extend every agency for the same duration of time.
00:05:54.940 With a latter, the good news is that you're able to cleave the important stuff that we all agree on that's bipartisan,
00:06:01.640 paying our troops, paying our border patrol, ensuring that people still get their IRS refunds and their Social Security checks.
00:06:08.780 You do that, and then you set on shorter ladders different features of government that have to have itemized review.
00:06:16.040 I'm thinking notably the DOJ, a lot of the parts of the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of State.
00:06:22.440 You set those on shorter ladders, and then you're able to really zero in on what those entities of government are doing.
00:06:29.240 So a ladder is good, a ladder without the spending cuts, without the border stuff, without defanging the weaponization of government, not sufficient at this time.
00:06:40.220 And certainly the addition of the farm bill extender puts us in, I think, a real bad stead when trying to get to single-subject spending bills.
00:06:51.100 One reason this is so important, we've just gotten fresh off of a report from House Budget Committee Chairman Jody Arrington,
00:07:00.120 a ratings change from Moody's Investor Services, this from New York on November 10th.
00:07:07.000 Moody's today has changed the outlook on the government of the United States of America's rating to negative from stable,
00:07:15.020 and affirmed the long-term issuer of senior unsecured ratings at AAA.
00:07:21.960 The key driver of the outlook change to negative is Moody's assessment that the downside risks to the U.S. fiscal strength have increased
00:07:34.180 and may no longer be fully offset by the sovereign's unique credit strengths.
00:07:40.160 Current political polarization within Congress raises the risk that successive governments will not be able to reach consensus
00:07:47.860 on a fiscal plan to slow the decline in debt affordability.
00:07:53.720 The sharp rise in U.S. Treasury bond yields this year has increased the pre-existing pressure on U.S. debt affordability.
00:08:00.300 In the absence of policy action, Moody's expects the U.S. debt affordability to decline further, steadily, and significantly
00:08:08.800 to very weak levels compared to other highly rated sovereigns.
00:08:13.740 This is a major downgrade.
00:08:16.740 Moody has taken the United States of America from stable to negative.
00:08:21.440 And the reason is because we don't have our fiscal house in order.
00:08:24.460 Because our debt is going to become increasingly unaffordable.
00:08:27.980 We're going to be paying a trillion dollars in interest on the debt.
00:08:32.800 We're already over $900 billion.
00:08:35.320 We're under $900 billion for the whole Department of Defense budget.
00:08:41.960 These are devastating consequences at a time when, of this $33 trillion in debt,
00:08:47.920 we're going to have to refinance that debt at higher and higher interest rates
00:08:52.520 because of the government spending, because of the Biden inflation, because of the decisions from the Fed.
00:08:58.640 So this becomes, this makes life unaffordable.
00:09:01.120 It makes borrowing money impossible for people.
00:09:04.260 When America as a whole is seeing this downgrade as a consequence of our inability to constrain spending,
00:09:10.600 Mr. Speaker, we must cut spending.
00:09:13.280 It is not enough to slow the rate of growth.
00:09:15.280 We have to cut spending, and we see that we will pass along a diminished America if we're unable to achieve that.
00:09:22.960 There's another story that I have to reflect on.
00:09:26.860 Over the weekend, former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy had a therapy session with CNN reporter Manu Raju
00:09:34.320 that was videotaped and then published on CNN's Sunday program.
00:09:40.700 And like in many therapy sessions, the former speaker had a lot of things to say about people who he thought were mean to him.
00:09:48.180 Take a listen.
00:09:51.040 If you ever listened to Vern Buchanan, when Matt came into office, Vern is the dean of Florida,
00:09:58.660 and he went around with each person, what would you like to achieve to help him?
00:10:01.240 When people would talk about things in their district of what they wanted to achieve,
00:10:04.660 Matt's goal was, his goal was to be the TV congressman.
00:10:08.360 And they came back and kind of laughed and said, is that seriously what you want to be?
00:10:11.660 He said, yeah, the TV congressman.
00:10:12.940 That's what he wants to be known for.
00:10:14.920 I think Congress is too important, and the issues are too big to focus on such small things that Matt tries to.
00:10:22.320 It's more a division, and it's focused on himself.
00:10:25.420 That was former Speaker McCarthy, who has done considerably more television interviews than I have.
00:10:33.900 Matter of fact, he was the TV speaker in the absence of substance.
00:10:37.700 And you will recall, on this program time and again,
00:10:40.600 I said that whether or not McCarthy faced removal was entirely within his hands.
00:10:44.800 All he had to do was comply with the agreement that he made with House conservatives in January.
00:10:48.880 He chose not to do that, and now believes that his removal was a consequence of television, or worse.
00:10:57.620 Take a listen to this alt-explanation from the removed former Speaker.
00:11:03.620 Those eight members who you referred to as the crazy eights and the like,
00:11:08.800 after they elected Speaker Johnson, they were crowing about this.
00:11:13.400 What did you think about that?
00:11:15.140 Well, just from a serious point of understanding governing, look, I'm a conservative who loves to govern.
00:11:24.820 I don't believe them to be conservatives.
00:11:26.820 I just, there's a different rationale.
00:11:29.360 It's driven by Gates, who it was all based upon an ethics complaint that happened in the last Congress.
00:11:35.060 He would throw his country away to try to protect himself from what would come out as the truth.
00:11:40.320 For those others to go along, I don't quite understand.
00:11:43.460 I think it's more personal.
00:11:45.040 If the ethics committee never does anything to Gates, then Gates was successful in stopping probably what rightfully should come to him.
00:11:52.420 But going through the three weeks and then taking down a Steve Scalise, a Jim Jordan, a Tom Emmer,
00:11:59.760 all people who are really prepared to do the job, that was frustrating for me.
00:12:04.580 We are back live, and it is hard to ever present to you a clip that would have more projection than what we just showed from Speaker McCarthy.
00:12:15.400 Let's start with this assessment that it was the conference that took down Steve Scalise and Jim Jordan and Tom Emmer.
00:12:24.040 Steve Scalise knows that it was Kevin McCarthy who blocked him.
00:12:28.800 That's why Steve Scalise did so much to ensure that we were able to elect Mike Johnson, even though Kevin McCarthy was attempting a comeback.
00:12:37.400 So Emmer, Jordan, Scalise, you see, it didn't matter who it was, and it didn't matter what the ideology was, conservative, moderate, liberal.
00:12:48.640 McCarthy was just working to try to sabotage everyone, and he couldn't figure out a way to sabotage Mike Johnson.
00:12:55.280 And then he says this is all about some sort of ethics issue that I have.
00:12:59.580 I'm just an ethically challenged person.
00:13:01.500 It's not that Kevin couldn't keep his deal.
00:13:03.740 Well, what's the explanation for everyone else then?
00:13:07.460 Did the seven other people who voted with me also have ethics problems when we removed McCarthy?
00:13:12.980 Or how about in the final vote before Mike Johnson was ultimately designated?
00:13:19.460 When Kevin McCarthy had done everything to summon his lieutenants and marshal the last bit of loyalty people might feel to him
00:13:28.800 for all the special interest money he distributed to them,
00:13:31.540 and McCarthy got 43 votes.
00:13:35.700 So the 150-plus other members of the House Republican Conference in the final stead refused to back Kevin McCarthy.
00:13:44.880 I don't believe all of them had challenges with ethics.
00:13:49.260 I think it was McCarthy's own ethical problems that led to his downfall because the guy couldn't tell the truth.
00:13:56.540 And he went and squawked on in this therapy session about how Nancy Pelosi had let him down,
00:14:02.080 and she promised him he would never do this.
00:14:04.500 Kevin McCarthy couldn't tell the truth.
00:14:06.540 And because of that, no one trusted him, and a sufficient number of people were willing to remove him.
00:14:11.400 And now we must move forward.
00:14:13.620 So I know that in the stages of grief, there's denial, anger, bargaining, depression, grief, you know,
00:14:20.400 and then ultimately acceptance.
00:14:22.360 And so our thoughts and prayers are with the former speaker as he works through the stages of grief.
00:14:27.420 I think we're in anger now.
00:14:29.780 We had to get past denial.
00:14:31.360 There's big news for gun owners that I want to report to you.
00:14:35.800 And as you recall, we've been fighting against this unlawful, unconstitutional pistol brace ban
00:14:43.560 that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms has put into place in the absence of any law
00:14:51.020 passed by the representatives and signed by the executive.
00:14:54.000 I pointed out how pistol braces were not in any way dangerous to regular folks in this recent hearing
00:15:02.320 before the House Judiciary Committee take a listen.
00:15:07.120 Another area is this issue of the arm braces.
00:15:11.060 Now, in Mr. Wilcox's testimony, he says that an arm brace makes a weapon more powerful.
00:15:16.440 Mr. Bosco, you know a lot about arm braces, don't you?
00:15:19.280 I do.
00:15:20.220 Do arm braces make firearms more powerful?
00:15:22.780 They do not.
00:15:24.120 They do not.
00:15:25.300 Does it concern you that the witness that the Democrats brought would make such a claim
00:15:30.400 that is obviously disproven by any utilization of those arm braces?
00:15:35.040 I hope that my testimony today can help everyone here understand that the brace does nothing
00:15:41.680 to make the weapon any more dangerous than it already is.
00:15:45.840 And so when you've got the ATF going beyond their authority, collecting 252 million records
00:15:52.080 that they have to destroy, well, that can just be explained because they're doing their best.
00:15:56.420 But when Americans get inadvertently converted to felons because the ATF has exceeded their authority,
00:16:03.560 there is no such grace for them as their miswear.
00:16:06.020 That would seem to be the case under the recent policy change to zero tolerance.
00:16:11.620 Zero tolerance for our fellow Americans when they're trying to exercise their rights and protect their liberties,
00:16:17.040 but all the tolerance in the world for a corrupt bureaucracy that is violating the law, exceeding their authority,
00:16:24.200 and collecting records that they have no business collecting.
00:16:27.100 We're back live.
00:16:30.120 So we had that hearing with some of these folks that talk about the pistol brace rule,
00:16:34.760 and we now get this report from Breitbart.
00:16:37.720 Federal judge blocks ATF's pistol brace rule, describes it as unlawful.
00:16:42.300 Judge Matthew J. Kaczmarek put a preliminary injunction in place against the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms.
00:16:49.900 They deemed the rule unlawful.
00:16:51.500 One of the plaintiffs in the case is Gabriel Chouster, who deployed overseas in the War on Terror,
00:16:58.260 was ambushed in Minneapolis and shot 15 times, then spent 85 days in the hospital.
00:17:04.880 He uses a stabilizer brace to help him shoot his gun.
00:17:08.880 Another plaintiff, Sean Kroll, is big into recreation and self-defense.
00:17:13.900 He uses a stabilizing brace because it makes his firearm safer.
00:17:18.060 This case is Breito, B-R-I-T-T-O, versus ATF.
00:17:22.960 It is currently in the Northern District of Texas.
00:17:26.180 The temporary injunction means that the plaintiffs have a substantial likelihood of success on the merits.
00:17:33.200 It means that they will suffer irreparable harm in the absence of this injunction being issued,
00:17:38.200 that there is no adequate remedy that they could ever get back in terms of money damages,
00:17:42.780 and that it serves public policy interests.
00:17:44.800 Those are the elements to get temporary injunctive relief at this stage of the litigation.
00:17:49.540 They have achieved that.
00:17:50.500 I'm sure that will be on appeal.
00:17:52.120 But the fact that we've got this Texas federal judge saying that this is an unlawful application of this pistol brace rule
00:18:00.280 against these particular plaintiffs, great news.
00:18:03.620 And hopefully that jurisprudence will persist as our oversight work persists on this very issue.
00:18:09.440 We also have an interesting story about our nation's capital.
00:18:12.900 We've been detailing to you the decaying conditions here, the rampant homelessness and crime and just debauchery
00:18:20.380 that seems to be at the envelope of this great celebration of America that our capital ought to be.
00:18:30.040 But we now know that Secret Service agents protecting President Joe Biden's granddaughter
00:18:34.260 had to open fire after three people tried to break into an unmarked Secret Service vehicle here in Washington, D.C.
00:18:42.640 So now these Secret Service agents assigned to protect Naomi Biden were out with her in a Georgetown neighborhood late on Sunday night.
00:18:52.740 And again, Georgetown is like the nicest part of Washington.
00:18:55.380 And one of the agents opened fire.
00:18:58.340 No one was struck by the gunfire, but three suspects were seen fleeing a red car.
00:19:03.420 They were trying to break into it, presumably.
00:19:05.660 Now, Washington has seen a significant rise in the number of carjackings and car thefts just this year.
00:19:10.700 As of October 28th, D.C. police say there have been 821 carjackings reported in the district this year.
00:19:18.560 That's compared to 395 this time last year.
00:19:22.680 It is a 108% increase.
00:19:25.880 Car thefts in general are also up dramatically, 101% increase, while violent crime has increased by 41% here in Washington, D.C.
00:19:38.900 It's truly something that we've got to grapple with.
00:19:41.640 And Congress may have to step in.
00:19:43.160 And we've got the ability to constrain the home rule of the city council here when they pass these soft on crime policies.
00:19:48.940 And so that Washington is safe for all of you when you come visit.
00:19:52.940 So it is a stunning representation of America's story, as it should be.
00:20:00.880 We've got to get these things under control.
00:20:03.520 There's another piece I want to cover.
00:20:07.160 There's a lot of news right now about how some of these abortion referendums have been faring unfavorably.
00:20:15.880 I discussed that with Manu Raju, Sienna, and take a listen.
00:20:21.040 Ohio, this vote tonight, affirming abortion rights, the seventh state now to do that post-Rowe.
00:20:28.100 Does that concern you about this issue and the saliency of this issue come 2024?
00:20:32.300 I think you're seeing voters react in the way a lot of legal scholars expected, by weighing in on the issue.
00:20:40.440 The fundamental problem with Roe, in addition to the science being wrong,
00:20:44.460 is that this notion that you were going to have judges ultimately make that decision was not sustainable.
00:20:50.080 So, look, it's not the way I would have voted.
00:20:52.140 It's not the policy choice I would personally make.
00:20:54.560 But I have no doubt that lawmakers in Ohio will respect the decision of the voters,
00:21:00.100 just like in Kansas and in the other places where they've had these ballot provisions.
00:21:04.540 I guess politically, are you concerned about being on the wrong side of public opinion on this issue?
00:21:08.560 Well, I'm not concerned about it.
00:21:10.080 The voters I represent are pretty pro-life.
00:21:12.540 And I think that that's true for a lot of Republican congressmen.
00:21:16.560 But I do think that we've got members in swing districts who are going to have to really refine their thinking on this.
00:21:24.200 And for some, that means federal floor and then flexibility for states to be able to react.
00:21:32.540 And for others, it's entirely a state issue.
00:21:35.180 For me, I think it's pretty fundamental for the federal government to respect life in all forms.
00:21:41.360 And that's why I'm a pro-life congressman.
00:21:46.840 We're back live.
00:21:48.160 And indeed, the people in northwest Florida are pro-life.
00:21:50.820 It says a lot about our nation, how we stand for the liberty interests of the unborn.
00:21:55.840 And I will continue to do that.
00:21:58.540 Whenever Firebrand is mentioned in the mainstream media, even the liberal media outlets that hate us,
00:22:06.460 I like to sometimes give you a perspective on how they write about the show and think about the show
00:22:12.220 as we give you direct updates regarding what's going on in Washington, D.C.
00:22:15.900 and why it's happening.
00:22:16.880 So Raw Story is a left-wing website.
00:22:21.040 I would typically not trust them on any real fact.
00:22:27.760 And indeed, this piece that I'm going to sort of share with you is an opinion piece of theirs.
00:22:33.980 And it is styled,
00:22:34.720 The GOP Civil War is Apparently Now Cleaning Out Closets.
00:22:38.620 I'm reading now from the piece.
00:22:41.460 But unlike most Republicans in the House, oh, I'm sorry, and just for context,
00:22:46.260 this is a piece that goes over the segment that we did about House Ways and Means Chairman Jason Smith
00:22:52.300 when Congressman Smith was attacking me for a lying.
00:22:56.760 And I pointed out that Jason Smith is the last person in the world who should be attacking anyone for a lying.
00:23:03.360 So here's what the piece says.
00:23:04.840 Unlike most Republicans in the House, Smith is 44 and single.
00:23:10.060 And one of his closest friends in Congress for years, someone he traveled with on lavish trips,
00:23:15.820 was none other than Illinois Congressman Aaron Schock,
00:23:19.100 the closeted gay House member who resigned in 2015 amid a scandal that focused on his outrageous misuse of government funds
00:23:26.940 and eventually was indicted in 2016 for fraud and theft of government funds, among other charges.
00:23:33.300 Attention was brought to their relationship when the spotlight focused on the luxurious trips Schock was taking,
00:23:41.360 often spending taxpayer dollars.
00:23:44.040 As reported by The Hill in 2018,
00:23:46.760 Representative Jason Smith, Republican of Missouri,
00:23:49.940 joined his close friend Aaron Schock on campaign and government trips and exotic vacations.
00:23:56.400 In 2014, that began by being scrutinized by federal investigators looking into the alleged spending abuses by the former congressman who resigned.
00:24:07.500 Revelations that Smith, accompanying Schock on the campaign trip, came as well.
00:24:14.060 The Hill reported that Smith has hired Schock's former chief of staff, Mark Roman,
00:24:19.720 who managed the congressman's office at the time of the spending scandal.
00:24:23.180 There's no indication that federal prosecutors have questioned or sought records from Smith,
00:24:27.760 but his participation on trips now under criminal investigation could drag one of Schock's closest friends in Congress
00:24:34.920 into his legal mess and undermine Smith's political image as a humble, salt-of-the-earth fiscal conservative.
00:24:42.320 The news has also led to chatter on Capitol Hill, where Roman's hiring by Smith surprised many.
00:24:48.460 The story also reported on a trip that Smith took with Schock to Brazil,
00:24:54.660 along with two other House members, most of which was paid for by the Brazilian government.
00:24:59.220 But after the official business, The Hill reports,
00:25:02.280 Schock, Smith, and several of their male aides
00:25:06.040 headed to the Brazilian beach town of Canoa Cabodera,
00:25:10.700 a gay-friendly resort spot.
00:25:13.440 Smith and Schock also went to Argentina with their aides.
00:25:16.680 The Hill now reported on how unusual it was for members to take their aides on lavish vacations.
00:25:24.700 Later that December, Schock posted Instagram photos of himself, Smith, Roman,
00:25:31.540 and Schock's photographer, Jonathan Link,
00:25:34.320 hanging out at a vineyard in the famed Mendoza wine region of Argentina
00:25:39.080 and whitewater rafting in the Andes River.
00:25:43.020 Some GOP aides said it was odd for lawmakers to be taking their staff on exotic vacations.
00:25:49.920 As one noted, one of the aides on both the Brazil trip and the Argentina trip
00:25:54.060 was Roman, who, as The Hill reports,
00:25:58.040 many were surprised Smith hired as his chief of staff
00:26:02.380 since he was managing shocks during the time of the spending scandal.
00:26:07.320 Roman has now moved up from being Smith's chief of staff
00:26:10.600 to being the staff director of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee,
00:26:16.080 which Smith chairs.
00:26:18.580 Quite something.
00:26:21.160 Raw story.
00:26:22.740 Reporting on.
00:26:24.520 These two guys being buddies.
00:26:26.720 Schock having all these problems about how money was being spent.
00:26:30.480 Leaves.
00:26:31.600 They all went on vacation with their aides together
00:26:33.800 to all these interesting places.
00:26:35.840 And then Smith hires the guy who oversaw the office
00:26:40.220 that had the spending problems,
00:26:42.260 makes him his chief of staff,
00:26:44.620 same guy he was in all these pictures with on all these exotic vacations,
00:26:48.080 and then makes him staff director of the House Ways and Means Committee.
00:26:51.500 Quite something.
00:26:53.220 We end our report to you today with sad news.
00:26:57.200 Five service members have been killed in a training crash.
00:27:00.300 The Department of Defense has identified the service members
00:27:03.600 who passed away on November 10, 2023,
00:27:06.800 in what the Pentagon has described as a helicopter refueling training exercise
00:27:11.120 in the Eastern Mediterranean.
00:27:13.040 And we want everyone to know that our condolences go out to the families
00:27:16.280 of Chief Warrant Officer Stephen R. Dwyer of Clarksville, Tennessee.
00:27:23.000 He was 38 years old.
00:27:24.820 Chief Warrant Officer Shane Barnes, 34,
00:27:27.900 of Sacramento, California.
00:27:31.000 And Staff Sergeant Tanner W. Groen, 26, of New Hampshire.
00:27:35.540 Also, Andrew Sutherland of Apache Junction, Arizona.
00:27:40.740 Cade Wolfe, 24, of Monotaco, Minnesota.
00:27:45.200 Certainly never in the field of human conflict
00:27:48.940 was so much owed so many to so few.
00:27:53.380 That from Winston Churchill and certainly something on our minds
00:27:56.800 as we think about those five patriots, those five heroes,
00:28:00.800 their families, and all who cared about them and loved them.
00:28:03.860 Make sure you're subscribed to our program
00:28:05.940 with your notifications turned on
00:28:07.200 so that you get news coming out
00:28:08.800 as we proceed on these government funding battles,
00:28:11.420 on these battles against Washington corruption,
00:28:14.200 and certainly battles for our service members
00:28:16.540 and those who enjoy their Second Amendment rights.
00:28:19.480 Appreciate you being here.
00:28:20.700 Roll the credits.
00:28:21.160 We'll see you next time.