Learn English with Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-GAetz) on the latest episode of CNN's Hard Knocks. Rep. Gaetz was one of the few in the entire Congress who bothered to stand up against permanent Washington on behalf of his constituents.
00:03:16.000That's the directive from the OG Firebrand, Congress's most talented member, Congress's hardest working member, someone I look up to, someone who has really inspired a generation of fighters in the Congress.
00:03:31.000Also, the title of the upcoming book from my friend, and I think it informs on a lot of important issues facing the Congress, facing the country.
00:03:41.000And Jim, you know, the title really, I think, begs the question, what is it that we have to say we are going to do to the country to earn the trust of our constituents and to strengthen the institution of Congress?
00:03:55.000First of all, I'm not the most talented you are, and you are a friend, and I appreciate your leadership and your willingness to fight for what you told the constituents in Florida that you would fight for when they elected you.
00:04:06.000I always say we make this job way too complicated.
00:04:08.000What did you tell them you were going to do when you put your name on the ballot and you went out and talked to the folks in your district and they gave you the privilege to go serve in the United States Congress, which is a privilege only about 12,000 people have ever had in the history of our great country?
00:04:19.000What did you tell them you were going to do?
00:04:22.000No matter who's against you, go do what you said.
00:04:25.000You have done that, and that's why you're a friend and someone I so respect.
00:04:28.000What we told them we're going to do is the things they care about.
00:04:31.000Make sure we defend the sanctity of human life.
00:04:34.000Make sure we don't spend this country into the debt that we now see.
00:04:37.000Make sure we stand up for the Constitution and stop this assault that we have seen over the last year on their First Amendment liberties.
00:04:44.000This is the part that bothers me the most as two guys who sit on the Judiciary Committee, the committee that's supposed to protect the Bill of Rights, the Constitution,
00:04:51.000and your liberties under the First Amendment, the Fourth Amendment, the Second Amendment.
00:04:55.000That's what we've got to make sure we do.
00:04:57.000If we get the majority, that's what we've got to focus on.
00:05:00.000You know, Jim, all over America right now in Republican primaries, people are working to define themselves as Jim Jordan Republicans in a lot of ways because you and Mark Meadows and many of our other colleagues started the Freedom Caucus to be a rudder for the body to provide a sense of direction in a town that can often be so corrupt and tumultuous.
00:05:24.000Walk us through kind of the scenes of the book where you start the Freedom Caucus, where you decide that this has to be an organization to inspire people and to draw people in.
00:05:34.000And it's an organization that's inspiring campaigns throughout America today.
00:05:39.000In the introduction, I talk about the day Mark Meadows filed a motion to vacate the chair, something that hasn't been done over 90 years in this country where it's the equivalent of filing a vote of no confidence in a parliamentary form of government.
00:05:52.000And I will always remember this, and they can read this in the introduction, but it's a moment that has stuck with me.
00:06:31.000And there was this smile on his face and it wasn't a smile that said, we're going to get John Boehner.
00:06:37.000It was just a smile that said, here we go.
00:06:40.000We're going to do something that hasn't been done in almost a century.
00:06:44.000And with that, signing that document, filing that motion, within a few months, something that has never happened in American history,
00:06:51.000the Speaker of the House steps down midterm with no health concern and no scandal.
00:06:57.000He stepped down because he didn't have the votes to stay in power because he wasn't doing what the people elected us to do.
00:07:03.000And we start with that and we talk about that a lot through the book.
00:07:05.000We talk a lot about Matt Gaetz, particularly one of my favorite things in my time in Congress was when you and Steve Scalise and a bunch of our colleagues stormed the bunker in the basement.
00:07:17.000And frankly, and I know your viewers know this, but that would not have happened but for your leadership.
00:07:22.000And you joined those of us in there who were doing the depositions.
00:07:49.000Where with your leadership, our conference came together.
00:07:53.000And remember at the time, the conventional wisdom was that the Democrats were all going to vote to impeach President Trump.
00:08:00.000The best president we've had, they were all going to vote to impeach him just 13 months before an election.
00:08:05.000And they thought a bunch of Republicans were going to jump on their side.
00:08:08.000And what happened because of what you did and so many people come together and the good staff we had and all the fighting we did, what happened is no, every Republican voted not to impeach President Trump.
00:08:19.000And one of them even switched parties.
00:08:21.000And I don't know that all that happens.
00:08:23.000You really don't believe it does if you don't take the action you did.
00:08:26.000And the country is better off because of what you did and a number of other of our colleges stood strong.
00:08:32.000Well, those were times when a lot of people in our party believed that we ought to just fold our hands and hope that Donald Trump hadn't done anything illegal or criminal.
00:08:42.000And they were unwilling to challenge the basis for these investigations, whether it was the Ukraine sequel or the Russia hoax at the outset.
00:08:51.000And, you know, you talk about your role in history, dislodging John Boehner and really setting the right on a new course and a better course.
00:08:59.000But it hasn't been a course without some rough seas.
00:09:03.000I mean, we went from Boehner to Paul Ryan.
00:09:06.000The title of your book is do what you said you would do.
00:09:10.000And what we said to our voters in election after election was that if they trusted us, we would repeal Obamacare.
00:09:17.000And then Paul Ryan took like 14 million dollars from HMOs in the weeks leading up to dropping legislation that they told us repealed Obamacare, but they didn't repeal Obamacare.
00:09:30.000And so so talk about being in that position and the pressure that the Freedom Caucus was under to inform the entire movement and the entire body that to do what we said we had to do, we couldn't turn the product over to the lobby corps.
00:09:44.000Yeah. Great point. It was a tough time.
00:09:47.000And the legislative strategy we embarked on was maybe the dumbest in history, because if you remember, Paul Ryan talked about three buckets, like we were going to do something now, something later, then have the Dr. Price, who was head of HHS Health and Human Services, do something on his own, which sort of begged the question, well, if he can do it on his own, why doesn't he do it now?
00:10:07.000Why does he have to wait until we pass? It was just a crazy legislative strategy.
00:10:11.980We should have just passed what we had passed the Congress before President Trump got here and and had it on his desk because President Trump would have signed that on January 20, 2017.
00:10:21.000So your concept is put the same bill on Trump's desk that we had put on Obama's desk.
00:10:25.980But but is there a greater example during your time in Congress of people not doing what they said they would do than the Republicans who were willing to vote for an Obamacare repeal when they knew Obama would veto it, but then who weren't willing to vote for the same bill in the whip checks when it was President Trump?
00:10:42.760That's a great point. And you're exactly right. But guess what? Guess who was willing to do what he said he would do when he got here?
00:10:48.700President Trump. You remember, we first got here and we go to we go to the White House and in the West Wing, they have on the board that big whiteboard and they wrote down every single promise they made to the American people.
00:10:58.220And then when they did it, they checked it off. That's the kind of leadership we had under President Trump.
00:11:03.040And we go back to the to the when when they started the lies about President Trump.
00:11:08.580Here's the other thing I remember. There were only four or five of us.
00:11:11.560There were only four or five of us who said, wait a minute, something doesn't smell right here.
00:11:15.140One of them's the governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis. Exactly right.
00:11:18.160And in the leadership of Devin, you, Matt, Mark Meadows and Ron DeSantis, that's all there was.
00:11:25.020And there were a few people in the press, Molly Hemingway and some of the other great people who wrote some things.
00:11:29.520And we started reading this. We said something doesn't make sense here.
00:11:31.760And the willingness to we were close enough to the Trump campaign to know that it was impossible for that group to collude with Russia because we were a traveling carnival.
00:11:40.300We were just so happy to be on to the next city to bring positivity and an America first spirit, never violence, never destruction, always love of country reverence for our military and our law enforcement colluding with Russia.
00:11:53.320We could barely collude with the next venue location, you know, and so we knew that it was such a joke at the outset.
00:11:59.120And it was an effort to destabilize the presidency because they couldn't deal with the results.
00:12:04.280So, you know, in this next kind of period for Congress, you know, what is that thing that you think, particularly the Judiciary Committee, can have a role in delivering on?
00:12:14.880No secret. You're the Republican lead on the Judiciary Committee.
00:12:17.200If we take the majority, you will likely be the first chair of that committee to not be a member of the bar in the history of the committee.
00:12:26.300So walk us through the Jim Jordan vision for kind of the opening weeks.
00:12:30.740No, that committee has a I always say a storied history.
00:12:35.180You think about Henry Hyde. You think about some of the people who've led that committee, a storied history of defending the Bill of Rights, Americans, the American people's fundamental liberties and freedoms.
00:12:47.980And right now what we have is a committee that's doing just the opposite.
00:12:51.940So what we're going to have to do is, one, we're going to have to do the investigations that need done.
00:12:55.760I mean, this idea that the IRS released thousands of people's tax returns.
00:12:59.660Now, that'll probably be, you know, led over in the ways that means we have an investigation subcommittee and an oversight subcommittee.
00:13:05.500We definitely need that. We need to we need to look into the IRS situation.
00:13:09.500We need to look into what what's happening with this Justice Department going after parents.
00:13:13.520This issue that we're focused on right now and school board meetings, what they're doing, the political nature of our Justice Department right now.
00:13:19.520We need to look at all that. We need to we need to go after big tech censorship.
00:13:22.840I mean, this thing, what's happening to speech?
00:13:26.860I always say the five liberties we have under the First Amendment, your right to practice your faith, the right to assemble, right to petition your government, freedom of press, freedom of speech.
00:13:33.680Speech is the most important because if you can't speak, if you can't speak, you can't really fully practice your faith.
00:13:39.920So speech is the most important. What big tech in collusion with big government is doing in this cancel culture world we live in is so wrong.
00:13:48.720Barry Weiss called it the digital thunderdome.
00:13:50.620You take on you take on the woke mob, they will put you in the thunderdome.
00:13:54.740Ask as someone is asked Drew Brees, who said we should stand for the national anthem.
00:14:00.840Now, Drew Brees is as apple pie as you can get.
00:14:03.180He is a great American, wonderful Christian family guy.
00:14:06.100And he had to he had to back down from the mob.
00:14:10.100But I said this last week, I actually think Americans are are are going to push back in a big way.
00:14:16.680And I think the main reason is what happened with Merrick Garland when he goes after moms and dads like, wait a minute, this is the last straw.
00:14:23.980So that's what the Judiciary Committee has to focus on.
00:14:27.160Those those fundamental rights we have had have under the First Amendment, making sure we defend them.
00:14:31.400So you write in the book, do what you said you would do, which, by the way, I'm going to get for my parents for Christmas.
00:14:40.140Anybody that that is going to be something they will truly enjoy.
00:14:43.200You write that we need to break up big tech.
00:14:55.000So you get rid of the liability protection in Section 230 and you create a expedited path to get that to the Supreme Court so it can happen.
00:15:03.760And it does take 100 years for this to break them up because we ain't got that amount of time.
00:15:07.240What you describe is not dissimilar to the way that we went after tobacco companies at the state level in a lot of ways.
00:15:13.800Strip these entities of their defenses and declare open season on them and stick the trial lawyers on them.
00:15:19.720But then the remedy does not emanate from the legislative branch of government.
00:15:24.020It emanates out of the judicial branch in your vision.
00:15:30.360I'm nervous about giving more power to the bureaucracy, particularly the bureaucracy controlled by the Biden administration.
00:15:37.160And I guess exhibit number one would be look at the Justice Department controlled by the Biden administration, what we've seen there.
00:15:43.480So that makes me nervous because I actually think big tech and big government collude to further stick it to conservatives.
00:15:50.760So let's make sure we get after big tech, but let's do it in a way that doesn't combine the all powerful big government with the all powerful big tech that will, you know, both those entities want to want to censor Matt Gaetz and Jim Jordan.
00:16:03.060I still remember the I still remember the day that you called me up because you're much better at all this tech stuff than me and how to handle it and the tweet and the post and everything.
00:16:12.680You called me up just a few summers ago and you said, Jim, Twitter is shadow banning us.
00:16:47.980So this is this is this is why we got to get a remedy.
00:16:51.020I think that a Judiciary Committee that is laser focused on vindicating the liberty interests of our fellow Americans, where we have seen them so abridged by tyrants at every level of government would really rally people and expand our movement to the very types of people we see rising up and becoming hyperpolitical in places like Loudoun County, Virginia.
00:17:13.420And so, you know, I do think that that's a way to expand the movement.
00:17:16.840I would I would go further with legislative power.
00:17:19.880I think that, you know, we can go beyond using legislative power to strip immunities.
00:17:24.300We could use it to literally reshape these companies.
00:17:26.400But I think the ultimate result is is one that would democratize access to the digital world for people, regardless of their politics.
00:17:34.840I mean, access to the digital world is central to the American experience.
00:17:39.480And the terms of service on Twitter can't be more important than the rights that undergird the constitution of our country, for sure.
00:17:48.100So some of our colleagues, Jim, have impeachment fever.
00:17:51.980And I want to talk to you about this because you and I have spent a great deal of our time in Congress and we've deployed a great deal of our credibility to defend the presidency and the institution of the presidency against frivolous and politically motivated impeachments.
00:18:11.460And while I do think Joe Biden is worthy of impeachment and particularly where they seem to be failing on purpose on the border, I worry about impeachment by reflex.
00:18:21.540And I worry that if everything is a basis for impeachment, not just purposeful wrongdoing, then any time you have a president and a Congress that are in different parties, part of the ceremonial exchange of power will be an impeachment.
00:18:37.560I don't want the country to look that way.
00:18:39.880Do you also worry about impeachment by reflex?
00:19:06.800Yeah, and certainly what the Democrats have made it and what they did to President Trump.
00:19:10.820I mean, they tried to kick him out of office before he got there.
00:19:12.720That's when they started the Trump-Russia investigation.
00:19:14.280They tried to kick him out while he was there.
00:19:15.840And then once he left, they tried to kick him out even though he'd already left.
00:19:18.160And he had the greatest presidency, I think, certainly in our lifetimes, but maybe in the history of this great country.
00:19:25.280And yet the Democrats were so obsessed because this guy came here and turned his town around, took on the bureaucracy, took on all the Democrats, took on all the mainstream press.
00:19:35.260And he had to take on some of the Republicans too, which was amazing.
00:19:38.480And yet, in spite of all, that did all he did.
00:19:42.360Because when we had good ideas, we could get them right to the forefront of power in our government when everything in Washington is driven to try to constrain innovation and creative thinking.
00:19:52.600And actually valuing the people who sent us who we owe, I think, a tribute of fidelity.
00:20:38.220I was very proud to be the first member of Congress to endorse Jim Jordan this evening.
00:20:44.940Thank you for sending Matt Gaetz to Congress.
00:20:47.500We're two truly great Americans who are fighting for the things that matter in our country, that made our country great in the first place.
00:20:56.440These are people who served in our military, who've been members of military families, and they did not send me to Washington to play defense.
00:21:02.860I believe I represent the best district.
00:21:05.540You didn't have a Speaker campaign with a great deal of corporate infrastructure.
00:21:10.840But people showed up with homemade signs.
00:21:13.140And I'm going to put them on the screen.
00:21:14.480They brought their homemade signs that said Speaker Jordan.
00:21:17.680And I've never seen people react to a leadership race in our country the way they did that.
00:21:23.920What was the day you realized you didn't want to be Speaker anymore after that?
00:21:26.860I never really did want to be Speaker.
00:21:28.380You just sort of had to run at that time.
00:21:31.060But I still remember that was such a fun trip.
00:21:54.500It was one of the most fun campaign kind of things I've ever done.
00:21:58.580And then we got to hang out in your fine town.
00:21:59.860And now we get to be a part of the Ron DeSantis fan club as he takes these values that we fight for, you know, often tilting against windmills in Washington.
00:22:09.920And he goes and puts them to work for people.
00:22:11.960A lot of the liberty agenda that a chairman, Jim Jordan, would pursue in the Judiciary Committee, we are seeing play out in the great state of Florida every day.
00:22:20.640I liked when he said, my job is not to protect business.
00:22:24.400My job is to protect the citizens of my state, their liberty.
00:22:28.880And I thought, that's Jefferson, that's Adams, that's Madison, that is what it's supposed to be when he said that.
00:22:38.440Kind of sounds like what we said we would do, right?
00:22:47.300It's the upcoming book by Congressman Jim Jordan.
00:22:50.100And if you read it, you'll be able to see the future because you will be able to see the agenda that we are going to fight for in the House Judiciary Committee on behalf of our fellow Americans.
00:23:02.400Thanks for inspiring a generation to try to serve in Congress in a way that is worthy of, I think, the great platform you and Mark Meadows have created.