The Anchormen Show with Matt Gaetz - Episode 150 – AG Bill Barr to Resign. Dominion Voting Systems FLIPS Votes, Report Says. CCP Members Infiltrate Multiple Consulates. The Rising Exodus From Democrat States.

00:00:00.000 Welcome to Hot Takes. I'm Congressman Matt Gaetz. Let's talk about the news. Attorney

00:00:20.940 General Bill Barr set to retire from the Department of Justice a second time. He served as Attorney

00:00:27.480 General previously before President Trump nominated him. December 23rd will be his last

00:00:32.860 day and Jeff Rosen, the current Deputy Attorney General, will take over the job of acting Attorney

00:00:38.580 General. Jeff Rosen has worked in Republican administrations, but he's also been promoted

00:00:44.360 in Democrat administrations. He seems like someone who knows Washington well. We'll put it that way.

00:00:51.160 Attorney General Barr will largely be remembered for the success he's had in concluding the

00:00:58.120 nightmare Mueller investigation. Before Bill Barr, you had Jeff Sessions over at the Department of

00:01:03.840 Justice who really lost control of the agency. I don't know that he ever had control of the agency.

00:01:10.680 He had largely handed that off to Rod Rosenstein, who famously joked that he might wear a wire on

00:01:17.460 the President of the United States to invoke the 25th Amendment. Yeah, he says it was a joke. It was

00:01:22.500 probably what they were planning to do. At the Department of Justice, there are people who

00:01:27.780 resented Donald Trump and his allies so much they were willing to break the law, bend the law, discuss

00:01:35.260 efforts that look more like a coup than like justice. So Bill Barr comes in and much to his credit,

00:01:41.520 he cleans up the Mueller investigation, he releases the full Mueller report, and we were all able to

00:01:49.280 see what nonsense that was. There were other matters, of course, of great significance that

00:01:55.200 were before the Department of Justice. I was grateful to see during his tenure that Attorney General Barr

00:01:59.920 was a real advocate for free speech and religious liberty. If you look around the country, the Civil

00:02:05.260 Rights Division under Bill Barr's leadership was aggressive in ensuring that during these pandemics,

00:02:11.520 activities that were faith-based, activities that were not treated negatively in comparison to

00:02:18.360 similar activities that were not faith-based. And I know how many Americans appreciate that effort by Bill

00:02:24.840 Barr as well. There were rumblings of pushback against big tech, there have been antitrust lawsuits

00:02:30.900 filed, and one thing I'm glad about is that A.G. Rosen actually had a great deal of input into that

00:02:39.960 technology-based litigation to change the way that consumers interact on these digital platforms so

00:02:47.000 that there is fairness, so there is not censorship, so that the terms of service for a tech company do

00:02:54.240 not come more important than the United States Constitution. We would have liked to have seen more

00:03:00.380 from Bill Barr pushing back against China. We asked that he work with us and law enforcement agencies to

00:03:07.760 ban the use of DJI Chinese drones. And while we got a lot of bipartisan support on that, even working

00:03:13.640 side by side with Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee, no, we did not successfully persuade the Attorney General

00:03:20.440 to have the pushback against China that I believe was necessary at the time, and that frankly is

00:03:26.880 still necessary. Also, when it comes to HR, I'm not sure that Bill Barr really cleaned out the

00:03:33.560 Department of Justice in a way that is needed, badly needed. You see, every agency in Washington works

00:03:42.400 hard to help their friends and punish their enemies. It's just how they gain power, and every agency in

00:03:49.920 Washington is growing more powerful. The Department of Justice, we like to think, is some exception to this

00:03:56.320 rule, that they're above the partisan fray and that they don't engage in politics. The truth is,

00:04:02.840 the Department of Justice may be the worst agency when it comes to engaging in politics. The setup of

00:04:10.380 Michael Flynn, the counterintelligence investigation into Russian interference that was perverted into an

00:04:19.220 investigation to destabilize and delegitimize the presidency of Donald Trump. Time and time again,

00:04:26.940 we saw the Department of Justice not acting in the interests of justice, but acting in the interests

00:04:32.720 of politics. And no matter what the leadership is of that agency is moving forward, we hope that is

00:04:39.680 corrected.

00:04:40.060 The conditions in Syria are terrible. Syria is a place where during the Obama administration, you had

00:04:51.020 US, Russian, Iranian, domestic, sectarian interests all running into each other, trying to de-conflict and

00:05:00.040 not start the next world war over this godforsaken patch of sand. And the United States was pouring

00:05:06.960 hundreds of millions of millions of dollars into programs in Syria that sucked, that were just

00:05:14.340 abject failures. One of the people who designed and managed those programs is now Joe Biden's

00:05:21.540 potential nominee to lead the Defense Department, General Lloyd Austin. And there's a great piece in

00:05:28.020 The Washington Post written by Josh Rogan, General Lloyd Austin has a chance to fix his legacy

00:05:33.700 on Syria. And frankly, the piece is a very rosy, opportunity-laden essay on how Austin can fix his

00:05:44.260 failures. But the piece also highlights the failures themselves. Most notably, General Austin led an effort

00:05:52.260 that cost 500 million dollars, that trained only four or five fighters that survived the first battle.

00:06:02.820 Now, by any measure, that's failure. The problem we have at the Defense Department is that we don't

00:06:10.180 really fail fast and cheap to get on to the next opportunity to succeed, like you see oftentimes in the

00:06:17.540 startup world, the startup world, the entrepreneurial world. Instead, what you have at the Defense Department

00:06:22.900 is often a desire to fail very slowly in the most expensive way possible. General Lloyd Austin represents

00:06:32.020 everything that is wrong with military thinking that doesn't prioritize strategy or solutions or results.

00:06:42.100 General Austin is a process. General Austin is a process guy. And the process was a bad one during the Obama

00:06:49.740 administration. It kept American troops deployed in places that they didn't need to be for missions that were

00:06:56.580 unrealistic. Like this notion that we were going to roll into Syria and hustle up a bunch of Arab rebel groups and 0.76

00:07:04.800 get them all to fight under a common theory of an offensive against the Assad regime was ludicrous.

00:07:12.560 It didn't work. The people who designed and execute the strategy were never held responsible. And now one of

00:07:19.360 them looks like they might be up for a promotion in Biden land, whatever form that takes, whatever function it

00:07:28.560 ultimately sees materialized. I am not a fan of General Lloyd Austin. I believe he would be the wrong person to

00:07:35.920 lead the Defense Department because he has failed in Syria.

00:07:43.600 A Michigan judge has allowed the release of a report of the forensic analysis of the voting machines and

00:07:51.280 software systems in Antrim County, Michigan. And oh, my gosh, is it a doozy. This report

00:07:59.600 concludes that the Dominion voting systems actually flip votes, that there is a purposeful design to this system that

00:08:09.360 allows votes to be moved from one candidate to another. And in the report, it doesn't just highlight how this happened in the

00:08:15.520 presidential race. There are even school board races where the failure of the software system resulted in

00:08:23.600 different vote tabulations. Now, the Michigan attorney general has shot back saying that it's misleading and

00:08:29.520 inaccurate, but Michigan fought pretty hard to keep the report sealed. State officials in Michigan didn't want you to

00:08:37.200 see that there is a forensic report that shows that the software system that they used and that was used all over the

00:08:44.240 country was designed to create opportunities for fraud and that it resulted in the changing of vote

00:08:52.400 tabulations. Now, the supervisor of elections in Antrim County has said this is the result of human error. But as a

00:08:59.680 consequence of this report, I think that is that is very hard to believe. And these are some highly trained

00:09:05.920 experts. They know what they're doing. We're going to post the Antrim report. You take a read. You be the judge. My

00:09:13.200 assessment is that this requires a full scale review of software systems that were involved in vote tabulation

00:09:21.360 and in the reporting of results. Because after reading this, I just don't trust what politicians and elected officials are

00:09:29.720 telling me. I want to see what the science says and what the data says. And if even one vote was changed, because a system was

00:09:39.420 designed to do it, that ought to really call into question the validity of the 2020 election, and we should do something

00:09:46.380 about it. We shouldn't just accept faulty election results. These reports, this evidence requires action.

00:09:58.140 Even before coronavirus, there was a major trend in the workforce in the United States of America. People are able to

00:10:06.700 live basically wherever they want and telecommute into work based on the proliferation of technology and

00:10:14.460 just the changing nature of enterprise. That trend has been dramatically accelerated by coronavirus, as you

00:10:23.740 might expect. And there is a story that we pick up from Bloomberg Opinion. COVID is accelerating the exodus from

00:10:30.540 New York and California to cheaper states. So if people can live anywhere and do high end jobs, why would

00:10:39.500 they live in expensive places, particularly when those expensive places are embracing lockdowns? I mean, the

00:10:46.860 reason people might be willing to pay a little extra in taxes to live in a metropolitan place like New York or

00:10:54.300 Los Angeles might be that they enjoy the features of metropolitan life. And those features have largely

00:11:00.700 been closed due to the reactions of state and local politicians. In this piece, there is a study of the San

00:11:07.820 Francisco Bay Area and New York City. And, you know, you've seen people in those areas tolerating just eye-watering

00:11:16.620 expenses and cramped apartments and other disadvantages because they had the entertainment, the sports,

00:11:23.660 the art, the culture. Now that the pandemic has hit, there's a real diminished experience in those

00:11:30.060 places. And so folks are moving where it's cheaper. And that means a real windfall for places like

00:11:37.180 Arizona, Texas, Florida, where you've largely seen Republican policy put into place at the state level,

00:11:45.420 that's created less of a burden on cost of living and more opportunity for our people. So if you're

00:11:52.540 trying to flee from New York or California or Illinois or any other place that's not letting

00:11:59.420 you live your best life under the best economic conditions, come on down to Florida, Texas, Arizona,

00:12:06.140 but leave any of your left-wing politics behind in your old state. Only freedom-loving patriots, welcome here.

00:12:14.300 So parenting is often a reactionary enterprise. You're always trying to ensure that no matter what

00:12:24.380 challenges your children face or what opportunities may present themselves, that you react in a way that

00:12:30.780 creates a nurturing environment. And sadly, during the coronavirus, the reactions haven't always been

00:12:37.580 positive. Public health officials, school officials, reacting not by engaging in focused sanitation and

00:12:45.820 protection, but instead in wide-scale shutdowns and lockdowns that very negatively impact young people.

00:12:53.020 We pick up from fee.org reporting from a Cambridge study showing that children's mental health has

00:12:59.900 deteriorated substantially during this lockdown period. And under the new University of Cambridge paper,

00:13:06.540 we see the first longitudinal study to trace the mental health effects of lockdowns and social

00:13:12.860 isolation on young children. One of the collaborators from Stanford quoted as saying that focused protection

00:13:20.860 is an approach to the pandemic and that instead of doing that, we have been requiring young people

00:13:27.420 to bear the burden of this disease, even though they face little to no risk. This is entirely backward 1.00

00:13:34.860 from the right approach. And in this longitudinal study, you see the long-term effects of social isolation,

00:13:41.580 of the restricted development for young people. And that's why it's so important we fight against these

00:13:48.460 lockdowns and that we advocate for the right data-based response to the virus.

00:13:54.860 China is devious and determined and aggressive. The United States better be ready for the challenge 1.00

00:14:05.900 that they present. The latest coming from FoxNews.com's Julia Musto leaked Chinese Communist Party records

00:14:14.060 show CCP members employed in senior specialist and advisory positions in consulates in Shanghai.

00:14:22.140 That's right. China has a dedicated strategy to recruit people loyal to them and place them into consulates

00:14:32.700 for Western countries. So in this report that we get from the Australian, we also see that Britain,

00:14:41.420 Australia saw their consulates infiltrated in Shanghai. And this is a, you know, an effort that the Chinese 1.00

00:14:49.180 Communist Party has engaged in over an extended period of time is as much as a decade. And they do all they

00:14:56.380 can to try to collect information so that they can exploit it for their benefit and realize what what

00:15:02.860 frailties or weaknesses we might have or other Western countries might have that they want to exploit. Now,

00:15:09.020 we learned this information because there was a leaked database of millions of CCP members.

00:15:15.740 And when we were able to cross check those members against people working in consulates,

00:15:22.300 it was remarkable to see how many had infiltrated and had used their positions for China's benefit,

00:15:29.180 not ours. This is a warning sign that China takes competition seriously. They're not our friendly little 0.92

00:15:37.660 competitor. They're willing to cheat, lie and steal to get ahead. And we've got to confront

00:15:43.340 that devious approach with aggressive action. We should be kicking out Chinese spies from our country. 1.00

00:15:51.500 Every opportunity we have to find them, locate them, isolate them and remove them. And when the United States 0.97

00:15:58.700 is engaged in mission abroad, we need to become far more resilient against the Chinese threat.

00:16:04.620 Should public schools be required to have feminine hygiene products in the bathrooms? We pick up the 1.00

00:16:14.700 story from floridapolitics.com's Drew Wilson, state Senator Lauren Book, actually a good friend of mine,

00:16:20.780 a Democrat from South Florida. She has filed legislation that would require schools to provide

00:16:26.140 the products. She calls it the Learning with Dignity Act. Here's my hot take. This is a slippery slope.

00:16:33.820 What's next? Are we going to require deodorant in the bathrooms? Are we going to require for oral hygiene,

00:16:41.180 toothpaste and toothbrush? My sense is that schools ought to be in the business of educating kids and

00:16:47.500 that getting them ready, getting them hygienic, getting them learned up for life doesn't necessarily

00:16:53.980 require the public education system as much as it requires good parenting. And for those who would say,

00:16:59.900 well, you know, some parents just aren't any good and the school has to step in. I think that's a

00:17:05.820 dangerous thing to do. I think that only parents can parent. I think that young people who are going

00:17:11.900 through the changes of puberty have to learn as part of the responsibilities of that,

00:17:16.540 the preparation to ensure that you have what you need. So I think it's interesting that, you know,

00:17:21.980 the more you get women into public life, the more you get these types of debates and discussions, 1.00

00:17:26.940 and probably that's a good thing. Probably it'll be a good educational experience to go over what

00:17:31.660 the legislation would require, but count me out for additional mandates on public schools

00:17:37.180 to do anything other than teaching the kids. Thanks for listening to Hot Takes. I'm Congressman Matt

00:17:44.300 Gates. This podcast is written, directed, and produced by a team that includes myself,

00:17:49.740 Luke Ball, and Joel Valdez. Give us a hand, subscribe, perhaps give us that five-star rating

00:17:57.020 on iTunes or however you rate your podcasts on your listening platform of choice,

00:18:02.140 and join us tomorrow for more Hot Takes.

00:18:07.580 We'll see you next time.

00:18:17.580 We'll see you next time.

00:18:19.580 We'll see you next time.

The Anchormen Show with Matt Gaetz - December 15, 2020

Episode 150 – AG Bill Barr to Resign. Dominion Voting Systems FLIPS Votes, Report Says. CCP Members Infiltrate Multiple Consulates. The Rising Exodus From Democrat States.

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