The Anchormen Show with Matt Gaetz - Episode 151 – Mitch McConnell's Warning for Senate Republicans. Woketopian Panel Cancels Abe Lincoln. Lessons From Dippin' Dots on COVID-19 Vaccine Distribution.

00:00:00.000 You ever watch this guy on television?

00:00:03.820 You all were not telling the truth, and you should not be trusted.

00:00:06.580 Congressman Matt Gaetz, thank you for what you did for your country tonight.

00:00:09.300 Be offended with the Democratic whip, not House of Republicans.

00:00:12.260 Like a machine, Matt Gaetz.

00:00:16.100 Welcome to Hot Takes. I'm Congressman Matt Gaetz.

00:00:18.780 Let's talk about the news.

00:00:20.280 On yesterday's episode, we discussed China and their plan to infiltrate our government and others.

00:00:26.920 While Americans too often think in terms of news cycles, China thinks in terms of generations.

00:00:34.780 I was joined on Sean Hannity's program last night with former acting director of national intelligence Rick Grinnell.

00:00:41.440 We went into some detail on the China threat. Take a listen.

00:00:44.760 Democrats didn't have double standards. They probably have no standards at all.

00:00:49.580 Remember, this is the party that impeached Donald Trump for a perfect call,

00:00:53.980 and yet they're unwilling to take any action against a colleague for, at the minimum,

00:00:58.640 a rather imperfect relationship with a Chinese intelligence analyst.

00:01:02.780 But Rick Grinnell is right. This is the tip of the iceberg.

00:01:05.400 The Australian recently had a report of two million names of leaked CCP members,

00:01:11.540 and a shocking number of those CCP members had actually worked their way into Western consulates

00:01:17.300 in Shanghai for the United States, Great Britain, Australia.

00:01:20.400 And it shows that this is an effort by the Chinese that has been undertaken for more than a decade.

00:01:26.280 Remember, Eric Swalwell wasn't targeted when he was a member of Congress.

00:01:29.240 He was targeted when he was a Dublin city council member.

00:01:32.280 That tells us a lot more about China than it does about Congressman Swalwell

00:01:36.100 and how determined they are to try to compromise the leaders that should be acting in the best interest of our country.

00:01:42.700 Rick Grinnell, if you have a spy from China sleeping with American politicians, 0.67

00:01:49.660 gets an intern in the office of somebody on the House Intel Committee,

00:01:53.780 then you've got the Bidens and listening to your admonition,

00:01:57.980 yeah, of course, Russia's a hostile regime, so are the Iranians, so is China.

00:02:02.820 China, probably, I think, the biggest security threat of all, my humble opinion. 0.98

00:02:06.080 You would know more than me.

00:02:07.060 And all of this is happening.

00:02:10.740 Are the Bidens compromised?

00:02:12.180 Is it likely all of their correspondence, maybe even Hunter's laptop information,

00:02:17.940 which I hear is damning, they have all of that?

00:02:21.160 Or am I just living in a spy novel?

00:02:25.100 Well, one thing that I can say is that it is not true that the Hunter laptop

00:02:30.280 is some sort of Russian disinformation campaign,

00:02:34.520 which, again, was part of Eric Swalwell and others' look-over-here strategy,

00:02:39.760 pretending like something was bigger than what it was.

00:02:43.280 Again, I just want to repeat, Russia is a problem. 1.00

00:02:46.380 No one is trying to say that Russia is not a problem. 1.00

00:02:48.880 But China is a crisis.

00:02:50.660 And I believe, Sean, that if the Gang of Eight,

00:02:54.300 which are the leaders in Congress to watch over Intel,

00:02:58.880 if they are not going to have a classified briefing,

00:03:02.620 then we need to start having members of Congress step up,

00:03:05.840 go around the Gang of Eight, and ask for this classified briefing.

00:03:09.440 No more excuses that what Eric was dealing with

00:03:12.620 was classified information so he can't talk about it.

00:03:15.620 The intelligence community knows exactly what the problem is.

00:03:18.380 And we are having a crisis when it comes to the infiltration of Chinese spies

00:03:23.800 in academia and our political circles.

00:03:26.540 You know, Matt, I don't think you really have to go too far

00:03:29.620 to look at zero experience, Hunter.

00:03:32.480 We don't see any evidence of any experience in private equity.

00:03:36.760 A billion five Bank of China, $100,000 shopping spree, Chinese national.

00:03:41.900 You got this one spy sleeping with a bunch of politicians.

00:03:44.820 And you got Swalwell, you know, seeing Russians everywhere

00:03:49.460 and not get an answer to the question,

00:03:52.000 what was the nature of your relationship?

00:03:53.500 I'm not looking for the details.

00:03:55.200 I just want to know if you're compromised.

00:03:56.960 And I really want to know if Joe and Hunter are compromised.

00:04:02.780 Abraham Lincoln is not safe from the cancel culture. 1.00

00:04:07.160 We get the story from the Daily Mail.

00:04:10.440 And in the San Francisco area, a panel has decided to rename Abraham Lincoln High School

00:04:16.960 because the former president did not demonstrate that, quote,

00:04:20.600 black lives mattered to him.

00:04:23.300 This woke renaming committee also took aim at Democrat Senator Dianne Feinstein

00:04:28.440 and Teddy Roosevelt, of all people.

00:04:32.080 Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves.

00:04:34.040 If that's not demonstrating that black lives mattered to him,

00:04:38.160 I don't know what would have at that period of time.

00:04:42.040 Abraham Lincoln was a pioneer, a visionary in thoughts on equality

00:04:47.340 and ensuring that we elevated our humanity by treating our fellow humans a lot better.

00:04:54.500 Slavery was a reprehensible practice.

00:04:57.280 And Abraham Lincoln is a hero for ending it.

00:05:00.280 Abraham Lincoln believed so strongly in the abolition of slavery

00:05:04.660 that our nation literally went to war over it.

00:05:07.580 And now it appears we'll have to go to a different kind of war against the cancel culture 1.00

00:05:12.380 to be able to preserve American values and ideals and heroes like Abraham Lincoln.

00:05:19.620 As trust in governments continues to wane globally, Bitcoin continues to rally and see exponential

00:05:32.000 increases in value.

00:05:33.540 We pick up the story from Bloomberg.com.

00:05:36.940 Bitcoin has surpassed 20,000 for the first time.

00:05:40.820 It's another milestone in what has been just an eye-popping rally for the controversial digital

00:05:46.000 asset this year.

00:05:46.920 The world's largest cryptocurrency rose as much as 3.8% to $20,154 on Wednesday,

00:05:54.900 vindicating forecasts that were scoffed at months ago and leading to even higher prognostications.

00:06:01.400 Bitcoin has almost tripled this year alone.

00:06:05.300 So here's my hot take.

00:06:08.000 Bitcoin is a libertarian concept.

00:06:11.420 It's a concept of currency that is not manipulatable by government, that cannot be hollowed out or robbed

00:06:20.160 by selfish, short-sighted government practices.

00:06:24.160 And I expect that Bitcoin will continue to see increases in value as long as it can be utilized

00:06:31.140 with, I think, greater frequency and greater ease than other types of currency.

00:06:36.640 It gives it a special place in the market.

00:06:38.980 So the Winklevoss twins have famously said they view Bitcoin like gold, you know, something that

00:06:44.860 they'll eventually only be so much of and that will hold its value and that will rise in value

00:06:50.440 as we see volatility with other asset classes.

00:06:53.640 So Bitcoin on the rally.

00:06:55.560 Hope you got you some on the way.

00:06:57.440 Fun little story from popscience.com.

00:07:04.440 What COVID vaccine delivery is learning from Dippin' Dots of all places. 1.00

00:07:10.560 That's right.

00:07:11.280 The vaccines created by biotech and Moderna and Pfizer actually require a low temperature

00:07:18.360 in order for them to not degrade during transportation.

00:07:21.700 And obviously the distribution of this vaccine is something our country really has to nail.

00:07:26.660 And so there have been some collaborations with Dippin' Dots regarding cold supply chain

00:07:33.460 movement and ensuring that you don't have product that gets below a certain temperature.

00:07:37.620 So check out the popsci.com piece and hopefully we are able to totally execute on the delivery

00:07:44.480 of this vaccine at the right temperature without it degrading for the benefit of our fellow Americans.

00:07:49.860 As Congress reassembles in Washington, D.C. for votes today, we're reminded that the government

00:07:59.400 runs out of money toward the end of the week and we need to reauthorize a number of programs.

00:08:06.340 And frankly, there are a bunch of programs we probably should not reauthorize.

00:08:09.920 But what is driving the negotiation and debate around this government funding vote is coronavirus

00:08:17.840 and the need for coronavirus relief and stimulus in various ways in the negotiations around

00:08:23.840 a $900 billion package have now exploded the price tag of that because a bipartisan group

00:08:31.680 of members of Congress have stepped forward to support a $1,200 individual stimulus check.

00:08:39.280 So my fellow Americans will remember there were the Trump bucks that went out toward the beginning

00:08:44.640 of the coronavirus pandemic, now a discussion of additional direct stimulus payments.

00:08:51.440 And that was in a proposal that was released earlier this week that is likely to continue to

00:08:56.160 get fine tuned over the next, you know, 24, 36, 48 hours in preparation for a vote.

00:09:03.200 Here's my hot take. There is no stimulus that will ever support Americans the way an open economy will.

00:09:11.600 If we're always just sending out stimulus checks to individuals, businesses, you know, Boeing,

00:09:18.960 Fortune 100 businesses, and we don't allow the economy to open, we're just buying time and we're not

00:09:25.920 even buying it that efficiently. My friend Congressman Thomas Massey continues to point out that

00:09:31.280 we've sent stimulus checks to people who live in other countries or citizens of other countries who've

00:09:36.800 died long ago. So it's pretty inefficient in my book to try to use monetary policy and spending policy

00:09:44.640 as a substitute for a free economy. Give Americans freedom, get the government out of their way,

00:09:51.840 and we will provide our families, our communities, our country and the world more stimulus, more

00:09:58.000 prosperity than you could ever imagine. We've done it before and we can do it again, but I will not

00:10:03.920 support what I've seen so far that I think is wasteful government spending that I think puts our

00:10:10.880 status as the global reserve currency at risk and that doesn't do enough to smartly respond to this virus

00:10:17.520 by protecting the vulnerable, distributing the vaccine, and then allowing resilient Americans to live free,

00:10:24.960 wonderful lives.

00:10:29.360 All eyes are on January 6th where the Congress will either accept the Electoral College vote or will

00:10:36.480 challenge some of the electors. The rules say that such a challenge has to be in writing and signed by

00:10:42.160 both a member of the House of Representatives and a Senator. What I could tell you from my behind 0.65

00:10:48.080 the scenes discussions with House members is that House members in Georgia, Wisconsin, Michigan,

00:10:55.200 Pennsylvania are elbowing each other out of the way for an opportunity to challenge these election

00:11:02.240 results based on irregularities and the evidence that we've seen in some of these state legislative hearings

00:11:09.440 regarding how the voting process deviated from law, how people took action outside of legislative

00:11:16.480 purview in changing the rules of the election. Well, we're also hearing word that Mitch McConnell has

00:11:23.520 warned Republican senators against joining Mo Brooks or Jody Heiss or Andy Biggs or any other number of House

00:11:31.200 members who might make such a challenge and there are rumblings out of that Senate meeting that there was no

00:11:37.040 pushback to McConnell. When McConnell said that senators should not join members of the House of

00:11:42.320 Representatives, that there was, you know, tacit, I guess, agreement to that. Mo Brooks, who's been really

00:11:49.680 leading the advocacy in favor of a challenge, has said that he hopes that's fake news. And again, I haven't

00:11:55.760 spoken to senators since this news broke. I'm reporting to you what the scuttlebutt is on Capitol Hill. Here's my hot take.

00:12:03.440 A Republican president has not been sworn in without an objection to electors in some form since 1989.

00:12:15.440 Meanwhile, I'm not aware of any circumstance since then when a Democrat president being sworn in has had

00:12:21.760 to face a challenge to electors. And, you know, when George W. Bush in 2004 was reelected over John Kerry and

00:12:28.160 there were questions about the state of Ohio. There was an objection in the House. It was joined,

00:12:34.800 I believe, by Senator Barbara Boxer in the Senate. And there were a few hours of debate followed by the

00:12:41.040 certification of the Electoral College. If we have debate and discussion about these irregularities,

00:12:47.920 if we utilize the Congress to try to actually solve problems regarding election integrity,

00:12:53.440 I think the union will hold. I don't think it's some grave attack on democracy to use a constitutional

00:12:59.600 process to create an objection, to have a reasonable debate based on the facts before us,

00:13:05.680 and to show the country what happened and then let the chips fall where they may. I don't agree

00:13:11.600 with Senator McConnell that it's a terrible thing for a senator to join a member of the House with

00:13:17.680 concern over election irregularities. Matter of fact, I hope one does. We'll continue to follow the story

00:13:23.680 and we'll continue our effort to recruit a senator. The Federal Trade Commission is finally flexing some

00:13:33.840 muscle with big tech and I'm here for it. I'm glad it's about time. We get the story from NPR. Amazon,

00:13:42.160 TikTok and Facebook, along with other tech platforms are ordered to explain what they do with user data.

00:13:49.920 They're demanding that nine social media and tech companies share details on how they harness the

00:13:54.800 data and what they do with the information. The companies have 45 days to respond to the Federal

00:14:00.480 Trade Commission's order. In a statement to NPR, one representative of a tech company said they take

00:14:07.120 user privacy very seriously and they look forward to answering the FTC's questions. Data is the new

00:14:14.080 currency in our world and oftentimes we're just giving it to these tech platforms without our consent,

00:14:21.440 without understanding how it's going to be used. And for some people there might be a total willingness

00:14:26.800 to share data, but it should be done with consent. It should be done with acknowledgement that goes

00:14:32.880 beyond the, you know, tiny little terms of service that everybody just scrolls through and accepts.

00:14:38.320 So I'm glad to see action from the Federal Trade Commission. We'll see what the answers are from the

00:14:43.280 tech companies in 45 days. Thanks for listening to Hot Takes. I'm Congressman Matt Gates. This podcast is

00:14:52.160 written, directed and produced by a team that includes myself, Luke Ball and Joel Valdez. Give us a hand,

00:14:59.360 subscribe, perhaps give us that five-star rating on iTunes or however you rate your podcasts on your

00:15:06.160 listening platform of choice and join us tomorrow for more Hot Takes.

The Anchormen Show with Matt Gaetz - December 16, 2020

Episode 151 – Mitch McConnell's Warning for Senate Republicans. Woketopian Panel Cancels Abe Lincoln. Lessons From Dippin' Dots on COVID-19 Vaccine Distribution.

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