The Anchormen Show with Matt Gaetz - Episode 155 LIVE： McHat Trick： McConnell To Step Down – Firebrand with Matt Gaetz

00:00:00.000 Matt Gaetz, the biggest firebrand inside of the House of Representatives.

00:00:07.480 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. 1.00

00:00:20.200 I want to thank you, Matt Gaetz, for holding the line.

00:00:24.300 Matt Gaetz is a courageous man.

00:00:26.300 If we had hundreds of Matt Gaetz in D.C., the country turns around. It's that simple.

00:00:31.880 He's so tough, he's so strong, he's smart, and he loves this country. 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. It's choose your fighter time. Send in the firebrands. 1.00

00:00:48.560 One of life's most underappreciated talents is to know when it's time to move on to life's next chapter.

00:01:05.140 So I stand before you today, Mr. President, and my colleagues, to say this will be my last term as Republican leader of the Senate.

00:01:15.080 I'm not going anywhere anytime soon.

00:01:21.660 However, I'll complete my job my colleagues have given me until we select a new leader in November and they take the helm next January.

00:01:32.620 I'll finish the job the people of Kentucky hired me to do as well, albeit from a different seat.

00:01:44.140 And I'm actually looking forward to that.

00:01:49.200 Welcome back to Firebrand. We are live. Thank you so much for joining us.

00:01:52.880 We are simulcast streaming out of room 2021 of the Rayburn House Office Building here at the Capitol Complex in Washington, D.C.

00:01:59.900 A lot going on Capitol Hill today. We had Secretary Lloyd Austin before the Armed Services Committee.

00:02:05.540 Our exchange got a lot of attention online and throughout the halls of the Pentagon and Congress.

00:02:10.800 And we also had debate on a continuing resolution that ultimately passed.

00:02:15.420 That's deeply disappointing. Continues our nation's march toward decline.

00:02:19.620 But that was the farewell speech of the Republican leader in the United States Senate, Mitch McConnell.

00:02:24.940 And I guess we could say R.I.P. to the leadership tenure of Mitch McConnell in the Senate.

00:02:31.060 Mitch McConnell has finally encountered a situation that he cannot manipulate.

00:02:35.300 Time.

00:02:36.440 Many Republicans are quick to preach Mitch McConnell into heaven, citing his procedural victories like confirming Trump's judicial nominees and passing the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.

00:02:46.420 That was a policy win.

00:02:47.680 And I say fair enough.

00:02:48.860 I suppose if you've been in the Senate since 1985, you probably know your way around some of these matters.

00:02:55.360 Call me crazy.

00:02:56.160 I think that's doing the bare minimum as a Republican leader.

00:02:59.220 Mitch McConnell's real legacy is that he was missing in action when we needed him most and spent a lot of his time in the Senate putting special interests above American interests.

00:03:09.860 Real good at sloshing that special interest money around.

00:03:12.720 Totally different question leading us to the policy choices that are necessary.

00:03:16.720 Now, McConnell spared no expense, reaming through billions and billions of dollars for Ukraine without so much as a plan of action or a definition of victory.

00:03:25.360 Seems to be for a lot of the wars in the absence of some clear, definable objective.

00:03:30.580 So where was Mitch McConnell when our own borders were being overrun?

00:03:33.940 And frankly, where is he now?

00:03:35.560 Last time we saw him work on a legislative product, it was the Langford amnesty bill that was backstabbing to the people who want a secure border.

00:03:44.140 Fortunately, we put that to death.

00:03:46.160 Now, McConnell justifies Ukraine aid in perpetuity because the vast majority of the money is going to American defense contractors, according to his argument.

00:03:57.620 Now, I don't even know if that's true, but how unmasking regarding the influence the military-industrial complex has, particularly over the legislative leadership.

00:04:07.000 Where was Mitch McConnell when American patriots were being rounded up by a corrupt FBI for petty misdemeanors involving January 6th protests?

00:04:16.560 He was criticizing President Trump, actually.

00:04:19.640 And he was pointing the finger at Republican voters.

00:04:23.180 Now, we are lucky enough that Father Time isn't the only entity opposing Mitch McConnell.

00:04:28.460 Republican voters and America first senators and representatives, we've all been fighting him when he abandons Republican principles.

00:04:36.740 And without that work, Mitch McConnell would have probably been okay impeaching Donald Trump,

00:04:41.540 and he'd still be working to defend Ukraine's borders at the expense of our own.

00:04:47.780 Mitch knows this.

00:04:49.180 It's why he undermined America first Senate candidates throughout his tenure as leader.

00:04:54.300 And there's a reason Mitch is leaving this post in November.

00:04:58.000 He doesn't want a new Republican Senate majority in January to elect a new leader.

00:05:04.800 So he's going out like he came in, dancing with the one who brung him the swamp.

00:05:10.400 That's who Mitch McConnell served.

00:05:12.160 So the writing is on the wall.

00:05:13.640 Time for new conservative leadership in the Senate.

00:05:16.480 And really, I was talking to some senators today.

00:05:19.900 It's about what the Senate intends to actually do.

00:05:23.300 What are the goals of the Senate?

00:05:25.280 What is the battle plan?

00:05:27.880 And if you can get our Republican majority to agree on that, the leadership questions actually fall into place quite nicely.

00:05:33.920 Now, it's time for leadership in the Senate that reflects the will of the American people, the voters who send them there.

00:05:39.980 And those who will work with President Trump, I think, will be the ones who ought to rise to the top.

00:05:47.220 I don't know.

00:05:47.600 It's a pretty swampy system over there.

00:05:49.500 Swampiest nursing home in America.

00:05:51.000 At this stage of the game, we've ousted McCarthy, McDaniel, and now McConnell.

00:05:57.640 And my advice going forward is that the Republican leadership doesn't need to pick one of the Johns.

00:06:04.040 John Thune, John Cornyn, John Barrasso, they are all expected to make runs for leader.

00:06:10.700 Cornyn already announcing that.

00:06:12.180 He's the current whip.

00:06:13.000 And I think that there are going to be better options than the Johns, and I look forward to seeing those emerge very quickly. 0.99

00:06:21.280 So also wanted to update you on the Hunter Biden deposition that occurred this week.

00:06:27.540 I gave my perspective walking out.

00:06:29.820 Take a listen.

00:06:32.160 There were a number of interesting moments, but perhaps none more interesting than when Hunter Biden told us that he joined the Burisma board to counter Russian aggression.

00:06:41.960 I hadn't heard that one before, that thank goodness we had Hunter Biden on the Burisma board because that was central to his strategy to stand up to Vladimir Putin.

00:06:51.000 Has he taken the fifth at all?

00:06:52.060 No.

00:06:53.240 He's been responsive to questions.

00:06:54.960 Has he told you exactly what value he brought to any of these wars, any of these companies yet?

00:06:59.540 Have you guys asked him that?

00:07:00.540 We've asked those questions, and there is an illusory value.

00:07:04.820 It is a mirage to believe that Hunter Biden was engaged in international business.

00:07:09.900 This was a bribe masquerading as an international business transaction.

00:07:15.460 Have you seen evidence that the president was involved in his business dealings, Jeff?

00:07:19.160 I believe that you can actually bribe someone by paying their family members.

00:07:22.700 Like, I don't get this construct that unless Joe Biden himself received cash, that he somehow wasn't involved in the bribery operation.

00:07:30.680 Joe Biden was doing the bidding of Burisma.

00:07:33.860 He was doing the bidding of Chinese communists, and his family was getting enriched as a consequence. 0.95

00:07:38.800 To me, that's a pretty strong case for bribery.

00:07:42.860 We're back live, and I'm going through my notes from the Hunter Biden deposition, and let me distill all of it for you.

00:07:49.340 So, if Hunter Biden was getting paid, right, if there were wire transfers coming in from foreign oligarchs, foreign companies, corrupt foreign businesses,

00:08:03.000 well, that money was coming to him because he is a brilliant lawyer and a financial wizard and a connector, man about town in Washington,

00:08:13.160 and was just a high-performing, awesome guy who deserved every bid of the millions from China,

00:08:20.820 the million bucks a year to serve on the Burisma board, he was earning that money due to his merit, competence, diligence, and focus.

00:08:28.840 But if he was asking for money, and remember, when he was asking for money, that's when you saw the threats, the shakedowns, the references to his father.

00:08:42.940 That's when you saw the money laundering. 1.00

00:08:45.920 If he was asking for money, he was just a drug-addled fool. 0.99

00:08:49.620 So, getting paid, highly competent, effective, trying to get paid, well, you know, that was the crack talking. 0.98

00:08:56.080 And so, I asked Hunter Biden, and you'll see the transcript released either tonight or pretty soon tomorrow,

00:09:02.720 like, when are we supposed to know in these messages that you're sending and in these correspondence that you're engaged in,

00:09:09.020 when you're high and when you're not?

00:09:10.740 And he said, for me to even ask that question means I don't understand the fundamentals of addiction.

00:09:16.020 And that he ought to be able to absolve himself of any connection to the truth if he claims he was high.

00:09:24.320 But if he was getting paid, we're all just supposed to believe that wasn't a bribe.

00:09:28.440 But indeed, we know it was.

00:09:30.800 And while I don't believe this is going to manifest in some sort of impeachment of Joe Biden on these bribery charges in the House of Representatives,

00:09:38.620 that is because there is a difference of opinion among some Republicans as to what constitutes a bribe.

00:09:45.260 Again, to me, as I just said in that clip, if you want to influence some guy in their, like, 70s or 80s,

00:09:52.600 giving them the cash isn't necessarily the best way to even bribe them.

00:09:58.100 In a lot of cases, they're thinking that a lot of that money is going to end up going to the government in some sort of estate tax.

00:10:03.540 And so the movement of money to people's family members and children to try to shape their actions in government is, like, clearly a bribe to me.

00:10:16.880 It's so clear.

00:10:17.820 We put it in the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

00:10:19.980 Now, the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, that governs what Americans can do to try to shape governmental decisions elsewhere. 0.98

00:10:25.780 And so we say to our own citizens, you can't go bribe someone's crack-addicted kid or their ne'er-do-well spouse.

00:10:34.120 You can't go pay them to get a government official abroad to alter their behavior.

00:10:39.600 But we allow that here, apparently.

00:10:41.920 Or we may without an impeachment because we have some Republicans who, if the money isn't going directly to Joe, they're not going to be there on the vote.

00:10:49.540 So I'm telling you the truth, he deserves impeachment.

00:10:53.220 These were bribes, but they were bribes through family members.

00:10:57.000 And that threshold is going to be insufficient for some of my Republican colleagues.

00:11:01.700 And we will, of course, get no Democrat votes on these questions.

00:11:05.980 Today in the House Armed Services Committee, we had Secretary Lloyd Austin.

00:11:09.360 Now, you'll remember some time ago, Lloyd Austin just went AWOL and didn't tell the President of the United States or really even the broader national security apparatus of his incapacitation

00:11:23.800 because some cancer treatment that he had received had gone poorly.

00:11:27.560 He was bleeding.

00:11:28.100 He goes to the hospital.

00:11:29.280 He's incapacitated.

00:11:30.900 His military aides around him, with no civilian oversight, transfer his authorities to the deputy.

00:11:37.500 He wasn't even involved in that decision.

00:11:40.480 And we had him before the House Armed Services Committee today to answer questions.

00:11:44.000 Here's Armed Services Chairman Mike Rogers framing up the issue quite nicely.

00:11:50.240 Mr. Secretary, the reason we've asked you here today is not to discuss your health.

00:11:55.620 We're here today to determine why the President was not immediately informed of your incapacitation.

00:12:03.640 The timeline, as we understand it, is this.

00:12:07.500 On the evening of January 1st, Secretary Austin was transported to the hospital via ambulance for complications stemming from a surgical procedure he had on December 22nd.

00:12:18.000 On the afternoon of January 2nd, the Secretary's authorities were transferred to Deputy Secretary Hicks without her even being informed as to why.

00:12:29.580 On January 4th, three days after the Secretary's hospitalization, Deputy Secretary Hicks and the President were first informed that Secretary Austin was in the hospital.

00:12:40.080 On January 5th, Congress was informed of the Secretary's hospitalization.

00:12:45.380 It's totally unacceptable that it took three days to inform the President of the United States that the Secretary of Defense was in the hospital and not in control of the Pentagon.

00:12:57.740 Wars were raging in Ukraine and Israel, our ships were under fire in the Red Sea, and our bases were bracing for attack in Syria and Iraq.

00:13:10.980 But the Commander-in-Chief did not know that his Secretary of Defense was out of action.

00:13:16.260 Even the Deputy Secretary, the person to whom your powers were transferred, didn't know that you were in the hospital.

00:13:25.700 Our forces conducted a pre-authorized strike on the Iranian-backed militia in Iraq during this period.

00:13:32.000 Had something gone wrong with the strike, or worse, if there was an attack on the United States, precious time would have been wasted while the President sought in vain to find his Secretary of Defense.

00:13:44.980 The chain of command doesn't work when the Commander-in-Chief doesn't know who to call.

00:13:52.160 That's why we want to know who made the decision to withhold that information from the President.

00:14:00.940 And although you publicly stated you are solely responsible, you've also informed this committee that it wasn't you who decided to withhold the information from the President.

00:14:14.980 We were led to believe your 30-day internal review would shed light on that matter, but it includes no explanation of why the President and his staff were left in the dark.

00:14:30.760 It makes no recommendations to improve communication with the White House, and unsurprisingly, it holds nobody accountable.

00:14:41.160 We appreciate your desire to protect your subordinates, but it's important in democracy that public officials are held accountable when mistakes are made.

00:14:50.360 This administration has gone to great lengths to avoid accountability whenever possible.

00:14:56.880 But this is a matter of national security, and someone needs to be held accountable.

00:15:03.140 Furthermore, I find it very concerning that the Secretary could be hospitalized for three days without anyone else in the administration even noticing.

00:15:15.040 That suggests Secretary Austin's advice is not salt or heated in the White House, even while military operations were ongoing in the Middle East.

00:15:25.900 It also implies that the White House politicals, not seasoned defense professionals, are in the driver's seat on matters of national security, which is very disturbing.

00:15:37.600 Finally, beyond the immediate need to inform the President, Congress also has a right to know of secretarial absence or transfer of authority.

00:15:49.960 Ironically enough, none of this would have come to the attention if the White House hadn't demanded that the Department come clean to Congress and the public.

00:15:59.100 So, ultimately, our goal today is to understand how and why this happened so we can ensure it never happens again.

00:16:10.100 We're back live.

00:16:11.180 Jim on Facebook says he's a Trump supporter, and we need to leave Lloyd Austin alone.

00:16:16.420 He's battling cancer.

00:16:17.660 There was no harm.

00:16:18.920 We should have just had a quick meeting and dealt with it that way in the absence of bringing in for this testimony.

00:16:24.820 And I'm going to explain why I took a different tack than Jim on Facebook might suggest.

00:16:30.480 So, my staff pulls up for me this memo that Lloyd Austin writes, March 4th, 2021.

00:16:36.400 And it sets up the questions that I'm going to ask Lloyd Austin, then I'll show you in just a moment.

00:16:40.840 And it says in this memo,

00:16:41.840 And so, while I hope Lloyd Austin is successful in his battle against cancer, and I'm not overly nosy about people's private health circumstances,

00:17:06.980 there was a hypocrisy here regarding Lloyd Austin's actions that have destroyed lives, careers, families, marriages, in my community in Florida 1.

00:17:18.340 There was a hypocrisy that I had to point out.

00:17:21.400 Take a listen.

00:17:23.880 You didn't tell the president that you had cancer, that you were being treated for cancer,

00:17:28.640 or that the treatment for that cancer had gone wrong, because you saw it as personal and medical.

00:17:35.160 And I think a lot of us have empathy for you in that regard.

00:17:37.980 But now that you see how personal medical decisions are,

00:17:43.160 will you call for the re-recruitment, restoration of full rank and back pay for the 8,600 service members who were vax mandated out of the military?

00:17:56.160 No, I won't.

00:17:57.340 So, on March 4th, 2021, you authored a memo.

00:18:02.200 It was entitled, Message to the Force.

00:18:04.000 And in that memo, you said that there would be clear and swift accountability for anyone who didn't meet the highest standards of the Department of Defense.

00:18:13.240 Now, however this worked out, we all acknowledge that what you did here didn't meet the highest standards, right?

00:18:18.700 You made a mistake.

00:18:20.380 I admitted to.

00:18:21.400 Yeah, okay, so we got that.

00:18:22.140 So then the question is, what becomes the clear and swift accountability?

00:18:27.700 Now, you're not going to be discharged, right?

00:18:31.400 No?

00:18:32.060 That's right.

00:18:32.620 Okay, you're not going to be suspended.

00:18:34.460 You're not going to be demoted.

00:18:36.100 And you're not going to have your pay cut.

00:18:37.420 None of those things are going to happen to you, right?

00:18:39.180 That's right.

00:18:39.580 Okay, so you come here seeking some grace and some forgiveness.

00:18:45.360 And I want you to know that one of the service members, who you've ax mandated out of the military, sent me the parable of the unforgiving debtor.

00:18:53.560 And it's in the book of Matthew, verses 21 to 35.

00:18:58.860 The man fell down before his king and begged him, please be patient with me, and I will pay all the debt.

00:19:04.960 Then his master, filled with pity for him, released him, and forgave him of his debt.

00:19:12.600 But when the man left the king, he went to a fellow servant who owed him a few thousand dollars.

00:19:17.480 He grabbed him by the throat and demanded payment.

00:19:20.740 His fellow servant sat down and begged him for a little more time.

00:19:23.660 Be patient with me, and I will pay it, he pleaded.

00:19:26.660 But his creditor would not wait.

00:19:28.720 He had the man arrested and put in prison until the debt could be paid in full.

00:19:32.640 When some of the other servants saw this, they were very upset.

00:19:35.720 They went to the king and told him everything that had happened.

00:19:38.140 And the king called the man who had been forgiven and said,

00:19:41.260 You evil servant, I forgave you that tremendous debt because you pleaded with me.

00:19:46.300 Shouldn't you have mercy on your fellow servant, just as I had mercy on you?

00:19:51.840 Then the angry king sent the man to prison to be tortured until he had paid his entire debt.

00:19:58.300 Mr. Secretary, you come to us seeking forgiveness.

00:20:01.880 But you offer none.

00:20:03.940 And it seems as though the pattern is repeated.

00:20:07.340 You make a mistake, like on the vax mandate and here regarding your notification.

00:20:12.480 Then you get busted.

00:20:14.880 President Biden had to sign something into law reversing your vax mandate.

00:20:19.800 You got busted here, not because you came forward, but because we learned of this through other means.

00:20:24.260 And then after you get busted making a mistake, you want that benefit, but you don't want to extend it to others.

00:20:31.980 This isn't swift or clear.

00:20:34.120 You're not meeting your own standards that you set for yourself.

00:20:37.680 And you say that the DOD is a learning organization.

00:20:42.780 Haven't you learned yet that the military is weaker, not stronger, with the 8,600 people that you vax mandated out of the military?

00:20:52.300 Just one point, Congressman.

00:20:55.040 The reason I'm here is because the chairman requested that I appear to talk about the circumstances surrounding my hospitalization.

00:21:04.600 But don't you see the hypocrisy in it? 0.93

00:21:06.600 Because you screwed up, we fix your screw up, and now you want grace. 0.87

00:21:10.040 But these people who sought religious exemptions, they got no such grace. 0.92

00:21:14.300 And also, I just think it's ridiculous that we're in three wars.

00:21:17.380 You went AWOL for three days, and we get two hours with you.

00:21:20.780 If you can't spend more than two hours answering these questions, I don't know how you really operate in all these wars.

00:21:25.440 That was the House Armed Services Committee.

00:21:30.040 We also had debate and vote on the floor regarding yet another continuing resolution.

00:21:35.580 And frequent listeners to this program will know how much I loathe this.

00:21:40.320 I loathe it to my bones.

00:21:42.180 I know that the entire ecosystem that the corrupt swamp thrives off of demands that we just take one up or down vote on extending the funding of government or not.

00:21:54.880 And that's why we put things in the rules, like 72-hour provision to review single subject.

00:22:02.220 And you know what they did today?

00:22:04.360 They passed a continuing resolution by suspending the rules.

00:22:09.520 All of them just suspending the rules and putting it on the floor.

00:22:12.680 And they were able to do it because the uniparty allowed it. 0.58

00:22:15.720 Because the two-thirds, if you have two-thirds, if you have all the Democrats and a bunch of sellout Republicans,

00:22:22.180 then you know what?

00:22:22.800 You can do a whole lot.

00:22:23.580 You can blow through the rules that we're trying to put in place.

00:22:26.460 I debated against this continuing resolution on the floor today.

00:22:29.340 Take a listen.

00:22:32.120 Watching House Republicans is like watching a football team whose best play is the punt and the block.

00:22:40.720 I've tried to throw a few Hail Marys along the way.

00:22:43.740 And I'm glad that we blocked the bad Langford amnesty bill.

00:22:47.680 But we punted on needed FISA reforms.

00:22:50.340 We blocked the McConnell supplemental for now.

00:22:53.560 But we punt yet again on needed spending cuts.

00:22:57.900 We blocked additional aid and additional U.S. involvement in this war in Ukraine.

00:23:02.600 And indeed, we punted Kevin McCarthy, who authorized $115 billion to Ukraine.

00:23:08.060 But here we gather to punt yet again.

00:23:11.120 Last I checked, the Republicans actually have a majority in the House of Representatives.

00:23:16.120 But you wouldn't know it if you looked at our checkbook.

00:23:18.900 Because we are all too willing to continue the policy choices of Joe Biden and the spending levels of Nancy Pelosi,

00:23:26.680 instead of showing the will and the courage to say that this woke and weaponized government has to be defanged.

00:23:33.300 It has to be attacked.

00:23:34.340 It has to see reductions in spending.

00:23:36.360 And while many Americans have lived most of their lives not actually paying a price for the national debt,

00:23:42.780 because we are $34 trillion in debt, because we are on our way to $50 trillion in debt,

00:23:47.700 the Americans who work hard all over this country are seeing higher gas prices, higher grocery prices, higher interest rates.

00:23:55.240 And all we seem to offer is low energy and low tea in the face of those mounting challenges.

00:24:01.920 We ought to be rejecting this CR.

00:24:03.780 We ought to pass single subject spending bills.

00:24:06.340 And we ought to vote for the spending cuts that this country desperately needs.

00:24:09.460 I yield back.

00:24:12.020 We're back live.

00:24:13.220 We won that debate but lost the vote overwhelmingly.

00:24:15.900 I don't even think we got 100 Republicans voting against it, which, you know, when you got 200 plus,

00:24:22.580 you have to start by getting a majority of the majority.

00:24:25.140 And today, a majority of the majority voted for yet another continuing resolution,

00:24:30.460 continuing the Pelosi-Biden spending levels, the Pelosi-Biden policy choices.

00:24:36.720 People worked hard for this House majority, and we are not utilizing the leverage sufficient to meet the needs

00:24:43.880 and to stop some of the march to perdition that the Pelosi-Biden plan will take us down.

00:24:51.440 There's been much discussion all over the country regarding the tragic death of Lakin Riley.

00:24:56.200 This is someone who was murdered by an illegal immigrant who never should have been in this country. 1.00

00:25:02.440 I was moved when I saw the vigil today for Lakin Riley and the outpouring of support from folks who understand that this loss of life is absolutely preventable.

00:25:14.700 It's preventable if we stop the illegal immigration. 0.98

00:25:17.640 And people are waking up to it.

00:25:19.300 They're seeing in districts all over this country, from this community in Athens to my community,

00:25:26.780 where on this podcast we covered our constituent who was murdered, well, who was killed on a motorcycle

00:25:32.880 because an illegal immigrant was driving drunk, and that ended the life of someone who should still be with us today.

00:25:40.140 It is ripening, this question.

00:25:43.820 It is drawing from the deep amount of pain that the American people feel related to illegal immigration.

00:25:51.920 And when the Athens-Clarke County mayor, Mayor Gertz, addressed this issue, he got a sense of some of that anger.

00:26:00.800 Take a listen.

00:26:03.320 I've received many calls, many emails, many queries from the press in recent days about this notion of a sanctuary city,

00:26:10.800 and so I want to lay some things to rest here today.

00:26:13.820 This term, sanctuary city, doesn't have a sole legal or procedural definition.

00:26:19.540 You can look in Georgia statute, and you can find a clear definition for a unified government.

00:26:24.600 You can look in contractual language, and you can find out exactly what it means to be an SEC institution.

00:26:30.060 Sanctuary city doesn't track with either of those.

00:26:33.840 And so that term means different things to different people depending on the context of the discussion.

00:26:38.300 Many, many of the elements, many of the elements, we are here to listen, we are here to listen, there will be time for questions.

00:26:51.960 You are guilty and got blood on your head for this murder, sir.

00:26:56.880 Many of the aspects that are ascribed to sanctuary cities are things that are disallowed by Georgia law.

00:27:07.140 And we contribute a document every year to the Georgia Department of Audits indicating that we do not correspond to these definitions under state law.

00:27:17.600 Yes, you do.

00:27:18.480 And no policies have been adopted by the mayor and commission that have created sanctuary city status in Athens.

00:27:24.800 You need to resign.

00:27:26.280 One protocol that sometimes arises.

00:27:28.540 Resign now.

00:27:30.720 Resign.

00:27:31.300 You will allow this to happen, sir.

00:27:33.940 Yeah, it turns out people don't like it when you adopt sanctuary policies in drag. 0.94

00:27:41.800 You had this mayor defending some of the worst impulses of local governments to put their own citizens at risk, and he got an earful from some of those very citizens.

00:27:52.360 I want to give you an update now regarding some really bad stuff going on at the FCC.

00:27:56.360 Now, you might not think daily about the Federal Communications Commission, but they have a really important role regulating America's airwaves and the entire information battle space that is so critical to get good decisions to the forefront in a representative republic.

00:28:11.880 And we took note of a recent action by the FCC and the strong dissent from a conservative FCC commissioner, Brendan Carr.

00:28:20.800 So, Brendan Carr is objecting to this rule that the FCC has repeatedly tried to put into place that takes DEI policies to a dangerous extreme.

00:28:33.360 And I'm reading now from the dissent of Commissioner Carr on the adoption of this rule.

00:28:38.060 Today's FCC order takes two separate actions.

00:28:40.560 First, it reinstates the federal requirement that broadcasters file a document every year with the FCC that lists the race and gender of their employees.

00:28:51.780 In particular, the second part of today's order, the FCC decides that it will take this form with demographic data and publish it on a station-by-station basis,

00:29:01.440 meaning that the FCC will now post a race and gender scorecard for every TV and radio broadcast station in the country.

00:29:09.260 In doing so, the FCC caves to the demands of activist groups that have worked for years across different industries to persuade the federal government to obtain this data and publish it.

00:29:23.260 This type of data about individual businesses truly does not belong on the Internet.

00:29:28.700 And it's there as a precursor to the Chinese social credit score.

00:29:33.280 They want to give the corporate social credit score to every TV broadcast station and every radio broadcast station and make them list the race and gender of their employees?

00:29:45.060 This is crazy.

00:29:46.500 This is not the public purpose of our airwaves, and we are incredibly proud of this dissent.

00:29:51.320 The courts have struck down this attempted rule repeatedly, and we would encourage them to do so.

00:29:56.480 So, again, it's unconstitutional, un-American, and certainly deprives many Americans of equal protection if they're running these broadcast stations

00:30:07.440 and then being treated differently as a consequence of racial or gender-based makeup.

00:30:12.980 The vice president of the United States is always prone for some embarrassing comments that seem untethered from reality.

00:30:20.420 We heard one such comment regarding students being paid to engage in politics by the government.

00:30:27.620 Take a listen.

00:30:27.980 Under the federal work-study program, now allows students to get paid through federal work-study to register people and to be nonpartisan poll workers.

00:30:43.500 As we know, this is important for a number of reasons.

00:30:46.120 One, to engage our young leaders in this process and activate them.

00:30:52.200 You know, it always worries me when people in the government are paying folks to, I don't know, I just get the sense this is the modern incarnation of ACORN.

00:31:06.560 You remember ACORN, when they went and used a bunch of public money, ran it through a bunch of private entities,

00:31:13.260 and then they were trying to achieve a political outcome on the other end.

00:31:16.880 And it's just got that kind of flavor of it to me.

00:31:20.340 I'm often on Twitter spaces.

00:31:22.740 You can follow me at Matt Gaetz, and you'll be notified when we go on those.

00:31:27.520 It's usually in the evening, and there were just a couple comments I want to close the show out with.

00:31:32.300 Texas Trucker gave an update on Twitter spaces regarding these boycotts of loads into and out of New York

00:31:40.840 based on the crazy Letitia James effort to bankrupt President Trump, seize his assets, 1.00

00:31:46.160 and deprive him of due process, and really any process when what he was doing yielded no victim.

00:31:52.800 But the truckers have certainly reacted.

00:31:56.680 Take a listen.

00:31:59.520 Talk to me about how this boycott of deliveries and pickups in New York City came to be.

00:32:07.120 Like, how did you become aware of it?

00:32:08.900 How did it come together?

00:32:10.500 Give us a sense of how many people you think are participating and what the impact will be.

00:32:16.260 Because it's very interesting.

00:32:17.920 Yes, sir.

00:32:19.160 I can't tell you how many people are participating.

00:32:21.740 Here's what I can tell you.

00:32:23.280 I'm on the load board every day.

00:32:24.620 I am a small carrier.

00:32:25.880 I am an owner-operator.

00:32:27.180 I'm on the road every day.

00:32:28.720 I work every day.

00:32:30.480 And I run specifically spot freight.

00:32:32.760 This came out last week.

00:32:35.520 There was a bunch of truckers in a truck stop talking in Chicago.

00:32:38.880 One Ray come out with it.

00:32:40.560 If you ain't following that account, follow his account.

00:32:42.840 You have the real trucker, Jake.

00:32:45.920 You have the disrespected trucker, Taylor Built, myself, and others that have been pushing this

00:32:53.100 and putting information out that this is what we're doing.

00:32:56.480 How big it gets, I don't know.

00:32:58.260 I know we've had impact because I was sitting in Laredo, Texas on Thursday.

00:33:04.500 And, you know, I key in on the load board because I run specifically spot freight, day of spot.

00:33:10.900 Well, I've been seeing loads to New York from Laredo running about $4,500 a load.

00:33:17.140 Well, after this was announced and a couple days in, I've seen the rates jump from $4,500 to $6,500 a load.

00:33:24.520 So, you know you're having some impact.

00:33:26.180 And you see that in supply and demand.

00:33:29.120 The supply and demand affects the price of the loads.

00:33:32.540 So, I've seen that.

00:33:34.460 But also, we have access to tools on our load boards to see how many trucks are posted in the area

00:33:41.320 and how many loads are posted in the area.

00:33:43.860 So, when we started pushing this, what we've seen in New York and specifically was it was a cold blue.

00:33:52.040 It's got a scale that's blue to red.

00:33:54.540 Blue being cold, red being hot, of course.

00:33:58.820 Well, after a few days in, we started seeing New York go to an orange color, which means it's relatively hot.

00:34:06.080 It started, I've seen 6,100 trucks there in New York area, and there was 28,000 loads.

00:34:12.600 So, that tells a tale.

00:34:13.780 They can push back.

00:34:15.100 They can do what they want to.

00:34:16.680 But the tools we have and us being professionals out here about what we do and businessmen, we see it.

00:34:22.340 And they can say what they want to.

00:34:24.620 What we see is the truth because we're out here working.

00:34:27.560 But, you know, we could use the help getting this out because it has not been walked back.

00:34:31.440 We're moving on forward, and we're talking about D.C. as well and other places.

00:34:36.320 I mean, you know, the truckers are tired.

00:34:37.920 We're tired of it out here, man.

00:34:39.180 And we have the power, if we unite, to be able to be very impactful in this fight that we're all in.

00:34:45.420 So, y'all keep that in mind.

00:34:46.840 I see my good friend, Mr. Stevenson, down there, Punchbowl, I see Truth, Not Fiction Matter, my boy.

00:34:54.080 Great space, man.

00:34:55.120 And I'm going to kick back, and if you've got questions, I'll answer them.

00:34:58.700 There's no way we can know right now how impactful this is going to be.

00:35:01.980 But the louder we get and the more support we get for this, the more of an impact it will have.

00:35:06.960 And I'll park it there.

00:35:07.940 Thank y'all.

00:35:09.480 Thank you.

00:35:12.520 We love our truckers.

00:35:13.900 We're proud of them.

00:35:14.620 We appreciate their activism.

00:35:16.060 Apple Acres on X says, if you can't define what a woman is, how can you list a gender? 0.94

00:35:22.220 Good question.

00:35:22.940 411 True Solution on Getter says that quotas are anti-American.

00:35:26.580 I fully agree with that.

00:35:27.840 And Bruce on YouTube disagrees with Jim on Facebook, says Lloyd Austin undeniably has to be held accountable.

00:35:33.980 Before we get out of here, I do want you to hear a little bit of the reaction we got from Florida One on X Spaces.

00:35:39.000 Take a listen.

00:35:41.520 And the last thing I'll say, which I love you, Matt Gaetz.

00:35:43.980 You don't know this, but I have a house in Pensacola, and I support you as much as I possibly can.

00:35:48.600 I put my signs in my yard.

00:35:50.880 I don't care if renters are living in my house.

00:35:52.540 They always have a Matt Gaetz sign in front of it.

00:35:54.720 So listen, what we really want and what we're really seeing is the exposure of who's on our side that isn't on our side.

00:36:01.020 And it's happening.

00:36:02.040 And that is what is most important to me, is really exposing the people that aren't on your side that act like they are.

00:36:09.400 Actually, this is the season for that.

00:36:11.200 And first of all, thank you for the Pensacola love.

00:36:14.420 Nothing matters more to me than the viewpoint of my true and actual bosses, the people I work for, the people who pay taxes here and pay my salary.

00:36:22.540 So thank you for that.

00:36:25.780 Follow me at Matt Gaetz on X.

00:36:28.340 And, hey, you can ask a question directly when we get on the spaces.

00:36:31.740 You'll get notification.

00:36:32.620 Also, the best way to get notification regarding our Firebrand updates, download the Rumble app, turn the notifications on, allow that push notification to come through.

00:36:42.320 You'll get the very first update.

00:36:44.080 You'll get the news as it's happening from right here at our nation's capital in Washington, D.C.

00:36:47.800 Thank you all so much for joining us today.

00:36:50.580 Thank you for having my back.

00:36:52.220 Roll the credits.

00:37:17.800 Thank you.

The Anchormen Show with Matt Gaetz - February 29, 2024

Episode 155 LIVE： McHat Trick： McConnell To Step Down – Firebrand with Matt Gaetz

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