The Anchormen Show with Matt Gaetz

00:00:00.000 Welcome to Hot Takes. This is Congressman Matt Gaetz. Let's talk about the news.

00:00:20.420 The mayor of Washington, D.C., Mariel Bowser, has lost her mind. Katie Pavlich at townhall.com

00:00:28.240 has a piece up showing that the mayor is actually kicking the National Guard out of Washington,

00:00:34.700 D.C. Now, I've been up in our nation's capital doing some work in the Congress and some work

00:00:39.860 over at the White House with the president and his team, and I could tell you when one

00:00:43.640 of these chaos parades starts careening down the streets, you've got cars being smashed,

00:00:51.520 you've got cinder blocks being thrown, you've got bricks being handed out by some of the

00:00:56.860 organizers of these riots to try to create the most violent and the most dangerous

00:01:02.640 circumstances possible. I want the National Guard to be available in Washington, D.C. to

00:01:08.040 secure our capital. I think it's ridiculous that we would allow the world to see these

00:01:14.180 rioters and looters do so much damage where our country needs to show that we are functioning

00:01:21.480 and competent and able to meet the needs of our people. The fact that the D.C. mayor would

00:01:26.980 kick the National Guard functionally out of the city says a lot more about the extent to

00:01:32.720 which she's willing to virtue signal because she's auditioning for the vice presidency than

00:01:37.580 it does about the actual facts on the ground. The people deserve to be safe. Leaders have

00:01:43.840 an obligation to keep their people safe. And the National Guard doesn't pose any risk to

00:01:49.480 anyone. They're there to protect people. And I am grateful for the National Guard and the

00:01:54.600 Guardsmen and women who are willing to be on the front lines and ensure that we are restoring

00:01:59.800 order in our communities. We have no objection to peaceful protest. Peaceful protest is fundamental

00:02:05.660 to American society and our way of life. It's a founding principle, in fact, of our country.

00:02:10.920 But so is the notion of order and togetherness and society. Our National Guardsmen and women are

00:02:17.940 a valuable part of our society. They should be embraced and shame on the Washington, D.C.

00:02:23.060 mayor for standing against the security of her citizens and the strength of our great country.

00:02:31.040 The Buffalo Morning News' Mackie Becker, breaking news that I hope is not a sign of things to

00:02:37.320 come in our country. In the city of Buffalo, 57 of the riot officers resigned from the tactical unit.

00:02:45.000 They refused to participate. They refused to engage in that service to their city following an event

00:02:51.320 where a 75-year-old man was pushed to the ground by a riot officer, prompting tremendous social media

00:02:58.840 backlash against the folks who are willing to do this very intense, highly skilled riot control work.

00:03:05.720 And the story ends with the mayor of Buffalo saying that they're just not sure that the city will be safe

00:03:12.600 anymore. I sure hope that the trend we see in our country is not one of demonizing police who are

00:03:19.800 trying to maintain some semblance of law and order. How's life going to be in Buffalo when you don't have

00:03:26.200 the ability to ensure that people don't overrun your communities, burn down your businesses, and limit the

00:03:34.040 ability of people who might not be as physically strong to maintain their personal and physical security?

00:03:41.000 I stand with those who are willing to take on the extra challenge of serving in our law enforcement,

00:03:46.360 particularly those who join these specialized units. Obviously, in any profession, whether it's

00:03:53.000 members of Congress or lawyers or doctors or real estate agents or even police, you do have folks who

00:03:59.640 deviate from the norms and best practices, you do have bad apples. And obviously, we need systems in

00:04:05.000 place that can find those folks and hold them accountable. But when you start to have these

00:04:11.240 overgeneralized indictments of the institutions that keep us safe, when you have folks on the radical

00:04:17.800 left calling for the defunding of police, well, you get a real negative impact on the morale,

00:04:25.800 on the ability of our police officers to maintain that team-like unit and that edge that gives them

00:04:33.720 the, I think, the unique mindset to stand between those who would bring disorder to our communities

00:04:41.080 and those who simply want to live by the rules. So I am disappointed to see that things got so bad

00:04:47.000 that folks felt like they couldn't serve their city in this particular capacity. And I'm hopeful that we

00:04:52.440 do better to support those who are willing to support the weakest among us and protect us.

00:05:00.520 And if the police quit, if those with specialized training and dealing with riots and looting are

00:05:07.080 unwilling or unable to do their job, some have wondered whether or not the military would be a

00:05:12.680 last resort to ensure that our nation does not just descend into like Lord of the Flies. And Admiral

00:05:20.200 Mullen was on Fox News Sunday and gave an interesting quote to Chris Wallace. The use of our military,

00:05:25.720 the potential use of our military to fight our own people, to deploy in the streets and to use a phrase

00:05:34.200 that the secretary of defense used to dominate in the battle space. We have a military to fight our enemies,

00:05:42.440 not our own people. And our military should never be called to fight our own people as enemies of the

00:05:53.000 state. And that, quite frankly, for me, really tipped it over. Never be called to fight our people as

00:05:59.320 enemies of the state. But in fact, our military has been used when we've had to deal with local or state

00:06:07.080 governments that were not protecting people's rights. In 1957 and 1958, our military was used to

00:06:15.800 desegregate Little Rock schools. There was integration at the University of Alabama and at

00:06:21.160 Ole Miss in the early 60s, where our military was a feature of federal enforcement. In Selma, Alabama,

00:06:28.600 where my colleague John Lewis bravely marched for civil rights, the military was there to ensure that

00:06:35.160 there was not a total degradation of the safety and of the ability for people to be able to survive

00:06:44.120 this experience. And similarly, our shop owners and store owners, the people who want to be able to

00:06:50.680 walk the streets in their towns are seeing that their communities, their states, their municipalities

00:06:57.240 are not in every circumstance protecting them. It's not all that dissimilar to in the late 60s,

00:07:03.320 when in Detroit in 1967, in the Chicago riots in 1968, following Martin Luther King's assassination,

00:07:12.360 in the Washington riots following the Martin Luther King assassination, you saw a military presence

00:07:19.000 as a part of the federal response. But there have even been more recent circumstances where the military

00:07:26.760 has been used to ensure safety and security and tranquility in the homeland. In 1989, in the U.S. Virgin

00:07:34.840 Islands following Hurricane Hugo, the then President George H.W. Bush sent in the military to put down the

00:07:42.520 looting and the rioting that was occurring in the Virgin Islands. And in 1992, following the L.A. riots,

00:07:49.720 with the Rodney King just absolutely fever pitch animated racial tension, we saw the military as

00:07:59.560 a feature of that riot response. So the notion that this is somehow unprecedented that Admiral Mullen

00:08:06.280 shared on Fox News Sunday is one that seems to defy the record of history.

00:08:11.000 D.C. Mayor Mariel Bowser also designated an area leading up to the White House, Black Lives Matter

00:08:19.800 Square as part of the D.C. mural program. And surprisingly, the group of people that seem to be most upset

00:08:27.560 about this are the Black Lives Matter activists in Washington, D.C. That's right. They've come out and

00:08:34.120 called it a performative gesture. And then they've gone out to the mural and written on it their own

00:08:40.520 artwork where they've said, defund the police. And again, I've been telling you on the podcast,

00:08:46.840 defund the police is the actual true strategy of the left. It is what their work in Congress is leading

00:08:54.120 up to. It is what their advocacy groups are pushing for. It is what their funders are backing.

00:09:00.360 You know, we highlighted how George Soros was putting millions of dollars behind organizations

00:09:06.120 that were now officially adopting the messaging of defund the police. So Black Lives Matter

00:09:11.400 writes defund the police on the Black Lives Matter square designated by the Black female mayor,

00:09:19.720 Mariel Bowser. Martha Raddatz asks Mayor Bowser about this. And I mean, just listen to the interview.

00:09:26.280 You don't even know at the end of the interview whether or not Mayor Bowser is going to remove

00:09:31.800 defund the police from the mural or whether they are in fact adopting that into the mural.

00:09:37.560 She seems to equivocate, especially at the end and leave herself a lot of outs.

00:09:42.200 You mentioned this by honoring the Black Lives Matter movement with this

00:09:45.960 pavement mural and a street sign along the blocks leading up to the White House.

00:09:50.600 The Black Lives Matter DC organization called it a performative gesture. And now they've added the

00:09:56.520 words defund the police, which they say they fear you will now remove. Is that right?

00:10:02.680 We certainly are very proud of the DC mural that we commissioned in our Department of Public Works

00:10:09.880 and local artists installed. It is an affirmative piece of art, a centering piece of art,

00:10:17.880 where people from around the globe have called us and thanked us for acknowledging Black humanity

00:10:26.440 and Black lives in the most important city in the world. And we are very proud of that art.

00:10:32.600 But will you take out the part that says defund police?

00:10:36.200 Well, it's not a part of the mural and we certainly encourage expression.

00:10:40.600 And in other words, that will go away. You will paint over that.

00:10:43.720 I actually haven't even had an opportunity to review it, Martha.

00:10:47.800 Here's Washington DC Mayor Muriel Bowser astonishingly talking about American National

00:10:54.760 Guards men and women as invaders in Washington DC. Give me a break and I guess give it a listen.

00:11:01.240 What we saw last week was basically an invasion of our city. Active duty army troops moved from all

00:11:09.160 points around the country to threaten our autonomy. And what you saw, and I won't have it reduced to

00:11:16.760 a spat, was how I have to defend our taxpayers. And it's sad to say that we would have to defend

00:11:25.880 ourselves against federal forces. I'm pretty curious, like, is defund the police now officially

00:11:31.560 part of the Black Lives Matter movement? To accept the Black Lives Matter politics, do you also have

00:11:38.600 to accept defund the police? Is that the policy that they're really looking for? It seems so.

00:11:46.200 And it seems like the mayor of Washington DC is probably not going to stand up to him. We'll see if Congress will.

00:11:54.120 In what is perhaps the least surprising news of the day,

00:11:57.560 the cable television channel that purports to be a news network, but really isn't, MSNBC,

00:12:04.360 has gone full deep state. They've hired Lisa Page and Andrew Weissman to be part of their contributor

00:12:12.120 team. Now you'll remember who Lisa Page is. She was one of the FBI lovebirds, along with Peter Strzok,

00:12:18.360 who said that Donald Trump should lose the election 100 million to zero. They were part of the Hillary

00:12:24.760 Clinton email investigation that was a complete nightmare, a complete disaster. And then they

00:12:30.200 migrated over to investigate President Trump, all the while expressing their bias and their hatred,

00:12:36.680 not just for President Trump, but for the people who voted for him. And so you got Lisa Page that

00:12:42.280 joins the team. I guess Peter Strzok was not available. I mean, it would be it would be biased.

00:12:47.560 It would be full of lies. But it would be one hell of a television show to have like the lovebirds

00:12:52.440 together again. Maybe you could call their new MSNBC show The Insurance Policy or something like that.

00:12:59.400 But after Page and Strzok and Comey did all they could to damage democracy, you saw Andrew Weissman

00:13:06.440 pick up the baton as really one of the chief guys on the Mueller team. And I think we all know after

00:13:12.040 watching Robert Mueller that he wasn't really the one leading that team. I mean, he barely knew

00:13:18.040 up from down when he was giving testimony in the House Judiciary Committee. And so you had folks like

00:13:23.400 Weissman assemble a group of people who were in large part partisan Democrats who supported Hillary

00:13:31.800 Clinton. I think Andrew Weissman himself was like teary eyed and crying at the non victory victory party

00:13:39.560 for Hillary Clinton on election night. And so Weissman, despite the lack of evidence on Russian

00:13:45.800 collusion, really drove the train to try to cast a false story about obstruction of justice and smear

00:13:52.680 the president in the absence of evidence. And now MSNBC is going to give these folks the opportunity to

00:13:58.520 continue smearing the president and offering, I think, analysis that will be a disservice to their viewers.

00:14:05.880 How do you justify putting someone like Lisa Page on television when she has such contempt for the

00:14:12.680 very people who voted for Donald Trump? She and Peter Strzok joking back and forth about the smelly

00:14:18.520 Walmart Trump voters. Well, some of those smelly Walmart voters are the very folks who consume

00:14:25.160 cable television, probably not too much on MSNBC. But nonetheless, it just shows how the media elites

00:14:32.760 not only are disconnected from the viewers, they actually don't like them very much. And they're

00:14:38.520 willing to hire people who don't like the viewers under the veneer of the news. But really, it's just

00:14:45.000 trying to try to perpetuate a worldview that opposes this president and that tries to smear him because

00:14:51.240 they know they can't beat him in an actual election or a fair debate.

00:14:55.320 Over the weekend, the number three Republican in the House of Representatives, my colleague,

00:15:02.040 Liz Cheney, attacked President Trump for withdrawing a third of US troops from Germany.

00:15:09.960 The plan is to go from about 34,500 troops to under 25,000 troops. And Liz Cheney thinks that,

00:15:19.240 boy, anything less than that 34,500, she called it dangerous to be bringing our people and our money

00:15:26.520 back home from Germany. She said that we were abandoning our allies. I think Liz Cheney's been

00:15:32.600 in favor of like 10 out of the last three wars. I don't know if there's any place on the planet Earth

00:15:38.760 that Liz Cheney and her fellow neocons wouldn't want more troops and more trouble to create a need

00:15:47.080 for more troops and more spending in those places. I mean, Germany, of all of all places, I understand,

00:15:55.000 I guess, rhetorically why some of the neocons say, you know, well, we have to fight them over there so

00:16:00.920 we don't fight them over here when it comes to the Middle East. But do we really think that we need

00:16:06.040 like 34,500 troops in Germany, of all places? Who do we think is going to take over Germany?

00:16:14.520 Is it going to be the Russians? Are we back to this theory that the declining regional power in Russia

00:16:20.600 is somehow like, you know, about ready to roll tanks through the fields of Europe?

00:16:25.080 And if we're so worried about that, if we think that we've got to have like nearly 35,000 troops in

00:16:30.040 Germany to defend against Russia, why doesn't Germany seem so worried about that? I mean, heck,

00:16:35.160 you've got the Germans like playing footsies with the Russians all over the place on energy issues.

00:16:40.360 We're going to be able to have a strong position in Europe without having 35,000 troops in Germany.

00:16:46.600 Frankly, I think a lot of these European countries need to enhance their contributions to NATO.

00:16:51.640 They need to make more of an effort to provide for their own security and not always rely on

00:16:58.200 the US taxpayer. The US is not the world's policeman. We are not the world's piggy bank. We have to have

00:17:06.520 the capability to fight in any conflict and prevail with overwhelming success. We have to have the ability

00:17:14.520 to ensure that US lethality can reach every corner of the globe. But what we should not do is drain and

00:17:22.840 exhaust ourselves for the benefit of the military industrial complex or the perpetual war machine or

00:17:29.800 the politics of a neoconservative worldview that frankly, I think, you know, should go out of style.

00:17:36.200 I think the Trump presidency should represent the beginning of a new doctrine where when we find bullies

00:17:42.200 in the world, we punch the bully in the face, we give them a second thought about ever messing with

00:17:48.920 us again. And then we return home to take care of our people, to use our resources for our provision.

00:17:56.760 You know, we got a lot of nation building here to do in our country. And I think there are some of

00:18:01.800 the neocons who think that the way you deal with a bully is not to punch them in the face and return home,

00:18:08.280 but to like move in with them in their home for 20 years and to engage in some quixotic effort

00:18:14.840 to realign their worldview. That's not the Trump doctrine. That's not how I see the world.

00:18:20.040 And I think that Liz Cheney was very misplaced to criticize the president for an America first

00:18:26.200 foreign policy in Germany. Late night comedian and television host Bill Maher has apparently taken

00:18:35.160 on the function of Antifa PR spokesperson. He has criticized what Tom Cotton and I have said,

00:18:45.240 attacking Antifa, calling for justice, reflecting on the need to treat the threat of Antifa just as

00:18:52.120 serious as we would any other threat from any other terrorist organization that tries to achieve

00:18:59.480 their politics through fear and damage to others. Here's Bill Maher's clip attacking Tom Cotton and yours

00:19:07.640 truly. Let me quote Tom Cotton. He's a senator. He went to Harvard. He's a real person. He said,

00:19:13.240 let's see how tough these Antifa terrorists, they're terrorists now, are when facing the 101st Airborne.

00:19:20.280 He's running the 101st Airborne out there as a talking board. Matt Getz, you know, this guy,

00:19:25.320 that congressman from Florida, always looks like he's saying, eat it, nerd. He says, now that we can

00:19:31.880 clearly see Antifa as terrorists, can we hunt them down like we do those in the Middle East?

00:19:37.000 So first, let me make very clear to Bill Maher and everyone else listening. I was never the person

00:19:42.520 picking on the nerds. I am the nerd. I was the captain of the high school debate team. You don't

00:19:48.840 find a lot of bullies on the debate team. I've got over 20 hours of high school debate camp experience,

00:19:56.280 Mr. Maher. And I tell you what, if you need me to prove how much of a nerd I am,

00:20:00.760 invite me on your show. I'd love to come on. And by the way, if I was on Bill Maher's show,

00:20:06.600 I would be more than capable pointing out the circumstances in which Antifa has damaged our

00:20:12.280 communities. And they absolutely deserve to be hunted down with the full force and effect of

00:20:19.000 our government. I mean, what's the point of designating an Antifa entity as a terrorist

00:20:24.280 organization if you aren't willing to actually enforce the laws and bring them to justice?

00:20:28.760 Let's hunt down Antifa. Let's use our government to do so. And let's see if I can get an invitation from

00:20:34.680 Bill Maher to come and be on the show. I'd enjoy it. Thanks so much for listening to Hot Takes with Matt

00:20:40.920 Gates. Really appreciate it if you'd leave us a review or rating. Let us know if you like the show.

00:20:46.280 We'll be back tomorrow with more Hot Takes.

Episode 20 - Woketopia, Defund the Police is Ludicrous, DC Mayor v. Trump, No More Forever Wars

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