The Anchormen Show with Matt Gaetz - Episode 27 - COVID Toilet Plumes. India-China Fighting. Police Reform Markup Highlights.

00:00:00.000 You ever watch this guy on television? You all were not telling the truth and you should not

00:00:06.160 be trusted. Congressman Matt Gaetz, thank you for what you did for your country tonight.

00:00:09.340 Be offended with the Democratic whip, not House of Republicans. Like a machine, Matt Gaetz.

00:00:15.980 Welcome to Hot Takes. This is Congressman Matt Gaetz. Let's talk about the news.

00:00:20.420 Coronavirus-filled toilet plumes. That's in the news. The New York Times' Nouvelle Chique

00:00:26.420 with a report today that details a study showing that coronavirus can actually spread in public

00:00:33.820 bathrooms. That when you flush the toilet, apparently there is a three-foot-tall geyser 0.87

00:00:41.040 of aerosols that erupt into the air and actually can spread coronavirus from what one person has

00:00:49.120 deposited into the toilet into an adjoining stall as a consequence of the flushing.

00:00:55.200 So I know a lot of us have been thinking about different ways that life might change following

00:01:00.500 coronavirus, but the public bathroom experience just might be one of them.

00:01:07.680 China and India are seeing rising tensions on their border in the Himalayan mountains.

00:01:13.900 These are countries with two of the largest armies in the world. They are nuclear powers.

00:01:19.760 There's a report out from BBC News. Really everyone has it, but this is a great report. We'll throw it

00:01:25.140 up on social media that's got some of the maps showing this particular Galwan Valley.

00:01:32.740 And it seems as though this conflict is not expressly driven by what's going on in the Himalayas

00:01:39.340 as much as China's changing posture with their neighbors and throughout the region.

00:01:44.440 As we know, China is becoming more aggressive in the South China Sea.

00:01:48.220 They are utilizing their control over the marketplace more to put leverage on Southeast Asian countries 0.95

00:01:55.560 economically. And you see with India more development in this area. Modi was part of

00:02:03.060 constructing this road into the Himalayas that China views as a threat because they see that

00:02:08.340 India could move materiel personnel to the area very rapidly and there has been an escalation.

00:02:14.980 So originally in the reporting, we saw claims that three Indian soldiers had died with China

00:02:22.020 taking casualties as well. Now that number looks like 20 Indians were fatally wounded in this

00:02:30.440 conflict. And it's unclear at this point how many Chinese were, but there is no doubt that you're 1.00

00:02:36.260 going to see rising anti-Chinese sentiment in India. Right now, Prime Minister Modi is having to deal

00:02:42.660 with a pretty extensive coronavirus crisis in this country as well. As we know, India and Pakistan

00:02:49.060 have seen some of their territorial flare-ups emerging in the Kashmir. And so we're going to

00:02:54.620 watch this situation very closely. But again, I can't say that it's specifically a consequence of

00:03:00.500 this area in the Himalayas where historically there's been poor marking of borders. There have been

00:03:08.320 territorial disputes, I guess it's an area with ice caps and rivers that mark the boundary and as a

00:03:14.380 consequence of the geography and the hydrology, those rivers and ice caps shift and change, which can

00:03:22.400 create some resentment. And if there's a hot take here, it's the value of borders, clearly defined borders.

00:03:30.320 They don't just help show where one country begins and one country ends. They also show where good

00:03:36.780 ideas begin and end. That's why our country needs to prioritize our border to a greater extent. But

00:03:43.200 right now with India and China, we'd love to see de-escalation and we'd love to see China as a better 1.00

00:03:49.140 neighbor, both with India and with other countries in the region. The big tech tyranny continues now with

00:03:58.160 Google looking to demonetize the Federalist. The Federalist is a fantastic news organization.

00:04:06.800 It's where Molly Hemingway works. It's where Professor Margot Cleveland writes. And I can tell you

00:04:12.700 that the Federalist was essential in the Russia hoax, breaking big stories, providing critical analysis.

00:04:20.880 The Margot Cleveland piece on the double bind that Mueller was in regarding Russia's foreign

00:04:28.720 interference in this election on behalf of Hillary Clinton and the DNC entanglement in that and his

00:04:35.080 refusal to investigate this collusion on the other side of the 2016 presidential election was beautifully

00:04:42.800 presented by Margot Cleveland. And in the days leading up to the Mueller testimony, that piece was

00:04:49.740 really a central guiding document in how I crafted my questions. I'm actually going to post up on social

00:04:56.620 media Margot Cleveland's piece on the Mueller double bind and the Democrats collusion with Russia

00:05:04.220 to really undermine our democracy. And so now you see Google engaging in this new form of big tech

00:05:13.340 tyranny. It used to just be maybe a reduction in your search results, moving people away from your

00:05:23.100 content and your platform. But now Google is becoming a lot more aggressive in their efforts to silence

00:05:31.260 conservatives. And in this particular circumstance, if you are unable to generate ad revenue from your

00:05:37.660 website, you have no website, you have no business, just an enormous amount of Google's, or I should say

00:05:45.260 the ad revenue on the internet is driven by Google and pushed through Google. So in the coming weeks, the

00:05:51.900 antitrust subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee is going to be putting out a big report on

00:05:57.420 the way that digital platforms utilize their market power to hurt people. And we have antitrust laws in

00:06:05.260 this country for a reason. I think we ought to use those antitrust laws. I think we ought to crack down

00:06:12.060 on some of these tech platforms that are not fair to people. Here's Tucker Carlson's analysis from last

00:06:18.380 night regarding big tech and the harm they're doing to our country.

00:06:21.740 In all of human history, no single entity has ever had more control over information than Google does

00:06:28.460 right now. So if you're worried about the concentration of power in the hands of a few

00:06:32.940 unaccountable actors, and you very much should be, nobody has more unchecked power than Google does.

00:06:40.060 This afternoon, NBC News decided to use some of Google's power to shut down a couple of its

00:06:44.780 competitors. Power is useful for that. An NBC employee called Adele Macomo Frazier forwarded

00:06:51.020 Google executives, a screed from a left-wing activist group in England denouncing two sites,

00:06:56.460 Zero Hedge and The Federalist, as, quote, racist. Google immediately took the bait, of course. The

00:07:02.060 company threatened to ban both news organizations from Google's ad platform. In other words, to cut

00:07:06.940 off their revenue. Thanks to Congress, Google does have immunity. And that's one of the main reasons

00:07:12.060 that Google's founders are some of the richest and most powerful people in the world,

00:07:16.220 because Congress allowed them to be. Senator Josh Hawley pointed this out today. Let's hope he and

00:07:21.820 his colleagues act soon to revoke this privilege. If Google will not extend 230 protections to others,

00:07:28.300 Google should not enjoy those protections itself, obviously. And so our friends at The Federalist are

00:07:32.700 fighting back. I hope you'll visit their website. I hope that you'll review their content and share it,

00:07:37.980 because what the left is starting to realize is that if we all put out the truth, if we work together

00:07:45.420 to amplify the truth, if we invite the country to participate in that discussion and review the

00:07:51.180 evidence, well, then we have a very compelling case to make. And we have a very high probability of

00:07:57.260 victory, not only in politics and elections, but on the public policy causes that we care about to

00:08:03.100 improve the family, improve the country, to push back against all this effort to demonize America

00:08:08.780 and make us believe that America is somehow a racist, terrible nation. That's absurd. This 0.93

00:08:14.540 is the greatest nation that has ever existed. No apologies. Now let's make sure that the folks out

00:08:20.220 in Silicon Valley are not able to redefine the political debate and redefine the truth. I believe

00:08:26.540 that today there will be new legislation introduced in the Senate by Senator Tom Cotton, Senator Josh

00:08:34.540 Hawley, and Senator Marco Rubio. Three fantastic senators, three people I know and have worked with,

00:08:40.300 and wait till you see the legislation today regarding Section 230 that they're unleashing.

00:08:46.540 Maybe I'll sponsor that and introduce it over in the House, but it's a good sign that we're getting

00:08:51.020 our Senate engaged because if we do not win this fight over cancel culture, over shadow banning,

00:08:57.100 over demonetizing conservative places on the internet, then there is no future for the conservative

00:09:04.300 movement for young people. And I believe that we'll win the argument. We just have to have a chance at

00:09:10.060 a fair debate. That's what America is founded on. And I'm excited about the fact that we're going to start

00:09:15.580 demanding that fairness and that equity to vindicate the rights of people to speak their mind and to

00:09:21.580 engage in productive dialogue. Today, the House Judiciary Committee took up the Democrats bill on

00:09:29.420 policing reform. Here's Republican lead Jim Jordan making the Republican case to stand with the police.

00:09:35.660 The vast majority of police officers do a great job. They risk their lives every single day to protect

00:09:41.580 our communities. They're the individuals who rushed into the Twin Towers on 9-11. They're the individuals

00:09:47.340 here on Capitol Hill who protect us every single day. They're the guys back in our back in our communities

00:09:55.820 who put on that uniform every single shift and risk their lives. And we should remember that as we

00:09:59.900 develop policy here in the Judiciary Committee. And finally, fourth, defunding the police, dismantling

00:10:06.060 police departments is one of the craziest public policy proposals I have ever heard.

00:10:10.860 Law enforcement do so many great things in our communities. Here's my effort to try to balance

00:10:16.860 the needs of a community to have faith and confidence in law enforcement with the safety

00:10:21.740 and effectiveness of our law enforcement officers. If the overall theme is to keep police engaged and

00:10:28.060 proactive in their communities, you're going to find the president and Republicans in Congress very

00:10:33.180 willing to work with the Democrat majority in the House on those issues. However, if the goal is to keep

00:10:39.340 the cop in the car, if the goal is to have police so stripped of all immunities, so deprived of all

00:10:46.540 of the use of force that they might need to preserve their own lives, if the goal is to have police

00:10:53.820 essentially on a level playing field with cartels and criminals when it comes to their equipment,

00:11:00.780 then we would be unable to support that. Because that would be the manifestation of an effort to defund,

00:11:07.420 dismantle, and demoralize the police, not an effort to improve the police. We want to reform, we want to

00:11:14.140 improve, we want to work together, and we hope our Democrat colleagues will take this amendment and others

00:11:19.260 that are offered in good faith and that you'll speak out against the dangerous efforts to demoralize

00:11:24.860 those who are serving us. The debate got a little heated with Democrats at times. Here's a little bit

00:11:28.700 of that sound. I would yield to any of my colleagues on the Republican side who can unequivocally say,

00:11:34.620 as we calibrate where we are right now, that black lives matter.

00:11:40.780 Thank the gentleman for yielding. Does the gentleman believe that all lives matter

00:11:43.820 matter as well? I think black lives matter. I think all lives matter. Reclaiming my time.

00:11:48.140 Can anyone on the Republican side say unequivocally, black lives matter?

00:11:53.420 Unequivocally, all lives matter. Why is that a problem to acknowledge? Reclaiming my time.

00:11:57.900 Will the gentleman, you? In jobs. In education. Will the gentleman, you?

00:12:02.700 Black lives matter. I'm sad to say no one on the other side will say it.

00:12:05.660 Black lives do matter unequivocally. Black lives do matter. Every life is precious,

00:12:13.100 God-given, and black lives matter.

00:12:17.980 Is the science of America polluted by China and other foreign interests? We see our colleagues in 0.99

00:12:24.380 the Congress focus so much on foreign interference in elections. But what about foreign interference in

00:12:30.620 science itself? And in the advice we get from our public health officials? There is a really

00:12:36.940 explosive piece of journalism in ScienceMag.org by Jeffrey Mervis. And in the ScienceMag.org piece,

00:12:45.420 there is reporting that 54 scientists at the National Institute of Health have been removed from their

00:12:52.860 jobs. 93% refuse to disclose their relationship with China. There are 285 active grants totaling $164

00:13:05.420 million that could be impacted by these terminations and the work of these scientists. And in 5% of the

00:13:14.860 cases, even the peer review process appears to be impacted. Now, again, that doesn't sound huge,

00:13:22.060 but I mean, look, if 5% of the advice that you got from public health officials over the last few

00:13:29.100 months was bogus or informed by a desire to serve another country, that's still a substantial amount.

00:13:36.220 And again, that peer review process is the mechanism by which we ensure that the work that's going on

00:13:42.700 absolutely is accurate and that it can result in sound public policy choices by lawmakers. So I'm

00:13:49.340 always deeply troubled when we see just how insidious and how determined some of our adversaries are to

00:13:56.220 impact our country. I think a lot of them try to prey on our weakness and try to utilize our openness

00:14:03.580 as a vulnerability. And it's one of the reasons why we've got to remain diligent in our fight against

00:14:08.700 China. I don't know why we are allowing Chinese students to come into this country and study some of the 1.00

00:14:16.940 the most sensitive, you know, rocket propulsion, physics, nuclear science, and then return back to

00:14:25.420 the CCP and to the other allies of China, like North Korea to create problems in the world. 0.78

00:14:32.380 The American education system should not be used against our country. And too often,

00:14:39.180 the colleges are in on it. The colleges and universities love getting this money from China.

00:14:44.460 They love sending their professors to China to study and get all kinds of perks. They love having Chinese 1.00

00:14:52.060 associated or loosely affiliated entities fund endowed professorships. And now we see what the end

00:14:58.860 result is we end up with scientists in our own government that have these links that have to

00:15:04.460 be terminated. And it really calls into question whether or not the infrastructure of American public

00:15:11.100 health is truly serving Americans. I think there's legislation introduced by Senator Rubio and others

00:15:19.260 to try to impact the extent to which our country is resilient against this new offensive threat from China. 0.98

00:15:27.100 Senator Tom Cotton spoke recently in the media about the types of education platforms that

00:15:33.820 potentially should be restricted. It's a scandal to me that we have trained so many of the Chinese 1.00

00:15:38.780 Communist Party's brightest minds to go back to China to compete for our jobs, to take our business, 0.92

00:15:45.500 and ultimately to steal our property and design weapons and other devices that can be used against

00:15:51.900 the American people. So I think we need to take a very hard look at the visas that we give to Chinese 1.00

00:15:57.340 nationals to come to the United States to study, especially at the postgraduate level in advanced

00:16:02.940 scientific and technological fields. You know, if Chinese students want to come here and study

00:16:07.820 Shakespeare and the Federalist Papers, that's what they need to learn from America. They don't need to

00:16:11.660 learn quantum computing and artificial intelligence from America. Thank you, Senator Cotton,

00:16:15.820 for raising this issue. I think the political correctness police are likely to descend at any

00:16:21.100 moment. But putting America first means putting American science first, and it means not allowing

00:16:28.300 our scientists or universities or research entities to be sold out to the highest bidder.

00:16:33.820 Retail is on the rise in the American economy. Apple News' Abra Batrani and Rachel Siegel reporting that

00:16:45.020 retail sales spiked almost 18% in May. Now, they went down close to 9% in April. They went down close to 15%

00:16:55.740 in March. So a rebound in retail is fantastic to see. I think it's a leading indicator for the economy

00:17:03.100 because I think that if people are spending, that shows consumer confidence, a belief that there

00:17:09.260 will be some semblance of normal returned. Obviously, we've got major problems with the unemployment rate.

00:17:16.140 We've got to get people onboarded back to jobs. I think our Republican senators who've pointed out

00:17:21.980 this bizarre disincentive where people are making more, in some cases, on unemployment than they would

00:17:27.820 had they taken their job back. That's got to be fixed. But consumer spending drives about 70%

00:17:36.060 of America's economy. And so with more of that occurring, I think you start to help on the jobs

00:17:42.140 numbers. You start to help on the investment numbers. In all, consumers spent $485 billion in May

00:17:51.900 on retail goods, groceries, and gas. And 17% of sales, about $86.4 billion were purchased online.

00:17:59.900 So still a lot of e-commerce, but as people get out and engage in retail in person, we think that

00:18:07.180 that you could even see those ratios shift further. So let's hope that we can get this great economy

00:18:12.780 that President Trump built back on track. And let's hope that rising retail sales,

00:18:18.220 rising consumer confidence is an important leading indicator.

00:18:22.380 Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed the show, make sure to subscribe so that you get

00:18:26.140 updates with daily episodes. Give us a rating and a review. Let us know what you think.

00:18:31.900 I'll be on tomorrow to let you know what I think with more hot takes.

The Anchormen Show with Matt Gaetz - June 17, 2020

Episode 27 - COVID Toilet Plumes. India-China Fighting. Police Reform Markup Highlights.

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