In this episode of Firebrand, I discuss the latest in the ongoing saga of Rep. Matt Gaetz and his battle with the Deep State, Joe Biden's State of the Union address, and a report on an ally that might be misbehaving a little.
00:01:23.000I gave a big speech at CPAC laying out how Republicans should seize the opportunity of a majority
00:01:29.000to ensure that we get the power back that is necessary to start winning battles again for our people.
00:01:35.000I'll have that speech at the end of the episode.
00:01:37.000But first, there was another speech this week, the State of the Union address from Joe Biden.
00:01:44.000He promised a little bit of everything.
00:01:47.000That's why it's so important to pass the Bipartisan Innovation Act sitting in Congress
00:01:52.000that will make record investments in emerging technologies and American manufacturing.
00:01:57.000Let's pass the Paycheck Fairness Act in paid land.
00:02:01.000Raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour.
00:02:05.000We've provided free vaccines, treatments, tests, and masks.
00:02:10.000Of course, continuing, this costs money.
00:02:12.000So I'm not surprised you. I'll be back to see you all.
00:02:15.000We're giving more than a billion dollars of direct assistance to Ukraine.
00:02:18.00017 Nobel laureates in economics said my plan will ease long-term inflationary pressures.
00:02:24.000If government spending solved inflation, we would already have inflation kryptonite as a result of the Biden agenda.
00:02:32.000The reality is when the government prints more money, that results in that money being less valuable,
00:02:38.000being less worthy, having a different impact in the global marketplace.
00:02:43.000So these spending programs that are purported to be the free solution to all the cost challenges
00:02:48.000will really exacerbate higher gas bills, higher grocery bills, higher electric bills,
00:02:54.000and wages that don't compete in the Biden economy.
00:02:58.000The other thing Joe Biden does in this speech is he seems to regurgitate the elements of his agenda that have already failed.
00:03:05.000Politicians are supposed to make new promises,
00:03:08.000But instead, we heard Joe Biden talk about the elements of his Build Back Better agenda that couldn't even get 50 votes in the United States Senate controlled by Democrats.
00:03:19.000He calls it Build Back America instead of Build Back Better.
00:03:23.000Interesting to me that he was very careful to avoid the language that was quite literally the rallying cry of his presidential campaign.
00:03:31.000It does not bode well for this presidency going forward.
00:03:35.000The other thing that Joe Biden does is he lays out what he describes as the unity agenda.
00:03:54.000Increase funding for prevention, treatment, harm reduction and recovery.
00:03:59.000Get rid of outdated rules and stop doctors prescribing treatments.
00:04:07.000Now, I have a critique of both Republicans and Democrats here because we seem to judge how much we care about the opioid crisis based on how much money we spend on the opioid crisis.
00:04:19.000Not what the results are for people and not for nothing.
00:04:23.000But the main reason we have heroin problems, fentanyl problems.
00:04:30.000It's that these things are made or imported into Mexico.
00:04:34.000And then there is just a super highway into the towns and communities and cities all over our country.
00:04:40.000Joe Biden doesn't give a damn about the opioid crisis.
00:04:43.000And if he did, he would secure our borders.
00:04:46.000That brings us to the second element of the Biden unity agenda, mental health.
00:04:51.000Let's take on mental health, especially among our children whose lives and education have been turned upside down.
00:05:00.000And let's get all Americans the mental health services they need.
00:05:05.000More people can turn for help and full parity between physical and mental health care if we treat it that way in our insurance.
00:05:16.000Now, it's no surprise that mental health is an issue that's concerning a lot of Americans because the policies of the left, the policies of the Biden administration have done great damage to our collective mental health as a country.
00:05:30.000I have specific concern about young people who've been forced to wear masks and have seen their development limited in a lot of ways.
00:05:40.000Young people ought to be able to see another person's face to understand how their actions impact that person.
00:05:46.000What do we do that make other people happy?
00:05:48.000What do we do that make other people concerned or threatened or afraid?
00:05:53.000And that's how human beings grow to be more caring, to be more understanding of our fellow humans.
00:06:01.000So to hear him talk about mental health, it's quite something.
00:06:04.000Really, we ought to have legislation that allows people who've had their mental health severely impacted by the bad decisions of government officials to be able to go and sue those governments that put them and their families and their lives in worse shape.
00:06:21.000The third plank of Joe Biden's unity agenda, taking care of veterans.
00:06:25.000The third piece of that agenda is support our veterans.
00:06:30.000Veterans are the backbone and the spine of this country.
00:06:39.000I've always believed that we have a sacred obligation to equip those we send to war and care for those in their family when they come home.
00:06:48.000Now, this is, of course, a laudable goal.
00:07:25.000The veterans I know, you know, they used to talk about health care and the degree to which the VA was providing a whole array of services to them as the number one issue.
00:07:37.000But today, when I talk to veterans, they're most concerned about how wokeism is harming our active duty military today.
00:07:46.000Our veterans didn't wear the uniform to watch those who are currently embracing patriotic service driven out, being accused of white supremacy or extremism.
00:07:57.000The Department of Defense was one of the last bastions of the apparatus of the federal government, not entirely controlled by the left.
00:08:05.000And now I'm concerned that this focus on veterans is just yet another way to get vectors into the most patriotic Americans to try to change the way they view the world.
00:08:16.000We don't need that. We're proud of our veterans. We're proud of our active duty military.
00:08:20.000They shouldn't have been subjected to these mandates and certainly they shouldn't be subjected to the continuing harassment from elements of the Pentagon that would drive out anyone who doesn't think like they do.
00:08:32.000And fourth and last, let's end cancer as we know it. Last month, I announced the plan to supercharge the cancer moonshot that President Obama asked me to lead six years ago.
00:08:46.000Our goal is to cut cancer death rates by at least 50 percent over the next 25 years. I think we can do better than that.
00:08:53.000And again, this is a laudable goal. The question is, who is best positioned to fill the need?
00:08:59.000And while the federal government has a role and while certainly we have greater survivability in relation to the rest of the world regarding cancer as a consequence of government investment,
00:09:10.000we cannot have the policies of the Biden administration choke the private sector innovation and research that has been so consequential and so significant in helping the many, many millions of Americans who struggle with cancer and the family members who love them.
00:09:27.000This was this was this was very barely a state of the union.
00:09:31.000It was more like a state of denial. Joe Biden misses the fact that American families all over the country today are struggling.
00:09:39.000Inflation is killing them. Inflation is making it harder to pay the bills at the end of the month to build a family in the first place.
00:09:48.000That's what we must tackle. And we must have the discipline of conservative fiscal policy to do it.
00:09:58.000The whole world is focused on Russia and Ukraine and with good reason right now.
00:10:03.000I wrote a book on the subject in 2020. It's called Firebrand.
00:10:07.000And I observed various features about Russia that are very telling today and that show us the implications, the motivations, and I think the ultimate result on this increasing malign influence from the Russian Federation.
00:10:22.000Here's what I said in my book Firebrand in 2020. George W. Bush thought he could see into Putin's soul.
00:10:29.000Vladimir Putin, when you first met him, you said you got a sense of his soul.
00:10:34.000I looked in his eyes and saw his soul.
00:10:37.000And later you told him he was cold blooded.
00:15:47.000Now, the UAE sits on the powerful UN Security Council in a rotating position.
00:15:51.000They lobbied hard to get this valued opportunity to be center stage on the world stage.
00:15:58.000It is the Security Council that speaks on these important matters as they are evolving and their voice is critically relevant to countries all over the world and to operational capability of a variety of coalitions and alliances that can be built.
00:16:13.000But on the critical matter of condemning Russia for invading Ukraine, the UAE abstained.
00:16:25.000So, surprising to me, our committee hearing began with the Democrat chairman of the Armed Services Committee, Adam Smith, asking why we weren't doing enough to approve the sale of F-39s and MQ-9 Predator drones to the UAE even faster.
00:16:43.000I'm just wondering, how do we strike that balance?
00:16:46.000And I'm particularly focused on the UAE.
00:16:48.000The situation in Yemen is very, very complex.
00:16:52.000But at a minimum at this point, we have slow walked some of our weapons sales that were supposed to go to UAE because of those concerns.
00:17:03.000We saw that they were one of the countries that abstained in the vote against Russia.
00:17:10.000And if it doesn't come from us, they're going to go to Russia and China.
00:17:14.000How do we avoid losing those folks while we're concerned about what else they might be doing?
00:17:21.000When countries say that they're our allies and then they don't stand with us in times of need, it's just odd to think that we would use that as the opportunity to push the most sensitive military equipment in the world to them.
00:17:34.000Especially given how much we've already sent to the UAE.
00:17:38.000The conventional thinking is that if we sell other countries our military equipment, they will act more like us.
00:17:43.000They will work more closely with us and deepen partnerships.
00:19:16.000Like what's the time frame, the window of time that the State Department evaluates as like the essential window to get the UAE off the sidelines given their position on the Security Council?
00:19:26.000Do you think that this has to happen in the next week for it to be effective?
00:19:30.000Or do you think we can have sort of a long drawn out dance of the veils with the Emiratis?
00:19:36.000I think that as we look at this relationship with the Emiratis, as we do with all of our relationships with our partners, our allies and our friends,
00:19:44.000we have to both be able to work together on the critical security issues that we share and also raise concerns when we do have them.
00:20:15.000Earlier, I spoke at the Conservative Political Action Conference.
00:20:23.000My remarks got quite a bit of attention. I hope you enjoy.
00:20:27.000Thank you all so much for coming to hear me.
00:20:40.000My colleagues, Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, are having a conference at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. to talk about how real Republicans should behave.
00:20:57.000I'm glad to be here with all of you in the free state of Florida, because this is Donald Trump's party, and I'm a Donald Trump Republican.
00:21:50.000I was extorted by a former DOJ official. The FBI saw one of their own lawyers change evidence to frame President Trump before a secret court.
00:22:02.000They're cheating worse than the Russian figure skating team over there at the Hoover Building.
00:22:06.000And the CDC, they wanted the powers of the CIA and ended up with the credibility of CNN.
00:22:19.000Now, Joe Biden and even some who have taken this stage tell us that defending freedom in Ukraine has costs for Americans.
00:22:30.000First of all, costs are going up. So that should be a red flag right there.
00:22:35.000Also, what about freedom here in this country? What about our leaders actually standing up for freedom and liberty in America?
00:22:44.000Why should Americans have to pay the costs of freedom elsewhere when our own leaders stand up for our freedom here?
00:22:52.000And by the way, Washington spent your money and took your freedom away anyway.
00:22:57.000That's why we have higher costs and fewer choices today.
00:23:02.000But now you've got to foot the bill for Ukraine? Endure more pain?
00:23:07.000We still got pain from Afghanistan misadventures that we still have to deal with.
00:23:12.000I'm not for sending Americans to Ukraine.
00:24:18.000But the oversight shouldn't stop there.
00:24:21.000My vision for Republican control of Congress is every committee gets an investigation to run.
00:24:28.000The Armed Services Committee should be looking into the botched Afghanistan withdrawal.
00:24:32.000The Energy and Commerce Committee should break up big tech.
00:24:36.000The Agriculture Committee should stop big food from being consolidated under the power of the Chinese Communist Party.
00:24:42.000The Intelligence Committee should blow up FISA.
00:24:45.000The Judiciary Committee should stop the DOJ from targeting political opponents, whether they are parents, whether they are falsely labeled as extremists, or whether they are lawmakers engaged in the oversight of the Department of Justice.
00:25:04.000The Transportation Committee should not be debating whether or not roads and bridges are racist.
00:25:13.000They should solve supply chain issues.
00:30:29.000He'll be heading on to other professional and creative ventures, and we wanted to send our thanks, our appreciation for Mr. Burra's service,
00:30:37.000and we hope you all have enjoyed the show during his time here.
00:30:40.000We'll work to keep up that same level of quality, and we wish Vish the very best.