The Anchormen Show with Matt Gaetz - Episode 6 - Camp David Revelations, NAS Pensacola Shooter's al Qaeda ties, and Chinese Drones

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

00:00:21.520 Monday. I've returned back to Washington too. I spent the weekend with several of my congressional

00:00:26.800 colleagues and the president out at Camp David, and so I'm eager to share with you my perspectives

00:00:31.760 from that weekend. But we return to our nation's capital with news from the attorney general and

00:00:37.140 the FBI director regarding something very important to my constituents in Northwest Florida, and that

00:00:42.660 is the terrorist attack that occurred at NAS Pensacola last year. Brave service members,

00:00:49.800 Mohammed Hayotham, Joseph Watson, Cameron Walters, my constituents who perished as a consequence of

00:00:57.640 an attack by a uniformed Saudi Arabian officer who was engaged in aviation training in Pensacola

00:01:06.160 and who shot and killed those three brave U.S. service members, wounding others as well. Ultimately,

00:01:14.000 the shooter was killed by Escambia County Sheriff's Office, but we had just harrowing stories of

00:01:21.460 sailors who were running into the fight, even without weapons, to try to do everything they could

00:01:27.420 to be supportive of those who were in need. It was particularly important at the time of this

00:01:34.920 shooting to note that the shooter disengaged from the gunfight with Escambia County Sheriff's

00:01:42.640 officers to shoot through his cellular phone and communication devices. That, to me, was a tell.

00:01:52.640 And you may remember at the time, I was on the front end of saying that this was not a circumstance

00:01:59.160 of workplace violence. You'll remember there were some in the media saying, well, maybe it's not that

00:02:05.960 this Saudi officer was radicalized. Maybe it was that he got angry with his instructor. Maybe he was

00:02:14.280 just mentally ill himself. And I think there were circumstances where people were trying to 0.50

00:02:20.920 de-emphasize the extent to which terrorists and terrorism were motivating, animating, directing,

00:02:27.960 this act of violence. But given the fact that the phone was shot, given the fact that there were other

00:02:37.240 Saudi students who were apprehended recording elements of the response to this attack, given the fact that

00:02:46.040 the shooter hosted a dinner directly before he engaged in this morning attack the night before and had folks over,

00:02:53.960 you know, I just don't believe that this guy was hosted a dinner with the Saudi Arabia buddies and didn't

00:02:58.920 bring up the fact that he was going to shoot up the place the next day. And particularly given the news

00:03:05.640 we now have. So I was one of the first to say this was an act of terrorism. This was not a murder.

00:03:11.160 Here's my report from the day of the shooting. If this were a murder, it would typically be investigated by

00:03:16.680 NCIS. I've spent time at the NCIS installation on NAS Pensacola. We have very talented professionals

00:03:25.160 there. But this was not a murder. This was an act of terrorism. And as we speak, the investigation is

00:03:32.840 being handed over from the NCIS to the FBI. That is the signal that this will now be treated by our

00:03:40.440 government as an act of terrorism, not a murder. And in the hours and days following this shooting,

00:03:46.440 there was a lot of question about our policy towards Saudi Arabia, whether or not we needed

00:03:51.480 to reorient it. Here's some of the policy discussion I had following the Pensacola shooting

00:03:55.960 several months ago on Tucker Carlson tonight. Is it time for us on the basis of this and other

00:04:00.280 facts to reevaluate our relationship with Saudi Arabia? The first thing we need to do is join Governor

00:04:05.480 DeSantis' call for the kingdom to step up for the victims. The second thing we need to do is what

00:04:10.520 Senator Graham and I will be calling for. And that is an immediate suspension of the program wherein

00:04:15.480 we bring Saudis here to the United States without sufficient vetting to stop something like this. 1.00

00:04:21.560 And then we put ourselves at risk. And then absolutely we need to support the FBI's investigation

00:04:27.640 and not allow anything to impair it. But at some point, we've got to look at this relationship

00:04:32.120 more broadly, Tucker, and wonder how much from Saudi Arabia are we willing to take?

00:04:36.040 So the news today we get from the attorney general and the FBI director is that this,

00:04:41.320 in fact, was a premeditated, meticulous terrorist attack with planning that had gone all the way back

00:04:48.760 to 2015. You'll remember that directly following the attack, the leader of Al Qaeda Yemen, AQAP,

00:04:57.160 Al Qaeda Arabian Peninsula. These things can be used somewhat synonymously. Al Rimi claimed responsibility

00:05:05.400 on behalf of AQAP. He was then killed by a strike from the United States of America. And I'm glad he 0.67

00:05:12.360 was killed and tweeted about it at the time. Now, as you listen to the attorney general, pay special 0.54

00:05:18.680 attention to the extent to which this appears to be entangled with and involved with an international

00:05:25.880 terrorist organization, Al Qaeda on the Arabian Peninsula, and also the response, including a

00:05:32.840 counter-terrorism element against Al Maliki, who's the current leader of APAQ. Here's the attorney

00:05:38.600 general. Four months ago, I announced that this shooting was an act of terrorism. I also publicly

00:05:45.240 asked Apple to help us access the locked contents of the two iPhones belonging to the terrorist who was

00:05:52.680 killed at the time of his attack. Mohammed Saeed Al-Shamrani. The phones contained information

00:06:00.440 previously unknown to us that definitively establishes Al-Shamrani's significant ties to

00:06:08.040 Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, not only before the attack, but before he even arrived in the United

00:06:15.160 States. So now what we know what this was, an inspired, planned terrorist attack against our country,

00:06:22.280 against my district, against our bravest Americans willing to wear the uniform.

00:06:27.480 And there really are two policy choices that we have to evaluate here. The first is

00:06:32.840 the relationship with Saudi Arabia going forward. And I want to take a moment here to reflect on

00:06:38.920 my involvement in that relationship. Early in the Trump administration, it was a goal of the president

00:06:45.640 to see Saudi Arabia repositioned as a more productive ally, to root out some of the Wahhabi 1.00

00:06:54.440 cauldrons of violence. Some of the madrasas that were teaching young people to hate and engaged in

00:07:01.640 anti-American and anti-Semitic pedagogy needed to be called out. And so the president went to Riyadh

00:07:08.520 with the expectation that things were going to be different. It was certainly my hope at the beginning of

00:07:13.160 the Trump administration that we would be able to start telling the truth about the role Saudi Arabia

00:07:19.320 had in the 9-11 attacks. Based on my review of the available evidence, folks directly associated with

00:07:27.320 the Saudi Arabian embassies were involved in planning, were involved in logistics, hotel rooms, financial

00:07:34.840 resources that were needed for these attackers, a vast majority of which were from Saudi Arabia,

00:07:41.320 to hurt our country. I think the Obama administration covered that up. I think the Obama administration

00:07:48.360 did everything they could to ensure that there was not a full justice and accounting for the victims

00:07:55.640 of the 9-11 families. And President Trump was right to have those 9-11 families at the White House.

00:08:01.000 And I could just tell you, he's been pursuing that justice. I personally met with Khalid bin Salman,

00:08:08.600 who was the ambassador from Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Salman's brother. And I expressed in no uncertain

00:08:15.800 terms that if Saudi Arabia wanted to be a modern Muslim country, that they had to get right with some 1.00

00:08:24.440 of their less than modern behaviors, and that they needed to root out the elements of their government,

00:08:30.360 of their family, that may have been involved in these things. And that was the only path forward. And so

00:08:35.080 I continue to maintain that view. I think that Saudi Arabia has an obligation to our country to further

00:08:43.480 this investigation into AQAP. If there is a failure of the vetting process in Saudi Arabia for the

00:08:52.120 students that they provide to us, that has never been more evident. I mean, this is not a person,

00:08:57.640 the individual who killed my constituents did not just get radicalized while he was in the United

00:09:03.960 States or on some trip back to the Middle East. The guy was cuckoo and should not have been in our

00:09:09.080 country well before then. And I think that a more aggressive surveillance approach to communications,

00:09:17.800 both before and after these students come to the United States of America, is absolutely essential. And

00:09:23.320 we have received some briefings on what Homeland Security is doing in that regard. I am confident

00:09:28.920 that they're on the front edge of the fight, but we've got to remain vigilant. If we are going to

00:09:34.280 continue to host people from other countries, we have to know that they're not going to come here and

00:09:38.600 kill our bravest Americans. That seems like a pretty basic thing to uphold.

00:09:43.880 There's another policy choice that is ripened through this terrorist attack against my constituents

00:09:57.080 in Pensacola. And it has to do with Apple and technology companies and what obligations they may

00:10:03.640 or may not have to open up a phone or other tech piece at the request of the government. The way Apple

00:10:12.440 has designed the iPhone, if the user is not there to unlock it and does not have the capability

00:10:18.120 or the interest in unlocking it, there is not some magic key that Apple provides the government.

00:10:23.640 So the policy question is this, to be able to sell iPhones in our country, should it be required

00:10:31.320 that Apple build a key to get into the phone to provide evidence to the government in a terrible

00:10:38.440 instance like this? Now we know the things we know today as a consequence of the FBI in their skill,

00:10:46.920 in their vigilance, in their talent, getting into this phone and seeing these communications. If the

00:10:52.040 FBI had not done that, we would not know the fullest extent of the preparation and just the premeditated

00:10:59.640 nature of this particular attack. So Attorney General Barr, FBI Director Wray on behalf of the government

00:11:07.720 strongly make the case that Apple needs to provide that access to the government when necessary. And I think

00:11:16.120 probably the best argument that the Attorney General makes is it's not like Apple had lost their virginity when it

00:11:22.920 comes to making deals with governments that serve the needs of those governments. You've got authoritarian regimes

00:11:29.480 who are in common cause with Apple when it comes to where they hold their information, how they use it to

00:11:37.720 execute on totalitarianism in some of these countries. So listen for a moment to Attorney General Barr

00:11:45.320 break down his argument on the need for Apple to be a better corporate partner with our country when it

00:11:51.880 comes to these security questions. The phones were locked and the FBI did not have the passwords,

00:11:57.480 so they needed help to get in. And we asked Apple for assistance and the president asked Apple for

00:12:04.840 assistance. Unfortunately, Apple would not help us unlock the phones. And you can hear Attorney General

00:12:10.760 Barr pretty directly in his commentary calling for a legislative fix to this. And so, you know, I'm eager to

00:12:18.200 hear a feedback from folks. Do you believe that for Apple to be able to sell products in our country that

00:12:24.600 the government should require that they create a key to unlock of the phones of people here? Should there

00:12:32.360 be different treatment for people who are Americans or not Americans? I think there could be some

00:12:36.440 constitutional questions on that. And I don't know. I'm glad the FBI got into this phone, but I don't know that

00:12:45.400 I'm fully convinced that a private company has an obligation to give the government that kind of

00:12:53.000 access. And while the Attorney General's best argument is, well, they do this with all these

00:12:56.840 other countries, we're critical of that. We don't hold that up as an American standard. So I'm eager to

00:13:03.320 get feedback from folks. I'm certainly glad in this case we got into the phone, we got the evidence,

00:13:08.840 we were right that this was a coordinated terrorist attack. And I am grateful that there are counter

00:13:15.320 terrorism missions underway now to continue to hold these thugs accountable.

00:13:29.240 I had the chance to spend this weekend at Camp David with President Trump and Chief of Staff Mark

00:13:34.920 Meadows, my good friend and mentor, Jim Jordan, and great colleagues like Lee Zeldin and Dan Crenshaw

00:13:41.560 and Elise Stefanik. It was nice to see the President able to get out of the White House for a little bit.

00:13:47.400 It's a challenging circumstance to live in the place that you also work. And so just good for

00:13:53.160 everybody's mental health and also good for us to be able to share ideas about the great American

00:13:59.160 comeback. And I'll be sharing on tomorrow's hot takes a little bit about my perceptions of the

00:14:04.760 conversations we had with the President on everything ranging from our economic success,

00:14:09.960 our public health and resilience opportunities. But the main discussion from a foreign policy

00:14:16.360 standpoint that I want to address now is China. I believe the President had some advisors or folks

00:14:24.360 he had talked to express an interest in restoring funding to the World Health Organization at the

00:14:32.440 China level. We were paying some vast multiples of what China was paying. The WHO was essentially

00:14:40.360 simping for China. They were allowing China to get away with lies about the conditions, about the 0.76

00:14:47.560 sequencing of the virus, and I think also about the death tolls and the infection rates that they were

00:14:54.840 picking up. And so some folks, I think, share with the President a viewpoint that maybe the U.S. re-enters

00:15:02.120 as a funder of the World Health Organization at the China level. And I observed very compelling

00:15:07.880 arguments, particularly from my congressional colleagues, about the fallacy of that relationship

00:15:14.680 with the World Health Organization. President Trump sees these global institutions with clear

00:15:20.280 eyes. He knows that the World Trade Organization screws us. He knows that our allies don't always

00:15:26.680 pay up their fair share in entities like NATO. And he knows that the World Health Organization might be

00:15:33.160 an entity we were funding, but they weren't really working for us and they didn't have the best interests

00:15:38.840 of Americans at heart. And so whether it is our prior level of robust funding, whether it is the

00:15:46.040 smaller China level of funding, is really immaterial. The World Health Organization does not deserve one

00:15:53.400 dollar from the United States of America, particularly under their current leadership, particularly

00:15:59.560 based on how they've handled the response to the coronavirus. Had we done what the World Health

00:16:04.040 Organization wanted to do, we would not have closed the borders to our country and we would have

00:16:08.760 seen this virus far more prevalent in areas beyond some of the urban centers dealing with the challenge

00:16:15.080 now. And so again, you know, why would we give money to people who aren't being candid? And you know,

00:16:22.280 there was a quote from Louie Gohmert that Jim Jordan reiterated to the president. He said,

00:16:28.680 Mr. President, Louie Gohmert often reminds us that we don't have to pay these globalist organizations to hate

00:16:36.760 us. They'll probably do it for free. I think the clarity of that of that quote from Louie Gohmert

00:16:43.000 resonated with the president. And it is my expectation that the United States will not be

00:16:49.480 engaging as a funder of the World Health Organization now at the China level, at any other reduced level,

00:16:57.880 in the absence of major structural changes. So great to see that confrontation on China.

00:17:03.240 Another area is these dual use technologies that China exploits for their intelligence benefit. 0.60

00:17:11.560 And I have highlighted the concern I have over these Chinese DJI drones. Drones really were an American 0.99

00:17:20.920 innovation and China stole the tech, replicated it, applied dual use. So it not only has commercial value

00:17:28.760 and selling, it also has intelligence and military and strategic value. And since the coronavirus,

00:17:35.560 China and DJI, the drone company have gifted a large number of drones to state and local law enforcement

00:17:43.320 who do not have the sophistication to know that they are transmitting information back to China. And

00:17:48.440 you don't have to take my word for that. It's our own Department of Homeland Security that said that

00:17:53.160 these DJI drones present a threat. And they wrote a report in 2017 saying so. In my conversations with

00:17:59.720 the chief of staff, Mark Meadows, I am comforted that the administration is aware of the threat posed by

00:18:06.840 DJI and the dual use drone technology. It is my belief that the administration is currently reviewing

00:18:13.720 potential guidance from the Department of Justice to state and local law enforcement. And I think we may

00:18:20.120 find circumstances to expose where China has tried to prey on a lower level of sophistication at the

00:18:27.480 local level for their strategic benefit against our country. So whether it is the World Health Organization

00:18:34.120 or whether it is the strategy of China to capitalize on this virus to advance their other strategic

00:18:41.400 objectives, I'm proud of where the Trump administration is. And these times that we are in

00:18:47.000 do not call for a treatment of China with kit gloves or soft sell. We need confrontational leadership. 0.84

00:18:54.920 And President Trump is definitely prepared to provide that bold leadership.

00:19:07.160 We're at dinner with President Trump and a number of the members of the administration

00:19:12.360 and members of Congress. And President Trump took a moment to offer just the most beautiful tribute to

00:19:19.320 my friend and colleague, Devin Nunes. Devin Nunes is an American patriot. He really was the first in

00:19:27.480 Congress to fully understand the depths and depravity of the anti-Trump hatred, the bias, the politicizing of

00:19:37.400 our intelligence apparatus. And Devin Nunes was the first guy sounding the alarm. And so when you're the

00:19:43.880 first one sounding the alarm, when you're the first one to take the beachhead, you typically draw a lot of

00:19:49.400 fire. And that was the case with Devin. People like Adam Schiff, some of the deep state, they try to do

00:19:57.000 everything from get Devin removed as the intelligence committee chairman to even trying to gin up fake

00:20:03.080 investigations into Devin himself. And in public service, it's one thing when you're in the fight

00:20:10.360 and you're around a bunch of other people who are in the fight with you. But the types of attacks that

00:20:15.880 Devin just constantly took on behalf of our country and on behalf of our president are uniquely felt by

00:20:22.680 by the people around him. And Devin's wife doesn't typically come to Washington. She spends her time

00:20:30.040 with their family in California, but she was able to make it to Camp David. And just to be able to watch

00:20:36.120 the president share his gratitude to Devin, comment on Devin's bravery, his willingness to really roll up

00:20:43.560 his sleeves and get into the details of the corrupt predicate for the Russia investigation. And to see

00:20:49.480 Devin's wife there able to appreciate the president of the United States bestowing that praise upon her

00:20:55.400 husband. It was one of the most magical things to observe. And it warmed my heart to know that people

00:21:01.320 like Devin, like his wife, who do the right patriotic thing, who don't take the easy way out,

00:21:07.960 but who are willing to fight for our country and our values and our democracy, that there is a reward

00:21:13.080 and there is an appreciation. And it was just a beautiful thing to observe. So I thank the president

00:21:18.040 for sharing that. I'm grateful to have had a chance to be a part of it. So tomorrow, I'll get

00:21:22.920 more into the details of my perceptions and reactions following the weekend with the president.

00:21:28.520 Listen tomorrow. We'll have more hot takes.

The Anchormen Show with Matt Gaetz - May 18, 2020

Episode 6 - Camp David Revelations, NAS Pensacola Shooter's al Qaeda ties, and Chinese Drones

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