The Anchormen Show with Matt Gaetz - Episode 61 - The Hottest Moments from ＂The Swamp＂ Documentary. MSNBC Producer Rips Network and Quits. Massive Beirut Explosion.

00:00:00.000 Welcome to Hot Takes, I'm Congressman Matt Gaetz.

00:00:18.780 Let's talk about the news and the HBO documentary The Swamp making some news following its premiere

00:00:24.940 last night. It's still available on HBO to be viewed through their streaming service and I suggest if

00:00:31.300 you've got an interest in the inner workings of Washington and Congress, which you clearly do if

00:00:36.260 you're listening to this podcast, you check it out. One of my favorite scenes was with my good

00:00:41.860 friend Thomas Massey as we discussed the corruption and the pressure of DC-based fundraising. Here's

00:00:49.260 that scene. I've seen the way you've been an independent member here. I'm starting to get a

00:00:53.600 sense that when you don't always adhere to kind of the establishment leadership viewpoint on things

00:00:59.640 that you see an impact in your fundraising. I raised about a couple hundred thousand dollars here in

00:01:04.520 Washington DC in my first term, but after they found out I wasn't here to go along to get along,

00:01:09.640 it went almost to zero. In fact, there was a six-month period where they ranked me number 437

00:01:16.260 in the house for fundraising. I thought there were only 435 members. There are only 435 voting members,

00:01:22.280 but Guam and Puerto Rico, their delegates raised more money. They don't have a vote. They don't have a vote and they raised more

00:01:28.320 money than me in that six-month period. But what do you got there? Is this your fundraising plan,

00:01:32.960 your campaign? Well, here's this meeting I recently had and I somewhat resented it. I meet with these

00:01:37.080 guys and they say, Gates, you know, you're on TV, people know who you are in your state and we really

00:01:41.760 think you can run for a higher office, but you don't raise enough money. And so they write me this plan

00:01:46.520 and it's just like, it's basically how to whore yourself out for money. And when I say like, 0.85

00:01:51.980 who's, who's going to do this? Like who wants to give me a hundred thousand dollars? They basically

00:01:56.680 say, well, what the next question is, what committees are you on? How can you use your

00:02:01.080 congressional pin to go and, and help a lobbyist as your primary objective? It's demoralizing.

00:02:08.400 And folks like AOC, Bernie Sanders have proven that you don't need that.

00:02:12.920 And that's the truth. That's really how it goes with the corruption of the swamp and the extent to

00:02:19.060 which fundraising is really the elixir to allow that corruption to metastasize. It wasn't just

00:02:26.040 Republicans who offered their perspective in the film. My good friend, Congressman Ro Khanna of

00:02:31.580 California is someone I've worked closely with to try to reassert congressional war powers. Congressman

00:02:37.800 Khanna correctly reflected on the great successes of our country when we work together and achieve our

00:02:44.820 highest level of prosperity and achievement. Here's Ro.

00:02:48.260 I think what frustrates people today is it seems that we're unable to find a sense of what can we do

00:02:54.620 together. But at our best, our country has risen to the challenge of finding common purpose or the

00:03:02.600 common good. We've done it when we have defeated tyranny in World War II, when we've helped establish the

00:03:10.600 international order. We've done it in building the interstate highways, winning the Cold War,

00:03:18.280 inventing the internet, and sending a man to the moon. Our country has done extraordinary things and most of

00:03:26.120 those extraordinary achievements have been bipartisan. So the idea that we can't rise to the occasion again

00:03:33.000 defies American history. And the film concludes with the decision I've discussed on this podcast from

00:03:38.920 a policy perspective. And that is that I am the only returning Republican to the United States Congress

00:03:45.160 who has sworn off all PAC money. Here's how I arrived at that conclusion.

00:03:49.720 So we did 40k for October. 40k. Net? Yes, netted. Wow. And then for November, so for November,

00:03:58.840 right now, we are already at 15. Netted. Netted? Yeah, 15,000. So what do you think we'll net

00:04:05.960 then this month? I think we're going to get around 40. That's amazing. Yeah. So when we met last on

00:04:11.480 fundraising, you said we were functionally bankrupt. And now what has saved us has been impeachment? Yeah,

00:04:17.160 so all of it is mostly small dollar, but everyone's doing well off of it. It's not just our office.

00:04:22.040 Some lobbyists have randomly texted me that they've donated or given money. Has there been any revenue

00:04:27.960 from the special interest community? I would say about $3,000, not much.

00:04:32.760 As is usual then. Yeah. But you know, I mean, if we were to make some announcement that like we have

00:04:38.280 converted to this new faith that that is absent any lobbyist or PAC money, once you cross the Rubicon,

00:04:45.560 you can't go back. I will never again accept a donation from a federal political action

00:04:51.400 committee, not one red cent. The American people are my one and only special interest.

00:05:01.880 How do you feel? I feel great, man. I feel relieved. I feel like

00:05:05.880 just like a tremendous weight has been lifted. Don't know what it's going to mean, but

00:05:10.040 I tell you, it's one of my best days in Congress. So I hope you watched the film. I hope you enjoy the

00:05:13.720 film. I also had a great time afterwards chatting with a Congressman Ken Buck and Thomas Massey

00:05:19.400 in a Facebook live series we did at the end of the premiere. Take a listen.

00:05:23.720 I'm going to throw it to Matt with the question that Ken and I asked ourselves here, which is,

00:05:29.960 would you do it again, Matt? Would you do this again? I mean, we gave them incredible access. We

00:05:34.680 didn't control what came out at the end. So that's the big question that we're going to start off with.

00:05:40.200 I am incredibly proud of this movie, Thomas. I'm proud to do it with Ken and with you.

00:05:46.920 And I'm glad we had the opportunity to expose the corruption that frustrates so many members of

00:05:53.480 Congress, even those who perhaps wouldn't be in this movie. But when you see the trading of political

00:05:59.560 favors for donations, when you see committee assignments for sale, and when you see an institution

00:06:06.760 that is so able to meet the challenges of our country, handicapped by corruption, it draws us

00:06:13.640 all to a project that would excite the nation and hopefully bring just a greater sense of focus to the

00:06:20.760 things that we can do to improve our democracy. And that doesn't mean embracing a system of voter

00:06:27.240 fraud or same day voter registration, or perhaps as the movie would suggest, public financing of campaigns,

00:06:34.040 which would take money away from some taxpayers to give to political ideas that they don't even agree

00:06:39.800 with. I think that what Ken and you and I are calling for is an invigorated democracy where people

00:06:45.640 stand up and say, hey, why don't we have the system that rewards merit? Why don't we have a system that

00:06:51.640 takes the talents of people who are willing to serve in the Congress and elevates them? You know,

00:06:56.280 Thomas, I have often said to you privately and I've said publicly, I think you've probably got the

00:07:00.760 highest IQ in Congress. And I'm ashamed that several of our colleagues- I was about to cut

00:07:05.480 him off, but I'm going to let him keep going. No, Thomas, I'm ashamed that we have several colleagues

00:07:11.240 who opposed you in a primary because they didn't like the fact that you called the body to account.

00:07:17.240 And I was proud to stand with you in that primary. And I think that as a Republican conference,

00:07:24.040 as a Republican party, we have a lot of work to do to define the core values that matter to us and

00:07:30.760 that reflect the interests of our constituents. And I think you really do that for the folks in

00:07:35.320 Kentucky and for a lot of the folks around the country who, as you correctly say, wouldn't be

00:07:40.120 members of our movement if you were not such a great leader in our party. So grateful to do it with

00:07:45.560 you and with Ken. And my question, I guess, back to you, Thomas, is what do you hope comes of this

00:07:51.320 project? We gave a year of our lives and a lot of access. And frankly, we put ourselves at risk

00:07:57.560 that we might not be portrayed super favorably. And so following this project, what do you hope

00:08:02.680 happens to change a place that needs to change in order for us to meet the challenges of our great

00:08:08.760 nation? Yeah. Well, I told somebody today, most people vote based on emotion and some people vote

00:08:15.640 based on policy, but hardly anybody votes based on process. And what is broken in Washington,

00:08:22.120 D.C. is the process, the way things are done. The fact that if we tried to get an amendment,

00:08:28.600 a vote on it on the floor, it doesn't happen anymore. When I first got to Congress,

00:08:33.880 you could actually offer amendments as long as they were germane to the bill. I'm not talking about

00:08:38.600 sticking pork in there. Only the leadership can do that now. And same when I got elected to Congress.

00:08:46.200 But just to make a minor change to the bill, not to add any spending, just something germane

00:08:51.560 is impossible now. And so what I would hope comes from this is that people start looking at the process

00:08:58.440 and how the process is broken and not going for the simple solutions or the overly ambitious solutions.

00:09:08.600 The American conservative has yet another wonderful report on the need to embrace a realistic and

00:09:16.840 restrained foreign policy when engaging with the world. The report comes to us from W. James Anteil III

00:09:24.920 entitled, The Foreign Policy We Need. Restrainers on the right must stop being passive observers in a

00:09:32.360 debate Trump and their libertarian allies have already joined. And this is really a call to action for

00:09:38.440 Republicans to have a view of foreign policy that takes, I think, a higher view of the freedom,

00:09:46.520 the need for people who want to earn freedom to have to, in fact, fight for it themselves and earn it

00:09:53.240 themselves and tell stories about the need for a national identity as a consequence of winning freedom.

00:10:00.360 We cannot use American blood as the sole currency to purchase freedom around the world. And so

00:10:07.320 the American conservative makes the case. It is truly a call to fellow populists, whether they're on the

00:10:15.160 left or the right, to stand against these unpopular, unfocused, unconstitutional wars. And I'll just read

00:10:22.200 you one quote from the piece. The new national conservatism has produced exactly one reliable

00:10:27.640 populist Republican politician who has shown a willingness to vote according to Trump's foreign

00:10:33.080 policy campaign promises when the going gets tough. Rep. Matt Gates of Florida. So I'm grateful for the

00:10:40.360 recognition. There are obviously others who have been very helpful in this endeavor. And we hope that the caucus for

00:10:47.160 realistic foreign policy will continue to grow.

00:10:50.040 The massive explosions in Beirut, Lebanon, have captivated the global news. And reporting from

00:11:00.920 The Guardian seems to suggest that the political dynamic continues to evolve in Lebanon. A ministerial

00:11:07.800 meeting resulted in the decision to turn over the capital for the next two and a half weeks to the

00:11:13.320 military. And also an interesting element of the investigation. They are holding everyone who has

00:11:19.880 been involved in port security since 2014 in house arrest. We're also seeing reports from official state

00:11:28.360 media in Lebanon that the casualty tolls continue to rise with the death toll at 135, as many as 5,000

00:11:37.320 people enduring wounds during this event. I think there's still a lot more to learn, a lot more to

00:11:44.200 know. I've got some suspicions as to what this may be, but I am still communicating with my sources with

00:11:50.440 knowledge of the region and with an understanding of this internal politics in Lebanon where the Lebanese

00:11:57.160 government has had to functionally form a unity government with Hezbollah. Hezbollah has their terrorist

00:12:04.680 activity co-mingled with their business activity, co-mingled with their political activity.

00:12:11.160 And the government in Lebanon, I think, has been far too reliant on Hezbollah for security features 0.93

00:12:19.080 of their operation. And at times there is an instability that that can create. That's not a

00:12:26.200 commentary on this particular explosion. It is a commentary on the dynamic that I think you'll see

00:12:32.280 continue to unfold as Lebanon as we learn more. And as I learn more, I'll be sharing them with you on Hot Takes.

00:12:43.080 The third major media figure has left their position as a result of the toxicity in the modern media

00:12:51.160 environment. We get the story from Just The News and John Solomon. NMSNBC producer

00:12:57.960 Quits says Job forces skilled journalists to make bad decisions. And the piece chronicles the decision

00:13:06.440 made by Ariana Pacari, who has left MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell show where she had worked.

00:13:14.760 And she describes the reason really as a toxic culture tied to ratings over journalism,

00:13:20.760 a sacrifice of quality reporting to feed particular narratives, and really the extent to which MSNBC,

00:13:30.360 and she critiques other cable companies, are willing to divide the nation without reporting the news,

00:13:36.280 without giving the honest facts, without providing the nuanced context, just for their own financial

00:13:43.960 goals and for their own ratings goals. It is no surprise that MSNBC, that this particular producer

00:13:51.000 critiques that it's functionally baked into the editorial decisions to reinforce a particular

00:13:57.800 viewpoint and that that's not journalism. So she's quit as a result of of that culture and of that

00:14:03.960 dynamic. And again, it's not unique to MSNBC. I think we see it throughout the media. You know,

00:14:09.480 we saw it when Barry Weiss had to leave the New York Times and she persuasively argued that there

00:14:15.640 was no diversity of thought and here that same critique seems to be leveled at MSNBC. So we hope

00:14:22.680 that the media will be better and we suspect that there will be more journalists who are simply

00:14:28.280 unwilling to tolerate the toxic culture that exists at MSNBC and many other mainstream media outlets.

00:14:36.280 Thanks so much for listening to Hot Takes. I'm Congressman Matt Gaetz. Make sure you are

00:14:42.440 subscribed to our podcast on whatever your listening platform is so that each and every day you are up

00:14:48.200 to date regarding the ongoings of Washington, D.C. Tune in tomorrow. I'll be back with more Hot Takes.

The Anchormen Show with Matt Gaetz - August 05, 2020

Episode 61 - The Hottest Moments from ＂The Swamp＂ Documentary. MSNBC Producer Rips Network and Quits. Massive Beirut Explosion.

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript